BAGHDAD — Despite the (daily) violence, US officials have discounted talk of civil war. However, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday that an ‘undeclared civil war’ had already been raging for more than a year. ‘Is there a civil war? Yes, there is an undeclared civil war that has been there for a year or more,’ Maj. Gen. Hussain Kamal told the Associated Press. ‘All these bodies that are discovered in Baghdad, the slaughter of pilgrims heading to holy sites, the explosions, the destruction, the attacks against the mosques are all part of this.’ Kamal said the country would still be spared from all-out sectarian war ‘if a strong government is formed, if the security forces are given wide powers and if they are able to defeat the (resistance to the occupation).’ ‘Then we might be able to overcome this crisis,’ he said. On Saturday, The New York Times reported in its online edition that an internal staff report by the US embassy and the military command rated overall stability of six of Iraq’s 18 provinces ‘serious’ and one ‘critical.’ The report was dated January 31, the Times said. The newspaper said provinces where overall stability was […]
COPENHAGEN — The world is moving towards a new third industrial revolution based a new energy regime, argues US thinker Jeremy Rifkin as Europe considers how to reformulate its energy policy. ‘We are on the cusp of a new energy regime that will alter our way of life as fundamentally as the introduction of coal and steam power in the 19th century and the shift to oil and the internal combustion engine in the 20th century’, argues Mr Rifkin in an interview with the EUobserver. ‘The hydrogen era looms on the horizon and the first major industrial nation to harness its full potential will set the pace for economic development for the remainder of the century.’ To back up his thesis, he says that Hitachi and Toshiba are planning to bring the first portable fuel cells to the market in 2007. Consumers will be able to power up their cell phones, lap top computers, digital cameras, and Mp3 players with a single cartridge. And the first mass-produced vehicles are expected to be in the showrooms between 2010 and 2012, he points out. ‘Today’s centralised, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies will then […]
CHANDIGARH, India — Ever thought of surfing the web when you are not connected? Well, that is the latest offering from Rakesh Mathur. Mathur, who co-founded Junglee – that was later taken over by Amazon – has developed a software ‘Webaroo’ that will make this possible. Like the Kangaroo – that is an inherent part of the company’s logo – it promises to leapfrog the net to a new era. The company on Monday launched a new free software service that enables consumers to instantly search web pages and view web sites without an Internet connection, on their handhelds and laptop computers. Already the company has support from Acer, which also announced its intention to bundle Webaroo software in its laptop. Webaroo, which launched its services today, issued a statement quoting Campbell Kan, head of Mobile Computing Business Unit, Acer Inc, as saying that they plan to incorporate Webaroo’s software into Acer’s mobile PCs. Webaroo servers scour the web, analyse web pages and automatically select the subset of pages with the most content value in the least storage size. These pages are then assembled into topic specified ‘web packs’. These webpacks can be downloaded on […]
The latest poll numbers from AP/Ipsos don’t bode well for President Bush. In a poll released Friday, only 36 percent of Americans said they approved of the job Mr. Bush was doing in the White House. This was the lowest level the president’s numbers had reached in an AP/Ipsos poll. Just prior to the 2004 election, Mr. Bush has a 47 percent approval rating. Back in October 2002, his ratings were as high as 64 percent. The war in Iraq seems to be a major problem for the president. Only 35 percent of those polled approved of President Bush’s handling of the war while only 40 percent approved of his handling of foreign policy including the war on terror. Just one year ago, Bush’s foreign policy approval rating was 49 percent. 64 percent of the public approved of his foreign policy rating and his handling of the war on terror in October 2004. Some Republicans are wary since one issue they have used to their advantage in recent elections has been national security. The new poll shows that the public no longer has more faith in Mr. Bush than it does in […]
WASHINGTON — Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point Class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing the initial five-year obligation. It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates. Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities also are increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning. To entice more to stay, the Army this year is offering new incentives, including a promise of graduate school on Army time and at government expense to newly commissioned officers who agree up front to stay in uniform for three extra years. Other enticements include the choice of an Army job or the pick of a desirable location for a home post in exchange for an extra three years in […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
