Society & Politics archives: November-December 2004

• 30 December 2004
  

  "Some call him crazy, others, a genius - but if Terry Spragg is anything, he's a believer that filling up giant ocean-going bags with fresh water and towing them to water-poor regions can slake the thirst of nations and help deliver world peace. If that seems far-fetched, consider that less than 2.5 percent of the world's water is fresh. That vital resource is threatened by pollution, waterborne disease, and shifts in rain patterns caused by global warming, recent studies show. All of which, in some eyes, leaves the world on the verge of a scramble by private companies and countries vying for rights to available water. Forget OPEC. Some experts say the next cartel will be an organization of water-exporting countries. Others see more danger in local privatization of water, which could restrict access to the poor within nations. 'Water is blue gold, it's terribly precious,' says Maude Barlow, who chairs for the Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based citizens' watchdog. 'Not too far in the future, we're going to see a move to surround and commodify the world's fresh water. Just as they've divvied up the world's oil, in the coming century there's going to be a grab.'" Water more precious than oil? Read more at Boston's Christian Science Monitor.

• 29 December 2004
  

  "The dollar's decline against the euro shows no sign of ending. Clearly, currency traders have made a long-term judgment about the relative value of the currencies of the Old and New Worlds. That sounds bad enough. But now there are signs that we're losing some of the most devoted fans of the greenback: drug dealers, Russian oligarchs, and black-market traffickers of all kinds. James Grant, of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, whose animadversions about the dollar and other subjects are as droll as they are pricey, highlighted the latest indignities to befall the once-mighty dollar in his Dec. 17 issue. (Alas, it's not available on the Web.) People the world over—central banks, companies, and individuals—like to hold the dollar. It's stable, liquid, easily convertible, and never goes out of style. The dollar is popular in the official global economy—the money that changes hands through computer terminals, checks, and wire transfers. But it has also been extremely popular in the world's vast cash economy. For American tourists, Chinese smugglers, Ukrainian arms dealers, and African dictators, the dollar has long been the currency of choice." Currency shifts can have more social impact that a natural disaster. Daniel Gross discusses the dollar's woes for Slate magazine.

• 28 December 2004
  

  "An Icelandic company has developed a genetic test for analyzing where in Iceland people come from or, if their parents or grandparents came from different places, how their ancestry is distributed over the island's 11 geographic regions. The fine scale matching of genetic makeup to geographic origins is made possible by the surprising immobility of human populations. At least until the last few decades, people have tended overwhelmingly to live, marry and die where they were born. This stay-at-home behavior has been known for the world in general ever since geneticists learned to assess human variation through measurements of proteins and later DNA. But it was not obvious that even in a small country like Iceland the residents of each small region would have developed a characteristic genetic signature. These regional genetic differences have emerged even though Iceland has been inhabited only since the 10th century A.D., and its population as a whole - derived from Norway, Britain and Ireland - has rather little genetic diversity." A genetic basis for cancer is causing headlines, but a more in-depth look at the underlying Icelandic studies is offered at the New York Times.

• 27 December 2004
  

  "'The Middle East Is the Last Holdout Against the Global Democratic Trend'. No. The Middle East is on the wrong side of the global democratic divide, but unfortunately it does not lack company. As Russia slides into authoritarianism, the former Soviet Union is becoming a democratic wasteland with only a few shaky pockets of pluralism, such as Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Central Asia is no better off than the Arab world in terms of democracy. A depressingly large swath of East and Southeast Asia—from North Korea and China down through Vietnam, Laos, and Burma to Malaysia and Singapore—is a democracy-free zone that shows few signs of change. Nor was the Middle East immune to the 'Third Wave,' the decisive expansion of democracy that started in southern Europe and Latin America 30 years ago and subsequently spread to other parts of the world." Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers take a closer look at changes in the Middle East for Foreign Policy magazine.

• 24 December 2004
  

  "With hands on management and a little bit of star dust, Santa's IT operation goes without a hitch year after year. William Knight talks to the big guy's very secretive CIO and finds out it's not always eternal joyfulness at Christmas HQ. As interviews go this was not hard to arrange. Some weeks ago I'd said it would be interesting to meet Santa's CIO and he must have been listening because late one evening the door bell rings and an immaculately dressed chauffeur asks me if I'd like an interview. A huge limo is parked under the street lamp and circling exhaust fumes create a mysterious vignette. I note the number plate 'RUD 0LF', just as the rear door opens and the chauffeur ushers me through. Inside, deep in white leather upholstery, sits an archetypal business man. No beard or red hat, just a dark suit and plain tie, with a lapel pin in the shape of a small Christmas pudding." If you've wondered how they pull it off every year, read this interview at Britain's Register.

• 23 December 2004
  

  "It has been written that the wiser the people, the more they are aware of how little they truly know. That unsettling thought nicely summarizes the state of RFID today. With each trial, companies discover how incredibly much they still do not understand. With each investment, they discover how it's likely to be much more expensive than they had projected. Legal intellectual property disputes, a major recent upgrade and organizational squabbling are just three of the latest problem areas, said Erik Michielsen, director of RFID for ABI Research. 'By themselves, none of the three situations is a deal-breaker, but their cumulative effect will be to chill progress in the field for several months or more,' he said." The "RFID revolution", discussed by Jeff Harrow in his essay here, is not moving as smoothly as some had thought. Read more at eWeek.

• 22 December 2004
  

  "Dr. Raj Reddy, Head of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, is on a mission to bridge the digital divide but with a difference — empowering illiterates to actually use computers! Having started with the design of a low-cost innovative entertainment-cum-communication device referred to as PCTV, that builds on open source software, Dr Reddy is now engaged in building artificial intelligence into speech recognition software and language process synthesis. These would enable even a person with language barrier actually access the benefits of a computer, while reaping the advantages of entertainment." Necessity is the mother of invention, but hard work and intelligence are required as well. Both are clearly in evidence in this report from India's Hindu Business Line.

• 21 December 2004
  

  "Yang Shan is in fourth grade and spends a few hours every day practicing her Chinese characters. Her script is neat and precise, and one day, instead of drills, she wrote letters to her parents and put them in the mail. 'How is your health?' she asked. Shan, who is 10, then added a more pointed question: 'What is happening with our family?' Her parents had left in March. Their absence was not new in Shan's short life. Her father, Yang Heqing, has left four times for work. He is now in Beijing on a construction site. Her mother, Ran Heping, has left three times. She is in a different city as a factory worker. Over the years, Shan's parents have returned to this remote village to bring money and reunite the family. They leave when the money runs out, as it did in March." Economic growth and social disruption are hard to separate in China. Read more at the New York Times.

• 20 December 2004
  

  "Charities looking to fill their stockings this year over the Internet are encountering a new generation of donors promising to change the face of philanthropy. As nonprofits develop their online presence, Internet donations are entering the mainstream of philanthropy. Donations collected over the Internet still account for a fraction of what Americans give each year, but the volume is growing. 'There's definitely a difference in demographics for us as you introduce new technology,' said Michael Schreiber, vice president for enterprise services with United Way of America. 'There is more specific expectation of information...and people tied to a particular cause.' Philanthropic technology is catching up to its commercial cousins by tracking donor habits, responding to requests and creating convenient ways to donate online and even generate charity just by shopping." Learn more at CNN.com.

• 17 December 2004
  

  "Two sets of Americans have come here to talk global warming: the United States, opposed to controls on carbon emissions, and a bloc of united states, from Maine to Delaware, that plan to impose them. 'It's not an in-your-face thing,' Kenneth Colburn, helping coordinate the nine-state effort, said of the seeming defiance of the Bush administration. 'They're doing what they think needs to be done.' That may even include linking up with the Europeans in a backdoor trading scheme on emissions -- although a key Republican says that would meet a 'lot of skepticism' in Congress." As countries meet to hammer out the details of plans to control carbon emissions, a number of American states are pulling rank and signing on to international agreements despite the Federal government's opposition. Learn more in CNN.com.

• 16 December 2004
  

  "In a country where nearly every facet of society is controlled, North Korean authorities are encountering a new foe: the cellphone. Mobile phones, which are ubiquitous in China and South Korea, are now infiltrating North Korea and are allowing information into - and out of - the 'hermit kingdom.' Douglas Shin, a Korean-American minister who has been campaigning for human rights in North Korea, sees the emerging cellphone 'revolution' as paralleling, if not abetting, budding dissent against the government. 'At first cellphones worked on a narrow band of land along the Chinese border,' says Mr. Shin. 'Now they can penetrate a great distance.'" Learn how cell phones are working as agents of change in North Korea, in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 15 December 2004
  

  "A judge has ruled that Maryland's anti-spam law — the first state law to penalize senders of junk e-mail — is unconstitutional because it seeks to regulate commerce outside the state's borders. Last week's ruling, which threw out a lawsuit against a New York e-mail marketer, effectively overturns Maryland's 2002 Commercial Electronic Mail Act. Eric Menhart, the George Washington University law student who brought the case in Maryland against Joseph Frevola, promised to appeal. Congress and more than three dozen state legislatures have passed laws to corral spam, the popular term for junk e-mail advertising." The battle against junk e-mail suffered a minor setback when a Maryland judge ruled that a state law barring spam was unconstitutional. Learn more in USA Today.

• 14 December 2004
  

  "While developing nations China, Brazil and India grow at break-neck pace with their burgeoning industry and farming, industrialized countries want them to clean up the dirty practices that have made them some of the world's biggest polluters. At the Dec. 6-17 U.N. conference on climate change in Buenos Aires, negotiators and activists aim to get developing countries on board for the next stage of reducing emissions after the Kyoto protocol concludes in 2012. Developing countries were excluded from the 1997 Kyoto agreement because they argued that curbs on emissions would thwart much needed growth for their large, poor populations. Their exclusion was one of the reasons the United States declined to sign Kyoto." For many environmental activists, the next stage in the fight against climate change will occur in developing countries. Learn more in Yahoo News.

• 13 December 2004
  

  "With the volume of e-mail growing rapidly, good e-mail skills have become more important than ever, some workplace experts say. For example: 1 in 10 employees spends more than four hours a day handling electronic missives; nearly half spend at least two hours, according to a survey of 840 companies conducted this year by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. Junk e-mail contributes to the problem. But another more deeply rooted issue is ineffective communication practices. Employees' poor writing skills cost American corporations $3.1 billion annually in training costs, the National Commission on Writing estimated in a September report." Learn more about e-mail etiquette in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 10 December 2004
  

  "The effort to craft a comprehensive national energy strategy got a significant nudge this week. After two year's work, the nonpartisan National Commission on Energy Policy, a panel funded by several foundations, issued what's likely to be an influential report addressing all aspects of energy policy: supply, national security, environmental impact, and diplomacy. Recommendations are laced with incentives as well as regulations that in total are unlikely to completely please anyone - smokestack apologist or solar-powered activist. Still, the commission's middle-of-the-road approach could stimulate movement on the national energy policy, which has stalled over things such as global warming and drilling for oil in Alaska." An energy policy panel is releasing a potentially influential report that suggests a possible route towards a national energy policy. Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 9 December 2004
  

  "Not all web surfers think spyware is a problem. Some say the snoopy software is a fair trade-off for free applications, even with the intrusion into their computers and lives. 'Typically the assumption has been that spyware sneaks onto computers, or users are unaware of what they have agreed to install,' said Gregg Mastoras, a senior security analyst at antivirus vendor Sophos. 'But some people actually do knowingly install adware because they want to use a particular application that comes bundled with it. Some just aren't particularly concerned by adware's presence on their computers. IMesh, maker of a popular file-sharing application, recently began bundling an application called Marketscore. Some would view Marketscore as a privacy nightmare. But some users of iMesh didn't seem to be troubled by the actions of Marketscore.'" Although many people view spyware as a problem, the success of some free products suggests others expect it. Learn more in Wired.

• 8 December 2004
  

  "Russia is again calling for a Moscow-New Delhi-Beijing axis, an alliance of three nuclear-armed countries of some 2.5 billion people that theoretically would be able to balance US power in coming years. Cooperation among Russia, India and China 'would make a great contribution to global security', Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in New Delhi. The Kremlin leader, on a visit to India over the weekend, accused the West of pursuing a dictatorial foreign policy and setting double standards on terrorism. A unipolar world could entail dangerous trends globally, Putin said, adding that unilateralism increased risks that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of terrorists." It appears the Russia's president is trying to build a coalition to counterbalance the power of the United States. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 7 December 2004
  

  "Staring out the window from the heights of NEC's corporate headquarters here, a visitor is flooded with impressions: oceans of skyscrapers extending in all directions, thousands of trains and taxis, the looming mass of Mount Fuji in the distance--and countless rows of desks of quiet employees toiling deep into the night. The Japanese corporate work ethic, instilled during the country's postwar industrial rise, remains firmly intact despite the economic gyrations of the last two decades. Despite outward appearances, however, companies are grappling with major changes that could forever alter the composition and philosophy of Japanese business. Large corporations are fusing historic strengths in engineering with leaner and faster Western management concepts. That's a dramatic reversal to anyone who remembers the lionization of Tokyo conglomerates only a couple of decades ago." Learn more about the radical transformation that Japanese companies are undergoing in a three-part series at News.com.

• 6 December 2004
  

  "The end of the cold war was cruel to Cuba. The country's trading partners, denied Soviet largesse, dried up. Hard cash ran low. What food the country could grow languished in the fields; trucks didn't have enough gasoline to bring the crops to market. And of course there was the US embargo. What Cubans call "the Special Period" produced one notable success: pharmaceuticals. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Cuba got so good at making knockoff drugs that a thriving industry took hold. Yet at the same time as they were selling generics, the science-heroes of the Cuban Revolution were inventing. Castro made biotechnology one of the building blocks of the economy, and that has opened the door - just a crack - to intellectual property. To date his researchers have been granted more than 100 patents, 26 of them in the US. Now they're setting their sights on the markets of the West." Learn more in Wired News.

• 3 December 2004
  

  "An international conference in Japan next week will debate the creation of a new world trade-union organization to counter what labor groups see as a globalization movement tipped too far in favor of multinational corporations at the expense of working people. Under the banner 'Globalizing Solidarity: Building a Global Union Movement for the Future', the 18th world congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to be held in Miyazaki, Japan, will consider the unification of ICFTU and the World Confederation of Labor (WCL). The trade unions' initiative is intended to protect labor rights in the face of globalization and to counter the growing clout of multinational corporations." In an effort to combat the marginalization of labor groups in the face of globalization, labor groups are meeting to discuss the possibility of a world trade-union. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 2 December 2004
  

  "Countries and individual companies could end up being sued for their contribution to climate change, suggest scientists who have quantified how global warming increases the risk of freak weather events...'The fraction of risk due to human events is starting to reach the level where a court might find the emitters responsible,' says Myles Allen, at the University of Oxford, UK. This means, for example, that relatives of those who died during the heat wave could consider seeking compensation. Already, US states have filed a lawsuit against power companies for failing to control carbon dioxide emissions." Some experts believe that soon polluters could be held legally liable for the effects of global warming. Learn more in the New Scientist.

• 1 December 2004
  

  "Publishers of newspapers and magazines like to corral readers when they're young. If you can shape kids' info-seeking habits when they're in their teens or twenties, so the thinking goes, you'll nab them for life...From the perspective of publishers, the 18- to 34-year-old demographic is highly prized by advertisers. But there is trouble afoot. The seeds have been planted for a tremendous upheaval in the material world of publishing. Young people just aren't interested in reading newspapers and print magazines. Imagine what higher-ups at the Post must have thought when focus-group participants declared they wouldn't accept a Washington Post subscription even if it were free. The main reason (and I'm not making this up): They didn't like the idea of old newspapers piling up in their houses." Learn how the prevalence of internet-based news is affecting traditional print media, in Wired News.

• 30 November 2004
  

  "No institutional concern at the United Nations has been studied more with less to show for it than the need to broaden the membership of the 15-nation Security Council to reflect the world of today rather than the one that existed at the Council's inception nearly 60 years ago. The Security Council is action central at the United Nations, the one body that can pass resolutions binding on all 191 members and cut through the delay and obfuscation that can thwart decision-making elsewhere in the ranks. Yet its composition is indisputably out of date. Its definitive authority - the right to cast a veto - is in the hands of the post-World War II powers of the United States, Britain, France and Russia, as well as China, and out of reach for countries like Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, which have gained economic and regional prominence since 1945." Learn more about possible restructuring of the U.N. Security Council in the New York Times.

• 29 November 2004
  

  "As California moves to begin a lushly financed program of embryonic stem cell research, medical ethicists and other skeptics are concerned that the $3 billion that state voters approved for the endeavor could become a bonanza for private profiteers. Critics say the ballot measure that passed by a wide margin on Nov. 2 contains inadequate safeguards to ensure public oversight of the financial allocations and guarantee public benefit from any medical breakthroughs. They also worry that the promise of stem cell studies has been oversold to the public and say the money might better be directed to more mature medical technologies." The stem cell controversy continues, with a twist, reports the New York Times.

• 26 November 2004
  

  "Calvin Klein hit the headlines in the US way back in 1979 with the launch of his designer jeans - rather the commercial for his jeans featuring the 15-year old heartthrob of the time, Brook Shields - with the catch line: 'You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.' The jeans sold 200,000 pairs in the first week. Well, it may be 25 years too late, but Klein, the marketing genius, the person, the designer known to provoke, the brand name considered one of the most valuable alongside Pepsi, Coca-Cola, IBM and Nike, has finally arrived in India. Klein, the man, is on a mission. 'I've come to make connections. Be it fashion, fragrances or accessories, India is a market that needs to be explored. With over a billion beautiful people, the possibilities here are enormous,' he says." The wealthier economies have long attracted business people from developing nations. Now the compliment is being returned, reports Hong Kong's Asia Times.

• 25 November 2004
  

  "Every day, millions of online diarists, or 'bloggers,' share their opinions with a global audience. Drawing upon the content of the international media and the World Wide Web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda-setting power on issues ranging from human rights in China to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What began as a hobby is evolving into a new medium that is changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike." The "blogging" phenomenon is widely followed, but rarely in a prestigious periodical of this type. Read more at Foreign Policy magazine.

• 24 November 2004
  

  "Despite a spurt in international spending against AIDS, the epidemic will claim more than 3 million lives this year and is threatening the world's most populous nations, global health authorities warned Tuesday. Spending on prevention and treatment in low and middle income countries grew 30 percent to $6.1 billion in 2004, according to projections by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. Half that amount was spent by the afflicted countries themselves, the rest was contributed to them by wealthier nations. But the flow of dollars still falls short of the $10 billion needed each year to fight the disease in the developing world, according to UNAIDS director Dr. Peter Piot." Learn more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

• 23 November 2004
  

  "Customers in search of cheap airfare, antiques or a stock trade can scan the web for good deals. But when it comes time for companies to buy group insurance policies, they've largely been beholden to brokers using fax, e-mail and the telephone to track down the best bargain. Some industry analysts say an ongoing insurance bid-rigging scandal -- combined with rising health care costs -- will build demand for online bidding on insurance policies. A recent investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has drawn scrutiny of traditional methods corporate clients use to select insurance coverage and renew policies...Spitzer accuses brokers of keeping clients in the dark and steering them to carriers who pay brokers the highest fees." As the cost of insurance continues to skyrocket some believe that bidding for insurance online could offer a solution. Learn more in Wired News.

• 22 November 2004
  

  "The United States hasn't issued any microchip-equipped passports yet, but as the Department of State tests different prototypes, the international standards for the passports are under fire from privacy advocates who worry the technology won't protect travelers from identity thieves. The American Civil Liberties union has raised alarms and even an executive at one of the companies developing a prototype for the State Department calls the international standards woefully inadequate. The international standards for 'electronic' passports were set by the U.N.-affiliated International Civil Aviation Organization, which has worked on standards for machine-readable passports since 1968." Learn more about this new passport technology and why many worry it will lead to identity theft, in today's USA Today.

• 19 November 2004
  

  "'Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting,' Bill Gates wrote way back in 1996 in an article entitled 'Content Is King.' It has taken eight years - and it's still not exactly clear how the money will be made. But now a report finally puts some numbers on the assumption: For the first time, content can be officially crowned. That's good news for a wide array of news, sports, and entertainment websites - from CNN.com to Yahoo! Sports - that are supported by advertising. Such sites have finally topped e-mailing and other online communication activities. Last month, people spent 40.2 percent of their time online viewing content , more time than they spent on communication (39.8 percent), commerce (15.8 percent), or search (4.3 percent), according to an Internet Activity Index released Thursday." Learn more about the ways people are spending their time on the internet, in a report by the Christian Science Monitor.

• 19 November 2004
  

  "'Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting,' Bill Gates wrote way back in 1996 in an article entitled 'Content Is King.' It has taken eight years - and it's still not exactly clear how the money will be made. But now a report finally puts some numbers on the assumption: For the first time, content can be officially crowned. That's good news for a wide array of news, sports, and entertainment websites - from CNN.com to Yahoo! Sports - that are supported by advertising. Such sites have finally topped e-mailing and other online communication activities. Last month, people spent 40.2 percent of their time online viewing content , more time than they spent on communication (39.8 percent), commerce (15.8 percent), or search (4.3 percent), according to an Internet Activity Index released Thursday." Learn more about the ways people are spending their time on the internet, in a report by the Christian Science Monitor.

• 18 November 2004
  

  "In the golden age of TV, they called them roadblocks. Advertisers mounted such visual barricades by placing the same spot at the same minute on the three big networks. That way, the ad would blanket the entire medium, collaring viewers whether they were tuned to Lawrence Welk, Dragnet, or Uncle Miltie. The roadblock was a simple but powerful approach -- and near impossible to pull off in today's fractured TV market. But who said a roadblock had to be on TV? A year ago, Ford Motor Co. executives unveiled a roadblock on the Internet to promote their F-150 truck. On the day of the launch, Ford placed bold banner ads for 24 hours on the three leading portals -- AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! Some 50 million Web surfers saw Ford's banner. And millions of them clicked on it, pouring onto Ford's Web site at a rate that reached 3,000 per second." Internet advertising is getting increasingly sophisticated. Learn more in Business Week Online.

• 17 November 2004
  

  "The United States and 13 other countries signed an agreement on Tuesday to work together to capture emissions of methane, a gas that contributes to global warming and, as the main component of natural gas, is a relatively clean-burning fuel. It makes up 16 percent of the heat-trapping emissions that nearly all climate scientists have linked to global warming, a distant second only to carbon dioxide at 74 percent. The United States is underwriting some of the costs of the nonbinding methane agreement, $53 million over five years. It calls on the participating industrialized countries to help poorer countries capture and market methane leaking from countries to use American expertise to develop methods of capturing the gas from landfills, coal mines and oil and gas operations. The gas would then be sold for energy." Learn more in the New York Times.

• 16 November 2004
  

  "India has shown the highest average salary increase in the Asia-Pacific region in 2004, beating China, South Korea and Japan, according to a survey by global human resources firm Hewitt Associates. There are concerns, however, that such hikes in wage costs may result in the exit of business that come to the country for just the opposite reason - low overheads. What is particularly worrying is that the highest rise in wages has occurred in the information-technology (IT) sector, where India bids to be the No 1 player due to a combined advantage of low-cost and high-quality manpower at its disposal." Although wage and standard of living increases are generally considered good for a nation's economy, there are some indicators that wages in India's tech sector are rising so high that the industry will soon lose its comparative advantage. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 15 November 2004
  

  "The woman who writes Wonkette! needed no introduction and offered no apologies Saturday, telling her peers in online journalism that Web logs like hers have spurred a quicker response to breaking news by major media outlets. Ana Marie Cox and others who maintain 'blogs' were criticized after the November 2 presidential election for posting exit polls throughout the day...Blogs have drawn attention to political stories that more established media outlets then report on, and exposed flawed journalism by those same newspapers and television news programs." The rapid rise and profusion of blogs is forcing experts to examine the role that web logs play in the dissemination of news. Learn more at CNN.com.

• 12 November 2004
  

  "Couples will be able to choose donated sperm or eggs to create their designer child, under proposals published by the fertility watchdog. Characteristics such as height, eye colour and intelligence could be selected if women undergoing fertility treatment are given more freedom to pick the donated sperm, egg or embryo. The controversial proposals are part of a public consultation launched yesterday by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). But critics are concerned that the proposal could lead to more couples demanding 'designer' babies and to parents having unrealistic expectations of the resulting children — a point accepted by the authority in its consultation document. Learn more in Britain's Times Online.

• 11 November 2004
  

  "It is unlikely that future technological inventions are going to have the same kind of transformative impact that they did in the past. When history takes a look back at great inventions like the car and transistor, they were defining technologies which ultimately changed people's lives substantially. But, says Nick Donofrio, senior vice-president of technology and manufacturing at IBM, it was not 'the thing' itself that actually improved people's lives. It was all the social and cultural changes that the discovery or invention brought with it. The car brought about a crucial change to how people lived in cities, giving them the ability to move out into the suburbs, whilst having mobility and access." A senior IBM executive discusses the effects that new technologies could have on our lives. Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 10 November 2004
  

  "Japan knows about nuclear power - from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and from its own nuclear accidents. And it's worried that China's voracious appetite for energy, its poor record of industrial safety and its plan to build more nuclear reactors could mean major accidents affecting North Asia. Japan, which stands to gain financially from China's desperate need for energy to fuel its high-powered economy, increasingly is worried that Beijing's pledge to rely on nuclear power is potentially dangerous, posing serious safety issues for China and Japan. Japan has had its own safety problems with nuclear power and doesn't want more business at the cost of human life." The combination of China's hunger for energy and history of industrial accidents worries neighboring Japan. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 9 November 2004
  

  "Three years ago the federal government began passing out pills that may protect against some of the most dangerous effects of radiation. Fourteen states whose residents live near nuclear power plants haven't bothered to accept them. Never mind that experts say the over-the-counter potassium iodide pills are the cheapest and easiest way to prevent radiation poisoning -- especially in children -- in case of a nuke accident. Last year, a report commissioned by Congress recommended that everyone under 40 near a nuclear power plant should have the pills on hand. Some state officials, meanwhile, continue to oppose accepting free supplies of the pills from Washington. The pills, they say, are perhaps ineffective and could give people a false sense of safety." Learn more about these pills that could reduce the effects of radiation exposure and why some officials oppose their distribution, at Wired News.

• 8 November 2004
  

  "Tehran has continued its crackdown on journalists, with two arrests in the past week, and has moved against pro-democracy Web sites, blocking hundreds of sites in recent months and making several arrests. As part of its crackdown, the government has blocked hundreds of political sites and Web logs. Three major pro-democracy Web sites that support President Mohammad Khatami were blocked in August. A university in Orumieh in northwestern Iran shut down its Internet lab, contending that students had repeatedly browsed on indecent Web sites. The crackdown suggests that hard-liners are determined to curtail freedom in cyberspace. Many rights advocates had turned to the Internet after the judiciary shut down more than 100 pro-democracy newspapers and journals in recent years." Learn more about the Iranian government's internet crackdown in today's New York Times.

• 5 November 2004
  

  "Speaking of business as unusual. A mere two months ago, the news of a China-Kazakhstan pipeline agreement, worth US$3.5 billion, raised some eyebrows in the world press, some hinting that China's economic foreign policy may be on the verge of a new leap forward. A clue to the fact that such anticipation may have totally understated the case was last week's signing of a mega-gas deal between Beijing and Tehran worth $100 billion. Billed as the 'deal of century' by various commentators, this agreement is likely to increase by another $50 billion to $100 billion...It is perhaps too early to digest fully the various economic, political and even geostrategic implications of this stunning development, widely considered a major blow to the Bush administration's economic sanctions on Iran." Learn more about this international development in the Asia Times.

• 4 November 2004
  

  "News organizations promised Wednesday to look into why their Election Day exit polls showed an initial surge for John Kerry, but also blamed bloggers for spreading news that gave a misleading view of the presidential race. The first wave showed Kerry with a lead of three percentage points in Florida and four points in Ohio -- both battleground states won by President Bush when the votes were actually counted, giving the president his margin of victory. The Florida and Ohio exit poll results, along with those in other states where Kerry was strong, was quickly disseminated on websites such as Slate, the Drudge Report, Wonkette.com, Atrios.blogspot.com and Command Post." Blogs and small news sites are being blamed for the rapid dissemination of inaccurate exit poll statistics. Learn more in Wired News.

• 3 November 2004
  

  "A controversial California ballot measure that would fund a decade of stem cell research with $3 billion in state money was headed for a resounding victory on Wednesday, initial returns showed. The initiative, which was endorsed by popular California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a move that put him at odds with his Republican party and the Bush administration, was carrying 59 percent of the vote with about 74 percent of precincts reporting. Backers of the measure say the funding program would jump start scientific work that could help cure diseases and establish California as a hub for leading-edge research on a par with Singapore and Britain." Learn more in Yahoo News.

• 2 November 2004
  

  "With just hours left before voting is scheduled to end in one of the most-anticipated presidential elections in U.S. history, political pundits ranging from the amateur to the academic are scrambling to update their Web sites with final forecasts. Projecting the outcome of Tuesday's vote has become a popular sport among political watchers with a programming bent. Thanks to common tools like Java and statistical software, computer-generated maps showing America dotted with crimson and blue have become a common feature on home pages." Although large news sites are being very cautious about predicting the outcome of today's presidential election, many scholars, bloggers, and armature pundits are using the web and statistical software to forecast their predictions. Learn more at News.com.

• 1 November 2004
  

  "News outlets are readying their Web operations to become real-time poll trackers and sources of analysis for what's expected to be one of the closest, and most contentious, presidential elections in U.S. history. Television networks in particular are taking a closer, more detailed look at how to report election results. In 2000, the networks were criticized for calling the election prematurely by declaring Al Gore president. Fox News later named George W. Bush the victor, causing networks such as ABC, NBC and CBS to retract their initial declarations." During the election news outlets will utilize and rely upon technology and the internet to help broadcast accurate, timely results. Learn more at News.com.

  
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