Saturday, April 9, 2011

Kaliningrad Region launches its own WikiLeaks site

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Kaliningrad Region launches its own WikiLeaks site

Published: 08 February, 2011, 18:28

While a London court is hearing Julian Assange’s extradition case, the WikiLeaks founder’s ideas continue to spread all over the world.

Following Assange’s call to action, residents of Russia’s westernmost Baltic region, Kaliningrad, have set up their own WikiLeaks branch site (in Russian).

The site owners are urging the local community members to submit any documents revealing cases of corruption, money laundering, and other violations of the law in the region. Full anonymity is guaranteed.

“Corruption is killing us,” the site reads. “Corruption means bad medical service, lack of much-needed drugs, dangerous slippery roads and killer icicles in winter – all due to lack of funds, which were laundered by our officials. And we are assisting all these by being passive. The first thing we should do is to uncover those lies and launderings.”

The site was set up by a group of enthusiasts who do not disclose their names, fearing prosecution. Two of them, they say, work for low-level governmental bodies, while two others are a businessman and a programmer respectively. Insider impressions of what is happening in the Kaliningrad administration led them to setting up their own whistleblower site.

“Julian Assange is the hero of our times,” the Kaliningrad WikiLeaks founders say. “We will do our best to fight for freedom of information and to keep the ball rolling – in our region.”

The first leaks released by the site focus on corrupted state construction and transportation contracts, as well as unfair state property operations.

“I am sure that the site was launched in anticipation of the forthcoming elections in the local Duma, due on March 13,”Aleksey Shabunin, editor-in-chief of local whistleblower Dvornik newspaper, told RT. “As of now, it has published information available in open sources. This is the main difference from the parent WikiLeaks site. We can only guess which party is hiding behind this site. For sure, this is not United Russia.”

Memoirs of ex-US defense secretary self-serving – anti-war activist --RT

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Memoirs of ex-US defense secretary self-serving – anti-war activist

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Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has lifted the lid on life inside the war on terror with his newly published memoirs.

Entitled "Known and Unknown," it charts how he served under two American presidents, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush.

By publishing his memoirs, Rumsfeld, just like Bush before him, tries to create a new history based on fiction, argues Brian Becker from the anti-war ANSWER coalition.

“You cannot help to think about the old cliché that history is nothing but fiction, agreed upon,” he said.

“The fiction is that the war in Iraq was justified, that they did the right thing,” he added. “They spent hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps up to $2 trillion, in a war which took the lives of a million Iraqis according to the Lancet medical journal.”

However, Becker thinks the book will have almost no impact because people can see for themselves that the war in Iraq was an absolute catastrophe, as America’s image is completely ruined around the world and Iraq is a broken country.

“This is a self-serving journal, a revenge memoir in some way – nothing but a self-serving action,” Becker declared. “The history is clear for all to see right now.”

Becker explains that Rumsfeld was the one who helped to set up, along with the CIA, not only the Guantanamo Bay detainment facility, but all sorts of “black hole” prisons and secret detention centers where people were tortured and murdered.

And now along with Bush, who published his memoirs in November 2010, he is trying to show his actions were right and justified, Becker claimed.

“They want to rescue their image, they want the American corporate media to treat them kindly, they want, of course, as they do constantly, to make millions of dollars from this promotion,” Becker told RT.

Eric Stoner, editor for the news and analysis blog Waging Nonviolence, says the record shows that both Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush were “itching for a war.”

“Rumsfeld, in particular, had been calling for a war long before he was in the administration,” Stoner said. “In 1998, he signed a letter put up by the Project for the New American Century which called for Clinton to launch a military attack against Iraq. So, he has been wanting war for a long time. And also, there are memoirs that came out right after 9/11, actually within hours of the attack. Rumsfeld ordered his aids to look for any evidence they could find that could link Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. So, he was immediately looking to take the war to Iraq after 9/11 happened.”

Michael O'Brien, a former US contractor and author of “America’s Failure in Iraq,” says Donald Rumsfeld still refuses to take responsibility for his actions.

“I think it’ll hurt his reputation because he doesn’t really take responsibility for poorly executing the war,” O'Brien said.“It was his war, he prosecuted it. He blames all these other people, but he was the one responsible for executing the conflict, no one else. I really do believe that it will be like Robert McNamara in Vietnam. I do not think this is going to help Donald Rumsfeld’s reputation. It’s just a book to try and use his selective memory to describe what happened in his own words.”

Pratap Chatterjee from the Center for American Progress says Rumsfeld’s book is likely to annoy some senior Republicans.

“In the book he blames George W. Bush, he also blames Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice for a lot of mistakes,”Chatterjee said. “It’s a very self-serving book which proclaims him to have known everything and to condemn other people, and I think this is something that other Republicans, even John McCain, are not very happy about.”

“What I was hoping for that in the book was at least some acknowledgement that he had made mistakes,” he added.“But the only thing he seems to have acknowledged is the idea that he should have resigned after the Abu Ghraib scandals. Now, in reality, he did resign twice, and Bush didn’t accept it. But I think for the 5,000 or so American soldiers who died there and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that died, in addition to the people who were tortured in Abu Ghraib, the least they could have expected is an apology.”

Chatterjee says that instead of an apology, Rumsfeld’s book suggests that he should have gone to war sooner.

“He suggests that he should have bombed Iraq when Colin Powell was making a speech, and so it suggests that nothing has been learned from the lessons of last few years, and he suffers no regrets whatsoever,” Chatterjee concluded.

Iraq WMD source lied about existence of weapons

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Iraq WMD source lied about existence of weapons

The source that won over Washington with tales of WMD and biological weapons in Iraq has admitted he lied in order to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known by the codename “Curveball” told the British newspaper The Guardian exclusively he fabricated information about Iraqi biological weapons trucks and secret factories producing WMDs.

His objective was to bring down Saddam Hussein. Mission accomplished, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Janabi, who is a chemical engineer, fled Iraq in 1995 for Germany, where he claims that the German BND secret service approached him for information. Seeing his opportunity, he decided to manufacture a reason for the West to target Iraq.

He told The Guardian, “Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right. They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

He opted to come forward with the truth following revelation in former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs which said there had been no WMD in Iraq. He said he was comfortable with his decision and claimed had the US wanted to discredit his claims prior to the invasions, they probably could have.

“There was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities.” he told The Guardian.

While Janabi said he was saddened by the loss of lives, he holds few regrets.

Secret US prisons in Afghanistan revealed--RT

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Secret US prisons in Afghanistan revealed

Published: 08 April, 2011, 19:29

Image from cdn.picapp.com

US officials have acknowledged the existence of secret military-run prisons across Afghanistan where suspected terrorists are held and interrogated without charges, for weeks or months on end.

The US military previously denied operating secret prison systems in Afghanistan, although a number of human rights groups insisted they were.

Recently however US government and military officials confirmed to AP the existence of the secret prisons, but contended they existed as temporary holding centers used to gather intelligence. They said detainees were held at such sites for 14 days, unless it is deemed necessary they stay longer. According to AP some detainees have been held for nine weeks.

The program remains classified, and details from the government have been released anonymously.

There are roughly 20 secret detention sites all run by the US military, with one being run the America’s elite counterterrorism unit at the Joint Special Operations Command at Bagram Air Base where high-value targets from within the Taliban, al-Qaida or other militant groups are held and interrogated.

The secret site sits just a short drive the publicly known detention center at Bagram which was previously marred in controversy.

The previously administration, under former US President George W. Bush ran a network of secret CIA detention sites, a program US President Barack Obama was highly critical off. The discovery of a new network under Obama will likely anger many.

Little is known about the methods which are being employed in interrogations today, but if they resemble Bush-era tactics, torture is likely being used.

Under Bush the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding was often used to force detainees to reveal information about their operations. Human rights groups have said previously that those tactics are gone, they also previously insisted the secret network of prisons was gone as well.

When Obama took office he swore to end harsh interrogations and torture, but detaining from the system tell a different story. They describe treatment that a number of human rights groups would call inhumane.

Over a dozen former detainees claimed they were held for weeks at the Joint Special Operations Command site, forced to strip naked and kept in the cold in solitary confinement with lights on 24 hours a day, Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First, told AP. In many cases detainees claimed they were told they would be held indefinitely if they did not cooperate.

The US military insisted the allegations were untrue.

"All detainees are treated humanely in compliance with all U.S. and international laws, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions," Special Operations Command spokesman Col. Tim Nye told AP.

While the group does not feel the harsh tactics of the Bush administration are being employed, there is an uncomfortable pattern developing.

Stubbing out cigarettes-RIA NOVOSTI

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© RIA Novosti. Valery Titievsky

Stubbing out cigarettes

by Anna Sulimina

Despite talk of stubbing out smoking in public places getting free of the fumes is a tricky task in Moscow.

Over 90 per cent of Russian bar hoppers are passive smokers, while 80 per cent of the country’s cafe society are left sucking in the smoke, according to research conducted by the Statistics of Russia Centre in 2009.

The same study found that nonsmoking areas did little to protect non-smokers lungs from the fumes.

And while City Hall is looking at the possibility of following many European countries by banning smoking in public places like airports, bars and restaurants, the industry remains resistant.

The Federal government moved a step closer to a ban in January by joining the World Health Organisation, which means no advertising of cigarettes.

Some fine dining places with fewer visitors per square metre can often be good options, there is no guarantee they will be smoke free.

But to escape the cheap and crowded bars, which often lack decent ventilation and non-smoking sectors, there are a few places to go for fume-free dining.

Smell the coffee

Plenty of coffee shops have already implemented bans, as heavy smoke conflicts with the aroma of the beans. For a smoke-free smell go to any Volkonsky, Coffee Bean, Starbucks, Friends Forever cafe, Vensky Strudel and most Costa Coffee cafes.

“The smoke-free concept was a request from our British partner, Whitbread,” said Tatiana Kolpak, a director at Costa Coffe. “Moreover, smoke covers the coffee smell, and this smoking ban hasn’t put off the customers.”

Some health food restaurants have already implemented bans, including the vegetarian outlets Dzhagannat and both Avocado branches.

Prime Star and Lunch Box sandwich cafes, with outlets around the city, are also non-smoking.

Drinking only

While pubs and bars have traditionally been bastions of the smoker, the heyday is already over for some.

To begin with it was American restaurants starting the trend, such as Frendy’s American Diner and Corner Burger. The Correa’s chain, meanwhile, will kick out anyone caught lighting up.

“In most Correa’s restaurants we have special areas near the entrance where one can smoke a cigarette, but smoking inside is forbidden in most units of the chain – that’s one of the reasons many families come with their children,” said Georgy Shishakov, a manager at Correa’s.

Some traditional bars, such as Ryumochnaya on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, have also caught on, and the customary shot of vodka can be had with a salad instead of a cigarette.

Happy compromise?

Around 80 per cent of visitors to cafes end up passive smoking

The number of non-smoking places remains relatively few despite recent increases. Some places try to minimise the effect with decent ventilation as a compromise.

“We have separate zones in our restaurants and good ventilation,” said Inna Ismailova, PR-director of Vesta-Centre International, which owns Yakitoria and Ginno-Taki, among others. “However I think smoke spoils the taste of food, and it’s nice to see that every year nonsmoking zones become more and more popular.”

Clamping down

Recently city authorities have proposed banning smoking in the entrances to apartment blocks. And Gennady Onishchenko, the head of the Russian health watchdog, has proposed kicking smokers out of other public places, such as bus stops.

Smokers – in or out?

Yekaterina, in a bar

I smoke but I don’t like people smoking around me – it makes my clothes smell of cigarettes every time I go out to eat – that’s why I think smokers should go outside to smoke.

Pavel, in a coffee house

I think it’s not very difficult to go outside to smoke. Passive smoking also damages your health and people should be protected from this.

Eduard, in a bar

Separate zones seem sufficient to me, Moscow is a very dirty city and no one has to be made to go outside, especially in winter.

The Russian Women Myth-RIA NOVOSTI

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Women Talk: The Russian Women Myth

column by Svetlana Kolchik

As the biggest country on earth, Russia has countless natural treasures. But there is one that is valued more than any of the others, and I’m not talking about oil, gas, minerals or even Gold. These commodities are limited and their value fluctuates far too easily. The precious resource I am talking about is of course women.

Svetlana Kolchik

I used to believe the myth of the Russian woman ended with the 90s mail-order bride boom, but the more I talk to foreigners in and outside Russia, the more I realize that it is in fact thriving like never before.

We, Russian women, remain a dream and a lure, an infallible investment motive for overseas entrepreneurs, an invaluable export item and a major tourist attraction. Why else would they dare to come to our cold and unpredictable lands?

"Where, where can I meet them?" a German friend of mine in his mid-30s kept probing me over dinner recently, his eyes rolling dreamily. A London-based lawyer, he went on his first visit to Moscow a few weeks ago. By "them" he meant Russian women, a curiosity he said seemed far more compelling than the Kremlin or Red Square for a first-time visitor to the Russian capital.

But this German wasn't on a simple trophy hunt, or I would have sent him straight to Night Flight, Soho Rooms or any other Moscow establishment geared towards showing Western males a good time. Disillusioned by a series of unsatisfying dates with British and German girls, my friend said he was looking for a long-term relationship. And Russia seemed to him the most promising place to look for a woman of wife-material.

"London girls only want to talk about their careers and German girls wear sneakers on a date," he complained.

I was in Paris for work last week. Excited to be visiting my favorite European city, I eagerly confessed mon amour pour Paris to a taxi driver. "Why don't you come to live here then? So many French men would love to marry femme russe!" he said matter-of-factly, before pouring out a lengthy list of complaints about
modern French women. Too independent, too unapproachable, too egotistic, too strong in a non-feminine way...

It seems that as the social (and physical) differences between the sexes gradually dissipate in most Western countries, Russia still offers a unique gender relations ambience that combines the best of two worlds: an intriguing blend of emancipation and tradition. Even if a Russian woman earns 10 times more than her boyfriend, she will never let it show. No matter where we stand on the social and financial ladder, we are set to empower men, at times perhaps tolerating too much, to ensure traditional gender roles are followed.

I'd emphasize the word "roles" here - it's a game in which our women have excelled throughout the years of Soviet and post-Soviet history. We masquerade our incredible inner strength and endurance with a soft, at times very vulnerable, facade. It's part of our feminine mystique: we play it weak knowing we are perfectly capable. We encourage men to carry our bags, bring us flowers, fix our cars and even run the country.

Add the unconscious inner drive to always try to look our best (losing our males to all those wars, repressions and alcohol have taught us to compete like animals other for the remaining guys) and it's no wonder that Western guys flock to Russia.

"French women aren't as demanding as the Russian ones, they might even volunteer to pay for themselves on a date, but you pay a higher price afterwards," says a Moscow-based French acquaintance of mine.

He said more and more French women tend to choose their careers over their partners, even after they get married.

"Russian women are genuine," he said. "Family is always a priority for you no matter what, and that's really cool."

So it's the weaker sex then that's Russia's most valued treasure, the natural resource whose value isn’t affected by economic, or any other crises. And we must cherish our femininity, not only as a means of attracting men, but also for our own pleasure. And I think the innate strength and vigor, our most deeply ingrained survival mechanisms, will always stay with us.

In footsteps of Yury Gagarin -RT

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In footsteps of Yury Gagarin

The Vostok 3KA-2 is on display at Sotheby’s in New York (AFP Photo / Emmanuel Dunand)

A clone of the historic capsule that took Yury Gagarin into space – the Vostok 3KA-2 – will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight.

Just three weeks prior to the red-letter day, on 25 March 1961, a dress rehearsal of the key space mission was conducted.

It saw the Vostok 3KA-2 capsule blasting into space with two unconventional passengers onboard – a cosmonaut mannequin nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich and a dog Zvezdochka.

According to the estimates, the one of a kind legendary test capsule could fetch from $2 to $10 million, and is currently on public display in America before the sale on April 12.

"Not only are there no other examples outside of Russia of the world's first spacecraft, this capsule was pivotal in space history by providing the green light for Gagarin's spectacular achievement," the Head of Sotheby's special projects department, David Redden, has been quoted as saying.

A symbol of rebirth: Cherry trees bloom in Japan-RIA NOVOSTI

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A symbol of rebirth: Cherry trees bloom in Japan

Less than a month after the destructive earthquake of March 11, northeastern Japan was hit by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake on April 7. Some people died in the earthquake, but life continues and the seasons cannot be stopped. Spring has come to Japan, which means that the cherry trees are blooming, symbolizing the renewal of life. This year the cherry blossoms are especially poignant for the Japanese.

Being “The Astronaut’s Wife”---RT

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Being “The Astronaut’s Wife”

Soyuz TMA-21’s crew during the training: Andrey Borisenko, Aleksandr Samokutyaev and Ronald Garan (RIA Novosti / Oleg Urusov)

(19.2Mb)embed video

A mission honoring the 50th anniversary of mankind's first journey to space is set to depart for the International Space Station at 02:18 Moscow time (22:18 GMT).

The Russian-American crew will blast off from the same launch site that propelled Yury Gagarin into space. Their spaceship will be carrying an image of Yury Gagarin.

As the Soyuz TMA-21 crew gears up for takeoff, RT met up with the spacemen’s wives to learn how they are preparing for six months of separation.

The three Soyuz TMA-21 crew members are readying themselves for their mission to the International Space Station. Tuesday morning’s launch will honor Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, who 50 years ago this month became the first man in space.

“When I was in kindergarten, they gave us a play rocket,” cosmonaut Aleksandr Samokutyaev recalls smiling. “I spent all my time inside and I wouldn’t let other kids get in there. Since then, they started calling me Gagarin.”

Preparations have been intense, both for the crew and the Soyuz rocket. Any cosmonaut can attest to the arduous process.

“Working and training was so hard that sometimes, we fell asleep behind our desks,”Oleg Artetyev, test cosmonaut from the training center, told RT.

“We had to take many exams and sometimes we had to repeat those exams.”

But now there are much tougher days ahead for their families. Far from the frenzy and the glare of camera lights, the “better halves” of the astronauts have been going through preparations of their own – albeit, more personal ones.

“It’s really hard to explain the wave of emotions I’ve been feeling: worry, anxiety and pride,” said Oksana Samokutyaeva, wife of Aleksandr Samokutyaev. “I’m very proud of him. He, on the other hand, held his own. He showed no emotions. I was more worried and excited. He took our photographs with him – those that show us and our daughter Nastya.”

Ever since the official confirmation that their husbands would be going into space, every little thing becomes a memento for their wives.

“I am wearing my husband’s pullover,” confessed Zoya Borisenko, wife of Andrey Borisenko. “It’s warming me so I can feel closeness and unity with my husband. Here, all the wives wear their husbands’ clothes.”

A close bond has formed among the women.

Carmel Garan, wife of NASA astronaut Ron Garan, gave Oksana and Zoya a bracelet as a symbol of unity.

“We are going to be as united as our husbands have become,” adds Oksana Samokutyaeva.

Because for six months these women and their husbands are literally going to be worlds apart.

US, Russia discuss joint nuke-powered spaceship project-RT

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US, Russia discuss joint nuke-powered spaceship project

Published: 05 April, 2011, 20:22

US, Russia and others to discuss joint nuclear powerd spacecraft project.

According to Director Anatoly Perminov Russia’s Roscosmos Federal Space Agency and NASA are to meet and discuss the development of a nuclear powered spacecraft.

In addition to NASA and Roscosmos, other nations, such as Japan, Germany, France and possibly China, with high level of reactor manufacturing technology are expected to be in attendance at the April 15 meeting.

Nuclear powered crafts are being considered as a means for achieving manned flights to Mars and beyond. The goal is to complete a nuclear engine design by 2012 at an estimated cost of $600 million.

Perminov said the majority of the funding is expected to come from Russia’s own Rosatom nuclear corporation.

Let’s Back The Startup Kids – A Documentary That Needs To Be Seen

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Let’s Back The Startup Kids – A Documentary That Needs To Be Seen

Mike Butcher7 hours ago

Oh, how I wish I’d done this myself. The Startup Kids is a to-be-released documentary about young web entrepreneurs in the U.S…. and Europe. That’s actually what’s nice about it – for the first time we have (outside of our work here onTechCrunch Europe) some media which finds a common thread of entrepreneurs running between the two continents.

There’s a nice underlying theme here too. The recession has created many new startups often out of sheer necessity, and that’s exactly what these two Icelandic girls,Sesselja Vilhjalmsdottir and Vala Halldorsdottir did – they went out and got started. But although they got an EU grant to do the filming, they still need additional funding. So in order to help them we’re releasing the trailer exclusively on Techcrunch, watch it below. You can pledge your support by backing them on Kickstarter so they can finish the film – and we can get to see 70 interviews with leading entrepreneurs.

Pandora mobile app found to be sending birth date, gender and location information to ad servers

7:41 PM Unknown

Ars Technica

Veracode

From Our Partners

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Journalism 2.0 Didn’t Kill Anyone, and Neither Did Old Media

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Journalism 2.0 Didn’t Kill Anyone, and Neither Did Old Media

By Mathew Ingram Apr. 7, 2011, 3:03pm PT 1 Comment

Does the journalist who reported on a Quran burning by a right-wing pastor in Florida last month share some of the blame for the deaths of 24 people in Afghanistan in the wake of that event? And is the fact that they died some kind of indictment of the evolution of digital media, or “Journalism 2.0?” That’s the case being made by Forbes media writer Jeff Bercovici in a blog post published on the site Thursday, beneath a tabloid-style headline reading “When Journalism 2.0 Kills.” But the story that the Forbes blogger refers to says more about Journalism 1.0 than it does about new media, and so does Bercovici’s wrong-headed and contradictory response.

The story in question was about notorious evangelical pastor Rev. Terry Jones, who runs a small church in Gainesville, Fla. and set fire to a copy of the Quran on March 21 in what he said was a protest against Muslim acts of terrorism. Jones had earlier made threats to burn a stack of Muslim holy books last year on the anniversary of September 11, and this eventually became a story of national significance after President Obama mentioned it in interviews and asked the pastor not to burn the books because it might lead to violence against Americans in Muslim countries.

In the wake of the March 21 burning, riots broke out in several cities in Afghanistan to protest the event and more than 20 people were killed, including several foreign aid workers. The demonstrations apparently began after President Hamid Karzai referred to the Quran burning in a speech a few days after the event.

So what does any of that have to do with Journalism 2.0? Was it a blog post that mentioned the Quran incident, or a Facebook video that made its way to President Karzai? No. And yet, Bercovici maintains that this is somehow an indictment of the “shift away from journalism schools and newsroom hierarchies, toward empowered citizen bloggers and crowdsourced reporting” that is promoted by “new-media utopians like Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis.” In a message posted to Twitter promoting the column, the Forbes writer said “a college kid’s reporting caused 24 deaths in Afghanistan. Here’s how.”

According to Bercovici, most of the mainstream media had decided not to report on Rev. Jones’s burning of the Quran, because of concern over the potential effect on American-Muslim relations, and because the pastor was clearly just a crank looking for attention. But the journalist who did the only story that made its way to Afghanistan (Steve Myers at the Poynter Institute has a play-by-play of the reporting on the event) was “a 21-year-old stringer working on his own, the sort of freelance pieceworker media companies have been leaning on to make up for the downsizing of their professional workforces,” according to Bercovici.

The problem with this argument, as Steve Myers points out in a comment on it, is that the story was picked up by Agence France-Presse, a foreign wire service with a long history, and a traditional media entity if there ever was one. And according to Myers, it was the wire service that asked the journalist in question to report on the burning, presumably because of the previous publicity about it — they weren’t suckered by some freelancing piece-worker. Not only that, but it was picked up by both Google News and Yahoo News. Bercovicimaintained in a message to me that this was what gave the story enough credibility to cause the riots that he blames the author (and Journalism 2.0) for.

So the story is somehow simultaneously an indictment of new media and freelancers who do piece-work, or crowdsourcing, according to the Forbes writer — and yet it was a 175-year-old wire service’s idea to do the story, and it was picked up by two major online news outlets. Why isn’t the AFP to blame for those deaths in Afghanistan? Bercovici also tries to argue that this was somehow a result of “a one-man brand told to attract attention any way he can,” but the writer’s name wasn’t even on the story, which was reportedly (according to Myers) heavily edited.

The reality is that neither the reporter nor the wire service are guilty of anything but reporting the news. Bercovici seems to believe that we would all be better off if the traditional media were able to simply make events disappear by not reporting on them, and if stringers for wire services didn’t muck things up by writing about them anyway. But would that really make things any better? Would it have spared the lives of those workers in Afghanistan? Perhaps. But radical believers of any type hardly need excuses to riot or cause bloodshed. And blaming a 21-year-old journalist for those deaths is a cheap way of taking shots at some perceived flaw in Journalism 2.0.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Rogers Cadenhead and Yan Arief

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

Google Should Drop Android’s “Open” Talk

7:38 PM Unknown

Google Should Drop Android’s “Open” Talk

By Ryan Kim Apr. 7, 2011, 9:32am PT 8 Comments

Google’s VP of engineering Andy Rubin hit back at a recent Businessweek articlesuggesting that the company was clamping down on the Android ecosystem and exerting much more control over the way carriers, manufacturers and developers use the mobile operating system. But in defending Android’s openness, Rubin seems to be setting the company up for additional questions regarding Android’s openness. That’s because while Rubin managed a solid defense of Android, he didn’t refute some of the recent claims about the operating system. And by not really owning up to Android’s issues or Google’s growing ambitions for Android, it allows people to continue to question the “open” mantra.

At this point, it seems like Google would be better served dropping or modifying its “open” stance, explaining that the present realities of fragmentation, of competition with other mobile ecosystems and for its own revenue considerations, the old concept of open is not as valid anymore. But that’s not likely to happen, so expect more sniping along the lines of the Businessweek article.

Let’s back up a little. In a blog post last night, Rubin said Google remains “committed to fostering the development of an open platform.” He said that Google still welcomes companies to modify the operating system and said they must just adhere to basic compatibility requirements. Google has not changed its approach to fragmentation, said Rubin and “there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs. There are not, and never have been, any efforts to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture.” Finally, Rubin said Google is still committed to releasing updates when they’re ready and said that the decision to withhold Honeycomb from the open source community is not a change in strategy.

While Rubin didn’t mention the Businessweek story by name, the blog post was clearly aimed at that piece, which said that Google was clamping down on tweaks to the operating system and will review the plans of partners before they can get early access to the operating system. The story also said Google has been recently stepping up enforcement of Android’s ”non-fragmentation clauses,” which allow Google to approve new interfaces and features and in some cases partnerships. Businessweek also said Google has tried to delay the release of Verizon Android devices that rely on Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Rubin seems also motivated by questions about Google’s decision to delay the release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

Rubin reiterates that Android is open for partners but to get early access, the prize now for manufacturers jockeying in the growing tablet and smartphone markets, they need to submit to Google’s more stringent demands. That’s something Rubin didn’t refute. He did say Honeycomb will be released to the open source community for both tablets and phones as soon as its ready but he didn’t address the claim that Google is attempting to hold up the release of phones running a rival search engine. And while he said the anti-fragmentation plan has been in place since the beginning, he didn’t address the reported tightened enforcement lately.

What this is all does is show that Google is very much wedded to the idea of calling Android an open project. They love the way that sounds. And they’d likely face some embarrassment if they abandoned that. But the reality is that the open feel that Android began with is slowly being whittled away and not without good reason. On the fragmentation front, it’s a major concern of developers. A recent report from Robert W. Baird & Co. found that 55 percent of Android developers find OS fragmentation to be a meaningful or huge problem. It makes sense for Google to assert more control to combat that. To keep the ecosystem attractive for developers and ultimately free of larger fragmentation issues that affect customers, Google probably should exert more authority. But various measures in pursuing that such as dangling early access and leaving other manufacturers behind, can undercut the open rhetoric of Google.

But it’s not just fragmentation that Google is battling. It has a huge success on its hands with Android, but it’s competing directly against other polished ecosystems like Apple. That means it’s in Google’s interest to standardize the platform and clean up the user interface so it looks better compared to iOS, Windows Phone 7 and whatever comes along. This, too, could be considered a reasonable explanation for clamping down though it’s clear that even without a standard look and feel, the platform has flourished.

But Google I think also sees Android as a significant revenue source. It’s increasingly showing that it wants to drive the Android platform and the money that it produces. We’ve talked about the legal battle with location provider Skyhook, a former Google partner who is now suing Google for pressuring manufacturing partners to drop the service in favor of Google’s location technology. The fight underscores the money to be made by monetizing location data. Google has also tightened its enforcement of Android Market’s non-compete rules for apps that can serve as potential rival app stores. It’s a sign that Google is less willing to deal with competition especially when money is at stake.

With Android’s success in the marketplace — it leads all mobile operating systems in the U.S. –Google also has more leverage over carrier and manufacturing partners, who are increasingly reliant on Android for success. That allows Google to flex its muscles with less worry of repercussions, though a regulatory investigation could arise.

Now, I think the main problem here is that Google continues to push the “open” aspects of Android, which it originally used to contrast with Apple’s more closed approach. But in pushing this narrative, it really sets up Google for attacks from people trying to emphasize some kind of hypocrisy by Google. I think that won’t change especially as Google asserts more control over the platform. But the company could quiet some of these attacks by just acknowledging or clarifying that Android isn’t as open as it once was. It’s still an open source project but not the same one pitched three years ago. I really doubt Google will do that. But by insisting that Android is as open as ever, it’s just inviting more criticism.

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