Saturday 13 April 2002

Arafat Statement Condemns Terrorism. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday expressed his "deep condemnation" of terrorism and a Jerusalem suicide bombing the day before, in a statement apparently intended to satisfy U.S. demands. [AP World News]       Powell to Meet With Arafat Sunday. Struggling to sustain his Mideast peace mission, Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday demanded restraint from Israeli forces on the West Bank and prepared for talks with Yasser Arafat after the Palestinian leader met a U.S. call to condemn terrorism. [AP World News] Meeting the Palestinian leader should never have been in doubt if Colin Powell's 'mission' was ever to have a chance of success. All this posturing and insistence on a formal statement of condemnation of a single attack only reinforces the impression that the US is fundamentally biased in its approach to the Middle East. On the one hand the meeting with Sharon went ahead despite his total contempt for US demands for withdrawal (which has led to the killing of who knows how many Palestinians), but the actions of a suicide bomber in Jerusalem threatened a face-to-face meeting with Arafat. Some lives are more valuable than others? 7:24:20 PM  Your view

Anti-copying firm eases CD controls. SunnComm's technology, which prevents consumers from ripping MP3s off of CDs, has sparked consumer outrage. Now the company aims to offer a compromise. [CNET News.com] The 'easing' referred to is far from well thought out (allowing MP3 files to be attached to e-mails but limiting the number of times the recipient can play them). But the important point is the very fact that an easing is considered necessary at all. Hopefully this is the first indication of a realisation that copy-prevention will affect CD sales -- as it certainly should! 7:21:33 PM  Your view

		© Copyright 2002 Jim MacCormaic . Last update: 29/09/2002; 06:02:42 am .