May 17, 2004

Crime rings exploit Internet job sites International Herald Tribune - Online job sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder and HotJobs have given employers a better way to find workers, but it turns out that crime rings are targeting the sites, too. 10:23:09 PM

For Microsoft, image isn't everything (but it helps) SearchWindows2000.com - Microsoft has improved its products and done a better job of working with its customers this year compared with previous years -- at least that's what customers perceive, according to new research. 10:22:03 PM

'Atkins is quickest diet' The Sun - SLIMMERS lose weight faster on the Atkins Diet than on low-fat plans, two American research teams claimed yesterday. 10:19:24 PM

Few solutions pop up at FTC adware workshop CNET News.com - Spyware, adware and other code that lurks on hard drives has become so pervasive it's bedeviling home users, driving corporate technology managers to distraction and has become the top complaint in customer service calls to computer makers. But participants in a one-day workshop convened Monday by the Federal Trade Commission couldn't decide what to do about it.  Read it all! 1:25:38 PM

Saddam fears Iraqi torture Sydney Morning Herald - CIA interrogators have seized on an admission by Saddam Hussein that he fears torture at the hands of his Iraqi enemies, and are threatening him with a quick handover to the new government in a renewed effort to break his silence. They are also trying to exploit a new-found obsession of the former dictator with hygiene and careful food preparation to persuade him to begin giving information after five frustrating months of questioning. Lengthy daily interrogation sessions have been structured around an apparent attempt to prepare Saddam to be handed over to the interim government that takes power after June 30. He has good reason to fear that his Iraqi opponents might seek revenge for his brutal 24-year reign. Many survivors of his prisons, and relatives of those who were killed by his regime, now hold positions in the interim governing council and a new Iraqi government is certain to introduce the death penalty for war crimes. Saddam is said to be depressed and prone to angry outbursts during which he insists he is still the Iraqi president. US officials are insistent that he has not been treated roughly. Washington is determined that he should not be able to claim he has been the victim of any abuse when he faces trial. The 67-year-old, who admitted that he feared torture soon after he was arrested last December, has been told his transfer will be delayed if he begins to co-operate with his interrogators. Saddam is due to face trial at a war crimes tribunal in Baghdad after the transfer of sovereignty. Saddam has been held in solitary confinement since his capture.  11:51:29 AM

US finds sarin shell in Baghdad Telegraph.co.uk, UK -An artillery shell containing the deadly nerve agent sarin has exploded after being discovered by the US military in Baghdad. This was BINARY shell. The sarin is in two components that are individually harmless and have to be mixed to form sarin. The liquid is mixed by spinning the shell very rapidly. How is the shell spun? By firing it from a cannon.  NOt by placing it close to a real bomb. Sarin was developed by Nazi scientists as a pesticide in the 1930s and can cause a quick death by attacking the nervous system. Iraq began manufacturing it in 1984 and used it when Saddam ordered his army to bomb the town of Halabja in March 1988, killing at least 5,000 Iraqi Kurds. Saddam claimed all his stockpile was destroyed in the first Gulf War in 1991, but admitted four years later that he still possessed 790 tons of the agent. 11:19:42 AM

Report: Syrians, 'equipment' were in N. Korea train blast Worldtribune - Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper. A military specialist on Korean affairs revealed that the Syrian technicians were killed in the explosion in Ryongchon in the northwestern part of the country, according to the Sankei Shimbun. The specialist said the Syrians were accompanying "large equipment" and that the damage from the explosion was greatest in the portion of the train they occupied. The source said North Korean military personnel with protective suits responded to the scene soon after the explosion and removed material only from the Syrians' section of the train. UPDATE: U.S. officials confirmed a report in a Japanese daily newspaper that a train explosion on April 22 killed about a dozen Syrian technicians near the Ryongchon province in North Korea. The officials said the technicians were accompanying a train car full of missile components and other equipment from a facility near the Chinese border to a North Korea port. You might wonder if this might be connected to why Sudan ordered the removal of Syrian missiles and WMD out of Khartoum.   Certainly it would make sense to me that North Korea would have an interest in helping the Syrian's to advance their weapons program.   10:30:37 AM

Google apologises for offensive search result 9:43:38 AM

Bomb blast kills Iraqi council head CBC News - A suicide car bombing killed the head of the Iraqi Governing Council Monday in Baghdad. Izzedine Salim and at least four other Iraqis died when a car exploded at a military checkpoint outside the main coalition headquarters. 9:33:55 AM