Ivory Coast strongman arrested after French forces intervene

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Laurent Gbagbo

By Colum Lynch and William Branigin, Monday, April 11, 10:53 AM

UNITED NATIONS — Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo was arrested Monday by French-backed forces of president-elect Alassane Ouattara, raising hopes for an imminent end to the strife that has wracked the West African country since Gbagbo refused to acknowledge his defeat in a November presidential election.

Following an attack on Gbagbo’s residence in the capital, Abidjan, by French forces earlier Monday, troops loyal to Ouattara went in and seized Gbagbo, according to U.N., French and Ivorian officials.

Gbagbo “has been arrested,” said Youssoufou Bamba, the U.N. envoy of president-elect Ouattara. “He is alive” and will be “brought to justice,” he said in a telephone interview.

Initial reports indicated that French troops had captured Gbagbo and turned him over to Ouattara’s forces. But Bamba subsequently told reporters that the arrest operation had been carried out by forces loyal to Ouattara.

“I am clear about that,” he told reporters outside the U.N. Security Council. “That’s the Republican Forces of Cote d’Ivoire who have conducted the operation. Gbagbo is arrested. He is under our custody. . . . Right now, he is being brought to a safe location for the next course of action.”

Bamba said he was confident that as “the news will spread” of Gbagbo’s arrest, his forces “will stop fighting and they will lay down their weapons.” He added: “Those fighting are fighting for nothing, because this man is over, this era is over. We will address the serious problem of the humanitarian situation and the security situation . . . and restore public order.”

A spokesman for the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast said it has “confirmed that former president Laurent Gbagbo has surrendered to the forces of Alassane Ouattara and is currently in their custody.” The spokesman, Farhan Haq, said the U.N. mission was “providing protection and security in accordance with its mandate,” Reuters news agency reported.

For their part, Gbagbo’s supporters dismissed claims that the operation was carried out by Ouattara’s forces, noting that French and U.N. attack helicopters pounded the presidential palace and Gbagbo’s residence.

“It’s absolutely untrue,” said Zakaria Fellah, a Gbagbo loyalist and adviser, who claimed that French ground troops were deployed around the presidential residence. Fellah, who is in the United States, said he has been in constant telephone contact with Gbagbo loyalists in the vicinity of the fighting.

“The so-called regime of Ouattara’s forces were completely absent,” he said.

Any Ouattara loyalists who may have played any role in the arrest, he said, were merely “auxiliaries” of the U.N. and French troops. “This operation, the final assault, was carried out by the French troops,” he said.

Fellah said the manner in which Gbagbo was deposed will leave a legacy of deep resentment among his supporters, who will view this as another example of the former colonial power, France, using superior firepower to decide who will rule the country.

In London, British Foreign Minister William Hague urged Gbagbo’s captors to give him a fair trial.

“Mr. Gbagbo has acted against any democratic principles in the way he has behaved in recent months, and of course there have been many many breaches of any rule of law as well,” Hague told a news conference. “At the same time, we would say that he must be treated with respect, and any judicial process that follows should be a fair and properly organized judicial process.”

The arrest came after French armored vehicles closed in on the compound where Gbagbo had been holed up in a bunker while trying to remain in power despite Ouattara’s victory in the November election, the results of which were certified by the United Nations.

The column of more than two dozen armored vehicles advanced on the compound from a French base in Ivory Coast, a former French colony, a day after U.N. and French helicopters attacked Gbagbo’s forces, destroying its heavy weapons and damaging the presidential residence.

A U.N. Security Council resolution approved in March authorized the use of force in Ivory Coast. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Gbagbo of using heavy weapons against civilians in his effort to cling to power.

Branigin reported from Washington.

lynchc@washpost.com

braniginw@washpost.com

Prosecution Makes Its Case in Indonesian Cleric's Terrorism Trial

Brian Padden | Jakarta April 11, 2011

Abu Bakar Bashir

Photo: AP

Radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was arrested in August 2010 for allegedly helping set up and fund a new terror cell that was plotting high-profile assassinations and deadly attacks on foreigners, (File)

Prosecutors in Jakarta are expected to finish presenting their case this week in the trial of accused Indonesian terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir. The trial is seen by many as a test of Indonesia's judicial system to strongly deal with violent extremism.

The prosecution has filed seven charges against Abu Bakar Bashir under Indonesia’s Anti-Terror Law of 2002, including "inciting a terrorist act" and "trafficking in weapons and explosives for the purpose of conducting terrorism." If convicted, the radical Muslim cleric could face the death penalty.  He is also charged with supplying funds for terrorism, which carries a jail term of between three and 15 years.

The charges surround Bashir's alleged role in al-Qaida in Aceh, a terrorist group that was discovered operating a militant training camp in the northern Indonesian province on the island of Sumatra in 2009. According to Indonesian police, the group was planning attacks on foreign embassies and assassinations of Indonesian government officials, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Harkristuti Harkrisnowo is a criminal law professor at the University of Indonesia and is the director general of human rights at the Ministry of Law.

She says Bashir helped the government's case by defiantly admitting his support for violent Jihad, or holy war, to impose Sharia law in Indonesia.  She says the prosecution succeeded in showing Bashir's role inciting, funding and planning terrorist attacks.

"Bashir has confessed that Jihad is part of a deed of being an Islamic leader. He did confess that he generated money from different sources in order to fund this activity and I think several of the witness already provided testimony that they did support, they did give money for Jihad," she said.

Criminal lawyer Frans Winarta is a member of the National Law Commission of Indonesia and chairman of Peradi, the oldest lawyer association in the country.

He says the defense attorneys so far have not tried to directly to confront the evidence presented. Instead, he says, they have charged bias on the part of the judges and focused on procedural issues like allowing testimony from witnesses in other locations using a live televised video. Winarta says it was done for security reasons and has been used in other trials.

"It is unusual to do that but there is a precedent in the past that even in corruption cases you can do that, you see. But there is no regulation on that, unlike the law on terrorism. There was a provision that allows cross examination to let's say a distant cross examination, not in the court," Winarta explains.

The other line of defense, Winarta says, has been to claim that the Indonesian government has no jurisdiction in Aceh province, the area were al-Qaida in Aceh was operating. As part of a negotiated settlement to end a decades-long insurgency, Aceh province was granted a degree of autonomy in 2006 and has implemented a number of Sharia based laws. But these legal scholars say Aceh's autonomy does not apply in this case.

The defense will soon get the opportunity to make its case. The panel of three judges will then decide if they have heard enough to render a verdict.

Both legal experts say a conviction is likely, but Winarta does not expect Bashir to get the death penalty or even a life sentence. "The problem is, does the government have the courage to give a heavy sentence because if you look into other cases in the past. His sentence was, can you remember, two years or four years, right?" Winarta said.

In 2003 Bashir, a founder of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah movement, spent 20 months in prison for immigration violations. In 2005 he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for his role in the 2002 Bali terrorist attacks. This sentence was eventually reduced and the conviction overturned by Indonesia's Supreme Court.

Harkrisnowo says the judges will take into account both the 72-year-old Bashir's age and the degree of his involvement in terrorist activities if he is found guilty. "I think this is also related to the charges that were brought against him, which is not under the terrorism itself but in aiding and abetting. And secondly I think that the age of Bashir that is 70 something might be one of the issues that will be considered by judges as well," Harkrisnowo stated.

While a short sentence may frustrate some of Indonesia's allies in the war on terror, a guilty verdict of any kind could draw violent responses from Bashir's supporters. But Harkrisnowo and Winarta say the judicial system must not allow political ramifications to influence the proceedings, so that the verdict will be seen as independent and legitimate by most Indonesians.

ICG - Thailand: The Calm Before Another Storm?

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Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva

Full PDF report Media release

Asia Briefing N°121 11 Apr 2011

OVERVIEW

Nearly a year after the crackdown on anti-establishment demonstrations, Thailand is preparing for a general election. Despite government efforts to suppress the Red Shirt movement, support remains strong and the deep political divide has not gone away. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s roadmap for reconciliation has led almost nowhere. Although there have been amateurish bomb attacks carried out by angry Red Shirts since the crackdown, fears of an underground battle have not materialised. On the other side, the Yellow Shirts have stepped up their nationalist campaigns against the Democrat Party-led government that their earlier rallies had helped bring to power. They are now claiming elections are useless in “dirty” politics and urging Thais to refuse to vote for any of the political parties. Even if the elections are free, fair and peaceful, it will still be a challenge for all sides to accept the results. If another coalition is pushed together under pressure from the royalist establishment, it will be a rallying cry for renewed mass protests by the Red Shirts that could plunge Thailand into more violent confrontation.

The Red Shirt demonstrations in March-May 2010 sparked the most deadly clashes between protestors and the state in modern Thai history and killed 92 people. The use of force by the government may have weakened the Red Shirts but the movement has not been dismantled and is still supported by millions of people, particularly in the North and North East. Arresting their leaders as well as shutting down their media and channels of communication has only reinforced their sense of injustice. Some in the movement’s hardline fringe have chosen to retaliate with violence but the leadership has reaffirmed its commitment to peaceful political struggle. The next battle will be waged through ballot boxes and the Red Shirts will throw their weight behind their electoral wing, the Pheu Thai Party.

The protracted struggle between supporters of the elite establishment – the monarchy, the military and the judiciary – and those allied with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra began with the formation of the “yellow-shirted” People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in 2006. The September 2006 coup removed Thaksin from power but prompted the emergence of a counter movement: the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) or Red Shirts. The PAD’s campaigns to close down Bangkok airports in 2008 created deadlock that was resolved by a court ruling that removed Thaksin’s “proxy” party – People Power Party – from power. This led to the formation of the Democrat-led coalition government, backed by the military. Two years later, the ultra-nationalist Yellow Shirts have apparently split from their former allies and are protesting outside Government House against Abhisit’s alleged failure to defend “Thai territory” in the Preah Vihear border dispute with Cambodia. The PAD’s call for a “virtuous” leader to replace the prime minister has raised concerns that it is inviting the military to stage a coup.

Abhisit has stated he will dissolve parliament in the first week of May after expediting the enactment of legislation to revise key electoral rules. He is moving quickly towards the elections amid rumours of a coup. With the new rules and pre-poll largesse, the Democrat Party hopes to secure more seats and position itself to lead another coalition. Thaksin is still popular with much of the electorate and there is a strong possibility that his de facto Pheu Thai Party could emerge as the largest party. The formation of the government is likely to be contentious. The UDD has threatened to return to the streets if Pheu Thai wins a plurality but does not form the government. Obvious arm bending by the royalist establishment to this end is a recipe for renewed protests and violence. Should the opposite occur, and Pheu Thai has the numbers to lead a new government, the Yellow Shirts might regain momentum; they are unlikely to tolerate a “proxy” Thaksin government.

While elections will not resolve the political divide and the post-election scenarios look gloomy, Thailand nevertheless should proceed with the polls. A well-publicised electoral code of conduct and independent monitoring by local and international observers could help enhance their credibility and minimise violence during the campaign. If installed successfully, the new government with a fresh mandate will have greater credibility to lead any longer term effort to bring about genuine political reconciliation.

Bangkok/Brussels, 11 April 2011

US report cites worrying trend of governments increasingly trying to control the Internet

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Geeks

By Associated Press, Friday, April , 2:02 PM

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration warned Friday that governments around the world are extending their repression to the Internet, seeking to cut off their citizens’ access to websites and other means of communication to stave off the types of revolutions that have wracked the Middle East.

The State Department’s annual human rights report paints a worrying picture of countries “spending more time, money and attention in efforts to curtail access to these new communications outlets.” More than 40 governments are now blocking their citizens’ access to the Internet, and the firewalls, regulatory restrictions and technologies are all “designed to repress speech and infringe on the personal privacy of those who use these rapidly evolving technologies.”

Presenting the mammoth, 7,000-page report, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said curtailing Internet freedom meant violating the fundamental rights of expression, assembly and association.

“Democracy and human rights activists and independent bloggers found their emails hacked or their computers infected with spyware that reported back on their every keystroke,” Clinton said. “Digital activists have been tortured so they would reveal their passwords and implicate their colleagues.”

Clinton singled out Myanmar and Cuba for government policies that seek to preempt any online dissent by keeping almost their entire populations off the Internet.

But they are far from alone.

The report criticizes Saudi Arabia, a vital U.S. ally but one opposing the Obama administration’s push for democratic reforms in the Arab world, for spying on e-mail and chat rooms, and blocking sites about religions such as Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. The conservative Sunni kingdom also prevented people from reaching webpages about forms of Islam deemed incompatible with Sharia law and national regulations, according to the report.

During its election, the Sudanese government blocked access to a website monitoring votes.

Vietnamese authorities orchestrated attacks against important sites and spied on dissident bloggers, arresting 25 last year and forcibly entering the homes of others to confiscate computers and cell phones.

And the Chinese government, among the world’s most sensitive to any sign of dissent, tightly controlled content on the Internet and detained people for expressing critical views of the government or its policies.

Clinton noted that the report is being released during a wave of unrest across the Arab world. She said the U.S. has been “inspired by the courage and determination of the activists in the Middle East and North Africa and in other repressive societies, who have demanded peaceful democratic change and respect for their universal human rights.”

In Egypt and Tunisia, activists aided by Twitter and similar websites were able to mobilize massive demonstrations that brought down their long-time leaders. The Internet and mobile phone technologies have helped give voice to similar protest movements in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere. And violence continues in Libya, where strongman Moammar Gadhafi is refusing to heed the call of many nations to leave power.

The unrest has led many governments to reassess how open they want to be, fearful of seeing their authority challenged by individuals determined to gain a greater say in governance.

Michael Posner, U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, said the Obama administration is spending a lot of time trying to figure out what governments around the world are doing to control the Internet. He said two main methods are being employed.

“Some governments — the Chinese would be an example, the Iranians — put up a firewall,” Posner told reporters. But, “most governments aren’t going to shut down the Internet. They are simply going to go after the people who use it that are dissenters. So they hack into their computers, they take their cell phones when they are arrested and they grab the list of names that are in their address book. They use every technical capacity they have to invade privacy, to monitor what these dissenters are doing.”

To aid people seeking to speak out, the U.S. government is helping to finance circumvention technologies to avoid firewalls, he said. To deal with governments hacking computers or intimidating dissenters, the U.S. government has trained 5,000 people from around the world on how to leave less of a trace on the Internet.

“It’s one of the most innovative things we’re doing,” Posner said. “In a lot of cases, people who are using the Internet in these societies aren’t sufficiently mindful either of what their possibilities are technically to protect themselves, or what the risks are.”

Clinton highlighted a couple of other worrying trends in human rights around the world.

She said there has been a “widespread crackdown” on civil society activists, whose work is vital so that governments understand the needs of their people. Venezuela’s government has intimidated such groups through the courts and new restrictions on independent media. And in Russia, there have been violent crackdowns on campaigners and numerous attacks and murders of journalists and activists, she said.

In other places, the most pressing problem was the repression of vulnerable racial, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as gays and lesbians, Clinton said. She cited Pakistan as a problem country because blasphemy remains a crime punishable by death, and two government officials who sought to change the law were assassinated. Other extremist attacks have killed dozens of people just for practicing their religion in Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria, while Iranian authorities executed more than 300 people last year.

Among the countries which improved their respect for human rights, Clinton cited Colombia, Guinea and Indonesia.

She said the U.S. “will stand with those who exercise their fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly in a peaceful way, whether in person, in print or in pixels on the Internet.”

Internet firms wake up to federal privacy scrutiny

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By Cecilia Kang, Friday, April , 11:10 AM

As LinkedIn prepares to sell its stock to the public, the social network for professionals is warning of a potential threat to its business: Internet privacy laws.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month, the start-up said a push by federal regulators to create privacy rules “could deter or prevent us from providing our current products and solutions to our members and customers, thereby harming our business.”

Silicon Valley is on alert. As federal officials move closer to creating Internet privacy laws, companies that have enjoyed the freewheeling nature of the Internet find themselves under increased scrutiny.

Google, Facebook and marketer Epsilon are among the world’s biggest repositories of digital information, and the giants have long lobbied against privacy laws that would curb their ability to collect and share data. To do so would limit their business prospects, they say, and they argue that consumers want advertisers to slice and dice data to serve up more relevant ads.

Now those concerns are rippling across the entire Internet industry.

“No matter what size the company, they are seeing how a government inquiry can shut down a business or affect the future of others,” said Hemanshu Nigam, founder of the privacy consulting firm SSP Blue and former privacy head for MySpace. “Privacy is now a line item in business plans.”

That’s a change of pace for Web entrepreneurs, who are typically given a long leash by regulators to plug away at new technologies without the distraction of politics and policy in Washington.

But in the past year, Silicon Valley firms have seen a bevy of Web companies swept into federal investigations of alleged consumer protection violations and fraud.

This week, Internet radio site Pandora revealed that it was called into a broad federal grand jury investigation into the alleged illegal sharing of user data by a number of firms that create apps for the iPhone and Android devices. Days earlier, Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission on charges it exposed data through its Buzz social networking application without the permission of users. Last year, Twitter settled with the agency after an investigation found the micro-blogging site’s loose security allowed hackers to access user information.

The damage from those investigations comes in the form of legal costs and, in the case of Google, the mandate of regular privacy audits. But the bigger worry is how those inquiries hurt reputation, said venture capital investor Raj Kapoor of the $2.8 billion Mayfield Fund.

These days, he said, privacy policies have become integral to his decisions about new tech investments. He’s seeing start-ups with just a handful of employees appoint a privacy officer to ensure new products and services are designed with data protection in mind.

Google said last June it had appointed a director of privacy. Yahoo and Microsoft also have chief privacy officers.

“It’s just good business because it engenders customer loyalty,” Kapoor said. “If we don’t make these efforts. the government will enforce regulation, and as much as the private sector can do on our own, the better.”

The FTC wants to create a “Do Not Track” requirement for Web sites. That would allow users to block advertisers from following their movements online.

The idea “could significantly hinder our ability to collect and use data relating to listeners,” Pandora warned in its filing with the SEC.

But companies fighting new rules face a difficult battle as more privacy breaches are found.

This week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to investigate a data leak by Epsilon, an e-mail marketing firm, that exposed information about millions of consumers. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating Google for vacuuming up Wi-Fi user data by cars used to take photos for its Street Views mapping application.

The incidents, privacy advocates say, underscore the need for basic Internet privacy rules. They want the FTC to take a stronger hand in enforcement and are seeking to prevent companies from tracking users online, particularly through location-based services. They want companies to purge the information they collect within months and not share that data with advertisers and apps developers.

But the buying habits, music preferences, demographics and location of users are the kinds of rich details advertisers hunger for as they seek to increase the likelihood an ad for Weight Watchers or Mercedes-Benz will reach the right demographic and turn into real purchases.

Naveen Selvadurai, a founder of Foursquare, said he’s concerned new rules would not take into consideration technologies being developed to help solve security and privacy concerns.

He said keys have been developed in place of passwords for added security. Browser companies such as Mozilla and Microsoft have implemented their own “Do Not Track” technologies that block Web sites from following user activity.

On Foursquare, users’ locations are identified only when a user actively “checks in” to a location, unlike other services that constantly follow users through global positioning services.

“My main concern is that I don’t want people to misunderstand what they are applying rules to,” said Selvadurai. “Many interesting things can be done without over-reaching laws that aren’t fully thought out on the technology side.”

kangc@washpost.com

Related articles

• Pandora Issued a Subpoena for Possibly Violating Internet Privacy Laws (techland.time.com)
• Quick Hits: Feds Investigate Third-Party Mobile Applications (michaelfertik.com)
• Google Privacy Settlement Unlikely to Lead to Big Change (dailyfinance.com)
• Common Issues and Concerns About Internet Data and Network Security (brighthub.com)

Mistaken targets, poor intelligence: NATO’s handling of Libya campaign increasingly criticized

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NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen

By Associated Press, Friday, April , 8:12 PM

BRUSSELS — NATO holds its fire as Moammar Gadhafi’s forces advance 100 miles (160 kilometers) into rebel territory. It then blasts a rebel tank, saying it didn’t know the rebels had any — even though footage of rebels with tanks had been on YouTube for weeks.

NATO’s leadership of the Libya campaign is coming under increasing criticism for mistakes and ineffectiveness. Nine difficult days of leading the air war have brought into sharp relief the confusion, ambiguity and constraints of the alliance’s mission.

“This is something new. We haven’t had a significant military operation in which the Americans have taken a back seat for quite some time,” Malcolm Chalmers, a professor of defense at London’s Kings College, said Friday. “It really is unclear whether the Europeans can rise to that challenge.”

The NATO bombing of a rebel convoy on Thursday, in which five people died and at least one rebel tank was destroyed, appears to have crystalized the perception — to outsiders, at least — that the alliance is running a bumbling campaign.

Misfires are not uncommon during air operations. And in NATO’s defense, poor visibility from thick clouds and sandstorms whipped up by brisk sea breezes has limited the targets — particularly during the lightning counterattack by Gadhafi forces early last week. Government forces pushed about 100 miles (160 kilometers) eastward from Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte past rebel forward positions at Bin Jawwad, pushing the rebels back to Ras Lanuf and later to Brega, where the front is now.

Further complicating the military campaign has been a lack of human spotters on the ground — CIA agents in Libya are said to be gathering intelligence on the organizational structure of the rebel movement rather than coordinating airstrikes — and no established network for NATO and the ragtag group of rebels to communicate.

But as the rebels angrily accused the alliance of mistakes and neglect, NATO’s frustrated leaders refused to apologize Friday for the bombing of the tanks. And NATO commanders, in turn, are frustrated that the rebels see NATO as their proxy air force, rather than a force to protect civilians in Libya.

There is significant ambiguity about the scope and objective of the mission. The U.N. resolution under which the alliance operates requires it to protect civilians from Gadhafi’s forces while remaining impartial.

“There’s a very difficult trade-off for NATO here,” Chalmers said. “If they wait until they’re absolutely certain that they’ve got the targets right and that there are no civilians, Gadhafi’s forces will have vanished in the confusion by then.”

Adding to NATO’s woes, the U.S., which handed off its leadership role March 31, halted its combat role this week. That move is depriving NATO of certain kinds of aircraft that could prove useful in some of the close urban warfare battles between forces loyal to Gadhafi and rebels bent on his ouster.

NATO acknowledged Friday that its airstrikes had hit rebels using tanks to fight government forces in eastern Libya, saying it thought only Gadhafi regime forces had used heavy armored vehicles.

Yet if NATO did not know, that seems extraordinary: Video and photos from the start of the uprising against Gadhafi’s rule a month ago showed that some Libyan armored units had changed sides in the early stages of the rebellion, bringing their equipment with them.

On Friday, British Rear Adm. Russell Harding, deputy commander of the NATO operation, said it was difficult for allied pilots to distinguish between rebels and regime troops engaged in a series of advances and retreats between the eastern coastal towns of Brega and Ajdabiya.

“I am not apologizing (for the bombing),” Harding told reporters in Naples, Italy, where the alliance’s operational center is located. “The situation on the ground was and remains extremely fluid, and until yesterday we did not have information that (rebel) forces are using tanks.”

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed regret over the rebels’ loss of life, but he too offered no apology.

Complicating matters further for NATO, ground fire over the Libyan battlefields remains a serious threat to any jet making low-level passes — a must for pilots trying to identify enemy forces in a fast-changing situation.

A U.S.-led coalition initially launched the air war on March 19. Although the first such strikes on Libyan targets quickly destroyed most of Gadhafi’s fixed surface-to-air missile emplacements and the radars that control them, Gadhafi’s forces are believed to have hundreds of automatic cannon and shoulder-launched rockets — including sophisticated Russian-built Iglas — that can easily down planes like A-10 Thunderbolts or AC-130 gunships at low altitudes.

NATO learned this the hard way during the 1999 war in Kosovo, where a number of its attack jets were struck by ground fire and had to make emergency landings at nearby alliance-held airports. Commanders then ordered the pilots not to descend lower than 5,000 meters (15,000 feet), keeping them outside the killing range of guns but drastically reducing the effectiveness of their bombing attacks on Serbian ground forces.

Now, NATO jets are again operating mainly at higher altitudes, where Iglas and Gadhafi’s pickup-mounted 37mm and 20mm guns cannot reach them.

Harding said Friday that NATO jets had conducted 318 sorties and struck 23 targets across Libya in the past 48 hours. They have flown over 1,500 sorties since assuming overall command.

The jets have destroyed Gadhafi’s anti-aircraft missile defenses, T-72 tanks and ammunition dumps, Harding said. The NATO attacks have also targeted Gadhafi’s loyalist forces in the besieged city of Misrata, where rebels continue to hold out.

But critics have questioned NATO’s limited mandate of only protecting civilians directly threatened by Gadhafi’s troops, rather than trying to eliminate the threat completely by destroying the strongman’s regime.

“By not striking at the regime from the outset, Gadhafi was granted the initiative to embed his forces in urban settings hiding behind human shields in a form of guerrilla warfare,” said Barack Seneer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British military think tank.

“A no-fly zone is not equipped to contend with guerrilla warfare or with a stalemate that places rebels and loyalists at close proximity with one another,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said NATO is flying about the same number of combat missions in Libya as when the U.S. was part of the strike mission — so it should be no surprise that they provide only limited help to the Libyan rebels.

“With not having our own people on the ground, without having forward air controllers and observers and so on, and with the pilots trying to go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties, obviously it becomes more difficult to support ground operation,” Gates told reporters in Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Gates also said Gadhafi’s forces are using more civilian vehicles and clothing to blend in with rebel forces, making it even more complicated for NATO’s combat pilots to distinguish friend from foe.

Analysts suggest that neither side in Libya can deliver a decisive blow against the other anymore, and say the war has turned into a stalemate that could last for many months.

“The initial military operation achieved its objective of preventing a massacre of rebels and civilians in Benghazi,” Chalmers said. “But NATO inherited a much messier situation, and we are now entering a period in which politics and not the military will have to play a leading role.”

___

Don Melvin in Brussels, Robert Burns in Mosul, Iraq, and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood’s charitable works may drive political support

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Muslim Brotherhood logo

By Fredrick Kunkle, Friday, April , 12:44 PM

AWSEEM, Egypt — For needy families in this dusty village outside Cairo, Mohamad el-Seesy is a useful man to know.

A devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Seesy, 45, leads an Islamic charity that has burrowed deeply into the community by providing an array of religious and social services.

The organization has given a widow an oven for baking bread, bought uniforms for a girls school and even arranged marriages. For the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, Seesy has handed out meat from a camel that he and his volunteers butchered themselves.

Theirs is the face of the Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful Islamist force that had been officially outlawed under President Hosni Mubarak. Now, as the Brotherhood maneuvers in the hectic run-up to September elections, Seesy’s work offers a glimpse at the Brotherhood’s extensive roots in this society, which could give the controversial group an enormous advantage in shaping post-revolutionary Egypt.

“They are active all year round, active and working,” said Taha Haroum, 37, who runs a stationary supply shop here and knows Seesy and his charity. “They have the ability to knock on every door.”

Although the Brotherhood was a latecomer to the Jan. 25 uprising that eventually ousted Mubarak after nearly three decades in power, the organization has already emerged as one of the most formidable contenders in Egypt’s new political landscape, largely because of its well-disciplined and well-funded organization.

“They know where to get large numbers of votes,” said Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, a political science professor at Cairo University. “They could be the only organized group in the assembly.”

The Brotherhood, whose members have previously won elective office as independents because the organization was banned as a political entity, recently announced plans to form the Freedom and Justice Party. Last weekend, the leadership unveiled a platform that included frequent references to sharia, or Islamic law.

Unlike the platform the Brotherhood had promoted in an unsuccessful bid to establish a party four years ago, however, the group has disavowed positions banning women and Christians from the presidency. It has also backed away from a 2007 proposal to create a committee of clergy to vet new legislation, Sayyid said.

To allay fears of a power grab, the Brotherhood has said it will not offer candidates for president or for more than 35 percent of the new parliament’s seats.

Yet many Egyptians believe that the pledge might not mean much if candidates who are sympathetic to the Brotherhood decide to run for office as independents or on other party tickets.

A senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Abdul Moneim Abul Fotouh, has already told a local newspaper that he is considering running for the presidency as an independent.

“I would run independently because I would represent Egypt and not the Brotherhood,” Fotouh told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper. “But I will always feel fondly for the group.”

Regaining its footing

There are other signs that after some initial stumbles, the Brotherhood has found its stride in the fast-changing post-revolutionary period.

On the eve of the March 20 vote to amend Egypt’s constitution, Brotherhood members walked Awseem’s streets with bullhorns urging everyone to vote. They also reminded people of the importance of a 1980 constitutional provision that enshrines Islam as the sole origin of ethical authority, said Haroum, the shopkeeper.

Sayyid said the Brotherhood has emphasized its commitment to social justice for the poor, promising to build schools and hospitals — a populist message that resonates in a country where per capita gross domestic product is $6,200 a year.

Yet some Egyptians are wary of the Islamist movement and its potential to hijack a shift toward democracy that was achieved principally by others.

“I don’t like them ideologically because religion is peaceful, and they are extremists,” said Mustafa Abdel Hamid, 37, a butcher who said he intends to vote for more moderate and secular candidates.

But others discount those fears. If anything, these Egyptians say, the Muslim Brotherhood might become more pragmatic if actually forced to govern.

Playing down Washington’s worries

Seesy, in an interview, sought to dispel worries about the Brotherhood, which have been especially pronounced among policymakers in Washington.

Seesy, who grew up in Awseem before studying law at Cairo University, joined the Brotherhood in 1985. Detention and torture by Mubarak’s security forces only intensified his resolve to fight back by handling the cases of people targeted by the regime.

Seesy’s charity serves people regardless of their religion and has no formal affiliation with the Brotherhood, he said. But Brotherhood members hold the charity’s top leadership positions and fill its ranks of volunteers.

Seesy also took pains to say that his organization’s efforts on behalf of the poor flow from the heart and from the Koran, not from ulterior political motives.

But Seesy — who allows that he would not mind representing his village on a Muslim Brotherhood ticket if party leaders approved — acknowledged that good works make for smart politics: He knows that lending a hand or a prayer can build the kind of loyalty that is useful at the polls.

“It’s a normal choice that people feel about what is provided to them unconditionally,” Seesy said. “To that end, they get behind him to support him in any election, whether it’s local or parliamentary.”

That’s okay with Haroum, the shopkeeper, who said he does not believe the Muslim Brotherhood would remake Egypt into a theocratic autocracy like Iran. If given the chance, Haroum said, the Brotherhood could, over time, steer Egypt toward a society infused with religion, not dominated by it.

“Their strategy is that they will go step by step,” Haroum said.


kunklef@washpost.com

Special correspondents Muhammad Monsour and Sherine Bayoumi contributed to this report.

In Algeria, a chill in the Arab spring

Image via Wikipedia
By Anthony Faiola, Friday, April , 8:10 PM

ALGIERS — Only a few weeks ago, Algeria seemed on the brink of revolution, with thousands taking to the streets to demand the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But much like the crowd gawking at the few lonely activists who recently showed up for a political protest at a busy roundabout here, this North African country is now watching from the sidelines as the Arab spring tries to bloom.

Popular revolts are upending authoritarian systems across the region, spreading deeper into Arab countries with some of the harshest regimes, including Syria. But while there are democracy-fervent nations such as Tunisia, where the uprisings started and where sustained protests rapidly ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, there are many others, such as neighboring Algeria, where change is a moving target.

Instead of a clamor for democracy, doctors and teachers, auxiliary police officers and transportation workers are taking to the streets of this energy-rich nation with demands for higher wages, while pointedly sidestepping calls for political change.

Much as Saudi Arabia did to quell protests there, the Algerian government is literally trying to buy time, doling out economic concessions that include promises to double salaries for everyone from police officers to court clerks and pledges to give millions of Algerians free land and cheap loans.

In the face of gilded promises, the Algerian public, weary after a long history of violence, seems to be weighing the cost of change. Lacking broad support and crippled by infighting, those directly calling for Bouteflika to step down have diminished in number, with the pool of die-hard protesters still rallying every Saturday outnumbered by riot police nearly 50 to 1.

“Why am I not protesting?” laughed Nouider Bakhi, 45, a school administrator gazing at the small pro-democracy rally last Saturday from the cooling shade of a cigarette stand. “Because what works in Tunisia and Egypt may not work in Algeria. . . . Of course we want change, but what will it take to reach that goal? Look at Libya. It is tearing apart and people are dying. You think we don’t watch that violence and wonder which way it would happen here?”

Algeria’s retreat from full-scale revolt is key to calculations of just how broadly the historic uprisings sweeping the Arab world might ultimately transform the region. In many ways, Algeria and its far smaller neighbor, Tunisia, present a tale of two countries.

This nation, sprawling from the blistering Sahara to the Mediterranean Sea, became the region’s first after Tunisia to see the outbreak of unrest, with riots over high food prices erupting in January inside the dense French colonial slums towering above the glistening Bay of Algiers.

In Tunisia, similar riots triggered a movement soon joined by unions, opposition leaders and members of the middle class to drive out Ben Ali, who fled the country Jan. 14. But here, the Algerian government has managed to check public rage through a combination of measured tolerance for social protests, food subsidies and pay raises, as well as minor political concessions.

It may not work for long. With youth unemployment at 30 percent and millions of workers laboring in a precarious black market, Algeria could still explode, observers say. But for millions of Algerians — ruled since 1999 by the authoritarian Bouteflika, who fronts a hidden power structure of intelligence officers and military generals — the uprisings pose a particularly tough choice.

Memories of past wars

An Arab spring of sorts budded here in 1988, with a revolt against a one-party system that led to a much-heralded political opening. But within four years, the nation descended into civil war with Islamist extremists, ushering in more than a decade of terror that claimed upwards of 160,000 lives. That came only three decades after the end of a war for independence from France in which the death toll topped 1 million.

Fear of another cycle of violence is holding back Algerian society now. Standing near a faded belle epoque building in Bab el-Oued — a teeming slum where riots over food prices, poor housing and the lack of jobs broke out in January — Medhi Fadlane, 25, is one of the angry Algerians restless for change. But even he, like many others in the neighborhood, sounds a note of caution about pressing for it too fast.

“I remember the bombs that went off when I was younger, and I don’t want to go back to that,” said Fadlane, a physics major. He later continued, “I feel troubled in my heart about having no future, and I blame the government. We want them out, but I think it might take a little while. We don’t want chaos, either.”

In addition, uncertainty over Bouteflika’s real power — it remains unclear whether he runs the feared intelligence services or their chiefs run him — has thus far prevented him from becoming the obvious single target of street protests.

“If Bouteflika were ousted it would make no difference,” said Karim Tabbou, secretary general of the opposition FFS party. “This is not Libya. Algeria is a country with a thousand Gaddafis.”

Impatience over economy

To be sure, Algerians enjoy somewhat more freedom than, say, Tunisians did under Ben Ali. State television is strictly controlled here, and Bouteflika won his third term in 2009 with 90 percent of the vote. But newspapers are able to openly criticize the government in ways that would bring jail time in some Arab countries. And the government has mostly employed batons and cattle prods against demonstrators, not guns.

Though most here doubt his word, Bouteflika has promised unspecified political reforms. He has lifted a 19-year-old state of emergency, but the move had little real impact because most of the government’s police-state powers are enshrined elsewhere in Algerian law.

Yet Algeria’s opposition is weak and divided. Though as many as 3,000 to 5,000 rallied for democracy on Feb. 12 in what was meant to be a sustained show of force, the movement has not drawn mainstream support.

But the force of the historic uprisings across the region is without doubt fanning social unrest here that could still turn political. Over the past four weeks, more than 70 unions and trade groups have challenged bans on demonstrations in Algiers by rallying for higher wages and better contracts from the government.

But many, such as Ain Defla, 43, are clear about the scope of their demands. Protesting with other teachers recently, she said: “I don’t care who the president is. We just need our economic demands met.”

To ease the pressure, the government is making extraordinary promises. A plan is being launched to offer virtually any Algerian 21 / 2 acres of land and cheap loans to farm it. Towns and cities are allowing the young and unemployed to set up unlicensed fruit and clothing stalls. Massive sums are being pledged to aid many more in establishing businesses.

But opposition leaders say even the oil-rich government cannot possibly make good on all its promises and is only prolonging a broader social uprising. It may come down to whether the government can indeed satisfy the likes of Youcff Meskine, an unemployed 30-year-old in Bordj Menaiel, a town 50 miles east of Algiers where angry youths have torched the tax office and vandalized a government job center.

Like many in town, he was promised a loan by government officials, which he planned to use to start a house-painting business.

But “that was two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen any of the money yet,” Meskine said. “But trust me, if they don’t keep their promises this time, Algeria is going to blow up.”

faiolaa@washpost.com

Our Cowardly Congress

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

This isn’t government we’re watching; this is junior high.

It’s unclear where the adults are, but they don’t seem to be in Washington. Beyond the malice of the threat to shut down the federal government, averted only at the last minute on Friday night, it’s painful how vapid the discourse is and how incompetent and cowardly our leaders have proved to be. A quick guide:

• Democrats excoriated Republicans for threatening to shut down the government, but this mess is a consequence of the Democrats’ own failure to ensure a full year’s funding last year when they controlled both houses of Congress.

That’s when the budget should have been passed, before the fiscal year began on Oct. 1. But the Democrats were terror-stricken at the thought of approving spending bills that Republicans would criticize. So in gross dereliction of duty, the Democrats punted.

• Republicans say they’re trying to curb government spending and rescue the economy — but they threatened to shut down the government, even though that would have been both expensive and damaging to our economy.

The shutdowns in late 1995 and early 1996 cost the federal government more than $1.4 billion, the Office of Management and Budget reported at the time. Much of that sum was for salaries repaid afterward for work that employees never did because they were on furlough. There were also lost fees at national parks and museums: tigers must be fed at the zoo, even if nobody is paying to see them.

It’s particularly reckless and callous to threaten a shutdown when the economy is already anemic. Among the federal workers and contractors potentially losing paychecks, some would miss payments on their homes, their credit cards or their children’s college tuition.

• Republicans are posturing against abortion in a way that would increase the number of abortions.

Conservatives have sought to bar federal funds from going directly to Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund. The money would not go for abortions, for federal law already blocks that, and the Population Fund doesn’t provide abortions. What the money would pay for is family planning.

In the United States, publicly financed family planning prevented 1.94 million unwanted pregnancies in 2006, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health. The result of those averted pregnancies was 810,000 fewer abortions, the institute said.

Publicly financed contraception pays for itself, by reducing money spent through Medicaid on childbirth and child care. Guttmacher found that every $1 invested in family planning saved taxpayers $3.74.

As for international family planning, the Guttmacher Institute calculates that a 15 percent decline in spending there would mean 1.9 million more unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 more abortions and 5,000 more maternal deaths.

So when some lawmakers preen their anti-abortion feathers but take steps that would result in more abortions and more women dying in childbirth, that’s not governance, that’s hypocrisy.

• The House Republican budget initiative, prepared by Representative Paul Ryan, would slash spending and end Medicare and Medicaid as we know them — and it justifies all this as essential to confront soaring levels of government debt. Mr. Ryan is courageous to tackle entitlements so boldly, and he has a point: we do have a serious long-term debt problem, and Democrats haven’t had the guts to deal with it seriously.

Unfortunately, the new Republican initiative would worsen government debt problems, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The C.B.O. (whose numbers Republicans regularly use to attack Democrats) estimates that with current trends, debt will reach 67 percent of gross domestic product in 2022. But it finds that under the Republican plan, because of increased tax cuts, debt would reach 70 percent of G.D.P.

In other words, the Republican position is that America faces such a desperate debt crisis that we must throw millions under the bus — yet the result is more debt than if we do nothing.

What does all this mean? That we’re governed by self-absorbed, reckless children. Further evidence comes from a new study showing that American senators devote 27 percent of their press releases to “partisan taunts” rather than substance. “Partisan taunting seems to play a central role in the behavior of many senators,” declared the study, by Justin Grimmer of Stanford and Gary King of Harvard.

A bewildered Chinese friend asked me how the world’s leading democracy could be so mismanaged that it could shut down. I couldn’t explain. This budget war reflects inanity, incompetence and cowardice that are sadly inexplicable. I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter

Massive Breach at Epsilon Compromises Customer Lists of Major Brands

By Mike Lennon on Apr 02, 2011 

 

Due to the growing list of brands disclosing they've been compromised as a result of this breach, I’m going to go ahead and tag this as a massive breach. And I only expect it to get bigger as more announcements come out from Epsilon customers. Last night we reported on a breach at marketing services provider, Epsilon, the world’s largest permission-based email marketing provider. Initially we wrote that the breach had affected Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery retailer.
It turns out that Kroger is only one of many customers affected by the breach at Epsilon.
Epsilon sends over 40 billion emails annually and counts over 2,500 clients, including 7 of the Fortune 10 to build and host their customer databases.
SecurityWeek has been able to confirm that the customer names and email addresses, and in a few cases other pieces of information, were compromised at several major brands including the following:

• Kroger • TiVo • US Bank • JPMorgan Chase • Capital One • Citi • Home Shopping Network (HSN) (added 4/3 @10:22am) • Ameriprise Financial • LL Bean Visa Card • Lacoste • AbeBooks • Hilton Honors Program • Dillons • Fred Meyer • Beachbody (Makers of TRX) • TD Ameritrade • Ethan Allen • Eileen Fisher • MoneyGram • TIAA-CREF • Verizon • Marks & Spencer (UK) • City Market • Smith Brands

• McKinsey & Company  • Ritz-Carlton Rewards  • Marriott Rewards • New York & Company • Brookstone • Walgreens (Again!) • The College Board (added 4/3 @8:20am) • Disney Destinations • Best Buy • Robert Half • Target • QFC • bebe Stores • Ralphs • Fry's •             1-800-Flowers       • Red Roof Inn • King Soopers • Air Miles • Eddie Bauer • Scottrade • Dell Australia • Jay C

Some may dismiss the type of data harvested as a minor threat, but having access to customer lists opens the opportunity for targeted phishing attacks to customers who expect communications from these brands. Being able to send a targeted phishing message to a bank customer and personally address them by name will certainly result in a much higher “hit rate” than a typical “blind” spamming campaign would yield. So having access to this information will just help phishing attacks achieve a higher success rate.
A Marriott Rewards & Ritz Carlton Rewards spokesperson told SecurityWeek that their customer names, email addresses, and member point balances were exposed:

"We recently discovered that one of our third parties’ computer systems was tampered with. Tampering with our systems by an unauthorized person or persons is an illegal act and we reported this incident to a law enforcement agency who is currently investigating this matter. The unauthorized person(s) had access to email addresses and member point balances. They did not have access to member addresses, account logins and passwords, credit card information or other personal data," the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Correction: The Marriott Rewards spokesperson contacted us on Sunday to correct their initial statement, saying that member point balances were not disclosed after all.

Citi also warned customers over Twitter about the incident, Tweeting the following: "Please be careful of phishing scams via email.  Statement from Citi for our valued Customers regarding Epsilon & email" with a link to the following statement: "Because e-mail addresses can be used for "phishing" attacks, we want to remind our customers that Citi uses an Email Security Zone in all our email to help them recognize that the email was sent by us. Customers should check the Email Security Zone to verify that email they have received is from Citi and reduce the risk of personal information being 'phished.'"
As the initial disclosure by Epsilon occurred late in the day on Friday, I expect several more brands to be announcing that they’ve been affected by the breach as well. When asked to comment, Epsilon has refused to provide additional details on what other brands may have been affected.

Plus - 

http://www.securityweek.com/epsilon-confused-about-what-personally-identifiable-information-pii

Epsilon: Confused About What Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Is

By Mike Lennon on Apr 07, 2011

Epsilon’s parent company, publicly traded Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS), today issued a follow-up statement to the recent massive data breach, but provided little information beyond what the company had already stated in its initial disclosure of the breach.
What’s interesting, however, is that Epsilon continues to claim that no Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was compromised. Being the world's largest permission-based email marketer, I would think that they, more than anyone, would know what PII is AND what can be done with it.
What amazes me is that the subheading of the release dives directly into how no PII was compromised:

“Investigation Continues to Confirm Compromise Limited to Email Addresses and Names; No Personal Identifiable Information (PII) Compromised”

According to the Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information, published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, examples of PII include:

• Name, such as full name, maiden name, mother‘s maiden name, or alias

• Address information, such as street address or email address

According to Wikipedia, Personally Identifiable Information, when used in information security, is defined as “information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual.”
It appears to me that Epsilon is a bit confused on the definitions, and what can be done with the personally identifiable that WAS compromised and in the hands of the attackers.
According to Joris Evers, director of worldwide public relations for McAfee, “The bad news is that clever attackers could use what has been breached to gain more information. The Epsilon breach exposes millions of consumer names and e-mail addresses, potentially associated with particular household brands that these consumers do business with. This collection could be a treasure trove for cyberattackers who could use the information to con unsuspecting individuals out of more valuable information such as credit card numbers and home addresses.”
“While Epsilon is not disclosing the exact number of emails impacted, we’re likely talking about hundreds of millions of exposed email addresses. Because attackers can link these email addresses to banks and retailers the email owner actually does business with, the likelihood of a successful attack is significantly increased,” said Steve Dispensa, PhoneFactor CTO and co-founder. “Phishing emails that appear to come from a person’s bank or a retailer they regularly receive emails from are more likely to be acted upon them. Unfortunately it is very difficult for the average person to distinguish between a dangerous and a safe email. The result is likely an increase in the number of successful phishing attacks over the next few months.”
Josh Shaul, CTO at Application Security, Inc. says people need to pay attention to what is being sent to them. “Everyone should be on high alert that their inboxes will very likely be hit hard with phishing attempts and need to be extra vigilant on what they click on", said Shaul.  “To be safe, we might be better off if we just deleted any and all emails that appear to have been sent from breached companies for the immediate future. Epsilon has an estimated 2,500 customers. So far we only know of 50 that were affected. There are likely to be many more and this has the potential to get very ugly, very fast."
Epsilon said that it’s working with Federal authorities, as well as other outside forensics experts, to both investigate the breach and to ensure that any additional security safeguards needed will be promptly implemented.
Epsilon is in an unfortunate situation. As SecurityWeek columnist Terry Cutler recently wrote, “RSA Breach: Not the First, Not the Last,” and just a few weeks later is the first big event since. You can be sure that the Epsilon breach won’t be the last big breach as well.
Maybe financial details aren’t directly in the hands of attackers. That’s a good thing. But the last time I checked, a name was a damn good way to identify someone.

 

 

 

World Digital Library: “A Portal to World History”

Image via Wikipedia

Posted on April 4, 2011 by ID Team

A number of stats and facts follow.
From the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress:

The WDL mission statement provides a good overall description of the project, “The World Digital Library makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.”

To date, there are about 1,460 digital items [in over 40 languages] included in the World Digital Library, in a variety of formats – books, photographs, films, sound recordings, manuscripts and maps.  Among the content highlights are many rare items:  illuminated books and manuscripts from Europe, Arabic scientific manuscripts from the National Library and Archives of Egypt, early photographs of Latin America from the National Library of Brazil, and what is generally considered to be the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman named Murasaki Shibuku in the early 11th century.

 And how is the content chosen?  According to John Van Oudenaren, the director of the project, each WDL partner proposes content to contribute.  A content selection committee, made up of representatives from partner institutions, has established standard selection guidelines. Each institution contributes the digitized objects and associated metadata.  Van Oudenaren is pleased with the results, and says “we’ve been very happy with the quality of the content selected by the partner institutions for the WDL. Many items are top treasures, such as the famous “Devil’s Bible” from the National Library of Sweden or the Codex Colombino from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. We’ve also had very nice contributions from our U.S. partners: Yale University, the John Carter Brown and the Brown University libraries, the State Library and Archives of Florida, and several others. And a lot more is in the pipeline or has been pledged.”

The Library of Congress is managing the overall project, including coordination of the technical side – that is, content transfer, image processing, cataloging, translation, website design and application development. The Library also coordinates the governance of the project which includes establishing a charter, organizing partner meetings, securing funding, and recruiting new partners.  The WDL currently has 122 partners from 66 countries, including many prominent national and university libraries.  “We ultimately hope to have at least one partner from every country,” said Rago.

The site has garnered some accolades, even in its first year, as it was named one of PC Magazine’s “Top 100 websites for 2009.”  As of the end of 2010, over 13 million site visitors viewed 90 million pages.  Of the seven WDL languages, the Spanish version of the site has received the most use.

Direct to World Digital Library

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