Daily News Channel
In the 1960s and 1970s, Big Tobacco was widely viewed as the model for effective special-interest lobbying. “My own view is that in many ways, the tobacco industry invented the kind of special-interest lobbying that has become so characteristic of the late 20th- and earlier 21st-century American politics,” said Allan Brandt, dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
A car bomb exploded Friday morning in Spain’s northern Basque region, killing a person in the vehicle, officials said. The steel workers started striking last Thursday after one contractor axed 51 jobs while another employer on the same site was recruiting. The dispute has prompted a number of wildcat strikes at power stations and oil refineries around the United Kingdom.
Around six hundred workers at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in Northern England have been told they no longer have jobs after staging what the company calls an "unofficial, illegal walk out." The steel workers started striking last Thursday after one contractor axed 51 jobs while another employer on the same site was recruiting. The dispute has prompted a number of wildcat strikes at power stations and oil refineries around the United Kingdom. The workers’ union GMB, which represents around half of the sacked workers, estimates that, as of late yesterday, up to 4,000 other workers at four power stations and three oil refineries had walked off the job in sympathy
Some Iranian-Americans, watching the post-election unrest in Iran, say the tug-of-war between the people and their hardline government has come to a head after three decades. “I am absolutely convinced that what we are witnessing is a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said Dr. Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.
A web designer in London was amazed to discover that Iranian election protesters are attacking the Iranian president’s Web site using software he developed in his spare time, he told CNN Wednesday. With anti-government activists in Iran sidestepping official attempts to silence them on the Internet by posting photos, videos and blogs on sites like Facebook and Twitter, others are using a site that automatically refreshes a Web page every few seconds, potentially overloading the host server. The page reboot software means that dissidents can “attack” sites with a barrage of hits — known as a denial of service attack — causing them to appear to users as “unobtainable.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Web sites was one of those displaying this message on Monday, according to Britain’s Channel 4 News, although on Tuesday it was loading correctly.
Move Along, There’s Nothing to See Here, June 16, 9:12 p.m. IRT The Financial Times reports that “Iran on Tuesday banned journalists working for foreign media from leaving their offices to cover protests in the capital.” Wire services also announced that due to the ban on their photographers covering the demonstrations, they were forced to relay only images from official Iranian sources.
Hunch, a site that launches for the public Monday, will consider your quandary by getting to know you, asking you a series of questions and then spitting out three decisions. Another site, Let Simon Decide, makes a similar attempt.
Stumped on a tough decision? New Web sites are there to help. Hunch, a site that launches for the public Monday, will consider your quandary by getting to know you, asking you a series of questions and then spitting out three decisions.
When Obama Administration Iran czar Dennis Ross and top U.S. Iran negotiator William Burns were planning the details of the President’s outreach to Tehran with senior European diplomats earlier this spring, they discussed a possible nightmare scenario for the June 12 presidential elections in Iran
Despite the convulsions in Tehran’s streets in the aftermath of a disputed presidential election, Iranians — and the smart folks in Washington — know that Iran’s presidency is not the seat of executive power.