29. December 2005 - Trojan alert over unpatched Windows flaw

Hackers have created a range of Trojan programs which exploit a dangerous new Windows Meta File vulnerability. The vulnerability is rated critical, and so far, no patch has been issued. The WMF vulnerability exists in computers running Microsoft Windows XP with SP1 and SP2, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and stems from a flaw in a utility used to view picture and fax files. The security flaw might be exploited by inducing victims to view maliciously constructed sites, particularly where IE is used as a browser, or when previewing *.wmf format files with Windows Explorer. Windows PCs infected by malware from the Trojan-Downloader Agent-ACD family are liable to download other malware programs onto a compromised machine

25. December 2005 - Happy Birthday WWW Browser ...

THE INTERNET browser turns 15 today. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first Web client, or browser editor, on a NeXT computer called World Wide Web in 1990 with the aim of building a creative tool that would allow people to use the Internet. He apparently finished the code on Christmas Day, 1990 while all his associates were feasting on mince pies and getting into the port. He released the program to a number of much sobered up people at CERN in 1991. Later that year they started to port WorldWideWibble from NeXT to the bit more common C language and created the new browser libwww and the whole lot took off.

03. September 2005 - EU offers oil supplies to US ...

The EU today offered to provide oil to the US if requested as America ran short of fuel after the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, said the US administration had approached several EU member states individually for help.
Mark Tran - Friday September 2, 2005 - Guardian Unlimited

30. August 2005 - That's the way to go ...

Saskatchewan's certified organic farmers are taking Monsanto and Bayer Crop Science to court in a precedent setting class action lawsuit to stop genetically engineered wheat and to get compensation for losing canola as a crop due to genetic contamination.
Today OAPF () received the decision by Honourable Mr. Justice Cameron of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal granting them "Leave to Appeal" to Judge Gene Ann Smith's May 11, 2005 decision [Click here to read more about this].

28. August 2005 - New Orleans orders people to flee as hurricane nears

Authorities in New Orleans today took the unprecedented step of ordering the evacuation of the city in anticipation of the arrival of the biggest storm in its history (Hurricane Katrina). The 3 million residents were told to flee as Hurricane Katrina, will bring winds of up to 175mph and will threatening catastrophic flooding by blewing in surge waves from the Gulf of Mexico.

19. August 2005 - Mo Mowlam died today ...

'Smart and loyal ... but her greatest gift was her normality'
  Baroness Boothroyd, former Speaker of the Commons and a close friend
Mo Mowlam, who has died today aged 55, will always be identified in the public record as the Northern Ireland secretary at the time of the Good Friday agreement in 1998. But she will probably more appropriately be remembered for her courage, humanity and an extraordinary degree of public popularity, almost certainly unmatched by any other politician of her era.

15. August 2005 - New Internet worm affects all Windows users

A NEW MALICIOUS WORM which affects Windows users has been detected. The new worm uses holes in the security of Windows 95 all the way through to XP and will allow malicious attackers access to your PC. Security company Trend Micro said in a release, "hundreds of infection reports were sighted in the United States and Germany." Supposedly the infection is spreading, and quickly. [Read more]

11. August 2005 - Windows 2000 users, patch now or else...

That's the blunt warning from Microsoft Corp.'s security response center after "detailed exploit code" for a wormable flaw started circulating on underground security Web sites. The software maker rushed out an advisory late Thursday night to warn that unpatched Windows 2000 users are at the biggest risk of a PC takeover attack. The vulnerability that worries Microsoft the most is an unchecked buffer in the Plug and Play service that can be exploited as a privilege escalation or to run remote code as administrator.

09. August 2005 - Windows 2000 users, patch now or else...

On all levels – human rights abuse, healthcare, medical, educational, and psychological – Iraqi children are enduring immense hardship and suffering. A recent investigation by Neil Mackay of the Sunday Herald, (01/08/05) has revealed crimes against humanity.

01. August 2005 - Food Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa

Niger faces an unprecedented food crisis this year. It is the second poorest country in the world, according to the United Nations. Failed rains and a locust infestation wiped out much of last year’s crop of millet, the staple cereal of the Sahel. Now, 20% of children under five are malnourished with a significant proportion of these severely and there are still two and a half months to go before the next harvest. Local food supplies have run out, government stocks of grain are exhausted and there are not enough seeds to plant for this year’s harvest. Of a population of 12 million, an estimated 3.6 million people are directly affected with over 800,000 children suffering from hunger. Despite the international response that is now getting underway, the situation has reached a critical point which could lead to disaster.

29. July 2005 - Astronomers Discover "10th Planet"

After 75 years of speculation and false leads, it finally seems to have happened. A team of astronomers using the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory and the 8-meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, has discovered the largest Kuiper Belt object (KBO) ever.

"It's definitely bigger than Pluto." So says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of the new planet in the outer solar system.

28. July 2005 - One WAR ends ..."

After more than 3,600 deaths over the past 36 years, the Northern Ireland "Troubles" appear to be drawing to a close after the Irish Republican Army formally announced a historic end to its "armed campaign" and said it would start dumping its huge arms cache.

The IRA announcement, called "a step of unparalleled magnitude" by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is expected to lead to renewal of stalled political talks on power sharing between Catholics and Protestants in the Northern Ireland assembly.

06. July 2005 - "Uff" ... Victory for common sense ...

Euro parliament kicks out software patent law ... By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 06 July 2005, 13:38
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT has rejected the introduction of the software patent directive by a 648-18 vote. The directive was intended to give firms patents EU wide rights, but faced sustained opposition from campaigners who had thought it favoured multinationals. Florian Muller, who founded the nosoftware.patents.com ginger group last year, said: "A nightmare is over. Parliament put an end to the lies of the EU Commission and so many others". He claimed that that the EU Commission and many European governments denied the directive would allow software to be patented, but "that was the whole idea". The vote confirms earlier guidance by the European Parliament in February this year that the Commission was on the wrong track. The Legal Affairs Committee asked the Commission to re-start the directive. But, claimed Muller, Jose Manuel Barroso, the EU Commission president, declined such requests. Today's decision, he said, meant that the Commission had alienated the Parliament forcing the MEPs to show that it was the final arbiter. "That demonstrated to the Commission that it had better not ignore the Parliament again in a situation like that," he said ...

!!! STOP Software Patents !!!

03. April 2005 - Big Bright Jupiter ...

When the sun sets on Sunday, April 3rd, step outside and look east. That big bright "star" near the horizon ... is Jupiter. The giant planet is at its closest to Earth all year long on April 3rd, only 667 million km away.
If you have a telescope, point it at Jupiter. Even small backyard 'scopes are big enough to show the planet's cloud belts and its four largest moons. In this image, taken March 24th by Francisco Rodríguez Ramírez of the Canary Islands, a solar eclipse is in progress. Jupiter's moon Europa blocks the sun behind it and casts a dark shadow on Jupiter's cloudtops.

31. March 2005 - Election Fraud in America ...

Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered.
A Group of University Professors Urges Investigation of 2004 Election
Officially, President Bush won November's election by 2.5%, yet exit polls showed Kerry winning by 3%[1] <#_ftn1>. According to a report to be released today by a group of university statisticians, the odds of a discrepancy this large between the national exit poll and election results happening by accident are close to 1 in a million.

30. March 2005 - SOLAR MINIMUM ...

Late last year, solar physicists declared that solar minimum is coming. It certainly is. Monthly-averaged sunspot numbers have reached their lowest levels since 1997.
If this trend holds, solar minimum should arrive in 2006 followed by a rapid ascent back to solar maximum in 2010. It is widely believed that sunspots vanish and solar flares stop--completely--during solar minimum. Not so. Occasional big sunspots will unleash flares and spark auroras in 2006, just not so often as in recent years.

01. January 2005   . . .  HAPPY  NEW  YEAR  2004  . . .