Not only do chocoholics have to worry about their health and weight, now they have ethical reasons to fret.
According to Nina Brenjo of Alertnet, cocoa exports from the Ivory Coast are funding both the nation’s government and rebels.
Alright, it was Brenjo quoting the Financial Times. But her blog’s where I found the story.
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns says Iran is sending weapons to the Taliban. It is the first time (to my knowledge) a senior American official has made such a claim.
The likes of Tony Blair have said “elements” within the Iranian regime were sending arms to Afghanistan, but this looks like a direct accusation against the government as a whole.
What really gets to me though is that the US is busy arming Sunni Arab groups to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.
“(Iran is) a country that’s trying to flex its muscles,” Burns said, “but in a way that’s injurious to the interests of just about everybody else in the world. I think it’s a major miscalculation.”
And how the US flexes its muscles is in everybody’s best interests? Arming militants to fight militants is a perfect calculation?
Iran has denied aiding the Taliban, saying it makes no sense for a Shi’ite regime to back a Sunni group.
With patience already frayed on both sides regarding Iran’s nuclear program, Burns’ comments are only adding fuel to the fire. Sometimes I wish politicians would just shut the fuck up.
Sudan has agreed to the deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur. The mission will consist of 17,500-19,600 soldiers and 6,000 police.
Not only that, but the Sudanese government has backed the need for a ceasefire and a more inclusive political process.
Now, those are all pretty words but of course there’s no guarantee the plan will be fully enforced. The UN is always stretched and strapped for cash, and the AU has long said its resources were fairly thin. But the fact that Khartoum is weighing in behind the deal is cause for celebration.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in the last four years, while about two million have fled their homes. Khartoum says only 9,000 have died since the conflict erupted and denies enlisting the Janjaweed militia to crush the rebellion.
BBC said there was no concrete timetable for deployment, which would not be before next year. There is also no definitive decision on the make-up of any such force, although it is likely to have as many African soldiers as possible. Sudan wanted nothing to do with an all-UN force as it considered that a Western invasion.
I am cautiously optimistic. This is huge news, but the follow-through may be sorely lacking. There’s no guarantee Sudan will fully co-operate with the mission, although the fact it has agreed to the force implies it should have government backing. The phrase is a cliché, but we will have to wait and see.
Fingers crossed that there could be a (relatively) happy ending to this one.
It’s as if someone peered inside my mind!
Strange Maps is fast becoming one of my favourite blogs, largely because of my love of the unusual.
Check out the most recent post, a map of the US where each state is named for countries with a similar Gross Domestic Product.
Ireland equates with Nevada and is 21st in the list with a GDP of $203bn (E152bn).
Google is to limit the amount of time it retains users’ search data to 18 months from 18-24 months.
The Financial Times sees this as a concession to the EU, which wrote to the internet giant last month asking Google to justify its policy.
Google’s move relates to terms entered in the search engine and the address of various servers, but not more personal information it has collected with users’ express permission.
However, company’s privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said future data retention laws may obligate the firm to keep the data for 24 months after all. But hey, at least they’re not keeping it indefinitely any more.
Fleischer wrote on the official Google blog:
“The internet is a global medium, and the principles at stake – privacy, security, innovation and legal obligations to retain data – have an impact beyond Europe, and outside of the realm of privacy. These principles sometimes conflict: while shorter retention periods are good for privacy, longer retention periods are needed for security, innovation and compliance reasons. We believe we’ve struck a reasonable balance between these various factors.”
You can read his full post here, where he also outlines the reasons why Google believes it should retain search data.
At least it’s movement on the company’s part to tackle concerns over how it uses data — a British watchdog at the weekend branded the firm among the worst on the web when it came to users’ privacy.
I’d rather they keep my search data for no longer than six months, but there you go. I enjoy my privacy and have been known to defend it fiercely — surely I’m not the only one?