Worst jobs in science

A list of the top 10 worst jobs in science includes Whale Feces Researcher and Elephant Vasectomist but check out number 6:

Number 6: Microsoft Security Grunt
Like wearing a big sign that reads “Hack Me”

Do you flinch when your inbox dings? The people manning secure@microsoft .com receive approximately 100,000 dings a year, each one a message that something in the Microsoft empire may have gone terribly wrong. Teams of Microsoft Security Response Center employees toil 365 days a year to fix the kinks in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and all the behemoth’s other products. It’s tedious work.

Each product can have multiple versions in multiple languages, and each needs its own repairs (by one estimate, Explorer alone has 300 different configurations). Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless. According to the SANS Institute, a security research group, Microsoft products are among the top five targets of online attack. Meanwhile, faith in Microsoft security is ever-shakier—according to one estimate, 30 percent of corporate chief information officers have moved away from some Windows platforms in recent years. “Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place,” says Marcus Sachs, the director of the SANS Internet Storm Center. “They have to patch so much software on a case-by-case basis. And all in a world that just doesn’t have time to wait.”

Wow. I don't envy these guys!

Links for 21-6-2007

Martin Moore Blog: The twilight zone between blogs and journalism
Excellent post, the example of a newspaper citing a blog in a journalistic work. Yet another example of blurring the line between blogging and journalism.

BB Editor's Blog: A year on

Editor's blog one of the favorite blogs and certainly one of the best ways to learn about editorial transparency, it's has been a year since it's launched - well done.

washingtonpost - 'West Bank First': It Won't Work

An interesting piece, while the authors don't go into the reasons of Hamas outburst and US efforts to undermine the democratically elected Hamas (in fact they seem to agree with this). But they make a good point, that Western efforts to isolate Hamas in Gaza and flood the West Bank with money isn't going to work.

links for 19-06-2007

BBC: African dream of a better life
Tale of the Africans trying to escape poverty at any cost, thousands of them have been abused and died. But others have made it only to discover it isn't as good as they thought it was.

BBC: Sudanese students flock to learn Chinese Another example of Chinese influence in Africa.

BBC: Mass wildlife migration in Sudan Wonderful news for both Sudan and conservationists, millions of wild life which missing because of the conflicts in the horn were found in southern Sudan.

Ethiopian brutality in Ogaden

A recent NYT report sheds light at Ethiopian brutality in Ogaden. Ogaden is the western region of greater Somalia and most of the population, more than 8 million, belong to Ogaden tribe, a branch of Darood tribe. Most Somali tribes also herd their camels across the colonial border between Somalia and Ethiopia. European colonizers, England, Italy and France, decided to cut up Somalia into pieces, of course that had a lot to do with the fact that Somalis are all Muslims. Ethiopia wasn't colonized because it was Christian and was later given as rewarded Ogaden. For more than half a century the people of Ogaden have suffered Ethiopian brutality and a failed Somali state on the other side. In recent years Ethiopian troops increased their brutality of jailing, tortuing and killing young Ogaden men suspected of being ONLF members. Their families have also been punished as well but worst of all is the rape of the rape of women by Ethiopian soldiers.

In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will. It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence.

Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them. “Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”

Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.

Ambaro, 25, now living in Addis Ababa, said she was gang-raped by five Ethiopian soldiers in January near the town of Fik. She said troops came to her village every night to pluck another young woman. “I’m in pain now, all over my body,” she said. “ I’m worried that I’ll become crazy because of what happened.”

Many Ogaden villagers said that when they tried to bring up abuses with clan chiefs or local authorities, they were told it was better to keep quiet.

Moualin, a rheumy-eyed elder, said Ethiopian troops stormed his village, Sasabene, in January looking for rebels and burned much of it down. “They hit us in the face with the hardest part of their guns,” he said.

The five-pointed star in the Somali flag represents the five parts of greater to Somalia and a call to reunite them (North and South already reunited; Ogaden, Djibouti and north east Kenya). The ONLF has been fighting for years to liberate Ogaden after the Ethiopian government refused to give the region the right to secede

The armed resistance began in 1994, after the Ogaden National Liberation Front, then a political organization, broached the idea of splitting off from Ethiopia. The central government responded by imprisoning Ogadeni leaders, and according to academics and human rights groups, assassinating others. The Ogaden is part of the Somali National Regional State, one of nine ethnic-based states within Ethiopia’s unusual ethnic-based federal system. On paper, all states have the right to secede, if they follow the proper procedures. But it seemed that the government feared that if the Somalis broke away, so too would the Oromos, the Afar and many other ethnic groups pining for a country of their own.

Ethiopian government fears most a strong Somalia next door because they know it will be difficult to hold on to this region. Unfortunately Ethiopian troops are now in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia.

Aljazeera inteviews Hamza Yusuf

Somalia: house-to-house search and weapons destroyed

The government has been running house-to-house weapons search in Mogadishu, something they should have done long ago. They even searched the houses of former warlord Osman Atto and former president Abdulqasim, both rumored to oppose the government. The government handed the confiscated weapons to Ugandan peace keepers to destroy.

This is a positive step which will hopefully improve the security of the city. In another news the reconciliation conference scheduled for this month has been delays once more because of the security situation. The US has donated $4 million to cover the expenses of the conference.

The first Somali president and African leader to peacfully hand over power dies

The first Somali president, Aden Abdulle Osman (effectionately known in Somalia as Aden Cadde) has died in Kenya at the age of 99. He was the first African leader to peacefully hand over power:

Aden Abdulle Osman will be remembered not only as Somalia's first president; he was also the first African leader to hand over power to a democratically elected successor. Elected in 1960, when the former British and Italian Somali colonies united to form the Republic of Somalia, Osman lost the 1967 presidential election and, unlike so many African leaders before and since, accepted his defeat graciously and gave up power.

In Somalia, where there is today a serious crisis of leadership, Aden Adde was probably the only Somali politician admired and respected by all Somalis regardless of clan and region.

Documentary on Qat and Yemenis in Sheffield

An excellent documentary on Yemenis continuing the tradition of chewing Qat in Sheffield, here is part 1 and part 2. As Rageh Omar explains Somalis also consume Qat, there's a daily Qat flight from Kenya to London. It's one of the most destructive social habits in Somalia.

Israeli troops shoot Hebron family

Al Shabab, a terrorist splinter group from the Islamic Courts

For the first time in 17 years, Mogadishu is entirely under the control of a Somali government - be it with Ethiopian occupation. Ethiopian troops defeated insurgent militias in the streets of Mogadishu in April, but the security situation hasn't improved. Instead, the militias are now carrying out suicide bombings, daily bomb attacks and assassinations against government officials.

Splinter groups from the Islamic Courts are conducting these attacks. It's becoming clearer that Islamic Courts were only an umbrella for diverse groups each with a different agenda. One of those groups was the clan militias, led by a warlord nicknamed "Indha Adde", who held the biggest force within the Islamic Courts, they were used to defeat the warlords allied with the US. Another group was the Islamic Courts militia, mostly militias of the powerful businessmen in Mogadishu. Then there's the hardcore Al-Qaeda-type group, mostly Somalis who fought overseas alongside the Taliban and elsewhere, and unlike the other groups their aim was to capture the whole of Somalia. However, the leadership of the Islamic Courts were more realistic, and that's what kept this group in-check.

Once the Islamic Courts were ousted, the clan militias and most of the Islamic Courts militias give up their weapons and many joined the police or the military. But hardcore militant groups were set free, there was no more Islamic Courts leadership to constrain them. They renamed themselves Almujahidin Al-Shabab. This group is committed to fight, not only the Ethiopians, but any Somali government they don't consider Islamic (their brand of Islam).

So far they've carried out at least four suicide bombings, a tactic unknown before in Somalia. The most recent of these suicide attacks was against prime minister Ali Ghedi, though it wasn't the first against a senior government official. The latest suicide bomber was barely a teenager, it was painful to watch his prerecorded message. Though they might claim otherwise, leaders of the Islamic Courts have no control over this group.