The UAE has decided to suspend Blackberry service in their country:

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has said that BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry Web-browsing services in the UAE will be suspended as of October 11.

The suspension is a result of the failure of ongoing attempts, dating back to 2007, to bring BlackBerry services in the UAE in line with UAE telecommunications regulations.

To coincide with the announcement, the UAE's state news agency WAM has produced a detailed comparison of telecommunications regulation in the UAE, UK and US.

Both telecommunications operators, Etisalat and du,were informed of the decision earlier today. The notification was delivered with an instruction to ensure minimal consumer disruption in the provision of alternative services.

Initially, I glanced over the story and didn't think much about it. But then I saw this article at Ars Technica and realized there is more than meets the eye:

(O)ne of the selling points of the Blackberry—strong encryption between the hardware and RIM's e-mail servers in Canada—hasn't sat well with the UAE's security services. After previous attempts to subvert the encryption, the UAE has now decided to simply ban sales of the devices. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is considering blocking the use of RIM's instant messaging service.

The problem, from the security service's perspective, is that the e-mails never spend any time where the UAE's security services can examine their contents. In what appeared to be an earlier attempt to get around this issue, Etisalat attempted to get RIM users on its network to install some software that simply took any e-mail that had been decrypted and forwarded it on to a server within the UAE. This effort was quickly discovered, however, and RIM washed its hands of the whole thing publicly.

Now, the UAE has apparently decided that if you can't subvert them, you might as well kill them. As of October, RIM devices will be cut off from Internet access when using carriers based in the UAE. The security services would apparently accept the company setting up a local proxy server for monitoring, but the user population is small enough that RIM may be comfortable walking away from that market instead. But there are some signs that the UAE isn't alone in this. A BBC report on the same topic mentioned that some Blackberry services would be banned by Saudi Arabia; both mentioned India being concerned with its inability to monitor traffic from the devices.

So because the UAE could not install spyware on the cellphones as they had hoped, they simply banned the phones. The plot thickens. It should also be assumed that other phones available at UAE have not had this problem. But that wasn't the only thing that struck me. I remember a conversation I had with some other bloggers at the time that when Obama was stubbornly refusing to give up his BlackBerry and I remembered the acronym RIM. I did a quick search through my inbox and found this link:

On February 9, 2006, the US Department of Defense (DOD) filed a brief stating that an injunction shutting down the BlackBerry service while excluding government users was unworkable. The DOD also stated that the BlackBerry was crucial for national security given the large number of government users.

National security? Encrypted spyware? We know that telecom companies acceded to demands by the Bush/Cheney administration to wiretap Americans land lines without a warrant. Could RIM have made a similar agreement with the DOD, but not with the government of UAE? After all, when he was elected in 2007, Sarkozy banned the use of BlackBerrys for his cabinet for security reasons, citing the fact that the servers reside in the UK and US.

Défense Nationale (SGDN), the French security agency, says the BlackBerry is "a problem of data security." The French Cabinet and staffs have been barred from using the popular handheld.

The Financial Times says the French foreign service got rid of its BlackBerries some time ago, but that other ministries had ignored guidance and were still using them.

French paper Le Monde reportedly was quite explicit regarding who might be seeking to spy on the secrets of France, pointing the finger firmly at the USA's National Security Agency interception spookshop. There was no mention of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6) or Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), but one can be sure they too have figured in the SGDN's decision.

Obviously, it's virtually impossible to confirm anything when we start getting into the arena of spyware and foreign governments, but I'd say there's enough fragments there to say that this is not simply a case of the UAE not finding the Blackberry technology up to its standards.

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Sean Hannity was on quite a roll last night. First he suggested President Obama step down. Then, in a later segment, he actually contended that Iraq owes the United States all the money we spent on invading and occupying it for the past seven years:

Hannity: I've actually had an idea -- no one listens to little ol' Sean Hannity. But I'm like -- I think the Iraqis, with all their oil resources, need to pay us back for their liberation. Every single solitary penny. Because we really need --

Johnson: I really thought that from the beginning. I thought that that was kind of, part of the equation.

Hannity: It should have been part of the deal.

Johnson: Should have been part of the deal.

Hannity: I think it should be now. I think they owe us a lot for that.

Yeah, I bet the families of the estimated 100,000-plus innocent civilians who we "liberated" from their existence on the planet would be more than happy to "pay us back."

Especially considering that no one in Iraq asked for us to liberate them -- we just did it on our own, illegally and under false pretenses.

It's true that Dick Cheney and Co. envisioned using the proceeds from the oil money they believed would soon be flowing through American auspices in Iraqi oil fields would cover the costs of the war -- and of course, that money never materialized, leaving American taxpayers holding the bag.

Funny how Hannity developed a case of amnesia regarding those facts.

I’m one of over five million American citizens living outside of the United States. I’ve been an ex-pat now for well over twenty years, and have no particular plans to ever return to the country of my birth. This does not make me any less of an American, I love my country and I am probably more politically active as well as conscientious about voting than a good many of my fellow countrymen living in the States. So what would it really take for me to renounce my American citizenship?

Seven hundred and forty-three expatriate Americans gave up their citizenship in 2009, according to the Federal Register, three times the total for 2008. The number of Americans leaving the country to live somewhere else has also grown, rising sharply during the Bush administration, from a million and a half in 1990, to 5.2 million today. While some of that has been fueled by an antipathy toward the Republican dominated government over the previous decade, much of it now is a consequence of the major disastrous fall-out of the Bush administration – draconian security measures and economic frustration.

The United States is the only industrialized country that taxes its citizens on income earned abroad, even if they are allowed the first $91,400 tax free for foreign income. For many, like myself, that’s not too much of a problem as I don’t earn that much in either the US or the country where I currently reside, New Zealand – I’m still a classically poverty stricken doctoral student. Someday, it might, however. But as well as being Constitutionally questionable, as it is, in effect, taxation without representation, it is a major concerns for many expat Americans, particularly those trying to secure their children’s futures in such uncertain times.

What has affected me are stringent regulations which banks are increasingly willing to impose, citing the Patriot Act as justification, to make it a lot more difficult for expats with American bank accounts to take money out of the States. I’ve had to make Our Kid a joint account holder for my American bank account, as it requires that I have a U.S. address… which as an American expat, I obviously don’t. Some banks have closed expat’s accounts unilaterally if the account holder can’t certify a US address. If I move more than $10,000 at a time out of my American account into New Zealand, the Patriot Act requires the bank to notify Homeland Security, which can hang up the transfer of funds for days, even weeks. Recently, my aunt sent money to help me pay for tuition, as I’m doing my degree at a New Zealand university. My Kiwi bank sent specific instructions tailored for the American banks, as the process for a US to a foreign bank is far more complicated than for any other country. While the bank in the US showed the funds had left her account, it took far longer for the money to arrive in my Kiwi bank account via an electronic transfer than it took for an ordinary New Zealand paper cheque I’d deposited the same day, causing both my aunt and myself needless worry.

I agree with Kathleen Rittenhouse, in Canada, who had her bank account in the US closed, her funds frozen. The Patriot Act has now placed any expat American into the same category as terrorists, arms dealers and money launderers.

The Americans Abroad Caucus, headed by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D – New York) and Representative Joe Wilson (R- South Carolina) has repeatedly appealed these regulations to the Treasury Department. ‘That Americans living overseas are being denied banking services in U.S. banks, and increasingly in foreign banks, is unacceptable,’ Ms. Maloney said in a letter Friday to leaders of the House Financial Services Committee, requesting a hearing on the question. Mr. Wilson added that pleas from expats for relief ‘continue to come in at a startling rate.’

‘It seems the new anti-terrorist rules are having unintended effects,’ Daniel Flynn, who lives in Belgium, wrote in a letter quoted by the Americans Abroad Caucus in the U.S. Congress in correspondence with the Treasury Department.

But in response to the AAC’s complaint, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner responded that ‘nothing in U.S. financial law and regulation should make it impossible for Americans living abroad to access financial services here in the United States.’ Banks however, Treasury officials note, are free to ignore that advice. Which they are doing, in droves.

American citizens abroad – more than five million of us and rising, and most of us active voters of both parties – are being treated like hostile agents by our own government and our banks, as well as being doubly taxed on income. Many of us have had enough of being treated like cash cows on the one hand and second class citizens on the other. Relinquishing citizenship is relatively simple. All you have to do is appear before a U.S. consular or diplomatic official in a foreign country and sign a renunciation oath.

That’s it. A hell of a lot simpler than dealing with absurd banking regulations and being double taxed on income, innit?

Some of our brightest, best educated and highly talented, productive citizens work outside the States, many have served in our military and are as patriotic as any Congressman from Arizona or San Diego. But they’ve had enough, and the numbers of those waiting to meet with consular officers to formalize renunciations are growing.

‘It is a sad outcome,’ Ms. Bugnion said, ‘but I personally feel that we are now seeing only the tip of the iceberg.’

What would it take for me to renounce my American citizenship? I don’t know. But that it would even occur to me that this could ever be an acceptable thing is a depressing indictment at how difficult it’s become to be an American abroad.

Bush's puppet. Afghanistan leader Karzai says he may consider joining the Taliban. No, really.

– Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday.

Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting Saturday with selected lawmakers — just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year's disputed elections.

Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president — who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government — is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.

"He said that 'if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban'," said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.

"He said rebelling would change to resistance," Marenai said — apparently suggesting that the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.

Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week had rejected legal reforms that would have strengthened the president's authority over the country's electoral institutions.

Two other lawmakers said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.

The White House is not very happy at his remarks. I mean we're spilling a lot of blood and treasure at the expense of this war and the American public already hates it so what does he think he's accomplishing by saying this?

The lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of political repercussions, said Karzai also dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the United States. He told them he had already explained himself in a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that came after the White House described his comments last week as troubling.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said reports Karzai threatened to abandon the political process and join the Taliban insurgency if he continued to receive pressure from Western backers to reform his government are troubling.

"On behalf of the American people, we're frustrated with the remarks," Gibbs told reporters.

The lawmakers said they felt Karzai was pandering to hard-line or pro-Taliban members of parliament and had no real intention of joining the insurgency.

Peter Galbraith, the former US Ambassador to Afghanistan hinted that Karzai was partaking in Afghanistan's vast drug business.

Former U.N. envoy to Afghanistan Peter Galbraith on MSNBC's Daily Rundown this morning charged that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's "continued tirade raises questions about his mental stability." He then added, "In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports." Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium from poppy -- used for heroin production.

He certainly is acting erratically. If you know anything about Afghanistan and their immense drug trade then you have to figure that a good portion of the people there are probably stoned out on drugs.

Spencer Ackerman, in tweet, says that Galbraith is not being serious:

Dear Entire Media Landscape: Peter Galbraith is not being serious re Karzai being on drugs. Read this int & calm down http://bit.ly/aziYoW

Well, sort of:

Concerns over peak oil — that moment when oil demand exceeds global oil supply — has produced little more than a disdainful eye roll from Saudi Arabia. After all, the largest oil producer in the world has far more pressing problems — like peak demand, for example.

In fact, Saudi leaders are so worried that demand for oil could peak in the next decade they’ve done the unexpected — and slightly ironic — by calling for an economy that includes renewable energy. It’s an interesting reversal coming from a country that has poo-pooed investments in renewable energy in the past.

Let’s not forget Saudi Arabia — along with OPEC, the oil cartel it’s a member of — was a major opponent of greenhouse-gas reduction proposals during the climate summit in Copenhagen last year. At the time, OPEC’s chief said oil-producing countries should be compensated for lost revenues if any agreement coming out of Copenhagen leads to cuts in the use of oil. No, really.

Earlier this month, OPEC producers had the gall to ask the world to give them more clarity and certainty about long-term oil demand in order to justify additional investment in new production capacity, according to the Petroleum Economist. As Robert Rapier over at R-Squared notes, that’s simply not the way the world works. The best any business can do is try and estimate where demand will end up and then make decisions from there.

Now, the renewable energy that so worried Saudi Arabia before has suddenly become a worthy investment. The country is starting its first carbon-capture project and is investing in other industries including aluminum and steel in an effort to diversify its heavily crude-focused economy, according to a Bloomberg report. Mohammad al-Sabban, oil minister adviser and the lead negotiator at the climate talks, said the country is working to become the top exporter of energy, including alternative forms such as solar power.

Saudi Arabia is growing annually at about 4.2%, and needs jobs for the influx of foreign workers (estimated at about 7.5 million currently). They are reaching out to the private sector to provide those jobs, both through alternative energy and tourism.

Oh, the irony that Saudi Arabia is recognizing the need for alternative forms of energy more readily than our Republican Party.

What a shame we didn't get to vote here, huh? Yes, despite some heavy-duty pressure (and the implied threat of being blocked from membership in the European Union), the tiny country voted no to a crushing repayment plan for the British and Dutch debts incurred by a failed Icelandic bank. That plan would have required each Icelander to pay around $135 a month for eight years — about 25% of the average family's salary:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Icelanders blew whistles and set off fireworks in the capital as referendum results Sunday showed they had resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan to repay Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic bank.

Voters in the tiny Atlantic island nation defied both their parliament and international pressure to display their anger at how their nation was being treated.

"This is a strong 'No' from the Icelandic nation," said Magnus Arni Skulason, co-founder of a group opposed to the deal. "The Icelandic public understands that we are sovereign and we have to be treated like a sovereign nation — not being bullied like the British and the Dutch have been doing."

[...] Britain and the Netherlands want to be reimbursed for money they paid their citizens with deposits in Icesave, an Internet bank that collapsed in 2008, along with most of Iceland's banking sector. Most ordinary Icelanders feel the repayment schedule was too onerous.

[...] The overwhelming margin reflected Icelanders' simmering anger at bankers and politicians as the country struggles to recover from a financial meltdown. President Olafur R. Grimsson — who sparked the referendum by refusing to sign the repayment deal agreed by Iceland's parliament — said Icelanders resented having to pay for the actions of a few "greedy bankers."

He said, however, the British and Dutch would get their money back eventually.

"The referendum was not about refusing to pay back the money," Grimsson told the BBC. "Iceland is willing to reimburse those two governments, but it has to be on fair terms."

Iceland, a volcanic island with a population of just 320,000, went from economic wunderkind to fiscal basket case almost overnight when the credit crunch took hold.

And you'll never in a million years guess how that happened! (Stop me if this sounds familiar.)

They became a free-market poster child. By deregulating the banking and financial sectors, in just five years, Icelanders saw their wealth increase by 45 per cent. The banks went from domestic lending to international financing, until foreign financing made up two thirds of their debt. Then it all collapsed.

The new left-of-center government has been trying to negotiate a plan to repay $3.5 billion to Britain and $1.8 billion to the Netherlands as compensation for funds that those governments paid to around 340,000 of their citizens who had accounts with Icesave, an Icelandic Internet bank that offered high interest rates before it failed along with its parent, Landsbanki.

Failure to settle the dispute could have repercussions for Iceland's economic recovery. The International Monetary Fund has agreed to loan Iceland $4.6 billion, and the agreement is linked to repaying its international debts.

[...] Many Icelanders remain angry at Britain for invoking anti-terrorist legislation to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks at the height of the crisis.

Oh yeah, about that last part. Iceland Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir has demanded an apology from the UK for freezing their assets. I wonder how long she'll have to wait?

I don't blame them for being furious. Even Icelandic companies that had nothing to do with their banks had their assets frozen by the U.K. government.

And of course, the International Monetary Fund is a flock of vultures. Their Structural Adjustment Programs usually increase poverty in the countries they "help," because one of the main conditions is that the governments sell off their national assets - usually to western corporations at fire sale prices.

So good for Iceland! Too bad our Congress doesn't have that kind of spine.

The Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago has kept a Doomsday Clock since 1947, gauging how serious the degree of global nuclear, environmental and technological is. It has been as far back as 17 minutes to midnight in 1981 with the Soviet/US Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and as close as 2 minutes to midnight in 1953, when the US and Soviets were actively testing thermonuclear devices within months of each other.

Since 2007, the Doomsday Clock has stood at 5 minutes before Midnight, a response not only to North Korea's testing of nuclear devices, but of the generalized fear of non-state players getting nuclear materials and of the lack of real policy to combat global climate change.

Until today, when the BAS pulled the clock back one minute to acknowledge the more positive direction of the global community:

In a statement supporting the decision to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock, the BAS Board said: “It is 6 minutes to midnight. We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear

weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable. These unprecedented steps are signs of a growing political will to tackle the two gravest threats to civilization -- the terror of nuclear weapons and runaway climate change.”[..]

“This hopeful state of world affairs leads the boards of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — which include 19 Nobel laureates — to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock back from five to six minutes to midnight. By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization.”

“A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government’s orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty …”

Watch the right-wingers go nuts with this one.

Five years later, the people hit by the Boxing Day tsunami are still struggling to recover:

Countries across the Indian Ocean are marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people.

In Indonesia's Aceh province, where 170,000 died, thousands held prayers in public mosques and private homes.

On Thai beaches, Buddhist monks chanted prayers as mourners held pictures of loved ones lost five years ago.

Hundreds of tourists also returned to Phuket island to mark one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

A moment of silence was observed on Phuket's popular Patong Beach marking the time the tsunami struck.

German survivor Ruschitschka Adolf, 73, and his wife Katherina waded into the turquoise seawater to lay white roses as a tribute to the dead.

"We [still] come and stay here because we are alive," Mr Adolf told Reuters news agency.

Other ceremonies were expected in the 14 countries hit by the massive wave.

In the meantime, agencies from around the world are still trying to rebuild in a place where all the boundaries have disappeared.

Forgive me for going Godwin-esque from the get-go, but in reading this article, I couldn't help but think of Europe in the 1920's, with the word "Muslim" replacing "Juden":

Switzerland approved Sunday a ban on new minarets from being built, with the referendum initiated by far-right politicians picking up strong support.

To the dismay of the Muslim minority here, some 57.5 percent of voters who cast ballots and 22 out of 26 cantons voted to ban the towers or turrets attached on mosques from where Muslims are called to prayer.

Far-right politicians across Europe celebrated the results, while the Swiss government sought to assure the Muslim minority that a ban on minarets was "not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture."[..]

They said that the minarets -- of which Switzerland has just four -- were not architectural features with religious characteristics, but symbolised a "political-religious claim to power, which challenges fundamental rights."

Having won a double majority on turnout of 53 percent, the initiative will now be inscribed in the country's constitution.

"The Federal Council (government) respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted," said the government, which had firmly opposed the ban, in a statement.[..]

Switzerland has had an uneasy relationship with its Muslim population, which makes up some five percent of its population of 7.5 million people. Islam is the second largest religion here after Christianity.[..]

"The most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community," said Farhad Afshar, who heads the Coordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland.

The Conference of Swiss Bishops also criticised the result, saying that it "heightens the problems of cohabitation between religions and cultures."

It's a little disconcerting to me that memories in Europe could be so short as to forget another generation--not that long ago--when this kind of of fear-based bigotry became institutionalized. And sadly, with the success of this Swiss ban, conservatives in the Netherlands are considering a similar ban.

David Neiwert has written about this institutionalized fear of the other, and if I may be so lazy as to co-opt his (and Orcinus blogging partner Sara Robinson's) breakdown of the construct to make some group the feared "Other". Read and see how familiar this sounds:

Continue reading »

(h/t Mugsy)

I guess the UK is sick of hearing we namby-pamby Yanks brag on our health care system and trash theirs, disregarding the fact that the UK pays significantly less per capita for health care and achieves far better outcomes. And they've decided to push back:

Britons love to mock their National Health Service — just don't let anyone else poke fun at it.

They particularly resent the British universal health care system being used as a punching bag in the battle against President Barack Obama's proposed reforms.

Conservatives in the United States have relied on horror stories from Britain's system to warn Americans that Obama is trying to impose a socialized health care system that would give the government too much power.

In an interview widely interpreted here as an attack on the U.K., Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told a local radio station last week that "countries that have government-run health care" would not have given Sen. Edward Kennedy, who suffers from a brain tumor, the same standard of care as in the U.S. because he is too old.

The superheated debate broadened this week to include renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a British icon who suffers from motor neurone disease. A U.S. newspaper wrote that under the British system Hawking would be allowed to die — an assertion that Hawking said was absurd.

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking said, joining the ranks of those praising Britain's system.

Britons say the country's universal health care system, which provides free medical care, is far fairer than the current American system.

Behind the criticism is a popular British view that American society represents unbridled capitalism run amok, with catastrophic results for people left behind in the boom times like those of the last two decades.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who is usually pro-American, blasted U.S. health care Friday, suggesting the delivery system is fine for the wealthy but not for the poor.

"If you can't pay, you have a very, very second-rate service or you can't get health service at all," he said.

Britain's left-leaning government has responded to criticism offering selected statistics that show England out performing the U.S. in health spending per capita, life expectancy and more.

Newspapers have jumped in, with the Daily Mirror calling the United States "the land of the fee" because of the way patients are forced to pay for medical services.