Wikileaked ; Is Pakistan's more important fight on the streets of Karachi?; Obama and Michelle's Mumbai darshan plans; Google to Combat India Piracy

Is Pakistan's more important fight on the streets of Karachi?

Posted By Andrew Swift Thursday, October 21, 2010


Violence has engulfed Karachi since Oct. 16, with close to 90 dead across the city. An Oct. 17 special election to replace assassinated Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) legislator Raza Haider boiled over long-held tensions between the MQM and the Awami National Party (ANP). Haider was shot dead at the Jamia Mosque in Nazimabad, a suburb of Karachi, on Aug. 2.

Street violence is nothing new to Karachi; the army was forced to restore order in the 90's, and clashes have oft-occurred in the last few years. After Haider's death, MQM leaders insinuated that the ANP was responsible, sparking street clashes which left dozens dead. (The MQM and ANP, along with the Pakistan People's Party [PPP], rule Sindh province in a coalition government; on the national level, the PPP and the MQM rule together.) The MQM retained the seat as the ANP boycotted the poll.

While affairs in Pakistan's northwest grab the Western headlines, the street battles in Karachi are more important to the Pakistani state. The MQM-ANP violence is not merely political, but carries ethnic undertones. The MQM is largely composed of muhajirs, Urdu-speakers who fled India during the 1947 partition, while the ANP is backed by Pashtuns. Karachi has long been overwhelmingly muhajir, and politically dominated by the MQM, but Pashtuns -- including Afghan refugees and internally displaced Pakistanis, as well as economic migrants -- have entered the city in increasing numbers over the last three decades. Apparently, familiarity does breed contempt in Pakistan's most important city.

Karachi has been spared the widespread suicide bombings that have hit cities like Peshawar and Lahore, but the MQM has blamed increasing levels of violence on Pashtun migrants, alleging that they've both brought Taliban elements with them and are not doing enough to prevent the "Talibanization" of Karachi. The ANP, not suprisingly, disputes this. (For an example of MQM feelings towards the ANP, read this press release on the recent violence from its head, Altaf Hussain -- the ethnic code isn't very subtle.)

So while the attention paid by the U.S. military, politicians, and media to Pakistan focuses almost solely on the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), it is ethnic conflict, not militant Islam, that is a bigger danger to the stability of the Pakistani state. For now, the killings are alleged to be targeted -- though this round-up from Dawn seems to point to randomized violence as well. Karachi was entirely shut down Wednesday, and Pakistan can ill afford a situation in which its most vital economic hub is cut off.

The Pakistani military seems to have come to the conclusion that if they can keep the Afghan Taliban onsides by neglecting to crack down, they're willing to pay the cost of whatever the Pakistani Taliban -- at the moment, outside their nominal control -- dishes out. But the ethnic conflict exploding on the streets of Karachi this week may turn out to be the far more serious threat.

Wikileaked

Posted By David Kenner Friday, October 22, 2010


The much anticipated Wikileaks document dump of 400,00 classified U.S. military documents, which cover events during the Iraq war from 2004 to 2009, is upon us: The Guardian and the New York Times have both just published their assessments after reviewing the files.

Both newspapers seem to highlight the same broad takeaways from the documents: Iraqi civilian deaths were higher than the Bush administration suggested, the United States largely ignored prisoner abuse conducted by Iraq's security services, and Iran played an extensive role in training and arming the anti-U.S. insurgency -- even raising fears in the military that it may be planning to provide chemical weapons to Shiite insurgents.

One big winner out of the document dump may be Iraq Body Count, an organization whose methods for counting Iraqi civilian casualties in Iraq were consistently criticized by the Bush administration as being unrealistically high.

There's one more issue that, while certainly not as important as other considerations, I'm curious about: After weeks of preparation and hype, why would Wikileaks and major news outlets settle on 5 p.m. on Friday as the time to release these documents? Presumably, the New York Times and the Guardian are savvy enough to know that a Friday afternoon isn't exactly the time to attract the largest possible readership. Just one more sign that, while Wikileaks may aspire to revolutionize journalism, its media strategy leaves something to be desired.

Barack and Michelle's Mumbai darshan plans
23 Oct, 2010, 09.38AM IST,MUMBAI MIRROR

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle will be extremely busy in Mumbai, upon landing on November 6 for a two day India visit. As the world’s most powerful man and his wife zip around the city visiting the 26/11 memorial on Marine Drive, the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mani Bhawan and other locations in south Mumbai, the security obviously will be water-tight .

Adding to the Obamas’ busy schedule is Michelle’s likely visit to Kamathipura, where she will meet commercial sex workers on the invitation of an NGO. The highprofile visit is likely to inconvenience the citizens, as there could be a complete clampdown on traffic on some main roads of south Mumbai and sanitisation of buildings flanking them.
The Obamas will stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel, and his itinerary practically means Marine Drive will be shut for vehicular traffic on the day of the President’s visit, while buildings flanking it will be sanitised with security personnel manning them until Obama has left the place. Same would be the case with Obama’s visit to Mani Bhawan and Michelle going to Kamathipura.

An officer with the security establishment said, “Several other arterial roads in south Mumbai will also see restricted traffic movement, with tight security all around. The Obamas are not expected to schedule any engagements in the night due to security reasons.”

Since Obama is expected to arrive in the afternoon on November 6, and will travel by road to the Taj Mahal Hotel, the entire stretch from airport to the hotel will be under heavy security. The officer said, “There will be no vehicular movement on Western Express Highway at that time. Traffic on roads leading up to the highway will also be stopped. All buildings flanking the entire stretch will be sanitised. However, there is no threat from the snipers as the President will travel in a bullet-proof car with 4.5-inch thick sheets, which are impenetrable for any gun.”
Obama’s personal security staff itself will be huge, and it has already started making its own arrangements in Mumbai. “A team of secret service agents has already arrived, and has surveyed the areas of his stay and the roads and places on his itinerary,” the officer said.

To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.
The officer said, “Obama’s contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets. There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President’s convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels.”

Since Obama will stay in a hotel that is on sea front, elaborate coastal security arrangements have been made by the US Navy in consonance with the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard. “There will be US naval ships, along with Indian vessels , patrolling the sea till about 330-km from the shore. This is to negate the possibility of a missile being fired from a distance,” the officer said.

The President will be accompanied by his chefs, not because he would not like to savour Indian cuisine, but to ensure his food is not spiked.

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are scheduled to land in Mumbai on November 6.
Google to Combat India Piracy

OCTOBER 20, 2010
By AMOL SHARMA

NEW DELHI—Google Inc. launched a music service in India to help users search for legal online streams and downloads, a move aimed at combating rampant digital piracy that has held back the country's entertainment industry.

The U.S. tech giant partnered with three digital music providers who together have the rights to hundreds of thousands of Indian tracks, from Bollywood hits to Indian classical tunes. Google made the service available Friday and will eventually integrate it into its main search bar, according to people familiar with the matter.


When Web users in India type a song into Google's search bar, the top links in response would be from Google's partners, including India's largest music label, Saregama India Ltd., New York-based media company Saavn, and Web portal In.com. Clicking on a link will launch a pop-up music player where the requested content will be streamed for free, the people said.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Google had plans to launch the service.

Google India did not respond to requests for comment.

Demand for music has long been robust in India, where it is featured heavily in films, weddings and religious functions. Global interest in Indian music has increased in recent years as it has gotten greater exposure through films such as Oscar-winner "Slumdog Millionaire." But piracy, in the form of knock-off CDs and dozens of websites peddling illegal downloads, has stunted the Indian market, analysts say. Total Indian music industry revenue was about $165 million in 2009, a fraction of the $26.4 billion spent on recorded music globally, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

View Full Image


Screengrab of the Google India music search homepage.



Google hopes the new initiative will help labels fight piracy by directing Internet users to legitimate content downloads at the top of search results, the people familiar with the matter said. Google launched a similar service in the U.S. last fall with MySpace and La La Media Inc.'s Lala.com. (News Corp. owns MySpace and The Wall Street Journal. Apple Inc. acquired Lala.com earlier this year and shut it down.)

Google is also eager to build up broadband usage in India and sees music—which is the subject of a large percentage of searches in the country—as one key to jumpstarting growth, the people familiar with the matter said. The company, which generates revenue through online ads, doesn't intend to earn revenue directly from the Indian music service, at least in the near term, the people said.

Distributing media over the Web poses some challenges in India. There are still only about 81 million Internet users in a nation of 1.2 billion people, though growth has been steep in recent years. And many Web connections are low-bandwidth.

The companies partnering with Google hope the deal will bring an influx of traffic to their websites, which users will be able to click through to from Google's search results, the people familiar with the matter said. They will be able to make money off the service by showing ads and potentially offering paid downloads to users.

Saregama believes partnering with Google will give a big lift to the company's recently-launched Web portal, which gives users access to 94,000 tracks from its catalog of Indian music, a person familiar with the company's thinking said.

Saavn distributes digital music via iTunes and other services and recently developed its own music search portal that covers a catalog of about 250,000 songs and gets 8,000 unique visitors per day. Saavn allows marketers to display banner ads and is considering audio ads between songs as well as video ads.

Vinodh Bhat, co-founder and chief executive of Saavn, declined to comment on whether the firm is partnering with Google but said Saavn sees India as a music market that's poised to boom and attract brands.

"The online ad market in India is small now, but it's going to ramp up considerably as Web usage increases," he said. "Broadband access is already growing at a good clip." Marketers will be much more likely to attach their brands to music services they know are legitimate, Mr. Bhat said.

Some Western media companies hope to sustain the heightened interest in Indian music globally by creating more global hits like "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire. In July, Universal Music partnered with New York-based Desi Hits! Inc. to launch a label that will produce music by Indians and those with South Asian roots for a worldwide audience.

Despite piracy, India's domestic music market is expected to grow to $590 million by 2014, according to PwC, and much of the growth is likely to come from the wireless industry. Sales of ringtones and songs to the nation's 670 million cellphone users already make up 30% of overall music industry sales.

Write to Amol Sharma at amol.sharma@wsj.com

Google says its cars grabbed emails, passwords

Published on Sat, Oct 23, 2010
Google Inc admitted for the first time its 'Street View' cars around the world accidentally collected more personal data than previously disclosed including complete emails and passwords potentially breathing new life into probes in various countries.

The disclosure comes just days after Canada's privacy watchdog said Google had collected complete emails and accused Google of violating the rights of thousands of Canadians.




"If in fact laws were broken...then there's some serious question of culpability and Google may need to face significant fines," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington DC-based privacy advocacy group.

Regulators in France, Germany and Spain, among others, have opened investigations into the matter.

A coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general in the United States also have launched a joint probe.

It remains unclear how many people may have been affected by the privacy breach.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is leading the multi-state investigation, said in a statement on Friday that Google's disclosure about the types of data it collected "validates and heightens our significant concerns," and noted that the investigation is continuing.

Google's Street View cars, which are well known for crisscrossing the globe and taking panoramic pictures of the city's streets, accidentally collected data from unsecured wireless networks used by residents in more than 30 countries, Google disclosed in May.

At the time, Google said the information was typically limited to "fragments" of unencrypted data because the cars were always moving and because the cars' wireless equipment automatically changed channels about five times a second.

A Google spokesperson said the company had not examined the roughly 600 GB of data captured by the cars in any detail to avoid violating privacy.

The latest disclosure comes from information from regulators in various countries, who have examined the data collected by Google.

"It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords," Google Vice President of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace said in a post on Google's blog on Friday.

Google also said in the blog post that it hoped to delete the data as soon as possible.

Google had deleted the data in countries where regulators had given it permission to do so, a spokeswoman said. Investigations in six countries including New Zealand and the Netherlands, were closed, the spokeswoman said. There were investigations ongoing in other countries, but Google could not delete the data until the investigations were closed.

Tougher privacy protection

Google appointed Alma Whitten as director of privacy for engineering and product management as part of a campaign to bolster its privacy protections, including adding new internal procedures requiring engineering product managers to maintain a privacy design document that records how user data is handled.

Google also said it was enhancing its privacy training for engineers and other important groups within the company.

"We're acutely aware that we failed badly here," Eustace said in the blog post.

Google's cars collected the WiFi data in more than 30 countries between 2006 and mid-2010 so that Google could amass data on WiFi hotspots that could help provide location-based services a project unrelated to taking photos for Google Maps.

But Google apparently thought it was only collecting a limited type of WiFi data relating to the WiFi network's name and router numbers.

The collection of the additional, so-called payload data was a simple mistake resulting from a piece of computer code that was accidentally included from an experimental project, Google said.

Google has said that its Street View cars no longer collect any type of wireless information.

The admission that emails and other types of data were collected means that the problem is much more serious than Google initially suggested, Rotenberg said.