The 802.11n standard’s performance and compatibility with older gear make it a no-brainer upgrade.
– The
world of wireless communications changed, quietly, about two years ago. That
was when the WiFi Alliance announced that it was issuing a draft of the 802.11n
wireless standard that device makers could use until the final standard was
released in 2009. Well, 2009 came and the standard was rati…
The world has five years to start a “low carbon industrial revolution” before runaway climate change becomes almost inevitable, a new report commissioned by global conservation group WWF said on Monday. Beyond 2014, the upper limits of industrial growth rates will make it impossible
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, San Francisco, Sept. 24 – The television, both the device and the experience, has arrived at an inflection point.
A defeated opposition candidate in Iran’s presidential election has called for an investigation into allegations some protesters were raped in prison.
In a letter to former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karroubi said senior officials had informed him of the "shameful behaviour" taking place.
Mr Karroubi wrote that both male and female detainees had been raped, with some suffering serious injuries.
He asked Mr Rafsanjani to consult the Supreme Leader about the allegations.
About 200 people arrested during the mass protests sparked by June’s disputed election, which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a wide margin, are still being detained.
‘Brutality’
In the letter addressed to Mr Rafsanjani in his capacity as head of the Assembly of Experts, Mr Karroubi demanded an investigation into allegations that several detainees had been sexually assaulted.
"Some of those arrested [as a result] of the unrest claim that detained girls have been sexually assaulted with… brutality," he wrote.
"If Mousavi, Karroubi and [former president Mohammad] Khatami are the main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary… to go after them"
Yadollah Javan
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps
"The young men in detention were also sexually assaulted in such a way that some are now suffering from depression and other physical and psychological problems, and are incapable of even leaving their homes," he added.
Mr Karroubi said that the people who had told him about the allegations of sexual assault held "sensitive positions".
"Even if one account is true, it would be a tragedy for the Islamic Republic… and it would whitewash the sins of many dictatorships, including that of the deposed Shah," he added.
On Thursday, police confirmed serious rights violations had taken place at the Kahrizak detention centre, where most of those arrested at the protests were sent.
The head of Kahrizak was sacked and jailed on Sunday along with three of his guards, who were found to have beaten detainees.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of the centre in July, because it had failed to "preserve the rights of detainees". Police officials have admitted that some of those held since June might have been tortured.
Earlier on Sunday, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said that Mr Karroubi, and the other main defeated opposition presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, should be tried for inciting unrest after the election.
"If Mousavi, Karroubi and [former president Mohammad] Khatami are the main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary… to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them," Yadollah Javan told the Irna news agency.
Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people died.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Up to 100 defendants accused of violence in aftermath of disputed presidential election appear in Tehran court
The first trials of opposition political activists and protesters arrested after June’s disputed Iranian presidential election began today.
Up to 100 defendants were reported by Iranian media to be appearing before a court in the capital, Tehran, accused of violence following the 12 June vote.
The election sparked days of protests as thousands of Iranians took to the streets to denounce the official results, which declared victory for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The official IRNA news agency said the defendants were charged with rioting, attacking military and government buildings, having links with armed opposition groups and conspiring against the ruling system.
Under the country’s Islamic law, acting against national security – a common charge against dissidents – could be punishable by a long sentence or even the death penalty.
Several prominent reformist opposition activists – including the former vice president Mohammat Ali Abtahi, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, a former government spokesman, and Behzad Nabavi, an ex-vice Speaker of parliament – are among the defendants.
The Associated Press said the former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and Mohsen Mirdamadi, the leader of Iran’s biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, were also facing trial.
Photographs from the courtroom showed a Abtahi and Mirdamadi, wearing prison uniform, sitting in the front row. Many other defendants were handcuffed but were not wearing prison clothes.
Prosecutors read out an indictment outlining what they alleged was a year-long plot by leading pro-reform political parties to carry out a “velvet revolution” – a popular, non-violent uprising to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
The phrase comes from the peaceful 1989 velvet revolution which overthrew decades of communism in Czechoslovakia.
The prosecutor said three of the biggest opposition parties had taken money from foreign non-governmental organisations and sought to use the election controversy as an opportunity to carry out their plot, according to a transcript reported by IRNA.
He claimed Israeli and western officials had spoken in recent years of fomenting revolution in Iran.
“Based on the evidence obtained and well-founded confessions of the defendants, these events had been planned in advance and stages of the velvet revolution were carried out in accordance with a time schedule,” the indictment said.
IRNA did not give information about how many defendants were in court, but the semi-official Fars news agency said more than 100 were present.
State media did not provide further details about the trial, and there was no information on when it would end and when a verdict could be expected.
The reformist mowjcamp website denounced the trial, saying defendants had no access to lawyers and there was no jury.
“Do those who organised this show trial think that the nation will remain silent to slaughter the nation’s best?” it asked.
Iran’s opposition maintains Ahmadinejad stole the vote from the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, but demonstrations have been ruthlessly suppressed, leaving hundreds in prison.
Yesterday, Ahmadinejad said the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was like a father to him.
The president accused his hardline rivals of trying to drive a wedge between him and the man who sits at the top of Iran’s clerical leadership and has final say in all state matters.
On Monday, Khamenei will lead a ceremony formally approving Ahmadinejad’s second term. He will be sworn in before parliament two days later.
Twitter and Youtube are the main weapons used by Iranian dissenters in their protest against the regime. Digital dissent vs. bullets and batons – will the new technologies bring change in Iran?
By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Zanzibar
I often went to Zanzibar as a child, with my mother, who was born in Dar es Salaam.
We would take a crowded ferry and stay at a hostel for poor women and their kids, who wanted a subsidised break by the sea.
The women in the local mosque provided lunch and we had a wonderful time.
The island, a fabulous mix of Arab, African, Indian and Persian cultures and peoples, was utterly unlike my racially-divided hometown, Kampala, in Uganda.
Abomination
Then, one day, my mother told me about the thousands of black slaves who had been captured in the hinterlands and brought to the island to be sold.
She took me to Bagamoyo, the slave port on the mainland: the word means "lay down your heart".
That trade went on from the Seventh Century until – it is claimed – the beginning of the 20th Century.
Throughout early history, enslavement was common around the world, and East Africa was just one more lucrative location.
But here, the abomination went on longer than at any other time or place.
The traders were mostly Arab, though some Indian merchants were actively involved.
"My grandmother had a baby, and the baby was still feeding – but the traders said this would delay the journey so they just threw the baby away"
Leila, whose grandparents were slaves
Those who captured and sold humans to the businessmen were local African chiefs and henchmen.
A febrile young child, I was distraught when I learned that Muslims had perpetuated this evil. How could it be
The Prophet Mohammed had freed Bilal, a black slave, and asked him to make the first-ever call to prayer. Surely that meant something
And, as the years went on and we learned to look back with abhorrence at the practice of owning and exploiting humans, how come there was no acknowledgement of this injustice in Zanzibar
The questions circled around in my head obsessively when I was a young teen.
Revolution
Then came 1964, and the island detonated.
A revolution led by African soldiers deposed the constitutional monarch, Sultan Seyyid Bin Abdullah.
It was, in part, retaliation for slavery – by people, and upon people, who were not responsible.
It felt as if some ancient God of vengeance had risen from the sea.
They slaughtered anyone who looked Arab, and some Indians too. They took their daughters to rape, confiscated their properties and banished many.
To this day there is no list of the dead – those tortured and dumped into the sea – the disappeared and the exiles.
My mother and I never went back to our favourite place, but for years I have wanted to reveal these veiled stories.
Returning for the first time in more than 40 years for the BBC World Service’s Heart and Soul strand, I interviewed Leila, 99, whose grandparents were enslaved.
"My grandmother had a baby, and the baby was still feeding – but the traders said this would delay the journey so they just threw the baby away," she said.
"My father was also thrown away but the missionaries took him in and looked after him here."
Leila became very emotional.
"It is very painful – so many cruel people," she said.
"It’s very hard because we can’t remember our home, can’t see or know our relatives. We are cut off from our history."
When we turned the tape recorder off, her eyes glazed over and she threw up blood all over her lovely satin dress – and me.
Then there were those I talked to about the revolution in 1964.
"We are called Arabs, but I don’t even speak a word of Arabic"
Suleman Hamed, whose relatives were killed
Those who knew the violated and stolen girls cried as they spoke. They were taking risks talking to us, but it was time to do so, they said.
On a secluded beach away from the main town, Suleman Hamed told me how his uncle, sister and brother-in-law were killed.
"People were killed in the streets and houses, and the revolutionaries take your wife and daughters – for raping. That was a horrible time. We think as if it was yesterday. And all because their ancestors were Arabs. We are called Arabs, but I don’t even speak a word of Arabic."
The historian Maalim Idris says he witnessed the gutters running with Arab and Indian blood.
He showed me photographs of mass graves and of trucks piled high with corpses being driven through the main street.
He believes no fewer than 3,000 Arabs and Indians were killed during the revolution, but there is no official figure.
No healing
Going back to Zanzibar was a life lesson in the potency of the whole historical truth.
Those of Arab descent feel too defensive about the slave trade and focus on the revolution; Africans dwell on the trade and expect no mention of the barbaric acts of the revolutionaries.
There will not be real, deep healing between the citizens of various ethnicities until everyone talks more honestly about past injustices.
Without that, paradise is but an illusion.
An earlier version of this piece appeared in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s column in the Independent newspaper. Her radio documentaries can be heard via the Heart and Soul website.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Rayhan Demytrie
BBC News, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Polls have opened in a presidential election in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.
There are six candidates running for the top job including the incumbent Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Kyrgyzstan is the only state in Central Asia to have a so-called colour revolution, when a previous president was removed in a popular uprising.
That happened in 2005, but four years on the country finds itself in a different political environment.
Among the six candidates two are real contenders, Mr Bakiyev and the main opposition candidate, Almazbek Atambayev, who have both been campaigning across the country.
Over 500 international observers are expected to monitor the process.
Out of five million Kyrgyz citizens more than half are eligible voters.
But analysts say the turnout could be low, citing apathy and mistrust of the election process.
Previous polls under Mr Bakiyev have been criticised by international monitors.
The situation contrasts with that of 2005 when he came to power following the so-called Tulip revolution. He won a landslide victory gaining almost 90% of the vote.
But four years on his critics say his government has curbed free speech and become increasingly repressive.
His main opponent Mr Atambayev promises to fight corruption and reduce the president’s powers.
Mr Bakiyev says his policies are aimed at gaining as much as possible for the people of Kyrgyzstan, but it remains one of the poorest economies in the former Soviet Union.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Stephen Gibbs
BBC News, Managua
Thirty years on, Esperanza Cisneros is as much a believer as ever.
Her small Managua home seems like a shrine to the Sandinista Revolution. Its walls are adorned with political slogans.
A bicycle in the front porch has two black and red flags flying from the handlebars. Patriotic music blasts from the CD player.
But her enthusiasm is balanced with pain.
Like thousands of Nicaraguan mothers she lost a son to this country’s violent political upheaval.
"A lot of blood was spilt", she says, "but now we have a government working hard for the people."
In 1979, almost the entire population of Nicaragua agreed with her.
The ouster of the dynastic dictator Anastasio Somosa was seen as a victory of hope over repression.
For as long as most Nicaraguans could remember, the Somosa ruling family had held a feudal grip on the country. The country’s police force was notorious for its liberal use of torture.
By the time the Sandinistas, who took their name from their murdered historical hero Agustin Sandino, rolled into Managua, they were feted as liberators.
Their leader, a young man called Daniel Ortega, was seen as the new incarnation of Sandino.
‘Revolution over’
But within months the mood changed. Many deserted Ortega, viewing his style of government as authoritarian and proto-communist.
A new rebellion began. It was stoked by foreign interests.
The Soviets backed the Sandinistas. The United States, fearing communism in its back yard, backed the counter-revolutionaries or "contras".
Overall, 50,000 lives were lost in the revolution and ensuing war, before a truce was declared in 1987.
That is more than 1% of the population. The equivalent of three million Americans.
Now Mr Ortega is back in power again, after winning the 2006 presidential election.
He says he has changed his colours, and that his administration is about reconciliation.
His government includes some of his old foes from the civil war days. An alliance has also been formed with the Roman Catholic Church.
As an apparent symbol of a softer, more inclusive form of rule, propaganda posters across the country are now pink, rather than the traditional red and black of the Sandinistas.
"This leadership is not revolutionary at all"
Erik Flakoll
Some suggest the revolution is well and truly over.
Erik Flakoll, an American martial arts expert, was one of thousands of foreign idealists who came to Nicaragua in the 1970s and 80s to support something they believed in.
Months after arriving in 1980 he found himself recruited as a bodyguard to the senior Sandinista leaders.
His photo album shows him a as a young man in combat fatigues travelling the world with the new heroes of the eastern bloc.
"The uniform is from East Germany" he points out, with a smile.
Now he sees the men he once worked for as a sordid new elite, running a new oligarchy, in complete betrayal of their professed ideals.
"This leadership is not revolutionary at all," he says. "I do not know how history will determine who is the greatest thief. Is it Somosa…or will it be Daniel Ortega
Grinding poverty
Such allegations are dismissed as absurd by Eden Pastora, aka Comandante Cero, as we talk in his office a few days before the 30th anniversary.
The room is stacked full of guns, ammunition and revolutionary memorabilia.
The silver haired ex-commander is something of a legend in revolutionary history. With 19 comrades he stormed the Nicaraguan congress in 1978, in a spectacular publicity boost for the Sandinista movement.
He has since had his differences with the Ortega leadership, but now he appears back on side.
"Everybody has heard the stories" he says. "That Daniel was funded by Qaddafi, $100,000 a month…that his brother, the head of the army was given $50,000.
"It’s not true. I have been to his house. The ceiling is falling to bits. There are cobwebs everywhere. If it were true the people would not have voted for him".
He points to the achievements of the Ortega governments, from literacy campaigns to housing projects.
But most Nicaraguans have other priorities than judging whether the Sandinista revolution has been a success, or a fraud.
Grinding poverty is daily life for half the population. Unemployment in many areas is around 80%.
La Chureca rubbish dump on the outskirts of the city is home for hundreds of families, who somehow survive picking through the putrid garbage of their marginally more fortunate neighbours.
It is a place where ideology seems irrelevant.
I ask one man, stooped over a pile of plastic bags, what he thinks of his government.
"Things just seem to get worse", he says. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
At the heart of Iran’s Islamic Revolution was a stencil duplicator and a tape recorder. These were the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Facebook and Twitter.
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wo centuries ago, Britain was at the forefront of a new industrial age that transformed our small island into the workshop of the world and a global economic powerhouse.
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