June 2011 - Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Turkey turns its mass arrest strategy on hackers

With so much news coming out of Turkey and so many high-profile targets getting hacked , it was probably inevitable that something like this would happen this week: After hacker group Anonymous' apparently successful Operation Turkey to protest Internet...

Published Mon, Jun 13 2011 10:57 AM by FP Passport

Shadow Internet command center revealed (Photo)

This Sunday's New York Times contained an interesting item on U.S. State Department-funded efforts to circumvent Internet censorship abroad. Particularly noteworthy was the description of a brave band of cyberpunk revolutionaries waging a battle for...

Published Mon, Jun 13 2011 8:16 AM by FP Passport

Qaddafi meets with Chess king

Between dodging NATO airstrikes and international opprobrium, Libyan leader Muamma al-Qaddafi is having a hard time getting people to meet with him today. But he did have time to sneak in a game of chess with the visiting Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, head of the...

Published Mon, Jun 13 2011 7:01 AM by FP Passport

Poetic injustice

A Bahraini security court sentenced 20-year-old student Ayat al-Qurmezi to one year in prison yesterday. The young woman, infamous for her February recitation of an anti-government poem in Pearl Square, has been found guilty of speaking out against the...

Published Mon, Jun 13 2011 6:00 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Corruption, Human Rights, Freedom, Middle East, Egypt, Syria, Arab World, Democracy, Yemen

Morning Brief: Syrian forces retake northern town

Syrian forces retake northern town Top news: Elite Syrian forces backed by tanks and helicopters retook the northern town of Jisr al-Shugour after days of bombarding the surrounding area. Activists say the town is now nearly devoid of civilian residents...

Published Mon, Jun 13 2011 5:25 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Friday photo: Explosions in the sky

A South Korea's K1 tank fires smoke shells during a joint military drill between South Korea and the US in Paju near the inter-Korean border on June 8, 2011 aimed at deterring North Korea's military threat. Tensions on the Korea peninsula are...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 1:17 PM by FP Passport

France fined for not taking care of its hamsters

Zut alors! The EU's highest court has an announcement : In 2008, France did not take adequate measures to protect the European Hamster in Alsace. That's the verdict released by the Court of Justice in Luxembourg today in a lawsuit brought by the...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 10:51 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: France

Americans still unenthused about Arab Spring

President Obama may see the recent uprisings in the Middle East as a " moment of oppotunity, " but most Americans are not particularly enthusiastic about it, according to a new foreign policy poll from the Pew Research Center for the People...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 10:25 AM by FP Passport

The Jerusalem Post's gift to anti-Semitic dictators

A list of the World's Most Influential Jews is bound to make people squirmy to begin with, but you have to wonder with the Jerusalem Post considered whether they were writing copy for every dictator in the Middle East by putting Facebook CEO Mark...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 9:13 AM by FP Passport

Iceland crowdsources its constitution

Color me skeptical on Iceland's attempts to social media-ize the writing of its new constitution: In creating the new document, the council has been posting draft clauses on its website every week since the project launched in April. The public can...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 8:20 AM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: Syrian army moves on border town

Syrian army moves on border town Top news: The Syrian army has begun operations to crack down on the northern city of Jisr al-Shugour, ending days of anticipation which sent almost 3,000 refugees streaming across the border into Turkey. The Assad regime...

Published Fri, Jun 10 2011 4:57 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Anonymous vs. NATO: Get your popcorn ready

Anonymous has responded to a recent NATO report which suggested that the "hacktivist" collective would be "infiltrated" and "persecuted" if its illegal actions continued, CNET reports . Among other measures, the NATO document...

Published Thu, Jun 09 2011 1:22 PM by FP Passport

One iceberg, coming right up

This strikes me as one of those flying car, meal-in-a-pill-type ideas that people in the future will write snarky blog posts about, but it's fun to think about. Why not bring icebergs to people who need fresh water rather than letting them melt into...

Published Thu, Jun 09 2011 10:34 AM by FP Passport

The return of Russian anarchists?

It's been a while since their 19th century heyday, but Russian anarchists might be making a comeback: An obscure anarchist group linked to anti-government attacks on an $8 billion highway project in the Moscow region has claimed responsibility for...

Published Thu, Jun 09 2011 10:05 AM by FP Passport

One month from independence, a state within a state within a state in South Sudan

It looks like the violence on the border may not be the only threa t to South Sudan as it approaches independence. There are apparently multiple constitutions floating around the government in Juba: South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit decried ‘mushrooming...

Published Thu, Jun 09 2011 10:02 AM by FP Passport