Al Qaeda Suspect detained in Belgium

By Eliana Maakaroun

14 people suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda network have been arrested in Belgium today

Johan Delmulle, Federal Prosecutor said police believed a suicide attack was going to be carried on by one of the 14 suspects held.

Apparently, the suspect had already been given the thumbs up for the attack and had said his good-byes to his close ones.

The supposed attack was going to take place most probably in Brussels, as EU leaders were holding an end-of-year meeting.

Security remains tight in the capital, but Belgian police claim it is not tighter than usual for such an event.

16 raids were carried out over night in Brussels and Liege, by almost 250 police officiers. 14 women and men, believed to be link in a certain way to Al Qaeda, have been arrested.

Among them, some had just returned from countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the highest number of terrorist is believed to be present.

Authorities said that at least one of the detainees might have been planning a suicide attack in the capital, and is believed to have recorded a martyrdom video.

Police officers also seized computers and other data storage, after having arrested the suspects.

The suspects target remains unknown, it might have been Pakistan or Afghanistan, or any country in Europe, said Mr Delmulle.

Belgian media reported that Malika El Aroud, a Morrocan-born Belgian online writer, accused of “utterly extremist ideas” by a judge, is one of the detainees.

Officials, however, have not released the names of the 14 people arrested.

Obama picks ‘green team’ (main article)

Barack Obama; Source: Wikipedia

Barack Obama’s several key environmet-related advisers are set on developing policies to reduce carbon emissions and discovering new sources of energy.

In the Chicago Tribune, environmentalists praised Obama’s choices.

They said that they underscored Obama’s commitment to fast action on renewable fuel development and carbon emissions reduction.

Also, a leading oil industry group offered no criticism of the appointments.

“We look forward to working with all the Obama appointees to come up with a comprehensive, fact-based and realistic energy policy that will benefit the American people,” said Karen Matusic, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute.

Meet the team:

Steven Chu

Obama’s team to address climate change emerged on Wednesday and includes Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, as his Energy Secretary.

According to the BBC, Dr Chu is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It pioneers work to find scientific solutions to global warming.

As Energy Secretary, he will have responsibility for maintaining America’s stockpile of nuclear arms, and for modernising its electrical supply grid.

He will also be able to direct efforts to find alternative energy sources.

Lisa Jackson

The New York Times reports that Obama also plans to name Lisa Jackson, who until recently was New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“If picked, she would be the first African-American EPA administrator,” states a BBC report.

Nancy Sutley

Deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, Nancy Sutley, is expected to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Her expertise lies on water quality issues.

Carol Browner

The Guardian reveals that a new White House post to oversee energy, environmental and climate policies is to be filled by Carol Browner.

Browner has worked on environmental protection in Florida and headed the EPA under President Bill Clinton.

She will be charged with co-ordinating the different government departments that deal with climate and energy, serving as a liaison between the White House and Congress.

She is expected to focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency policies.

Despite strong support for his administration choices, Obama’s decision in selecting Chu has been questioned.

The Nobel laureate has no political background. This could prove to be a handicap when it comes to the delicate negotiations ahead in building support in Congress for Obama’s legislative agenda.

 

Click here for ‘What happened in Poznan’… (Background)

Website Critique – The Statesman

The Stateman

The Statesman is one of the oldest newspapers in India.

It was established in 1875. It is published from Calcutta, Delhi, Siliguri and Bhubaneshwar and it is mostly read in Eastern parts of India especially Bengal.

The URL for the Statesman site is

http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?usrsess=1

I have analysed this site on four aspects:
1. First Impression
2. Content
3. Writing
4. Navigation

First Impression

The homepage of this site is very dull and unimpressive. It did not appeal to me as a reader as there is no prioritization of news.

The main headline is not distinctive and appears the same as other stories. There is lack of focus which confuses the readers.

However, the colour scheme is simple. Main colours are white, black and blue and a little of red.

And each category is neatly separated with a black line. But in seems to be a very old fashioned layout.

And there is a lot of blank white space – wasted space on the home page.

Also, according to Jakob Nielsen’s rules the masthead banner should be towards the left hand corner but on the Statesman website it is placed in the centre.

There is a search engine below the masthead which gives an option to search within the site and advanced search within the World Wide Web.

And there are Google ads below it which is sheer commercialization.

There are two flash animations one on each corner on the top of the page. The one on the left is for internship with Statesman and one on right is to place an advert with the newspaper. Both are distracting and should have been at the bottom of the page.

Towards the left the website has a bar with eight sub-sections under “News” and sixteen sub-sections under “Magazine” which are unusual for a professional newspaper.

As all the sections under “News” are also displayed on the front page it is repetition of the same matter twice.

The site has stock index, currency exchange rates and city weather in a column on right which viewers can customize which is a good feature.

Also, the site has the ability to register and the log-in panel is password protected.

There is a daily update of a small cartoon sketched upon current affairs displayed in the right hand side column. This could make a good feature for the site, but due to lack of good positioning it looses focus.

Content

As seen in most of the newspaper sites there are no web 2.0 essentials like video and multimedia to attract viewers.

Not only the home page but the entire site does not have any video clippings and has few pictures displayed towards the right of each news story which do not correspond to the news stories on the left.

These images are small and are simply placed alongside the category. eg. The sports column has a picture of a batsman. Which does not corresponds to any story but represents sports in general.

There are no links and no tags in any articles and also there is no RSS feeds.

In comparison to the BBC website as a benchmark, this site in its contents is not well laid out.

If we compare this site to The Times of India and The Hindustan Times two leading newspapers in India – the Statesman site is very poor.

It is divided into three vertical columns, the primary requisite of a website as explained by Jakob Nielson. But the central part of the site is divided into long horizontal columns a rather unusual pattern.

This site does not follow the web friendly Verdana font.

At the end of the articles there is no section for comments.

However, there is a column below the article which says “discussion on this item” but it does not give an option to post a comment.

“Post your comment” and “email to a friend” is on top right side of the page which is an unusual placement.

It displays few adverts but they are awkwardly placed.

Writing

This website does not follow the Jakob Nielsen’s style of writing.

The paragraphs are lengthy and not easily scannable. As there is no proper spacing between the paragraphs.

The writing is very dense and chunks of text are put together as a story.

In comparison to the BBC website there is no lead or introduction to any article in this website. Also, there are no sub-headings and the first paragraph is not bold and distinct.

The content is not consistent and the F-plan of Jakob Nielsen’s style of writing is not followed.

The Stateman

There are no hyperlinks within any story. And the text is hard to read and not web- friendly.

There are no bullet points or any highlighted words to lay emphasis in any of the stories.

None of the stories have any video or pictures to make it more interesting.

The inverted pyramid style of writing a news story is not followed. Some of the stories are direct copy-paste of press releases.
Navigation

There is a navigation bar on the left and also on the top of the page towards right which confuses the viewer. As one cannot distinguish which is main navigation and which is secondary.

The navigation is partially consistent but not easy to use. Also, there is no sub-navigation or drop-downs.

However, the site has a global navigation scheme i.e. the layout of the page remains the same when you click a story and go to another page.

Each page of the site has a consistent pattern and layout but it is monotonous.

There are no footer links or tags at the bottom. And there is no back or top button for the convenience of the readers.

It does not have an e-paper like most of the other Indian Dailies and is not a web savvy site.

If we compare the site to Webby Award winning sites, the Statesman scores extremely poor in navigation. It does not have multi-interfaces and is just a single click navigation through out.

Unlike the Guardian and the Times it does not has a blog section.

In my view this website is devoid of technology. It is undergoing a senile decay and needs a complete makeover to survive and compete in today’s world.

critique of the website ‘repubblica.it’

home page repubblica.it

Introduction to the website

«La Repubblica» is the most read quality newspaper in Italy.

Liberal oriented, follows the political line of “Partito Democratico”, the democratic party lead by Walter Veltroni.

The paper hosts many big names of Italian journalism, is usually read by left oriented intellectuals and wants to be a kind of Guardian (it has also a similar design).

The website www.repubblica.it has very little in common with the paper and probably targets a different readership. It has worsened a lot in the last two years, before it was much cleaner and more serious.

First impressions

The home page is very confused:

• too many colourful ads and flash animations mixed to the news, distracting the eye of the reader, especially the banner just below the navigation bar.

• The images related to the news are too small, smaller than the ads with which are confused.

• The same colours, blue and red, are used for all the headlines and subheadings, so they do not give any particular notion. They clash one with each other and irritate the eye.

• There is no main news, as the one that appears on the top is just the last one that has been updated.

• The home page isn’t divided into sections, all the news are on the same column apparently without any logic order. No distinction even between international and home news.

• The news are only on the left side of the page, so you have to scroll it down a lot, too much, to see all the news. The small photos column that shares the right side with ads are slide shows. Few of them are referred to real news (and in this case they are usually really good photos). The most of them are odd news and calendar girls. It is interesting how the right side of the page was very thin at the beginning and gained room in the page during the last few years. Now it is almost half of the page.

• For these reasons it is not easily readable, especially if we compare it to other serious newspapers’ website like the Guardian’s one or just to the Italian Corriere della Sera.

• No multimedia on the home page, all the videos are in a separate section.

Writing&content

• the used font is Verdana, so from this point of view is clear.

• Too many headings: two before and two after the main Headline.

• subheadings: In many pages each paragraph have a small heading in bold, and this is useful, but the risk is that the reader will read only the headings.

• paragraphs are too long, contain much more than one idea, and doesn’t follow the inverted pyramid. But Italian journalism has never followed the inverted pyramid.

• Long sentences, typical of the Italian writing style. The authors don’t consider that they are writing for the web.

• Sometimes, more and more often, it is really badly written.

• No use of bullet points.

• No bold text

• multimedia: the website has many photogalleries, some linked to a news story, some other tell the story by themselves and ‘La Repubblica’ has many talented photographers. On the other hand many of them are about starlets, pseudo-celebrities, calendar girls, kind of a ‘page three’ but on the web. This is something very contrasting with the newspaper, that wants to be for intellectuals.

  There is also a online TV, with serious interviews and reports. Mixed with soft and odd news. Videos are not on the same page of the related feature, they are all in the ‘Repubblica TV’ section with a small comment.

• POP UP ADVERTISING. A lot. Really annoying.

• links to the sponsors everywhere, confusing for the reader.

• effective links, internal to the writing and also in boxes for past related features, but linking only to repubblica.it

• costantly updated.

• design: there are so many ads everywhere that design doesn’t really matter.

Navigation

• consistent navigation

• navigation board on the top of the page, easy to navigate.

References:

• www.useit.com – Jacob Nielsen on Usabiity and Web Design

• http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/web-content.shtml

• http://www.jessett.com/web_sites/

The album of the year

Metallica in London

A heart is beating slowly. Someone has born again. Then the guitar comes in with a scheming sound. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the next 76 minutes. The expectation is huge.

Death Magnetic is the name of the ninth studio album of one of the best bands in music history: Metallica. Get your horns ready, cause they’re back. Hell yeah.

After more than five years of silence the kings of metal have come back with ten songs fuelled with some of the most powerful riffs of the band’s career, a sound that remains the 80’s and, more importantly, an absolutely positive attitude.

It wasn’t written, but truth is that if they survived to the St. Anger crisis it’s because the destiny had something good for them. And because they still got something to give to the people. Metallica had to be or no to be.

Therefore, they have created the album of the year. There are no concessions. Not to the industry. Not to the listeners. Only for their pleasure, and that’s the way a good job is done.

The single is eight minutes long –useless to the mainstream radio formulas-, they rock much harder than expected –besides when their sound had became soft during the last years.

All of this makes the people recognise an effort. And all the shows are selling out. Metallica have done the best album of the year, not only because the sound of it is good, also because they survived to themselves and were capable of reinvent Metallica again.

For all this reasons it can be said that the best album of the year 2008 is Metallica’s Death Magnetic.

 

TWO MAN TO RENEW THE SPIRIT OF A BAND

Part of the blame –in the good sense- of it, is to be put on Robert Trujillo, the new bassist of the band, that have given life and personality to the band.

Death Magnetic is the first album where Trujillo participates and his influence can be seen in the composition of some awesome riffs in songs like Cyanide or Suicide & Redemption.

But also in concerts, Trujillo shows his wild side and is an amazing spectacle on his own.

On the other side we find producer Rick Rubin, doing a very good work with the band. His strategy consisted on leaving the musicians create their stuff but giving them the best railways to walk through.

Rubin has achieved that Metallica came back to the sound of their best albums without renouncing to evolve. And one thing is for sure; if the band continues working as hard as they’re doing now, some better albums are yet to come.

THE ALBUM SONG BY SONG

1.That was just your life: The rebirth of a band. The coming back. Intense but melodic at the same time.

2. The end of the line: Pure coordination to play one of the fastest songs of the album. The last part, though, is quiet but fits perfectly.

3. Broken, Beat & Scarred: Rhythm & Riffs. James gives the best of him: ‘Broken Beat & Scarred but we die hard.’ Nothing else needs to be said.

4. The day that never comes: Simply perfect. If you liked One, that’s as good as it was.

5. All nightmare long: With such a starting and ending how it couldn’t be one of the best songs of the album? The second single. Brutal.

6. Cyanide: It remains Breadfan for its composition: hard-soft-hard. Big up to Robert.

7. The Unforgiven III: Better than the 2nd part but worse than 1^st. However is a great song, and proves that classical music and metal fits better than thought. A beautiful song.

8. The Judas Kiss: Probably the weakest moment of the album. But with a catchy chorus and one of the longest guitar solos.

9. Suicide & Redemption: Almost ten minutes of instrumental stuff. The central part takes Orion to the memory of the oldest fans. Good to listen and clear your minds.

10 My apocalypse: Some have said it’s Dyers Eve part II, and it could be: tremendously fast and spitting all the rage out.

Web Critique – The Herald

The Herald's homepage

Goa has four English dailies. The Herald boasts that it is the state’s largest one. Its website however, is another matter.

First Impressions

For the first time visitor, The Goa Herald’s website, www.oheraldo.in, does give you the impression of being a news site. Although, not a hard-core, serious one.

The reasons being:

• The flashy, animated advertisements, moving text and picture slide shows are very distracting.

• The large, empty grey areas at either side is a huge waste of space, not to mention, visually unappealing.

• Following discussions in class, a site should ideally be two colours, as in the BBC’s case, a 2008 Webby Award nominee for Best Visual Design. The banner is orange, as is the bottom of the site; dark blue for the left column and the right is light blue. Only the middle has a white background.

• The site is divided into three columns. The left, has the ‘Search’ option.  Not very useful as you can only search within the site and not the entire web.

• Eight sub-sections like ‘Local News’, ‘Business’, ‘Sports’ feature on its left side. Three or four of the most important news stories are in the middle. All three are interspersed with advertisements.

• The website is devoid of any Web 2.0 features like video and multimedia.

On the plus side, the site name is nice and prominent in the top left hand corner, as per Jakob Nielsen’s rules.

Also, the right hand column has the ‘Pic of the Day’ or a ‘Cartoon’ which adds a wee bit of creativity to it.

On the whole, oheraldo.in is in need of a serious makeover.

Writing

• It does not follow Jacob Nielsen’s ‘F-pattern’.

• On the front page, the ‘News Updates’ just below the banner with moving headlines is a good idea, as readers tend to scan the left for keywords. This effect is ruined however, as it does not give you an option to link to any article.

• The other stories on the page have headlines, but instead of just teasing the reader to click further, it gives away a chunk of the actual story in its brief. Although it uses just one sentence as the brief, it crams two or three ideas into it, making it lengthy.

Once you click on a specific section:

• It links to the entire article.

• The density of it just hits you.

• Obvious that the content has been taken exactly as it was in the newspaper and dumped onto the website.

• Headlines are not given any prominence, they are not in bold and are for some reason placed on a red strip.

• The introductory paragraph is not highlighted.

• No breaks in text. Sub-headings and paragraphs have not been clearly demarcated.

• Sentence structure is too long and is around 14words per line.

• Language is simple and easy to understand.

• Basic grammatical errors do occur.

These are basic ‘writing for the web’ rules, which this website shamelessly ignores.

When you compare this site to news sites like the BBC, it just shows how amateurish the standard of writing actually is.

On a positive note, all the articles that I have read do follow the ‘inverted pyramid’ rule.

Content and Presentation

• The left side of the front page lists options. And, when you click on, say, ‘Business’, you are left staring at a blank page.

• oheraldo.com is devoid of any substantial user interaction. Not a trace of RSS feeds, nor can visitors leave comments. Also, articles are sans links to any other websites. Although, when reading an article, you do have options to ‘Print’ and to ‘Send this article to your friend’.

• All stories are outdated by a day or even longer. This is not apparent when you are on the homepage, as the current date is clearly stated. In my opinion, this totally misleads and confuses the reader.

• Overall, oheraldo.in falls short of being a Web 2.0 site. Considering this newspaper also has a local news channel, the lack of video is inexcusable.

As this is a local newspaper, it has Goa’s interests at heart. It provides a Goan spin to certain world news articles and features. Undoubtedly, it is indispensable to Goan diaspora. That’s why it badly requires to shape up.

The Times of India’s site is quite similar to Webby award winner for News, The  New York Times. The Herald’s website unsurprisingly, comes no where to close to the best.

Navigation

Consistency and clear visibility are key factors for excellent navigation, says Jakob Nielsen. Webby award  winner 2008 for best navigation, Ted.com, demonstrates this and more.

Compared to some other disastrous aspects of this site,  navigation is no different.  Between the main and sub-navigation, I would say that the latter is totally inconsistent.

• Located on the left hand side, the main navigation on the Herald’s website is quite clear.

• It has categories like ‘Local News’, ‘Business’, ‘Opinions’ ‘Sports’, ‘Life Style’, ‘Features’, Classifieds’, ‘Obituaries’ and ‘Archives’.When you roll the mouse over these, various sub-categories appear. This clearly tells the reader where to go to find what he/she is looking for.

• The ‘Search’ option is strategically located at the top of the page and is quite efficient.

• A sub-navigation bar lines the top right of the site, just below the banner. Options like ‘Home’, ‘About Us’, ‘About Goa’,'Archives’, ‘Advertise’ and ‘Contact Us’ are listed here.

• To be noted: one of the links is repeated. ‘Archives’ appears in both the main and sub-navigation. Besides, I think this link and the ‘Search’ option, provides more or less the same function.

• In the center of the home page, there is a list of six to seven articles, which is also a form of sub-navigation. Hence, you don’t know which is the actual sub-navigation.

One Nielsen rule, in terms of navigation and structure, that oheraldo.com actually observes is no matter where you are in the site, the main and sub-navigation are always clearly visible, as is the sites prominent name.

So even if you link to an article from a different website, you immediately know where you are.

Room for improvement..

• More pictures and other multi-media need to be used to make it web-savvy.
• Being a news site, there should be more news items on its front page. And they need to be current!
• The flashy adds need to go. They should be evenly distributed and arranged across the site, like the Guardian.
• The navigation needs to be consistent and should be at either the top or at one side of the site to enhance clarity.
• Writing for the web needs to be taken into consideration – shorter sentences, one idea per sentence, sub-headings.
• There should be hypertext links connecting to other stories.
• The coulour scheme should be brought down to 3 colours, at the most. The Independent or the BBC are good examples.

Controversial suicide documentary broadcasted on Sky

Sky television broadcasted a controversial documentary showing the last moment of a man who killed himself in a Swiss euthanasia clinic.

 

 Although terminally ill patients have been seen dying on British TV, it is the first time audiences witness an assisted suicide.

 

 The man, Craig Ewert, was a former university professor in Chicago and moved to Yorkshire in England after taking early retirement. He is a father of two children.

 

 Diagnosed with motor neurone disease five months before his death, he was told he only had between two and five years left to live. In September 2006, he finally decided to ended his life.

 

 With his wife Mary at his side, Ewert swallowed a lethal dose of sedatives and turned off his ventilator under his nose. 45 minutes later, he left the world peacefully.

 

 The documentary has set off a firestorm of controversy about the legalization of euthanasia in Britain.

 

 

 The Documentary

 

 This assisted suicide documentary “Right to Die” is filmed by John Zaritsky, Oscar-winning director.

 

 In the film Mr Ewert explains why he wanted to end his life. Compared with “suffering and death”, he chose “direct death”.

 

 The documentary recorded the whole process of assisted suicide in this Swiss clinic and his last moment with his beloved wife.

 

 Before his death, Mr Ewert said: “I’d like to continue.”

 

 “When you are completely paralysed, can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t move your eyes, how do you let someone know that you are suffering?”

 

 “At the same time I hope this is not the cause of major distress to my dear, sweet wife, who will have the greatest loss, as we have been together for 37 years in the greatest intimacy.”

 

 

 Should a suicide be shown on television?

 

 Anti-euthanasia groups and Britain’s TV watchdog have condemned Sky for airing the documentary.

 

 Critics call the documentary little more than a ratings stunt in a country where programs on euthanasia have never shown the actual death.

 

 Most of the criticisms focus on the film’s decision to show the moment of Ewert’s death. Some are concerned it may signal a slippery slope that devalues life.

 

 But Direcotor Zaritsky made no apologies for the film or showing the moment of death, which he thought was only part of truth.

 

 According to the BBC, his wife has defended the television programme showing his death, saying it would help people “face their fears” about life.

 

 Broadcaster Sky has also defended the programme on its website, saying it shows Ewert’s “exceptional courage” and would encourage public concern about euthanasia. And its film gave an “educated insight into the decisions some people have to make”.

 

 

 Brown’s response

 

 The debate on whether Sky TV should broadcast the documentary was so intense, that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was forced to comment on this in Parliament on Wednesday morning.

 

 Brown said it was “very important these issues are dealt with sensitively and without sensationalism, and I hope broadcasters remember they have a wider duty to the general public”.

 

 And he added “I hope broadcasters remember that they have a wider duty to the general public and of course it will be matter for the television watchdogs when the broadcast is shown.”

 

 

click here to the background story

 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES- BACKGROUND TO APOCALYPSE NOW

Terror in Mumbai and civil strife in Bangkok make the world unsafe for international travellers.

By Sunil Kumar

Link to Main Article- Apocalypse Now

Nearly 11 blasts this year in India and a politically turbulent year in Thailand has made international travel more risky. What are the reasons for ongoing and escalating violence?

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Congress government have had a tough 2008. Opposition to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, a global economic recession and a spate of terror attacks have added to the government’s woes.

Thailand has always been a favourite haunt for Britons and an eclectic international mix. A combination of sleaze, dope and beaches have made the country a worldwide hit.

Political demonstrations and a state of emergency in Bangkok have affected the newer Suvarnabhumi Airport and the older Don Muang Airport. A Telegraph report lists Thailand and India as among the 20 most dangerous places on the planet.

India is a volatile mix, with various religions and multiple languages. Problems stem from historical, political, linguistic and economic reasons.

The Mumbai terrorist attacks, that India claims are the handiwork of Pakistan-sponsored militants are a manifestation of a deeper social malaise. Disgruntled elements within India are unhappy with government policies.

India has wider systemic problems with corruption, bribery and extremist movements. Social inequity has led to widespread violence.

THAILAND SIMMERS

One of the most developed economies in South-East Asia, Thailand has been on tenterhooks since the ouster of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The sole unifying factor in Thailand is the King. Thais have great respect and reverence for the King and Queen.

The current political crisis is a conflict between People’s Alliance for Democracy and the People’s Power Party governments of Prime Ministers Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsowat.

The 2008 crisis results from PAD’s assertion that Sundaravej and Wongsowat are stand-ins for Shinawatra.
Recent events precipitating the current crisis are the fall of Sundaravej. On the evening of 25 November, the PAD executed “Operation Hiroshima”.

Armed PAD members dressed in yellow blocked the two ends of the road in front of Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The domestic terminal, the Don Muang airport was also seized.

ENEMY AT THE GATES

The government called on the Royal Thai Army to restore order. The Army did not follow orders.

Flights have resumed from Suvarnabhumi Airport, but the long-term implications of the political crisis are unclear. International press coverage on Thailand increased exponentially, with a number of high-profile news articles breaking.

The world is becoming increasingly unsafe due to the scourge of global terrorism.