Wired News: ‘Yahoo Betrayed My Husband’

Here is a Wired News article about how, at the request of the Chinese government, Yahoo provided evidence leading to the arrest of previously-anonymous government critic Wang Xiaoning:

Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling’s Beijing duplex. She’s cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He’s been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it’s a technical issue. This is the day he learns he’s wrong.

Wang picks up the phone: “Yes?”

“Are you home?” asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end.

“Yes.”

The line goes dead.

Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door -- 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu’s hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it’s done in China. This is how the internet police grab you.

Five years later, Yu, 55, sits in the dining room of a small house in Fairfax and weeps softly. She is a slight woman -- 100 pounds and barely 5 feet tall in slippers. Her eyes betray her exhaustion; but she is determined, too. She carries a thick stack of notes with her, and she has scrawled more on her left hand.

“Yahoo betrayed my husband and deprived him of freedom,” Yu says through a translator, her voice trembling. “Yahoo must learn its lesson.”

Yu’s husband is now in Beijing Prison No. 2, serving a 10-year sentence for inciting subversion with his pro-democracy internet writings. According to the written court verdict, the Chinese government convicted Wang, in part, on evidence provided by Yahoo.

Read more:

• Wired News: ‘Yahoo Betrayed My Husband’

8 Muslim Children, 1 Mother Perish in New York City Fire; 17 Injured

A funeral was held on Thursday for victims of a fire that claimed the lives of nine immigrants from Mali -- eight of whom were children. The fire also injured 19 others, including a 7-year-old girl in critical condition.

Hundreds of Muslims prayed the janazah (funeral) prayer over the bodies, and many others joined the services, including the mayor of New York City.

Here are pictures from the funeral.

Nicholas Kristof: Talking About Israel

Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece surprisingly critical of the Zionist state and the approach that American politicians take with regard to it.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Democrats are railing at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Mr. Bush’s crushing embrace of Israel.

There is no serious political debate among either Democrats or Republicans about our policy toward Israelis and Palestinians. And that silence harms America, Middle East peace prospects and Israel itself.

Read more (unfortunately, you will need a subscription to TimesSelect to access the article):

• New York Times: Talking About Israel by Nicholas D. Kristof

We Are So Insignificant

Google Video: Some Stars and Planets in Scale

Olmert Planned for Invasion of Lebanon Four Months in Advance

From British newspaper The Guardian:

Preparations for Israel’s war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.

His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday, contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into a battle for which it was ill-prepared. Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel’s perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.

Read more:

• The Guardian: Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says