"The Queen has warned Britain and France that they cannot afford to be divided while facing threats to their security./ Her state visit, which began in Paris, follows a series of tensions between the two countries, most recently over the war in Iraq." [more]

And the recent suggestions of the presidential commission on intelligence make the 9/11 commission's appetite for recommendations look restrained. The presidential commission went on a federal feeding frenzy and recommended stuffing the intelligence community with many new offices and organizations. [more]

"The correct moral to draw from al-Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan is not the danger of rogue states but the danger of failed ones where the collapse of the central government allowed a lightly armed but highly motivated group of fanatics to seize control. Rather than resolve the problem of Afghanistan's lack of effective authority, however, Bush simply treated a symptom and left the disease in place. Now, not only are Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders still at large, the possibility that they and their allies will gain control over a substantial portion of Afghan territory remains quite real." [more]

"The resulting machine, dubbed FlashMob, would have needed to perform a rigorous benchmark calculation called Linpack at a rate of at least 403 billion flops (floating point operations per second) to be ranked as one of the top 500 supercomputers. But FlashMob only reached a relatively modest peak performance of 180 billion flops." [more]

"Turkish Ambassador to the United States Faruk Logoglu has reacted to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who described Turkey as an Islamic Republic, and stressed, 'Turkey is a democratic and secular republic.'" [more]

"...Tamil Tiger rebels today warned they would renew their fight to win their demands if the new government denied them autonomy./ The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said their overwhelming sweep of the island's north and east in Friday's general election was a 'major victory' and an endorsement of their nationalist struggle." [more]

"'Effectively he [Moqtada al-Sadr] is attempting to establish his authority in the place of the legitimate authority. We will not tolerate this,' Bremer said. 'We will reassert the law and order which the Iraqi people expect.'" [more]

"In the video, Abd al-Rahim sings against a backdrop of animated cartoons portraying Sharon as a bully whose acts backfire on him./ In one scene, he tries to bomb the world but the bomb explodes prematurely and tears his clothes off. Bush appears chopping up a cake and distributing the pieces among people, with a map of the Middle East in the background." [more]

"Most of the 'erased' are fellow former Yugoslavs, whom many Slovenes regard as poor Balkan cousins who failed to show sufficient loyalty to independent Slovenia. Supporters of the law and opponents of the referendum called the 4 April vote a victory for xenophobia and injustice." [more]

"The ABC letter said Spain had until April 4 to end its support for the United States and withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan./ 'If these demands are not met, we will declare war on you and ... convert your country into an inferno and your blood will flow like rivers,' the letter said." [more]

How income inequality in the United States is showing up in basic health statistics. [more]

"Warren explained that his days with the FBI make him certain that the Bureau doesn't really think the FCC will give them what they want in their petition. Instead, he believes the FBI is angling to make their case before Congress next year, when the sunset provisions on the Patriot Act go into effect. 'If Bush is reelected, Congress will be primed for this,' he said. 'Expectations for privacy are being lowered right now. They'll have law enforcement behind them, and with congressmen and senators up for reelection, they'll feel pressured to have this in place to make up for what they'll lose when the sunset provisions go into effect.'" [more]

"The Saudis have steadily infiltrated American educational institutions, using vast infusions of money to turn the American educational system against US support for Israel and in favor of the Saudi vision of a global Muslim state in which not only Jews but Christians and all infidels will have subordinate status to the followers of the 'true faith.' At the same time they look to affect American policy in the Middle East and public opinion in the US in a way to aid their Wahhabist goals." [more]

Richard Clarke and the lessons of Iraq. [more]

"The new exercises will use a series of exercise activities of increasing complexity, and simulate a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction in Connecticut and New Jersey, the Homeland Security Department said. The specific scenarios for the exercises are still being developed." [more]