John Galt is a communist
He runs the financial operations of the Communist Party of Great Britain...

‘Combatants’ lack rights, U.S. argues
"June 20 — Prisoners declared enemy combatants do not have the right to a lawyer and the American judiciary cannot second-guess the military’s classification of such detainees, the Justice Department argued yesterday in a brief to an appeals court."

Satpal Ram is free
"This is a Victory but not Vindication
At 7.00pm on Tuesday 18th June 2002, Satpal Ram walked through the prison gate of HMP Blantyre House, for the last time.
Satpal's conviction has not been quashed and though he is now out on licence, Satpal will continue to fight the conviction, that has kept him in prison since 1987."

Perugia dump Korean hero
"Perugia president Luciano Gaucci said his club's decision to sack South Korea's Ahn Jung-Hwan was not for dumping Italy out of the World Cup but for his offensive remarks afterwards."
...
"It has nothing to do with the goal he scored against Italy," said Gaucci.
"He could have scored 10 and I wouldn't have felt offended. It was simply the comments he made."
"He said Korean football was superior to Italian football, when Italy is a footballing nation.
"We have treated him well with all our love, but his comments were offensive to me and to the whole Italian nation.
"I feel offended by what he said. He should respect other nations as well as his own."
Gaucci earlier told Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport: "That gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again.
"I am a nationalist and I regard such behaviour not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him. "

Sore losers...

Hysteria
Read more about the 'security' overkill in Oslo in advance of the demonstrations against the World Bank ABCDE-conference.

Linguistic convergence finally laid to rest

"Cultural Affairs Minister Valgerd Svarstad Haugland (Chr.Dem) has quietly laid to rest the policy designed to achieve the convergence of Norway’s two official versions of the Norwegian language. Last Friday a bill to repeal the so-called convergence clause in the Norwegian Language Council Act was approved by the Council of State. A long and difficult chapter in the at times acrimonious debate over the Norwegian language has now been formally brought to a close, more than 30 years after the convergence policy had been abandoned in practice."

Finally! This report is somewhat flawed though: the nynorsk language has been forcefully 'converged' towards Danish-Norwegian (or bokmål) during the last thirty years.

Again 1966
The Korean supporters came prepared: they made a display to remind everybody of the 1966 World Cup when North Korea sent Italy out of the World Cup.

Oslo 2002
Bjørn Stærk doesn't believe the protests against the World bank the coming week will be non-violent. In this regard he's in disagreement with Kjetil Wiedswang in Dagens Næringsliv(The Norwegian Financial Times). He writes, among other things:
"The French use bricks to get their political views across. The Norwegians seldom do. The coming demonstrations in Oslo will probably be more peaceful than the Police Chief fears."
"The indignation of the large majority of peaceful Norwegian protesters will most likely passivize the bullies."

Demonstrators gag Vigeland statues
"The demonstrations against next week's World Bank meeting in Oslo got off to an early start on Tuesday. A group of activists tied white cloths around the mouths of all the statues in the Frogner Park, calling it a symbolic protest against World Bank politics."

Artist sells his soul for £11.61
Life's cheap.

Police prepare for World Bank meeting

"Four armoured trucks are among the measures taken to protect Oslo police units against possible attacks by violent demonstrators during the World Bank meeting in Oslo next week."

The police and press are building up hysteria around this event, which most likely will be very peaceful. Read about the organizing coalition here.