"In response to requests for even easier access to the Binary Formats, Microsoft has agreed to remove any intermediate steps necessary to get the documentation. They're going to just post it, making it directly available as a download on the Microsoft web site. Microsoft will also make the Binary Formats subject to its Open Specification Promise by February 15, 2008. They're even planning to include an Open Source converter implementation."

i particularly like the tags the slashdotter has put on it

hellfreezesover, blackiswhite, catsanddogslivingtogether

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

Ama Sumani is slowing down. She is only 39 but moves like an elderly grandmother.

Ama came to the UK five years ago as a student
Her feet, legs and face are swollen.

A week ago Ama was lying in a hospital bed in Cardiff. Her kidneys damaged by cancer, she had just had a session of the dialysis treatment she needs three times a week to stay alive.

Then early in the morning, in walked three immigration officers.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Deported, abandoned and saved in Ghana

Obama embodies more than he can know. "Change" is his mantra, but the potential for transformation goes far beyond the kinds of policies pursued in Washington. Those policies are rooted in assumptions sunk deep into the national psyche, and into the structure of memory that gives it shape. War is not necessarily redemptive. Africans are not necessarily disadvantaged. African-Americans are not mere victims. Race, for that matter, need not be definitive. An old story is offered a new ending - which is the beginning America has been awaiting. The day has come.

The ghosts of racism - International Herald Tribune

hi, it's Tim,

This is an email I hoped I would never have to send.

As you probably know, in July of 2007 we had to block usage of Pandora outside the U.S. because of the lack of a viable license structure for Internet radio streaming in other countries. It was a
terrible day. We did however hold out some hope that a solution might exist for the UK, so we left it unblocked as we worked diligently with the rights organizations to negotiate an economically
workable license fee. After over a year of trying, this has proved impossible. Both the PPL (which represents the record labels) and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (which represents music publishers) have
demanded per track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last
territory outside of the US.

Based on your email address, we believe you may be listening from the UK. If you are in fact listening from the U.S., please disregard this email.

It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are
totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music. I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations
is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent - and by that I mean both well known and indie artists. The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora
that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening
drought of new music for fans. As a former working musician myself, I find it very troubling.

We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing. Streaming illegally is just not in our DNA, and we have to take the
threats of legal action seriously. Lest you think this is solely an international problem, you should know that we are also fighting for our survival here in the US, in the face of a crushing
increase in web radio royalty rates, which if left unchanged, would mean the end of Pandora.

We know what an epicenter of musical creativity and fan support the UK has always been, which makes the prospect of not being able to launch there and having to block our first listeners all the more
upsetting for us.

We know there is a lot of support from listeners and artists in the UK for Pandora and remain hopeful that at some point we'll get beyond this. We're going to keep fighting for a fair and workable
rate structure that will allow us to bring Pandora back to you. We'll be sure to let you know if Pandora becomes available in the UK. There may well come a day when we need to make a direct appeal
for your support to move for governmental intervention as we have in the US. In the meantime, we have no choice but to turn off service to the UK.

Pandora will stop streaming to the UK as of January 15th, 2008.

Again, on behalf of all of us at Pandora, I'm very, very sorry.

-Tim Westergren (Pandora founder)

Pandora: Changes to Availability in the UK

John Holloway received a diagnosis of AIDS nearly two decades ago, when the disease was a speedy death sentence and treatment a distant dream.

Yet at 59 he is alive, thanks to a cocktail of drugs that changed the course of an epidemic. But with longevity has come a host of unexpected medical conditions, which challenge the prevailing view of AIDS as a manageable, chronic disease.

this just seems so unimaginably cruel

AIDS Patients Face Downside of Living Longer - New York Times

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

There is good and bad to the news that Britain surpassed the United States for the first time ever in donations to the World Bank's unit to combat world poverty.

This should help dispel the notion that the bank's International Development Association is an arm of the U.S. Treasury doing Washington's will around the world. The more depressing side to the news is that the United States - with an economy five times the size of Britain's - is doing far less than it could and should to help the world's poorest countries.

Bested by the Brits in the fight against poverty - International Herald Tribune

The UN General Assembly voted on Tuesday for a global moratorium on the death penalty. The resolution was nonbinding; its symbolic weight made barely a ripple in the news ocean of the United States, where the rights of governments to kill a killer is enshrined in law and custom.
...
The United States, as usual, lined up on the other side, with Iran, China, Pakistan, Sudan and Iraq.

blood brothers

Lining up against the death penalty - International Herald Tribune

A Kenyan slum child inspired by finding a Manchester University prospectus on a rubbish tip says he is overjoyed to realise his dream of getting a degree.

Sammy Gitau was initially refused a visa to attend the UK university as he had only two years of formal education.

He grew up in crime-ridden Mathare slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where from the age of 13 he was the family breadwinner after his father's murder.

He sold drugs and battled addiction before turning his life around.

'Slum potential'

The University of Manchester describes his achievement in winning a master's degree as "a miraculous journey".

"It feels wonderful; it feels wonderful," Mr Gitau told the BBC's Network Africa about receiving his MSc degree in international development project management.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Kenya slum dweller gets UK degree

Paddington, the bear from Peru, will be arrested and interrogated over his immigration status in a book marking his 50th birthday.

8-)

BBC NEWS | England | London | Paddington Bear's birthday book