GeoCities is closing

Foi o primeiro aloxamento da miña web, desde o 1999 ata o 2006, e aínda están alí moitos contidos interesantes que centos de miles de persoas puxeron nel sen ánimo de lucro. Falo de GeoCities, o servizo gratuíto de aloxamento de páxinas persoais que Yahoo! cerrará, segundo anunciou, o próximo 26 de outubro. Xa se sabía hai tempo (ver enlaces abaixo), pero a min acaban de notificarmo por correo agora. Doulle publicidade á noticia para que os arquivos que alí queden poidan ser rescatados…

GeoCities chegou a ser número 3 por número de visitas na internet do 1999, so por detrás de AOL e Yahoo! Se hoxe procuramos servizos comparables na lista de Alexa, encontramos a Facebook no número 4, a Blogger no 8, a Myspace no 11, a Twitter no 19 e a WordPress no 21… Yahoo! comprou GeoCities en plena dot-com bubble porque era moi popular pero, ó non saber facer negocio con el, foino matando, ou deixando que morrese, lentamente.

Enlaces relacionados:

• “Now closing: GeoCities, a relic of Web’s early days” (cnet, 23 – IV – 2009)
• “Yahoo closing Geocities web hosting service” (vnunet, 24 – IV – 2009)

Google Chrome OS

Google está a preparar un sistema operativo gratuíto e de código aberto para netbooks. Queren facelo lixeiro e rápido para que o usuario poida acceder a internet en poucos segundos. A empresa calcula que estará disponible na segunda metade do 2010, e probablemente será un duro competidor para Microsoft Windows nesa clase de computadoras.

Este sistema operativo, aínda en proxecto, chámase Google Chrome OS, e non debe confundirse co navegador Google Chrome (do cal toma o seu nome) nin co sistema operativo Android, desenvolvido por Google e outras empresas para teléfonos móbiles.

Este anuncio dun sistema operativo aberto, gratuíto, lixeiro e usable pode significar unha revolución para o mundo educativo. Teremos que estar atentos ás evolucións do proxecto. Esta é a noticia na súa fonte orixinal: “Introducing the Google Chrome OS”.

Xa está “na rúa” o VLC media player 1.0.0

Xa se pode descargar, libre e gratuíto, o VLC media player 1.0.0, con versións para Windows, Mac, Linux e outros sistemas operativos. Copio e pego un breve texto onde se describe este programa:

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

Para saber un pouco máis sobre os formatos que reproduce, miren a sección VLC features list.

Codex Sinaiticus Project

O traballo conxunto de varias bibliotecas permite ver na internet boa parte do Codex Sinaiticus, unha Biblia manuscrita do século IV que contén a versión completa máis antiga do Novo Testamento.

Aínda que os administradores das distintas igrexas secuestraron, violaron e mutilaron estes libros durante milenios causando o seu descrédito, quen os estude encontrará unha fonte moi rica de espiritualidade. Son, para ben e para mal, parte indispensable do noso patrimonio (histórico, artístico, lingüístico…) e os seus contidos aparecen, unha e outra vez, amalgamados no noso folclore.

Para saber máis, podedes ir ó artigo sobre o Codex Sinaiticus da Wikipedia en inglés, ou acceder directamente á páxina oficial do Codex Sinaiticus Project.

Xa está “na rúa” o Notepad++ 5.4.4

Xa está disponible unha nova versión estable, a 5.4.4, do Notepad++, que eu defino como un lixeiro pero completísimo editor de texto e HTML.

Quero dicir: eu úsoo para iso, pero os programadores saberán apreciar que recoñeza a sintaxe de ducias de linguaxes máis, como C, C++, XML, CSS, PHP, Java, Perl, JavaScript, SQL, Python, TeX, etcétera.

E o millor de todo, é totalmente aberto e gratuíto (licencia GPL). Un único inconveniente: so funciona en Windows, aínda que tamén pode funcionar en Linux coa axuda de Wine.

Obxectivos civís nos bombardeos de Israel sobre Gaza (informes de AI e HRW)

Os bombardeos que o exército de Israel levou a cabo sobre Gaza entre os meses de decembro do 2008 e xaneiro do 2009 foron esta semana obxecto de dous informes, un publicado por Amnistía Internacional (AI) e outro publicado por Human Rights Watch (HRW). Parece demostrado que as armas de alta precisión podían evitar moitas baixas civís pero non o fixeron, e por isto estamos diante de graves crimes contra o Direito Internacional Humanitario.

O informe de AI ten máis de cento vinte páxinas e leva por título Operation “Cast Lead”: 22 days of death and destruction. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

At 11.30am on 27 December 2008, without warning, Israeli forces began a devastating bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip codenamed Operation “Cast Lead”. Its stated aim was to end rocket attacks into Israel by armed groups affiliated with Hamas and other Palestinian factions. By 18 January 2009, when unilateral ceasefires were announced by both Israel and Hamas, some 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, including some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and large areas of Gaza had been razed to the ground, leaving many thousands homeless and the already dire economy in ruins.

Much of the destruction was wanton and resulted from direct attacks on civilian objects as well as indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilian objects. Such attacks violated fundamental provisions of international humanitarian law, notably the prohibition on direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects (the principle of distinction), the prohibition on indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and the prohibition on collective punishment.

Hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks carried out using high-precision weapons – airdelivered bombs and missiles, and tank shells. Others, including women and children, were shot at short range when posing no threat to the lives of the Israeli soldiers. Aerial bombardments launched from Israeli F-16 combat aircraft targeted and destroyed civilian homes without warning, killing and injuring scores of their inhabitants, often while they slept. Children playing on the roofs of their homes or in the street and other civilians going about their daily business, as well as medical staff attending the wounded were killed in broad daylight by Hellfire and other highly accurate missiles launched from helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, and by precision projectiles fired from tanks.

Disturbing questions remain unanswered as to why such high-precision weapons, whose operators can see even small details of their targets and which can accurately strike even fast moving vehicles, killed so many children and other civilians. [...]

O informe de HRW ten unhas corenta páxinas e leva por título “Precisely Wrong: Gaza Civilians Killed by Israeli Drone-Launched Missiles”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

During the recent fighting in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed dozens of Palestinian civilians with one of the most precise weapons in its arsenal: missiles launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV)–the latter more commonly known as a drone. Alongside weapons that affect large areas, such as high explosive artillery and artillery-fired white phosphorous, Israeli forces in Gaza used drones in precisely targeted attacks that killed and wounded civilians.

Military experts around the world have extolled drone-launched missiles as weapons with pinpoint accuracy, which can minimize civilian casualties. Their use is rapidly expanding, for example by the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in part because the use of drones places no friendly military personnel directly at risk.

But as Human Rights Watch’s investigation in Gaza demonstrates, drones, much like sniper rifles, are only as good at sparing civilians as the care taken by the people who operate them. The accuracy and concentrated blast radius of the missile can reduce civilian casualties, but in Gaza, Israel’s targeting choices led to the loss of many civilian lives.

The total number of Gazan civilians killed by drone-launched missiles remains unclear. Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations –B’Tselem, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights– together reported 42 drone attacks that killed 87 civilians. Amnesty International told the media that it documented 48 civilian deaths from drones, and this does not represent the full number.

This report focuses on six Israeli drone strikes, which in total killed 29 civilians, eight of them children. It is based on interviews with victims and witnesses, investigations of the attack sites, IDF and media reports on the fighting, and in one case IDF video footage of the attack. Human Rights Watch determined that in all of these attacks the Israeli military directed their strikes on individuals who were all found to be civilians. In none of the cases did Human Rights Watch find evidence that Palestinian fighters were present in the immediate area of the attack at the time. None of the targets were moving quickly or leaving the area, so the drone operators would have had time to determine whether they were observing civilians or combatants, and to hold fire if they were not able to tell the difference.

In the incidents investigated by Human Rights Watch, Israeli forces either failed to take all feasible precautions to verify that the targets were combatants, apparently setting an unacceptably low threshold for conducting attacks, or they failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to target only the former. As a result, these attacks violated international humanitarian law (the laws of war).

The technological capabilities of drones and drone-launched missiles make the violations even more egregious. Israeli drones are equipped with high-resolution cameras and advanced sensors, which allow drone operators to view objects on the ground in detail during both day and night. One Israeli drone operator who flew missions in Gaza during the recent fighting told an Israeli military journal that he was able to discern clothing colors, a large radio, and a weapon. In addition, the missile launched from a drone carries its own cameras that allow the operator to observe the target from the moment of firing to impact. If doubts arise about a target after a missile has been launched, the drone operator can remotely divert the weapon elsewhere. With these advanced visual capabilities, drone operators who exercised the proper degree of care should have been able to tell the difference between legitimate targets and civilians. [...]

Punitive House-Burning in Chechnya (HRW report)

Human Rights Watch publicou antonte un informe sobre Chechenia, centrado na queima de vivendas. As autoridades de Rusia inflixen este castigo a civís de xeito arbitrario, so por seren familiares dos guerrilleiros, violando as normas máis básicas do Direito aínda para o tempo de guerra.

O informe leva por título “What Your Children Do Will Touch Upon You”: Punitive House-Burning in Chechnya. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

[...] Today, the armed conflict in Chechnya has subsided and the capital, Grozny, has been largely rebuilt. However, abuses such as torture, illegal detention, and extrajudicial executions persist (albeit on a smaller scale), and impunity for past and ongoing abuses is rampant. The perpetrators of ongoing violations are mainly law enforcement and security personnel under the de facto control of the republic’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Although insurgent attacks in Chechnya are now distinctly less frequent than in the neighboring North Caucasus republics of Ingushetia or Dagestan, they continue to occur sporadically. The insurgency has a loose agenda to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state in the Caucasus. Working toward those objectives, insurgents have been using a variety of violent tactics, including killings and house-burnings, against members and supporters of the pro-Moscow Chechen authorities: policemen, security personnel, administration officials, and their family members.

The perpetrators of these and other crimes must be held accountable under the law and in accordance with international fair trial standards. However, unlawful tactics used by insurgents can in no way justify the use of similar tactics by government forces fighting against the insurgency, particularly burning of houses and other types of persecution against families of alleged rebel fighters.

Human Rights Watch is aware of 25 cases of punitive house burning that can be attributed to Chechen law enforcement personnel between June 2008 and March 2009 in seven districts of Chechnya: ten in Kurchaloi, six in Shali, four in Vedeno, two in Naur, and one each in Shatoi, Achkhoi-Martan, and Grozny districts. Also, just several days prior to the release of this report Human Rights Watch learned of yet another, most recent case of house-burning. On June 18, around 5 a.m., unidentified law enforcement servicemen reportedly burned two homes belonging to elderly parents of an alleged insurgent in the village of Engel-Yurt, in the Gudermes district.

All the affected families, whose homes were burned, have among their close relatives alleged insurgents, usually sons or nephews. In most cases, prior to the house-burning, law enforcement and local administration officials strongly pressured the families to bring their relatives home “from the woods” and threatened them with severe repercussions for failure to do so. Some burnings occurred very soon after a rebel attack in the vicinity and therefore appeared to have been motivated by retribution.

Notably, in 2008 high-level Chechen officials, including President Kadyrov, made public statements explicitly stating that the insurgents’ families should expect to be punished unless they convince their relatives to surrender. While such statements may not constitute direct instructions for law enforcement agents to destroy houses of insurgents’ families, they encourage such actions by police and security personnel by sending a strong message that lawless, punitive actions will be tolerated or condoned. [...]

AI report: Human Rights violations in the North Caucasus (Russian Federation)

Amnistía Internacional (AI) publicou esta semana un informe sobre as violacións dos Direitos Humanos na parte do Cáucaso controlada por Rusia, centrándose principalmente nas repúblicas de Chechenia, Ingushetia, Daguestán e Cabardino-Balcaria.

Os abusos máis graves e repetidos son as detencións arbitrarias, as torturas, as “desaparicións forzadas” e as “execucións extraxudiciais”. O informe leva por título “Russian Federation: Rule without law. Human rights violations in the North Caucasus”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

On 16 April 2009 the Russian authorities declared an end to the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya. Yet serious human rights violations continue to be committed in a climate of impunity in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus, in particular in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. The civilian population continues to live in an atmosphere of lawlessness that engenders fear and insecurity. Armed opposition groups in the region continue to mount attacks. Law enforcement officials conduct counter-terrorism measures which, in many instances, entail serious human rights violations. A legitimate aim – that of tackling violence by armed groups and bringing stability to the North Caucasus – is still being pursued by means which violate international human rights law.

Normalization in Chechnya, as in the North Caucasus as a whole, is not possible without a complete end to human rights violations and full accountability for the grievous human rights violations that have taken place. Without true respect for the rule of law from all sides, and a genuine commitment to address the festering legacy of past abuses, without the political will at all levels of government to prevent and punish a catalogue of serious abuses, there can be no stability and security for the North Caucasus. There has been an almost total failure of political will to uphold the rule of law and address impunity for present and past abuses of human rights in the region. Those responsible for abuses walk free while victims and their families have no redress through the Russian judicial system.

For over a decade the victims of human rights violations in the North Caucasus and their families have been waiting for truth and justice. They want justice for themselves and their loved ones, to know the fate and whereabouts of relatives and friends who are among those subjected to enforced disappearance, and they want those responsible brought to account. But those who seek redress from the authorities are at risk of reprisals. Despairing of obtaining justice from the Russian authorities, some people have turned to the European Court of Human Rights, and in doing so some have suffered reprisals, ranging from harassment and threats to, in some cases, death or enforced disappearance. The number of cases in which the European Court of Human Rights has found Russia responsible for human rights violations in Chechnya alone exceeds 100 as of May 2009. However, these judgments have not been fully implemented to ensure justice for the applicants, and non-repetition of the violations in the future. The Russian Federation should fully implement all judgments of the European Court on Human Rights as a matter of course.

Stretching back over 15 years Amnesty International has documented a range of grievous human rights violations carried out in the context of the conflicts. People have become victims of such human rights violations in the region as enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture or other ill-treatment, or even killed while in detention. Moreover, there has been a continuing failure by the Russian authorities to implement effective and adequate measures to investigate these abuses. Investigations by the Russian authorities into alleged serious human rights violations by law enforcement and security officers have been far from prompt, independent and effective. [...] The failure to investigate allegations of human rights violations in accordance with such standards is itself a human rights violation. [...]

Nigeria: Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta (AI report)

Amnistía Internacional (AI) publicou antonte un informe de cento corenta páxinas sobre Nixeria, centrado no impacto das industrias do petróleo no delta do río Níxer. Estas industrias provocan danos ambientais graves e violan os direitos básicos dos habitantes da rexión, que dependen da pesca e da agricultura para sobreviviren.

O informe leva por título “Nigeria: Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta”. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

[...] The Niger Delta is one ofthe 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems in the world and is home to some 31 million people. The Niger Delta is also the location of massive oil deposits, which have been extracted for decades by the government of Nigeria and by multinational oil companies. Oil has generated an estimated $600 billion since the 1960s.

Despite this, the majority of the Niger Delta’s population lives in poverty. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) describes the region as suffering from “administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict.” The majority of the people of the Niger Delta do not have adequate access to clean water or health-care.18 Their poverty, and its contrast with the wealth generated by oil, has become one of the world’s starkest and most disturbing examples of the “resource curse”.

Under Nigerian law, local communities have no legal rights to oil and gas reserves in their territory. The Federal Government allocates permits, licences and leases to survey, prospect for and extract oil to the oil companies, who are then automatically granted access to the land covered by their permit, lease or licence. The fact that the people of the Niger Delta have not benefited from oil wealth is only part of the story. Widespread and unchecked human rights violations related to the oil industry have pushed many people deeper into poverty and deprivation, fuelled conflict and led to a pervasive sense of powerlessness and frustration. The multi-dimensional crisis is driven by the actions of the security forces and militant groups, extensive pollution of land and water, corruption, corporate failures and bad practice and serious government neglect.

This report focuses on one dimension of the crisis: the impact of pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry on the human rights of the people living in the oil producing areas of Niger Delta. Much of the population in the oil producing areas of the delta relies on fisheries, subsistence agriculture and associated processing industries for their livelihood.

Amnesty International has documented the impact of oil pollution on human rights on several occasions. In 2008 Amnesty International researchers visited the Niger Delta to conduct further investigations. They visited a number of oil pollution sites and met with communities who have suffered from the pollution. They also talked with the human rights defenders and environmental activists who have been working for years, sometimes decades, for an end to oil industry bad practice in the region, and who have been campaigning for justice for those affected by pollution.

Oil spills, waste dumping and gas flaring (gas is separated from oil and, in Nigeria, most of it is burnt as waste) are endemic in the Niger Delta. This pollution, which has affected the area for decades, has damaged the soil, water and air quality. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected, particularly the poorest and those who rely on traditional livelihoods such as fishing and agriculture. The human rights implications are serious, under-reported and have received little attention from the government of Nigeria or the oil companies.

This is despite the fact that the communities themselves and local NGOs, as well as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) and the UN Human Rights Committee have all expressed serious concern about pollution and called on the government of Nigeria to take urgent action to deal with the human rights impacts of oil industry pollution and environmental degradation.

The main human rights issues raised in this report are:

• Violations of the right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food – as a consequence of the impact of oil-related pollution and environmental damage on agriculture and fisheries, which are the main sources of food for many people in the Niger Delta.
• Violations of the right to gain a living through work – also as a consequence of widespread damage to agriculture and fisheries, because these are also the main sources of livelihood for many people in the Niger Delta.
• Violations of the right to water – which occur when oil spills and waste materials pollute water used for drinking and other domestic purposes.
• Violations of the right to health – which arise from failure to secure the underlying determinants of health, including a healthy environment, and failure to enforce laws to protect the environment and prevent pollution.
• The absence of any adequate monitoring of the human impacts of oil-related pollution – despite the fact that the oil industry in the Niger Delta is operating in a relatively densely populated area characterized by high levels of poverty and vulnerability.
• Failure to provide affected communities with adequate information or ensure consultation on the impacts of oil operations on their human rights.
• Failure to ensure access to effective remedy for people whose human rights have been violated.

The report also examines who is responsible for this situation in a context where multinational oil companies have been operating for decades. It highlights how companies can take advantage of the weak regulatory systems that characterize many poor countries, which frequently results in the poorest people being the most vulnerable to exploitation by corporate actors. The people of the Niger Delta have seen their human rights undermined by oil companies that their government cannot or will not hold to account. They have been systematically denied access to information about how oil exploration and production will affect them, and are repeatedly denied access to justice. The Niger Delta provides a stark case study of the lack of accountability of a government to its people, and of multinational companies’ almost total lack of accountability when it comes to the impact of their operations on human rights. [...]

Xa está “na rúa” a versión 3.2.6.1 do FileZilla (cliente FTP)

Xa está disponible a nova versión estable (3.2.6.1) do “cliente” FTP libre e gratuíto FileZilla. Para baixalo, esta é a páxina web:

FileZilla: the free FTP solution.