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CORNWALLIS, Canada (AFP) – US defense secretary Robert Gates said the United States wants to send reinforcements to Afghanistan before elections next year, adding the ballot is "maybe the most important objective for us in 2009."

The U.S. Attorney's Office will monitor the general election in Chicago and surrounding suburbs next Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced Tuesday. As part of the monitoring effort, the office will operate a hotline for candidates or the public to call to report any complaints relating to voting. In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorneys will be available to respond to complaints as needed, according to a release Tuesday from Fitzgerald's office. The hotline number, staffed on Election Day only, is (312) 469-6157. "This office has a long tradition of monitoring the polls on Election Day." Fitzgerald said. "No one who...

The U.S. Attorney's Office will monitor the general election in Chicago and surrounding suburbs next Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced Tuesday. As part of the monitoring effort, the office will operate a hotline for candidates or the public to call to report any complaints relating to voting. In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorneys will be available to respond to complaints as needed, according to a release Tuesday from Fitzgerald's office. The hotline number, staffed on Election Day only, is (312) 469-6157. "This office has a long tradition of monitoring the polls on Election Day." Fitzgerald said. "No one who...

Four years after an oil company donated land to a Brooklyn couple for a museum to honor the nation's first commissioned ironclad warship, the property, wedged between industrial warehouses and the East River, still sits vacant. It's not what Janice Lauletta-Weinmann and her husband, George Weinmann, who have lived their entire lives in Greenpoint, envisioned on Dec. 23, 2003, when Motiva Enterprises gave them an acre of land in their neighborhood where the USS Monitor, the focus of their planned museum, was built and launched in 1862. Five months after being awarded the land, the couple received a letter saying...

WASHINGTON – Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers. In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

From Times Online November 16, 2007 Election monitor accuses Kremlin of blocking mission Goran Lennmarker, of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, left, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, met today to discuss limits on election observers Tony Halpin, of The Times, in Moscow The credibility of parliamentary elections in Russia was plunged into doubt today when the main European democratic watchdog cancelled its observer mission. In an unprecedented move, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) abandoned attempts to monitor the election and accused the Kremlin of obstructing its mission. “Despite repeated attempts to...

Samsung Electronics Launches Swan New Monitors Samsung Electronics has launched a series of four new monitors whose “neck” distantly recalls the shape of a swan’s. The new models target the market for medium-sized and large monitors. They are the 20-inch SyncMaster CX2032GW/BW models and 22-inch SyncMaster CX2232GW/BW models. Each pair consists of a wide-screen and Magic Clear panels. Only six months after their global debut in January this year, the Swan monitor series became million-sellers. More than 3 million Swan monitors are expected to be sold by the end of 2007. The monitors’ hinges are made of an elastomer...

BERKELEY, Calif. Human-rights activists are using high-resolution satellite cameras to keep watch over imperiled villages in the Darfur region of Sudan and posting the images online to enlist help preventing violence. The new Amnesty International Web site, http://www.eyesondarfur.org, was launched Wednesday in conjunction with a conference at the University of California, Berkeley. "We're hoping that by shining a light that we will deter the abuse from ever happening," said Ariela Blatter, director of the Crisis Prevention and Response Center for Amnesty International USA. Satellite images have been used before to document destruction in Darfur and elsewhere. But the latest project...

Japan began its satellite programme in 2003 Satellite launch Japan has launched its fourth spy satellite, which will give it the capability to monitor any location around the globe.An H-2A rocket carrying the satellite lifted off from a base in southern Japan at 0441 GMT, officials said. Tokyo began launching spy satellites in 2003, after North Korea fired a missile over Japan's main island in 1998. Japan sees itself as one of the top targets of the Communist state, which last year tested a nuclear bomb. Satoki Kurokawa, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), said the...

Ok, folks...yes, I am logged in, moose bites can be nasti, etc... I have a problem that's baffling me. My Gateway Pentium4 laptop (purchased in 2003) has decided that its monitor won't show up stuff anymore. If I hook up a regular monitor to it, I can see stuff just fine in the monitor (external) but otherwise I see nothing in the laptop's monitor. I tried going back to its WinXP "Last Best Known Config" or whatever it's called, and nothing. I even tried to make the screen brighter...nothing. Short of getting a new one (and no, I am not...

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t been Speaker of the House for two weeks yet and there is already proposed legislation which would be the most significant encroachment ever into the affairs and ability of churches and other organizations to communicate. Under the guise of lobbying reform, Speaker Pelosi and others have proposed legislation greatly expanding the scope of lobbying regulation which would impact churches, pastors, religious denominations, public interest organizations, civic organizations and other nonprofit groups. Even private individuals who voluntarily pay for media to distribute important messages to the general public on political matters would be impacted. So draconian is the...

They are meant to reduce crime by helping police spot problems. By the end of the year, 40 cameras will cover 31 locations in the area. It's part of a plan first announced in January by Dallas Police. Grant money will cover the 840-thousand dollar price tag for the cameras. Police will monitor the cameras from their headquarters and City Hall. Some residents feel apprehensive about the surveillance, seeing it as an invasion of privacy. But others say the cameras could help curb petty crime and random violence.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday directed the state's energy commission to monitor gasoline prices in the wake of BP's pipeline problems in Alaska, the governor's office said. Schwarzenegger also asked U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to make the West Coast a priority for any oil shipments from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Gasoline prices in California have been steady in most of the state since Sunday, when BP announced it was shutting about 400,000 barrels per day of production from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield on Alaska's North Slope. The AAA motor club showed on Wednesday the...

In 1775, New Hampshire was the first colony to declare its independence from oppressive laws and taxes levied by the British crown. Now it may become the first state to declare its independence from an oppressive digital ID law concocted in Washington, D.C. New Hampshire's House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a remarkable bill, HB 1582, that would prohibit the state from participating in the national ID card system that will be created in 2008. A state Senate vote is expected as early as next week. The federal law in question is the Real ID Act (here's our FAQ on...

Lawmaker's warning: Vote in New Orleans race could tip taxman U.S. actor/comedian Bill Cosby makes a face during a rally for voting rights of displaced residents in New Orleans April 1, 2006. Many citizens scattered across the country since Hurricane Katrina may be unable to vote in the city's April 22 mayoral election, according to rally organizers. REUTERS/Lee Celano BATON ROUGE, La. When New Orleans residents scattered about the country by Hurricane Katrina cast their ballots in the mayor's race, they'll be giving state tax collectors a way to locate them. One Louisiana lawmaker says he wants people to know...

If you’ve seen the movie “Minority Report” and marveled at the transparent computer screens used by Tom Cruise, you’ll appreciate what German researchers have concocted in their labs: entirely transparent OLED (organic light emitting diode) pixels. The researchers, located at the Technical University of Braunschweig, are claiming the development to be a world’s first. Their approach is to use transparent TFTs (thin-film transistors) made of a 100-nanometer-thick layer of zinc-tin-oxide, which transmits more than 90 percent of visible light. Such transistors are more often made of silicon, which is used for LCDs (liquid crystal displays) but is highly absorptive in...

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists. Now UAVs may be landing in the United States. A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring. "We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United...

From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller plane to reach this fishing village on the state's southwestern edge, a place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine. This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil. People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that reason: to be left alone. So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras went up...

RFID: Europe Wants to Tag You From the desk of Elaib Harvey on Sun, 2006-03-12 20:45 Am I the only one who is a tad concerned about the new RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) Policy for Europe? I hope not. This year data retention legislation was introduced by the European Parliament and now we have the execrable Viviane Reding at a major conference in Hanover burbling about the Commission’s new consultation on the electronic tagging technology. Given that Commission Press Releases are normally bland to the point of ennui the following is quite something, “But their power to report their...

New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup. The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. .. The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said. .. But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the...