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Monday, May 24, 2010

Pakistan blocks 800 web pages


Pakistan has blocked 800 web pages and URLs to limit access to "blasphemous" material, extending a crackdown that has already banned access to Facebook and YouTube, an official said yesterday. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) banned access to Facebook, YouTube and other links, which included restricted access to Wikipedia, in view of what it called "growing sacrilegious content" this week. "At least 800 individual web pages and URLs have been blocked since the government's orders to shut Facebook and YouTube," Wahaj us Siraj, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan said. Mr Siraj's remarks came hours after the Facebook user who organised an "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day" competition to promote "freedom of expression" evidently took down the page along with a separate blog about the campaign. The competition sparked angry protests in Pakistan, a conservative Muslim country, although members of a well-educated, moderate elite expressed disappointment about the blanket ban on the wildly popular websites.

Barack Obama's new world order


BARACK Obama wants to shape a new "international order" in which the US co-operates with other nations and seeks long-term support by promoting its democratic values. The US President's weekend speech to cadets at the West Point military academy was practically a trial run for the national security policy he will announce this week. Addressing graduates at the same venue he announced a 30,000 US troop increase for the Afghan war six months ago, Mr Obama said: "Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system. "But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of co-operation -- we have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don't." His comments indicate he has not been dissuaded from his theme of engagement with other nations, including the Muslim world, despite threats to national security from two attempted terror attacks on US territory.