Dallas Morning News
By KATE HAIROPOULOS / The Dallas Morning News BEIJING - The Games of the XXIX Olympiad opened spectacularly Friday night in China’s distinct, ever-expanding red glow. More

By Hossein Jaseb

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday dismissed any prospect of new talks with the United States on Iraq, accusing U.S.-led forces on Monday of a “massacre” of the Iraqi people.

The two foes last year held three rounds of ground-breaking discussions in Baghdad, easing a diplomatic freeze of almost three decades, but Iraqi officials have expressed frustration that a fourth round has failed to get off the ground.

Iraq says it does not want its soil to become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which are also at loggerheads over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

“Right now, what we observe in Iraq is a massacre of the Iraqi nation by the occupying forces,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.

“Concerning this situation, talks with America will have no results and will be meaningless.”

Hosseini did not elaborate, but U.S. forces have been fighting daily battles with militiamen loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad for several weeks.

Washington accuses Iran of funding, arming and training “rogue” elements of Sadr’s Mehdi Army to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces, despite its public commitment to stabilizing Iraq.

Tehran blames the violence on the U.S. presence in Iraq.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey criticized Iran for its latest statements and reiterated U.S. accusations of Iranian meddling in its neighbor’s affairs.

“It is meaningless to have talks on anything with Iran as long as they don’t change their behavior. That said, we have continued to be willing and ready, and are willing and ready, to have additional discussions with the Iranians through this tripartite channel,” Casey told reporters.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said there was no point in continuing the talks at this point.

“We see the value of the talks to be continued, but when the conditions are right and conducive,” he told the U.S. television news network CNN.

SHI’ITE MILITIAS

Despite the mutual accusations, U.S. and Iranian officials had launched talks in May last year aimed at easing bloodshed in Iraq. The fourth meeting has been postponed repeatedly.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also voiced support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cracking down on “illegal” Shi’ite militias, after an Iraqi delegation urged Tehran to stop backing such groups.

The U.S. military said last week “very, very significant” amounts of Iranian arms had been found in Basra and Baghdad during an offensive against gunmen loyal to Sadr.

Maliki has ordered the formation of a committee to compile evidence of Iranian “interference” in Iraq that would then be presented to Tehran, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh Dabbagh said on Sunday.

Hosseini said Tehran had always supported stability in Iraq.

“What Iran has repeatedly said … was its support for Mr Maliki’s government,” Hosseini said. “Iran believes that illegal armed groups that committed crimes should be legally confronted.”

Ties between Iran and Iraq have improved since Sunni Arab strongman Saddam Hussein was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion and a Shi’ite-led government came to power in Baghdad.

Analysts say Tehran wants to keep a friendly government in charge while ensuring that rival Iraqi Shi’ite factions look to Iran as a power broker.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Aseel Kami in Baghdad, and Sue Plemingin Washington; Writing by Fredrik Dahl, editing by Ross Colvin and Myra MacDonald)

Posted by Robin Harris

Fall back! Fall back!
Microsoft’s announcement yesterday of the “Extended Availability of Windows XP Home for ULCPCs” is more evidence that the Windows Vista fiasco is still growing.

Microsoft is scrambling to stay relevant in a world where they are no longer the only game in town. Can’t let Linux become the default OS for low-cost systems, can we?

Why doesn’t software get cheaper?
My 1978 Apple II cost over $3,000 in today’s dollars - with no disk or display - and a primitive command line OS. Today a vastly more powerful machine like the Eee is less than $400 - with a display and an incredibly capacious 4 GB flash drive. Other machines coming soon will be much cheaper. $200 is the magic number for broad consumer acceptance.

Microsoft has lived in a monopoly pricing bubble, selling Windows to OEMs for $50 a copy, while hardware - driven by Moore’s Law - has plummeted in price. That couldn’t last forever. It’s crunch time for Redmond.

Redmond’s nightmare now in the light of day
Microsoft’s announcement created a new market segment - the Ultra Low Cost PC - that it hopes will protect its Vista margins from the low-end Linux attack. Like that could work.

Today’s mid-range Vista PC is tomorrow’s ULCPC. The reasons vendors and customers balk at Microsoft’s $50 Vista tax today won’t change. Consumers will pay $50 on a $600 machine. But $50 on a $200 machine? No way.

People are realizing that for much of what they do - web surfing, email, online video - can be handled by much smaller and cheaper systems. As Linux continue to refine the GUI and simplify its distros, the Windows advantage continues to fade.

The Storage Bits take
First time users who learn Linux will have no reason to ever pay for Windows. Just as I deciphered the Apple II’s CLI 30 years ago, today’s eager, but poor, first timers will figure Linux out.

Microsoft’s Vista is a slow-motion disaster. Bloated and inflexible, expensive and late, Vista is a continuing drag on Microsoft’s business flexibility.

But this isn’t all Jim Allchin’s fault. If Steve Ballmer were as smart as he thinks he is he’d have seen the ULCPC segment emerging and positioned to company to dominate it. Instead they’re playing catchup with a 7 year old product.

Steve, resign. If you can’t do that, at least stop obsessing over Google. Focus Microsoft on building great software. That is a game you can win.

[Source: blogs.zdnet.com]
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Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

By Nancy-Amelia Collins
Jakarta

he top nuclear negotiators for North Korea and the United States may meet next week to try to end the impasse over stalled multinational talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. VOA’s Nancy-Amelia Collins has more from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Jakarta Friday he might meet with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, in the coming days.

“I’m not in a position yet to confirm reports that you’ve all heard that we will be having meetings with my counterpart in the DPRK [Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea] except to say that we’re obviously looking to try to wrap up the declaration very soon,” he said.  “We don’t have a lot of time; we really need to move on to the next phase if we’re going to really achieve our goals.”

Hill, who was in Jakarta for a brief visit Friday, told reporters if he meets with Kim Kye Gwan, it will not take place until after his visit to East Timor on Sunday.

The Six Party Talks between North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia stalled last December when Washington accused North Korea of failing to keep to a deadline for declaring all of its nuclear programs.

Pyongyang was required to submit a full and accurate declaration of its nuclear programs and materials by the end of 2007.

North Korea maintains it has met its obligations under the terms of the six-party agreement.

The United States also wants Pyongyang to reveal any weapons-grade uranium enrichment programs, and whether it has shared nuclear technology with Syria.

Hill criticized North Korea for increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula recently by test firing missiles, ejecting South Koreans from a shared industrial zone, and threatening to attack the South after Seoul warned it would launch a pre-emptive strike in response to nuclear attack.

“We have made very clear that the comments that were made in some cases by anonymous spokesmen of the Korea central news agency, the so-called KCNA, that those comments were very, in many cases, very inappropriate, and very unhelpful to the situation,” he said.  “You know the DPRK needs to be reaching out to its neighbors and should not be engaged in that sort of comment.”

Hill also told journalists he did not know if the recent harsh rhetoric against South Korea by North Korea would have any effect on the six-party talks.

[Source: voanews.com]

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea threatened South Korea with destruction Sunday after Seoul’s top military officer said his country would consider attacking the communist nation if it tried to carry out a nuclear attack.

The statement from North Korea’s official news agency marked the third straight day of bellicose rhetoric from the North, which is angry over the harsher line the South’s conservative new president has taken against the country since assuming office last month.

“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” said an unidentified KCNA military commentator. “Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins.”

On Friday, North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles into the sea and warned it would “mercilessly wipe out” any South Korean warships that violate its waters near their disputed sea border.

Such rhetoric by North Korea at times of increased tensions is not rare, and it comes just two days before a scheduled visit to South Korea by the chief U.S. negotiator in North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry reacted calmly.

A senior military officer at the ministry said officials were working “to ensure the public would not worry about” the North’s recent actions and statements. He declined to elaborate and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media.

Sunday’s KCNA statement also warned that the North would suspend all scheduled inter-Korean dialogue unless Seoul retracts and apologizes for the remark by its new top military leader.

Kim Tae-young, chairman of the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a parliamentary hearing Wednesday that the military would strike a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons site if Pyongyang attempts to attack the South with atomic bombs.

His office later said he was talking about a general military principle dealing with outside threats, not about launching an unprovoked pre-emptive attack on the North.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that it would decide whether to send a response to the North over its demand for a retraction in a few days.

The North Korean military commentator reaffirmed that Pyongyang would ban South Korean officials, including military officers, from crossing the border.

The statement did not say when the ban would take effect or how long it would last.

South Korean officials have occasionally traveled across the two countries’ heavily fortified border for talks.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has pledged to review rapprochement projects pushed by his two liberal predecessors, saying progress in efforts to halt the North’s nuclear program was a prerequisite for further large investment and aid projects.

International negotiations aimed at the North’s denuclearization have been stalled for months because of differences over whether Pyongyang has met a requirement to fully declare its atomic programs. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington’s point man on North Korea, was due in Seoul on Tuesday for talks with South Korean officials.