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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS the prospects and capabilities for conflict and empower those who would do us harm." George Tenet, CIA director, said that globalisation had been "a profoundly dis- ruptive force for governments to manage". Arab governments, in particular, he said "are feeling many of globalisation's stress- es, especially on the cultural front, without reaping the economic benefits". (Source: Financial Times, UK, Feb 12, 2003) Apart from the obvious criticism that the British government has plagiarised texts without acknowledgement, passing them off as the work of its intelligence services, there are two further serious problems. Firstly, it indicates that the UK at least really does not have any independent sources of information on Iraq's internal politics: it just draws upon publicly avail- able data. Thus any further claims to infor- mation based on "intelligence data" must be treated with even more scepticism. Secondly, the information presented as being an accurate statement of the current state of Iraq's security organisations may not be anything of the sort. Ibrahim al- Marashi, who was a postgraduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies—the real and unwitting author of much of the document—had as his primary source the documents captured in 1991 for the Iraq Research and Documentation Project. As a result, the information pre- sented as relevant is actually 12 years old. (Source: By Glen Rangwala, February 5, 2003, via http://www.globalresearch.ca) expected to offer a huge boost to online telephony services. ENUM stands for "e164 Number Mapping", where "e164" is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) code for the international telephone address number plan. When ENUM domains become active, users will be identified by their telephone number including the country code. What this means is that a phone number such as "+46 8 976 1234" would be mapped to the 4.3.2.1.6.7.9.8.6.4.e164.arpa Internet address in a process that is expected to become automated and transparent to the UK GOVERNMENT DOSSIER ON IRAQ WAS PLAGIARISED S Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his presentation to the Security Council on February 5, sought to reinforce his argument by referring to a recently released British report. He said: "I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom dis- tributed...which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities." Powell was referring to "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation", published on January 30, 2003. The Downing Street authors state that they drew "upon a number of sources, including intelligence material", but a close textual analysis suggests they had little access to first-hand intelligence and instead based their work on academic papers. In fact, they plagiarised quite outdated infor- mation, which they then selectively distort- ed, directly cutting and pasting or near- quoting and even replacing particular words to make a claim sound stronger. In many cases they left spelling and grammat- ical errors in place. user. So far, 13 countries that are members of the ITU have signed on to the e164.arpa proposal and are planning trials. (Source: Optus News, February 14, 2003, http://www. optusnet.com.au/news/) SPIES PROTECTED IN UK BANKING FRAUD LAWSUIT mega-scandal much older than Enron or WorldCom is about to shake the British financial establishment. More than a decade after the spectacular collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), its creditors are final- ly to put the Bank of England in the dock. BCCI remains the world's biggest-ever banking fraud, and the colour and complex- ity of the scam is awesome. It laundered drugs money, bribes and dictators' loot, and allowed an endemic culture of fraud to flourish for decades. The Bank of England was the financial regulator in 1991 when the BCCI crashed with £7 billion of undeclared debts, and has long been accused of turning a blind eye to fraud at the Middle Eastern bank. Now it faces a giant lawsuit brought in London by BCClI's victims, who claim it is guilty of negligence amounting to "misfeasance", or wilful misconduct. BCCI's creditors are claiming up to £1bn in damages and are breaking new ground by challenging the Bank's statutory immunity against being sued. Then there is the small matter of the role played by Britain's intelligence services, whose relationship with BCCI has long been questioned. Did MI6 use accounts at the secretive bank to pay sources and oper- atives around the world? Some researchers claim BCCI channelled funds to Mujahideen fighters in the 1980s and, later on, to Osama bin Laden. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, secured public interest immunity orders last INTERNET IDENTITY NUMBERS he Australian and United States gov- ernments are moving towards the implementation of an international Internet numbering system. Advocates of the system—known as ENUM—argue it will allow people to use one identifier for many different purposes, including mobile phones, email, instant messaging and faxes. ENUM is designed to accelerate the convergence of the tele- phone network and the Internet and is Kot mn re “ Bosh uf geting welew, He just declared war by text me ssage." 8 = NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com