“As part of the plea bargain, Hicks also withdrew claims he had been beaten by US forces after his capture in Afghanistan and that he had been sedated before learning of the charges against him … [,] agreed not to speak to the media for a year, not to receive any money for his story [...]

“A second member of the Royal Navy crew captured in the Gulf has apologised for trespassing in Iranian waters in a broadcast on Iranian television.”
The stilted, unnatural words sound like an admission of “guilt” made under great duress. If Iran thinks that anyone in the English-speaking world will believe them, they’re badly mistaken. BBC News [...]

“In Google’s vision of the future, people will be able to translate documents instantly into the world’s main languages, with machine logic, not expert linguists, leading the way … Google’s approach … forgoes language experts who program grammatical rules and dictionaries into computers … Instead, they feed documents humans have already translated into two languages [...]

Photo released under Creative Commons by iujaz from Flickr, here

“China has called for a treaty to stop the spread of weapons in outer space, state media reported on Wednesday, two months after it blew up an aging weather satellite, prompting fears about its own space plans … China’s ambassador to U.N. bodies in Geneva, Tang Guoqiang, said a 40-year-old agreement [...]

Catherine Sanderson, sacked for bringing her company into disrepute simply by writing a blog, has won her case for unfair dismissal. She lost her job despite the online diary being anonymous and not mentioning her employer or business. There’s no logical reason why British accountancy firm Dixon Wilson thought it could fire her - it’s [...]

“Hackers have stolen information from at least 45.7 million payment cards used by customers of US retailer TJX, which owns TJ Maxx, and UK outlet TKMaxx … The data was accessed on TJX’s systems in Watford, Hertfordshire, and Massachusetts over a 16-month period from July 2005 and covers transactions made by credit and debit card [...]

“Litigation is always a risky endeavor. One can never be entirely sure how a judge will interpret case law and rule, and should the case proceed to trial, juries are even harder to read. Filing over a thousand lawsuits, therefore, is even riskier. Should a handful of rulings go the wrong way, it could jeopardize [...]

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, here.

“The BBC was in court yesterday fighting over the public’s right to know. But the Corporation was not battling to bring information into the open. Instead it has paid an estimated £200,000 in legal fees to keep the report secret … The Corporation is trying to persuade the High Court to overrule a decision [...]