February 5, 2005

At 0950:55 today, 195.229.241.183 (some server at the UAE’s state-run ISP) searched Yahoo! for “Ali Abdullah Saleh sex porno photo” and hit the Ranter. We are the 5th out of 9 results for this bizarre inquiry. Ali Abdullah Saleh is apparently the president of the Yemen. Needless to say, we have no such photos of…

Worth reading, about that “bulge” in the president’s suit and the New York Times story that got spiked in case it affected the election. Whatever you may say about British journalism, you couldn’t imagine a British newspaper killing a story in case it affected politics – more like the other way round.

An interesting report on troubles in Baluchistan, where a growing insurgency is threatening to destabilise the country still further. Something called the BLA is blowing up trains, gas pipelines, power lines and microwave relay towers. We shall watch this one carefully.

Some more “partial results” from the Iraqi elections are out, covering the 10 southernmost provinces including Baghdad (with the proviso that only 45% of Baghdad polling stations have reported). The main line of reporting on this has been the very strong indeed showing of the UIA list – they could get as much as 66%…