December News Links - Part 1

WIKILEAKS:
16 DEC - The rights and wrongs of hacktivism (Economist)
16 DEC - Art imitating life: Funky new ad puts a spin on personal hygiene and politics (The Express Tribune, Pakistan)
14 DEC - Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange: Michael Moore (Huffington Post)
10 DEC - Ron Paul’s Passionate Defense Of Julian Assange And WikiLeaks On House Floor (MEDIAite)
09 DEC - Pakistani media publish fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India (Guardian)

LAW:
16 DEC - Top judge complains about 'sex with corpses' rules (Daily Telegraph)
16 DEC - Court backs tourist ban for Dutch cannabis coffee shops (BBC News)
15 DEC - Tweeting in court: why reporters must be given guidelines (Guardian)
14 DEC - Qatar: A centre for 'quality' international dispute resolution? (Guardian)

TUITION FEE PROTESTS:
14 DEC - Let’s get London’s riots into the right perspective: Simon Jenkins (London Evening Standard)
14 DEC - An attack on the royal carriage by angry protesters. Sound familiar? (Guardian)

UK:
14 DEC - 'We the people' deserve something better than a high-class villain's charter (Guardian)
13 DEC - Toby Ord: Why I'm giving £1 million to charity (BBC News)
06 DEC - Medieval Britons were richer than modern poor people, study finds (Guardian)
03 DEC - Woman dials 999 to report snowman theft in Kent (BBC News)
03 DEC - Christmas with a German accent – the PR ploy taking Britain's towns by storm (Guardian)

INDIA:
03 DEC - India's third richest man gives £1.27bn to children's education charity (Guardian)
19 OCT - Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD (BBC News)

OTHER:
12 DEC - German man castrates teenage daughter's 57-year-old boyfriend (Daily Telegraph)

SPORT:
18 DEC - Liverpool fans outraged after Paul Konchesky's mum launches Facebook blast (Daily Mail)
16 DEC - India enter Formula One limelight (ESPNstar.com)
09 DEC - The top 10 worst misses in football history: your votes are in (Guardian: Sports Blog)
17 SEP - Blackburn's Sam Allardyce 'more suited to Inter or Real Madrid' (Guardian)

India 136 & 8/454 trail South Africa 4d/620 by 30 runs, Day 4, 1st Test @ Centurion

"On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped for a few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing his century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century before pulling out of the station. This Genius can stop time in India!" -Peter Roebuck
Well, well. Despite the fact the Proteas are going to win this match and by a handsome margin, most Indians will remember it because of one guy: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He became the first man in the 133-year history of Test cricket to score fifty centuries. It's a phenomenal achievement. Seven centuries for the year and one more match to go. It seems incredible that after twenty-one successful years on the international circuit, this is his most prolific. Besides his run-scoring feats in the Test arena, he became the first player in the history of the one-day international format to score a double-hundred. And in the shortest form of the game (Twenty20), he led by example by guiding his Mumbai Indians outfit to the final of IPL3. Just a few years ago when he was going through the worst patch of form in his career, many people had written him off. They said he didn't score centuries when it mattered, that his second and fourth innings averages were not good enough, that his record against South Africa was below average, and that he didn't do well during the month of December. But one by one he has gone about rectifying each of these chinks in his statistical armoury. He now stands at the gates of cricketing immortality. Jai Hind!