07.03.15

Links 3/7/2015: KDE Applications 15.04.3, Ubuntu-Flavored Compute Stick

Posted in News Roundup at 3:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Q&A: Zipcar founder Robin Chase on open source and the collaboration economy

    Robin Chase is a transportation entrepreneur known for founding the transportation related companies such as Zipcar, Buzzcar and Veniam. She wears many hats and is an inspiration to women all around the globe. She is also a strong supporter of Open Source and Open Collaborative technologies. She recently authored a book called Peers Inc: How People and Platforms Are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. Chase will be delivering a keynote at the upcoming LinuxCon event.

  • Exclusive interview with Hans de Raad

    In my daily life (both personal and professional) I use open source for just about anything, from LibreOffice to Drupal, Kolab, Piwik, Apache, KDE, etc.

    Being part of the communities of these projects for me is a very special extra dimension that creates a lot of extra motivation and satisfaction.

    For me, open source isn’t so much of a choice it is simply the standard.

  • 7 stories that make you feel good about open source in 2015 (so far)

    One of the great things about open source is its reach beyond just the software we use. Open source isn’t just about taking principled stands, it’s about making things better for the world around us. It helps spread new ideas by letting anyone with an interest modify and replicate those ideas in their own communities.

    In this collection, let’s take a look back at some of the best articles we’ve shared this year about the ways that open source is making an impact on communities and improving the lives of people across the world.

  • Project Ascension: Reddit-born open source game launcher unveils user interface for ‘better gaming’

    Forget about having multiple game launcher clients slowing down your computer – a community born on Reddit wants to unify all the popular game launchers into one multi-platform launcher.

    Project Ascension started as a community discussion on social bookmarking website Reddit in April, when users complained that they were tired of having many different game launcher ecosystems, such as Steam, Origin, GOG and uPlay.

  • Google makes deep learning AI software open-source
  • Google open-sources its software for making trippy images with deep learning
  • Google opens up Deep Dream software, terrifies world
  • Google Opens Up its Deep Dream Code to Let People Create Hallucinogenic Images
  • Google’s trippy project DeepDream project goes public
  • Open source platform security considerations

    In the enterprise, open source software can be a great benefit for those who take the time to weigh the risks and select the right platform.

  • How Open Source Drives IBM’s Systems Unit

    “Fifteen years ago, we made the decision to bring Linux into the mainframe. In fact, this was the first $1 billion commitment IBM made to Linux back in the year 2000. And I’d like to think, in some small way, we helped bring Linux to the enterprise with that commitment of over 15 years ago,” Balog said.

  • Where are they now? 5 open source projects
  • SourceForge forming Community Panel

    SourceForge has begun outreach to Open Source developers and end-users in an effort to form a Community Panel to help guide future development of our products and policies.

    We expect to have ongoing communications with members of our Community Panel in coming weeks, to be followed by an in-person event at summer’s end on the east coast of the US.

  • Events

    • OSI at OSCON 2015

      Once again the OSI and our Board of Directors will be at OSCON. Just like in years past, the OSI will again be strongly represented with presentations form our Board Directors, Affiliate Members and Individual Members, a booth in the Expo Hall and even a dedicated session on how to use OSI’s resources to change the open source world.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • 5 Best Enterprise Apps and Extensions for Google Chrome

        We have already covered a lot of enterprise applications on our site before. However, one would never expect apps in this genre to exist on a browser like Google Chrome. But, nothing could be further from the real truth. Google’s effort to outsmart even the biggest players in the enterprise market are gradually paying off. Slowly spreading its wings into the business world, Google is venturing into arenas where Microsoft once reigned supreme. While the competition doesn’t concern us much, but what has happened, in effect, is that the rivalry is bringing out the best in both companies.

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 39 Arrives After a Three-Day Delay

        Mozilla has finally released the stable version of Firefox 39 after it delayed the launch for a couple of days. It’s not a major release, but it does have a few interesting features and quite a few bug fixes.

      • New Sharing Features in Firefox

        Whichever social network you choose, it’s undeniable that being social is a key part of why you enjoy the Web. Firefox is built to put you in control, including making it easier to share anything you like on the Web’s most popular social networks. Today, we’re announcing that Firefox Share has been integrated into Firefox Hello. We introduced Firefox Share to offer a simple way of sharing Web content across popular services such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and Google+ and other social and email services (full list here) to help you share anything on the Web with any or all of your friends.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Business

  • BSD

    • finding bugs in tarsnap

      Some people were hanging around Michael Lucas’s table at BSDCan, and the topic of conversation turned to Tarsnap. (Lucas has a book about it.) Each person went round the circle and said they were happy to pay Colin for his service, but when it was finally my turn I was forced to admit that while I would pay for Tarsnap, I found a bug and so, thanks to the bounty, it may be more accurate to say I get paid to use it.

    • bsdtalk 254 [Ogg]
    • Pfmatch, a packet filtering language embedded in Lua

      Greets, hackers! I just finished implementing a little embedded language in Lua and wanted to share it with you. First, a bit about the language, then some notes on how it works with Lua to reach the high performance targets of Snabb Switch.

    • OPNsense 15.7 Released As Fork Of Pfsense

      The OPNsense 15.7 release added i386 and NanoBSD support, LibreSSL support, re-based to FreeBSD 10.1, added OpenDNS support, intrusion detection support, new local/remote backlist options, some security fixes, and added many other new features.

    • OPNsense 15.7 ‘Brave Badger’ is Released, The Next Step in Open Source Security

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Teaching Email Self-Defense: Campaigns intern leads a workshop at PorcFest

      My workshop on Email Self-Defense took place at the 12th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival in Lancaster, New Hampshire. Around eight people attended, which was a few more than I expected. Christopher Waid and Bob Call of ThinkPenguin joined me in helping everyone who brought a laptop to set up GnuPG properly. Those who didn’t bring a laptop participated by observing the process on the system most similar to their own and asking questions about particular steps, so as to enable them to achieve the same configuration when they returned home.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Q&A: Why Congress is Jumping on the Open Source Bandwagon

      Members of the House, committees and staff have officially received the green light to obtain open source software for their offices, and to discuss software code and policy with developers, citizens and other legislators in communities such as GitHub, according to the Congressional Data Coalition advocacy group.

      The White House joined open source code repository site GitHub in 2012. But it wasn’t until this May a sitting congressman, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., first joined the site. Connolly used it to make edits to guidance on implementation of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Grateful Dead Open Source Business Model One of the Most Successful

      The Dead was one of the first and most successful open source business models. They never felt their albums captured their true sound and musical depth. This could only come through their live performances. And yet, because they were very experimental and bold risk takers, any particular show could fall flat or even spontaneously combust. Thus, it was important to see many shows because magic would inevitably transpire and they wanted all of their fans to know what that was like and have a hunger for more once it had been experienced. A true natural high for anyone that has experienced it. As it’s been said, there is nothing like a Grateful Dead show.

    • Atom 1.0 from GitHub, the new R consortium, and more news

    • Open Hardware

      • Long live ROS: Why the robotics revolution is being driven by open source development

        The 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) wrapped up last month, and while teams from Korea and the U.S. took away $3.5M in prize money, the real winner was the open source robotics movement. Of the 23 teams competing in the DRC, 18 utilized the open-source Robotic Operating System (ROS) and 14 used Gazebo, an open source robot simulator that allows developers to test concepts in robust virtual environments without risking valuable hardware.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Bill Gates’ Temporary Sterilization Microchip In Beta Female Testing By End of Year

      The same developers who are bringing wireless remotely controlled microchip implants are actually focusing on their first flagship product: Gates Foundation-funded birth-control microchip implants. Wireless technology allows the remotely controlled chip to turn a woman’s ability to conceive off or on at will – temporary sterilization.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Bernie Sanders and the Rebirth of Socialism in the US?

      Yes, it may be unlikely that Sanders will win the nomination. In national polls for the primaries Hillary Clinton, the favorite, did not poll less than 50 percent since April. Bernie Sanders has not polled over 25 percent since June 2014. But recent polls seem to suggest growing support for Sanders, particularly in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Regardless of the results, however, Sanders’ bid for the candidacy has led to a discussion around socialism.

    • Beware Greeks Bearing Rifts

      The Euro project will continue to be extremely strong. New money will be funnelled into the pockets of bankers. It is important to recall that 100% of these bailout funds go to bankers, none of it goes to the Greek people and none of it stays in Greece. The same bankers will become the beneficiaries of servicing of new loans provided to vast corporations to buy up Greek public assets, cheap.

    • Europe is heading towards constitutional crisis, with or without Greece

      As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stands off against the so-called Troika, questions abound about the future of his country.

      But there should also be pressing questions about the future of the European Union. The shaky legal foundations of the EU have been laid bare by this crisis.

    • Lidl has received almost $1bn in public development funding

      Supermarket chain owned by one of Germany’s wealthiest families given money over past decade by World Bank and others as it expands into eastern Europe

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • NPR Ombud Responds on ‘All-Corporate Lobbyist’ Alert – Report not as one-sided as FAIR claimed, Jensen said–but opposition voice would have strengthened it

      NPR ombud Elizabeth Jensen wrote a column (7/1/15) responding to a FAIR Action Alert, “NPR Celebrates Fast-Track Victory With an All-Corporate Lobbyist Segment” (6/27/15).

      Jensen acknowledges that the report in question (Morning Edition, 6/25/15), which featured three executives from business lobbies talking about Congress’s passage of corporate-backed Fast-Track legislation, “would have been stronger and more complete if it had included a voice representing the opponents.”

    • National Plutocrat Radio – Corporate One-Percenters dominate NPR affiliates’ boards

      For a public radio service, NPR is notoriously known for its lack of diversity within its staff, audience and guests invited onto their shows—problems that NPR has itself acknowledged (6/30/14).

      A new FAIR study finds that NPR’s diversity problem also extends into the board of trustees of its most popular member stations: Two out of three board members are male, and nearly three out of four are non-Latino whites. Fully three out of every four trustees of the top NPR affiliates belong to the corporate elite.

    • James Loewen on Racism and US History

      He’s the author of the classic book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, which assesses the textbooks used in US classrooms, turning up falsehoods, elisions and distortions. He explains some of the reasons students say they hate history–and non-white students hate it most of all.

  • Censorship

    • Reddit moderators in revolt, Reddit on lockdown

      Reddit has been in the news a lot in recent months, and not for any positive reasons. Now the site is again making headlines as its moderators go on a strike and put Reddit in a virtual state of lockdown.

    • Reddit rebellion: huge chunks of the site have gone down following a staff member’s departure

      Reddit is in revolt. This week, Victoria Taylor, director of talent and coordinator of the site’s popular “Ask me Anything” (r/IAmA) subreddit, left reddit, apparently against her will. In response, a group of the site’s coordinators have pulled the shades on some of the site’s most popular sections.

    • BEL MOONEY: Why does my alma mater have one rule for hate preachers and another for scientists who make daft jokes?

      People may wonder why this issue has attracted so much attention. After all, a speech made by an eminent scientist — a Nobel Prize-winner, no less — to a small group of journalists in South Korea in a previous age would have received no attention at all.

      But after the 72-year-old Prof’s weak jokes about how ‘girls’ are a distraction in laboratories — which made some listeners titter and others roll their eyes — just three people tweeted shock-horror, and the storm began.

      Sir Tim quickly found his career and reputation, built up over 50 years, all but ruined. Although he apologised for his error, he was still unceremoniously hounded out of honorary positions at UCL, the Royal Society and the European Research Council.

      That response was, in my view, hasty and disgraceful —and out of all proportion to his alleged ‘crime’.

    • David Cameron Promises To Do Away With ‘Safe Spaces’ On The Internet

      Earlier this year, there were some questions raised when it appeared that UK Prime Minister David Cameron was suggesting that he wanted to undermine all encryption on the internet. Later, some suggested he was looking more at undermining end point security. However, after being re-elected, and apparently believing that this gave him the mandate to go full Orwell, Cameron is making it clear that no one should ever have any privacy from government snoops ever.

  • Privacy

    • GCHQ did spy on Amnesty International, secret tribunal admits

      The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which provides oversight for UK intelligence services, admitted yesterday that its judgement made on 22 June wrongly failed to declare that Amnesty International had been subject to unlawful surveillance by GCHQ. The IPT revealed this in an e-mail sent to the ten NGO claimants involved in the earlier legal challenge to UK government surveillance. As Amnesty International explained: “Today’s communication makes clear that it was actually Amnesty International Ltd, and not the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) that was spied on in addition to the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa.”

    • GCHQ did illegally spy on Amnesty International, Investigatory Powers Tribunal admits

      The IPT said in its original judgement that communications by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the South African non-profit Legal Resources Centre had been illegally retained and examined.

      However, the tribunal made it clear in the email sent on Wednesday that it was Amnesty International and not the Egyptian organisation that had been spied on, as well as the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa.

      The IPT email made no mention of when or why Amnesty International was spied on, or what was done with the information obtained. The organisation is calling for an independent inquiry into how and why a UK intelligence agency has been spying on human rights organisations.

    • Harvard University admits to IT systems data breach

      THE PRESTIGIOUS HARVARD UNIVERSITY has revealed that it was the victim of a security breach in June affecting eight schools and administrative organisations at the university.

      The intrusion in the IT systems of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Central Administration was discovered on 19 June, and is thought to have exposed various log-in credentials, including for Office 365, which were stored on the compromised networks.

      “At this time, we have no indication that research data or personal data managed by Harvard systems (e.g. Social Security numbers) have been exposed,” said the university IT team in an advisory on its website.

    • A Look at the Inner Workings of NSA’s XKEYSCORE

      The sheer quantity of communications that XKEYSCORE processes, filters and queries is stunning. Around the world, when a person gets online to do anything — write an email, post to a social network, browse the web or play a video game — there’s a decent chance that the Internet traffic her device sends and receives is getting collected and processed by one of XKEYSCORE’s hundreds of servers scattered across the globe.

    • XKEYSCORE: NSA’s Google for the World’s Private Communications

      One of the National Security Agency’s most powerful tools of mass surveillance makes tracking someone’s Internet usage as easy as entering an email address, and provides no built-in technology to prevent abuse. Today, The Intercept is publishing 48 top-secret and other classified documents about XKEYSCORE dated up to 2013, which shed new light on the breadth, depth and functionality of this critical spy system — one of the largest releases yet of documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    • Privacy Is Personal

      Linux would not be here without the Net. Nor would countless other building materials and methods that support networked life and the institutions that rely on networks, which now include approximately everything.

      [...]

      All these things need to be as casual and easily understood as clothing and shelter are in the physical world today. They can’t work only for wizards. Privacy is for muggles too. Without agancy and scale for muggles, the Net will remain the Land of Giants, who regard us all as serfs by default.

  • Civil Rights

    • Amnesty International Responds to U.K. Government Surveillance

      A British tribunal admitted on Wednesday that the U.K. government had spied on Amnesty International and illegally retained some of its communications. Sherif Elsayed-Ali, deputy director of global issues for Amnesty International in London, responds:

      Just after 4 p.m. yesterday, Amnesty International received an email from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which hears cases related to U.K. intelligence agencies. The message was brief: There had been a mistake in the tribunal’s judgment 10 days earlier in a case brought by 10 human rights organizations against the U.K.’s mass surveillance programs. Contrary to the finding in the original ruling, our communications at Amnesty International had, in fact, been under illegal surveillance by GCHQ, the U.K.’s signals intelligence agency.

    • No Craig Newmark Did Not Donate To EFF; He Helped Make CFAA Worse Instead

      There’s been a bunch of fuss online over the “news” that Craigslist is supposedly donating $1 million to EFF when the money is not actually from Craig. It’s from a startup that Craigslist has sued out of business, under a dangerous interpretation of the CFAA that harms the open internet. Obviously, EFF getting an additional $1 million in resources is really great. But it’s troubling to see so many people congratulate Craigslist and Craig Newmark for “supporting EFF.” Craig himself has contributed to this misleading perception with this tweet implying he’s giving his own money to EFF…

      [...]

      And yet Craigslist sued these companies under a tortured definition of the CFAA, arguing that the mere scraping of its data to provide value on top of it (none of which took away any value from Craigslist) was “unauthorized access.”

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • IPv4 address stock dwindles as North American database runs dry

      The number of available IPv4 address spaces has fallen so low that the US organisation responsible for handing out addresses has rejected a request because there was not enough stock.

      The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) posted a note on its website confirming the move, although it did not say from where the request had come.

      “ARIN activated the IPv4 Unmet Requests policy this week with the approval of an address request that was larger than the available inventory in the regional IPv4 free pool,” said ARIN chief executive John Curran.

  • DRM/Restriction

    • iOS 8.4 kills Home Sharing for music and people aren’t happy about it

      APPLE QUIETLY KILLED OFF Home Sharing for music in iOS 8.4, and has pissed off its customers in the process.

      Home Sharing for music launched in 2011 as part of iOS 4.3, and allowed iPhone, iPad and iPod users to stream music from a computer running iTunes, as long as the devices were connected to the same WiFi network.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Kim Dotcom Appeals to Reclaim ‘Mega Millions’ from U.S.

        In an effort to reclaim an estimated $67 million in assets, Megaupload’s legal team has appealed the forfeiture the U.S. Government won earlier this year. The filing refutes the claim that Kim Dotcom and his former colleagues are fugitives, and warns of the dangerous precedent the District Court ruling will set.

      • The battle to reform 300-year-old copyright law for the digital age

        The Internet is built on copying. That’s true at a purely technical level: as packets of data move around the world, they are copied from network to network, and finally to the end-user’s device. But it’s also true in terms of how people use the Internet: they are constantly sending copies across the network, whether partial snippets or entire works. That’s a big problem, because once a creation is in a fixed form, it is automatically subject to copyright, an intellectual monopoly that gives creators the power to prevent copies being made of their work. Quite simply, this situation ensures that almost everyone using the Internet is also breaking the law multiple times every day.

Patent Lawyers and Their Firms, Still Desperate to Protect the Status Quo, Manipulate the Media

Posted in America, Patents at 6:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“It may well be that between press and officials there is an inherent built in conflict of interest.” — General C. Westmoreland in Defence and the Media in Time of Limited War, Routledge, 13 September 2013, p. 64.

Summary: Patent lawyers are besieged by gradual tightening of patent scope and recklessly fight back (e.g. by saturating the media) to secure their revenue sources, derived from (and at the expense of) actual scientists and true market producers

THE USPTO‘s assignment/assessment guidelines (examination instructions for the process by which to rank patent applications for novelty), as well as court rulings, citing SCOTUS regarding Alice, have both diminished and almost eliminated the perceived value of software patents. This reduces the number of patents obtained and number of patents that are brought before a judge in a courtroom, especially where these patents pertain to software. Patent lawyers are ‘politely’ furious and they try to dominate the media with their ‘damage control’, which means misleading statements, misdirection, cherry-picking (bias/lies by omission), and so forth. We gave a lot of examples before. It’s getting rather crass.

“Either Quinn has poor reading comprehension skills or he simply does not want to understand (because he is essentially paid not to understand).”The other day we saw Colleen Chien calling for an “open” patent system. “One year ago,” wrote Chien about Tesla's openwashing (like Panasonic's), “Elon Musk announced that Tesla would dismantle barriers to the use of its technology by “open sourcing” its patents and making them available for all acting in good faith to use. Because patents are usually used to close, not open, doors to competitors, the move created confusion and criticism.”

There is criticism indeed, but from who? Here is the patents maximalist Gene Quinn (loud proponent of software patents) slamming Chien’s analysis, lumping it together with what he calls “a lot of disingenuous articles about the U.S. patent system” and calling it “misleading”.

“The premise of the article,” he says, “is that it is time to open the patent system. Specifically what that means, and to what end that would be useful, is unclear and frankly unexplained.”

Either Quinn has poor reading comprehension skills or he simply does not want to understand (because he is essentially paid not to understand). What Chien suggests is a sort of retreat to the the original raison d’être of patents — where publication (e.g. attribution) rather than litigation is the core goal. Quinn, a supporter of all sorts of crazy patents and even parasitical elements like trolls, surely won’t like that. Another post from Quinn’s site (but not composed by Quinn himself) dares to acknowledge what he very much feared right after Alice had been ruled at SCOTUS one year ago:

…Alice issued a year ago which opened the door to invalidating software patents on the basis that they simply implement “abstract ideas”…

Yes, that’s great news. Sadly, however, the media hardly covers that. The corporate/financial media keeps glorifying patents as though they’re national trophies whose raw count is proportional to innovation and so-called ‘articles’ from Fox Rothschild LLP, Baker Botts LLP, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, and spokespeople for conservative lobbyists/think tanks like Cato and Heritage try hard to crush real patent reforms. They want to preserve the status quo. The grossest headline came from Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP (all of these LLPs are patent lawyers in case that’s not obvious), which says “Innovators Beware! Patent Reform Creates The New “Anti-Patent” Troll” (not calling “trolls” those who antagonise patent trolls but rather referring to those who extort companies using invalidation of patents, i.e. not really trolls at all!). Here is the core of the nonsense, which essentially redefines patent trolls: “Unlike other species of patent troll, the Wall Street troll seeks to destroy the target company. Many companies, especially small drug companies, could potentially lose 100 percent of their value if they lose the patents for their core technologies. This creates a situation that is very lucrative for the Wall Street troll, because if the company’s stock loses all of its value the troll makes a windfall.” Well, any company whose entire value depends on a patent probably does not deserve to be in business. Patents as a tool of artificial price hikes don’t serve society, especially where medicine is concerned. This is where patents become tools of artificial scarcity. It is unethical and we wrote many articles to explain why. There are still valid business models that don’t depend on patents, in the same way that software which is free to distribute still brings income (Red Hat, for instance, has billions in revenue each year).

“Patents and patent lawyers are needed for innovation to the same degree that billionaires are “job creators” who create a “trickle-down effect” (they typically just loot and hoard).”The media these days is absolutely stuffed with patent lawyers, appearing everywhere the subject is discussed, parroting — completely unchallenged — claims about “innovation”, “inventors” and scaring us about China (the same excuse/straw man used by TPP proponents). Patents and patent lawyers are needed for innovation to the same degree that billionaires are “job creators” who create a “trickle-down effect” (they typically just loot and hoard). █

Amid Controversy, Political Scrutiny and Increased Media Pressure Željko Topić and Benoît Battistelli Allegedly Cancel Today’s Trip to Zagreb (Croatia) Where Topić Faces Many Criminal Charges

Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Zagreb

Summary: The Croatian press comments on the recent declaration from the Council of Europe and Topić’s not-so-sterling status in his home country, where he is wanted for alleged crimes

Some new and exclusive material about the EPO has arrived. Željko Topić is at the centre of attention again, so keeping a low profile probably won’t work for him right now. When Topić speaks out these days it tends to just backfire because he has no leg to stand on, especially as far as ethics go.

Recall our earliest articles about Topić; that was almost one year ago [1, 2]. He has powerful connections in Croatia (even connections to known criminals who are in prison) and there are many criminal charges against him. Months ago he lost in a court of law an effort to silence his victims using the 'defamation' card — the same card with which Battistelli tries to justify going as far as surveillance cameras and keyloggers after his sham 'internal investigation'.

“Two Croatian news portals have covered the Council of Europe story,” said a source, after we had learned about more political interventions against Battistelli et al. Many of these political interventions come from France, so Battistelli’s shameless efforts to paint critics as “racists” won’t work this time around. It was always nonsensical, but now it is a lot easier to see that.

“Many of these political interventions come from France, so Battistelli’s shameless efforts to paint critics as “racists” won’t work this time around.”Here is the first article, titled “Sanaderov kadar u središtu europskog skandala!” (translation coming soon, but the headline of this dnevno.hr article can be roughly translated as follows: “Sanader’s ‘apparatchik’ at the heart of a European scandal”). The second article is titled “VIJEĆE EU POKRENULO DEKLARACIJU O EPO” and we will hopefully have translations soon. Sources that speak Croatian say that they are “busy with other stuff at the moment and it might take a few days before [they] can rustle up a translation.”

The rumour, which we mentioned here before, is that Battistelli was scheduled to travel to Croatia with Željko Topić on the 3rd of July to open an exhibition about inventors at the Technical Museum in Zagreb (see “The exhibition European Inventors Hall of Fame from 3rd July 2015 at the Technical Museum in Zagreb”).

“According to [unsourced] information,” we are told, “neither Battistelli not Željko Topić travelled in the end (maybe because of fears of the negative press coverage) and instead Mr. Francois-Rgis Hannart, a member of Battistelli’s “inner circle” was sent to represent the EPO.”

40 years of EPO reputation may be up in flames in just 4 years (or less) because of Battistelli and his longtime mates, whom he uses to infiltrate this well-funded (by taxpayers) organisation [PDF]. Many high-salaried managers are selected irrespective of their background, skills, and reputation. Thugs are not just allowed but very much welcomed, including that Mafioso, Željko Topić, who is back in the news right now, receiving unwanted attention. For the uninitiated, here is his relation to Ivo Sanader, among others. █

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