Free Republic

UK Ministers are reportedly set to meet as early as Monday in order to discuss implementing new lockdown rules, despite criticisms of the government doomsday modelling predictions. Amid concerns over the omicron variant of the Chinese coronavirus, British ministers are set to convene by as soon as Monday to possibly reimpose new lockdown restrictions in England.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani Taliban are imposing their rule in a Pakistani mountain valley they took over last week, spreading fear in the area only 100 km (60 miles) from the capital, police and residents said on Monday. Surging militant violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence through the northwest are reviving concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally. Pakistan is crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan but the government has been unable to check militant attacks in its cities let alone stop insurgents crossing into Afghanistan from border strongholds to battle Western forces....

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Outrage abounds in the "blogosphere" as a pair of Internet luminaries are lobbying for rules of behavior in the lawless world of online commentary. Internet publisher Tim O'Reilly, credited with coining the phrase "Web 2.0," and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales triggered torrents of vitriol by proposing a "Blogging Code of Conduct" to impose civility on the Internet. The idea came in the wake of anonymous death threats posted on the blog of author and speaker Kathy Sierra, O'Reilly's friend. "A culture is a set of shared agreements that allows us to live together," O'Reilly wrote in...