Shocking misses can happen to anyone at any time, but the latest footballer to suffer international embarrassment by not scoring a goal he really, really should have is Kansas City Wizards striker Kei Kamara.



Worst Miss Ever in Football HistoryIn Saturday's MLS match against the Los Angeles Galaxy, Kamara found himself right in front of an open net with the ball mere inches from the goal. He was a little too eager to tap it in, though, and ended up falling on his rear end as he stretched to kick the ball in for the easy goal before knocking it in with his hand. He was quickly called for a handball and the game went on to end in a 0-0 draw.

After the match, Galaxy defender Gregg Berhalter still couldn't believe it:

"It was one of the most unbelievable things I've seen in soccer.

"It was unfortunate for Kamara but it was a handball and credit the linesman for seeing it."

Video of the miss has already spread far and wide. The Sun is calling it "a contender for miss of the century," but there are quite a few in the mix for that crown. Back in January, we featured another open net shocker from a bit farther out, then there was the now famous Rocky Baptiste's from December, but I think this miss from Dinamo Zagreb's Ilija Sivonjic last October might be even worse than Kamara's...

And so the countdown begins until the next "WORST MISS EVER!!!

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Fastest Internet Connection in the WorldIf you want the fastest average broadband speed in the world, don't move to Japan. Instead, buckle up your Birkenstocks and pile into the VW Bus, because it's time for a road trip to Berkeley, California, home of the fastest average Internet speeds on earth.

This nugget of data comes courtesy of the most recent State of the Internet report from Akamai Technologies, which collects and analyzes a unique data set of worldwide speeds and IP address usage. When all of the company's speed data was sorted by city, three US locations top the list before South Korea and Japan begin to dominate.

Those three spots are Berkeley (average speed: 18.7Mbps), Chapel Hill, North Carolina (average speed: 17.5Mbps), and Stanford, California (average speed: 17.0Mbps). The next US city on the list is Durham, North Carolina (average speed: 13.6Mbps) in eighth place, followed by Ithaca, New York; Ann Arbor, Michigan; College Station, Texas; Urbana, Illinois; Cambridge, Massachusetts; University Park, Pennsylvania; and East Lansing, Michigan.

If you're not from the US, you might not see the pattern: each of these cities houses a major research university. Akamai obtained these results by filtering out all cities with less than 50,000 unique IP addresses, to make sure that the averages weren't affected by outlying small cities. The result was that "so-called 'college towns' are some of the best connected in the United States."

As someone who lived in Chapel Hill for years and spent plenty of time in Durham, this result raised a huge and obvious question: are these high speeds truly representative of what home users in those communities can purchase, or are they largely a result of on-campus high-speed access from Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill? (My guess would be the latter, especially in Durham.)
The college town advantage

Akamai had the same question, fortunately. Their answer: "However, what this likely represents is the extremely high speed connections these university/college campuses have to the Internet, as opposed to particularly high-speed consumer broadband services available to local residents. (However, it may also be the case that the speed of local consumer broadband offerings is potentially higher than average.)"

Regular readers may recall that last week we looked into the claim by Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg that US broadband was number one in the world. Akamai's data, showing that these top US cities beat out anything in Japan, south Korea, and Europe, would seem evidence for that assertion. But consider Akamai's explanation; if universities are actually the drivers of these high speeds, which are not then available to community residents, they don't say much about the state of US consumer broadband at all.

Indeed, when you filter the list to exclude US towns with a major college in the middle of them, every US city on the list goes away. This also applies to other countries, of course; Norway's top entry on the list is Trondheim (average speed: 10.6Mbps), home to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The UK's top entry is Oxford. South Korea's top city, Masan, also has a couple of colleges.

The data, then, is of limited use if we care about arguing over consumer broadband and where it's best. But it does remind us of one thing: around the world, if you want fast Internet, it's good to be a student.

Condé Nast Traveler combs through the thousands that debuted in the past, then bedded down anonymously at the most compelling candidates.


The Allison

Newberg, Ore.

The AllisonOregon's Willamette Valley finally has a resort on a par with its award-winning wines. Fully utilizing the 35-acre property's natural beauty (including vineyards and hazelnut orchards), designers have blurred the boundary between inside and out. Everywhere, it seems, there's a spectacular view: from the lobby's fireside "living room"; from the indoor infinity pool, with its glass wall that opens; even from your bathtub, thanks to a retractable screen. Extensive use of rough-hewn stone and wood surfaces, along with muted golds, greens, and browns, invite the agricultural landscape inside. Offering respite after a long day of winery tours, the 85 guest rooms are at once capacious (starting at 490 square feet) and cosseting (gas fireplace, terrace or balcony, wine glass–stocked wet bar). The staff are genuinely friendly and have a knack for anticipating guests' needs: Noticing our reviewer's running shoes, the bellman offered running maps. The hotel's dining room, Jory, is everything you'd hope from a restaurant named for the region's native soil, with a terroir-focused seasonal menu and a 32-page wine list, including well over 100 Oregon pinot noirs alone.

Which room to book: With million-dollar views, upper-floor rooms are just $20 to $30 more than garden-level rooms.


Terranea Resort

Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Terranea ResortOut-of-towners don't typically find themselves in Rancho Palos Verdes, a moneyed burb 20 miles south of Los Angeles airport, but with the opening of this sunny and sophisticated resort that's quickly changing. From its perch above the Pacific, Terranea tumbles across 102 acres scented with sage scrub and pine trees, and consists of 582 accommodations, from honey-colored guest rooms in the main building to stand-alone casitas with three bedrooms and your very own outdoor fire pit. The decor throughout is a mix of Spanish hacienda (elaborately tiled floors, graceful archways, even valets dressed like gauchos) and seaside lodge (rooms have seashell lamps and bleached-wood furnishings), with a splash of California modernism (the stark serenity of the adults-only pool is the essence of SoCal cool, while the family pool has rainbow-striped cabanas and even a modest waterslide). For fun, there's a huge spa, a small beach, and guided kayaking and hiking expeditions. Of the resort's two formal restaurants, the Catalina Room is the more popular, but the waitstaff's kindness and enthusiasm are more impressive than the food. Opt instead for the local brew and the avocado burgers at Nelsons, the clifftop pub with spectacular views.

Which room to book: The ones with the best views are a trek from the lobby, except for those on the higher floors overlooking the resort pool.


Capella Pedregal

Cabo San Lucas

Capella PedregalFrom the resort's entrance via a jaw-dropping 1,000-foot-long tunnel carved through the mountain, to the seafood restaurant El Farallón tucked into a cliff above the ocean, to the views of whales and dolphins splashing in the surf, the focus at Capella's new property on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula is on making the impossible feel routine. Eight contemporary buildings (some of which back right into the mountains) house 66 rooms on 24 acres of dramatic yet manicured bluffs. Huge stone vases, metal turtle sculptures, Jurassic-size shells, and dozens of varieties of cactus dot the property, while three curvy public pools—two freshwater and one salty—snake through the grounds. Rooms, the smallest of which measure 820 square feet, take on a Mexican gothic look and, happily, include private plunge pools, stand-alone tubs, one-button fireplaces, and complimentary minibars. Personal assistants assigned to each guest will eagerly fulfill even the most self-indulgent request. Lunch options consist of upscale twists on the usual burgers-and-salads resort fare, but the breakfast buffet at Don Manual's is elevated to craft with bountiful fruits and fresh pastries and no fewer than five milk options, all presented in a warm, rustic kitchen.

Which room to book: Ocean View rooms on the third and fourth floors have the same panoramic views as the pricier suites.


Elysian

Chicago

ElysianGreek classicism meets French couture in the elegant 188-room Elysian. Befitting its location in the heart of the tony Gold Coast shopping district (Marc Jacobs occupies a corner retail space in the hotel), the perfectly proportioned new 60-story tower models tailored interiors beginning with the lobby's Christian Dior–inspired kick-pleated drapes and (an homage to Chanel designs) a crystal starburst chandelier, patterned mosaic floors, and curvy wall grillwork. Guest rooms are similarly composed, and both indulgent—high-thread-count Rivolta Carmignani sheets, TVs built into bathroom mirrors—and functional (including Carrara marble wet bars). The sexy second-floor bar, Bernard's, is suggestive of a 1920s salon, with low banquettes, dim lighting, and pre-Prohibition cocktails. Elysian's bright brasserie, Balsan, outshines expectations with foodie fare that underscores the relationship between legendary chef Alice Waters and hotel owner David Pisor, her nephew. A 14,000-square-foot spa and gym play it Greek with column-flanked hot tubs and Hellenic wall mosaics to mark the men's and women's locker rooms. With its no-tipping policy—a gratuity is included on food and beverage orders and at the spa but will be politely declined elsewhere—the Elysian maintains its poise where money matters are concerned, too. In a neighborhood crowded with luxury hotels, it emerges as a sophisticated pied-à-terre with the confidence of understatement.

Which room to book: Corner suites offer views to Lake Michigan.


Viceroy Anguilla Hotel

Barnes Bay

Viceroy Anguilla HotelUpping the chic quotient on laid-back Anguilla, the Viceroy Hotel Group's first island outpost is as sleek as a gin martini. The main building, a highlight of this 35-acre resort, mixes modernist planes and angles, an allée of towering palms stretching toward the sea, and a sumptuous array of natural materials—juxtapositions of marbled stone slabs, whorls of exotic woods, matte sheets of metal, sinuous and spherical ceramic objets. The 166 rooms, done in a pale palette, feel comfortable and are artfully arranged. Distressed mirrors provide a surface for sconces, the furniture is low-slung (dark leather in public areas, soft beiges in rooms), chairs are of woven jute and bent wood, and lots of driftwood is displayed. It's evident that much thought has been given to framing vistas that are either open or through glass, including the centerpiece dark-granite infinity pool, beside which you can enjoy cocktails while gazing out onto the sea. The waterfront villas are steps from the broad, soft-sand beach of Barnes Bay; swimming, however, is easier at the resort's other beach, on Meads Bay. Many finishing touches were still being worked on at the time of our visit, but even in the early weeks the friendly, attractive staff were eager to please.

Which room to book: Each spacious Rooftop Studio suite comes with a plunge pool and a private terrace.


La Réserve Ramatuelle

Ramatuelle, France

La Réserve RamatuelleDespite its proximity to the rocking scene in St-Tropez, six miles away, this discreet little oasis feels a world away from the high-octane glitz. Its 23 spacious rooms and suites, all with terraces or private gardens, have spectacular sea views and are nestled into a ridge overlooking a secluded cove near the medieval hilltop village of Ramatuelle. The creation of Jean-Michel Wilmotte, one of the designers behind Doha's Museum of Islamic Art, the hotel uses floor-to-ceiling windows and open balconies to capitalize on the region's famed light. With natural stone in ocher and white and touches of unfinished wood, the undulating, interlocking structures create a modernist effect—a welcome change from the more classic and frumpy properties of the Côte d'Azur. And despite their simplicity, rooms are extremely comfortable, with plump white sofas positioned to let you gaze at the view. The sundeck hugs a 100-foot-long swimming pool, and there's an indoor option in the spa for the cooler months. With understated but warm service and arguably the area's best spa, La Réserve deserves an almost perfect score. The only misfire is the restaurant, which touts a healthy menu but serves rather bland food that's pricey considering the portions.

Which room to book: No. 50 for its perfectly situated garden with Mediterranean views.


Centurion Palace

Venice

Centurion PalaceFew properties have a more enviable address: Right at the mouth of the Grand Canal, facing St. Mark's Square, the imposing nineteenth-century redbrick palazzo manages to be centrally located (the wonderful new Punta della Dogana museum and the spectacular Santa Maria della Salute church are just steps away) yet feel apart from the city's bustle of tourists. Inside, Florentine architect Guido Ciompi has brought a modern aesthetic to the landmark structure, to mixed effect. The 50 one-of-a-kind rooms and suites, some of which have fireplaces, feel intimate and contemporary, with light-wood floors, bathrooms lined with exquisite gold-leaf treatments, and custom furniture in burnished shades of orange, light pink, and blue velvet. (Try to snag a water view, and note that rooms on the courtyard are quiet but smaller.) The public spaces, however, are either a bit too stark (like the blindingly white restaurant and bar) or almost garish (the lobby). Still, the Centurion's sublime location eclipses these few design missteps and the hit-or-miss service.

Which room to book: The junior suites — Nos. 201, 209, 210, 212, 401, 402, 404, and 502—which overlook the canal.


Raas

Jodhpur, India

RaasIt's a challenge to get to Raas through the confusion of old Jodhpur's narrow, congested streets. You at last reach an unprepossessing door in a cement facade that opens onto a leafy courtyard and a modern structure housing 39 guest rooms and suites. Through the alchemy of inspired design, the bold lines of this new building blend harmoniously with the elegant remnants of the eighteenth-century haveli (courtier's palace) on whose grounds it is sited. Through minimalist decor, the accommodations make adroit use of space, texture, and pattern (including pink sandstone lattice screens that, recalling traditional jalis, bring shade and privacy), which compensates for the fairly modest size of the rooms and bathrooms, with handsome tubs set in stone. Room terraces offer not just a view, but grand theater: In the foreground, a swimming pool with gauzy-curtained cabanas is set in a garden, and reflecting pools lead up to a graceful old pavilion, now the dining room. To your left, an ancient structure accommodates pillowed seating alcoves. And as the dramatic backdrop looms the Maharajah of Jodhpur's massive pink sandstone Mehrangahr Fort. The quality of the cuisine, with both Indian and international offerings, can be uneven, and the calls to prayer from the minaret next door can be jarringly loud. Mercifully, double glazing and the hum of the air-conditioning silences the 4 a.m. loudspeaker crackle.

Which room to book: Avoid the garden courtyard rooms which lack privacy and opt for one on the second floor with a retractable sandstone trellis screen.


La Mamounia

Marrakesh

La MamouniaFor decades, the 87-year-old La Mamounia was the height of Moroccan glamour, hosting everyone from Charlie Chaplin to the Rolling Stones, but by the 1990s, it had become a shabby shadow of its former self following an ill-conceived design. Now, after a three-year, $150 million revamp by French designer Jacques Garcia, "the loveliest place on earth," as proclaimed by habitué Winston Churchill, can again live up to this appellation. The top-to-bottom makeover not only reestablished but heightened the Art Deco meets Arabesque design of the original. Walls are adorned with intricate plasterwork and gem-colored zellij (traditional tiling); sconces and lamps throw off speckles of light through punched metal; arresting black-and-white photography of contemporary Berbers, Tuaregs, and bedouins animate hallways; and dozens of fountains and decorative pools add a tinkling sound track. The 210 guest rooms are lavishly appointed as well, each with painted wood doors, a large etched-glass mirror over a leather-topped desk, and a terrace; alongside are modern touches such as key-operated light fixtures and the ability to lock or unlock one's room door via a bedside switch. New too, are the expansive outdoor pool, subterranean spa, and three restaurants serving fine French, Italian, and Moroccan cuisine. La Mamounia's 20-acre garden is still its most romantic feature, and strolling amid the centuries-old palm, orange, and olive trees is a true retreat within the medina walls. Though staff are unfailingly polite (at check-in they'll usher you to a sofa, proffering figs and almond milk), the service can be uneven—housekeeping has a habit of entering one's room immediately after knocking, and calls to the front desk go unanswered. Other caveats are high prices (continental breakfast costs $42) and the overly dim lighting throughout, in which visibility is sacrificed for a moody ambience.

Which room to book: Any facing the verdant garden and the Atlas Mountains beyond.


Alila Villas Uluwatu

Desa Pecatu, Bali

Alila Villas UluwatuThis fabulous clifftop pleasure complex on Bali's booming south coast is the region's first fully successful marriage of postmodern cool and tropical hot. The Singaporean design partnership WOHA has created a startlingly original vocabulary that alternates monumentality and intimacy, classicism and funk—and lets sky and sea shine through at every turn. The public places and 84 villas spill across a hillside overlooking the ocean with an organic ease that makes the place feel like it's been there forever, and its smart eco-planning may let it stay there almost that long: Flat roofs are insulated with local volcanic rock, and water from washing machines and baths is filtered for garden use. Rooms have ceilings of local bamboo, and the hardwood is recycled from retired Indonesian railway sleeper cars. The yoga pavilion is a little architectural masterpiece on a verdant knoll, and the two restaurants—one serving traditional Indonesian and Balinese, the other contemporary Western fare—are excellent. Perhaps one of the resort's most beautiful touches is a private banquet room with a vaulted clerestory studded with 2,500 glittering copper batik stamps.

Which room to book: Villa 409, a one bedroom at one of the resort's highest points, offers total privacy and a wide ocean view.

Tuesday's massive earthquake in western China has left hundreds dead and thousands more injured. Both of those numbers are expected to rise in the coming days, as many victims are still trapped under collapsed buildings and rubble. Below, some of the most frequently asked questions surrounding the devastating earthquake.

Earthquake in China

Where in China was it?

The earthquake was centered near the Qinghai Province in western China. That is located right next to Tibet, the mountainous homeland of the Dalai Llama. While many people who live outside of China are aware of the country's major cities on its east coast, far fewer have any understanding of the land's geography out west. That explains the explosive searches on "china map" and "where is qinghai province."

Are we having more earthquakes?

It sure seems like it. Since the beginning of 2010, there have been four major earthquakes around the world.

1. 7.0 in Haiti on January 12, 2010.

2. 8.8 in Chile on February 27, 2010.

3. 7.2 in Mexico on April 4, 2010.

4. 6.9 in China on April 13, 2010.

All of this seismic activity has left some wondering if earthquakes are increasing in frequency, or if it just seems like they are. According to an expert from the United States Geological Survey, the recent activity is not unusual.

Geophysicist Dale Grant spoke with CNN and remarked that while it may seem like quakes are getting more frequent, the numbers are about average, historically speaking. What has changed? The quakes are striking more populated areas, which has led to more damage, more deaths, and, as a consequence, far more news coverage. It might seem like we're getting a lot more earthquakes, but they're actually just causing more damage due to where they are striking.

How does the China earthquake compare to other recent disasters?

The Haiti earthquake measured 7.0, and claimed the lives of over 220,000 people. Why the high death toll? The quake struck near the nation's densely-populated capital, Port Au Prince. Also, Haiti is a very poor country, with few seismically-safe buildings. With so many people living so close together in buildings that were not built to withstand intense shaking, an earthquake can exact a heavy toll.

The recent Mexico earthquake, which struck not far from the United States border, was even more powerful, measuring 7.2. Due in large to the quake being centered in a relatively desolate place, only several people were killed.

The Chile earthquake, which struck on February 27, had a magnitude of 8.8. That is almost 100 times stronger than the recent 6.9 China quake (each full point represents a tenfold increase in power). Still, for such a massive quake, a comparatively small number of people were killed. That's thanks to Chile's strict building codes and the fact that the quake struck off the country's coast. A tsunami did result, which was responsible for nearly half of the deaths associated with the quake.

Which countries have the most earthquakes?

Difficult to say. According to the USGS, Indonesia has the most earthquakes overall, but China and Iran tend to suffer the most catastrophic earthquakes.

How can you prepare for an earthquake?

It's impossible to predict when an earthquake will strike. But experts say that anyone living in a dangerous area should be prepared. For people in the United States, disaster experts recommend they be prepared to spend 72 hours on their own in the event of an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc. You can read more at 72hours.org, a site put together by the city of San Francisco.

How can you help?

The relief effort is just beginning. Due to the isolated location of the Qinghai Province, it will be difficult to get assistance to the victims. You can help the relief effort via the Red Cross.

Users hate them. They're a massive headache to network administrators. But IT departments often mandate them nonetheless: regularly scheduled password changes — part of a policy intended to increase computer security.



Now new research proves what you've probably suspected ever since your first pop-up announcing that your password has expired and you need to create a new one. This presumed security measure is little more than a big waste of time, the Boston Globe reports.

Microsoft undertook the study to gauge how effectively frequent password changes thwart cyberattacks, and found that the advice generally doesn't make much sense, since, as the study notes, someone who obtains your password will use it immediately, not sit on it for weeks until you have a chance to change it. "That’s about as likely as a crook lifting a house key and then waiting until the lock is changed before sticking it in the door," the Globe says.

On the bright side, changing your password isn't harmful, either, unless you use overly short or obvious passwords or you're sloppy about how you remember them. (Many users forced to change their password too frequently resort to writing them on sticky notes attached to their monitor, about the worst possible computer security behavior you can undertake.)

Rather, frequent password changes are simply a waste of time and, therefore, money. According to the Microsoft researcher's very rough calculations: To be economically justifiable, each minute per day that computer users spend on changing passwords (or on any security measure) should yield $16 billion in annual savings from averted harm. No one can cite a real statistic on password changes' averted losses, but few would estimate it's anywhere approaching $16 billion a year.

Bottom line, IT departments: Drop the password-change mandates. You're only creating extra work for yourselves and making the rest of us hate you.

President Obama says he hopes to create a world without nuclear weapons. He campaigned on that message and, this week, shifted military policy to limit America's possible use of them in retaliation to non-nuclear attacks. He hopes that other countries will follow the U.S. lead, as well as the incentives laid out in international treaties, and limit their use and development of nukes.

Nuclear Explosion

On Thursday, President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a historic pact in Prague to scale back their nuclear arsenals. Under the new accord - an update of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, first proposed by President Reagan and first ratified in 1991 - the countries will reduce their stockpiles of nuclear warheads by 30 percent and their inventory of nuclear launchers by half.

If Obama hopes to help create a nuclear weapon-free world, however, the real challenge lies beyond America's former Cold War enemy. Next he'll need to get other nuclear-armed countries to follow in the path of the START deal and scale back their own arsenals.

Where are the bombs and how many are there?

In addition to the United States and Russia, three countries are officially recognized as a part of the "nuclear club": China, France, and the United Kingdom.

According to the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan research group that advocates arms control, America and Russia are far and away the biggest nuclear powers. Russia has 2,787 strategic warheads (weapons placed in long-range delivery systems) and about 2,000 tactical warheads (weapons with a shorter range and lower payload). When you include non-operational weapons, Russia's total stockpile is about 8,000 warheads.

The United States has 2,126 strategic warheads and about 500 tactical ones, with a total stockpile of around 6,000. China - which has the world's largest conventional army - is a fledgling nuclear power with just 100 or 200 warheads, most of which are believed to be short-range. (International monitoring of China's nuclear arsenal is sketchy.) France has 350 nuclear warheads, and Britain has fewer than 160.

But there are also countries beyond the official "nuclear club" with nuclear weapons.

The all-but-official nuclear club

India and Pakistan each announced in 1998 that it had developed operational nuclear weapons. That inspired a flurry of activity from nonproliferation crusaders, given the two countries' history of bitter ethnic, religious, and nationalist rivalry. Current estimates of the nuclear stockpile of each nation, based on the amount of fissile material on hand to make them, are fewer than 100 warheads for India and 70 to 90 for Pakistan.

Israel has never officially confirmed or denied that it has nuclear weapons, because it does not want rivals in the Middle East to know anything about its capabilities. But its status as a nuclear power is an open secret, and a rough estimate ranges from 75 to 200 warheads.

Countries on the verge of going nuclear (if they haven't already)

North Korea has recently conducted both underground and missile-based nuclear tests, showing off what the communist dictatorship claims is a fully developed nuclear weapons program. But some observers have suggested that at least some of those displays were either faked or overhyped for propaganda. The secretive nature of Kim Jong Il's government makes it difficult to confirm any claims about the nation's nuclear capacity. The Federation of American Scientists places its possible arsenal at fewer than 10 warheads, saying that although U.S. intelligence "claims that North Korea may have assembled a few nuclear weapons and North Korea claims to have some, no information is available in the public domain that proves [either]."

In 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Iran was pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program. The Tehran government claims it is developing nuclear power only for civilian applications. In a follow-up report this year, the IAEA maintained that the country was still involved in a weapons-development program, and had enriched its domestic store of uranium to a weapons-grade capacity.

And Syria, according to intelligence sources cited by the Federation of American Scientists, has been coordinating on nuclear weapons research with North Korea for more than a decade. In 2007, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a target in Syria that intelligence officials later told the U.S. Congress was an undeclared nuclear reactor. The reactor was similar to the research reactor near the North Korean city of Yongbyon, the sources reported. This prompted the White House to officially charge that Syria was pursuing a "covert" nuclear scheme to refine weapons-grade fissile material.

The nightmare of possible "loose nukes"

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent nuclear material to 17 Soviet republics and allies. Since the end of the Cold War 20 years ago and the breakup of the Soviet Union, most of those countries have fallen through the cracks of international nuclear monitoring efforts. A 2005 report from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government found that enough fissile material existed in the former Soviet bloc to create more than 80,000 nuclear weapons.

Only half of that material had been secured by agencies like the IAEA.

The United States and Russia have since sought to crack down on the traffic in illegal nuclear material in Eastern Europe, but such efforts are painstaking. The great fear is that a terrorist group could grab nuclear material from this underground market to build a "dirty bomb," or even collaborate with a state sponsor to deploy an actual warhead. That scenario is terrifyingly easy to envision, as the Kennedy Center's resident nuclear terrorism expert, Graham Allison, has made plain.

The outlier states that have given up their efforts

Back in the bad old days of apartheid and Libyan-sponsored terrorist attacks, no one could imagine the international community preaching that more countries should follow the example of South Africa and Libya.

But what happened in those countries is exactly what a successful nonproliferation effort looks like. South Africa had pursued a successful covert nuclear weapons plan, but renounced it and dismantled its nuclear arsenal when it signed on with the nonproliferation treaty in 1991. And Libya voluntarily renounced its nuclear weapons program in 2003, in a move that President George W. Bush's White House hailed as a significant victory for the "Bush Doctrine," which predicted that the invasion of Iraq would be a strong deterrent to other rogue states with nuclear ambitions. Other states that have shelved their nuclear weapons programs include Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, and Taiwan.

In each of these cases the United States, other countries, and international institutions successfully made the case that participating in the global nonproliferation effort was in the country's best interest. Making that same pitch to established nuclear powers - and the growing fraternity of states still harboring nuclear ambitions - is the central challenge ahead for the emerging "Obama doctrine" of post-Cold War nonproliferation.

When a nonprofit group this week released video footage, leaked via a source in the Pentagon, showing a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack on a group of civilians in Baghdad, the clip unleashed a viral online sensation and ignited an intense debate about the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq.



But the simple fact of the video's release also reflects the ongoing revolution in how news gets produced and published.

The group, called WikiLeaks, released the Pentagon video on Monday. Less than 24 hours later, the clip had netted more than 1.3 million viewers on YouTube alone.

The transmission of information, in and out of regularly authorized channels, has become much more immediate — and far more viral — than at any point in history. Virtually anyone with a browser and a DSL connection can now bring news to light in dramatic and instantaneous fashion. All these trends converged with the WikiLeaks video.

Seven noncombatants were killed in the Baghdad attack — among them a driver (Saeed Chmagh) and photographer (Namir Noor-Eldeen) employed by the Reuters news service. Reuters, indeed, had been seeking to obtain internal Pentagon materials pertaining to the attack — including the footage that went online yesterday — for the past three years, using the Freedom of Information Act. The agency's efforts had so far proved fruitless.

And that's where WikiLeaks came in. The nonprofit website launched in 2006 as an online clearinghouse for whistleblowers seeking to publicize leaked government documents across the world. But prior to posting the video footage, the site had functioned as repository of information; with this latest scoop, which it says came from "a courageous source" within the U.S. military, it has morphed into an investigative news source in its own right. (The full 18-minute video can be viewed — albeit with the clear warning that the material is quite disturbing — at the special project URL that WikiLeaks established for it, under the incendiary name of collateralmurder.com.)

"The material was encrypted with a code, and we broke the code," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told wired.com. "In terms of journalism efficiency, I think we discovered a lot with a small amount of resources."

But this was much more than a question of cracking an encryption code from a renegade PC. WikiLeaks also reported the story the old-fashioned way — by sending two reporters to Baghdad to research the 2007 incident. The group says its correspondents verified the story by interviewing witnesses and family members of people killed and injured in the attack. These accounts helped to flesh out the gaps in the official account of the incident; as the materials at CollateralMurder.com explain, the "military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured." And now that silence is starting to abate: In response to the release of the WikiLeaks video, the Pentagon has circulated some documents relating to the incident, and MSNBC reported this morning that American soldiers mistook a camera held by one of the fallen journalists for a weapon.

Still, the release of the video has also drawn criticism — not so much for the broader WikiLeaks mission of promoting government transparency, but for the site's failure to supply a fuller context to help viewers better understand what they're seeing. A former helicopter pilot and photographer named A.J. Martinez, for example, has dissected the footage on his blog, and attacked the site's packaging of the footage as misleading — and making it seem like the Apache unit was acting out of cold-blooded malice rather than genuine confusion about a possible ground attack taking shape below. "There are many veterans with thousands of hours experience in both analyzing aerial video and understanding the oft-garbled radio transmissions between units," he writes, adding that it would not be unreasonable for the WikiLeaks staff to solicit such interpretive input for concerned vets. "Promoting truth with gross errors is just as shameful as unnecessary engagement" on the field of battle, Martinez concludes.

Yahoo! News contacted Reuters for comment, and a Reuters spokeswoman directed us to their story on the episode, in addition to providing us with the following statement:

"The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters news. "The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result."

US Attacks Iraqi Civilians

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks appears to be far from done. The group is openly soliciting donations to defray the expenses involved in the upcoming release of another video that allegedly documents other civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. military, this time in Afghanistan.