“Cuba blocks access to top Cuban blog”

Interesting short article about blog censorship and suppressive government practices of recent in Cuba.

From Reuters: “Cuba blocks access to top Cuban blog”

“In a country where the press is controlled by the state and there is no independent media, Sanchez and other bloggers based in Cuba have found in the Internet an unregulated vehicle of expression. “

PBS Frontline Documentary: “Private Warriors”

As promised, below is the link for the PBS documentary that I referenced in class.  It is a bit long, but divided into four sections and absolutely worth watching.

The documentary takes a look at the private contractors hired by the US to provide supplies, run military bases and provide security.  It highlights the dilemmas we mentioned in class regarding some of the negative externalities of public/private partnerships.

Private Warriors:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/

Implications of E-Commerce on the Postal Service

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/mailinthe.digitalage.ap/index.html

CNN posted this article today about the implications of e-commerce on revenues from the U.S. Postal Service.  Here are some of the story highlights:

• “First class mail volume has dropped 7 percent in U.S. since 2001
• That’s about 1.3 billion fewer letters per year
• E-mail, electronic bill pay cutting into postal profits
• Post offices around the world are trying new technologies to offset losses”

The article also details some inventive initiatives of other national postal services (in Canada, France, Tunisia and Italy) in response to decreased demand in their services brought about by the internet.   Most efforts supplement the traditional form of mail usage — such as digital certification and electronic postmark of digitally archived letters.

In addition, it is made clear that postal services must adapt, as the declines in first-class mail are forecasted to continue with no reverse in the trend likely for the time being.