Science & Technology

Discussing the ethics of cosmetic surgery, Slate's William Saletan recalls the strange case of Australian politician Hanjal Ban who at age 23 decided to undergo surgery in Russia to increase her height. She gained around 8 centimeters through a mostly experimental procedure involving breaking her legs in four places and slowly stretching them while they healed. After recovering, Ban went on to successfully win a city council seat inLogan City, Queensland.

Under a pseudonym, Ban wrote a book, God Made me Small, Surgery Made me Tall, and is now republishing a new version, Her Secret, under her own name. Though Ban has vocally said the surgery is not for everyone, book promotion on her official website makes her choice seem almost heroic:

International media recently described her as one of the world's most beautiful politicians. Hanjal's explosive story gripped Australia and gained international attention. Prepare yourself for what you didn't hear in the interviews.

Read how Hajnal over came her darkest moments that almost ended her life. Learn how she turned herself around to become an inspiring role model who exudes confidence, elegance and style.

If you too want to exude confidence and style, The Times of London notes that the surgery is available in at least 18 countries including the U.S. but not the U.K. Do you need to be beautiful to win office? Silvio Berlusconi sure seems to think it can help.

Fiber optic fever has hit East Africa. On Friday, June 12, the 4,500 kilometer (2,790 mile) East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) underwater cable connected the Kenyan port town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and is expected to begin operating within three months.

"Until now, the eastern Africa coast was the longest coastline in the world without a fiber-optic cable connection to the rest of the world," Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki said at the launch ceremony after the cables were pulled ashore.

This great map by Steve Song shows where things will be in a few years with line thickness representing bandwith size. The TEAMS cable (green on map above) is one of three international fiber optic cables expected to reach East Africa this year.

The next (red on map) is constructed by SEACOM, a private company in partnership with a number of African companies. It has already landed, to less fanfare because the Kenyan government has a stake in TEAMS, and is supposed to be ready by the end of June, connecting East Africa to Europe and Asia. The third, the East African Marine Cable System (EASSy) is sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector wing of the World Bank and is scheduled to be finished in 2010 (blue on map).

When the cables go online, they will replace satellite connections as the main source of internet access in Africa, increasing speed, reliability and reducing cost. This should improve productivity and allow increased access with the lower price. In Kenya, the internet company Access Kenya has already pledged that the new cables will double internet speed for its users, and companies are scrambling buy access to the broadband and to finalize internal fiber optic cables. Neighboring landlocked states like Uganda and Rwanda are seeking to do the same. 

As interconnectivity between African countries increases, economic benefits are expected, especially in Kenya, which has a fast developing IT sector. Other potential impacts include education and access to media.

For a good visual of all the submarine internet cables operating or being built worldwide, check out this Alcatel-Lucent map (pdf).The more connections, the faster information can move. Most major websites are still hosted in the United States and Europe, but as Africa's wired status improves, this could change, and locally hosted data is much faster to access. 

Steve Song/Manypossibilities.net

CBS reports that Scottish gamemakers are coming out with "Rendition: Guantanamo," a video game for XBox. Moazzam Begg, a Briton detained at the U.S. military prison for three years, advised the company and helped them depict Gitmo realistically. 

The game takes place in the future, after Guantanamo's closure and the player uses guns to defeat mercenaries trying to keep them as lab rats. 

Now we know what Cheney's grandkids are getting for Xmas? 

The German political establishment is all atwitter over Twitter. Senior members of parliament will launch an investigation today of an incident already dubbed "Twittergate" in which parlimantarians leaked news of German President Horst Kohler's reelection last Saturday before it had been made public:

Julia Klöckner, of chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU, told her Twitter “followers” on that afternoon: “People, you can watch the football in peace. The vote was a success.”

She later apologised for the “somewhat premature timing” of a message.

Ulrich Kelber, of the SPD, was even more specific, prematurely uploading the result of the vote-count to his micro-blog: “The count is confirmed: 613 votes. Köhler is elected.”

Days before his murder, Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg recorded this video predicting that he would soon be killed and that the Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom would be responsible:

Rosenberg was shot and killed while riding his bicycle on Sunday. He had been representing a financial expert named Khalil Musa who was himself murdered along with his daughter after accusing a state-owned bank of corruption. Rosenberg had publicly accused the government of conspiring the kill Musa. The video quickly went viral after Rosenberg's death, sparking anti-government demonstrations with thousands of angy protesters demanding Colom's resignation and calling for an international investigation.

Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin has been following the tech angle on all of this including today's arrest of an IT worker for "inciting financial panic" by suggesting on Twitter that Guatemalans remove their money from the accused bank. Guatemalan Twitter users are responding by retweeting his post en masse.

Do we have a second "twitter revolution" on our hands? And does this one have a better chance of success? Over to you, Evgeny.

Update: Great rundown of the situation so far from Ethan Zuckerman.