German ‘revenge’ web site draws fans, critics

WUERZBURG, Aug 19: Has your girlfriend dumped you? your boss caused you to lose a promotion? your so-called friend spread your secrets to the world? you could lower your head in shame - or take revenge.

Revenge is exactly what German Bjoern Joerges and his brothers in arms had in mind when they created their web site entitled "revenge is sweet" (www.Rache-ist-suess.De).

According to the creators, the site holds a mirror up to the actions of some of their contemporaries - and it’s all supposed to be done in a humourous way.

Joerges started the web page seven years ago - stritly for private consumption, he claims- because of a bottomless rage he harboured towards a fellow student.

But many of the victims of these send-ups aren’t laughing, and they’re not the only ones. Psychologist Wolfgang Schneider of Wuerzberg, Germany is unmoved. He sees the online revenge forum as an expression of a phenomenon that brings private relational issues into the public sphere for lurid consumption. It’s akin, says Schneider, to the currently popular taste for a "strip tease of the soul," the kind regularly delivered via sensational daytime talk shows.

Joerges’s home page is a modern version of the puritans’ stocks -putting the guilty out for all to see - thereby giving a chance to the wronged to derive some satisfaction.

The site today claims to have 4,300 members world-wide between the ages of 14 and 50. Police officers and lawyers are among its customers, joerges stresses. He is himself a law student, scheduled to take his first qualifying exams in the fall.

"Legally this is completely watertight," claims Joerges. That’s because nothing goes in its original form onto the net. If the events take place in Cologne, then the story will claim it happened in Munich. The ages and names of those involved are similarly altered.

"We don’t hang anyone out to dry," Joerges stresses.

It’s not just that he and his partners want to protect themselves legally. They also want to distinguish themselves from "frivolous revenge sites" that will put anything onto the net as delivered -even with names and addresses unfiltered.

A spot on the web isn’t the only thing the "revenge is sweet" forum offers, though. For those looking for more concrete revenge, the site can also arrange practical jokes. One example involved a group of high school students whose teacher gave too many surprise quizzes for their taste.

In cahoots with the teacher’s wife, the members of the forum led the teacher to believe he had overslept his draft notice for the military reserves. The entire affair lasted a half-hour and was so realistic that the teacher had broken out into a cold sweat - until the supposed army bus stopped in front of a bar, where the forum’s actors let the cat out of the bag. The teacher apparently took the whole thing well, with no plans for further revenge.

But not all of those whose stories end up on the web take it so well. Nasty words are the least of the problems for the club’s active members. Several victims have threatened legal action, and a few have even sought an injunction on the claim that even with details altered, their story is clearly recognizable. "No one has succeeded yet," Joerges notes.

Twenty-one-year-old club member Carlos can’t understand why some victims get so worked up. The practical jokes are always funny, he argues. Besides, "those involved have also earned what’s coming to them."

For psychologist Schneider, however, it isn’t important whether the victims have "earned" earned their comeuppance. Such publicity is suspect, for starters, but even if the site serves as a venting mechanism for aggression, these modern scarlet letters still appear "highly primitive." (DPA)

Pakistan army plans to rightsize its strength

ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: After freezing its defence budget this year, Pakistan army has embarked on a plan to rightsize its six lakh strong army under which a large number of officers and jawans would be offered a golden handshake, reports here said.

Financial advisors of the Government have worked out a reform plan for the civil and defence services proposing two per cent cut in the annual payroll till 2004, Pakistan’s ‘Independent’ magazine quoted official sources as saying.

However, the report quoted Pakistan’s defence spokesman Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi, as denying any layoff on cards.

The Government was to propose cut in the defence expenditure but that would be without jeopardising the country’s defence capability, he said.

Though we are not in competition with India, we cannot downsize our army unless the Indians do so. Our army is primarily a defence force meant to defend the country’s geographical frontier, he said.

On reports that letters of thanks were being issued to army officials, who have been chosen for retirement with full benefits, Gen Qureshi said "Pakistan army’s Service Review Board sits every year to decide, among other things the cases of dull-career officers, who are later relieved of their duties. It is a constant exercise, there is nothing new in it," he added.

The magazine, quoting army sources, said that several army officers and jawans will be offered perks for a premature retirement adding preliminary work on listing those being laid off has already begun.

The sources also said that the military top brass has decided to change army’s look from a conventional force, trained to fight out the enemy country with its infantry, artillery and armoured divisions, to a strategically deployed and well equipped force.

The layoff is a part of rightsizing, which aims at cutting down the mounting administrative costs of keeping such a large army, the sources said.

"There is no need for huge military and defence expenditure when Pakistan already has a nuclear umbrella. The nuclear capability in itself is enough of a deterrent for both India and Pakistan not to indulge in a military misadventure. All we need is a short and small army, equipped with latest art of surveillance supported by weapons of mass destrution, a military source told the magazine.

It said Finance Ministry officials have stated that plans were afoot to shift 40,000 lower level staff in civil services to surplus pool with a voluntary retirement offer.

Defence division, defence production division and foreign office and the revenue division also have their independent restructuring plan under consideration, it said. (PTI)

B’desh to go to Parliamentary polls on October 1

DHAKA, Aug 19: Bangladesh will go to Parliamentary elections on October 1 in what promises to be a battle royal between main contenders Awami League headed by Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Begum Khaleda Zia amidst growing concern over spectre of violence on the exercise.

Ending weeks of speculation, Chief Election Commissioner Mohammed Abu Syed announced the poll schedule which says filing of nominations will close on Aug 29 followed by their scrutiny on Aug 30 and 31. The last date for withdrawal of nominations has been billed for September 6.

An estimated 75 million voters are expected to cast votes in the election as the army would be deployed along with police and para-miliary BDR to ensure peaceful polling overseen by neutral caretaker Government, Syed said in a broadcast to the nation.

This is the second time that Parliamentary poll will be held under the non-party caretaker administration since the provision was enshrined in the country’s Constitution in 1996.

The neutral caretaker Government headed by Latifur Rahman, immediate past Chief Justice of Bangladesh, took over from the Awami League dispensation headed by Hasina in July.

The CEC apealed to political parties not to nominate terrorists, black money holders and smugglers.

The announcement of the poll schedule came a day after Syed had a meeting with Rahman who was understood to have advised him to come out with the timetable soon.

Awami League and BNP have been at loggerheads over the poll schedule. Hasina said only yesterday that her party would oppose elections in the first week of October while Begum Zia said poll date should not be announced without the creation of a congenial atmosphere first.

Under a controversial ordinance signed by President Shahabuddin Ahmed, the army was given sweeping powers to arrest anyone without a warrant on the day of polling. (PTI)

Mine explosion in Ukraine kills 36

KIEV, Aug 19: At least 36 miners were killed and 44 were injured today in an underground methane and coal dust explosion in eastern Ukraine, and at least 14 others were missing, official said.

The morning blast at the Zasiadko mine in the coal-rich Donetsk region was the most serious accident this year in Ukraine’s coal mines, which are considered among the world’s most unsafe.

The Regional Work Safety Department said 257 miners were working underground in the vicinity of the explosion while Ukraine’s emergency situations ministry put the figure at 259.

The ministry said at least 14 miners were missing, but noted that its figures were preliminary. Earlier, the Regional Department said 22 workers were missing.

Rescue teams were working in the mine, battling a continuing fire, officials said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion at the Zasiadko mine, which was also the site of a May 1999 methane explosion that killed 50 miners and injured about 40 others. (AP)

| home | state | national | business | editorial | advertisement | sports
| international | weather | mailbag | suggestions | search | subscribe | send mail |