A new report from Simon Fraser University in B.C. concludes there has been a sharp decline in the incidence of terrorist violence around the world, challenging assumptions that the global threat has been increasing.

The Human Security Brief 2007 says fatalities from terrorism have decreased by some 40 per cent in recent months. It also concludes the terrorist network associated with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden has suffered a dramatic collapse in popular support in the Muslim world.

This is a photo of Abdel Aziz Salem (known as Zizo in school). Aziz has been living in Dubai, UAE since 1990, working as an investment banker.

Zizo and Magdy El Rayes were inseparable in El Nasereya High School. They even developed their own peculiar "lingo" and imitation of teachers: Abshihi for Arabic, and  the science guy (forgot his name, used to write poetry) when he was gesturing with his hand on how fish swim.

The Waterloo Region Drupal Users Group will be meeting on Friday June 6, 2008.

Martin Anderson-Clutz of Surge Communications will be giving a talk on Drupal Theming Fundamentals. This is a repeat of the DrupalCamp Toronto Talk that Martin gave last week. It was most voted session among the 26 submitted ones.

On June 2, 2008, I will presenting at the Kitchener Waterloo Linux Users Group (KWLUG) on Drupal for Fun and Profit, how to make a career in Open Source.

Since 2006, the Drupal community in Toronto has been holding annual DrupalCamps. Although it says "Toronto", we have seen people from as far away as New York, Winnipeg, and Vancouver come to attend the event.

This year, we are holding the 3rd annual DrupalCamp Toronto event.

The event will be held at the Bissell Building on the campus of the University of Toronto on May 23rd and May 24th 2008.

Attendance is free, but donations are welcome.

There are lots of changes at the OLPC project lately. A top executive shakeup has happened, and it seems to coincide with a ship in direction from being Open Source to allowing Windows as an alternative.

Walter Bender, President of Software and Content for the OLPC was first sidelined then resigned from the project.

This is a quick reminder that the monthly Drupal Users Group meeting for Waterloo Region is tomorrow May 2nd, 2008, 19:00 to 21:00 at 43 Queen St., South. We will be discussing modules, and then have a general Q&A towards the end, as usual. If you live in Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge or surrounding areas, please come and join us.

According to Peter Nowak of the CBC, a hostile bid for Yahoo by Microsoft could change the future of the web.

The article says that the such a bid is likely and would have a good chance of happening too.

They also mention that Microsoft's "closedness" and the mentality of controling everything would cause a major shift, followed by a lot of Yahoo's talent leaving due to the differing cultures.

Both Bell and Rogers have been caught meddling with internet traffic.

Bell provides infrastructure for ISPs who provide the service to end users, such as Teksavvy, and many others. They have been found to throttle traffic even if the end user is a customer of those ISPs, not their own customer.

Check out the proposed logo for DrupalCon Szeged 2008 that my Hungarian friend Ivan Raszl created. It is inspired by the decorations on porcelain and embroidery hand made in Hungary.

Ivan is not only a creative director, but also a long time Drupal user and excellent themer as well.