Two ex-ministers contradict Mulroney

OTTAWA AND TORONTO — A former Liberal minister and a former Conservative minister have contradicted Brian Mulroney’s description of events surrounding his 1994 cash payment from lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber at a New York hotel.

The evidence from Allan MacEachen and Elmer MacKay added to the long list of contradictions that hound the former prime minister, who has yet to commit to a second appearance before the House ethics committee on Thursday.

Mr. Mulroney is expected to announce his decision Tuesday or Wednesday. Meanwhile, his spokesmen released arguments Monday against the eventual creation of a “costly” public inquiry into his dealings with Mr. Schreiber.

Torvalds gives props to Microsoft for sharing

Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project that’s among the best-known open-source threats to Windows, has words of praise for Microsoft’s announcement last week that it would share some previously hard-to-get technology with open-source programmers.

“I may make fun of Microsoft occasionally, and yeah, I think they do stupid things at times, but I think this one was a step in the right direction,” Torvalds said in an e-mail.

Pakistan Cuts Access to YouTube Worldwide

SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube was back up two hours after Pakistan, in an act of information provincialism, inadvertently made the video-sharing site inaccessible to users around the world Sunday afternoon.

The blackout left network administrators and Internet activists wondering on Monday how Pakistan’s actions, meant to restrict only its own citizens from accessing YouTube, could have such widespread reverberations — and whether such a disruption could be reproduced by someone with more malicious intent.