THIS IS A SET of new observations about Microsoft's affairs in international establishments and governments.

Readers from Portugal warn that Microsoft may trying to intercept Free(dom) software in Portuguese authorities.

Microsoft seems eerily close to some of the highest decision-makers in Portugal, and it shows.

FOSS.IN 2007 is going to start here in Bangalore, India in a few hours from now. This is one of the largest FOSS conferences held in India with distinguished speakers and delegates coming from all over the world and from wide and varied backgrounds.

Protests against Microsoft in India; Another concern is, based on previous incidents, that Microsoft will try to hire people there or advocate what it calls "hybrid" model.

Here is a blog, giving recruitment details related to FOSS technologies. It covers India only.

Portugal's National Association for the promotion of Free Software (Ansol) accuses the government Office of Construction and Property (INCI) of having broken procurement rules after it admitted on Monday that it had signed a 268,000 euro contract with Microsoft for the government's website on Public Expenses, Base, without a public tender.

Criminal investigation in Portugal to involve a company behind OOXML stuffing and Windows laptops scheme

India on Thursday gave Microsoft a thumbs-down in the war of standards for office documents. In a tense meeting at Delhi’s Manak Bhawan, the 21-member technical committee decided that India will vote a ‘no’ against Microsoft’s Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the ISO.