Yahoo!News reveals that “France and Ireland are hoping the European Commission will back a plan to create an academically accredited cybercrime training program for law enforcement.  The proposal calls for initially creating two training centers that would focus on defining topics for masters and doctoral theses as well as promoting cybercrime as a formal research area, according to a 55-page paper outlining the current problems in cybercrime education.  The program is called 2CENTRE (Cybercrime Centres of Excellence Network for Training, Research and Education). The first two centers, due to begin operations next year, will be located at University College Dublin and Universite Technologique de Troys in France.”

In more cybercrime news, the Washington Post claims that “

[t]he resignation of the [U.S.] federal government's cybersecurity coordinator highlights a power struggle underway over how best to defend the government's civilian computer networks against digital attacks.  Rod A. Beckstrom resigned the post Friday after less than a year on the job, citing a lack of funding and the National Security Agency's tightening grip on government cybersecurity matters.  Beckstrom is director of the National Cyber Security Center — an organization created last March to help coordinate such security efforts across the intelligence community. But recently, Beckstrom said, efforts have been underway to fold his group into a facility at the NSA.”

In a different article, the Washington Post reports that “Former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, apparently on course to be the next U.S. trade representative, told senators yesterday that his main objective as the nation's top trade official would be enforcing existing laws and insisting that U.S. trade partners play by the rules.”

The Guardian writes that “[t]he dispute between YouTube and the Performing Rights Society for Music that prompted the website to remove music videos could spread to MySpace UK and other music sites, industry sources said today.  MySpace UK and other sites are struggling to renegotiate their own licences with PRS, which pays royalties to artists.  One source close to the negotiations said that the launch of MySpace UK's comprehensive music service later this year could be thrown into jeopardy unless it secured an economically viable licence with PRS.”

According to the Register, “Google has admitted that some Gmail users cannot currently access their email just weeks after the company suffered a major outage following a technical cockup at one of its European data centres.  It confirmed that a ‘small subset of users’ have been affected by the latest downtime, but didn’t provide a definitive number and could not confirm when the service would be back up and running.  It’s also unclear if only individuals who use Gmail for free are affected, or if business customers who pay for the service are also being hit by Google’s latest embarrassing outage.”