Fair Use Note

WARNING for European visitors: European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.

Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

18 Nov - The Netroots Speak

uses in disuse IImage by jesuscm via Flickr
Dropping Al-Alam meant to 'silence resistance'
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:52:04 GMT
After two Arab satellite operators took Al-Alam off air, growing number of intellectuals and politicians are lending their voice to the chorus of criticism against the move.

Egyptian parliamentarian Mustapha al-Bakri said the decision to drop Al-Alam was an effort to choke the voice of resistance in the Arab world.

Saudi-based Arabsat and Cairo-based Nilesat stopped Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam in a move widely seen as its stance on regional issues, especially when it comes to the Saudi-backing of the Yemeni forces in a crackdown on Shiite Houthi fighters in north of the country.

Meanwhile, Egyptian scholar Rafiq al-Habib also told of the heavy toll of the regional disputes on the news network.

Hafiz Abu Saeeda, head of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, described the Arab companies move as "unjustifiable".

Citing Egyptian and Arab Legal System, he said the operators were not entitled to move without providing convincing reasons.

Al-Alam officials say the decision to take the network off air breached the contract with the Arab satellite providers which stipulated that any disputes should be settled at a competent court of law.

Political motive behind Al-Alam ban 
Some regional and international media and political foundations condemned the Saudi-based Arabsat as well as Cairo-based Nilesat's moves to ban Iran's al-Alam from broadcasting on the air, saying that this initiative will serve Zionist regime.

The Arab media described Al Alalm as one of most outstanding network in exposing the crimes committed by Zionist against Palestinians particularly in recent Gaza war, stressing that some political motives are behind this initiative supported by some Arab leaders.

After a few days of silence, Arabsat and Nilesat authorities claimed that the main reason behind dropping Al-Alam, was the network's continuous criticizing of some figures in the Arab world.

They also claimed that Iran's Arabic-language news channel abused rules of broadcasting by violating some religious and political issues.

However Al-Alam has called on the operators to mention the exact time and date of the programs which they have found offensive.

According to al-Alam authorities, the Iran-based television network was taken off the air by both Arabsat and Nilesat on Tuesday without prior notice.

The channel authorities say the move is in violation of initial rights of media freedom as well as previous contracts with the two satellite companies.

They also noted that lack of explanations in official remarks of theses two Arab satellites reaffirms a political motive behind the case.

Reactions against this act are still coming in by human rights organizations as well as Arab and international media in several countries including Lebanon, Britain, Turkey and Sudan.

Home Page/Latest News


 
  

Husk/Photo albums

Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious
In the experiment, preliminary results of which were presented last month at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the ’ brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

A Dental Shift: Implants Instead of Bridges

COLLISION IN CHINA | CHINA FAULTS U.S. IN INCIDENT 
The Chinese government blamed the United States today for Sunday's midair collision of a spy plane and a trailing Chinese fighter jet and suggested that the release of the 24 American crew members hinged on Washington's willingness to apologize.

The slow-moving American plane, filled with secret eavesdropping equipment, collided on Sunday with one of two Chinese fighters that shadowed it 65 miles off Chinese territorial waters. With a wing and an engine damaged, the plane made an emergency landing at a military base on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, where the crew was taken into custody.

The pilot of the Chinese jet, identified today as Wang Wei, reportedly parachuted out before his jet crashed, but Chinese rescuers have been unable to find him and he is presumed dead.

AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization" 
An anonymous reader passes along news that an Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, has denounced the Church of Scientology as "a criminal organization" from the floor of Parliament. "Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status." It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.

SLASHDOT : YOUR RIGHTS ONLINE : CENSORSHIP 


Comments: 458 +-   AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization" on Tuesday November 17, @11:56PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 17, @11:56PM
from the can't-do-that-here-either dept.
censorship
An anonymous reader passes along news that an Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, has denounced the Church of Scientology as "a criminal organization" from the floor of Parliament. "Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status." It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.
Read More... 458 comments story

Comments: 3 +-   Founder of Tibet's "Butter-Lamp" Site Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison on Tuesday November 17, @10:43AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 17, @10:43AM
from the there-is-no-firewall dept.
censorship
The Installer writes with this snippet from the AP, as carried by Seattle's KOMO News: "The founder of a Tibetan literary Web site was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of disclosing state secrets, an overseas monitoring group said Tuesday. Kunchok Tsephel, 39, was convicted and sentenced Nov. 12 after a closed-door trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Gannan prefecture in southwestern Gansu province, according to reports from Tibet received by Tibetan exiles, said the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group. Some of the charges are believed to be related to content posted on his influential Web site, Chodme, or Butter-Lamp, which promotes Tibetan culture, and also for passing on information about last year's anti-government protests."
Read More... 3 comments story

Comments: 309 +-   Obama Talks Internet Freedom, China Censors on Monday November 16, @11:04PM

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 16, @11:04PM
from the can't-hear-you dept.
censorship
eldavojohn writes "In a town-hall-style Q&A with (hand-picked) Chinese students in Shanghai, President Obama made several statements knocking China's firewall and censorship. Quoting: 'I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet — or unrestricted Internet access — is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.' The Washington Post notes that the event was broadcast only on the local level, and in fact Chinese authorities removed from view what little coverage it had gotten, after about an hour. But at least American news media are gobbling it up."
Read More... 309 comments story

Comments: 544 +-   Russia Recalls Modern Warfare 2 on Monday November 16, @01:12PM

Posted by timothy on Monday November 16, @01:12PM
from the no-you-take-that-back dept.
censorship
eldavojohn writes "You may recall much ado over some questionable footage in the latest Call of Duty game. Well, that footage has led to a recall of Modern Warfare 2 in Russia. Seems the Russian government was none too happy about the portrayal of Russia in the game and decided to yank it from stores. Infinity Ward has responded with a patch that removes the 'No Russian' mission (the content in question) from the storyline. Before you overly criticize the Russian government, there may be some truth to the claim that the game's story line overly demonizes Russians as just terrorists as the Russian site GotPS3.ru alleges. Is cultural sensitivity becoming an overly played card in the gaming world? Not too long ago, Wolfenstein was recalled in Germany for containing Nazi symbols."
Read More... 544 comments story

Comments: 407 +-   UN Officials Remove Poster Mentioning Chinese Firewall on Sunday November 15, @06:04PM

Posted by kdawson on Sunday November 15, @06:04PM
from the can-you-spell-hypocricy dept.
censorship
At a UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in Egypt, anti-censorship group Open Net Initiative was startled by a demand from UN officials to remove a poster mentioning Chinese Net censorship. When ONI refused the request, security personnel arrived and took away the poster. The group was promoting a new book, Access Controlled, a survey of Internet censorship, filtering, and online surveillance. A witness said, "The poster was thrown on the floor and we were told to remove it because of the reference to China and Tibet. We refused, and security guards came and removed it. The incident was witnessed by many." Here is a video of the removal.
Read More... 407 comments story

Comments: 275 +-   Microsoft Tries To Censor Bing Vulnerability on Tuesday November 10, @02:30AM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 10, @02:30AM
from the don't-shout-and-wave-it-about dept.
censorship
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Bing search engine has a vulnerability with its cash-back promotion, which impacts both merchants and customers. In traditional Microsoft fashion, the company has responded to the author of the breaking Bing cash-back exploit with a cease & desist letter, rather than by fixing the underlying security problem. It is possible for a malicious user to create fake Bing cash-back requests, resulting in not only fake cash-back costs for the merchant, but also blocking legitimate customers from receiving their cash-back from Bing. The original post is currently available in Bing's cache, although perhaps not for long. But no worries, the author makes it clear that the exploit should be painfully obvious to anyone who reads the Bing cash-back SDK."
Read More... 275 comments story

Comments: 180 +-   Congress May Require ISPs To Block Certain Fraud Sites on Thursday November 05, @08:39AM

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 05, @08:39AM
from the just-getting-warmed-up dept.
internet
FutureDomain writes "A bill which just passed the House Financial Services Committee would require Internet Service Providers to block access to sites hosting financial scams that pose as members of the government-backed Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). The bill, called the Investor Protection Act and sponsored by Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), is broad enough to block not only websites, but email and any other 'electronic material.' 'Internet providers are also worried that Kanjorski's requirement — and the accompanying civil penalties and injunctions — would apply even if the blocking is not technically feasible.'"
Read More... 180 comments story

Comments: 775 +-   Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks. It's Bad. Very Bad. on Wednesday November 04, @09:31AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 04, @09:31AM
from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.
censorship
Jamie found a Boing Boing story that will probably get your blood to at least a simmer. It says "The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to 'national security' concerns, has leaked. It's bad." You can read the original leaked document or the summary. If passed, the internet will never be the same. Thank goodness it's hidden from public scrutiny for National Security.
Read More... 775 comments story

Comments: 163 +-   EFF Launches "Takedown Hall of Shame" on Tuesday October 27, @05:03PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 27, @05:03PM
from the more-chilling dept.
censorship
netbuzz writes "Recognizing that public shame is a potent weapon, the Electronic Frontier Foundation today launched a new Web site — its Takedown Hall of Shame — that will shine an unflattering spotlight on those corporations and individuals who abuse copyright claims to stifle free speech. Among the early inductees are NPR, NBC, CBS, and Diebold."
Read More... 163 comments story

Comments: 622 +-   French Branch of Scientology Is Convicted of Fraud on Tuesday October 27, @01:44PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 27, @01:44PM
from the still-getting-away-with-it dept.
censorship
The trial we discussed this spring has come to a verdict, and reader lugannerd was one of several to note a milestone in the fight against the Church of Scientology. "The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud and fined nearly $900,000 on Tuesday by a Paris court. But the judges did not ban the church entirely, as the prosecution had demanded, saying that a change in the law prevented such an action for fraud. The church said it would appeal. The verdict was among the most important in several years to involve the controversial group, which is registered as a religion in the United States but has no similar legal protection in France. It is considered a sect here, and says it has some 45,000 adherents, out of some 12 million worldwide. It was the first time here that the church itself had been tried and convicted, as opposed to individual members."
Read More... 622 comments story

Comments: 74 +-   Ultrasurf Easily Blocked, But So What? on Monday October 26, @11:01AM

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 26, @11:01AM
from the counter-counter-workarounds dept.
censorship
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "A simple experiment shows that it's easy to find the IP addresses used by the UltraSurf anti-censorship program, and block traffic to all of those IP addresses, effectively stopping UltraSurf from working. But this is not a fault of UltraSurf; rather, it demonstrates that an anti-censorship software program can be successful even if it's relatively trivial to block it." Read on for Bennett's analysis.
Read 13104 More Bytes... 74 comments story

Comments: 129 +-   AU Classification Board To Censor Mobile Apps on Thursday October 22, @04:13AM

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 22, @04:13AM
from the we-got-a-ban-for-that dept.
censorship
bennyboy64 writes "The Australian Classification Board is seeking to censor mobile phone applications under its National Classification Scheme. 'I recently wrote to the minister [Minister McDonald] regarding my concern that some so-called mobile phone applications, which can be purchased online or either downloaded to mobile phones or played online via mobile phone access, are not being submitted to the board for classification,' Australia's Classification Board director Donald McDonald told a Senate Estimates committee. I wonder if they know that there are over 80,000 applications on the iPhone platform alone?"
Read More... 129 comments story

Comments: 297 +-   China Strangles Tor Ahead of National Day on Thursday October 15, @02:41PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 15, @02:41PM
from the not-so-much-into-liberty-y'see dept.
censorship
TechReviewAl writes "Technology Review reports that the Chinese government has for the first time targeted the Tor anonymity network. In the run-up to China's National Day celebrations, the government started targeting the sites used to distribute Tor addresses and the number of users inside China dropped from tens of thousands to near zero. The move is part of a broader trend that involves governments launching censorship crackdowns around key dates. The good news is that many Tor users quickly found a way around the attack, distributing 'bridge' addresses via IM and Twitter."
Read More... 297 comments story

Comments: 216 +-   In the UK, a Few Tweets Restore Freedom of Speech on Wednesday October 14, @04:28AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday October 14, @04:28AM
from the inconvenient-truths dept.
censorship
Several readers wrote to us about the situation in the UK that saw the Guardian newspaper forbidden by a judge from reporting a question in UK parliament. The press's freedom to do so has been fought for since at least 1688 and fully acknowledged since the 19th century. At issue was a matter of public record — but the country's libel laws meant that the newspaper could not inform the public of what parliament was up to. The question concerned the oil trading company Trafigura, the toxic waste scandal they are involved in, and their generous use of libel lawyers to silence those who would report on the whole thing. After tweeters and bloggers shouted about Trafigura all over the Internet, the company's lawyers agreed to drop the gag request.
Read More... 216 comments story

Comments: 136 +-   Modern Games and Technology Challenging ESRB's Effectiveness on Wednesday October 14, @03:02AM

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 14, @03:02AM
from the rated-t-for-terrible dept.
games
The Entertainment Software Rating Board has been around for 15 years now, overcoming an ineffective start and a host of controversial events to become a fairly well-respected ratings agency. However, as this article at The Escapist points out, the world of video games is changing, and the ESRB does not seem to be adapting along with it. "The most pressing problem is the ESRB's reluctance to address online interactions. Seeing as we're moving more and more toward online and internet-enabled games, this inevitably limits the ESRB's authority as a ratings board. Although the ESRB rates the submitted developer content within online games, these ratings are always qualified by an important disclaimer: 'Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB.' To date, this has meant that the rating given to the designed game content doesn't cover chat and other forms of player-to-player communication. That's unfortunate, because the ESRB's intimate relationship with the game industry could provide it with a unique vantage point from which to evaluate aspects of online games that are beyond the purview of other would-be raters, including the quality of the game's moderation system, programmed restrictions on chat and known player demographics."
Read More... 136 comments story

Comments: 94 +-   Wikileaks Plans To Make the Web Leakier on Friday October 09, @10:39AM

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 09, @10:39AM
from the assuming-the-risk dept.
censorship
itwbennett writes "At the Hack In The Box conference in Kuala Lumpur, Wikileaks.org announced a plan to enable newspapers, human rights organizations, criminal investigators, and others to embed an 'upload a disclosure to me via Wikileaks' form onto their Web sites that would give potential whistleblowers the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organization or journalist they trust over a secure connection. The news or NGO site would then get an embargo period in which to analyze the material and write the story, after which Wikileaks would make the leaked material public. At the same time, the receiver would have greater legal protection, says Julien Assange, an advisory board member at Wikileaks 'We will take the burden of protecting the source and the legal risks associated with publishing the document,' said Assange. 'We want to get as much substantive information as possible into the historical record, keep it accessible, and provide incentives for people to turn it into something that will achieve political reform.'"
Read More... 94 comments story

Comments: 134 +-   Left 4 Dead 2 Approved In Australia After Edits on Friday October 09, @02:24AM

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 09, @02:24AM
from the going-out-on-a-limb dept.
fps
Last month we discussed news that Valve's upcoming shooter Left 4 Dead 2 had been denied classification in Australia, which meant the game could not be legally sold there. Now, after a series of edits which removed "considerable amounts of gore from gameplay," Australia's classification board has given the game an MA15+ rating. Their new report (PDF) says, "No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground. ... The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment." The unmodified version of the game may still be approved, pending a review that concludes on October 22nd.
Read More... 134 comments story

Comments: 125 +-   Details On Worldwide Surveillance and Filtering on Wednesday October 07, @06:57PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 07, @06:57PM
from the eyes-eyes-eveywhere dept.
censorship
An anonymous reader writes "Help Net Security is running an interview with Rafal Rohozinski, a founder and principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, which investigates, exposes and analyzes Internet filtering and surveillance practices all over the world. Rafal provides insight on the process of assessing the state of surveillance and filtering in a particular country and discusses differences related to these issues in several regions, touching especially the United States and Europe. In the US, censorship is more difficult to implement if for no other reason than the court systems offer greater protections for freedom of speech. However, in both places surveillance is on the rise particularly as law-enforcement agencies become more adept at working in the cyber domain."
Read More... 125 comments story

Comments: 40 +-   Dam Burst Tool Disables China's Green Dam Censorware on Wednesday September 30, @12:48PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday September 30, @12:48PM
from the dam-you-anti-social-coders dept.
censorship
An anonymous reader writes "The infamous Green Dam censorship software has suffered yet another blow. As ZDNet explains, Dam Burst, a tool released by security researcher Jon Oberheide, allows unprivileged users to disable the censorware by removing the hooks that enable it to monitor and block user activity, effectively restoring running applications to their original uncensored state. While the Dam Burst software is currently available at Oberheide's website, community mirrors will undoubtedly be necessary to avoid blocking by the Great Firewall."
Read More... 40 comments story

Comments: 625 +-   Wolfenstein Being Recalled In Germany

 Scientology a 'criminal organisation'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745765.htm
Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment and forced abortion.

He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status.

"I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers," he told the Senate.



ABC NEWS
Top Stories
The CFS is advising locals to activate their bushfire emergency plans.
The CFS is advising locals to activate their bushfire emergency plans.

Fire trucks collide as blaze out of control Video Audio Photo

A fire is burning out of control on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula as temperatures continue to rise across the south-east of the country.
And Two Country Fire Service (CFS) engines have collided on the fire ground at Curramulka. One person is being treated for head and leg injuries and another for shock. More
Tags: disasters-and-accidents, fires, weather, australia, nsw, sydney-2000, sa, adelaide-5000, vic, melbourne-3000
Top Stories Just In Most Popular
Related articles by Zemanta
Posted by opit at 10:26 PM
Labels: , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)