Islamist Wave Is Driving Out Syria's Revolutionaries. GAZIANTEP, Turkey -- A couple of months ago, Noureddine al-Abdo started feeling increasingly trapped inside his own house. A popular and well-known opposition activist and citizen journalist, al-Abdo once had free rein over the liberated countryside he called home, in Syria's northwestern Idlib province. "When the liberation happened, it was like a release -- we felt we were released," al-Abdo said recently. "The whole countryside of the north, from Homs to Aleppo to Bab al Hawa, I felt that it was mine. " There, for more than two years, he worked tirelessly to bring news about Syria's northern region to the world. He reported regularly to international media outlets, sometimes venturing out with armed brigades of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters. When foreign reporters came to the country, he ferried them through the back roads of Idlib, and into more treacherous terrain to the east and south.
But lately, something has changed. For al-Abdo, daily life started to feel impossible. Michigan 'Rape Insurance' Bill Passes Into Law. Michigan lawmakers passed a controversial measure on Wednesday that will ban all insurance plans in the state from covering abortion unless the woman's life is in danger. The law, which takes effect in March, will force women and employers to purchase a separate abortion rider if they would like the procedure covered, even in cases of rape and incest. Supporters of the "Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act" argue that it allows people who are opposed to abortion to avoid paying into a plan that covers it. Opponents have nicknamed it the "rape insurance" initiative, because it would force some women to anticipate the possibility of being raped by purchasing the extra abortion insurance ahead of time. “This tells women who were raped … that they should have thought ahead and planned for it,” said Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) during debates.
“Make no mistake, this is anything but a citizens' initiative. It’s a special interest group’s perverted dream come true.” GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications | UK news. Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible.
This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate. One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months. "It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden told the Guardian. "They [GCHQ] are worse than the US. " Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret | UK news. The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal. Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community.
Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show. The papers also reveal that: • GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court. Twitter abuse: Why cyberbullies are targeting women. 29 July 2013Last updated at 09:06 ET Women are growing more vocal about the abuse they experience online, say experts Does it matter whether this article was written by a man or a woman?
The politically correct answer may be no, but for some readers it could be an important factor. The threats of sexual violence which Caroline Criado-Perez received online following her campaign for a woman to be featured on British bank notes has highlighted the prevalence of gender-based bullying across social media. Facebook was forced to change its policies in May after thousands complained about the posting of material which portrayed violence against women in a positive way on the site. This included Facebook groups with titles such as "This is why Indian girls get raped" and individual uploads of graphic photographs showing abused women. One image of a woman lying at the foot of a flight of stairs was captioned: "Next time, don't get pregnant. " Fight harder Visibility Form filling "Have you seen the form?
Syria Execution Video: Jabhat Al Nusra Jihadists Kill Regime Supporters. New GOP debt-limit demands: Ban late-term abortion and approve Keystone pipeline? The good news: This time around, most GOP lawmakers agree they probably should not block a debt-limit increase, halt Treasury borrowing and let the government default on its obligations. According to GOP aides who attended the meeting, the “hell no” caucus appears to be radically diminished. The bad news for President Obama: Republicans will demand some kind of prize for voting to raise the debt limit, preferably some policy that serves to reduce the debt.
They say they will not simply roll over again, as they did in January when they voted without much fuss to suspend enforcement of the debt limit through this weekend. “It’s pretty clear we’re not going to do that. That one, I can guarantee you,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said as he left the meeting, en route to the swearing-in on the House floor of former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who won a special election for a House seat last week. But what should they ask for? “We’re not hurrying this. Walmart outlines own Bangladesh safety plans. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will conduct its own safety inspections at its Bangladesh factories instead of joining an accord with other retailers.
More than 1,100 people died when the nine-storey Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed on 24 April. Labour groups have since drawn up an industry-wide pact to improve fire and building safety conditions. But Walmart, along with several other US retailers, said it would not participate. Walmart plans to perform its own inspections at its 279 factories, saying that will yield faster results.
The company also said every worker would be provided with fire safety training. More than a dozen European companies, including discount clothing company Primark and UK supermarket chain Tesco, have signed up to the legally binding "Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh". European non-governmental organisations IndustriALL and UNI Global Union, which had drafted the agreement, had set a deadline of 15 May.
Global response. Pesticides Under Fire for Risks to Pollinators. Syria crisis: UN's Del Ponte says evidence rebels 'used sarin' 6 May 2013Last updated at 11:06 ET Carla Del Ponte: "I was a little bit stupefied by the first indication of the use of nerve gas by the opposition" Testimony from victims of the conflict in Syria suggests rebels have used the nerve agent, sarin, a leading member of a UN commission of inquiry has said. Carla Del Ponte told Swiss TV that there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof". Ms Del Ponte did not rule out the possibility that government forces might also have used chemical weapons.
Later, the commission stressed that it had "not reached conclusive findings" as to their use by any parties. "As a result, the commission is not in a position to further comment on the allegations at this time," a statement added. The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the statement was terse and shows that the UN was taken by surprise at Ms Del Ponte's remarks. 'Unsupported' Continue reading the main story Analysis Bridget KendallDiplomatic correspondent, BBC News “Start Quote. Restaurant tantrum exposes Mexican class divide. 5 May 2013Last updated at 20:28 ET By Will Grant BBC News, Mexico City A tantrum in a restaurant in Mexico City made headlines this week - because it revealed so much about the country's struggle with class hierarchy.
Sometimes the story lands right on your doorstep. Over the road from the BBC office is a trendy-looking restaurant with black decor and wooden tables outside called Maximo Bistrot. Occasionally we'd go for their set lunch menu, although it is a bit on the expensive side. Good food, though. The menu includes rib eye of organic pork with porcini mushroom puree, sea bass with carrot and macadamia nut salad and seafood-and-toasted-garlic ravioli, with fresh broad beans. You could often spy politicians and starlets of Mexican society lunching alongside you. It was in the Maximo Bistrot that the country's latest political scandal unfolded.
The place was packed, as it tends to be at the weekend. In walks Andrea Benitez, a wealthy 20-something, looking for a table. “Start Quote End Quote. Egypt minister's remarks fuel sexual harassment debate. 4 May 2013Last updated at 02:31 ET By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Cairo Aleem Maqbool watches the controversial exchange between Egypt's information minister and journalist Nada Mohamed A recent UN survey suggested an astounding 99.3% of Egyptian women had experienced harassment of one form or another.
Sixty percent of those asked said they had been touched inappropriately. Of course, the problems started within Egyptian society long before the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, but they do appear to be worsening. And just when the issue of sexual harassment needs decisive action, Egypt's Information Minister Salah Abdul Maksoud has caused outrage by making remarks to a female reporter that appear highly derogatory, though the minister himself is unrepentant.
"In the news conference, I asked him: 'Where is media freedom? '" "He said to me: 'Come here and I'll show you.' As it happens, Ms Mohamed's parents both accompanied her to the news conference. 'Anti-Islamist prejudice' OpenNet Initiative. Short Background: Citizen Lab Research on FinFisher Presence in Malaysia.docx - shortbg-malaysia1.pdf.
From Bahrain With Love: FinFisher's Spy Kit Exposed. Download PDF version Introduction Click here to read the Bloomberg News article. The FinFisher Suite is described by its distributors, Gamma International UK Ltd., as “Governmental IT Intrusion and Remote Monitoring Solutions.” 1 The toolset first gained notoriety after it was revealed that the Egyptian Government’s state security apparatus had been involved in negotiations with Gamma International UK Ltd. over the purchase of the software. Promotional materials have been leaked that describe the tools as providing a wide range of intrusion and monitoring capabilities.2 Despite this, however, the toolset itself has not been publicly analyzed.
This post contains analysis of several pieces of malware obtained by Vernon Silver of Bloomberg News that were sent to Bahraini pro-democracy activists in April and May of this year. As well as directly examining the samples through static and dynamic analysis, we infected a virtual machine (VM) with the malware. Delivery Installation Note the string: For Their Eyes Only: The Commercialization of Digital Spying. By: Morgan Marquis-Boire, Bill Marczak, Claudio Guarnieri & John Scott-Railton Citizen Lab is pleased to announce the release of “For Their Eyes Only: The Commercialization of Digital Spying.” Read the Report [PDF]*(updated on 16 September 2013) The report features new findings, as well as consolidating a year of our research on the commercial market for offensive computer network intrusion capabilities developed by Western companies.
Our new findings include: We have identified FinFisher Command & Control servers in 11 new Countries. Locations of FinFisher Command & Control Servers Found To Date: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.
BBC bullies 'creating climate of anxiety and fear' | Media. A BBC inquiry set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal has uncovered widespread allegations of bullying and an inadequate complaints procedure which meant whistleblowers' concerns often went unheeded. The report arising from the review, published on Thursday, said there had been 37 complaints of sexual harassment at the corporation over the past six years, with a "very small number" ongoing. The inquiry also highlighted a problem of "known bullies" – reported by multiple members of staff in different parts of the BBC – who would verbally abuse staff and leave them living in a "climate of anxiety ... and fear". New BBC director general Tony Hall said parts of the report make "uncomfortable reading" and pledged a "zero tolerance of bullying". Nearly 1,000 staff contributed to the report, Respect at Work, overseen by barrister Dinah Rose QC.
The report said concerns about bullying and "other forms of inappropriate behaviour" were "much more prominent". Complaints 'swept under the carpet' Syria clashes destroy ancient Aleppo minaret. 24 April 2013Last updated at 11:34 ET Pictures show the once famous landmark reduced to a pile of rubble The minaret of one of Syria's most famous mosques has been destroyed during clashes in the northern city of Aleppo. The state news agency Sana accused rebels of blowing up the 11th-Century minaret of the Umayyad Mosque. However, activists say the minaret was hit by Syrian army tank fire. The mosque, which is a Unesco world heritage site, has been in rebel hands since earlier this year but the area around it is still contested. Last October Unesco appealed for the protection of the site, which it described as "one of the most beautiful mosques in the Muslim world".
Images posted on the internet showed the minaret reduced to a pile of rubble in the mosque's tiled courtyard. Continue reading the main story Aleppo's Umayyad Mosque Other parts of the mosque complex - which dates mostly from the 12th Century - have been badly damaged by gunfire and shell hits. Koch Brothers Making Play for Tribune’s Newspapers. Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency Tribune’s newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune, have caught the interest of a number of suitors. The first two pieces of the strategy — educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics — were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media. Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the ’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.
By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. “It was ‘How do we make sure our voice is being heard?’ Carnival Won't Reimburse U.S. For Crippled Triumph Cruise Ship. Financial Transactions Tax Introduced Again—Can It Pass This Time? Banks That Are Too Big to Regulate Should Be Nationalized. The Wall Street Ticking Time Bomb That Could Blow Up Your Bank Account.
Roger Ebert's Funeral To Be Picketed By Westboro Baptist Church. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel. 16 Giant Corporations That Have Basically Stopped Paying Taxes -- While Also Cutting Jobs! The South still lies about the Civil War. The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason' After a Powerful Lobbyist Intervenes, EPA Reverses Stance on Polluting Texas County’s Water. These Data Brokers Know You Live in an Apartment, Play Yahtzee, and Voted Democrat.
This Man Wants You To Believe That BPA-Laced Plastic Is Harmless. Doctors Paid Millions to Shill for Big Pharma. 11 Most Absurd Lies Conservatives Are Using to Brainwash America's School Kids. 10 Worst People on Forbes 2013 Billionaires List. “Pedophilia Ring” in Evangelical Church? Ministry Accused of Ignoring Sexual Abuse. Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You. Dollars for Docs: The Top Earners. Creepy "Ratters" Spying on Women Through Their Webcams and Stealing Sexy Photos.
Defense in Steubenville Rape Case Argues Girl 'Didn't Affirmatively Say No' National Week of Action: Youth-Led Immigrant Rights Movement Fights for '11 Million Dreams' Bad Cop: 7 Cities Where Shocking Police Abuses Cost Taxpayers Millions. Chomsky: The Corporate Assault on Public Education. Michigan Republicans Support Changing State's Electoral Vote Allocation. LAPD Officers Sold Guns to Civilians and Gun Dealers, Threatened Whistleblower Who Exposed the Scheme. "Stossel in the Classroom?" Fox News Libertarian Propaganda Pushed on America's Schools. "To Get the Gold, They Will Have to Kill Every One of Us First” Tribal Leaders Fight Gold-Hungry Investors.
Black Nurses Banned from Caring for Child in Michigan Hospital. Bank of America Bombshell: Whistleblowers Reveal Orchestrated Coverup and Massive Borrower Harm. Woman loses her life and then her privacy after an abortion. Why You Should Be Outraged By What Is Being Done to Our Postal Service. Michael Moore and Chris Hedges on the 'Corporate Coup d’État' and the Govt's Moves to Jail People without Charges or Trial. How Law Enforcement and Media Covered Up the Plan to Burn Christopher Dorner Alive. WikiLeaks Is A Rare Truth-Teller ... Smearing Julian Assange Is Shameful. Why the Newest Psychiatric Diagnostic Bible Will Be a Boon for Big Pharma. Miss a Traffic Ticket, Go to Jail? The Return of Debtor Prison (Hard Times, USA) Firms Make Billions as Middlemen in Government Cover-Up of Wall Street crimes.
ATF's struggle to close down firearms dealers. Jailed for Jailbreaking: New Law May kick you to Jail. Egypt Sexual Assaults: Activists Demand Justice Against Perpetrators. Strange Things Are Happening at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Trial. The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons. Top Conservatives Run PAC That Funded White Nationalists. Arizona: Naming the dead from the desert. Conservatives Open New Congress With Unconstitutional Bill To End Birthright Citizenship. California Appeals Court Tosses Rape Conviction Because The Woman Was Unmarried. World Bank’s IFC Arm Responds to Our Critique of Its Poverty Fighting. The Real Causes of Divorce -- America Has to Stop Blaming It on Women. Lawmakers exit Congress, head to K Street - Dave Levinthal and Anna Palmer. (71) Anonymous Photos 2.