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Category Archives: Politics
Mozambique takes first step against backroom abortions
In March, the Mozambican legislature is expected to pass a bill that would revise the country’s draconian abortion law and legalise voluntary abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy… Continue reading
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Prominent Tory disowns ‘religious right’ and supports gay marriage
A prominent Conservative has broken ranks with his allies on the “religious right” by declaring his support for the Government’s controversial plans to legalise gay marriage… Continue reading
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The Target Isn’t Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA, Or MAFIAA: It’s The Policymakers
Big Monopoly has learned in the past century that when they look like a little spoiled brat having a tantrum, politicians will throw taxpayer money their way to shut them up. Therefore, this is a behaviour they emulate as soon they are given a good … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Politics, Rights, Technology
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You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You
Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it’s worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won… Continue reading
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Dutch ISPs Refuse To Block The Pirate Bay
Two large ISPs in the Netherlands have said they will not be blocking subscriber access to The Pirate Bay, as demanded by the Hollywood supported anti-piracy outfit BREIN… Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Rights, Technology
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MegaUpload Users Plan to Sue the FBI over Lost Files
In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven… Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Politics, Rights, Technology
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ISP data retention still an issue, Ludlam warns
Speaking at Electronic Frontiers Australia’s “War on the Internet” event on Saturday in Melbourne (full video available online here), Ludlam, who is the Communications Spokesperson for the Greens, said much of the thinking around t… Continue reading
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Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations
ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is the notorious, unprecedented secret copyright treaty that was negotiated by industry representatives and government trade reps, without any access by elected representatives, independent business, th… Continue reading
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Australia: US Copyright Colony or Just a Good Friend?
The Canberra Wikileaks cables revealed the US Embassy sanctioned a conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target Australian communications company iiNet through the local court-system, with the aim of establishing a binding common-law precedent which wo… Continue reading
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SOPA lessons for Australia
PIPA and SOPA may be dead in the water for now, but it’s worth remembering that the most controversial part of the legislation is something the Australian Government has been thinking about for years… Continue reading
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Hospital apologises for forced adoptions
Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital has apologised for forcing unwed mothers to give up their children for adoption until the mid-1970s… Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Rights
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Cosmetic surgeons call for surgery adverts ban
Cosmetic surgery advertising should be banned and annual checks carried out on surgeons, the industry has said… Continue reading
Posted in Health, Politics
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Julian Assange: The Rolling Stone Interview
At 40, the WikiLeaks founder comes across more like an embattled rebel commander than a hacker or journalist… Continue reading
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What Megaupload’s demise teaches about cloud storage
Megaupload users are crying foul after their personal files, not necessarily copyright-infringing material, stored with the file-sharing service was seized on Thursday along with a trove of illegally distributed copyrighted works… Continue reading
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SOPA: copyright industry threat to internet in Australia
What initially sounded like a somewhat gormless idea — ?blacking out websites to draw users’ attention to the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP acts before US Congress — ?has turned out to be dramatic intervention in the battle aga… Continue reading
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Germany backs neo-Nazi database after far-right murders
German ministers have approved plans to establish a national register of far-right extremists, after revelations of 10 neo-Nazi murders since 2000.
It is thought there are almost 10,000 neo-Nazis in Germany and the database would include information h… Continue reading
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Balibo
Some of you will have seen Balibo, but many more of you will know vaguely the story: that of five Australian journalists killed by Indonesian soldiers during the invasion of East Timor in 1975… Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Rights
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Facebook, Google argue against Web censorship in India
Facebook and Google told the Delhi High Court today that they cannot block offensive content that appears on their services… Continue reading
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Richard Dawkins celebrates a victory over creationists
Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationi… Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Science
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Leaked DHS internet watchlist mistakes
Um. Yeah. So I’m going to be charitable here and presume that whoever compiled that internet monitoring watchlist at the Department of Homeland Security thought that “Miss Thirteen”, at www.msthirteen.com, was a site about the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang, which originated in El Salvador and now operates in a number of US cities… Continue reading
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North Carolina Sets $50K Compensation for Victims of Eugenics Program
A task force assigned to the grim undertaking of deciding how much to compensate as many as 2,000 living victims of a decades-long North Carolina sterilisation program finally settled on a number on Tuesday… Continue reading
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Israeli bill would prohibit Nazi comparisons
Draft legislation in Israel would make it a crime in the country to use the word “Nazi” or symbols of the Holocaust for purposes other than teaching… Continue reading
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The Greek parents ‘too poor’ to care for their children
Greece’s financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all — their children…
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Palestinian Sesame Street falls victim to US Congress
With its colourful band of Muppets preaching tolerance and neighbourly love, the Palestinian version of the children’s television programme Sesame Street had become a beacon of hope for children in a region ravaged by decades of unrest… Continue reading
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Brown slams surveillance of green activists
Greens leader Bob Brown has accused Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson of turning Australia into a police state, after reports he pushed for increased surveillance of environmental activists… Continue reading
Posted in Business, Politics, Rights
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US Threatened To Blacklist Spain For Not Implementing Site Blocking Law
In a leaked letter sent to Spain’s outgoing President, the US ambassador to the country warned that as punishment for not passing a SOPA-style file-sharing site blocking law, Spain risked being put on a United States trade blacklist… Continue reading
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Japan tests $2.28m cyber-defence virus
The Japanese government is testing a self-defence virus that has the objective of tracking down the source of cyber attacks and removing the threat… Continue reading
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Belarus Bans Browsing of All Foreign Websites
As citizens of the United States worry over the implications of the pending SOPA legislation, a small land-locked country on the fringes of Europe is showing how bad things can really get… Continue reading
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Is GoDaddy Blocking Domain Transfers After the SOPA Boycott?
A few days ago thousands of customers turned against domain registrar GoDaddy for their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)… Continue reading
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Mexican authorities disband Veracruz police force in bid to stem corruption
The entire police force in the Mexican port of Veracruz was dissolved on Wednesday in an effort to root out corruption, and armed marines were sent in to patrol… Continue reading
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Websites allow Kenyans to report bribes and battle corruption
Ask a Nairobi resident to name the most frustrating part of living in Nairobi, and they’re likely to answer: bribing a cop… Continue reading
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Republic, Lost / Larry Lessig
Larry Lessig has a new book called Republic, Lost which discusses the corrupting influence of money on politics. I would highly recommend the book, because it gets to the heart of why things so many things in Washington, DC seem … Continue reading
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Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader, dies
Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “dear leader”, has died aged 69, state television announced this morning… Continue reading
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Serco To Run Youth Prison
Serco recently won a West Australian government contract to manage a new, one-of-a-kind youth prison that will house 18 to 24-year-old male offenders from mid-2012… Continue reading
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Punk ‘Re-Education’ Not A Good Look For Aceh
Indonesian media reported that police under the supervision of the Banda Aceh administration arrested on the weekend 64 punk youth who were gathering at a charity music concert for orphans… Continue reading
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Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge
Every time a Blackwater centurion discharged his weapon in Iraq, the company filed a written report with the US State Department… Continue reading
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Sniffer dogs get it wrong four out of five times
A record 80 per cent of sniffer dog searches for drugs resulted in “false positives” this year, figures show… Continue reading
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Swiss Government: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal
One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorised music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear… Continue reading
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Farmers unleash cobras on Indian taxmen
Two angry farmers have let loose dozens of snakes, including deadly cobras, in a government office in northern India… Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Rights, Wildlife
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Organ donation overhaul pushed for NSW
The New South Wales Government has proposed a radical overhaul of organ donation rules to stop families overruling their relatives’ wishes… Continue reading
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Inside the shadow world of commercialised spook spyware
Western and Chinese high-tech companies are competing aggressively to sell, install and manage intrusive and dangerous internet surveillance and communications control equipment for the world’s most brutal regimes, a six-month investigation ha… Continue reading
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Anti-Gay Russian Lawmaker: ‘The Issue Of Same-Sex Love Is Somewhat Like The Jewish Problem’
Elena Babich, a deputy of St Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly and a supporter of the city’s proposed anti-gay propaganda law, has suggested that rainbow flags and homosexuality will lead to national extinction… Continue reading
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Killer Mould Too Risky In US War On Drugs: Report
Using fungi to kill coca and other illegal drug crops would be a risky tactic, as there is not enough data about how to control these killer moulds and what effect they could have on people and the environment, according to a US study released Wednesda… Continue reading
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Egypt imports 21 tons of tear gas from the US, port staff refuses to sign for it
The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters… Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Rights, World
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Immunise or lose benefits, parents told
Parents who do not have their children fully immunised will be stripped of family tax benefits under a scheme announced by the Federal Government… Continue reading
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BNP threatens protest at headteacher’s home over sex education proposals
British National party activists have warned a primary school’s headteacher and chair of governors that they will face demonstrations outside their homes if they do not drop plans to extend sex education lessons to children aged four… Continue reading
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North Korean prison camp survivor speaks out
A North Korean prison camp survivor has given a rare testimony exposing public executions and starvation at the detention centre where she was held for 28 years… Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Rights
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South Africa’s assembly passes ‘secrecy bill,’ stirring journalists’ fears
South Africa’s National Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would “protect” state information and potentially impose 25-year criminal sentences on journalists who publish or possess state documents that the South African government deems to be secret… Continue reading
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