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. Labelled by the United States as an outpost of tyranny
, Belarus is certainly living up to its reputation. This Friday, browsing foreign websites will become an offence punishable by fines, with service providers taking responsibility for the actions of their user — via redwolf.newsvine.com
What does it mean when a parking spot is marked with a wheelchair symbol? If you answered, It means I can park there as long as I’m going to be quick,
you’re wrong — yet you’re also far from alone. Every day in parking lots all over the world, non-disabled drivers regularly use spaces clearly reserved for the handicapped. They often get away with it, too, unless an attendant happens to check while their vehicle is parked there. Thanks to technology recently developed by New Zealand’s Car Parking Technologies (CPT), however, those attendants could soon be notified the instant that a handicapped spot is improperly occupied — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scottish teachers are being warned that their use of social networking sites could put their careers at risk.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers Association believes teachers can reveal too much personal information on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The union also fears they could become overly familiar with pupils.
The General Teaching Council of Scotland is preparing new guidelines on social networking sites.
This follows a number of recent cases brought before the GTC’s regulatory body — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Pepper spray is a safe, non-lethal weapon for police to use against criminals, rioters and the occasional sporting event streaker, right? Maybe not. It seems this non-deadly weapon has caused its share of deaths since 1990, and according to info gathered by OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com, it is classified as a chemical weapon worldwide and is banned from being used in war. The US Army has also been quoted as saying pepper spray can cause possible human fatalities
— via Discovery Channel
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.
A state spokeswoman, Gina Dominguez, said 800 police officers and 300 administrative staff had been laid off. They can re-apply for jobs, but must meet stricter standards with officers “who are better trained and more committed and who can deliver under our current security circumstances,” she said.
Armed marines barricaded police headquarters and navy helicopters flew over the city where 35 bodies were dumped in September in one of the worst gang attacks of Mexico’s drug war.
The change was agreed on Monday by the governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, and the federal interior secretary Alejandro Poiré — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Ask a Nairobi resident to name the most frustrating part of living in Nairobi, and they’re likely to answer: bribing a cop.
Well, now Kenyans have a way to combat corruption, by text messaging, emailing, or even tweeting an incident to a website called hatari.co.ke. Hatari (which means danger in Swahili), is just one of several private anti-corruption initiatives aimed at fighting corrupt practices that cost Kenya as much as $1 billion a year.
Kenya, a country where scandals make daily headlines and where public opinion polls show a declining trust in political leadership, has made small strides this year in bringing down corruption in government institutions. A Bribery Index published by Transparency International in October 2011 found that the prevalence of bribery had actually dropped slightly, making Kenya the fourth rather than the third most-corrupt nation in East Africa. Even so, Kenya’s police remained the most corrupt institution, the survey found — via redwolf.newsvine.com
On our kitchen wall are photos of our two daughters as a toddler and a baby. The older one is in navy blue and dark green, the younger in a red-and-blue checked shirt and cute little red trousers. Only the other day, our 18-year-old asked, “Why did you dress us as boys when we were little, Mum?
The answer is that I didn’t. I just dressed them as children. When our daughters were little, Babygros came in white, pale blue, yellow, lilac, red, navy and, yes, pale pink. But there was no pressure to put the girls in pink. In fact, most of their baby clothes were hand-me-downs from their male cousins and no-one even noticed.
It is only in the past decade or so that saccharine pink girliness has spread through Britain like the Ebola virus. These days, most babywear websites have a girl
and a boy
section in which not just the clothes but the bibs, booties and blankets are colour-coded. (Kudos to Mothercare, which allows babies to be unisex
up to the age of one.) And the virus has spread to toys, too. If you’ve done any Christmas shopping for children this year, you’ll have seen the floor-to-ceiling walls of sickening pink fluffiness in the girls’ section and all the fun action and adventure toys in the boys’ — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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.
According to the WA Government, the 80-bed Young Adults Facility is designed to assist young men to take responsibility of their offending behaviour in a safe and supportive environment
. Its population will be primarily Indigenous, and most inmates will be first or second time offenders. Young men make up the majority of WA’s prison population, with extremely high rates of recidivism. The facility was created by the Barnett Government in an attempt to reduce re-offending by early intervention.
There is significant concern from community groups, unions, and the Labor Opposition about the way the contract was acquired, and how the centre will be run given Serco’s notorious track record at Australia’s immigration detention centres — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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. The police detained the men and women in a police camp 60 kilometres from of the city.
All the men were shaved and left with uniform bald heads. All the women had their hair cut into a bob in the style of a police woman. The men were then forced into the lake, reportedly for spiritual
cleansing. The police plan to keep them for ten days to re-educate
them before releasing them. For those who are from Banda Aceh, the re-education will take longer than that. All this without a criminal charge and without being brought before a court — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Journalists at a Russian newspaper have signed an open letter of protest after its owner fired two top executives over a photo insulting Vladimir Putin.
More than 60 staff at Kommersant, a liberal business daily, signed the letter after the owner, metals magnate Alisher Usmanov, sacked the two men.
We are being compelled to be cowards, which is unworthy and unproductive,
the internet letter said.
Mr Usmanov said he understood the journalists but stood by his decision — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Minnesota man violated a restraining order obtained by his ex-girlfriend by blogging about her mental health and sexual issues, and sending links to posts on the blog to her family, friends, and co-workers. The judge then extended the restraining order by 50 years, ordered the guy never to write about his ex on the Internet and ordered him to delete the blog he created. Even though there was no evidence that what he had written was false, the judge said the ex-girlfriend’s right to be free from harassment
outweighed the guy’s right to free speech
. I believe it’s rare, if not unprecedented, for a court to order an entire blog deleted,
says technology law professor Eric Goldman — via Slashdot
A record 80 per cent of sniffer dog searches for drugs resulted in false positives
this year, figures show.
The figures obtained from the state government in response to parliamentary questions on notice show 14,102 searches were conducted after a dog sat next to a person, indicating they might be carrying drugs. But, in 11,248 cases, no drugs were found.
Only 2854 searches — 20 per cent — in the first nine months of this year, resulted in drugs being found, the figures show.
Last year, of the 15,779 searches conducted after police-dog identification, no drugs were found in 11,694 cases. Drugs were found in 4085 cases, resulting in a false positive
rate of 74 per cent, said the Greens MP David Shoebridge, who obtained the figures — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Matt Glover, the Lilydale Baptist pastor who supports gay marriage, has been sacked at a secret church meeting to which he was not invited.
The Lilydale church office yesterday confirmed that Mr Glover was no longer senior pastor, but said the congregation had been instructed to remain silent.
The Age reported last week that the church was in turmoil over Mr Glover’s support for same-sex marriage on a gay website two months ago.
Mr Glover, who has a young family, has worked with members of the gay and lesbian community for 15 years — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Two angry farmers have let loose dozens of snakes, including deadly cobras, in a government office in northern India.
The farmers were reportedly fed up after officials demanded bribes in exchange for their tax records.
They dumped about 40 snakes on the floor of the tax office, sending panicked officials scrambling on top of their desks — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The New South Wales Government has proposed a radical overhaul of organ donation rules to stop families overruling their relatives’ wishes.
The Government says it is acting because the state has the lowest organ donation rate in Australia.
More than two million NSW residents have indicated via their driver’s licence that they wish to donate at least some of their organs if they die.
But Health Minister Jillian Skinner says in many cases the families of potential donors are vetoing that decision — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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 has found.
During 2011, investigators from Privacy International, a London-based NGO, infiltrated a circuit of closed international surveillance equipment marketing conferences, obtaining private briefings and technical product specifications from contract-hungry sales executives. The group will publish its data and document haul on the net today, in conjunction with other campaigners.
The scale and audacity of the proposals in many of the companies’ documents and hand-out DVDs is breathtaking. They describe and offer for unrestricted sale technologies which were in existence a decade ago, but which were held in utmost secrecy by major intelligence agencies such as the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s GCHQ — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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. Now, the St Petersburg Times reports that Babich is linking the so-called gay problem
to the Jewish problem
, a term that is typically associated with Germany’s Third Reich — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Toronto man who was arrested on his way to church has settled a financial claim against the police.
Jason Wall, 25, was walking along Yonge Street by himself on the morning of 27 June 2010, when he was swarmed by as many as 20 Toronto police officers and taken into custody.
The police were part of the detail that was providing security for the G20 summit taking place that weekend in the city.
Wall says he was arrested because he was wearing a bandana around his neck.
According to statement from his lawyer Wall spent approximately 28 hours in custody … He was forced to wear handcuffs for more than 20 hours, slept on the floor, and had to submit to a degrading strip search after which he was released without charge.
The Toronto man filed a complaint with the Ontario Independent Police Review Director.
The OIPRD investigation discovered that Wall has been unlawfully arrested — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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