The government is to be urged to relax UK intellectual property laws to make it easier for people’s work to be parodied, potentially paving the way for the more robust humour seen in US programmes such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In the most significant women’s pay decision in nearly 40 years, the workplace tribunal has ruled that gender was a key factor in the low pay of tens of thousands of social and community workers.
But the decision by the full bench of Fair Work Australia held off in giving large pay rises, saying it wanted further submissions into how much gender had inhibited wages growth’
among the mostly female workforce of about 150,000 people, who include mental health, social and youth workers employed by non-government groups such as UnitingCare, Mission Australia and the Salvation Army — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Independent South Australia Senator Nick Xenophon has ridiculed the new Jetstar contract for pilots as treating them like Lindsay Lohan under home detention
because it prohibits them from going out without company approval on their days off.
Pilots are seething with anger over the new contract which they say treats them like serfs
.
At least one Jetstar pilot has written to the board members of Qantas which owns Jetstar demanding they recognise and review the serious iniquities in the contract, which takes labor relations in Australia back to colonial master and servant arrangements, or those imposed on indigenous Australians and Torres Strait islanders in Queensland in more recent times — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Next year (2011-12) the Government will spend $709 million in asylum seeker detention and related costs. This is up $147 million on this year (2010-11) and amounts to about $90,000 for every asylum seeker that comes to Australia.
The abolition of mandatory detention of asylum seekers, which means mainly boat people, could save between $150 and $425 million per annum.
In chiding the Chinese about their human rights, Julia Gillard said that we believe (in human rights) … it is us. It’s an Australian value.
How can she say this when we have 6,819 asylum seekers in detention in Australia who are entitled to our legal protection and hopefully, our compassion? — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A new bill before parliament will significantly increase ASIO’s powers to conduct offshore surveillance and extend surveillance to organisations such as WikiLeaks, just months after legislation widened ASIO’s power to share the results of its spying — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Police have admitted arresting a technology journalist covering an IT security conference after yesterday denying it.
The Queensland Police Media Unit last night flatly denied a claim by Fairfax journalist Ben Grubb that he was arrested at AusCERT in Surfers Paradise.
@bengrubb was not arrested. He was interviewed briefly by police,
the unit said on Twitter, referencing Grubb’s handle on the website.
This morning the unit posted another update saying it had made a mistake.
“Our bad @bengrubb was arrested for questioning briefly Our tweet last night was based on information provided at the time Apologies (sic),
it said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Watching a report on asylum seekers on 7.30 tonight, one of our daughters spoke up unexpectedly: I don’t understand. Shouldn’t we help them? Why do they keep talking about how they should stop the boats?
Yes, we should help them,
I said.
Then why do they want to stop the boats? What’s wrong with the boat people?
We tried to explain that there was nothing wrong with asylum seekers, that they were scared people who couldn’t live in their home countries any longer because of war or not being allowed to practise their religion. That sometimes they needed to leave so urgently that they made a risky trip in a boat halfway across the world to look for a country that would let them live there.
So we should help them, but why don’t people want them to come here?
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Police must avoid the temptation
to abuse anti-terrorism laws by using them as a net to round up innocent people — particularly in the run-up to next year’s Olympics, the Government’s terrorism watchdog has warned — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Enter the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union, that on Friday called for all monies going to ACCESS Ministries to be withdrawn. Citing ACCESS volunteers who taught their young charges gems like, Buddha is Satan’s friend
, the union said that Paddison’s comments were an affront to students in a our secular government schools and a clear breach of the federal guidelines for the national school chaplaincy program [that prohibit proselytising]
.
The AEU’s stance follows that take by Professor Gary Bouma, an Anglican Priest and the UNESCO chairman of Interreligious and Intercultural Relations. Denouncing the ACCESS curriculum as crap
, Bouma bemoaned an education department ill equipped to stand up to religious bullies
like ACCESS. Several days later, he signed an open letter with a handful of other religious and social inclusion experts. Addressed to Federal and State decision-makers, including the Prime Minister, it called for the replacement of scripture with general religious education taught by trained teachers, not evangelical Christian volunteers — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Facebook revolution has retreated from this dusty Jordanian town on the Syrian border.
In a bid to quash a rebellion now entering its third month, the Syrian government, perhaps one of the world’s most Internet-unfriendly, has shut down pretty much all electronic communications inside the country and to overseas. Cut off from the World Wide Web, protestors, journalists and human rights activists have resorted to communications networks from another era.
And for that, Ramtha, a Jordanian town of about 100,000 people 80 kilometres north of the capital of Amman, has become a virtual switchboard for news coming out of Syria, not to mention a swarm of refugees seeking to flee the carnage that has taken some 800 lives across the country, according to a United Nations estimate released last Friday — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The private company entrusted to carry out file-sharing network monitoring for the French government has been hacked. Trident Media Guard, which is responsible for gathering data for so-called 3 strikes warnings, now has some of its scripts and secrets out in the wild, an event which has the potential to upset the smooth of Hadopi — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Police have been forced to intervene during a clash between the gay and lesbian community and a group of street preachers in Adelaide.
The violence broke out during a rally to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on Saturday.
The protest began peacefully with 150 members of the gay and lesbian community gathering to stage a mass wedding, calling for equal rights for gay marriage.
But when members of the Christian Street Church crashed the rally, tension escalated — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Writing on TwitPic’s official blog, founder Noah Everett, who describes himself as the nice guy that finished first
, apologised for changes to the service’s terms and conditions that had been interpreted as claiming copyright of every uploaded image — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Christian group that provides religious education and chaplains in Victorian government schools will be investigated after its chief executive told a conference: We need to go and make disciples
.
The remarks appear to breach guidelines governing school religious programs, which ban trying to convert students to any one religion — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Chinese internet users suspect that their government is interfering with the method they have been using to tunnel under the Great Firewall
to prevent them connecting with the outside world.
Sites such as search engine Google and news site MSN have become difficult to access, they say. And a number of universities and businesses have begun warning their users not to try to evade the firewall.
Since 6 May, a number of users says that internet connections via China Telecom, the largest telephone company, and China Unicom have become unstable
, with intermittent access when trying to access sites in foreign countries using a virtual private network
(VPN) – a preferred method of evading the blocks put up by China’s censors to external sites. Even Apple’s app store has been put off-limits by the new blocks, according to reports — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In China, where a growing demand for organ transplants coupled with a dramatic shortage of donors has fuelled a rampant black market trade, selling your organs for cash is a mouse click away.
An internet search reveals a website offering kidneys for sale and the contact information of those able to procure them. A young woman, posing as a migrant worker from Hebei province, calls a man who has advertised on the website, identified as Mr He.
I need money,
she says over the phone. Do you want a woman’s kidney?
Mr He asks her age. Twenty-five, she replies.
Of course we want your kidney
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
In the midst of their jury trial, the company behind the defunct LimeWire client and the RIAA settled their dispute out of court. Limewire will pay $105 million to compensate the major music labels for damages suffered. A moment of justice for the music industry, but not necessarily for the artists. The recouped money is destined for reinvestment in new anti-piracy efforts and will not be used to compensate any artists — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The RSPCA has welcomed prison sentences and a ban on keeping animals handed out to a couple who admitted causing unnecessary suffering to two dogs.
Marie Howells, 37, and Darrell Richards, 42, from Caerphilly, pleaded guilty to three charges at the town’s magistrates court — via BBC News
Australian telcos will soon be required to retain customer traffic data under a new law proposed to allow Australia to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a major US Internet censorship bill didn’t shrink in scope — it got much broader. Under the new proposal, search engines, Internet providers, credit card companies, and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign rogue sites
— and such court orders would not be limited to the government. Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too.
As for sites which simply change their domain name slightly after being targeted, the new bill will let the government and private parties bring quick action against each new variation.
Get ready for the PROTECT IP Act
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
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