In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Andy Burnham says he believes that new standards of decency need to be applied to the web. He is planning to negotiate with Barack Obama’s incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites.
The Cabinet minister describes the internet as “quite a dangerous place” and says he wants internet-service providers (ISPs) to offer parents “child-safe” web services.
Giving film-style ratings to individual websites is one of the options being considered, he confirms. When asked directly whether age ratings could be introduced, Mr Burnham replies: “Yes, that would be an option. This is an area that is really now coming into full focus.”
ISPs, such as BT, Tiscali, AOL or Sky could also be forced to offer internet services where the only websites accessible are those deemed suitable for children.
On December 13, the whistleblowing website Wikileaks did investigative- and citizen journalists a great service by publishing the Army Special Operations Forces FM 3-05.130, titled Unconventional Warfare.
Published in September 2008, the 248-page document though unclassified, is restricted “to U.S. Government agencies and their contractors only to protect technical or operational information from automatic dissemination under the International Exchange Program or by other means.” The Department of the Army urges recipients to “destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.” Wikileaks has guaranteed that the disappearance of this critical primary source into the bowels of the Pentagon will not occur.
More than 2,000 opponents of the federal Labor government’s plans to censor the Internet rallied in cities across Australia on December 13—the second national protest in the past two months. The demonstrations, which were convened by the Digital Liberty Coalition (DLC), are another indication of the growing concern of industry technicians, scientists and a broad range of ordinary people over the government’s attempts to control and regulate Internet access in Australia.
Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Minister for Broadband and Communications Stephen Conroy claim that two-tier Internet filtering measures announced last year will protect children from pornography and X-rated violence.
The measures, however, have little to do with protecting children but constitute a direct attack of freedom of expression and other basic democratic rights. Its real purpose is to establish the framework for government censorship of Internet sites.
Newly uncovered video from 9/11 featuring an interview with FDNY lieutenant David Rastuccio on MSNBC confirms that there was a plan to deliberately demolish WTC Building 7, as was originally indicated in Larry Silverstein’s infamous statement on the PBS documentary, America Rebuilds.
In the clip, Rastuccio responds to the host’s statement that “You guys knew this was coming all day,” by stating, “We had first reports that the building was unstable and that it was best for it to come down on its own or it would be taken down, I would imagine that it came down on its own.”
Though Rastuccio expresses his opinion that the building had collapsed without the aid of explosives, he admits that a plan had been in place to deliberately demolish the structure.
Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has expressed concerns over the increasing poverty in the country.
Poverty hits over 37 percent of Afghan people.
Nazanin said she had to sell one of her daughters to pay her debts. She said she also has to sell her other daughters to survive.
According to the latest report by the commission, about ten million people in Afghanistan which make 37% of the population, suffer from severe poverty. Also a large number of people in Afghanistan earn less than Afg.50 (1.0 US$) in a day.
The commission has warned that if no attention is paid to this problem, the country will face a humanitarian disaster this winter.
The Anti-natural Disasters Struggle Department (ADSD) has confirmed the report and says that food has been delivered to the country’s most vulnerable provinces so far.
ADSD said the Afghan government has made serious efforts to solve this problem, and is planning to distribute more than 30,000 tons of food to the needy people in Kabul and other provinces.
What was he actually thinking when he hurled his pair of shoes at Bush? Did he intend to trigger an international storm? Sherine Bahaa tries to find out.
Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W Bush during a 14 December news conference, says he would do it again. Al-Zaidi, the 28- year-old journalist, had been kept in custody at a detention centre in Baghdad’s high security Green Zone. Al-Zaidi hasn’t been seen in public since his arrest, and a scheduled court date last week was cancelled, raising fear among his family members that he was tortured.
Al-Zaidi was denied access to the outside world to see the reverberations his “heroic” deed triggered worldwide.
His guards forced him to watch a television channel run by Sunni extremists loyal to Saddam Hussein. They told him it was the only outlet in the world applauding his act, the journalist’s brother, Oday Al-Zaidi, said after being allowed to visit him on Sunday.
The Iraqi journalist thrust to instant fame when he threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush will go on trial this month on charges that carry up to 15 years in jail, a judge said on Monday.
Investigating judge Dhiya al-Kenani rejected new allegations by the journalist’s family that he had been tortured in custody that were levelled after a brother was allowed a first prison visit.
“The investigation phase is over and the case has been transferred to the Central Criminal Court,” Kenani said. “The trial will start on Wednesday, December 31.”
Muntazer al-Zaidi stands accused of “aggression against a foreign head of state during an official visit,” an offence that carries a prison term of between five and 15 years under Iraqi law.
Author’s note: Cheney’s admission during an interview with the Washington Times this week about his role in approving the waterboarding of three Guantanamo detainees and the so-called “enhanced interrogation” of 33 prisoners was, disturbingly, not covered at all by the mainstream media.
Vice President Dick Cheney, in another stunning admission during his campaign to burnish the Bush administration’s legacy, said he personally authorized the “enhanced interrogations” of 33 suspected terrorist detainees and approved the waterboarding of three so-called “high-value” prisoners.
“I signed off on it; others did, as well, too,” Cheney said about the waterboarding, a practice of simulated drowning done by strapping a person to a board, covering the face with a cloth and then pouring water over it, a torture technique dating back at least to the Spanish Inquisition. The victim feels as if he is drowning.
Cheney identified the three waterboarded detainees as al-Qaeda figures Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and al Nashiri. “That’s it, those three guys,” Cheney said in an interview with the right-wing Washington Times.
In an interview with Aljazeera today, former Chief of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq told the TV that he and the Head of the IAEA “Mohamed Al-Baradei” were subjected to direct threats from Dick Cheney before the war.
Blix said that Cheney threatened to defame both men’s reputations if they didn’t came with the “required” answers.
It’s the same story from everyone else – Bush and Cheney demanded pro-war lies under one threat or another – being defamed, getting fired, and even outing covert CIA operatives. The Bush Administration was nothing more than a mafia operation.
But here’s the good part:
Blix also added that he is ready to be a witness on the United States’ false allegations before an International tribunal.
