News of Note

Bill Gates gives $750 million to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

(También en español) News of Note: Gates Foundation gives $750 million to Global Fund The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $750 million Thursday to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help assure that the organization can keep supplying AIDS drugs while it seeks to adjust to the economic downturn. The Global Fund, which has disbursed $15.1 billion to low-income countries over the past decade, said in November that it would not award any new grants until 2014. Nearly all of the fund’s money comes from governments in the industrialized world, many of which were unwilling to increase ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Afghan woman slain for giving birth to daughter

(También en Español) News of Note: Afghan woman slain for giving birth to daughter KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — An Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he'd hoped for, police said Monday. The 28-year-old victim, who was known by the one name of Storai, was strangled by her husband — a local militia member — and his mother on Saturday, authorities said. Storai had given birth to the couple's third daughter three months ago in Mohasili village in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province. Police said they arrested the victim's mother-in-law in connection with her death, ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Iran confirms death sentence for ‘porn site’ web programmer

(También en Español) News of Note: Iran confirms death sentence for 'porn site' web programmer Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites. Saeed Malekpour was picked up by plainclothes officers in October 2008 and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge. A year after his arrest, the 35-year-old appeared in a state television programme confessing to a series of crimes in connection with a porn website. On the ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Care About Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist

(También en Español) News of Note: Justice Dept, FBI Say Interest in Online Privacy an ‘Indicator’ of Terrorism A new flyer released by the Department of Justice and the FBI, emblazoned with the logos of each agency and being circulated to Internet cafes and other businesses, warns of “potential indicators of terrorist activities.” In particular, the flyer cautions businesses to be on the lookout for “content of extreme/radical nature” as well as people who visit an Internet cafe even though there is evidence they have Internet access at home. It also urges people to watch for anyone using “anonymizers, portals, or ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 1 comments

Warrant needed for GPS tracking while civilian use rises

(También en Español) News of Note: Private Snoops Find GPS Trail Legal to Follow Online, and soon in big-box stores, you can buy a device no bigger than a cigarette pack, attach it to a car without the driv er’s knowledge and watch the vehicle’s travels — and stops — at home on your laptop. Tens of thousands of Americans are already doing just that, with little oversight, for purposes as seemingly benign as tracking an elderly parent with dementia or a risky teenage driver, or as legally and ethically charged as spying on a spouse or an employee — or for ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Chocolate’s Child Slaves

News of Note: Chocolate's Child Slaves Everyone loves chocolate. But for thousands of people, chocolate is the reason for their enslavement. The chocolate bar you snack on likely starts at a plant in a West African cocoa plantation, and often the people who harvest it are children. Many are slaves to a system that produces something almost all of us consume and enjoy. The CNN Freedom Project sent correspondent David McKenzie into the heart of the Ivory Coast - the world’s largest cocoa producer - to investigate what's happening to children working in the fields. His work has resulted in a shocking, eye-opening ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Jurors: Researching online? Go to jail!

(También en Español) News of Note: Jurors: leave the information age—or go to jail An English court has sentenced a juror to six months in prison for contempt of court after she performed research on the Internet and forced the abandonment of a criminal trial. Psychology lecturer Theodora Dallas, 34, was a member of the jury in the trial of Barry Medlock, accused of causing grievous bodily harm. She looked up certain information related to the trial on the Internet, came across information concerning Medlock, and told her fellow jurors what she had found. One of them informed the judge, ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

Anonymous takes down Government and Recording Industry sites in largest attack ever

(También en Español) News of Note: Anonymous takes down government, recording industry websites in retaliation for bust Anonymous says it is in the process of staging its "largest attack ever" -- more than 5,000 loosely associated hackers taking down websites belonging to government and recording industry organizations in response to Thursday's shutdown of the file-sharing site Megaupload.com. The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Megaupload.com on Thursday, arresting its founder -- Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz -- in New Zealand and charging him and at least five other company executives with violating privacy laws. In response, the hacker ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

SOPA: US backers end support for anti-piracy bill

(También en Español) News of Note: "SOPA: US backers end support for anti-piracy bill"

Websites all over the Internet went black Wednesday in opposition of the SOPA and PIPA bills. This protest is the first of its kind and a powerful example of the power these websites wield.

The US news website Politico estimated that 7,000 sites were involved by early Wednesday morning. Google did not shut down its main search but is showing solidarity by placing a black box over its logo when US-based users visit its site. Online marketplace Craigslist asks site visitors to contact their representatives ...

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in News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments

U.S. Government Threatens Free Speech

(También en Español)

News of Note: U.S. Government Threatens Free Speech With Calls for Twitter Censorship EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] has witnessed a growing number of calls in recent weeks for Twitter to ban certain accounts of alleged terrorists. In a December 14th article in the New York Times, anonymous U.S. officials claimed they “may have the legal authority to demand that Twitter close” a Twitter account associated with the militant Somali group Al-Shabaab. A week later, the Telegraph reported that Sen. Joe Lieberman contacted Twitter to remove two “propaganda” accounts allegedly run by the Taliban. More recently, ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / News of Note  by Jack Diehl 0 comments