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Friday, September 28, 2007
Bat for Lashes is the doppelgänger band ego of one of the leading millennial lights in British music, Natasha Khan. Caroline Weeks, Abi Fry and Lizzy Carey comprise the aurora borealis that backs this haunting, shimmering zither and glockenspiel peacock, and the only complaint coming from the audience at the Bowery Ballroom last Tuesday was that they could not camp out all night underneath these celestial bodies.
We live in the age of the lazy tendency to categorize the work of one artist against another, and Khan has had endless exultations as the next Björk and Kate Bush; Sixousie Sioux, Stevie Nicks, Sinead O’Connor, the list goes on until it is almost meaningless as comparison does little justice to the sound and vision of the band. “I think Bat For Lashes are beyond a trend or fashion band,” said Jefferson Hack, publisher of Dazed & Confused magazine. “[Khan] has an ancient power…she is in part shamanic.” She describes her aesthetic as “powerful women with a cosmic edge” as seen in Jane Birkin, Nico and Cleopatra. And these women are being heard. “I love the harpsichord and the sexual ghost voices and bowed saws,” said Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke of the track Horse and I. “This song seems to come from the world of Grimm’s fairytales.”
Bat’s debut album, Fur And Gold, was nominated for the 2007 Mercury Prize, and they were seen as the dark horse favorite until it was announced Klaxons had won. Even Ladbrokes, the largest gambling company in the United Kingdom, had put their money on Bat for Lashes. “It was a surprise that Klaxons won,” said Khan, “but I think everyone up for the award is brilliant and would have deserved to win.”
Natasha recently spoke with David Shankbone about art, transvestism and drug use in the music business.
DS: Do you have any favorite books?
DS: Lynch just came out with a movie last year called Inland Empire. I interviewed John Vanderslice last night at the Bowery Ballroom and he raved about it!
DS: Do you notice a difference between playing in front of British and American audiences?
DS: How many instruments do you play and, please, include the glockenspiel in that number.
DS: –I have a great photo of you playing the bass.
DS: You look cool with it!
DS: Do you design your own clothes?
DS: —that’s Will Lemon from Moon and Moon, right? There is such good buzz about them here in New York.
DS: You are often compared to Björk and Kate Bush; do those constant comparisons tend to bother you as an artist who is trying to define herself on her own terms?
DS: —as are you—
DS: I’d imagine it’s preferable to be considered the next Björk or Kate Bush instead of the next Britney.
DS: Does music feed your artwork, or does you artwork feed your music more? Or is the relationship completely symbiotic?
DS: When you are composing music, do you see notes and words as colors and images in your mind, and then you put those down on paper?
DS: Is it always pine trees that you see?
DS: What things in nature inspire you?
DS: Are there man-made things that inspire you?
DS: I photographed some of the famous drag queens here in New York. They are just such great creatures to photograph; they will do just about anything for the camera. I photographed a famous drag queen named Miss Understood who is the emcee at a drag queen restaurant here named Lucky Cheng’s. We were out in front of Lucky Cheng’s taking photographs and a bus was coming down First Avenue, and I said, “Go out and stop that bus!” and she did! It’s an amazing shot.
DS: If you go on her Wikipedia article it’s there.
DS: There are just so few areas left where there is natural edge and art that is not contrived. It’s taking a contrived thing like changing your gender, but in the backdrop of how that is still so socially unacceptable.
DS: How are you received in the Pakistani community?
DS: When you see artists like Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse out on these suicidal binges of drug use, what do you think as a musician? What do you get from what you see them go through in their personal lives and with their music?
DS: Is it difficult to come to the United States to play considering all the wars we start?
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed objections to the United States Government’s ‘secret’ attempts to obtain Twitter account information relating to WikiLeaks. The ACLU and EFF cite First and Fourth amendment issues as overriding reasons to overturn government attempts to keep their investigation secret; and, that with Birgitta Jonsdottir being an Icelandic Parliamentarian, the issue has serious international implications.
The case, titled “In the Matter of the 2703(d) Order Relating to Twitter Accounts: Wikileaks, Rop_G, IOERROR; and BirgittaJ“, has been in the EFF’s sights since late last year when they became aware of the US government’s attempts to investigate WikiLeaks-related communications using the popular microblogging service.
The key objective of this US government investigation is to obtain data for the prosecution of Bradley Manning, alleged to have supplied classified data to WikiLeaks. In addition to Manning’s Twitter account, and that of WikiLeaks (@wikileaks), the following three accounts are subject to the order: @ioerror, @birgittaj, and @rop_g. These, respectively, belong to Jacob Apelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Rop Gonggrijp.
Birgitta is not the only non-US citizen with their Twitter account targeted by the US Government; Gonggrijp, a Dutch ‘ex-hacker’-turned-security-expert, was one of the founders of XS4ALL – the first Internet Service Provider in the Netherlands available to the public. He has worked on a mobile phone that can encrypt conversations, and proven that electronic voting systems can readily be hacked.
In early March, a Virginia magistrate judge ruled that the government could have the sought records, and neither the targeted users, or the public, could see documents submitted to justify data being passed to the government. The data sought is as follows:
The order demands disclosure of absolutely all such data from November 1, 2009 for the targeted accounts.
The ACLU and EFF are not only challenging this, but demanding that all submissions made by the US government to justify the Twitter disclosure are made public, plus details of any other such cases which have been processed in secret.
Bradley Manning, at the time a specialist from Maryland enlisted with the United States Army’s 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, was arrested in June last year in connection with the leaking of classified combat video to WikiLeaks.
The leaked video footage, taken from a US helicopter gunship, showed the deaths of Reuters staff Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen during a U.S. assault in Baghdad, Iraq. The wire agency unsuccessfully attempted to get the footage released via a Freedom of Information Act request in 2007.
When WikiLeaks released the video footage it directly contradicted the official line taken by the U.S. Army asserting that the deaths of the two Reuters staff were “collateral damage” in an attack on Iraqi insurgents. The radio chatter associated with the AH-64 Apache video indicated the helicopter crews had mistakenly identified the journalists’ equipment as weaponry.
The US government also claims Manning is linked to CableGate; the passing of around a quarter of a million classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Manning has been in detention since July last year; in December allegations of torture were made to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the conditions under which he was and is being detained.
Reports last month that he must now sleep naked and attend role call at the U.S. Marine facility in Quantico in the same state, raised further concern over his detention conditions. Philip J. Crowley, at-the-time a State Department spokesman, remarked on this whilst speaking at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; describing the current treatment of Manning as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”, Crowley was, as a consequence, put in the position of having to tender his resignation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Despite his native Australia finding, in December last year, that Assange’s WikiLeaks had not committed any criminal offences in their jurisdiction, the U.S. government has continued to make ongoing operations very difficult for the whistleblower website.
The result of the Australian Federal Police investigation left the country’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, having to retract a statement that WikiLeaks had acted “illegally”; instead, she characterised the site’s actions as “grossly irresponsible”.
Even with Australia finding no illegal activity on the part of WikiLeaks, and with founder Julian Assange facing extradition to Sweden, U.S. pressure sought to hobble WikiLeaks financially.
Based on a State Department letter, online payments site PayPal suspended WikiLeaks account in December. Their action was swiftly followed by Visa Europe and Mastercard ceasing to handle payments for WikiLeaks.
The online processing company, Datacell, threatened the two credit card giants with legal action over this. However, avenues of funding for the site were further curtailed when both Amazon.com and Swiss bank PostFinance joined the financial boycott of WikiLeaks.
Assange continues, to this day, to argue that his extradition to Sweden for questioning on alleged sexual offences is being orchestrated by the U.S. in an effort to discredit him, and thus WikiLeaks.
Wikinews consulted an IT and cryptography expert from the Belgian university which developed the current Advanced Encryption Standard; explaining modern communications, he stated: “Cryptography has developed to such a level that intercepting communications is no longer cost effective. That is, if any user uses the correct default settings, and makes sure that he/she is really connecting to Twitter it is highly unlikely that even the NSA can break the cryptography for a protocol such as SSL/TLS (used for https).”
Qualifying this, he commented that “the vulnerable parts of the communication are the end points.” To make his point, he cited the following quote from Gene Spafford: “Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench.“
Continuing, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) expert explained:
Wikinews also consulted French IT security researcher Stevens Le Blond on the issues surrounding the case, and the state-of-the-art in monitoring, and analysing, communications online. Le Blond, currently presenting a research paper on attacks on Tor to USENIX audiences in North America, responded via email:
Were the US Government to obtain the sought data, it would seem reasonable the NSA would handle further investigation. How would you expect them to exploit the data and expand on what they receive from Twitter?
Having been alerted to the ongoing case through a joint press release by the ACLU and EFF, Wikinews sought clarification on the primary issues which the two non-profits saw as particularly important in challenging the U.S. Government over the ‘secret’ court orders. Rebecca Jeschke, Media Relations Director for the EFF, explained in more detail the points crucial to them, responding to a few questions from Wikinews on the case:
Finally, Wikinews approached the Icelandic politician, and WikiLeaks supporter, who has made this specific case a landmark in how the U.S. Government handles dealings with – supposedly – friendly governments and their elected representatives. A number of questions were posed, seeking the Icelandic Parliamentarian’s views:
HAVE YOUR SAY
|
|
Do you believe the U.S. government should have the right to access data on foreign nationals using services such as Twitter?
|
|
Add or view comments
|
The U.S. Government continues to have issues internationally as a result of material passed to WikiLeaks, and subsequently published.
Within the past week, Ecuador has effectively declared the U.S. ambassador Heather Hodges persona-non-grata over corruption allegations brought to light in leaked cables. Asking the veteran diplomat to leave “as soon as possible”, the country may become the third in South America with no ambassadorial presence. Both Venezuela and Bolivia have no resident U.S. ambassador due to the two left-wing administrations believing the ejected diplomats were working with the opposition.
The U.S. State Department has cautioned Ecuador that a failure to speedily normalise diplomatic relations may jeapordise ongoing trade talks.
The United Kingdom is expected to press the Obama administration over the continuing detention of 23-year-old Manning, who also holds UK citizenship. British lawmakers are to discuss his ongoing detention conditions before again approaching the U.S. with their concerns that his solitary confinement, and treatment therein, is not acceptable.
The 22 charges brought against Manning are currently on hold whilst his fitness to stand trial is assessed.
Unleashing the Power of Your Souls Purpose
by
Holistic BizLifeStylist
Dreams are your Souls Desire and Purpose manifesting in a vision form. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about your Souls enormous power waiting to manifest in your life. 2012 is a powerful Transformational year.
Will you step up in a powerful way and live inside those Dreams? Think about the dreams that reside deep within your heart, otherwise known as your Soul. They were planted in the your DNA, used to create your essence at the time of conception. They mean a great deal to you, because they are who you were designed to be. You can bring those Dreams and your Souls Purpose into your awareness any time you want, by simply feeling and calling them forth. What is yearning deep inside your Soul? Do you know how to intimately connect with your Lifes Purpose? What is a common thread of your life that keeps showing up? What do you most want to be doing at this very moment in time? Consider your Business, Life and Environment when answering these questions! Manifest Your Powerful Intentions Your big picture intentions can keep you going. They provide motivation and fuel for life. Many settle for less than the best life they can live, but you can decide today that youll accept no less than the fulfillment of your dreams-your souls desires. Stop for a moment and feel what your Soul is saying to you, what do you want to most express in your Business, Life and Environment? The key to Manifesting Your Powerful Dream is to get clear on what you really truly want, feel it so you can live it, keep putting one foot in front of the other, taking consistent daily action steps in the direction of your souls desires, your dreams. At the same time, continually visualize and feel what your life will look like when you have manifested your heart and souls desires. As you complete each step along the way, youll gain more power to complete the rest of your journey. Remember, everything on this journey unfolds with each decision you make. Each decision reveals the tools, resources and knowledge you need to continue on your journey. Think of decisions as access keys to the next part of your journey! No Decisions, No Access Keys! The answer to our Souls desires comes in the form of OPPORTUNITIES What opportunities are being presented or have been presented to you that you have not decided to take action on? Remember, opportunities present themselves through people. Opportunities deliver the tools, resources and knowledge for us to unleash the power of our Souls Purpose. I remember a while ago I wanted to create a completely different business model and revamp the way I grew my business. I wanted to grow my business with a deeper connection to my Souls purpose along with ease and grace. I asked GOD to help me with this project. He sent me a coach who has remained my coach until today! If I had not said YES (made a decision), reflected in my hiring the coach when she appeared, I would not have received the Access Keys for the next steps on my journey to a multi-6 Figure business that totally connects to my Souls Purpose! Always Remember Unleashing the Power of Your Souls Purpose allows you to live the way you were intended to live. It is an expression of who you are and why you are here on earth! The only thing stopping you from living the life you imagined is YOU! Your ability to decide, take action and implement like your life depends on it! I am sure you can see, now, how your life depends on you making decisions! Dreams have power, but you must continue to feed them. Do everything you can to realize your dream by making decisions, taking massive and consistent action. As you go, notice what is working and isnt. Adjust your course continually, and nothing can stop you from experiencing the realization of the dreams that you hold in your heart, because it is your Souls Purpose.
Therese Prentice is a Soul Styling Strategist. Awaken to what is possible for YOU! Infuse your Souls Style into the Tapestry of your Business, Life and Environment Your help is right at your fingertips. Therese Prentice is gifted in the area of helping Women Entrepreneurs and 5-6 Figure Income Corporate Women, embody their 6 Figure Attitude allowing them to gracefully move into their multi 6 Figure Lifestyle Business while having more fun, building nurturing relationships and experiencing the ultimate of lifestyle freedom. Dont wait one minute longer Schedule: Virtual Tea with Therese
Article Source:
ArticleRich.com
Submitted by: Dan Campbell
Twitter campaigns from various companies are working with social media networks to help people less fortunate, during the holidays and year round. The #TweetToFeed program may provide nearly 150,000 meals to food banks, according to the officials of the fund. All that people need to do to help is to follow @SusquehannaBank while on Twitter, and be sure to retweet a few messages. Each Tweetizen will be able to donate fifteen meals with just a few clicks.
Other food banks are also running charitable campaigns on Twitter, including some in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia and Maryland. There are physical boxes for collection as well, but the Twitter campaign has a broader appeal and has brought in more people to donate. They can reach out to people who are non-customers as well as customers, and even people who live outside their area can help. Over 2400 meals have been donated already.
Twitter has been used for charity before, too. Drew Carey pledged $1 per follower in 2009 to LiveStrong. Twitter is a quickly-expanding social network site, and it’s home to celebrities and everyday people as well. Many celebrities have helped worthwhile causes, and the everyday users have responded with open hearts.
Justin Bieber has used Twitter to tell his rabid fans about singles and albums coming out, along with sending words of sympathy or best wishes to other celebs. Justin has recently announced that he will be donating some proceeds from his newest album to a children’s hospital.
Bieber’s Acoustic album was recently released, and since he has teamed with the Children’s Miracle Network, to help the children currently under care. Bieber tweeted that he enjoys being able to give thanks to his fans and to God. He wrote one track thinking about helping other people, and feels responsible to help out in a meaningful way. He doesn’t see the point in making music if he can’t use his celebrity to help make a difference in people’s lives. His most recent album is a gift to his fans, and he is happy that the monies will go to help people out.
In Seattle, Washington, an average person named Patty Campbell had a great idea that she took to Twitter, where it is having a big impact. The idea started as sending a tweet for her Parka Party . The monies raised will all go to local charities. Twitterzens are donating money to the charity of their choice, and then tweet the receipt, and that’s how you join the party.
In Seattle, Washington, an average person named Patty Campbell had a great idea that she took to Twitter, where it is having a big impact. The idea started as sending a tweet for her Parka Party . The monies raised will all go to local charities. Twitterzens are donating money to the charity of their choice, and then tweet the receipt, and that’s how you join the party.
These are just a few ways that people are making a difference on Twitter.
Burton’s Stainboy is a young and nervous superhero from a poetry book, and the character has appeared in some short animated movies in 2000.You will get more information by visiting Twitter proxy.
About the Author: Burton’s Stainboy is a young and nervous superhero from a poetry book, and the character has appeared in some short animated movies in 2000.You will get more information by visiting
twitter-proxy.net/
Source:
isnare.com
Permanent Link:
isnare.com/?aid=690467&ca=Business
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Taiwan’s former President, Chen Shui-bian (???), has been conditionally released on bail, some ten hours after he was indicted for corruption. Speaking to media at the Taipei District Court, he said: “I want to thank my lawyers, members of the Democratic Progressive Party and my supporters who have given me huge encouragement. I am grateful to those who cared for, supported and looked after me so I could get through the hardest and loneliest 32 days of my life in prison.” He earns the historical distinction of being the first ex-president of the Republic of China to be indicted for criminal offenses and could suffer life imprisonment if convicted.
Along with 13 other family members and close associates, including his wheelchair-bound wife, son Chen Chih-Chung, and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching, Chen was indicted Friday on charges of embezzling government funds and laundering money or ill-gotten bribes. The panel of three judges ruled he should appear at future court hearings and must not leave the country nor change his address.
Prosecutor Lin Che-hui accused Chen of having “embezzled 104 million New Taiwan dollars ($3.12 million) from a special presidential fund, and received bribes of $11.73 million in connection with a government land procurement deal and a separate construction project; the damning piece of evidence was the presence of NT$740 million ($22.2 million) in cash stashed in a Taipei bank safety vault held by the Chens.” Yuanta Securities director Tu Li-ping said, “she hand delivered NT$200 million ($6 million) in cash to Wu at the presidential residence in 2006 on behalf of executives of an affiliated bank; the money was an incentive for Wu not to interfere with a merger the bank was pursuing.”
Chen insists on his innocence. Contradicting the 100-page indictment, he said that “the $21 million his wife wired to their son’s Swiss bank accounts came from leftover campaign donations. Taiwanese law permits such donations to be kept by political candidates.”
In 1975, Chen married Wu Shu-chen (???), the daughter of a physician. The couple has a daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (???), who is a dentist; and a son, Chen Chih-Chung (???), who, having received a law degree in Taiwan, studied at and graduated with a M.A. degree from the University of California in 2005.
In November 2006, Chen’s wife Wu Shu-chen and three other high ranking officials of the Presidential Office were indicted for corruption, charged with misappropriating NT$14.8 million (USD$450,000) of government funds using falsified documents. Due to the protection from the Constitution against prosecution of the sitting president, Chen could not be prosecuted until he left office, and he was not indicted, but was alleged to be an accomplice on his wife’s indictment.
Chen’s term as President of the Republic of China ended in May 2008. Immediately thereafter, prosecutors began investigating him regarding allegations that he misused his discretionary “state affairs fund”, as well as his connection to the first family’s money-laundering activities. He resigned from the Democratic Progressive Party on August 15, 2008, one day after admitting to falsifying past campaign expenses and wiring campaign contributions to overseas accounts.
In November 2008, Chen was escorted by a security staff, into the Taipei prosecutor’s office for questioning. After 6 hours, he left the Supreme Court prosecutor`s office in handcuffs, was arrested and detained. The charges each carry a minimum penalty of 5 years imprisonment. Following a 6 day hunger strike while in detention, Chen collapsed and was rushed to Taipei’s Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, where he was later transferred to Panchiao Hospital for force-feeding. Despite Chen’s lack of interest in appealing, his lawyer Cheng Wen-long completed a motion seeking his release from detention and filed a notice of appeal of the court’s decision, along with a petition for constitutional interpretation to restrain actions violative of the Constitution.
Prosecutor General, Chen Tsung-ming said that after Chen’s case had been removed to the Taipei Local Court, he would re-file a petition for Chen’s detention. Chen and the main opposition DPP have accused President Ma Ying-jeou‘s administration of “using the scandals to plan a political plot against the former leader.”
Meanwhile, The Straits Times reported that “prosecutors are to investigate former President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000, Lee Teng-hui on suspicion of money laundering, based on allegations made by Chen during his own questioning recently that his predecessor transferred large funds abroad through dummy accounts.” Mr. Lee angrily denied the accusations concerning “a suspected transfer of 50 million Taiwan dollars (US$2.26 million) to Mr Lee from a local stock investor via overseas dummy accounts.” Charges also included transactions made at the end of Lee’s tenure and at the beginning of Chen’s term, including “one billion Taiwan dollars that had been wired to various countries including Singapore.”
The China Post calls for calm and urges fair trial for Chen. “All the people should wait patiently for the outcome of the trial … They shouldn’t do anything to influence the judges in any way, because the rule of law in Taiwan is at stake. We should show the world that Taiwan is a democracy where anybody who commits a crime, be he a man on the street or a former president, is duly punished.” it said.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed objections to the United States Government’s ‘secret’ attempts to obtain Twitter account information relating to WikiLeaks. The ACLU and EFF cite First and Fourth amendment issues as overriding reasons to overturn government attempts to keep their investigation secret; and, that with Birgitta Jonsdottir being an Icelandic Parliamentarian, the issue has serious international implications.
The case, titled “In the Matter of the 2703(d) Order Relating to Twitter Accounts: Wikileaks, Rop_G, IOERROR; and BirgittaJ“, has been in the EFF’s sights since late last year when they became aware of the US government’s attempts to investigate WikiLeaks-related communications using the popular microblogging service.
The key objective of this US government investigation is to obtain data for the prosecution of Bradley Manning, alleged to have supplied classified data to WikiLeaks. In addition to Manning’s Twitter account, and that of WikiLeaks (@wikileaks), the following three accounts are subject to the order: @ioerror, @birgittaj, and @rop_g. These, respectively, belong to Jacob Apelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Rop Gonggrijp.
Birgitta is not the only non-US citizen with their Twitter account targeted by the US Government; Gonggrijp, a Dutch ‘ex-hacker’-turned-security-expert, was one of the founders of XS4ALL – the first Internet Service Provider in the Netherlands available to the public. He has worked on a mobile phone that can encrypt conversations, and proven that electronic voting systems can readily be hacked.
In early March, a Virginia magistrate judge ruled that the government could have the sought records, and neither the targeted users, or the public, could see documents submitted to justify data being passed to the government. The data sought is as follows:
The order demands disclosure of absolutely all such data from November 1, 2009 for the targeted accounts.
The ACLU and EFF are not only challenging this, but demanding that all submissions made by the US government to justify the Twitter disclosure are made public, plus details of any other such cases which have been processed in secret.
Bradley Manning, at the time a specialist from Maryland enlisted with the United States Army’s 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, was arrested in June last year in connection with the leaking of classified combat video to WikiLeaks.
The leaked video footage, taken from a US helicopter gunship, showed the deaths of Reuters staff Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen during a U.S. assault in Baghdad, Iraq. The wire agency unsuccessfully attempted to get the footage released via a Freedom of Information Act request in 2007.
When WikiLeaks released the video footage it directly contradicted the official line taken by the U.S. Army asserting that the deaths of the two Reuters staff were “collateral damage” in an attack on Iraqi insurgents. The radio chatter associated with the AH-64 Apache video indicated the helicopter crews had mistakenly identified the journalists’ equipment as weaponry.
The US government also claims Manning is linked to CableGate; the passing of around a quarter of a million classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Manning has been in detention since July last year; in December allegations of torture were made to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the conditions under which he was and is being detained.
Reports last month that he must now sleep naked and attend role call at the U.S. Marine facility in Quantico in the same state, raised further concern over his detention conditions. Philip J. Crowley, at-the-time a State Department spokesman, remarked on this whilst speaking at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; describing the current treatment of Manning as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”, Crowley was, as a consequence, put in the position of having to tender his resignation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Despite his native Australia finding, in December last year, that Assange’s WikiLeaks had not committed any criminal offences in their jurisdiction, the U.S. government has continued to make ongoing operations very difficult for the whistleblower website.
The result of the Australian Federal Police investigation left the country’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, having to retract a statement that WikiLeaks had acted “illegally”; instead, she characterised the site’s actions as “grossly irresponsible”.
Even with Australia finding no illegal activity on the part of WikiLeaks, and with founder Julian Assange facing extradition to Sweden, U.S. pressure sought to hobble WikiLeaks financially.
Based on a State Department letter, online payments site PayPal suspended WikiLeaks account in December. Their action was swiftly followed by Visa Europe and Mastercard ceasing to handle payments for WikiLeaks.
The online processing company, Datacell, threatened the two credit card giants with legal action over this. However, avenues of funding for the site were further curtailed when both Amazon.com and Swiss bank PostFinance joined the financial boycott of WikiLeaks.
Assange continues, to this day, to argue that his extradition to Sweden for questioning on alleged sexual offences is being orchestrated by the U.S. in an effort to discredit him, and thus WikiLeaks.
Wikinews consulted an IT and cryptography expert from the Belgian university which developed the current Advanced Encryption Standard; explaining modern communications, he stated: “Cryptography has developed to such a level that intercepting communications is no longer cost effective. That is, if any user uses the correct default settings, and makes sure that he/she is really connecting to Twitter it is highly unlikely that even the NSA can break the cryptography for a protocol such as SSL/TLS (used for https).”
Qualifying this, he commented that “the vulnerable parts of the communication are the end points.” To make his point, he cited the following quote from Gene Spafford: “Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench.“
Continuing, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) expert explained:
Wikinews also consulted French IT security researcher Stevens Le Blond on the issues surrounding the case, and the state-of-the-art in monitoring, and analysing, communications online. Le Blond, currently presenting a research paper on attacks on Tor to USENIX audiences in North America, responded via email:
Were the US Government to obtain the sought data, it would seem reasonable the NSA would handle further investigation. How would you expect them to exploit the data and expand on what they receive from Twitter?
Having been alerted to the ongoing case through a joint press release by the ACLU and EFF, Wikinews sought clarification on the primary issues which the two non-profits saw as particularly important in challenging the U.S. Government over the ‘secret’ court orders. Rebecca Jeschke, Media Relations Director for the EFF, explained in more detail the points crucial to them, responding to a few questions from Wikinews on the case:
Finally, Wikinews approached the Icelandic politician, and WikiLeaks supporter, who has made this specific case a landmark in how the U.S. Government handles dealings with – supposedly – friendly governments and their elected representatives. A number of questions were posed, seeking the Icelandic Parliamentarian’s views:
HAVE YOUR SAY
|
|
Do you believe the U.S. government should have the right to access data on foreign nationals using services such as Twitter?
|
|
Add or view comments
|
The U.S. Government continues to have issues internationally as a result of material passed to WikiLeaks, and subsequently published.
Within the past week, Ecuador has effectively declared the U.S. ambassador Heather Hodges persona-non-grata over corruption allegations brought to light in leaked cables. Asking the veteran diplomat to leave “as soon as possible”, the country may become the third in South America with no ambassadorial presence. Both Venezuela and Bolivia have no resident U.S. ambassador due to the two left-wing administrations believing the ejected diplomats were working with the opposition.
The U.S. State Department has cautioned Ecuador that a failure to speedily normalise diplomatic relations may jeapordise ongoing trade talks.
The United Kingdom is expected to press the Obama administration over the continuing detention of 23-year-old Manning, who also holds UK citizenship. British lawmakers are to discuss his ongoing detention conditions before again approaching the U.S. with their concerns that his solitary confinement, and treatment therein, is not acceptable.
The 22 charges brought against Manning are currently on hold whilst his fitness to stand trial is assessed.
Apply These 8 Secret Techniques To Improve Vine Followers
by
Steven Williams
Six-second videos avoid sound like considerably. However , utilizing Twitter’s Vine app, there’re a lot more exciting than you could think. Just think about the strength of the 160 characters connected with Twitter!
The very app is offered via iphone 3gs and apple, ipod touch. It’s cost-free!
How functions: You can sign in with your Twitter account and also email address. You possibly can alter your company’s user identity, and consider if you wish to receive push notifications. You can also tend to add your company’s phone number.
When you log in it can look a lot like Instagram, and definitely will give you a universal feed unless you start to follow people of the choosing. From the lot of exciting just to sit and experience a little bit at this moment.
When you want in making your own online video media, there is a modest camera image in the top right-hand side hand cupboard. Click on that.
Place your company’s finger for the screen along with a green brand will appear. If you are touching the particular screen, Vine is recording. Pick your company’s finger about stop. You will have six just a few seconds to do this all you need!
When you’re finished you can publish your Vine if you like everything that you’ve finished. Or, you can delete that and try again. You can easily post that will Twitter along with Facebook at the same time. Make sure you realize where your company’s video it should and no one can view it. Positive add a caption!
Things to consider: There were some complaints about pornography making its way onto Vine. That being said, there’re working on steps for this issue. However , its something to know if you allow your kids take advantage of the program.
You can find other glitches with the program… some consumers have complained they cannot share videos more than once. I personally abhor that there is not an online/computer-based program to view videos on a bigger screen. Though it’s a excellent mobile app, sometimes I must view elements on the hd, just like Pinterest.
Some tips for making a great Vine video:
– Use a tripod. This helps you own things continuous and make an easily watchable video. It assists with developing a stop activity video and enables prevent concentrate adjustments.
installment payments on your You can create a three 2nd video and have absolutely it never-ending loop on per se. This is a wonderful means to get started when six just a few seconds seems like a very long time.
3. Pot your surveillance camera to create a very little drama.
some. Put a specific thing over the contact lens and get away to possess a neat frequent lowering and raising.
5. Start reading other people’s Vine videos for your little motivation.
6. For anybody who is recording noise, consider using a remote microphone hence the sound quality shall be better.
siete. Make sure put hashtags towards your video.
eight. Increase your Vine followers
Total, I think the particular app will be a lot of exciting, and will be favored. Business-wise, similar to social media, its what you label of it. For those who have something you can show clients tips on how to do, or some new products within your store, this may be a great way to share socially.
Nonetheless if you’re innovative, this will be a superb, FREE graphic tool to utilize. Have fun and turn into sure to develop your innovative side!Get the best quality Vine followers, likes and re-vines
via our online followers bot, No download required –
freevinefollowers.10millionsmiles.com
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}
Friday, December 15, 2006
High winds and heavy rains have left 4 people dead, and much of the Seattle, Washington area is without electrical power. A number of large trees have been downed and heavy rains have caused minor flooding in many areas of the city. According to first-hand reports as many as 1 million people and several large organizations such as Microsoft are without power this morning.
Flood, storm, and strong wind watches were in effect last night as a rare thunderstorm system moved into the Pacific Northwest region, hitting areas from Seattle to Portland with high winds and heavy rains. Interstate 5 through Seattle was closed at its intersection with Mercer Street due to standing water. The State Route 520 floating bridge, a major conduit across Lake Washington to the technology-rich Eastside was closed and its drawspan opened to protect it from storm damage well into Friday. Local roads throughout the region were strewn with debris, especially evergreen branches and leaves. Authorities advised people to stay off the roads.
Four deaths were reported in connection with the storm as of Friday. A Seattle woman died in the basement of her home after floodwaters caused the basement door to close and jam shut. Two others died in outlying areas after tall Northwest evergreens fell on their vehicles, and a man in Grays Harbor, near the Pacific coast, died in his sleep after a tree fell on his mobile home. KOMO news reported a caller saying a 100-foot evergreen had fallen into his house.
Downed trees and high winds also brought down powerlines throughout Western Washington. Seattle City Light, the municipal electric utility for the city, reported a peak of 175,000 customers without power, most in the north and south ends of the city, as well as the east edge of town and the Green Lake area.
Puget Sound Energy, the electric utility for much of the Seattle metro area, reported 700,000 customers (over 66%) without power, with the area around Seattle the worst hit. PSE, which had already enlisted additional powerline workers from neighboring states, did not send crews out until mid Friday morning due to continued high winds. Estimates for power restoration were anywhere from a few days to over a week. Island County, at the mouth of Puget Sound, was completely without power.
Schools in Seattle and throughout its suburbs were closed Friday, many due to power outages. The city of Mercer Island, connected to the mainland only by Interstate 90, is reportedly inaccessible.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer failed to print due to power failures at the printing facility, which had redundant power feeds from both the Seattle utility as well as PSE. It is the first time in 70 years that the paper has not been printed. The Seattle Times, a competing paper under a joint operating agreement, managed to print only 13,000 copies of its regular circulation of over 200,000. The papers located alternate facilities to print a reduced version of their Saturday editions, and their joint Sunday issue was also expected to be reduced.
At Sea-Tac Airport, three terminals were shut down overnight due to the storm. Concourse A and the South Satellite terminal lost power, and a blown-out window caused Concourse C to also close. All terminals were back in working order by midday Friday. Many flights were delayed or cancelled. Likewise, in Oregon, Portland International Airport reported at least 40 flights cancelled. At Seattle’s Boeing Field, winds flipped a private plane over, colliding with another plane.
The Seattle Seahawks vs. San Francisco 49ers football game was delayed 15 minutes. A pre-game power surge temporarily took the Qwest Field’s video displays offline. The gridiron was plagued by standing water, as the stadium’s loudspeakers played “Who’ll Stop The Rain?” shortly before kickoff.
Thursday night’s storm comes after a previous regional storm in the Seattle area earlier in the week, in which trees in a few Seattle suburbs fell onto roads, powerlines, and two school buses. In those incidents no one was hurt, and there were a few spotty power outages.
This is the second serious storm to hit the Northwest since Thanksgiving, In late November, record-setting snowfall had a similar disabling effect on the region.
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Kinds of Solar power Solar energy devices
by
Jenny D\’Souza
Grid-linked Solar powered Solar power machine
This is actually the most in-demand sort of Solar energy PV system designed for dwellings and institutions into the progressed world. Link with all the localized electric power network makes it possible for just about any excess power established to be able to be provided on to the entire benefits. Source of electricity will probably be shipped in via the \’network \’ away from daytime. An inverter is considered to be employed in order to transform the DC electrical power created by the system towards Air conditioning unit electrical power intended for operating natural electric power tools.
Solar Inverters Prices India are better
.
Power grid-connected P v programs would be the more popular Solar power power model readily available. Power grid-attached units are so very labeled because these are usually connected exclusively on tothe actual electric powered Grid – all of the enormous network related with electric power wires which in turn spans the entire country as well as crisscrosses your town. These kinds of products usually are quite often called directly to like battery-less Grid-coupled as well as battery-less utility-tied programs.
All over locations having some sort of superior feed-in tariff, charge for the electric energy produced (look at Component 6: Plan Drivers) will be appreciably excessive as compared to the common tariff compensated from the potential customer towards the benefits, so all this particular source of electricity created is usually provided to the general population Power grid and consequently distributed onto the benefits. This can be a situation in economies along the lines of Germany or Spain.
The particular financially optimum dimensions of some sort of Power grid-coupled \’pv\’ equipment is based mostly on numerous economic bonuses as well as legal boundaries, considering the fact that Power grid equality – that means the expense relating to pv developed electricity are actually the same as or less costly than the price of Power grid energy – can be reached exclusively inside a couple of locations these days.Net metering principles, as is also widely utilised in the US as well as Canada, offer – just like stand-alone programs – not any inducement to build programs that will deliver considerably more power electricity in comparison to utilized within the exact house through all the year; the exact Grid swaps only a localised battery power backup. Feed-in cost methods alternatively exhibit massive systems that have net additional successful.
Solar power systems need
Solar Powered Inverters
.
Off-Grid
Whereby basically no mains electric power can be acquired, the device happens to be interconnected to a battery with a power regulator. This process holds the source of electricity constructed with regards to foreseeable future utilization and even serves as the most crucial electric powered distribution. Each inverter can often offer AC electrical power, making it possible for the usage of standard electric powered gadgets. Familiar off-Grid plans seem to be repeater stations with respect to cell phones, electrification with respect to isolated places (hill sheds) or perhaps far off electrification in developing nations. Rural electrification will mean possibly compact Solar power house models masking elementary electric power demands within a household, as well as bigger Solar energy mini-Power grids, that will provide enough power intended for a number of residences.
Wherever any kind of energy Power grid will never be or not at the acceptable payments attainable, a stand-alone photo-voltaic system can be used to create all of the demanded electrically powered electric power. Cases designed for such an software are generally down hill sheds and also cabin rentals across rural regions, Photo voltaic energy -motorized waters pushes, emergency situation handsets, but also products with regard to boats and even recreational motor vehicles (camper cars).
Simply because the Solar energy programs solely deliver energy electricity while in the day, it\’s important to hold electric power with regards to night time or for overcast days and nights. This type of storing products mainly employ rechargeable lead electric batteries, with regard to their capacity settle for with good efficacy mutually lower and also substantial source power. An actual battery regulator forbids overcharging, any kind of load reducing circuit stops profound discharges. Because of the excessive variations in energy levels production in between winter and even summer time it is certainly highly recommended toward utilize hybrid methods pertaining to year-around packages. These types of can make use of diesel-powered and also biogas turbines and even wind turbines; in most situations they will incorporate a backup solar battery also.
Hybrid machine
Hybrid programs might be either described as an off-Power grid device utilizing the particular Grid because the stand by generator or perhaps a Grid-coupled product with a few additional battery power storage space. In any event, all of these products don t require pricey diesel fuel generators considering that Grid provides the support, as well as the magnitude of the particular electric battery arrays can become reduced given that the charge for back-up electric powered applying off-peak Power grid electric energy is noticeably lower in comparison to that given basically by diesel engine electric generators.
Often the technologies which is which makes this achievable is often a fresh era of items efficient at guiding electricity moves as the potential customer greatest hopes.
You are able to likewise add a wind mill right into any one of the units mentioned above and also a suitable emergency power generator right into all of our stand alone systems. Any kind of Photovoltaic or pv device is generally merged with some other way to electric powered – one particular biomass power generators, wind powered generator and even heavy duty diesel generators – to be sure a frequent cause of electric power. An absolute hybrid model can often be Grid-related, stand-alone as well as Power grid-support.
There are not many
Solar Inverter Manufacturers India
.
http://www.sunipod.com/rural-electricity-surya-uday-yojana.phphttp://www.sunipod.com/solar-system-prices-india.phpwww.sunipod.com
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