MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The public prosecutor's office in Bahrain says six people have been detained for allegedly defaming the country's ruler on Twitter.
The six, who were not identified, join a growing list of anti-government activists caught up in an Internet crackdown by authorities in the Sunni-ruled Gulf nation.
Bahrain has seen nearly two years of unrest over demands by the country's majority Shiites for a greater political voice.
The six were detained over the past couple of days and the prosecutor's statement Wednesday said they will be charged with misusing Twitter and insulting King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
The arrests come two days after a court acquitted rights activist Yousef al-Muhafedha of spreading false news on Twitter. He is one of dozens to face charges for posting comments on social media.
Michelle Williams has been accused of racism after dressing as a Native American on a magazine cover. The actress donned a series of eye-catching outfits for British magazine AnOther, including one showing her in long braids, beads and with a feather in her hair. The cover went viral as blogs labelled it 'offensive', 'racist' and 'sterotypical' and demanded an apology.
Offensive? Karlie has been accused of racism after appearing to dress as a Native American for the cover of AnOther magazine
New York based online magazine Refinery29 slated the cover, stating: 'We can't believe how offensive Michelle Williams' latest cover is.' 'They added super-long, thick, black extensions and braided them — and darkened her eyebrows,' they wrote. 'Then there's the makeup.
This is her normal look ( ?????????)'The photo is in black-and-white, so you can't tell for sure if they've altered her normally fair skin, but there is some definite contouring around the nose and the cheekbones that not only makes her look nearly unrecognizable, but also appears to mimic the stark relief of facial features often seen in early portraits of Native American women. 'The same mimicry applies her stoic, unsmiling pose - also a typical trope in that particular genre and period of art history.'
REX2003032551 - UMM QASR, IRAQ, March 25 (UPI) -- K Dog, a bottle nose dolphin from Commander Task Unit, leaps out of the water in front Sergeant Andrew Garrett during training near the USS Gunston Hall operating in the Arabian Gulf. mk/REX FEATURES UPI.
Three highly trained "killer" dolphins may have escaped from a Ukrainian naval base and are on the loose looking for love.
The animals, of five operating out of a base at the Crimean sea port of Sevastopol, supposedly escaped during a training exercise last month, an expert said, according to Ukrainian media.
Ukrainian defense officials have denied the reports -- but they have also regularly denied the existence of the dolphin program, despite photographs of the dolphins strapped into their military equipment regularly surfacing.
The program was started as part of the Soviet Navy in 1973, and handed over to the Ukrainian Naval Forces after the breakup of the USSR.
Dolphins in the U.S. Navy are trained to seek mines and retrieve objects from the seafloor. A military source told Ukrainian news site RIA the dolphins at Sevastopol are also trained to engage enemy swimmers with knives or pistols affixed to their heads.
Whether you see the film or just look at the picture, it is irresponsible to ignore reality. We are vulnerable. But this time it won’t be another set of plane crashes. They are smarter than that. Imagine a synchronized set of terror attacks taking place throughout the country.
Fact is, illegal aliens crossing over the border can be in any US city within 3-days. That’s scary. Yes, most are coming here to cut your lawn. But there are others who want to cut your throat.
Currently in production, here is a quick clip from David’s new film ‘They Come to America II,’ which focuses on the open border and how it presents a gateway to terrorists.
Accused of immoral behavior, an unidentified Tunisian woman, second right, her face hidden by a black veil, is led by her lawyer, Saida Garrach, as they leave the central Tunis courthouse, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)
TUNIS, Tunisia -- Hundreds of Tunisians protested Tuesday in support of a woman who says she was raped by police and is facing accusations of violating modesty laws.
The case has drawn nationwide attention in Tunisia, where a moderate Islamist-led coalition is working on a new constitution after decades of dictatorship and the question of how it will define women's rights is a sensitive topic.
Legislators, students, teachers and lawyers took part in the protest at the central Tunis courthouse to denounce what they say are unfounded claims against the woman aimed at persuading her to drop her accusation against police.
The 27-year-old woman says three police officers stopped her in a car last month, and one of them held her fiance back while the other two raped her. The police officers deny wrongdoing, and say she was engaged in immoral behavior with her fiance when they stopped her.
The woman is being questioned Tuesday by investigators, who will decide whether to pursue the accusations against her. If she's convicted of immoral behavior, she could face up to six months in prison.
Online, on TV and in the street, Tunisians are expressing indignation, accusing the authorities of trying to cover up wrongdoing and blame the victim.
"No to police who rape and a complicit justice system" read one banner at Tuesday's protest. "Tunisian women will not submit, they will triumph or they will die" read another.
Both the woman's accusation against police and the ensuing public uproar would have been unthinkable under longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who has ousted in an uprising last year that unleashed the Arab Spring revolutions.
Lawyer Emna Zahrouni says the woman has come under pressure to drop her accusation against police but is determined "to carry this through to the end to win justice."
TUNIS, Tunisia A Tunisian street vendor has died of severe, full-body burns after setting himself ablaze in what his family described as an act of desperation over trouble finding a steady job.
The self-immolation in 2010 of another Tunisian vendor frustrated with corruption and unemployment sparked protests that spread nationwide and led to the ouster of Tunisia’s authoritarian president. That unleashed protests around the Arab world.
The director of the Tunis region’s burn center, Imed Touibi, said that vendor Adel Khedhri died Wednesday morning. Touibi said the 27-year-old man, from a poor town in northwestern Tunisia struggling to find a steady job to support his mother and siblings, had burns on nearly 90 percent of his body.
Khedhri set himself on fire Tuesday on the main thoroughfare of the capital, Tunis.
Committee of Human Rights Reporters – After spending 184 days behind bars, today Shiva Nazarahari was granted a 3-day release on bail.
As reported by CHRR, Shiva Nazarahari was handed a 4-year prison sentence with 74 lashes on the charges of “moharebeh” (enmity with God), “propaganda against the regime,” and “illegal gathering.” She turned herself in at Evin prison to serve her sentence on September 8, 2012.
Shiva Nazarahari, imprisoned member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters was recently nominated by Reporters Without Frontiers for the 2013 Netizen of the Year, which has been awarded on March 12th every year to commemorate World Day Against Cyber-Censorship. Since 2008, this prize has been awarded to journalists, bloggers and other netizens for their distinguished contribution to the advancement of freedom of expression on the Internet.
On March 11, 2011, Shiva Nazarahari was awarded the Theodor Haecker prize for "courageous internet reporting on human rights violations". The prize is named after Theodor Haecker, a philosopher, writer and anti-Nazi cultural critic.
Chandigarh: The young woman who was beaten up recently by policemen in Punjab, provoking strong criticism for the government from the Supreme Court, tried to force her way into the Punjab Assembly this morning.
Congress leaders accompanying her got into a fight with security personnel.
"She did not have any entry pass. We stopped her for security reasons," a security official told news agency IANS.
The woman, accompanied by her father and senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar, said she had come to the assembly to demand justice.
A few days ago, the woman was filmed on a cell phone by a passer-by as two policemen hit her repeatedly near Amritsar. "Was she a terrorist?" the Supreme Court asked earlier this week as it demanded information on how the cops involved had been penalized. A few hours later, the two policemen who were seen on camera hitting her were arrested.
The woman's family claims she was attacked when it tried to complain to the police of her sexual harassment by some drivers. The police say she was trying to obstruct the arrest of her father, who was drunk and causing a public nuisance. However, they agreed that the attack on her was unjustifiable.
NCRI - The European Union imposed sanctions on Tuesday on an Iranian regime’s cyberpolice that crackdowns on Internet users, as well on several judges and media bosses for human rights violations in Iran.
The move brings to nearly 90 the number of people targeted by EU asset freezes and visa bans over concerns about human rights in Iran. List of the persons and the entity targeted: Persons RASHIDI AGHDAM, Ali Ashraf Head of Evin Prison, appointed around June/July 2012. KIASATI Morteza Judge of the Ahwaz Revolutionary Court, Branch 4. MOUSSAVI, Seyed Mohammad Bagher Ahwaz Revolutionary Court judge, Branch 2. SARAFRAZ, Mohammad (Dr.) (aka: Haj-agha Sarafraz) Head of IRIB World Service and Press TV, responsible for all programming decisions. Closely associated with the state security apparatus. JAFARI, Asadollah Prosecutor of Mazandaran Province EMADI, Hamid Reza (aka: Hamidreza Emadi) Press TV Newsroom Director. Responsible for producing and broadcasting the forced confessions of detainees, HAMLBAR, Rahim Judge of Branch 1 of Tabriz Revolutionary Court. MUSAVI-TABAR, Seyyed Reza Head of the Revolutionary Prosecution of Shiraz. KHORAMABADI, Abdolsamad Head of “Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Content”. Entities Center to Investigate Organized Crime (aka: Cyber Crime Office or Cyber Police) The Iranian Cyber Police is a unit of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police, founded in January 2011, which is headed by Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam (listed).
Three inmates escaped a Missouri jail late last night.
According to ABC, Rodney Joe Green, Matthew Brandon Cook and Kade Reaves Stringfellow all escaped the Butler County Justice Center at about 11:30 pm last night. Cook was facing first degree murder charges, Stringfellow was being charged with second degree murder, and Green was in jail for multiple charges relating to a home invasion. All three men were awaiting trial.
The three were being held in the same area and worked as a team to escape, according to the sheriff’s department. KCTV5reports that the three inmates worked together to escape through the ceiling tiles of the Missouri jail. The three men reportedly climbed through the duct work in order to break out of the prison.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Recent Korean history reveals a sobering possibility: It may only be a matter of time before North Korea launches a sudden, deadly attack on the South. And perhaps more unsettling, Seoul has vowed that this time, it will respond with an even stronger blow.
Humiliated by past attacks, South Korea has promised — as recently as Tuesday — to hit back hard at the next assault from the North, opening up the prospect that a skirmish could turn into a wider war.
Lost in the headline-making North Korean bluster about nuclear strikes on Washington in response to U.N. sanctions is a single sentence in a North Korean army Supreme Command statement of March 5. It said North Korea "will make a strike of justice at any target anytime as it pleases without limit."
Those words have a chilling link to the recent past, when Pyongyang, angry over perceived slights, took its time before exacting revenge on rival South Korea. Vows of retaliation after naval clashes with South Korea in 1999 and 2009, for example, were followed by more bloodshed, including attacks blamed on North Korea that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.
Those attacks three years ago "are vivid reminders of the regime's capabilities and intentions," Bruce Klingner, a former U.S. intelligence official now at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, wrote in a recent think tank posting.
Almost a mirror image of the current tensions happened in 2009, when the U.N. approved sanctions over North Korean missile and nuclear tests, and Pyongyang responded with fury. In November of that year, Seoul claimed victory in a sea battle with the North, and Pyongyang vowed revenge.
In March 2010, the Cheonan, a 1,200-ton South Korean warship, exploded and sank in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 sailors. A South Korean-led international investigation found that North Korea torpedoed the ship, a claim Pyongyang denies.
The Cheonan sinking may have been retaliation for the naval defeat four months earlier, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist at Seoul's Dongguk University.
In November 2010, North Korea sent a warning to South Korea to cancel a routine live-fire artillery drill planned on Yeonpyeong Island, which is only seven miles from North Korea and lies in Yellow Sea waters that North Korea claims as its own.
South Korea went ahead with the drills, firing, Seoul says, into waters away from North Korean territory. North Korea sent artillery shells raining down on the island, killing two civilians and two marines.
South Korea responded with artillery fire of its own, but the government of then-President Lee Myung-bak was severely criticized for what was seen as a slow, weak response. Lee, a conservative who infuriated North Korea by ending the previous liberal government's "sunshine policy" of huge aid shipments with few strings attached, vowed massive retaliation if hit again by the North.
The government of newly inaugurated President Park Geun-hye, also a conservative, has made similar comments, though she has also said she will try to build trust with North Korea and explore renewed dialogue and aid shipments.
South Korea's Defense Ministry on Tuesday repeated that it would respond harshly to any future attack from the North. Spokesman Kim Min-seok said there were no signs that North Korea would attack anytime soon, but warned that if it did, it would suffer "much more powerful damage" than whatever it inflicted on South Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday visited artillery troops near disputed waters with South Korea and urged them to be on "maximum alert" because war could break out anytime, according to Pyongyang's official media.
If war broke out, the United States would assume control of South Korea's military because of the countries' decades-old alliance that began with the U.S.-led military response to North Korean invaders in 1950. But South Korea has made clear that it has a sovereign right, and a political necessity, to respond strongly to future North Korean attacks.
PHOENIX (CBS5) -
Protesters from Puente Arizona marched from Indian Steele Park in Phoenix to ICE headquarters and the office of Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery demanding that all charges be dropped against the victims of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's workplace raids.
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The protesters said they hoped to highlight the link between family separation and Montgomery's decision to maximize charges against Arpaio's victims, following ICE's roadmap for securing deportations.
"We march with the families to ask Bill Montgomery to recognize the illegality of local police immigration raids and drop the criminal charges of workers simply trying to feed their families," said protester Carlos Garcia of Puente Arizona.
Montgomery issued the following statement in response to the march:
"I support people exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievances and to speak freely, rights which, among others, more than one million Americans have died defending. Today's demonstrations highlight the consequences of our federal government's failure to address a broken immigration system and to properly secure our borders.
"While I continue to support reasonable and necessary federal immigration reforms, I remain equally committed to enforcing the laws I have sworn to uphold as County Attorney. My Office will continue to make charging decisions based on an individual's conduct -- not his or her race, ethnicity or residency status. We do not initiate prosecutions to achieve a particular immigration outcome, nor do we control the federal consequences of state-level convictions. I reject any call to treat one particular group more or less harshly than any other, or to mix politics with criminal justice."
Upon reaching ICE headquarters, several family members of raid victims were scheduled to give statements.
More than 2,800 decomposing pigs have reportedly been pulled from the upper
reaches of Shanghai’s Huangpu river – a source of drinking water for some of the
mega-city’s 23 million inhabitants.
How so many pigs got there and why they died remains a mystery, although
local media reports have suggested the animals may have been dumped in the river
by an unscrupulous farmer from the neighbouring province of Zhejiang.
On Monday, authorities announced they had detected traces of porcine
circovirus, a disease that affects pigs but which is not believed to infect
humans, in the river.
However, authorities insisted there was no risk drinking water supplies would
be contaminated and said tests of the Huangpu's waters had found no trace of
foot and mouth disease, blue-ear pig disease or swine fever.
11 Mar 2013
The pigs were first discovered on Thursday, five days ago. Graphic
photographs of the bloated, floating carcasses circulating online did little to
calm residents' nerves.
"We have to act quickly to remove them all for fear of causing water
pollution," Xu Rong, the environmental chief in Shanghai's Songjiang district
told the state-run Global Times newspaper. "So far, water quality has not been
affected but we have to remove the pigs as quickly as possible and can't let
their bodies rot in the water."
On Monday lunchtime environmental protection workers were continuing their
rescue operation, hauling pig after pig from the murky waters around
Hengliaojing Creek, around 40 miles from central Shanghai.
'Human Chain' Saves Boy, 12, From Drowning (ABC News)
A 12-year-old New Zealand boy, who was swept out to sea by rough waters, was rescued by beachgoers after they formed a human chain to pull the boy back to the shore.
Josh McQuiod had been playing with a friend along the water's edge on Marine Parade in Napier, New Zealand, Sunday when he was whisked out to sea, and close to drowning, according to One News in New Zealand.
McQuiod was dragged nearly 500 feet along the beach and fought eight long minutes for air against the pounding surf.
"The waves smashed me so much, there were five really big ones, they flipped me around quite a few times," McQuiod told One News. "I think the longest for about 20 seconds."
Constable Paul Bailey of the Napier Police was the first one into the water to attempt to rescue McQuiod, but he had a difficult time holding on to him.
"A few times under the waves I was thinking, 'Have I done the right thing charging in here? Is it going to be two bodies they're looking for," Bailey told One News.
Another police officer instructed others to form a human chain from the shoreline into the water to bring McQuiod and Bailey to safety.
McQuiod was unresponsive when his lifeless body was brought back to shore. Once again, his rescuers stepped up and helped revive him before he was taken to a local hospital.
The dramatic video captured during the rescue shows more than a dozen people holding hands from the beach into the whitecap waves to bring the two to safety.
"I'd love to thank them so much for what they did. They saved my life. If it wasn't for them I'd be dead," McQuiod told One News.
NCRI - The Iranian regime authorities have blocked the use of software tools that people use to evade Iranian regime's Internet filtering.
Iranian regime has adopted one of the world's most substantial Internet censorship regimes. Iran under mullahs' rule is among a small group of states with the most sophisticated filtering systems purchased from Western countries.
Many Iranians citizens evade the filter through use of "Virtual Private Network". Using the technology, surfers in Iran could sign in to a server in the United States for example and pretend that they are actually located in the US and not Iran. This way they circumvent the Iranian government’s installed filters and Iran’s information agents will not easily know which websites they visited.
But authorities have now blocked "illegal" VPN access, a member of Iranian regime's parliament said on Sunday.
The head of parliament's information and communications technology committee, Ramezanali Sobhani-Fard quoted by state-run Mehr news agency as saying: "Within the last few days illegal VPN ports in the country have been blocked."
"Only legal and registered VPNs can from now on be used," he added.
NCRI- A man has been arrested by Ministry of Intelligence and Security for follow up of his brother's case, a political prisoner in Iran.
Masoud Kordpour was arrested in Mahabad by MOIS agents and transferred to an unknown location. There is no information on his whereabouts and he has not been able to contact his family
Russian scientists may have found new life under Antarctic ice
Posted 2013/03/07 at 1:18 pm EST
MOSCOW, Mar. 7, 2013 (Reuters) — Russian scientists believe they have discovered new life forms sealed off for millions of years in a subglacial lake deep under the Antarctic ice, the RIA news agency reported on Thursday.
A man stands near drilling apparatus at the Vostock research camp in Antarctica in this January 13, 2006 handout photograph. REUTERS/Alexey Ekaikin/Handout
After more than a decade of stop-and-go drilling, Russia pierced through Antarctica's frozen crust last year and took back samples of water from a vast lake that has lain untouched for at least 14 million year.
Scientists say the icy darkness of Lake Vostok, under some 12,139 feet of ice, may provide a glimpse of the planet before the Ice Age and clues to life on other planets.
"After excluding all known contaminants, bacterial DNA was found that does not match any known species in world databases," Sergei Bulat of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute told RIA.
"If it (the bacteria) had been found on Mars, then without a doubt we would have said there is life on Mars - but this is DNA from Earth," he said. "We are calling this life form unidentified or unclassified."
Scientists from the United States and Britain are close on Moscow's heels to probe what life may exist in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.
This year, a U.S. expedition said they had seen living cells under a microscope in field samples taken from the shallower subglacial Lake Whillans, but more study is needed to determine what kinds of bacteria they are and how they live.
A British effort to reach a third body, Lake Ellsworth, was called off in December because of problems drilling.
What life is found in the icy depths may provide the best answer yet to whether life can exist in the extreme conditions on Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa.
The Russian discovery came from analyzing water that froze onto the end of the drill bit used to bore through to Vostok - the largest of a network of hundreds of lakes under the ice cap that acts like a blanket trapping the Earth's geothermal heat.
Bulat and other members of Russia's Antarctic mission could not be reached for comment to Reuters on Thursday.
But Bulat told RIA that scientists are waiting for more samples from the lake to confirm their discovery.
Because of the technology used to keep from polluting the pristine lake, Russia will only obtain clean water samples - uncontaminated by drilling fluid - for analysis later this year.
To answer concerns kerosene and anti-freeze from the borehole would seep into the lake, Russian engineers withdrew the drill to allow the water to percolate up into the borehole and freeze there, only returning this year to collect it.
But Bulat said the unknown microbes were found after separating out species of bacteria that are known to exist in the drilling fluid.
"When we tried to identify the DNA, it did not coincide with any of known species. It's degree of similarity was less than 86 percent," Bulat told RIA.
"That is practically zero when working with DNA. A level of 90 percent tells us the organism is unknown."
Frozen samples from deeper in the borehole collected during this year's Antarctic summer season in February are now being carried back by boat and are due in St Petersburg in May.
"If we again identify the same group of organism in that pure sample of water, then we can confidently say we have found new life on Earth," Bulat said.
Saudi princess who fled £5 million Paris hotel bill to have assets seized
A Saudi princess who fled Paris's luxury Shangri-La hotel in the middle of
the night to avoid paying a £5 million hotel bill is to have her assets seized
in France, a judge has ruled.
A spokesman for the Shangri-La
said the hotel was pleased at the judge's ruling, but did not expect the bill to
be settled soonPhoto:
shangri-la.com
By Ian Sparks
2:50PM GMT 07 Mar 2013
Maha Al-Sudairi was caught ordering her entourage of 60 to load scores of
suitcases into a fleet of limos outside the hotel at 3.30am in June last year.
She had racked up the vast bill after checking into the hotel six months
previously, taking over an entire 41-room floor.
But when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia refused to pay for her stay, she
attempted the early morning dash, claiming diplomatic immunity and moving to the
nearby five-star Royal Monceau Hotel, near the Champs-Elysees, which is own by
"family friend" the Emir of Qatar.
She then left France a month later and has not returned since.
On Wednesday a court in Nanterre, west of Paris, ruled that her assets in
France must be seized to pay back at least six creditors, including a five star
concierge company, Cinquième Etoile, that she used to hire a limousine and
chauffeur.
The company also used sub-contractors to coordinate security, catering, and
housekeeping for the princess and her entourage.
The princess is known to have bought three storage units in central Paris,
where she is believed to have stashed her wares from her shopping trips around
the French capital – said to include luxury leather goods, artworks, jewellery,
and clothing worth up to £10 million. The judge has ordered that those units
must be opened up within the next few days.
Their contents will reportedly be seized and could be sold to pay off the
princess's debts, barring a complex legal process.
Princess Al-Sudairi's lavish foreign trips have even proved too much for King
Abdullah, who confined her to a palace in the oil-rich state in 2009 after she
left a trail of unpaid bills across Europe.
But the ex-wife of Nayef ben Abdel Aziz, the
former Saudi Crown Prince, who died weeks after the Paris incident, escaped and
headed for France.
Princess Maha has a history of frustrating foreign police forces.
The following year, she needed to again be bailed out by her after she
ordered £18,000 worth of glassware and silverware from a Paris store.
Her fabulously wealthy credentials meant her IOU notes handed to shopkeepers
reading 'payment to follow' were usually accepted.
Over the past years, up to 30 of Paris's most exclusive luxury goods
retailers have fallen foul of her credit notes, according to French newspapers.
Jacky Giami, owner of Paris's Key Largo leisure wear store, said the princess
and her relatives pillaged his shop of more than £100,000 worth of stock three
years ago.
He said he spent days loitering in the bar of the Georges V hotel hoping to
confront her, only to learn she had fled to London.
In 1995, Princess Maha was accused of assaulting a servant in Orange County,
Florida, whom she suspected of stealing $200,000 from her. No charges were
filed.
The six, who were not identified, join a growing list of anti-government activists caught up in an Internet crackdown by authorities in the Sunni-ruled Gulf nation.
NCRI - The European Union imposed sanctions on Tuesday on an Iranian regime’s cyberpolice that crackdowns on Internet users, as well on several judges and media bosses for human rights violations in Iran.
NCRI - The Iranian regime authorities have blocked the use of software tools that people use to evade Iranian regime's Internet filtering.
NCRI- A man has been arrested by Ministry of Intelligence and Security for follow up of his brother's case, a political prisoner in Iran.
