Saudi Arabia ( Saudi women strive to overcome obstacles as PR professionals )

As Saudi women strive to excel in the field of public relations/communications, society’s norms and traditions put obstacles in their way.
Many Saudi women entered the field driven by the successful experiences of professional women in the PR field recently. However, most haven’t ventured into the private sector yet as they prefer to work with government and charity organizations.


Media and PR specialists see a need in developing the PR field in government organizations, particularly women sections. Dr. Hamad Al-Mousa, a media professor and head of the Department of Higher Education and Scientific Research at Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University, said PR departments do not follow a clear plan.
“Many establishments don’t even allocate a budget for the PR department,” he said.
Some see traditional work approach as an added difficulty for women as employers adhere to gender-based division of work.
Dr. Mohammad Al-Hizan, president of the Saudi Association for Public Relations and Advertisements, says female government PR departments are marginalized. “Employers ask women to deal with hospitality and meeting hall arrangements,” Al-Hizan said. “The real PR tasks are assigned to other departments.”
Al-Mousa said that lack of media exposure among women decreases the efficiency of PR work. “Most PR women avoid media despite its vital need in their work. Media skills are diminished as a result,” he said.
Only 10 percent of Saudi women working in PR utilize modern technology, such as social media websites, to communicate with their target audience. The remaining 90 percent of the female administrations use traditional communication means, such as faxes and telephones.”
Salma Al-Motairi, a lecturer in the Media Department at King Saud University in Riyadh, criticized the lack of modern technology use in PR departments during the First Workshop for PR Officials held at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently.
Rania Al-Sharif, a Saudi academic specializing in information management, said: “The technology revolution advanced services in all sectors, particularly communications and PR departments, and women and their employers should have adopted it to their benefit.”
Al-Sharif said departments that allocated pages for social media networks in Saudi Arabia have not achieved the desired goals, because they were not inviting. “They are pages only used for answering questions, just like Twitter accounts for some Saudi universities,” she said.
While social media is developing as a tool for PR in Saudi organizations, the new field has a potential of becoming a women’s field of choice as it requires less media exposure.

Iraq ( Five Senior Army Officers Killed in Iraq Ambush )

BAGHDAD – At least five senior Iraqi army officers and 10 other soldiers were killed Saturday in an ambush by suspected Al Qaeda-linked militants in the western province of Al Anbar.

Fourteen other soldiers were wounded in the attack, a spokesperson for the police in Ramadi, Al Anbar’s capital, told Efe.

The fatalities include the commander of the army’s 7th Division and the commander of that division’s 1st Brigade.

The military men were killed in a powerful blast at the entrance to a militant hide-out in a region some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Ramadi.

The militants planted the explosives before fleeting the scene, the police spokesperson said.

Authorities accused the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has stepped up its attacks on Iraqi security forces in recent months, of responsibility for the ambush.

A recent rise in sectarian violence and terrorist attacks in Iraq left 948 people – mostly civilians – dead in November, according to the government.

Mexico ( Six Die in Shootout in Northeastern Mexico )

MEXICO CITY – Six gunmen were killed in a clash with army soldiers outside the northeastern Mexican border city of Matamoros, authorities said.

The Tamaulipas Coordination Group, which is made up of state and federal security forces, reported the number killed in the clash in a statement Friday, saying it took place shortly after midday Thursday in an area known as “Brecha 10” between the municipalities of Valle Hermoso and Matamoros.

Army soldiers were responding to a tip about the presence of several suspicious vehicles in the area, the group said.

After coming under attack by the gunmen, they repelled the aggression and killed “six of the assailants, while the others managed to flee.”

The soldiers confiscated 11 rifles, including a Barrett .50 caliber long-range assault rifle, a grenade launcher, hand grenades, ammunition, tactical gear and four SUVs at the scene.

The Gulf, Los Zetas and Sinaloa drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas state, where Matamoros is located, and smuggling routes into the United States for years.

Matamoros is located across the border from Brownsville, Texas

Protest ( A protester taunts " Water cannon " and gets it )

MANILA ( Mayor killed along with his wife and child )

MANILA, Philippines: A gunman attacked a Philippine mayor as he left the country’s main airport on Friday along with crowds of Christmas travelers, killing him, his wife, a child and another man, authorities and witnesses said.


The gunman fired on Labangan Mayor Ukol Talumpa outside Terminal 3 at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, named after President Benigno Aquino III’s father, who was assassinated there 30 years ago. The terminal handles international and domestic flights, and is supposed to be a relatively well-guarded facility. Talumpa had arrived from Zamboanga del Sur, the southern province where Labangan is located.
There was no word on a possible motive, but violent attacks linked to political rivalries, family feuds and business disputes are common in the Philippines, and have left hundreds of people dead over the years. Talumpa himself had survived at least two earlier assassination attempts, according to local media reports.
The mayor and his wife were declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital along with a 1 1/2-year-old boy and a 25-year-old man, said the airport’s general manager, Jose Angel Honrado.
Local radio reports said that the man was a nephew of the mayor, but that the boy was a bystander with no relation to Talumpa.
At least five other people were wounded, including a niece of the mayor and a 3-year-old girl who sustained a head wound, hospital authorities said.
An uncle of the dead boy, Felipe Lirasan, told DZMM radio that the child’s family was staying at his home for Christmas. “Then this happened,” he said, his voice breaking. “There is nothing that we can do.”
Honrado said that investigators were trying to determine how many attackers were involved. Witnesses, however, saw only one gunman, who sped away on a waiting motorcycle that was driven by another man, Honrado said.
An airport car rental dispatcher said one of the two men on the motorcycle was wearing a cap and what appeared to be a police uniform.
“When shots rang out, the passengers all rushed inside the terminal,” said the dispatcher, who spoke to a local radio station but didn’t give his name.
He said the man wearing the police uniform almost fell off the motorcycle as they sped away. They were chased by airport authorities in cars, but the pair wove their way through the stalled vehicles and escaped, he said.
Local newspapers have reported that Talumpa, then a vice mayor of Labangan, and one of his nephews were wounded in another attack in 2010 in Manila. Last year, assailants lobbed a grenade at Talumpa and his wife in Pagadian City, the capital of Zamboanga del Sur, but they escaped unhurt. Talumpa was elected mayor earlier this year.
Islamic extremists are active in Zamboanga del Sur, but there was no immediate indication that this attack was related to the insurgency.

Pakistan ( 2 gunmen kill " Health worker " administering polio drops )

PESHAWAR: Two gunmen shot dead a health worker administering polio drops and other vaccines to children in a restive Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said.
The murder took place at a government-run dispensary in Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal district. The gunmen ordered women and children to leave before shooting dead the vaccinator, doctor Sameen Jan, the top health official in Khyber said.


 Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the killing, but Taliban militants have been targeting health workers and security personnel during vaccination campaigns.
A local administration official confirmed the incident and said that the assailants left a note on the body warning of dire consequences for anyone continuing to vaccinate children in Khyber.
The attacks come despite a recent fatwa by a prominent Pakistani religious scholar, known as the "Father of the Taliban", who urged parents to immunise their children against polio and other life-threatening diseases and said vaccinations were compliant with Sharia.
Last year the Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccinations in the tribal region of Waziristan, alleging the campaign was a cover for espionage.
Eradication efforts have also suffered due to long-standing rumours that the vaccine was part of a Western plot to sterlise Muslims.

Mexico ( Parents and teachers clash at Mexico school - The Latest News )

India ( Domino's Pizza " Ransacked " over arrest of Indian diplomat )

NEW DELHI: Indian protesters ransacked a Dominos Pizza outlet in a Mumbai suburb, demanding a ban on US goods as officials from the two countries struggled to defuse a row over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.


 Police and the Indian franchise of the US chain said no-one was hurt in the attack, which came amid unrelenting rage in India over the arrest and subsequent strip-search of Devyani Khobragade for visa fraud and under-payment of her housekeeper.
India has demanded that the charges be dropped against the diplomat and her father threatened to start a fast if US authorities pressed ahead with the case.
US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed regret over the case in a phone call to India’s national security adviser this week, but US prosecutors have defended the investigation against Khobragade and her treatment.
Police in Mumbai said they were stepping up patrolling of major US outlets including McDonald’s after workers of the small Republican Party of India attacked the Dominos store. The group sent pictures to media organizations showing a broken glass door.
“The fact is that (the) American authorities have behaved atrociously with an Indian diplomat. And obviously, America has to make good for its actions,” said Manish Tiwari, minister for information and broadcasting.
“So therefore, I think it is a legitimate expectation, that if they have erred, and they have erred grievously in this matter, they should come forth and apologize.”
Khobragade was arrested last week and released on $250,000 bail after giving up her passport and pleading not guilty to charges of visa fraud and making false statements about how much she paid her housekeeper. She faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
The US Justice Department confirmed that Khobragade was strip-searched after her arrest. A senior Indian government source has said the interrogation also included a cavity search, although US officials have denied this.

Female Fight ( Small girl with " Big stick " vs. Large Girl )

Update beach News ( The sale of " Crack " is Down on the Beach ) See photo

Brazil News ( Brazil to Buy 36 Jet Fighters from Sweden’s Saab )

BRASILIA – Sweden’s Saab AB prevailed over U.S. giant Boeing and French manufacturer Dassault Aviation in a competition to supply the Brazilian air force with 36 aircraft to replace its aging Mirage 2000s, Brazil said Wednesday.

Brasilia agreed to pay $4.5 billion for 36 Gripen NG jet fighters, marking the end of a process that has unfolded in fits and starts since 2001 under three different presidents.

Dassault wanted $8 billion for 36 units of its Rafale fighter, while Boeing was asking $7.5 billion for three-dozen F/A-18 Super Hornets, the Brazilian government said in a statement.

The decision for the Gripen “took into account performance, the effective transfer of technology and costs – not just of acquisition but of maintenance,” Defense Minister Celso Amorim told a press conference.

Besides offering the lowest price, Saab promised comprehensive technology sharing with Brazil.

Securing a transfer of the relevant technology has become a Brazilian priority in major defense procurement deals.

“The technology transfer will give us intellectual ownership of everything,” Brazil’s air force chief, Brig. Gen. Juniti Saito, said at the press conference with Amorim.

Some components of the fighters will be built in Brazil, Saito said.

The choice of the Gripen caught many by surprise, as a number of Brazilian officials had signaled their preference for the Rafale even as the pilots who will eventually fly the new fighters wanted the F/A-18

Mexico ( 5 high school kids " Run over and killed " by Gunmen )

MEXICO CITY – Five high school students ages 13-15 died after being run over by two gunmen in an SUV who were fleeing a military convoy, authorities in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas said.

Two other people struck by the SUV, an adult woman and a 5-year-old girl, were listed in stable condition at an area hospital, the state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The incident occurred Wednesday in Reynosa, a city just across the border from McAllen, Texas.

The armed men were fleeing the soldiers at high speed when the driver of the SUV lost control of the vehicle in front of a school where students were waiting for a bus.

After running over five students, the SUV smashed into two cars parked outside the school, causing injuries to a woman and child who were inside one of those vehicles.

The gunmen managed to get away, the state AG’s office said.

The Tamaulipas state government offered condolences to the victims’ families and promised a relentless effort to apprehend the gunmen.

Female muslim Rocker ( " Omnia " Muslim rocker sings for women's rights )

China ( Chinese police shoot dead 14 during riot in Xinjiang )

 

Two policemen also killed during violence near Kashgar in Xinjiang after attempted arrest of "criminal suspects" according to local government officials

In October a vehicle ploughed into tourists on the edge of Beijing's Tiananmen Square (pictured) killing the three people in the car and two bystanders Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP

Reuters

6:05AM GMT 16 Dec 2013

Chinese police shot and killed 14 people during a riot near the old Silk Road city of Kashgar in which two policemen were also killed, the regional government said on Monday, in the latest incident of unrest in the far western region.

Police were attacked by a mob throwing explosive devices and wielding knives on Sunday when they went to arrest "criminal suspects" in a village near Kashgar in Xinjiang province, the government said on its official news portal Tianshan.

"Police responded decisively," the government said in a brief statement, adding that two people had also been detained and that an investigation had been launched.

Reuters was unable to immediately reach government officials for comment.

At least nine civilians and two policemen were killed when a group of people armed with axes and knives attacked a police station also near Kashgar last month, state media has said

EL Paso ( man arrested after allegedly posting woman's info on Craigslist )

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Posted:   12/19/2013 01:19:26 AM MST

Click photo to enlarge

Alejandro Mata (Photo courtesy El Paso Police Department)

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	REPORTER
	Daniel Borunda

A 22-year-old El Paso man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly harassing a woman by posting her telephone number on a dating website, police officials said. Police investigators and FBI agents on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Alejandro Mata at his home in the 700 block of Espolon Drive on the West Side. In September and October, Mata allegedly posted the woman's information and phone number on the "women seeking men" and "casual encounters" section of Craigslist, a classified ads website, police said. The posting was allegedly intended to annoy, embarrass and harass the woman and caused her phone to keep ringing. Mata was charged with felony online impersonation and misdemeanor harassment. He was jailed in lieu of a $71,000 bond.

New Mexico ( A woman Sues over " Anal and Vaginal probes " by federal officers ) 6 hrs long

 

By Aaron Bracamontes / El Paso Times

Posted:   12/18/2013 10:39:21 PM MST

	REPORTER
	Aaron Bracamontes

›› View a copy of the lawsuit A New Mexico woman claims in a federal lawsuit that she underwent a brutal and inhumane six-hour full-body cavity search by federal officers that included anal and vaginal probes that made her feel like an "animal."
The woman, a Lovington, N.M. resident, also is suing University Medical Center, where she was forced to have an observed bowel movement, was X-rayed, had a speculum exam, vaginal exam and had a CT scan.
The suit claims the hospital "violated her" and then gave her the $5,000 bill.
The lawsuit names the El Paso County Hospital District's Board of Managers, University Medical Center, Drs. Michael Parsa and Christopher Cabanillas, two unknown supervising U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and two other CBP officers only identified by their last names of Portillo and Herrera as defendants. The doctors and the agents could not be reached for comment.
The 54-year-old woman, who is not identified in the suit, is asking for an unspecified amount of money and to end the policy that gives federal agents and officers the authority to stick their fingers and objects up people's cavities when they search for drugs.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court in El Paso on behalf of the woman who was stopped as she crossed at the Bridge of the Americas a year ago. Despite the six-hour search at the port and then later at UMC, no drugs were found.
The woman is identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, the woman was first frisked and strip-searched at the port of entry, where officers stuck their fingers inside her rectum and vagina. When that search came up negative, she was taken to University Medical Center.
"These extreme and illegal searches deeply traumatized our client," ACLU of New Mexico Legal Director Laura Schauer Ives said in the news release. "The fact that our government treated an innocent 54-year-old woman with such brutality and inhumanity should outrage all Americans. We must ensure that government agents never put another person through a nightmare like this ever again."
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a prepared statement that the agency could not talk about a specific lawsuit.
"As a practice CBP does not comment on pending litigation," the statement said. "CBP stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission, and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees and officers perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe. We do not tolerate corruption or abuse within our ranks, and we fully cooperate with any criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct by any of our personnel, on or off-duty."
University Medical Center also declined to get into specifics of the lawsuit.
"Hospital policy is to obtain consent from all patients who receive medical services at UMC," spokeswoman Margaret Altoff-Olivas said in a statement. "Because this case involves litigation, UMC will not be commenting further."
The search took place at about 2 p.m. Dec. 12, 2012, when the woman was coming back from seeing a family friend, whom she calls "uncle" and tries to visit once a month.
As her passport was swiped, a CBP officer told her she was "randomly" picked for a secondary inspection, where Portillo and Herrera frisked her through her clothing.
"One of the agents ran her finger over Ms. Doe's genital area during the frisk," the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to squat as one of the officers "inserted her finger in the crevice of Ms. Doe's buttocks." The frisk did not show any evidence of contraband or drugs, the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to stand in a line with other people as a drug-sniffing dog walked by.
The officer with the dog "hit the ground by her feet, but did not hit the ground by any of the others in the line," the lawsuit said. "The dog responded by lunging onto Ms. Doe and landing its front paws on her torso."
Ives said she does not believe this was a proper signal to indicate a drugs were present, but officers used it to continue the search.
The woman was taken to another room and asked to take off her pants and crouch as her anus and vagina were examined with a flashlight, the lawsuit said.
The woman, now crying, was taken to University Medical Center after the strip search did not find anything.
"During the car ride to the Medical Center, Ms. Doe asked if the agents had a warrant," the lawsuit said. "One of them responded that they did not need a warrant."
While handcuffed to an examination table, the woman was searched again by both officers and Cabanillas and Parsa. She was given a laxative and had a bowel movement in a portable toilet in front of both officers, the lawsuit said.
Then the woman's abdomen was X-rayed, but there were no signs of drugs or any other contraband in the woman's body. A speculum was used to probe her vagina and Parsa's fingers were used to inspect both her vagina and rectum while the door to the examining room was left open, the lawsuit said.
At this point the lawsuit claims, "Ms. Doe felt that she was being treated less than human, like an animal."
The last test was a CT scan of the woman's abdomen and pelvis, which resulted in no evidence of illegal activity being found.
The lawsuit said after the CT scan one of the officers told the woman she could sign the medical consent form and CBP would pay for the exams, but if she did not sign, she would be charged. The woman refused to sign and eventually she was charged more than $5,000 for the examinations.
According to the lawsuit, she repeatedly refused to consent to any of the searches.
University Medical Center's search of patients policy states, "Associates, members of Medical Staff, Residents or Allied Health Professionals may search a patient only when necessary to comply with a search warrant." Under the subhead procedure, the policy states, "...unless a patient consents, an invasion of the patient's body to obtain evidence requires a search warrant."
A warrant was not obtained, the lawsuit said.
"However, in practice, the Medical Center staff and CBP agents routinely conduct invasive cavity searches without warrant, consent or sufficient suspicion to justify the searches," the lawsuit said. "When Ms. Doe expressed dismay about the unreasonable searches she suffered, a Medical Center employee responded that these procedures were routinely followed when an individual is brought in by CBP agents."
In a phone interview, Ives said searches like the one the 54-year-old woman went through are illegal and becoming common among law enforcement.
"When the less intrusive search didn't find any evidence of drugs, more intrusive searches should have not been used," Ives said. "Any one of those searches should have eliminated any suspicion of drugs. A second search should make it clear and at most a third search should have been the last."
She said: "The fact that this happened to a 54-year-old woman should outrage anyone. She did ask to talk to an attorney and she did ask for a warrant. I don't know what guarantees there are to our rights other than a lawsuit like this one that hold the government agencies responsible."
Last month, a Deming man sued Deming police officers who gave him three enemas, two anal probes and a colonoscopy after he was suspected of having drugs. The search found nothing, and lawyers for the man said the warrant used to conduct the search failed to show probable cause.

Aaron Bracamontes may be reached at 546-6156.

JAPAN ( University student arrested for kicking stroller with baby in it )

Crime Dec. 19, 2013 - 07:00AM JST ( 43 )

OSAKA —

A 20-year-old male university student has been arrested in Ibaraki City, Osaka Prefecture, for violently kicking a stroller which had a baby inside, police said Wednesday.
According to police, the incident occurred on Nov 18. TV Asahi reported that the suspect, Daiki Sugimoto, approached a 36-year-old woman pushing her four-month-old baby along in a carriage on a sidewalk, and proceeded to violently kick the stroller without saying anything.
Police said they are questioning Sugimoto in connection with a recent series of assaults on young women with baby strollers in the vicinity of the Nov 18 attack. 

Mexico ( Four dead in shootout - head " Gunman for Sinaloa Cartel " Killed )

Thursday, December 19, 2013 | Four dead, all alleged gunmen, was the result of intense shootout this morning in Puerto Peñasco, said at a press conference Attorney General of the State of Sonora.


Among the dead Gonzalo Inzunza Inzunza is the Macho Prieto, head of gunmen in the service of the Sinaloa cartel, and in recent years was operating in the states of Sonora and Baja California.

Carlos Navarro Sugich reported that there could be a fifth died but until mid morning had not been identified victims. Ríodoce sources confirmed that indeed, one of the dead is Inzunza Inzunza.


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MOSCOW ( Russia Amnesty to Free Greenpeace, Pussy Riot Members )

MOSCOW – Russia’s parliament on Wednesday passed an amnesty bill that extends to individuals charged or convicted of hooliganism, including Greenpeace activists who staged a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic and members of feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot.

Twenty-eight crewmembers of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise icebreaker and two freelance journalists on board the vessel were arrested on Sept. 19, a day after some of the activists tried to scale the Prirazlomnaya oil platform – operated by Russian state energy giant Gazprom – in the Barents Sea.

They were jailed for two months before being released on bond pending trial on hooliganism charges and may not leave the country until their legal proceedings have concluded.

The protest will not halt Gazprom’s plans to produce oil with the Prirazlomnaya rig in the Arctic, according to the company.

In a statement on its Web site, Greenpeace said “legal proceedings against the ‘Arctic 30’ are now almost certain to come to an end and the 26 non-Russians will be free to return home to their families as soon as they are given exit visas by the Russian authorities.”

But the Arctic Sunrise’s captain, American Peter Willcox, one of the suspects expected to be allowed to leave the country, was quoted as saying the news was no cause for celebration.

“There’s no amnesty for the Arctic. We may soon be home, but the Arctic remains a fragile global treasure under assault by oil companies and the rising temperatures they’re driving. We went there to protest against this madness. We were never the criminals here.”

Meanwhile, two jailed members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, who were convicted on charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hate,” are expected to be released from prison ahead of schedule.

The two women have already served most of their two-year sentence.

Ekaterina Samutsevich, a third member of the group who took part in the February 2012 protest against President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy at a Moscow cathedral, had earlier been released on a suspended sentence.

The Duma, in its 446-0 vote on Wednesday, approved changes to an amnesty that was proposed by Putin and includes “the most unprotected social sectors” such as minors, pregnant women and mothers whose children are still under the age of 18.

Eric Snowden ( NSA Leaker Snowden Wants Asylum in Brazil )

NSA Leaker Snowden Wants Asylum in Brazil, Press Reports Say
According to the daily Folha de Sao Paulo, the former NSA analyst is still planning to seek permanent asylum in Brazil, even though this country has already refused to grant it

BRASILIA – The former analyst of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, is planning to seek permanent asylum in Brazil, even though this country has already refused to grant it, according to a letter that the daily Folha de Sao Paulo obtained and published Tuesday.

After Snowden revealed that the communications of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, several of her ministers and even the state-run oil company Petrobras were under surveillance by the United States, Brazil has headed several global initiatives to regulate online spying.

In an “open letter to the people of Brazil,” Snowden says he “stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government’s National Security Agency” and shared with the world “evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say.”

In the letter obtained by the daily Folha de Sao Paulo, Snowden refers to the way Brazil has been affected by U.S. espionage.

“The NSA and other spying agencies tell us that for our own ‘safety’ – for Dilma’s ‘safety,’ for Petrobras’ ‘safety’ – they have revoked our right to privacy and broken into our lives. And they did it without asking the public in any country, even their own.”

He adds that “today, if you carry a cell phone in Sao Paulo, the NSA can and does keep track of your location: they do this 5 billion times a day to people around the world.”

According to Snowden, “until a country grants (me) permanent political asylum, the U.S. government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak” and report on what it is doing.

Currently living in Brazil is journalist Glenn Greenwald, ex-columnist for the British daily The Guardian, who is one of Snowden’s “contacts” and who published many of the documents revealed by the one-time NSA employee.

WASHINGTON ( Harvard University Returns to Normal after Bomb Hoax )

WASHINGTON – Harvard University is returning to normal after a bomb hoax on Monday forced authorities to evacuate four buildings on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus where final exams were being given.

University police found no trace of the alleged explosives during their investigation and they were unable to verify any specific threat against the campus or students, and so the all clear was given for the university to return to its normal activities.

However, authorities will continue investigating to determine who was responsible for the bomb threat that disrupted campus activities and forced some final exams to be suspended.

Local media reported on Twitter that students on campus did not take the threat very seriously, recalling that this is final exam week.

University authorities ordered four buildings evacuated after the threat was received and alerted the police that they had an “unconfirmed” report regarding the presence of explosives on campus.

Harvard authorities in a Twitter message instructed students to evacuate the Science Center, Thayer, Sever and Emerson buildings, but all facilities later returned to their normal functions and operations.

San Diego ( 3,000 Bikers Take Part in Toy Run to Tijuana )

SAN DIEGO – More than 3,000 motorcyclists traveled from San Diego to Tijuana to participate in the 28th edition of the “Toy Run,” a charitable event to support children living in the Mexican border city.

The event, organized by the Solo Angeles club of Tijuana and the Harley Davidson club of San Diego, gathered bikers from California and the Mexican state of Baja California, who donated toys to thousands of children who waited from early in the morning seated along Revolucion Ave. in Tijuana.

According to organizers, the caravan required about six months of preparation during which thousands of toys were donated by companies in the United States.

One of the participants, Diablo, said that the Toy Run began more than 20 years ago when a group of bikers delivered toys to a Tijuana orphanage and, once the immense demand was noticed, they decided to organize a much larger event.

“At times there are no words. You’re giving a child something he’s going to play with, and seeing his happy face is a great satisfaction,” Diablo said.

Maria Santos waited in line since very early in the morning, her 6-year-old son Samuel said, since in addition to helping him get a toys she enjoys seeing the motorcycles.

“She asked for one for Christmas,” he said smiling.

“It’s a very perfect event and we’re always grateful that they take the time to come and give happiness to my son and other children,” she said.

Iran ( Police Chief threatens officials over " Facebook " Governor opened his account )

Just days after Iran's Police Chief threatened the country's officials with "legal and judicial consequences" if they continue to cross the regime's red lines by using Facebook, a governor in the southeastern province of Fars has opened his own Facebook page.

 

Mohabat News -  With only 326 followers, and labeled "managed by fans of Dr. Seyed Mohammad Ahmadi," this Facebook page is no less significant than Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif's Facebook page with 771,000 followers: they have both crossed the regime's red lines.

The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to face a precarious position vis-à-vis Facebook and other social networks. While some Iranian officials have discovered the importance and significance of social networks as tools for disseminating information about their activities and testing the waters for new policies or getting public feedback through online dialogue, use of these social networks is still considered a crime for ordinary Iranians.

Last week Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, Secretary of the Work Group to Determine Instances of Criminal Content on the Internet, called Facebook "an espionage website" which must be blocked. "Considering the Supreme Leader's explicit reference to Facebook's effective role in the '2009 Sedition'"—referring to public protests following the disputed 2009 elections—"as well as warnings in this regard, issued by the esteemed Grand Ayatollahs, Ulama, and those who care about the regime, I doubt anyone is pondering the necessity of continuing the blocking of this website," Khorramabdi told Fars News website. The week before that, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi had also expressed dismay at statements made by officials about the possible unblocking of Facebook.

Gholamali Haddad Adel, a conservative MP from Tehran and a high-ranking advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, said on December 6 that decisions about unblocking Facebook must be made by the Parliament. While agreeing with the notion that the Parliament should be involved in decision-making about Facebook, however, Ali Motahari, another conservative MP, told reporters this week that he is still investigating, "to see which one outweighs the other—Facebook's advantages or disadvantages. Blocking [Facebook] has not led to the elimination of demand for this network. Even my son has a page on Facebook." Another Rouhani cabinet member with a Facebook page is his Vice President in Women's and Family Affairs, Shahindokht Mowlaverdi, whose following includes many social and civil activists and journalists.