October 24, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
According to a new report from Reporters sans Frontiers, the United States is tied for 36th in the world for press freedom, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain and Taiwan. Of the nations that rank above the US, the report lists Mali, Ghana, Namibia, Jamaica, Surinam, as well as states formerly controlled by the Soviet Union such as the three Baltic states —Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—, and Slovakia. France ranked 35th, just ahead of the US.
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June 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Federal Communications Commission has been asked by leading members of Congress to investigate revelations about a Pentagon program to use retired military personnel, some working for defense contractors and arms manufacturers, to deliver “talking points” on US television in the months before the Iraq war. The viewing public was not informed of these officials’ special relationship to their former employer or of their ties to military contractors who stood to profit from the war.
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May 10, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
As multiple nations scramble to get aid supplies into position, and UN negotiators attempt to persuade the military junta to accept international rescue, health and food assistance, the generals ruling the country have turned away aid, seized aid packages while expelling aid-workers and sought to prevent journalists from entering the country. Some suspect the behavior, which one UN official called “unprecedented”, is tied to the junta’s aim of manipulating a referendum on its proposed constitution.
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May 8, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
As aid agencies warn of the threat of starvation, infection and epidemic, the junta of generals that rules Burma (which they have renamed Myanmar) is refusing access to most foreign aid being offered. The top US diplomat in the country has said the death toll could reach as high as 100,000 and some observers have said the junta has done little to collect the bodies floating in lingering flood waters.
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April 20, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
GUARDIAN BLOG CLASSES IT “WORST. DEBATE. EVER.”
Two ABC News reporters were criticized for the quality of the debate questions they posed to the two senators competing for the Democratic nomination for the US presidency. Some critics have said the questions were reminiscent of the kind of exaggerations and innuendo typical of “character-assassination” campaigns waged by […]
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March 31, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, yesterday, as police wielded bamboo clubs and beat demonstrators, including Buddhist monks and nuns. The UN has said Nepal’s harsh clampdown on Tibetan demonstrators violates international human rights law, including the right to peaceful assembly, as embodied in treaties signed by Nepal.
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March 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
We are on the verge of a major communications and global economic revolution, in which major media, technological advances, cloud computing and dispersed optimization, adapt to and take over new models for living and producing in human society. The New Scientist magazine reports in its March 15-21, 2008 edition that “web 3.0 will be about making information less free”.
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March 17, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A revolutionary web-based social networking project, Witness.org has created a platform for delivering evidentiary video documenting human rights abuses for the collective conscience of the online world. ‘The Hub’, as the video sharing platform is called, is designed to ensure that individuals who have documented potential human rights abuses, or who are able to give […]
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March 16, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Two days after peaceful demonstrations across Tibet turned violent in the capital Lhasa, the Reuters news agency has reported that the violent clashes between protesters and Chinese security forces have spread to neighboring provinces. Supporters of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, say they have confirmed at least 80 deaths among demonstrators.
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January 25, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
IN PART, USER PRIVACY WILL HAVE TO BECOME PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The potential for broad-scope “electronic agents” —preprogrammed service aggregators and self-organizing databases with proactive marketing capability—, aiding in everyday information-related activities, will require a new security standard to prevent identity theft, which could become one of the gravest threats to economic performance […]
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January 24, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The potential for broad-scope “electronic agents” —preprogrammed service aggregators and self-organizing databases with proactive marketing capability—, aiding in everyday information-related activities, will require a new security standard to prevent identity theft, which could become one of the gravest threats to economic performance and individual liberty.
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January 9, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
PLANNED FILTERING WOULD END OPEN INTERNET AS IT HAS EXISTED UNTIL NOW, REPLACING IT WITH STRATIFIED, PREMIUM-BRAND CONTROLLED CONTENT FORMAT
AT&T is proposing the implementation of new filtering technologies “at the network level” that would essentially interrupt in a definitive way the public’s freedom to access online content. The concept known as ‘net neutrality’ refers to […]
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September 24, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
WAS HE ELECTROCUTED BY POLICE FOR USING OBSCENITY OR FOR ASKING UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS OF A POLITICIAN? WHICH OF THE TWO IS MORE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?
Last week, a journalism student attending a speech by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), at the University of Florida, was cuffed, electrocuted and detained by police while posing a series of hard questions to […]
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August 9, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
THE OPEN INTERNET IS A FORCE FOR DEMOCRACY & OPEN GOV’T, NOW IT IS UNDER THREAT FROM THOSE WHO WISH TO BOTTLENECK THE FREE PRESS
The concept of ‘net neutrality’ refers to the current state of affairs in the free democracies of the world, where those who control the physical infrastructure of the Internet are not […]
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