Tag Archives: bbc

Pakistani Taliban Kills At Least 145 People—Including More Than 100 Kids—in Savage School Massacre

by MartinaLorenzo Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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The Pakistani Taliban is claiming responsibility for a deadly attack inside a military-run school in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, on Tuesday, that has left as many as 145 dead, more than 100 of them students. The BBC has described the attack as the deadliest massacre ever carried out by the Taliban in Pakistan.

Gunmen entered Army Public School and Degree College by scaling the walls of the campus’ main building. The attackers held students hostage for more than eight hours, as they moved systematically from classroom to classroom firing at children. Reuters quoted a local hospital as saying that the dead and injured were aged between 10 and 20 years old.

Six gunmen were reportedly killed in the gunfire. A spokesperson for the terrorist group says the massacre was a retaliation against earlier Pakistani military activities against militants in North Waziristan.

“We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani said, according to Reuters. “We want them to feel the pain.”

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has traveled to Peshawar, has called for three days of national mourning.

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Pakistani Taliban Kills At Least 145 People—Including More Than 100 Kids—in Savage School Massacre

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Russian Sanctions Mostly Hitting Russian Consumers

by TandyChavers Posted on August 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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The BBC reports on how those Russian sanctions against Western food have put the squeeze on European and American suppliers:

Moscow officials say frozen fish prices in the capital’s major supermarkets have risen by 6%, milk by 5.3% and an average cheese costs 4.4% more than it did before the 7 August ban took effect. Russia has banned imports of those basic foods, as well as meat and many other products, from Western countries, Australia and Japan. It is retaliation for the West’s sanctions on Russia over the revolt by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

And it is not just Moscow. On the island of Sakhalin, in Russia’s far east, officials say the price of chicken thighs has soared 60%. Before the sanctions these were among the cheapest and most popular meat products in Russia.

Oops. Sorry about that. It’s actually Russian consumers who are paying the price. And for now, that seems to be OK:

Polls show that the vast majority of Russians approve of the sanctions against Western food. They have been told by government officials and state-controlled TV that the embargo will not affect prices, and that it will actually allow Russia’s own agriculture to flourish. And that message is being believed.

At a guess, Russian consumers aren’t very different from American consumers. Nationalistic pride will work for a while, as people accept higher prices as the cost of victory against whoever they’re fighting at the moment. But that won’t last any longer in Russia than it does in America. Give it a few months and public opinion is likely to turn decidedly surly. Who really cares about those damn Ukrainians anyway? They’re just a bunch of malcontents and always have been, amirite?

This is why Vladimir Putin needs a quick victory. The fact that he’s not getting it will eventually prompt him to either (a) quietly give up, or (b) go all in. Unfortunately, there’s really no telling which it will be.

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Russian Sanctions Mostly Hitting Russian Consumers

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Europe’s Memory Hole Gets Ever Wider and Deeper

by EileenADGY Posted on July 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Yesterday I passed along the news that a BBC article about Stan O’Neal, the former head of Merrill Lynch, had been removed from Google searches in Europe. Today the Guardian reports on several of its recent pieces that have been scrubbed from Google searches:

Three of the articles, dating from 2010, relate to a now-retired Scottish Premier League referee, Dougie McDonald, who was found to have lied about his reasons for granting a penalty in a Celtic v Dundee United match, the backlash to which prompted his resignation.

….The other disappeared articles — the Guardian isn’t given any reason for the deletions — are a 2011 piece on French office workers making post-it art, a 2002 piece about a solicitor facing a fraud trial standing for a seat on the Law Society’s ruling body and an index of an entire week of pieces by Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade.

The Guardian has no form of appeal against parts of its journalism being made all but impossible for most of Europe’s 368 million to find.

It’s a little hard to see how articles that are a mere three or four years old can be deemed “irrelevant,” but in Europe, I guess that if you declare something about yourself to be irrelevant, then it is. Congratulations, EU Court of Justice!

UPDATE 1: Interestingly, it turns out that yesterday’s removal of the BBC story wasn’t initiated by Stan O’Neal. Apparently it was initiated by someone who left a comment on the original story. I’m actually not sure if this is better or worse.

UPDATE 2: Over at the Monkey Cage, Henry Farrell argues that it’s not really the ECJ that’s censoring content, it’s Google. But even with the caveats he includes, I think Farrell is being far too kind to the ECJ, which issued an unforgivably fuzzy decision that basically puts Google in the impossible position of being forced to act as a privacy regulator with neither the tools nor the guidance it needs to do the job properly. However, he agrees with a suggestion I made yesterday that Google might be reading the ECJ’s directive over-broadly in a deliberate attempt to get everyone in a tizzy over it:

Google may have incentives to accede to the takedown request without complaint — and to publicize that it is so doing — because it knows that this is likely to send journalists into a frenzy. Even if the ECJ can press Google into service as an unpaid regulator, it can’t force Google to regulate in the exact ways that it would like Google to. And Google, like the Good Soldier Svejk in Jan Hasek’s novel, can perhaps interpret the court’s mandate in ways that formally stick to the rules, but in practice actually undermine it. There are, of course, other possible explanations for Google’s actions — it may be that there are excellent private reasons why Google is acceding to this request. But for sure, the controversy surrounding the request helps Google to push back (as it wants to push back) against strong interpretations of European privacy standards.

Maybe so.

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Europe’s Memory Hole Gets Ever Wider and Deeper

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The EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Starts to Take Concrete Shape

by JustinYQON Posted on July 2, 2014

Mother Jones

A few days ago, Google announced that it was beavering away on the 41,000 requests it had gotten from people demanding that it remove links to unflattering articles about themselves. So just what kind of people are making these requests? Brad DeLong directs me to the BBC’s Robert Peston, who gives us a clue:

This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google:

Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/robertpeston/2007/10/merrills_mess.html

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe….Now in my blog, only one individual is named. He is Stan O’Neal, the former boss of the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

My column describes how O’Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

Is the data in it “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”?

Hmmm.

I wonder if there’s a way to make this backfire? How hard would it be to create an automated process that figures out which articles Google is being forced to stuff down the memory hole? Probably not too hard, I imagine. And how hard would it then be to repost those articles in enough different places that they all zoomed back toward the top of Google’s search algorithm? Again, probably not too hard for a group of people motivated to do some mischief.

Maybe someone is already working on this. It wouldn’t surprise me. And I wonder if Google’s surprisingly quick response to the EU decision isn’t designed to spur exactly this kind of backlash. That wouldn’t really surprise me either.

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The EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Starts to Take Concrete Shape

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Boko Haram Has Been Terrorizing Nigeria for Years. Why Did We Just Start to Care?

by DongTrouette Posted on May 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the wake of the April kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram, fearsome images of the militants—in army fatigues and turbans, brandishing automatic weapons and rounds of ammo—have been splashed over the front pages of the international press. But the Al Qaeda-linked group has been slaughtering Nigerians by the hundreds since 2009. They’ve also kidnapped scores of women and children and attacked dozens of schools over the past year, with little attention from the Western media. Why did the foreign press decide to start paying attention now?

Part of the reason is the sheer scale of the kidnapping. According to the latest numbers, nearly 300 schoolgirls were abducted on April 15 from Chibok boarding school in the northern Nigerian state of Borno. Last year, Boko Haram abducted handfuls of children, as well as Christian women, whom the group converts to Islam and forces into marriage. The group attacked 50 schools last year too, killing more than 100 schoolchildren and 70 teachers. The number of kids taken during the raid on the Chibok school is staggering, however. “It is the largest number of children abducted in one swoop in the country,” says Nnamdi Obasi, a senior Nigeria analyst for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict resolution organization. “Certainly not a minor incident that could be ignored.”

But it’s not just the shock value of the Chibok school attack that’s put a recent spotlight on Boko Haram. The group has terrorized the country on this scale before, having killed thousands over the past five years. In November 2011, the militants attacked police facilities in the northern state of Yobe, killing 150. That year, the group also carried out a brazen attack on the UN compound in the capital city of Abuja. In January 2012, coordinated bombings by the Islamist militants in the city of Kano killed about 150. And in July of that year, the group attacked multiple Christian villages in the north, killing more than 100. Those attacks prompted obligatory reports by the likes of the New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC.

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Boko Haram Has Been Terrorizing Nigeria for Years. Why Did We Just Start to Care?

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Gay Marriage Is Now Legal in England & Wales

by BetseyOHara Posted on March 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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Same-sex couples can now legally marry in England and Wales. Parliament had passed the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act last July, but because of various implementation deadlines, it wasn’t until today that couples could actually wed. Prime minister David Cameron heralded the change by writing: “Put simply, in Britain it will no longer matter whether you are straight or gay—the State will recognize your relationship as equal.”

The Church of England, which was created in 1534 because King Henry VIII thought the Catholic Church was too conservative about traditional marriage, has also softened its stance. Though the church leadership had originally announced plans to forbid clergy from performing same-sex marriages, the Bishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said Friday night that it would no longer oppose gay marriage among Anglicans. “The law’s changed; we accept the situation,” he told the BBC.

A recent BBC poll found 68% of Britons accepting of gay marriage, so the Church’s shift may not be unexpected. However, the church has said that it won’t allow clergy themselves to enter into same sex partnerships because “getting married to someone of the same sex would clearly be at variance with the teaching of the Church of England,” which seems a bit like they’re saying, “Ok, you can get gay married and be ok with your friends and family who get gay married because you like Jesus but you don’t like like Jesus. If you like like Jesus, you can’t get gay married because gay marriage is still against God’s plan.”

But anyway, the church issue aside, good for England. Good for Wales. Equality was long overdue in Albion as it is everywhere. (Scotland recently passed legislation to legalize gay marriage by the autumn as well.)

Mazel tov!

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Gay Marriage Is Now Legal in England & Wales

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Paris bans cars, makes transit free to fight air pollution

by DominiqueSturdi Posted on March 17, 2014

Paris bans cars, makes transit free to fight air pollution

By

Evan Bench

Air pollution is about as romantic as wilted flowers, chapped lips, and corked wine, so the record-setting smog that has settled over the City of Love in the past few days is definitely dampening the mood.

Unseasonably warm weather has triggered unprecedented air pollution levels in Paris. Over the weekend, the city responded by offering free public transportation and bike sharing. (Similar measures were taken throughout nearby Belguim, which also reduced speed limits.) But that wasn’t enough to fix the problem, so Paris and 22 surrounding areas are taking more extreme steps, banning nearly half of vehicles from their roads.

Private cars and motorcycles with even registration numbers will be barred from the streets on Monday. Unless the air quality improves quickly and dramatically, odd registration numbers will be banned from the roads on Tuesday. Electric vehicles and hybrids will be exempted, as will any cars carrying at least three people. About 700 police officers will be stationed at checkpoints, handing out $31 (€22) fines to violators.

Agence France-Presse reports that Paris has tried the approach before:

Ecology Minister Philippe Martin said he understood the “difficulties, the irritation and even anger” over the move, adding: “But we just had to take this decision.”

Martin said similar measures in 1997 “had yielded results”, adding that he hoped that the number of vehicles on the roads would be “significantly lower” on Monday, without giving a figure.

Trains and buses will remain free while the car restrictions are in place, giving Parisians yet more public places where they can nuzzle and talk excitedly about government policies until the ugly smog burns off.


Source
Polluted Paris prepares for partial car ban, Agence France-Presse
Paris offers free public transport to reduce severe smog, BBC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Did American Taxpayers Help Push Through Uganda’s Anti-Gay Law?

by LauraFore Posted on February 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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This week, when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni approved a harsh new bill making “aggravated homosexuality” a crime punishable by life in prison, he cited a recent report from the Ugandan Ministry of Health’s Committee on Homosexuality, which concluded that same-sex attraction is mostly a learned impulse. “Since nurture is the main cause of homosexuality, then society can do something about it to discourage the trends,” Museveni said. “That is why I have agreed to sign the bill.”

This pronouncement creates a quandary for the United States. American officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have vehemently condemned Museveni’s decision. Yet millions of US taxpayer dollars are flowing to the agency that the Ugandan leader used to justify the legislation, according to records from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gay rights activist argue that the Committee on Homosexuality report was engineered to ensure the bill’s passage, and at least one committee member—a physician named Eugene Kinyanda—refused to sign his name to it because the process had “taken a very political” direction. “I will not be used to justify the passing of a bill which as a doctor I do not fully understand,” he wrote in an email to a fellow committee member, which was reprinted on the blog Patheos.

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Climate change has turned southern England into a soggy teabag

by YolandaFoust Posted on February 10, 2014

Climate change has turned southern England into a soggy teabag

By

Adam Moralee

If you want to know what most of southern England looks like right now, take a peek into your mug of Earl Grey.

The region has taken an almighty soaking during the past week, following the wettest January on record. (And when we say “on record,” we’re talking about nearly 250 years worth of data.)

The unprecedented drenching shut down rail lines over the weekend. At least 5,000 homes have been flooded in the county of Somerset in the southwest of the country, and the government is warning that thousands more are vulnerable throughout the region as rivers swell. Al Jazeera reports:

Severe flooding and landslips cut off rail links to large parts of southwest England for more than 24 hours at the weekend as the government came under pressure for its handling of storms battering Britain.

Some areas have been underwater for over a month in the wettest January on record, with angry residents criticising the government for not doing enough to prevent flooding or reacting quickly enough to help those affected by the devastation.

The military has been brought in to help build flood defences and evacuate properties.

The Telegraph reports that more rain — and flooding danger — is on its way:

Britain’s flooding crisis is set to deepen this week after the Environment Agency warned that lives could be at risk from expected flooding along the River Thames.

The Environment Agency has dramatically increased the number of “severe” warnings, indicating a risk to life, from two to 16 as it warns that rivers already swollen by flood water could continue rising for at least 24 hours.

And as the floods set in, so too is a realization that this is a disaster that we have helped to bring upon ourselves — by filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning. The BBC explains:

Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office’s chief scientist has said.

Dame Julia Slingo said the variable UK climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms.

“But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added.

“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”

As if the watery wintertime weather in Britain weren’t already miserable enough, now we’ve gone and carbonated it.


Source
UK weather: flooding crisis set to deepen, The Telegraph
Heavy storms strike Britain’s southwest, Al Jazeera
Met Office: Evidence ‘suggests climate change link to storms’, BBC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Now There’s A Zombie Drone That Hunts, Controls, and Kills Other Drones

by NevilleSainthil Posted on December 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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When 27-year-old Samy Kamkar—a security researcher who famously made one million Myspace friends in a single day—heard the announcement on Sunday that Amazon was planning to start delivering packages via drone in 2015, he had an idea. He knew that whenever new technology, like drones, becomes popular quickly, there are bound to be security flaws. And he claims that he found one within 24 hours and promptly exploited it: America, meet the zombie drone that Kamkar says hunts, hacks, and takes over nearby drones. With enough hacks, a user can allegedly control an entire zombie drone army capable of flying in any direction, taking video of your house, or committing mass drone-suicide.

“I’ve been playing with drones for a few years,” Kamkar, who is based in Los Angeles, tells Mother Jones. “I’m sure that with most of the drones out there, if you scrutinize the security, you’ll find some kind of vulnerability.” Kamkar says that the Amazon announcement was an opportunity to point out that drone security has room for improvement.

Kamkar’s hack, also known as “Skyjack,” was performed on a Parrot AR Drone 2 (More than 500,000 Parrot drones have been sold since 2010, and it’s been used to help collected flight data for the European Space Agency.) It’s unknown what kind of drone Amazon will end up using, but these drones have high-definition photo and video, a flying range of about 165 feet, and can be controlled using an iPhone or an iPad. Kamkar equipped his drone with a battery, a wireless transmitter, and a Raspberry Pi computer—the total of which costs about $400, including the drone. Then, he wrote software (which he made available on the open-source website GitHub, for anyone to use) that he says allows his drone to find wireless signals of other Parrot drones in the area and disconnect the wireless connection of another drone’s original user, giving Kamkar—or any user with the software—control over both drones. The drones can even be forced to self-deactivate and drop out of the sky. “How fun would it be to take over drones carrying Amazon packages…or take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones. Awesome,” writes Kamkar.

Parrot did not respond to request for comment, but the BBC notes that, “experts said Parrot appeared to have ignored well-known guidelines” to prevent this kind of hack. Christopher Budd, a threat communications manager for Trend Micro, a data security company, tells Mother Jones that “reading what he’s got, on the face of it, it certainly sounds like a plausible proof-of-concept” but says Parrot still needs to validate it.

Here’s a video:

So does this mean that your Amazon blender will be attacked by a hoard of hungry zombie drones? Not necessarily: “Amazon would be able to make drones that are immune to this,” Kamkar tells Mother Jones, claiming that the Parrot Drone’s wi-fi system is not fully encrypted, which is a security measure that Amazon would be likely to take. (Amazon did not respond to Mother Jones request for comment.) “I just want people to be concerned enough that it forces these drone makers to take an additional look at them. When you have enough people scrutinizing technology, you’re going to have added security and added attention, and that’s the benefit.”

That’s certainly how companies have responded to Kamkar’s hacks before: After he crippled Myspace in 2005 using what some called the fastest spreading virus up to that point—(he was arrested and convicted under California penal code, and Kamkar says, “community service was a blast!”)—Myspace revamped its security procedures. Still, even if Amazon manages to fend off the zombie drones, it faces other obstacles—including states that have banned drones, potential collisions in urban areas, and major privacy concerns.

“Drones are an impressive piece of technology and part of me is super excited whenever I get it outside and fly it around,” Kamkar says. “But part of me is a little fearful.”

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Now There’s A Zombie Drone That Hunts, Controls, and Kills Other Drones

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