Society's Child

Korean office tower evacuated after mysterious shaking

CNN
Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:30 UTC

© AP-Yonhap
Two men walk out of an office building, carrying their computers with them, in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, July 5, 2011. South Korea ordered hundreds of people Tuesday to stay out of the high-rise shopping mall in Seoul that shook briefly for unknown reasons, an official said.

Authorities in Seoul, South Korea, ordered the evacuation of a 39-story office building Tuesday after occupants reported that it shook for about 10 minutes, local media reported.

There was no seismic activity reported at the time of the tremors, which began about 10:10 a.m., according to a report in The Korea Times.

The Mysterious World of Super-Injunctions Hits Home

Paul Connolly
Belfast Telegraph
Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC

Super-injunctions. Hard to know where to start, really. Because it's all a bit of a mess. I guess most people know by now that there are injunctions and there are 'super-injunctions'.

Super-injunctions differ from ordinary injunctions because, in layman's language, it is a contempt of court, potentially punishable by imprisonment, to divulge the existence of such an injunction.

The Ryan Giggs case has made privacy super-injunctions highly controversial (and possibly undesirable, but that's another matter). The internet has called into question the very nature of the enforcibility of such injunctions.

So serious is the issue surrounding privacy injunctions and super-injunctions that it has led directly led to tensions between the legislature and the executive on one hand, and the judiciary on the other. A convincing case is being made that judges are making law rather than enforcing it.

As usual, these issues are not subject to the same white heat of scrutiny here as they are nationally. However, thanks to TUV leader Jim Allister, we now know that at least four super-injunctions have been granted by the Northern Ireland High Court since 2007.

Mr Allister, who solicited the information from Justice Minister David Ford in an Assembly answer, quite properly said he hoped the information "may stimulate some necessary debate" on the issue.

UK: North Yorkshire Police Consider 'Bizarre' Ruling

Gazette Herald
Sat, 02 Jul 2011 02:14 UTC

Police bosses in North Yorkshire are to "consider the implications" of a legal ruling which has been branded "bizarre" by chief constables across the UK.

The ruling ends the practice of releasing people on bail and calling them back for further questioning later, as is common practice in major inquiries, while police forces can no longer put anybody out on bail for more than 96 hours without either being in a position to charge or release them.

After that period, officers will be unable to question suspects and can only re-arrest them if they have new evidence.

Chief constables across the UK say they have been left baffled by the "bizarre" ruling.

India: Boy Kills Self in Bizarre Copycat Suicide

V Narayan
The Times of India
Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:44 UTC

A Class VII student died in a bid to see what 'suicide felt like', on Wednesday. Shoaib Khan (12) hung himself from the ceiling with a dupatta, at his Upadhaya Chawl residence in Vijay Nagar, Sakinaka, asking his younger brother and sister to watch the ghastly act.

The Sakinaka police came to know there had two to three suicides in less than two months in the neighbourhood. "He did it out of curiosity to know what one gains by hanging himself," a policeman said.

Shoaib, student of an Urdu-medium civic school, made an attempt two days earlier. "He tied a dupatta to his neck, gave one end to his nine-year-old brother and the other to his seven-year-old sister and asked them to tighten it around his neck. Seeing this, his mother Sahijahan rushed to stop them and warned them not to try it again," a police officer said.

Police said the incident occurred around 11 pm, minutes after Shoaib and his family celebrated his maternal uncle Nabiullah Khan's daughter's birthday. "After dinner I asked Shoaib to go home with siblings as more relatives would come and there would be little space in the house. Everything happened in less than five minutes after they went," an inconsolable Sahijahan told TOI on Friday.

US: Police State 2011: Woman Arrested for Speaking at City Council Meeting

Popeye
Federal Jack.com
Tue, 05 Jul 2011 04:16 UTC

Quartzsite, AZ - The Mayor is challenged under a recall election beginning next month. Accusations have been made. The city council is persecuting the Mayor for giving the people a voice. The Chief of Police is also involved in the scandal. Jennifer Jones is given the floor at a city council meeting open to the public. While she is speaking the council realizes she's about to air their dirty laundry and quickly beckons their henchman to cart her off.

The Mayor steps in and says Jones has been recognized to speak and has not violated the council's rules, but the council ignores him and has the woman removed even as the Mayor continues to contest. The police officers ignore the Mayor of the city and remove the woman. It's obvious who those cops work for, and it's not the people.

Mortar bomb used as school bell in Uganda

Agence France-Presse
Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC

© Agence France-Presse
A file photo shows Somali government soldiers looking at an unexploded mortar shell in Mogadishu. Anti-landmine activists in western Uganda were stunned to discover a primary school using an unexploded mortar bomb as a bell, the group's coordinator told AFP on Monday

Anti-landmine activists in western Uganda were stunned to discover a primary school using an unexploded mortar bomb as a bell, the group's coordinator told AFP on Monday.

"It was a big shock. When we arrived at the school we even found one of the students striking it," Wilson Bwambale, coordinator of Anti-Mines Network Rwenzori, said.

Bwambale said his team visited the 350-pupil Ikobero Model primary school, one kilometre from Uganda's border with Democratic Republic of Congo, last week after being tipped off by a curious community leader.

"The bottom was hollow, that is why they used it as a bell, but the fuse at the top was still live," Bwambale said. "Fortunately no one hit it with enough (force) to explode the bomb."

Righthaven Loss: Judge Rules Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use

David Kravets
Wired
Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:23 UTC

A federal judge ruled Monday that publishing an entire article without the rights holder's authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper copyright troll Righthaven.

It's not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use. Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

Monday's ruling dismissed a lawsuit brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based copyright litigation factory jointly owned with newspaper publisher Stephens Media. The venture's litigation tactics and ethics are being questioned by several judges and attorneys, a factor that also weighed in on U.S. District Judge Philip Pro's decision Monday.

Righthaven has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers and commenters for copyright infringement. More than 100 have settled out of court.

The lawsuit decided Monday targeted Wayne Hoehn, a Vietnam veteran who posted all 19 paragraphs of November editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media. Hoehn posted the article, and its headline, "Public Employee Pensions: We Can't Afford Them" on medjacksports.com to prompt discussion about the financial affairs of the nation's states. Hoehn was a user of the site, not an employee.

Righthaven sought up to $150,000, the maximum in damages allowed under the Copyright Act. Righthaven argued that the November posting reduced the number of eyeballs that would have visited the Review-Journal site to read the editorial.

US - Massachusetts town hit by tornado forced to cancel annual July 4th event; organizers lost their homes

Washingtonpost.com
Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:49 UTC

Monson - An Independence Day tradition has been cancelled in a Massachusetts town devastated by a tornado last month.

Summerfest chairman Steve Slozak says there was a lot of sadness when he announced the event couldn't happen this year in Monson. But he told The Boston Globe for Saturday editions that while people were hoping Summerfest would pull the community together, the tornado has already done that.