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Web Inventor Denies 'Off-Switch'


Press Association
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:48 UTC
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
© Press Association
Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has denied the internet has an 'off-switch'.
The inventor of the world wide web has denied there is an "off-switch" which could turn off the internet across the globe.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the web on Christmas Day 1990, said the only way the internet could ever be entirely shut down is if governments all over the world co-ordinated to make it a centralised system.

It comes after moves by the Egyptian government last year to suppress use of the web led to speculation that the Hosni Mubarak regime had found a kill switch for the internet.

Speaking at the launch of the first ever global league table classifying countries which put the web to work best, the 57-year-old computer scientist said: "The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralised system. At the moment, because countries connect to each other in lots of different ways, there is no one off-switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off.

"In order to be able to turn the whole thing off or really block, suppress one particular idea then the countries and governments would have to get together and agree and co-ordinate and turn it from a decentralised system to being a centralised system. And if that does happen it is really important that everybody fights against that sort of direction."

Sweden has topped the Web Index league table launched by the World Wide Web Foundation, followed by the US in second and the UK in third. Nepal, Cameroon and Mali were the bottom three of 61 countries measured using indicators such as the political, economic and social impact of the web, connectivity and use.
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Info

Chinese woman claims to be 127-years-old


Yahoo 7 News
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:12 UTC
Oldest Women
© Rex Features
Survivor: Luo Meizhen, pictured with her son, claims to be a staggering 127 years old, an age that, if verified, would make her the oldest person to have ever lived.
A woman from the Guangxi province of China is claiming to be 127-years-old, a figure that would eclipse the world's verified oldest person by five years.

Luo Meizhen lives with her only son, who she reportedly gave birth to at the age of 61, says The Daily Mail.

She claims she was born on July 9, 1885 in the Chinese lunar calendar, which this year fell on August 25 in the international calendar.

At a birthday celebration held in her honour, Luo ate a bowl of rice, a piece of duck meat and chicken, two slices of pork and two pieces of cake.

Bama County is famous in China for the longevity of its residents.

The ratio of centenarians there is 30.8 per 100,000, far exceeding the international standard of 25 per 100,000 for 'hometowns of longevity' - centenarian-clustered areas recognised by the International Natural Medicine Society.

The 2000 census recorded 74 centenarians, a significant number considering the total population is only 238,000.

Lou's claim to be 127 is likely to be met with a degree of skepticism however.

The verified oldest person in the world turned 116 just last month.
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Arrow Down

Despite the Olympics, Broken Britain is in the Grips of an Economic and Social Crisis

Colin Todhunter
Global Research
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:27 UTC
broken britain
© unknown
Against the backdrop of a glittering Olympics organised by the self congratulatory, back-slapping political classes, the UK was and continues to be in the grip of crisis. The welfare system is under sustained attack, workers' rights are being stripped away and wages continue to fall in real terms. At the same time in 'austerity Britain', however, there's always enough taxpayers' money to pour into the black hole of imperialist wars and the pockets of the profiteers that live off them, courtesy of David Cameron's government of millionaire ministers.

Capitalism, especially the neo-liberal variety, is moribund. It has reached its inevitable increasingly totalitarian dead end. In the 1980s, Britain outsourced much of its manufacturing to cheap labour economies in order to boost profits. To provide a further edge, trade unions and welfare rights were attacked. As wages stagnated (or decreased in absolute terms) and unemployment increased, the market for goods was under threat. The answer lay in lending people money and creating a debt ridden consumer society.
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Boat

30 children among 60 dead after migrant boat sinks off Turkey


Reuters
Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:42 UTC
Image
© Associated Press/Hurriyet
Coast guards search for survivors after dozens of illegal immigrants drowned when a fishing boat carrying them sank off the coast near the Aegean city of Izmir, Turkey, on Thursday.
At least 60 migrants, most of them Palestinian and more than half of them children, died after their overcrowded boat sank just tens of meters off Turkey's western Aegean coast on Thursday, a district official said.

Tahsin Kurtbeyoglu, governor of the coastal district of Menderes in Turkey's western Izmir province, said an initial investigation showed the small vessel sank around dawn due to overcrowding.

Its destination was unclear but the small Turkish town of Ahmetbeyli from where it left is only a few kilometers from the Greek island of Samos. Greece is a common entry point for migrants trying to get into the European Union.

"The latest death toll we have is 60 people, including 11 men, 18 women and 31 children, including three babies," Kurtbeyoglu told Reuters by telephone.

Turkish media said the reason the death toll was so high was because the women and children were in a locked compartment in the lower section of the vessel, although there was no official confirmation of this.
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Attention

Depressed Woman Jumps Into Crocodile Pit


Dailymail.uk.co
Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:02 UTC
A woman who was suffering from depression is believed to have fed herself to the crocodiles at a popular tourist attraction in Thailand.

The 36-year-old Thai woman told her husband that she was going to see a doctor and would then go to popular Crocodile Farm in Samut Prakarn just outside Bangkok.

She never returned home but she was caught on CCTV cameras entering the tourist attraction 20 miles south of the capital.
Image
© PA
A Thai woman is believed to have fed herself to the crocodiles at a popular tourist attraction in Samut Prakarn just outside Bangkok.
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2 + 2 = 4

Nearly 17 Million Americans Experience Low Food Security

Charles Abbott
Planetark.com
Thu, 06 Sep 2012 06:57 UTC
The number of poor Americans who repeatedly ran short of food shot up by 800,000 in 2011 to nearly 17 million compared with 2010, the U.S. government said on Wednesday.

The Department of Agriculture said in a report that about 5.5 percent of Americans, or nearly 17 million, suffered "very low food security" last year, meaning they had to skip meals or not eat for a day because of a lack of money to buy food. That is a rise of 800,000 over the prior year, it said.

The food-security report was released one day after the government said that a record 46.7 million Americans were enrolled for food stamps in June, up by 173,000 in May.

High unemployment and slow growth since the deep 2008-2009 recession has driven enrollment in food stamps, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, to record levels.
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Health

Gaza's Water Could Be Undrinkable by 2016


Palestine Chronicle
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 02:33 UTC
Image
Polluted water in the Gaza Strip is seriously affecting people's health and the situation looks set to get worse, the UN warns in a new report.

Gaza's rapidly growing population of about 1.64 million - expected to increase by 500,000 by 2020 - could soon lose its main source of fresh water, the underground coastal aquifer, which could become unusable by 2016, with the damage irreversible by 2020, it says.

Clean water is limited for most Gazans to an average of 70-90 litres per person per day, compared to the minimum global World Health Organization (WHO) standard of 100 litres a day, according to Mahmud Daher, officer-in-charge of the WHO in Gaza.

"We have respiratory diseases, skin diseases, eye diseases, gastroenteritis, which can all be linked to polluted water," said Mohamed al-Kashef, general director of the international cooperation department in the Gaza health ministry.

According to a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2010 update, diseases associated with water account for about 26 percent of diseases in Gaza. However, Daher is more careful to make the link. "There is no evidence that the current water situation is a major public health problem. But what we know for sure is that viral diseases and parasites are connected to polluted water."
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Sheriff

Ex-Police Chief charged in China Political Scandal

Christopher Bodeen
Google
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Wang Lijun
© The Associated Press/China Out
In this Oct. 21, 2008 file photo, then Chonqing city police chief Wang Lijun speaks during a press conference in Chongqing, southwestern China.
Beijing - A former police chief whose flight to a U.S. consulate set off China's biggest political scandal in years has been charged with crimes including defection and bribe taking, possibly indicating the turbulent affair is moving closer to a resolution before a key national leadership transition this fall.

Wednesday evening's announcement by state media of the charges against Wang Lijun did not mention Bo Xilai, his one-time boss, who has fallen from power as one of China's top leaders as a result of the scandal.

Wang, the former police chief and vice mayor of the southwestern city of Chongqing, was also charged with "bending the law for selfish ends" and abuse of power, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Wang set off the scandal by fleeing to the U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in early February after being demoted by Bo, the city's powerful Communist Party boss. Xinhua said the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court had accepted the case, although it did not give a trial date.

During his overnight stay at the U.S. consulate, Wang expressed to the Americans his concerns about the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in Chongqing last November. That prompted the British embassy to request a new investigation, which uncovered that he had been murdered. The case resulted in Bo's dismissal in March and the conviction last month of Bo's wife Gu Kailai for poisoning Heywood, a former family associate with whom Gu had reportedly feuded about money.
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Palette

Feds Seek Prison Time For Obama "Hope" Artist


The Smoking Gun
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Obama, Hope
Federal prosecutors want Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Barack Obama Hope poster, to serve time in prison following his misdemeanor conviction for destroying and fabricating documents in connection with a civil lawsuit over the iconic campaign image. In advance of Friday's scheduled sentencing of Fairey in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Department of Justice has filed a memorandum arguing that a prison term for the 42-year-old artist would be "appropriate."

However, prosecutors did not specify how long Fairey should be incarcerated (though, statutorily, his punishment would not exceed six months). Additionally, government lawyers have contended that Judge Frank Maas could fine Fairey up to $3.2 million.

"A sentence without any term of imprisonment sends a terrible message to those who might commit the same sort of criminal conduct," wrote prosecutor Daniel Levy in a September 2 memo. "Encouraging parties to game the civil litigation system...creates terrible incentives and subverts the truth-finding function of civil litigation."

Fairey, seen in the above mug shot, has admitted destroying electronic records and creating fake documents in an effort to thwart a copyright lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, which contended that Fairey had based the Hope image on a photo taken by an AP lensman.
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Cut

Berlin Declares Circumcision Legal, but Only if Performed by a Doctor - Not as a Ritual


The Times of Israel
Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Serge Attal/Flash90
An 8-day-old baby is prepared for his circumcision
State does not authorize mohels, requires that parents be informed of the procedure's medical risks before consenting.

One of Germany's 16 states has declared circumcision legal, but only if performed by doctors - not, as required by Jewish law, by mohels.

Berlin, Germany's capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following a Cologne court ruling in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is pending to legalize circumcision.

State Justice Minister Thomas Heilmann made the announcement Wednesday, saying he felt it necessary to allay fears in this "difficult transitional period," the Associated Press reported.

The Berlin state has authorized only doctors, and not mohels, to perform circumcisions. National legislation could authorize mohels. The state also required that parents be informed of the procedure's medical risks before consenting, and that doctors do everything possible during the procedure to reduce pain and limit bleeding.

June's court ruling led many doctors to stop performing circumcisions in order to avoid being prosecuted. So far, complaints based on the ruling have been filed against two rabbis, although one complaint was dropped last week.

Comment:
Circumcision - Conditioning the Adult by Torturing the Child
Naomi Wolf: The Male Circumcision Question

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