Media groups, Filipinos step up calls for repeal of tough new law against online crimes

MANILA, Philippines - Media groups and Filipinos stepped up calls Wednesday for repealing a tough new law that targets cybercrime but activists fear will be used to suppress online freedoms in the Southeast Asian nation.

The Cybercrime Prevention Act took effect Wednesday despite last-minute petitions to the Supreme Court to stop it. The justices said they will take up the issue next week.

The law is envisioned as a measure against hacking, identity theft, spamming, cybersex and online child pornography. But citizens and groups who protested on social networking sites, blogs and out in the streets fear politicians will use it to silence critics.

The law contains a provision that says libel ? which is already punishable by up to six years in prison ? is also a cybercrime. It doubles cumulative penalties for online offences and allows government agencies to search, seize and destroy computer data deemed libelous.

Human rights and media groups have unsuccessfully campaigned for years to downgrade libel from a criminal to a civil offence, saying politicians often use the law to harass journalists and other critics.

Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband sued 46 investigative journalists and publishers in more than 50 libel cases from 2003 to 2007 but later dropped them in a "gesture of peace."

The journalists wrote stories alleging Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo was corrupt, which he denied. He is now facing two corruption cases linked to an overpriced government deal and the sale of secondhand helicopters to police.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said that the new law's criminal libel provision "and the insidious way it was inserted during the bicameral deliberation ? without benefit of public consultation ? are direct strikes at the rights to free expression and press freedom."

Journalist Alexander Adonis, one of seven petitioners against the law who himself was jailed on libel charges from 2007 to 2009, argued that the law is unconstitutional and its provisions "so vague, so overbroad that these can be applied arbitrarily on all users of social media."

"In the context of the cyberworld, 'libel' is very difficult to determine since there are many actors in the cyberworld," including the blogger, the blog service provider, the Internet service provider, the person who comments on the blog and the person who posts a link to the blog site, he wrote.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda assured the public Wednesday that the constitution "is clear and uncompromising in the civil liberties it guarantees all our people."

President Benigno Aquino III's administration has not pursued any libel cases since he took office in 2010.

Lacierda criticized hackers who defaced many government websites in support of the movement against the cybercrime law, saying they engaged in online vandalism.

Many Facebook and Twitter users in the Philippines and the portals of the main media organizations have replaced their profile pictures with black screens as a protest against the law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/media-groups-filipinos-step-calls-repeal-tough-law-054306929.html

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WHY IT MATTERS: Income inequality

The issue:

The income gap between the rich and everyone else is large and getting larger, while middle-class incomes stagnate. That's raised concerns that the nation's middle class isn't sharing in economic growth as it has in the past. And it sparked the Wall Street protests that spread to other cities in the country.

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Where they stand:

President Barack Obama would raise taxes on households earning more than $250,000 a year, plus set a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for those who earn $1 million or more. He also wants to spend more on education, "a gateway to the middle class."

Republican Mitt Romney blames Obama's economic policies for failing to create enough jobs so that middle- and lower-income Americans can earn more. He wants to cut taxes more broadly and says that will generate enough growth to raise incomes for all Americans.

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Why it matters:

Income inequality has risen for three decades and worsened since the recession ended. A report in mid-September from the Census Bureau found that the highest-earning 20 percent of households earned 51.1 percent of all income last year. That was the biggest share on records dating to 1967. The share earned by households in the middle 20 percent fell to 14.3 percent, a record low.

Other studies have pointed to huge gains among the top 1 percent, fueling protests by Occupy Wall Street. Last fall, the Congressional Budget Office found that incomes for the richest 1 percent soared 275 percent between 1979 and 2007. For the middle 60 percent of Americans, average incomes grew just under 40 percent.

Two academics, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, have used IRS data to construct longer-run assessments of income inequality. They found that in 2007 the richest 1 percent earned 23.5 percent of income. That was the biggest share since 1928, just before the Great Depression.

Some economists argue that these figures overstate inequality. They point out that Saez and Piketty exclude income from Social Security and other government benefits from their calculations. Most studies also don't count the value of health insurance and other employer benefits, which have risen sharply in recent decades.

But the CBO's study does include the impact of taxes and government benefits. Few economists dispute that income inequality has worsened in the past three decades.

Poverty has deepened. Fifteen percent of Americans were below the poverty line in 2011, the Census Bureau says, slightly lower than the 15.1 percent in 2010. That was the first drop after four straight years of increases.

But the recession has pushed up the poverty rate sharply since it stood at 11.3 percent in 2000. About 46.2 million people were poor last year, 46 percent more than in 2000.

Government programs such as unemployment benefits and Social Security have lifted millions of Americans above the poverty line. That raises the stakes surrounding future proposals to limit such benefits.

Some economists argue that income inequality contributed to the financial crisis. As middle-class incomes stagnated in the 2000s, Americans borrowed to fuel more consumption and buy larger homes. That caused an explosion in household debt that couldn't be sustained when the housing bubble burst.

At stake, says Obama, is "the basic bargain at the heart of America's story, the promise that hard work will pay off." Romney says Obama's policies have made the middle class poorer. He says he will remove barriers to opportunity, such as excessive regulation of small business, so that more Americans can succeed. "We're not the party of the rich," he said. "We're the party of the people who want to get rich."

EDITOR'S NOTE _ One in a series examining issues at stake in the election and their impact on people

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-matters-income-inequality-051539684--election.html

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Spray Bottle Designed to Prevent Chemical Injuries

A new type of spray bottle could prevent the thousands of chemical injuries that occur yearly when children get their hands on household cleaners and accidentally spray themselves, its inventors say.

The child-proof spray bottle has not only a forward-facing trigger under the nozzle ? as do other spray bottles ? but also has a second trigger, jetting out from the back. Both triggers must be pressed for the liquid to be dispensed.

Adult hands are big enough to squeeze both triggers at once, but children's hands are not, said Lara McKenzie, a researcher at Nationwide Children?s Hospital in Ohio who was involved in creating the new design.

While some spray bottles have nozzles that turn and function as on/off switches, children can manipulate these nozzles, McKenzie said.

The new bottle could prevent the 6,000 childhood injuries involving spray bottles each year, she added.

McKenzie and her colleagues had conducted a study on the injuries from household cleaners that send children to the emergency department. The study showed that, while injuries from all household cleaners decreased 46 percent over the last 20 years, injuries from spray bottles remained constant.

In fact, spray bottles were found accountable for about 40 percent of all injuries from household cleaners between 1990 and 2006. The study was published in 2010 in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers "realized that there were no spray bottles on the market that would be both easy for adults to use and hard for children to get into, so we came up with our own design," McKenzie said. [Watch video: How the spray bottle prevents children's injuries]

Household cleaners can cause poisoning, chemical burns, dermatitis (swollen, reddened skin) and other injuries. When a spray bottle was involved in a child's injuries, the child was 18 times more likely to have external contact with the chemical (rather than ingestion or inhalation), and 13 times more likely to have eye injuries than other types of injuries, the study found.

McKenzie and colleagues worked with researchers in Ohio State University's departments of design and engineering to come up with the new spray bottle design. After a person releases the triggers, the mechanism "relocks" automatically ? there's nothing you have to do to lock it, McKenzie said.

The researchers have filed for a patent on their design and are looking for a partner, such as a spray bottle manufacturer or a cleaning product company, to license their product, McKenzie said.

"We're anxious to see this product on the shelves so we can have an impact and reduce injures and keep kids safe," McKenzie said.

Pass it on: A new spray bottle is designed to reduce childhood injuries from household cleaners.

Follow Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner, or MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spray-bottle-designed-prevent-chemical-injuries-175530563.html

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Dozens die as five blasts devastate Syria's largest city

A series of suicide bombings in Syria's largest city has killed at least 31 people. State TV reports that three explosions rocked a government-controlled district in Aleppo. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

Updated at 8:21 a.m. ET: Four explosions ripped through a government-controlled district of Syrian?s largest city early Wednesday, causing widespread destruction and killing at least 40 people, according to activists.

The blasts in Aleppo, which came within minutes of each other, struck the main Saadallah al-Jabiri Square close to a military officers' club and a fifth bomb exploded a few hundred meters away, state television said.

The carnage took place on the fringes of the Old City where rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have been fighting.

"Five minutes after the first explosion a second bomb exploded. A third exploded ten minutes after that," a state television reporter said. "There was a fourth car bomb which exploded before engineering units could defuse it."

Pictures emerging from the scene showed extensive damage. Nadim Houry, deputy regional director for Human Rights Watch, posted a picture on Twitter showing piles of rubble in the central square.

Citing medical sources, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of activists, put the death toll at least 40 with 90 injured.

A Syria government official earlier told The Associated Press the death toll was 27. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear, and it is difficult for media to verify any claims made by either side in the country?s civil war.

The state television station also broadcast footage of three dead men disguised as soldiers in army fatigues who it said were shot by security forces before they could detonate explosive-packed belts they were wearing. One appeared to be holding a trigger device in his hand.

Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed told regional news channel Al Jazeera the blasts appear to have?been caused by car bombs and were followed by clashes and heavy gunfire.

Rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad announced last week a new offensive in Aleppo, a commercial hub of 2.5 million people, but neither side has appeared to make significant gains so far.

The explosions also came a week after rebels bombed military command buildings in the heart of Damascus and clashed with security forces for several hours.

Manu Brabo / AP

A look back at the violence that has overtaken the country

That was the biggest attack in the capital since July 18 when a bomb killed several senior security officials including Assad's brother-in-law, the defense minister and a general.

Aleppo is now split in two, with Assad's forces mainly in the west and rebels in the east. Several large protests in support of the president have been held in Saadallah al-Jabiri square.

More Syria coverage from NBC News

Pro-Assad al-Ikhbariya television showed footage of four dead men, including one dust-covered body being pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building and loaded onto the back of a pickup truck.

SANA via Reuters

EDITOR'S NOTE: Picture released by the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
Men stand amid wreckage, after three blasts ripped through Aleppo's main Saadallah al-Jabari Square on Wednesday.

Many of the buildings on the square had their facades ripped off and there was a deep crater in the road.

Fighting only with light weaponry, rebels have resorted to bomb attacks in areas still controlled by Assad.

A pro-Assad Lebanese newspaper said on Tuesday that Assad was visiting Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting and had ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle. It said Assad would remain in the city.

SANA via AP

EDITOR'S NOTE: Picture released by the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
Men carry a dead body at the scene after several bombs exploded at Saadallah al-Jabiri Square in Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday.

Opposition activists say 30,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old anti-Assad uprising, which has grown into a full-scale civil war.

For much of the revolt, Assad has retained a grip on Aleppo with many rich merchants and minority groups there, fearful of instability, remaining neutral while protests spread.

Reuters, The Associated Press and NBC News' Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

In the outskirts of Aleppo, scenes of devastation fueled by the Syrian regime's warplanes have prompted new rebels to volunteer ? some still in their teens. NBC's Ann Curry reports.

More world stories from NBC News:

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/03/14196625-aleppo-explosions-kill-at-least-40-syria-activists-say?lite

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Bollore Bluecar: Sharing Paris's Most Popular Electric Car

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Bollor? BlueCar electric car used for Autolib' car-sharing service in Paris, September 2012

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The most popular electric car in Paris is not what you think.

It's not the Nissan Leaf, or the Mitsubishi i-MiEV (or its Citroen C-Zero or Peugeot i-On siblings).

It's a silver three-door hatchback with four seats and a basic interior that Parisians drive for only a few minutes to a few hours, from one curbside Autolib' car-sharing kiosk to another.

It's called the Bollore Bluecar, and as of last week, there are 1,750 of them parked at 670 kiosks along Parisian streets and in some suburbs as well.

The ultimate goal to make 3,000 Bluecars available at 1,050 kiosks for Parisians to use on short-term, zero-emission trips.

The Autolib' car-sharing system, patterned after Paris's wildly successful Velolib bicycle-sharing program, went live with 250 cars last December.

More than 37,000 people have already joined the system, and Autolib' enrolls another 1,200 every week.

The Bluecars have been rented more than 500,000 times in 10 months, covering more than 3 million miles (5 million km) in total.

Today, they are rented 4,000 to 5,000 times a week, with highest usage on the weekends. You can't spend 15 minutes in central Paris without seeing one pass by on the street.

When all 3,000 cars are on the streets, they are expected to travel 40 million zero-emission miles (60 million km) a year, collectively reducing emissions by the equivalent of 22,500 cars in Paris.

While users were predominantly men at first, more and more women are taking to the Autolib' system. Most users are 25 to 39 years old, and 70 percent of them do not own a car.

Most interesting, because the cars don't have to be returned to the original station, fully 90 percent of the trips are one-way. The car is dropped at a different Autolib' kiosk, just as it is for Velolib bikes.

The car itself was styled by Pininfarina and is assembled in Turin, Italy, for the Bollor? Group, a 190-year-old French conglomerate that's among the 500 largest companies in the world.

The Bluecar's 660-pound (300-kg), 30-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, under the passenger seats, powers an electric motor that drives the front wheels.

Bollor? quotes a range of 155 miles (250 km) in urban use, or 93 mi (150 km) on the highway.

The lithium-metal-polymer cells are made in two factories, one in France's Brittany and the other in Montr?al, Canada.

Bollor? BlueCar electric car used for Autolib' car-sharing service in Paris, September 2012

Enlarge Photo

Amenities are minimal: There's one airbag, for the driver, and a buzzer to alert pedestrians when the car approaches silently.

The instrument cluster is centrally mounted in a pod that sits on the flat dash surface.

Most controls are operated via the central touchscreen, including climate control, the audio system, GPS navigation, hands-free mobile telephone calls, and selection from three drive modes (Eco, Sport, or Icy weather).

Drivers can also call an Autolib' operator in cases of emergency.

While the distinctive silver unpainted aluminum Autolib' versions are by far the most numerous, Bollor? is also offering the Bluecar for three- to 12-month rentals to fleet companies and private individuals.

That version, true to its name, is painted dark blue.

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Source: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1079516_bollore-bluecar-sharing-pariss-most-popular-electric-car

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Center for Digital Education - great, free resource on education and

The Center for Digital Education, formerly known as Converge, is a great site with lots of information about education and technology, including news, grants, product reviews, case studies, examples of digital education and much more.

You can subscribe to the site RSS feed and/or to email newsletters to keep up to date. There is always good ?information and resources that can be of use to educators.

Source: http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2012/10/center-for-digital-education-great-free.html

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Source: http://www.nycce.org/your-linux-system-main-web-server-website-hosting-technique-are-the-ideal-solution.html

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