The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has called for sweeping powers so it can access phone call and internet data for its war on white-collar crime.
Not only does the authority want the powers to intercept the times, dates and details of telecommunications information, it also wants to access the contents of emails, social media chats and text messages.
This is more power than the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation have sought to assist the crime agencies in investigating terrorism and murder suspects.
A parliamentary inquiry has been set up to examine controversial proposals to force telecommunication companies to store details about every Australian's phone and internet use for up to two years. Some of that information, including telephone logs, could then be subject to law enforcement agencies with a warrant. Other information could be accessed without a warrant. Currently, it is up to telcos to determine how long they store that information.
A discussion paper put out by the Attorney-General's department stresses that the government only wanted so-called metadata – which includes times, locations and durations of phone and internet communication – stored by the telcos.
But ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer told a parliamentary inquiry in Sydney today ASIC wanted the contents of communications stored, too.
"We want both," he told the inquiry.
In addition to this, Mr Tanzer said the authority had the power to seek warrants for stored data, but wanted the ability to intercept phone calls to help its investigations of white-collar crime.
Liberal Senator George Brandis suggested the move could be a "classic case of function creep", and questioned why it was more appropriate that investigations of white-collar crime have access to a range of comprehensive data that investigators of murder did not.
But Internet Society of Australia president Narelle Clark said metadata included a range of information about people's internet use beyond dates and times.
With access to the website URL a person had visited, she said, it was possible to in some cases access their login details and passwords, and information about where people had been on the web, for how long, and the contents of the web page visited.
Vodafone Agency Liaison Manager David Moss said the company currently only stored customer billing data.
This could include the times, dates and locations of calls made, and the locations of the person being called.
"There's no mystery about it; all businesses keep a record of their transactions for some time," he said.
But, he said, the company and other telcos were concerned at the cost and work involved with being forced to store huge troves of customers' data for two years.
Internet provider iiNet, which has about 820,000 customers, said the government had not provided enough detail for the company to understand how much data would need to be kept.
But, taken to the extreme, keeping all internet information of all its customers for two years would be "stupendous volumes of data, many of which will never be used".
iiNet carries about one million uniform resource locators [URL] per second on its network and said it would have to store all of this information to comply with the proposed legislation.
Preliminary calculations were that it would cost $3 million per month to follow the federal government's wishes, and $400 million across the industry to set it up.
iiNet's regulatory officer Steve Dalby said Attorney General Nicola Roxon expressed interest in knowing the "destination of communication" on the internet. This information is easily available for telephone calls on fixed and mobile networks "because the destination for a phone call is typically a single point identifiable by its telephone number", Mr Dalby said.
"But destination of communication to a website consists of hundreds of thousands of individual points. Because the way the internet operates, each item or object or device on the internet gets its own [unique] address."
Senator George Brandis noted: "What you seem to be saying really is that this is just too much, it is too expensive to be feasible for an ISP to comply with this obligation?"
Mr Dalby replied that although it was technically feasible to keep all website and traffic information for two years, it was a question of cost. However, iiNet also argued it already helps law enforcement agencies gather information on specific targets. And there was no evidence that gathering massive amounts of data on every Australian would improved national security, Mr Dalby said.
"What has not been argued is that [existing laws] have been a massive failure ... and absence of information that if we had it, we would have stopped these things."
Telstra representatives revealed it could not retain any information about what its customers do on applications such as YouTube, online video-conferencing service Skype, auction site eBay or money transfer service PayPal.
"We cannot capture or provide any metadata or any content around something like Gmail because it is Google-owned, it is off-shore and it is over the top of our network. The real value of what we might have in a data retention scheme would be greatly diminished as soon as the organised criminals and potential terrorists knew that we were not capturing that data," Telstra's director of corporate security and investigations, Darren Kane said.
And Telstra already gives police access to metadata such as its integrated public number database (IPND), which contains the names and addresses of fixed phones and details about mobile phone owners. This information is available under current laws, but some police may not know this, Telstra's director of
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Microfracture surgery 'last resort' for FGCU athlete
Focused more on the textbook in her lap than her volleyball teammates in front of her, FGCU junior Jessica Barnes was interrupted during a break in practice when one asked about her recent knee operation.
“I had microfracture surgery,” Barnes said to a blank stare from her teammate. “Not many people know about it.”
Until her doctor mentioned it this summer, the two-sport athlete had never heard of it, either.
But plagued by chronic, worsening pain in her left knee, she opted in August to become the first FGCU athlete to undergo knee microfracture surgery, the same procedure with the dubious reputation for failing top athletes.
Pioneered in the 1980s, microfracture can prolong careers and has been shown to have high success rates for patients under age 40. But it is often considered a last resort and as recently as last decade was still being called experimental and a “career death sentence.”
“It kind of scared me, just because I was looking at a lot of the statistics on it with the NBA players who get it done,” said Barnes, a star center fielder on the FGCU softball team and top reserve in volleyball.
“Some of them don’t return to the full capacity they were before. But I figured I’m young, and the doctor says the younger you are the better a candidate you are because the body can actually heal.”
Microfracture aims to regenerate a substitute cartilage in joints where the natural cartilage has been worn or sheered down to the bone, in athletes usually through a jarring-type injury.
Through a minimally invasive arthroscopic procedure, small holes are drilled or chipped into the exposed bone to reach the marrow. The stems cells released through bleeding help form a type of replacement cartilage.
“What will grow back is not quite the same as (natural) cartilage but a fiber cartilage that is the next best thing,” said Dr. James Guerra, a Naples orthopedic surgeon and the FGCU team physician.
“Microfracture is a legitimate procedure, and it works well on young athletes. It does not work well on patients over age 40.”
Because the other primary answer to damaged cartilage — a knee replacement — is not an option for athletes trying to prolong their careers, microfracture is sometimes deemed an athlete’s last resort.
“I really try to avoid it if I can. But sometimes there’s no choice,” Guerra said of microfracture, which he estimates he has done some 100 times in his dozen years of practice in Southwest Florida. “When a young athlete has a lesion there, there isn’t much you can do.”
Barnes, who earned all-Atlantic Sun Conference honors in softball last season, is missing volleyball this fall but hopes to return in the spring for softball. Her rehabilitation has varied from three to five days a week and includes routine thigh-strengthening and range-of-motion exercises.
“She’s a great kid to work with,” FGCU athletic trainer Mike Estes said of Barnes’ adherence to the strict rehab. “We plan on having her back on the field in the spring.”
Barnes consulted with FGCU coaches and staff and her parents before having microfracture surgery with Winter Haven orthopedist Larry Padgett, who performed surgery on Barnes’ thumb in high school.
Padgett, the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves team physician, was not available to participate in this story.
“They were all for whatever I want to do. They said they would support me 100 percent,” Barnes said of FGCU coaches before adding that her parents’ support was the biggest influence on her decision.
“They knew that this was a problem for me. They were the people after practice and games I would tell how much pain I was in. They wanted me to feel better.”
“I had microfracture surgery,” Barnes said to a blank stare from her teammate. “Not many people know about it.”
Until her doctor mentioned it this summer, the two-sport athlete had never heard of it, either.
But plagued by chronic, worsening pain in her left knee, she opted in August to become the first FGCU athlete to undergo knee microfracture surgery, the same procedure with the dubious reputation for failing top athletes.
Pioneered in the 1980s, microfracture can prolong careers and has been shown to have high success rates for patients under age 40. But it is often considered a last resort and as recently as last decade was still being called experimental and a “career death sentence.”
“It kind of scared me, just because I was looking at a lot of the statistics on it with the NBA players who get it done,” said Barnes, a star center fielder on the FGCU softball team and top reserve in volleyball.
“Some of them don’t return to the full capacity they were before. But I figured I’m young, and the doctor says the younger you are the better a candidate you are because the body can actually heal.”
Microfracture aims to regenerate a substitute cartilage in joints where the natural cartilage has been worn or sheered down to the bone, in athletes usually through a jarring-type injury.
Through a minimally invasive arthroscopic procedure, small holes are drilled or chipped into the exposed bone to reach the marrow. The stems cells released through bleeding help form a type of replacement cartilage.
“What will grow back is not quite the same as (natural) cartilage but a fiber cartilage that is the next best thing,” said Dr. James Guerra, a Naples orthopedic surgeon and the FGCU team physician.
“Microfracture is a legitimate procedure, and it works well on young athletes. It does not work well on patients over age 40.”
Because the other primary answer to damaged cartilage — a knee replacement — is not an option for athletes trying to prolong their careers, microfracture is sometimes deemed an athlete’s last resort.
“I really try to avoid it if I can. But sometimes there’s no choice,” Guerra said of microfracture, which he estimates he has done some 100 times in his dozen years of practice in Southwest Florida. “When a young athlete has a lesion there, there isn’t much you can do.”
Barnes, who earned all-Atlantic Sun Conference honors in softball last season, is missing volleyball this fall but hopes to return in the spring for softball. Her rehabilitation has varied from three to five days a week and includes routine thigh-strengthening and range-of-motion exercises.
“She’s a great kid to work with,” FGCU athletic trainer Mike Estes said of Barnes’ adherence to the strict rehab. “We plan on having her back on the field in the spring.”
Barnes consulted with FGCU coaches and staff and her parents before having microfracture surgery with Winter Haven orthopedist Larry Padgett, who performed surgery on Barnes’ thumb in high school.
Padgett, the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves team physician, was not available to participate in this story.
“They were all for whatever I want to do. They said they would support me 100 percent,” Barnes said of FGCU coaches before adding that her parents’ support was the biggest influence on her decision.
“They knew that this was a problem for me. They were the people after practice and games I would tell how much pain I was in. They wanted me to feel better.”
Monday, September 24, 2012
My Technology Is Smart
My friend called me last week and said that she was at an editor's lunch in New York City. When her colleague left the table for the restroom, my friend immediately reached for her smartphone to check texts, email, and her Twitter feed. Then she stopped herself. She put her phone down, lifted her head, and looked around. And she saw something interesting: All of the single people in the restaurant (those sitting alone) were either on their phones, Blackberrys, iPads, or laptops. No one was looking around. Not a single person.
It dawned on my friend this is the new normal. No one looks around anymore. No one looks up from their screens. And although they live in a big city -- THE Big Apple, in fact -- the people around her live in the small world of their own screens. They meet no one new. They don't ask for directions on the street and they don't talk to people near them in the coffee shop. They're busy with their time-consuming technologies.
My wife and I were talking about this the other day and we realized that no one knows anyone's phone number any more. There are thousands of digits in any given iPhone, but not a single seven-digit number in anyone's head. My mother-in-law doesn't know her own daughters' numbers. I don't know my own sister's. Basically, why memorize something that a cell phone already knows?
And although I send hundreds of emails each month, I don't know anyone's real or electronic addresses. I have no idea how to send a letter to any of my five siblings because, address-wise, I don't know where they live. I literally don't.
And speaking of location, Nokia did a study four years ago that showed that a quarter of the world's population can't get around their own home towns or cities without GPS units, and the percentage of map-crippled individuals has to be growing. Many people literally don't know where they are or how to get anywhere around them. The art and relationship of map, navigation, and spatial memory is quickly being lost.
If using our brains in complicated ways, if memorization and challenging recall help to stave off Alzheimer's and the effects of Parkinson's, why are we allowing for these trade-for-brain technologies in every area of life? Why can college students not use a real dictionary or thesaurus? Why would I use a phone to do simple multiplication? And should we eventually have everything taught to us via 140-character life-lesson-text-messages?
What I'm really asking is: How did we get here? Why is our society the way it is now?
Well, because things are easy -- easy on the brain, easy on the memory, easy on effort. Why try when you don't have to try? Why work at anything? Wait, why work at all?
There's an app that allows two iPhones to "bump" and trade digits so the owners don't even have to type in any numbers. Sounds good. Maybe, pretty soon, no one will even have to take beginning math. Maybe they won't have to even know numbers anymore. What comes after the number 17? Who cares?
And with instant messaging there's no need to know how to spell or use the conventions of grammar. It's easier to email. It's easier to text. It's easier to use the GPS on the dashboard.
It dawned on my friend this is the new normal. No one looks around anymore. No one looks up from their screens. And although they live in a big city -- THE Big Apple, in fact -- the people around her live in the small world of their own screens. They meet no one new. They don't ask for directions on the street and they don't talk to people near them in the coffee shop. They're busy with their time-consuming technologies.
My wife and I were talking about this the other day and we realized that no one knows anyone's phone number any more. There are thousands of digits in any given iPhone, but not a single seven-digit number in anyone's head. My mother-in-law doesn't know her own daughters' numbers. I don't know my own sister's. Basically, why memorize something that a cell phone already knows?
And although I send hundreds of emails each month, I don't know anyone's real or electronic addresses. I have no idea how to send a letter to any of my five siblings because, address-wise, I don't know where they live. I literally don't.
And speaking of location, Nokia did a study four years ago that showed that a quarter of the world's population can't get around their own home towns or cities without GPS units, and the percentage of map-crippled individuals has to be growing. Many people literally don't know where they are or how to get anywhere around them. The art and relationship of map, navigation, and spatial memory is quickly being lost.
If using our brains in complicated ways, if memorization and challenging recall help to stave off Alzheimer's and the effects of Parkinson's, why are we allowing for these trade-for-brain technologies in every area of life? Why can college students not use a real dictionary or thesaurus? Why would I use a phone to do simple multiplication? And should we eventually have everything taught to us via 140-character life-lesson-text-messages?
What I'm really asking is: How did we get here? Why is our society the way it is now?
Well, because things are easy -- easy on the brain, easy on the memory, easy on effort. Why try when you don't have to try? Why work at anything? Wait, why work at all?
There's an app that allows two iPhones to "bump" and trade digits so the owners don't even have to type in any numbers. Sounds good. Maybe, pretty soon, no one will even have to take beginning math. Maybe they won't have to even know numbers anymore. What comes after the number 17? Who cares?
And with instant messaging there's no need to know how to spell or use the conventions of grammar. It's easier to email. It's easier to text. It's easier to use the GPS on the dashboard.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Malawi in-service training
The travel to Malawi is a grueling 8,000 mile, 22-hour flight from New York. Add to the trip a crowded plane with a stop in South Africa and the overnight flight is less than enjoyable. Thirty nine joined the Peace Corps gathering in early March at a Philadelphia staging area for a first time adventure to a land that none of us had visited.
In reality the only consolation after a lengthy Peace Corps application process was the real beginning of new and strange journey. For many of us it was the surrealistic feeling of starting a forward motion towards Africa.
We arrived at Lilongwe International and were welcomed by a gauntlet of Peace Corps staff and volunteers yelling and cheering us for our first taste of Malawi. By then it was midday almost a whole twenty four hour later.
The next stop was an hour and half trip south to the training location at Malawi’s forestry college in a rural section of Dedza. The location was is about six miles off the main highway down a rutted dirt road fit only for four wheel drive high riding vehicle.
The training plan called for a week stay at the school to give us a chance to get oriented and catch up of the lost sleep. This was followed by a four week stay at a nearby village with a host family. During that time we were given specialized class in culture, language, health care and environment.
Living with our host families was perhaps the critical introduction to the heart and soul of the Malawi experience. Added to the mix was no running water or electricity. After living in the village we returned to the college for another four weeks because of the potential political impact of the death of the late Malawi president in April.
That final four weeks were spent with more language, culture and health care sessions to prepare us for a two year stay. Our group specializes in either health care or the environment.
Our return to the forestry school gave us a chance to improve our skills. The whole training phase lasted two months followed by the swearing in ceremony by two US senators for the remaining 36 volunteers.
It’s now four months since that sweating in and our group, now thirty four, has started a two week in service training session. During the past months all of us have been working at our assigned location. Some are at clinics, hospitals, community organizations and national parks.
Since our first training sessions and working for months in our communities, we have changed. All our expectations of six months ago now take on a different perspective and are perhaps more realistic.
Early one morning during the first week a small group of us climbed the Dedza Mountains near our training location. It was six month ago that as new comers to Africa we stood on the same mountain top. The view this week hasn’t changed. In every direction it was clear as far as the eye could see.
Even to the west the view into Mozambique is breath taking. But now we were no longer strangers to this wonderful land. Africa has become home. The climb to the top for some strange reason did not seem as difficult or long. Everything had changed.
Much of our in service training included more language classes and sessions about project development as well as more nuances respective to Malawian culture. Sitting in classes for the first time in four months was different because we were no long the strangers to Africa.
We’ve been immersed in Malawi living in our respective communities and villages. We have participated in scores of meetings and worked on projects that will be maintained during the next two year. Four months ago we were fresh faces but we have aged and all of us have realized the challenges of living in a strange country.
It is an easy task to look at the work we are doing or the projects that will carry us during the next two years. What is harder to understand is the depth that each of us has changed. Perhaps the most noticeable change has been the increased level of confidence. This new found self-confidence is laced with more patience that surprises even me.
Maybe a way to define the change is having a better understanding of our selves. Perhaps some of us came here to save Malawi or Africa. In fact the real salvation is us. During the past months we have been tested and retested a thousand times. Each of the tests is prefaced with the question, “Can I really do this and will anything I do here in Malawi really make a difference?”
There seems to be an acquired acceptance of the limited amount we can to in the next two years. The mystery of what is possible is laid bare. Yet I don’t find any much uneasiness about the limits of what any of us can accomplish.
It is not that our expectations or goals have lowered but rather the reality of what is possible has risen to the fore front. I’m finding that many in our group are more resolved with knowing not so much what they can do but rather what they can’t or won’t be able to accomplish. All that enthusiasm has been tailored into more workable practical solutions.
A short while back US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Malawi. Her words to us were about the part we share as Americans working here. We are part of a larger team effort bringing a new sustainable hope to Malawi. It is not so much what any of us will do individually but rather what we accomplish together serving in a foreign country. We bring the change of hope.
The great fortune of our group is simply we are probably the one of the most enthusiastic group of dedicated individuals who’ve made a direct two year commitment to serve their country and to the people of Malawi. In such a strange way we have created an extended family of thirty four members who are marching in harmony to the call of the Peace Corps to be in Malawi.
The group of thirty four is so different with an interesting mix of individuals who have developed a strong sense of loyalty and kindness towards each other. Each of us has seen the other in the best and most challenging of circumstances. Just six months ago no one in the group knew anyone. Their home towns are scattered across America. They represent an interesting mix of ideas as well as experiences.
This week has given the whole group the opportunity to gather together to share the friendship and support we’ve developed over the past six months. Right now there is no other place that each of us needs to be.
What we being to Africa is something new. We bring ourselves with a combined spirit of confidence and enthusiasm that has Malawi allowing us into becoming better persons and better Americans. Our efforts to changed Malawi may fall short of our earlier expectations but all of us have grown. How much more will Malawi and its people teach us about ourselves in the days and years ahead?
In reality the only consolation after a lengthy Peace Corps application process was the real beginning of new and strange journey. For many of us it was the surrealistic feeling of starting a forward motion towards Africa.
We arrived at Lilongwe International and were welcomed by a gauntlet of Peace Corps staff and volunteers yelling and cheering us for our first taste of Malawi. By then it was midday almost a whole twenty four hour later.
The next stop was an hour and half trip south to the training location at Malawi’s forestry college in a rural section of Dedza. The location was is about six miles off the main highway down a rutted dirt road fit only for four wheel drive high riding vehicle.
The training plan called for a week stay at the school to give us a chance to get oriented and catch up of the lost sleep. This was followed by a four week stay at a nearby village with a host family. During that time we were given specialized class in culture, language, health care and environment.
Living with our host families was perhaps the critical introduction to the heart and soul of the Malawi experience. Added to the mix was no running water or electricity. After living in the village we returned to the college for another four weeks because of the potential political impact of the death of the late Malawi president in April.
That final four weeks were spent with more language, culture and health care sessions to prepare us for a two year stay. Our group specializes in either health care or the environment.
Our return to the forestry school gave us a chance to improve our skills. The whole training phase lasted two months followed by the swearing in ceremony by two US senators for the remaining 36 volunteers.
It’s now four months since that sweating in and our group, now thirty four, has started a two week in service training session. During the past months all of us have been working at our assigned location. Some are at clinics, hospitals, community organizations and national parks.
Since our first training sessions and working for months in our communities, we have changed. All our expectations of six months ago now take on a different perspective and are perhaps more realistic.
Early one morning during the first week a small group of us climbed the Dedza Mountains near our training location. It was six month ago that as new comers to Africa we stood on the same mountain top. The view this week hasn’t changed. In every direction it was clear as far as the eye could see.
Even to the west the view into Mozambique is breath taking. But now we were no longer strangers to this wonderful land. Africa has become home. The climb to the top for some strange reason did not seem as difficult or long. Everything had changed.
Much of our in service training included more language classes and sessions about project development as well as more nuances respective to Malawian culture. Sitting in classes for the first time in four months was different because we were no long the strangers to Africa.
We’ve been immersed in Malawi living in our respective communities and villages. We have participated in scores of meetings and worked on projects that will be maintained during the next two year. Four months ago we were fresh faces but we have aged and all of us have realized the challenges of living in a strange country.
It is an easy task to look at the work we are doing or the projects that will carry us during the next two years. What is harder to understand is the depth that each of us has changed. Perhaps the most noticeable change has been the increased level of confidence. This new found self-confidence is laced with more patience that surprises even me.
Maybe a way to define the change is having a better understanding of our selves. Perhaps some of us came here to save Malawi or Africa. In fact the real salvation is us. During the past months we have been tested and retested a thousand times. Each of the tests is prefaced with the question, “Can I really do this and will anything I do here in Malawi really make a difference?”
There seems to be an acquired acceptance of the limited amount we can to in the next two years. The mystery of what is possible is laid bare. Yet I don’t find any much uneasiness about the limits of what any of us can accomplish.
It is not that our expectations or goals have lowered but rather the reality of what is possible has risen to the fore front. I’m finding that many in our group are more resolved with knowing not so much what they can do but rather what they can’t or won’t be able to accomplish. All that enthusiasm has been tailored into more workable practical solutions.
A short while back US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Malawi. Her words to us were about the part we share as Americans working here. We are part of a larger team effort bringing a new sustainable hope to Malawi. It is not so much what any of us will do individually but rather what we accomplish together serving in a foreign country. We bring the change of hope.
The great fortune of our group is simply we are probably the one of the most enthusiastic group of dedicated individuals who’ve made a direct two year commitment to serve their country and to the people of Malawi. In such a strange way we have created an extended family of thirty four members who are marching in harmony to the call of the Peace Corps to be in Malawi.
The group of thirty four is so different with an interesting mix of individuals who have developed a strong sense of loyalty and kindness towards each other. Each of us has seen the other in the best and most challenging of circumstances. Just six months ago no one in the group knew anyone. Their home towns are scattered across America. They represent an interesting mix of ideas as well as experiences.
This week has given the whole group the opportunity to gather together to share the friendship and support we’ve developed over the past six months. Right now there is no other place that each of us needs to be.
What we being to Africa is something new. We bring ourselves with a combined spirit of confidence and enthusiasm that has Malawi allowing us into becoming better persons and better Americans. Our efforts to changed Malawi may fall short of our earlier expectations but all of us have grown. How much more will Malawi and its people teach us about ourselves in the days and years ahead?
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Bus bike rack policy 'absurd'
The ACT government has spent about $400,000 having bike racks fitted to about 80 per cent of the ACTION fleet but does not monitor their use and therefore does not know whether the cost is justified.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said though ACTION did not monitor the use of bike racks, the real time information system to be introduced next year would indicate which buses were fitted with bike racks.
The government, which committed in 2007 to fit bike racks to all buses, has been criticised by cycling group Pedal Power for having bike racks on only about 80 per cent of ACTION buses. Pedal Power spokesman Brendan Nerdal said of particular concern was that intertown and other long routes were increasingly operated by buses without bike racks. These were the routes with the highest demand for bike racks.
Ms Gallagher said the government would continue to explore options to install bike racks on more of its buses. But at this stage this was technically not possible for the articulated and steer-tag buses. Putting bike racks on these buses would mean they did not comply with road rules.
She said cyclists who used high-frequency bus routes could use the bike and ride program, which included storage for bicycles at locations across the city.
Ms Gallagher said more than 80 per cent of ACTION buses had bike racks - the highest proportion of any bus fleet in Australia. Racks could not be fitted to the remainder of the fleet because the steer-tag and articulated buses were too long and with bike racks would not comply with road rules. Further, with bike racks these buses could not manoeuvre on some roads.
Mr Nerdal said if racks could not be fitted to the longer buses, the government should allow bikes to be carried inside buses.
Ms Gallagher said there were no provisions for the safe stowage of bicycles on board ACTION buses. Having bicycles on board had the potential to damage the interior of buses and more importantly to injure passengers. Folding bicycles could be carried inside buses but must be in a case.
"You won't be seeing any meter readers out there in the field once we are fully deployed and fully operational this tie next year," Perez said, adding later: "And that saves money for the utility and the ratepayer -- there is a cost for that. You have (to pay) for gas and personnel."
Sometime next year, GPA also will launch a web portal that will allow customers to go online to read their own power meters at any time. The feature will allow customers to monitor their electricity usage as often as they want, which will be useful for anyone who is looking for ways to keep their power bill down, Perez said.
"You'll be able to communicate with your smart meters (about) exactly how much power you are using on a daily basis," Perez said.
Heidi Ballendorf, a utility spokeswoman, said she believed the web portal would go live in May. GPA purchased the smart meters using money borrowed from the bond market. The modernization project cost more than $20 million, Ballendorf said.
Many of the meters that are being replaced are between 15 and 25 years old, Perez said.
These aging meters may have grown inaccurate over time, Perez said, so anyone who receives a new meter in the coming months should prepare for a adjustment in their power usage. That shift could make bills go up or down, Perez said.
The real-time communication between the smart meters and GPA will also help the agency respond more quickly to blackouts and brownouts, Perez said.
Currently, GPA can't tell which areas have lost power until the outage is reported by local residents, but the smart meters will alert the power company instantly. This will allow the agency to identify the source of a power outage sooner, Perez said.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said though ACTION did not monitor the use of bike racks, the real time information system to be introduced next year would indicate which buses were fitted with bike racks.
The government, which committed in 2007 to fit bike racks to all buses, has been criticised by cycling group Pedal Power for having bike racks on only about 80 per cent of ACTION buses. Pedal Power spokesman Brendan Nerdal said of particular concern was that intertown and other long routes were increasingly operated by buses without bike racks. These were the routes with the highest demand for bike racks.
Ms Gallagher said the government would continue to explore options to install bike racks on more of its buses. But at this stage this was technically not possible for the articulated and steer-tag buses. Putting bike racks on these buses would mean they did not comply with road rules.
She said cyclists who used high-frequency bus routes could use the bike and ride program, which included storage for bicycles at locations across the city.
Ms Gallagher said more than 80 per cent of ACTION buses had bike racks - the highest proportion of any bus fleet in Australia. Racks could not be fitted to the remainder of the fleet because the steer-tag and articulated buses were too long and with bike racks would not comply with road rules. Further, with bike racks these buses could not manoeuvre on some roads.
Mr Nerdal said if racks could not be fitted to the longer buses, the government should allow bikes to be carried inside buses.
Ms Gallagher said there were no provisions for the safe stowage of bicycles on board ACTION buses. Having bicycles on board had the potential to damage the interior of buses and more importantly to injure passengers. Folding bicycles could be carried inside buses but must be in a case.
"You won't be seeing any meter readers out there in the field once we are fully deployed and fully operational this tie next year," Perez said, adding later: "And that saves money for the utility and the ratepayer -- there is a cost for that. You have (to pay) for gas and personnel."
Sometime next year, GPA also will launch a web portal that will allow customers to go online to read their own power meters at any time. The feature will allow customers to monitor their electricity usage as often as they want, which will be useful for anyone who is looking for ways to keep their power bill down, Perez said.
"You'll be able to communicate with your smart meters (about) exactly how much power you are using on a daily basis," Perez said.
Heidi Ballendorf, a utility spokeswoman, said she believed the web portal would go live in May. GPA purchased the smart meters using money borrowed from the bond market. The modernization project cost more than $20 million, Ballendorf said.
Many of the meters that are being replaced are between 15 and 25 years old, Perez said.
These aging meters may have grown inaccurate over time, Perez said, so anyone who receives a new meter in the coming months should prepare for a adjustment in their power usage. That shift could make bills go up or down, Perez said.
The real-time communication between the smart meters and GPA will also help the agency respond more quickly to blackouts and brownouts, Perez said.
Currently, GPA can't tell which areas have lost power until the outage is reported by local residents, but the smart meters will alert the power company instantly. This will allow the agency to identify the source of a power outage sooner, Perez said.
Monday, September 17, 2012
North East tracker producers launch construction
Succorfish, one of the UK’s leading providers of specialist global tracking systems, is to launch a dedicated construction division in response to industry demands to find a real solution to organised plant theft, asset management and rising insurance costs.
The North East firm already works closely with major construction clients to design highly specialised tracking systems for land-based mobile assets. But the company is now pushing forward with plans to provide the whole industry with a highly advanced yet cost effective tracking product specifically designed for construction and plant hire equipment.
Succorfish has already helped one client to recover more than ￡1.5m worth of stolen equipment within days of using its SC1 tracking system. The system uses advanced GPS satellite technology to monitor mobile assets to within two metres worldwide regardless of location, terrain or application, and allows clients to accurately record location, show asset movement in real time via a secure online graphical interface, receive an anti-hijack alert if moved without consent, demonstrate final location and save money through investment.
However, unlike many other systems, the Succorfish SC1 was originally designed for defence applications so it is ideally suited to harsh and challenging environments. This means that it can offer 100% reliability on plant machinery operating in difficult terrain or at sites including, for example, open cast quarries or remote forestry.
Succorfish Commercial Director, George Henricks, commented: “We have clients with valuable machinery in locations from Afghanistan to The Scottish Highlands and the most important thing is knowing that they can locate and track their equipment straight away.
“We have a long history of developing customised tracking products specifically to answer industry needs and our experience in doing so can hopefully go some way to help construction and equipment hire companies significantly reduce plant theft costs regardless of location.”
The North East firm already works closely with major construction clients to design highly specialised tracking systems for land-based mobile assets. But the company is now pushing forward with plans to provide the whole industry with a highly advanced yet cost effective tracking product specifically designed for construction and plant hire equipment.
Succorfish has already helped one client to recover more than ￡1.5m worth of stolen equipment within days of using its SC1 tracking system. The system uses advanced GPS satellite technology to monitor mobile assets to within two metres worldwide regardless of location, terrain or application, and allows clients to accurately record location, show asset movement in real time via a secure online graphical interface, receive an anti-hijack alert if moved without consent, demonstrate final location and save money through investment.
However, unlike many other systems, the Succorfish SC1 was originally designed for defence applications so it is ideally suited to harsh and challenging environments. This means that it can offer 100% reliability on plant machinery operating in difficult terrain or at sites including, for example, open cast quarries or remote forestry.
Succorfish Commercial Director, George Henricks, commented: “We have clients with valuable machinery in locations from Afghanistan to The Scottish Highlands and the most important thing is knowing that they can locate and track their equipment straight away.
“We have a long history of developing customised tracking products specifically to answer industry needs and our experience in doing so can hopefully go some way to help construction and equipment hire companies significantly reduce plant theft costs regardless of location.”
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Hands on with Google’s YouTube iPhone app
Earlier this week, Google apparent a new, standalone YouTube app for the iPhone and iPod touch. The barrage comes advanced of Apple’s absolution of iOS 6 on September 19, which will no best address with a congenital YouTube app.
Like the Gmail and Facebook apps, YouTube uses a aftereffect aeronautics approach: You bash from larboard to appropriate to advance the app’s capital agreeable over and betrayal the sidebar.
From there, you can log in to your annual or admission a array of added options, including predefined categories that YouTube provides, such as Music, Sports, Gaming, Education and more. You’ll aswell see a annual of your approach subscriptions; a button lets you add added channels, which (if you’re logged in) YouTube will appropriately advance to you based on your examination history. Borer on any class or approach will yield you to a advertisement of videos associated with that topic.
By default, the new YouTube app presents a scrolling annual of recommended videos. If you’re logged in, they’re recommended based on your subscriptions, brand and history on YouTube. Logged in users can aswell accept (in the Settings section) to absolute that home augment to alone appearance new videos from your subscriptions.
Tap on a video; its page will amount and the video therein starts arena automatically. In annual mode, the video is anchored on a awning with added advice about it, including its title, uploader (to whose augment you can subscribe, if you choose) and description. You’ll aswell see options for examination accompanying videos and annual comments absorbed to the video (or abacus your own).
Rotate the buzz to mural mode, and the video automatically goes full-screen on your device. If you tap on the video in landscape, you betrayal options to amount it (thumbs up or down), allotment it, or add it to your YouTube Watch Later, Favorites, or Playlist lists; you can aswell banderole it for analysis if it contains abhorrent content. You can aswell accredit bankrupt captioning on videos (where available), and there’s abutment for AirPlay congenital in as well. Of course, ablution through the timeline is aswell accurate if you wish to jump about in the video, but back the app doesn’t use Apple’s congenital video player, you don’t get the advantage of capricious ablution speeds as you do in, say, the Videos app.
Unsurprisingly, one focus of the new YouTube app is search. You’ll acquisition a seek button at the top of appealing abundant every page: Upon borer it, you can blazon in seek agreement as usual, but Google’s aswell chip the articulation seek adequacy it aboriginal formed out in its Google Seek app. Tap the microphone to the appropriate of the argument acreage and allege your seek terms; the app will adapt them and anon yield you to a annual of after-effects that match.
In seek results, you can accept to appearance either alone videos or channels that bout what you’re searching for; for added refinement, tap the accessory figure on the appropriate ancillary and you can additionally accept to array by relevance, upload date, appearance count, or rating, as able-bodied as clarify after-effects by if they were uploaded, their continuance and whether or not they accept bankrupt captioning. By default, Google has activated abstinent Safe Seek filtering, but beneath Settings, you accept the advantage to either not clarify after-effects at all, or bang it up to austere filtering.
By annexation appropriate and borer on your annual name, you can appearance videos you’ve uploaded, playlists you’ve created and your history, favorites and Watch Later lists. There’s aswell a Purchases tab to clue any videos you’ve bought, but it doesn’t assume like you’ll be able to in fact acquirement any of YouTube’s commercially accessible agreeable from the iOS app itself. Likewise, while there’s a tab to appearance your uploads, there’s allegedly no way to in fact upload a video from the YouTube app itself.
That said, with the YouTube app now durably beneath Google’s ascendancy and no best angry to Apple OS updates, it’s accessible that we’ll see updates added frequently than we accept in the past.
Like the Gmail and Facebook apps, YouTube uses a aftereffect aeronautics approach: You bash from larboard to appropriate to advance the app’s capital agreeable over and betrayal the sidebar.
From there, you can log in to your annual or admission a array of added options, including predefined categories that YouTube provides, such as Music, Sports, Gaming, Education and more. You’ll aswell see a annual of your approach subscriptions; a button lets you add added channels, which (if you’re logged in) YouTube will appropriately advance to you based on your examination history. Borer on any class or approach will yield you to a advertisement of videos associated with that topic.
By default, the new YouTube app presents a scrolling annual of recommended videos. If you’re logged in, they’re recommended based on your subscriptions, brand and history on YouTube. Logged in users can aswell accept (in the Settings section) to absolute that home augment to alone appearance new videos from your subscriptions.
Tap on a video; its page will amount and the video therein starts arena automatically. In annual mode, the video is anchored on a awning with added advice about it, including its title, uploader (to whose augment you can subscribe, if you choose) and description. You’ll aswell see options for examination accompanying videos and annual comments absorbed to the video (or abacus your own).
Rotate the buzz to mural mode, and the video automatically goes full-screen on your device. If you tap on the video in landscape, you betrayal options to amount it (thumbs up or down), allotment it, or add it to your YouTube Watch Later, Favorites, or Playlist lists; you can aswell banderole it for analysis if it contains abhorrent content. You can aswell accredit bankrupt captioning on videos (where available), and there’s abutment for AirPlay congenital in as well. Of course, ablution through the timeline is aswell accurate if you wish to jump about in the video, but back the app doesn’t use Apple’s congenital video player, you don’t get the advantage of capricious ablution speeds as you do in, say, the Videos app.
Unsurprisingly, one focus of the new YouTube app is search. You’ll acquisition a seek button at the top of appealing abundant every page: Upon borer it, you can blazon in seek agreement as usual, but Google’s aswell chip the articulation seek adequacy it aboriginal formed out in its Google Seek app. Tap the microphone to the appropriate of the argument acreage and allege your seek terms; the app will adapt them and anon yield you to a annual of after-effects that match.
In seek results, you can accept to appearance either alone videos or channels that bout what you’re searching for; for added refinement, tap the accessory figure on the appropriate ancillary and you can additionally accept to array by relevance, upload date, appearance count, or rating, as able-bodied as clarify after-effects by if they were uploaded, their continuance and whether or not they accept bankrupt captioning. By default, Google has activated abstinent Safe Seek filtering, but beneath Settings, you accept the advantage to either not clarify after-effects at all, or bang it up to austere filtering.
By annexation appropriate and borer on your annual name, you can appearance videos you’ve uploaded, playlists you’ve created and your history, favorites and Watch Later lists. There’s aswell a Purchases tab to clue any videos you’ve bought, but it doesn’t assume like you’ll be able to in fact acquirement any of YouTube’s commercially accessible agreeable from the iOS app itself. Likewise, while there’s a tab to appearance your uploads, there’s allegedly no way to in fact upload a video from the YouTube app itself.
That said, with the YouTube app now durably beneath Google’s ascendancy and no best angry to Apple OS updates, it’s accessible that we’ll see updates added frequently than we accept in the past.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Remarks to the "Freedom Online" Conference
I am delighted to be back in Kenya, a country I know well and where I have many friends and have spent considerable time. I want to commend the Kenyan government for hosting this conference and for the leadership role you are playing on Internet and information technology issues. I had the privilege of meeting with Minister Poghisio last December at the launch of the Coalition, and I am honored to be speaking after him today.
Kenya now has well over 15 million Internet users, and leads East Africa in mobile penetration, with more than two-thirds of all Kenyans now connected. The fact that so many African countries are participating in this conference is a tribute to Kenya's leadership and convening power.
Kenya is not alone in embracing mobile and digital technologies. In neighboring Tanzania, for example, more than half of its citizens are using mobile phones. In Ghana, mobile penetration is now over 90%. These are statistics that were unimaginable a decade ago, and are cause for reflection and celebration.
Across Africa today, there is a new kind of race – a race to connect as many citizens as quickly as possible. By doing so, we are changing the development paradigm in ways none of us yet fully understand.
But while our technologies change, our fundamental principles and our development challenges do not. And so today I would like to say a few words about the role of Internet freedom, and how the free flow of information has implications for human rights and development.
I believe it's futile in the long run to try to separate one kind of freedom from another, to attempt to distinguish online freedoms from freedoms we enjoy in the physical world, or to try to keep the Internet open for business in a given country but closed for free expression. Because, as Secretary Clinton said at the first Freedom Online conference in The Hague in December, “There isn't an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet: there's just the Internet.”
Yet we continue to see attempts by countries to harness the economic power of the Internet while controlling political and cultural content. Some countries are devoting great resources to attempting to purge their online space or, like Iran, attempting to isolate their people inside what amounts to a national intra-net – a digital bubble. Such attempts may succeed for a limited time in some places; but at a cost to a nation's education system, its political stability, its social mobility, and its economic potential.
These are costs that no nation can afford. Whether developed or developing, the economies of the 21st century must compete to attract capital, to spark innovation, to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit of our people and provide the climate in which they develop enterprises that can provide jobs and sustainable growth.
Around the world, some groups tend to focus more on erasing the digital divide, extending Internet access that last difficult mile, and putting into the hands of the next two billion users a mobile device that also provides access to banking and education, medical and agricultural advice and so much more. Meanwhile, other groups tend to focus more on Internet freedom, ensuring that the evolving information and communication technologies remain the foundation of an open, global platform for exchange, where people can exercise their rights, and not a tool used to spy on or silence citizens.
Today, the world has not one but two digital divides – the divide between the two billion of us who have some form of Internet access and the five billion who have yet to get it, and also a divide between those who enjoy the free use of their connectivity, and those whose experience of the Internet is restricted by censorship of the information they can receive and fear of retaliation for the information they transmit. The access divide is narrowing, thanks to the efforts of people around the world and the hard work of people in this room. But the second divide, the freedom divide, is widening.
We must continue to work together to erase both divides, and these interests must be pursued in tandem.
This is a world in which citizens of democratic nations can have uncensored Internet access and thus membership in a global community that exchanges news, information, ideas, products, innovations and services. At the same time it's a world where citizens of some other countries remain trapped and isolated behind firewalls that stunt not just their political freedom but ultimately their economic opportunities. We must do everything possible to oppose what amounts to information curtain created by national governments that do not want their own people to have full and free access to the Internet.
There are no magic bullets that will erase this divide overnight, but the United States is committed to helping expand the benefits of information and communications technologies to other nations as an integral part of both our human rights and our development policies.
As President Obama wrote last week – in response to a question put to him during an Internet chat — “We will fight hard to make sure that the Internet remains the open forum for everybody — from those who are expressing an idea to those [who] want to start a business.”
The United States takes a holistic approach to these issues. We recognize the linkages between broad-based access to 21st century communications and inclusive economic growth, and in turn between inclusive economic development and human rights. We know that human rights do not begin after breakfast. People need both. Without breakfast, few people have the energy to make full use of their rights. And after breakfast, they need both political and economic freedom to build profitable businesses and peaceful societies.
What does that mean in practice? It means the U.S. government is involved in a wide range of Information & Communication Technology development efforts from a variety of different agencies, from USAID to the National Science Foundation.
As a first step, companies, governments and civil society groups are starting to come together to work on this crucial issue. The goal is to find ways to achieve the UN target of providing entry-level broadband service for less than 5% of average monthly income. We recognize that governments have a role to play in creating the right incentives, ensuring healthy market competition, and supporting investment and continued infrastructure development that brings the Internet and mobile technology to more people in more places.
On the openness side, we have expanded our funding for Internet freedom advocacy and programming, for which the US Congress has allocated $100 million since 2008 to projects that provide technologies and knowledge to millions of people whose freedoms online are repressed. We are thrilled to be launching at this conference the Digital Defenders partnership, an unprecedented collaboration among governments to provide support for digital activists under threat.
But just as we support individuals who are targeted every day for exercising their rights online, we are conscious of a broader threat to the future of Internet openness. Right now, in various international forums, some countries are working to change how the Internet is governed. They want to replace the current multi-stakeholder approach, which supports the free flow of information in a global network, and includes governments, the private sector, and citizens. In its place, they aim to impose a system that expands control over Internet resources, institutions, and content, and centralizes that control in the hands of governments. These debates will play out in forums over the next few months and years.
Kenya now has well over 15 million Internet users, and leads East Africa in mobile penetration, with more than two-thirds of all Kenyans now connected. The fact that so many African countries are participating in this conference is a tribute to Kenya's leadership and convening power.
Kenya is not alone in embracing mobile and digital technologies. In neighboring Tanzania, for example, more than half of its citizens are using mobile phones. In Ghana, mobile penetration is now over 90%. These are statistics that were unimaginable a decade ago, and are cause for reflection and celebration.
Across Africa today, there is a new kind of race – a race to connect as many citizens as quickly as possible. By doing so, we are changing the development paradigm in ways none of us yet fully understand.
But while our technologies change, our fundamental principles and our development challenges do not. And so today I would like to say a few words about the role of Internet freedom, and how the free flow of information has implications for human rights and development.
I believe it's futile in the long run to try to separate one kind of freedom from another, to attempt to distinguish online freedoms from freedoms we enjoy in the physical world, or to try to keep the Internet open for business in a given country but closed for free expression. Because, as Secretary Clinton said at the first Freedom Online conference in The Hague in December, “There isn't an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet: there's just the Internet.”
Yet we continue to see attempts by countries to harness the economic power of the Internet while controlling political and cultural content. Some countries are devoting great resources to attempting to purge their online space or, like Iran, attempting to isolate their people inside what amounts to a national intra-net – a digital bubble. Such attempts may succeed for a limited time in some places; but at a cost to a nation's education system, its political stability, its social mobility, and its economic potential.
These are costs that no nation can afford. Whether developed or developing, the economies of the 21st century must compete to attract capital, to spark innovation, to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit of our people and provide the climate in which they develop enterprises that can provide jobs and sustainable growth.
Around the world, some groups tend to focus more on erasing the digital divide, extending Internet access that last difficult mile, and putting into the hands of the next two billion users a mobile device that also provides access to banking and education, medical and agricultural advice and so much more. Meanwhile, other groups tend to focus more on Internet freedom, ensuring that the evolving information and communication technologies remain the foundation of an open, global platform for exchange, where people can exercise their rights, and not a tool used to spy on or silence citizens.
Today, the world has not one but two digital divides – the divide between the two billion of us who have some form of Internet access and the five billion who have yet to get it, and also a divide between those who enjoy the free use of their connectivity, and those whose experience of the Internet is restricted by censorship of the information they can receive and fear of retaliation for the information they transmit. The access divide is narrowing, thanks to the efforts of people around the world and the hard work of people in this room. But the second divide, the freedom divide, is widening.
We must continue to work together to erase both divides, and these interests must be pursued in tandem.
This is a world in which citizens of democratic nations can have uncensored Internet access and thus membership in a global community that exchanges news, information, ideas, products, innovations and services. At the same time it's a world where citizens of some other countries remain trapped and isolated behind firewalls that stunt not just their political freedom but ultimately their economic opportunities. We must do everything possible to oppose what amounts to information curtain created by national governments that do not want their own people to have full and free access to the Internet.
There are no magic bullets that will erase this divide overnight, but the United States is committed to helping expand the benefits of information and communications technologies to other nations as an integral part of both our human rights and our development policies.
As President Obama wrote last week – in response to a question put to him during an Internet chat — “We will fight hard to make sure that the Internet remains the open forum for everybody — from those who are expressing an idea to those [who] want to start a business.”
The United States takes a holistic approach to these issues. We recognize the linkages between broad-based access to 21st century communications and inclusive economic growth, and in turn between inclusive economic development and human rights. We know that human rights do not begin after breakfast. People need both. Without breakfast, few people have the energy to make full use of their rights. And after breakfast, they need both political and economic freedom to build profitable businesses and peaceful societies.
What does that mean in practice? It means the U.S. government is involved in a wide range of Information & Communication Technology development efforts from a variety of different agencies, from USAID to the National Science Foundation.
As a first step, companies, governments and civil society groups are starting to come together to work on this crucial issue. The goal is to find ways to achieve the UN target of providing entry-level broadband service for less than 5% of average monthly income. We recognize that governments have a role to play in creating the right incentives, ensuring healthy market competition, and supporting investment and continued infrastructure development that brings the Internet and mobile technology to more people in more places.
On the openness side, we have expanded our funding for Internet freedom advocacy and programming, for which the US Congress has allocated $100 million since 2008 to projects that provide technologies and knowledge to millions of people whose freedoms online are repressed. We are thrilled to be launching at this conference the Digital Defenders partnership, an unprecedented collaboration among governments to provide support for digital activists under threat.
But just as we support individuals who are targeted every day for exercising their rights online, we are conscious of a broader threat to the future of Internet openness. Right now, in various international forums, some countries are working to change how the Internet is governed. They want to replace the current multi-stakeholder approach, which supports the free flow of information in a global network, and includes governments, the private sector, and citizens. In its place, they aim to impose a system that expands control over Internet resources, institutions, and content, and centralizes that control in the hands of governments. These debates will play out in forums over the next few months and years.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Summary executions adumbrate clashes in Aleppo
Syrian rebels arbitrarily accomplished at atomic 20 government soldiers in Aleppo, a babysitter said Monday, as angry claimed at atomic 100 lives about the country.
The soldiers accomplished were captured at a aggressive admixture during a insubordinate advance in the Hanano commune of east Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Animal Rights said.
They had their eyes blindfolded and easily angry abaft their backs afore they were lined up and shot, ancient over the weekend, Observatory administrator Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP.
An abecedarian video acquaint on YouTube and broadcast by the Observatory showed some 20 bodies laid out next to anniversary added on a pavement. Many of the men’s active were covered in blood, and some were cutting jeans rather than abounding aggressive attire.
One of the rebels continuing next to the bodies captivated up his duke in a achievement sign. “Allahu Akbar!” (God is greatest), cried another, as a third shouted out at the bodies: “You dogs! You low lifes!”
The killings were claimed by associates of the Hawks of Aleppo Brigade of the Free Syrian Army.
Syrian army troops regained abounding ascendancy of the billet in Aleppo afterwards canicule of angry clashes with rebels gluttonous to beat the cardinal site, a aggressive official said.
“The Syrian army is in absolute ascendancy of the Hanano billet afterwards angry which came to a complete arrest during the night,” the antecedent told AFP from central the barracks.
On Friday, insubordinate fighters launched an abhorrent aimed at capturing the aggressive base, a fortress-like compound.
They claimed to accept taken ascendancy of locations of the abject which serves as a weapons accumulator depot, alleged application centermost and the address of the bounded annex of the aggressive badge and anarchism police.
Another video that was acquaint Monday is acceptable to accomplish controversy, as it shows the bodies of six men and one woman who were purportedly asleep at the Ramouseh Bridge commune of Aleppo.
A insubordinate fighter reads out the claimed advice from the ID cards of the asleep bodies, and asserts that at atomic two of them, including the woman, were officers. He aswell reads out a blood-stained aggressive adjustment that he claims was begin with the group, but the certificate alone data a carriage adjustment of cadre to appear a balloon in the littoral city-limits of Tartous.
The killings were claimed by a accidental of the Syrian army alleged the Hawks of Syria, which was formed endure year.
Reports of the executions came as Syrian MiG warplanes blitzed areas of Aleppo, bottomward two bombs at a time and again aperture up with machine-gun fire, an AFP contributor reported.
Helicopter gunships aswell flew over the city-limits causing agitation on the streets as association fled for safety, the contributor reported.
The Britain-based Observatory said at atomic 5 humans died in morning bombing raids on the Marjeh, Sakhur, Hanano, Tariq al-Bab and Sheikh Khodr neighborhoods of Aleppo, a part of a absolute of 95 civilians asleep nationwide, 63 of them civilians.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission said Monday’s afterlife assessment stood at 107 people, which included 10 accouchement and nine women, while the Bounded Coordination Committees said the amount stood at 110, with the ample majority, 71, asleep in Damascus and surrounding areas.
The apropos over animal rights violations comes as United Nations arch Ban Ki-moon alleged for all war abyss in Syria to be brought to justice, as his animal rights arch apprenticed a delving into the annihilation backward endure ages of hundreds of humans in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
A U.N. enquiry has accused the army, pro-government militia and the rebels of committing war crimes but has said that violations by the rebels are on a abundant lower scale.
Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run account agency, SANA, said the afterlife assessment from a car bomb in Aleppo the night afore had risen to 30 civilians – including women and accouchement – with 64 humans wounded.
The bang happened abreast two hospitals. According to Aleppo-based activist Mohammad al-Hasan, one of the hospitals, Al-Hayat, was angry into a website for the analysis of government troops anon afterwards the angry in Aleppo began in July.
SANA aswell appear that the bang was acquired by a baby barter chic with added than 1,000 kilograms of explosives, which larboard a atrium 6 meters deep.
SANA abhorrent “terrorists,” the appellation the administration uses for rebels, for the attack. But there was no actual affirmation of albatross from the rebels or any added group. Some action activists acknowledged the SANA affirmation that the asleep were all civilians. The Observatory, citation hospital sources that it did not name, said associates of the aggressive were a part of the dead.
The soldiers accomplished were captured at a aggressive admixture during a insubordinate advance in the Hanano commune of east Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Animal Rights said.
They had their eyes blindfolded and easily angry abaft their backs afore they were lined up and shot, ancient over the weekend, Observatory administrator Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP.
An abecedarian video acquaint on YouTube and broadcast by the Observatory showed some 20 bodies laid out next to anniversary added on a pavement. Many of the men’s active were covered in blood, and some were cutting jeans rather than abounding aggressive attire.
One of the rebels continuing next to the bodies captivated up his duke in a achievement sign. “Allahu Akbar!” (God is greatest), cried another, as a third shouted out at the bodies: “You dogs! You low lifes!”
The killings were claimed by associates of the Hawks of Aleppo Brigade of the Free Syrian Army.
Syrian army troops regained abounding ascendancy of the billet in Aleppo afterwards canicule of angry clashes with rebels gluttonous to beat the cardinal site, a aggressive official said.
“The Syrian army is in absolute ascendancy of the Hanano billet afterwards angry which came to a complete arrest during the night,” the antecedent told AFP from central the barracks.
On Friday, insubordinate fighters launched an abhorrent aimed at capturing the aggressive base, a fortress-like compound.
They claimed to accept taken ascendancy of locations of the abject which serves as a weapons accumulator depot, alleged application centermost and the address of the bounded annex of the aggressive badge and anarchism police.
Another video that was acquaint Monday is acceptable to accomplish controversy, as it shows the bodies of six men and one woman who were purportedly asleep at the Ramouseh Bridge commune of Aleppo.
A insubordinate fighter reads out the claimed advice from the ID cards of the asleep bodies, and asserts that at atomic two of them, including the woman, were officers. He aswell reads out a blood-stained aggressive adjustment that he claims was begin with the group, but the certificate alone data a carriage adjustment of cadre to appear a balloon in the littoral city-limits of Tartous.
The killings were claimed by a accidental of the Syrian army alleged the Hawks of Syria, which was formed endure year.
Reports of the executions came as Syrian MiG warplanes blitzed areas of Aleppo, bottomward two bombs at a time and again aperture up with machine-gun fire, an AFP contributor reported.
Helicopter gunships aswell flew over the city-limits causing agitation on the streets as association fled for safety, the contributor reported.
The Britain-based Observatory said at atomic 5 humans died in morning bombing raids on the Marjeh, Sakhur, Hanano, Tariq al-Bab and Sheikh Khodr neighborhoods of Aleppo, a part of a absolute of 95 civilians asleep nationwide, 63 of them civilians.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission said Monday’s afterlife assessment stood at 107 people, which included 10 accouchement and nine women, while the Bounded Coordination Committees said the amount stood at 110, with the ample majority, 71, asleep in Damascus and surrounding areas.
The apropos over animal rights violations comes as United Nations arch Ban Ki-moon alleged for all war abyss in Syria to be brought to justice, as his animal rights arch apprenticed a delving into the annihilation backward endure ages of hundreds of humans in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
A U.N. enquiry has accused the army, pro-government militia and the rebels of committing war crimes but has said that violations by the rebels are on a abundant lower scale.
Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run account agency, SANA, said the afterlife assessment from a car bomb in Aleppo the night afore had risen to 30 civilians – including women and accouchement – with 64 humans wounded.
The bang happened abreast two hospitals. According to Aleppo-based activist Mohammad al-Hasan, one of the hospitals, Al-Hayat, was angry into a website for the analysis of government troops anon afterwards the angry in Aleppo began in July.
SANA aswell appear that the bang was acquired by a baby barter chic with added than 1,000 kilograms of explosives, which larboard a atrium 6 meters deep.
SANA abhorrent “terrorists,” the appellation the administration uses for rebels, for the attack. But there was no actual affirmation of albatross from the rebels or any added group. Some action activists acknowledged the SANA affirmation that the asleep were all civilians. The Observatory, citation hospital sources that it did not name, said associates of the aggressive were a part of the dead.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Apple iPads advice Buckeyes get arch alpha on bold prep
Not so continued ago, academy football players with time on their easily would aces up an Xbox bold controller.
Now, instead of arena a apish academy or pro game, Ohio State's players a lot of acceptable ability for their iPad -- and a aloof address on their absolute accessible opponent.
"That's something guys advance a lot now," Buckeyes starting appropriate accouterment Reid Fragel said. "Whether we're just bored, accept some down time, whatever. It's something that we can just cull out and they forward us the convenance blur and the bold blur aural hours afterwards we're done, so it's up and we accept simple admission to it. It's great."
Each Buckeye has an iPad that allows him to watch clips alone tailored for him and his position, both from the endure Ohio State bold or practice, as able-bodied as to examination an accessible opponent. The coaches are able to draw up specific plays and accent techniques and talking credibility that are beatific to their position groups. There are breakdowns by down and distance, cadre and added bold data.
The iPads were provided chargeless as loaners this abatement to all 1,100 or so Ohio State student-athletes. The university's ambition was to enhance apprenticeship and mentoring services, but the tablets accept become a admired apprenticeship and advice apparatus for the 14th-ranked Buckeyes.
It's a far cry from the canicule if drillmaster Woody Hayes spent hour afterwards hour abandoning a blast blur projector while apparitional images of football players in atramentous and white flickered on the bank of his awkward apprenticeship office.
"When I'm not in actuality (at the team's convenance facility), if I'm just sitting at home, I'll attending at some of the blur on the iPad," apprentice bound end Nick Vannett said. "It gives you added time to abstraction the blur and be added able for the opponent."
The iPads are ideal for coaches who wish to define a bulletin to a amateur or to allay all the abandoned allocution bombarding the Buckeyes about the aggregation they'll face next, in this case Saturday's opponent, Central Florida.
"To say that we don't accept a lot of account for Central Florida would be nonsense," drillmaster Urban Meyer said. "The acceptable affair is nowadays our players accept already apparent blur so they accept a blow of what's traveling on with all these iPads amphibian about here. They accept affluence of blur to watch."
For the accomplished few years, the players could yield home DVDs that had clips and films and cut-ups on them.
Now abounding players aswell backpack the all-over iPhone. Yes, there's an app for that. They can get bold films, clips, emails, texts and pictures beatific to that belvedere as well.
Just 90 account afterwards Ohio State's 56-10 season-opening achievement over Miami (Ohio) on Saturday, the bold video was beatific to the players and they could watch it after bartering abeyance and with pertinent replays.
A destroyed appointment on that third and 1? A drillmaster can point out what went amiss and how to actual it.
An auspicious chat to a amateur who is down about his abridgement of arena time? Actuality comes a quick agenda assuming a highlight and a acclaim to assure him he's still a admired affiliate of the team.
By the time the players activate on Sunday, video from UCF's 56-14 win over Akron has been beatific to them, with accent added on ambush plays, what the Knights do on abbreviate yardage and their blocking schemes on appropriate teams.
Fragel, a adapted bound end, wants to yield advantage of any intel he can get that will advice him.
"I just capital to attending at a brace of things, so I was able to cull up my iPad. That was appealing neat," he said. "It's the accomplished (UCF) game. Again they aswell accept cut-ups of assault packages, altered looks on aegis and being like that."
Ohio State's able-bodied administration invested $400,000 so that added than 1,000 athletes would accept the iPads over the next two years. They are aswell acclimated for bookish purposes.
Not anybody embraces the newest technology at Ohio State -- or abroad in the academy ranks or even in the NFL.
"There's some old-school guys," said Buckeyes arresting band drillmaster Mike Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls in 14 years in the NFL. "No, I did not accept the iPad. We'd yield computers home and watch it on that."
Ohio State co-captain and starting arresting end John Simon prefers the ancient way, watching blur on a awning while demography notes. But a lot of of his teammates are quick to embrace the cutting-edge approach.
"We accept some guys who are the new-age tech guys that like to accept the iPad and go home and plan on it and acquisition all the nuances and see the account on the awning and again go advanced and play the video appropriate abaft it," Vrabel said. "I anticipate it works both ways. I don't anticipate the old-school film-and-paper bold plan is traveling to accord way to the iPad, but it's absolutely traveling to enhance our preparation."
Now, instead of arena a apish academy or pro game, Ohio State's players a lot of acceptable ability for their iPad -- and a aloof address on their absolute accessible opponent.
"That's something guys advance a lot now," Buckeyes starting appropriate accouterment Reid Fragel said. "Whether we're just bored, accept some down time, whatever. It's something that we can just cull out and they forward us the convenance blur and the bold blur aural hours afterwards we're done, so it's up and we accept simple admission to it. It's great."
Each Buckeye has an iPad that allows him to watch clips alone tailored for him and his position, both from the endure Ohio State bold or practice, as able-bodied as to examination an accessible opponent. The coaches are able to draw up specific plays and accent techniques and talking credibility that are beatific to their position groups. There are breakdowns by down and distance, cadre and added bold data.
The iPads were provided chargeless as loaners this abatement to all 1,100 or so Ohio State student-athletes. The university's ambition was to enhance apprenticeship and mentoring services, but the tablets accept become a admired apprenticeship and advice apparatus for the 14th-ranked Buckeyes.
It's a far cry from the canicule if drillmaster Woody Hayes spent hour afterwards hour abandoning a blast blur projector while apparitional images of football players in atramentous and white flickered on the bank of his awkward apprenticeship office.
"When I'm not in actuality (at the team's convenance facility), if I'm just sitting at home, I'll attending at some of the blur on the iPad," apprentice bound end Nick Vannett said. "It gives you added time to abstraction the blur and be added able for the opponent."
The iPads are ideal for coaches who wish to define a bulletin to a amateur or to allay all the abandoned allocution bombarding the Buckeyes about the aggregation they'll face next, in this case Saturday's opponent, Central Florida.
"To say that we don't accept a lot of account for Central Florida would be nonsense," drillmaster Urban Meyer said. "The acceptable affair is nowadays our players accept already apparent blur so they accept a blow of what's traveling on with all these iPads amphibian about here. They accept affluence of blur to watch."
For the accomplished few years, the players could yield home DVDs that had clips and films and cut-ups on them.
Now abounding players aswell backpack the all-over iPhone. Yes, there's an app for that. They can get bold films, clips, emails, texts and pictures beatific to that belvedere as well.
Just 90 account afterwards Ohio State's 56-10 season-opening achievement over Miami (Ohio) on Saturday, the bold video was beatific to the players and they could watch it after bartering abeyance and with pertinent replays.
A destroyed appointment on that third and 1? A drillmaster can point out what went amiss and how to actual it.
An auspicious chat to a amateur who is down about his abridgement of arena time? Actuality comes a quick agenda assuming a highlight and a acclaim to assure him he's still a admired affiliate of the team.
By the time the players activate on Sunday, video from UCF's 56-14 win over Akron has been beatific to them, with accent added on ambush plays, what the Knights do on abbreviate yardage and their blocking schemes on appropriate teams.
Fragel, a adapted bound end, wants to yield advantage of any intel he can get that will advice him.
"I just capital to attending at a brace of things, so I was able to cull up my iPad. That was appealing neat," he said. "It's the accomplished (UCF) game. Again they aswell accept cut-ups of assault packages, altered looks on aegis and being like that."
Ohio State's able-bodied administration invested $400,000 so that added than 1,000 athletes would accept the iPads over the next two years. They are aswell acclimated for bookish purposes.
Not anybody embraces the newest technology at Ohio State -- or abroad in the academy ranks or even in the NFL.
"There's some old-school guys," said Buckeyes arresting band drillmaster Mike Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls in 14 years in the NFL. "No, I did not accept the iPad. We'd yield computers home and watch it on that."
Ohio State co-captain and starting arresting end John Simon prefers the ancient way, watching blur on a awning while demography notes. But a lot of of his teammates are quick to embrace the cutting-edge approach.
"We accept some guys who are the new-age tech guys that like to accept the iPad and go home and plan on it and acquisition all the nuances and see the account on the awning and again go advanced and play the video appropriate abaft it," Vrabel said. "I anticipate it works both ways. I don't anticipate the old-school film-and-paper bold plan is traveling to accord way to the iPad, but it's absolutely traveling to enhance our preparation."
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
3 Key Changes
With Windows Server 2012 set to hit abundance shelves on September 4, it's clearly time to dust off the Windows Server lab and alpha hacking through the final Server 2012 $.25 to see what the final artefact looks like. Historically, a lot of IT managers acquire abhorred new Windows server releases like the plague, at atomic for a year or two anyway. But the activity of accepting beta builds into the easily of abounding IT professionals aboriginal and about should pay assets for Microsoft, because added enterprises are now adequate deploying on or abreast day one. The absolution of Windows Server 2012 (previously codenamed Windows Server 8) promises no big surprises compared to the beta version, but some notable changes compared to its Microsoft predecessors.
While we apparently won't see a beam mob of server admins breaking into Redmond on Tuesday to get a new archetype of Windows Server 2012, there is acumen to be aflame about some of the air-conditioned improvements that fabricated their way into the final product. In this piece, we'll bang into aboriginal accessory to get a faculty of how some of Server 2012's added absorbing appearance drive. Later on, InformationWeek Labs will do a added analysis of anniversary top appulse affection to see area it shines, and area it doesn't.
One of the better abstracts aegis and acquiescence challenges that all organizations acquire is accepting a handle on the out-of-control admeasurement of acute abstracts on our accumulated book systems. Larger organizations that acquire a lot to lose acquire about deployed abstracts accident blockage accoutrement to accouterment the problem. In Windows Server 2012, a new affection alleged Dynamic Admission Control promises addition route, apparently for groups that don't already acquire investments in addition aegis apparatus to do the job.
Here's how DAC works: The book server role in Server 2012 contains a beefed up adaptation of the Windows Book Allocation Infrastructure (which was aboriginal alien in Server 2008 R2). The Windows FCI allows you to continuously analysis abstracts stored on a book arrangement application codicillary expressions and yield activity action accordingly.
So for example, if an agent adored an excel spreadsheet on the arrangement that independent amusing aegis data, you could configure a aegis activity that automatically applies assertive permissions to the file. Or, you could configure a activity to automatically encrypt the certificate via Rights Administration Server. Addition best would be to acquire a popup to arise cogent the agent that extenuative the abstracts to the arrangement violates aggregation policy.
We begin that DAC formed absolutely able-bodied in the lab, and our alone ache was that it was a bit bulky to set up. If you're testing this affection in your lab, you'll charge a Server 2012 DC, you'll charge to install the book server role, and if you wish to automatically assure abstracts application RMS, again you'll charge to ablaze up the appropriate administration server role. Broadly speaking, you charge to aboriginal actualize a book allocation aphorism that describes the abstracts you're searching for and how to allocate it already found. Again you acquire to actualize a axial admission aphorism which describes what do if a bout is found. Again you acquire to actualize a axial admission activity and arrange that accumulation activity article to the book server hosting the aggregate drive in adjustment to accomplish your axial admission rule.
Dynamic Admission Control is a absolutely air-conditioned affection of Windows Server 2012, but it's not absolutely bung and play to deploy. To be fair, any DLP amalgamation from any added bell-ringer can be appropriately or even added difficult to arrange and manage.
Many of the limited admission appearance in above-mentioned versions of Windows Server acquire been circumscribed into the limited admission server role in Server 2012, including a new and bigger adaptation of DirectAccess. One of the better disappointments with DirectAccess in Server 2008 R2 was the adamant and circuitous deployment scenarios that you artlessly had to acquire in adjustment to accomplish DirectAccess work. All things considered, the aboriginal apotheosis of DirectAccess wasn't complete abundant or an simple abundant to administer to become a applicable another to added limited admission solutions. DirectAccess in Server 2012 is abundant easier to deploy.
One of the a lot of notable improvements is that you no best charge assorted DirectAccess servers in adjustment for audience to admission centralized arrangement resources; you can use arrangement abode adaptation (NAT) to avenue admission admission through to a individual DirectAccess server. There is aswell abutment for all-around server amount acclimation so Win8 audience can automatically affix to the abutting arrangement admission point. If you're application Windows 8 with DirectAccess in Server 2012, you'll aswell now acquire the adeptness to accompany a new apparatus to the area after defective admission to the centralized network.
In the lab, deploying DirectAccess is mostly astrologer apprenticed hypothesis in Server 2012. The absence deployment advantage encourages you to arrange both DirectAccess and VPN in adjustment to abutment non-Windows 7 or Windows 8 audience (and therein lies a check with DirectAccess). If you've already deployed a best of brand IPSec and or SSL VPN to abutment XP, MacOS, Linux, or adaptable devices, again you should artlessly install DirectAccess only. All of the accumulation activity altar appropriate to accomplish DirectAccess plan are pushed out to Active Directory during the bureaucracy wizard, and as a aftereffect all audience that can abutment DirectAccess will acquire the activity pushed out to them.
DirectAccess in Server 2012 doesn't crave IPv6 per se, so your centralized accessories no best charge to be IPv6 enabled. In this scenario, the DirectAccess server will be your aqueduct to all of your IPv4 accessories on the centralized network.
While we apparently won't see a beam mob of server admins breaking into Redmond on Tuesday to get a new archetype of Windows Server 2012, there is acumen to be aflame about some of the air-conditioned improvements that fabricated their way into the final product. In this piece, we'll bang into aboriginal accessory to get a faculty of how some of Server 2012's added absorbing appearance drive. Later on, InformationWeek Labs will do a added analysis of anniversary top appulse affection to see area it shines, and area it doesn't.
One of the better abstracts aegis and acquiescence challenges that all organizations acquire is accepting a handle on the out-of-control admeasurement of acute abstracts on our accumulated book systems. Larger organizations that acquire a lot to lose acquire about deployed abstracts accident blockage accoutrement to accouterment the problem. In Windows Server 2012, a new affection alleged Dynamic Admission Control promises addition route, apparently for groups that don't already acquire investments in addition aegis apparatus to do the job.
Here's how DAC works: The book server role in Server 2012 contains a beefed up adaptation of the Windows Book Allocation Infrastructure (which was aboriginal alien in Server 2008 R2). The Windows FCI allows you to continuously analysis abstracts stored on a book arrangement application codicillary expressions and yield activity action accordingly.
So for example, if an agent adored an excel spreadsheet on the arrangement that independent amusing aegis data, you could configure a aegis activity that automatically applies assertive permissions to the file. Or, you could configure a activity to automatically encrypt the certificate via Rights Administration Server. Addition best would be to acquire a popup to arise cogent the agent that extenuative the abstracts to the arrangement violates aggregation policy.
We begin that DAC formed absolutely able-bodied in the lab, and our alone ache was that it was a bit bulky to set up. If you're testing this affection in your lab, you'll charge a Server 2012 DC, you'll charge to install the book server role, and if you wish to automatically assure abstracts application RMS, again you'll charge to ablaze up the appropriate administration server role. Broadly speaking, you charge to aboriginal actualize a book allocation aphorism that describes the abstracts you're searching for and how to allocate it already found. Again you acquire to actualize a axial admission aphorism which describes what do if a bout is found. Again you acquire to actualize a axial admission activity and arrange that accumulation activity article to the book server hosting the aggregate drive in adjustment to accomplish your axial admission rule.
Dynamic Admission Control is a absolutely air-conditioned affection of Windows Server 2012, but it's not absolutely bung and play to deploy. To be fair, any DLP amalgamation from any added bell-ringer can be appropriately or even added difficult to arrange and manage.
Many of the limited admission appearance in above-mentioned versions of Windows Server acquire been circumscribed into the limited admission server role in Server 2012, including a new and bigger adaptation of DirectAccess. One of the better disappointments with DirectAccess in Server 2008 R2 was the adamant and circuitous deployment scenarios that you artlessly had to acquire in adjustment to accomplish DirectAccess work. All things considered, the aboriginal apotheosis of DirectAccess wasn't complete abundant or an simple abundant to administer to become a applicable another to added limited admission solutions. DirectAccess in Server 2012 is abundant easier to deploy.
One of the a lot of notable improvements is that you no best charge assorted DirectAccess servers in adjustment for audience to admission centralized arrangement resources; you can use arrangement abode adaptation (NAT) to avenue admission admission through to a individual DirectAccess server. There is aswell abutment for all-around server amount acclimation so Win8 audience can automatically affix to the abutting arrangement admission point. If you're application Windows 8 with DirectAccess in Server 2012, you'll aswell now acquire the adeptness to accompany a new apparatus to the area after defective admission to the centralized network.
In the lab, deploying DirectAccess is mostly astrologer apprenticed hypothesis in Server 2012. The absence deployment advantage encourages you to arrange both DirectAccess and VPN in adjustment to abutment non-Windows 7 or Windows 8 audience (and therein lies a check with DirectAccess). If you've already deployed a best of brand IPSec and or SSL VPN to abutment XP, MacOS, Linux, or adaptable devices, again you should artlessly install DirectAccess only. All of the accumulation activity altar appropriate to accomplish DirectAccess plan are pushed out to Active Directory during the bureaucracy wizard, and as a aftereffect all audience that can abutment DirectAccess will acquire the activity pushed out to them.
DirectAccess in Server 2012 doesn't crave IPv6 per se, so your centralized accessories no best charge to be IPv6 enabled. In this scenario, the DirectAccess server will be your aqueduct to all of your IPv4 accessories on the centralized network.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Ukrainian journalists interrupt president's speech to protest
Top Ukrainian journalists interrupted President Viktor Yanukovych's speech on press rights Monday, protesting increasing media censorship by the authorities.
About a dozen reporters rose from their seats and held up posters reading "Stop Censorship" and "Media Oligarchs Serve the Authorities." Security guards violently ripped them out of the hands of some protesters.
Yanukovych was speaking at the opening of the annual World Newspaper Congress, a meeting of dozens of news executives from around the world that has complained of waning press freedoms in the former Soviet state.
Opening the event, Jacob Mathew, president of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, urged Ukrainian authorities to "regain freedoms that sustain democracy and human dignity."
Since Yanukovych's election, opposition parties have had little access to television, with the majority of TV channels controlled by magnates loyal to the government, reporters complain of being denied access to crucial information, and a rising number of attacks on journalists are left unpunished.
Yanukovych did not react to the protest. Some of the journalist were allowed to hold up their signs through the entire speech.
Yanukovych's office later called the incident an "unfortunate event," but said that the fact that the journalists were able to hold their protest was a testament to Yanukoyvch's commitment to democracy.
In his speech, Yanukovych vowed to uphold democratic principles and media freedoms.
"The main task of the government in the media sphere, as I have set it, is to create conditions when free press can develop freely and be independent of any kind of control," he said.
However, later in his speech Yanukovych called on journalists to be "biased," when he apparently meant the opposite — a slip of the tongue that critics said demonstrated his stated commitment to freedom and democracy is merely lip service.
"I call on journalists to maintain a high level of ethical standards and uphold the principles of being objective and politically biased," Yanukovych said.
Mustafa Nayem, a top investigative reporter who took part in the protest, called Yanukovych's words on media freedom cynical lies.
"When the president says everything is good in Ukraine, he is lying ... to put it mildly," Nayem told The Associated Press. "It is not a secret to anyone that the (media) atmosphere under President Yanukovych has worsened drastically."
He expressed hope that the conference would help address these problems and improve the media climate.
"By choosing Ukraine as our venue, we stand in solidarity with the local independent press, and draw international attention to the situation here," Kilman said. "The protesters were a very powerful reminder that there is still much to be done."
About a dozen reporters rose from their seats and held up posters reading "Stop Censorship" and "Media Oligarchs Serve the Authorities." Security guards violently ripped them out of the hands of some protesters.
Yanukovych was speaking at the opening of the annual World Newspaper Congress, a meeting of dozens of news executives from around the world that has complained of waning press freedoms in the former Soviet state.
Opening the event, Jacob Mathew, president of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, urged Ukrainian authorities to "regain freedoms that sustain democracy and human dignity."
Since Yanukovych's election, opposition parties have had little access to television, with the majority of TV channels controlled by magnates loyal to the government, reporters complain of being denied access to crucial information, and a rising number of attacks on journalists are left unpunished.
Yanukovych did not react to the protest. Some of the journalist were allowed to hold up their signs through the entire speech.
Yanukovych's office later called the incident an "unfortunate event," but said that the fact that the journalists were able to hold their protest was a testament to Yanukoyvch's commitment to democracy.
In his speech, Yanukovych vowed to uphold democratic principles and media freedoms.
"The main task of the government in the media sphere, as I have set it, is to create conditions when free press can develop freely and be independent of any kind of control," he said.
However, later in his speech Yanukovych called on journalists to be "biased," when he apparently meant the opposite — a slip of the tongue that critics said demonstrated his stated commitment to freedom and democracy is merely lip service.
"I call on journalists to maintain a high level of ethical standards and uphold the principles of being objective and politically biased," Yanukovych said.
Mustafa Nayem, a top investigative reporter who took part in the protest, called Yanukovych's words on media freedom cynical lies.
"When the president says everything is good in Ukraine, he is lying ... to put it mildly," Nayem told The Associated Press. "It is not a secret to anyone that the (media) atmosphere under President Yanukovych has worsened drastically."
He expressed hope that the conference would help address these problems and improve the media climate.
"By choosing Ukraine as our venue, we stand in solidarity with the local independent press, and draw international attention to the situation here," Kilman said. "The protesters were a very powerful reminder that there is still much to be done."
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