Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Safia Ahmed-jan, the director of the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs for the Khandahar province and an advocate of women’s rights and a strong critic of the Taliban‘s repression of those rights, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside her home in Khandahar city in southern Afghanistan on Monday.

Safia Ama-jan, as she was known locally, is the first woman official to be targeted by the Taliban-led insurgency since it was deposed in 2001.

Safia Ahmed-jan taught at a girls’ school and was a high-school principal in Khandahar prior to the Taliban’s 1996 rise to power in Afghanistan. When the Taliban regime banned education for girls and forbade women from working outside the home, she ran an underground school for girls at her home, said her son Naqibullah, speaking to the Associated Press.

After the Taliban government was overthrown in 2001, Ahmed-jan became the provincial chief for women’s affairs in 2002, when the ministry was established and has since then held that position, worked for women’s rights and particularly, championed the cause of educating girls. Her secretary, Abdullah Khan told Associated Press that among her most successful projects were the vocational training schools she opened in Khandahar, where almost 1000 women were taught baking, tailoring and other skills.

Ahmed-jan has also been fiercely critical of the repression of women during the Taliban rule, in a region that has remained conservative and emerged as a hotbed of the Taliban’s insurgent activity. Her requests for personal security guards and transport went unheeded by the government, according to local media reports, though her nephew, Muhammad Asif told the New York Times that Ahmed-jan preferred to keep a low profile and used a taxi or public transport even though her office maintained cars and drivers.

Ahmed-jan was shot dead outside her house at about 7:30 a.m. local time (UTC+4:30) on Monday, as she left for work in a taxi. The gunmen are believed to have left scene on a motorcycle, and tyre marks have been found by the police, said the provincial governor Asadullah Khaled, who visited the scene of the attack.

Ahmed-jan was shot four times with a pistol, Muhammad Haidar, who worked in her office told the New York Times. Mohammad Nader, the head nurse at Khandahar’s main hospital where Ahmed-jan was taken to, confirmed to the Chicago Tribune that she was shot four times, including once in the head.

She was about 65 years old.

Accounts of the shooting are sketchy, several reports suggesting no one witnessed it. However, one man, identified as Allaudin told Al Jazeera that he saw two men on motorcycles waiting on the road, who attacked Ahmed-jan as she left her house.

A spokesman for the Khandahar governor, Daud Ahmadi confirmed the death and said that Ahmed-jan had died on the spot. An investigation into the attack has begun, and local officials have blamed the Taliban.

Hundreds of men and women, including the Governor Asadullah Khaled were present at Ahmed-jan’s funeral on Monday evening, which took place in Khandahar’s main Shia mosque.

The killing has been strongly condemned by the Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well as aid and human rights organisations in Afghanistan.

Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said that UNAMA was “appalled at the senseless murder” of a woman who was working to ensure a full and equal part in the future of Afghanistan for its women. He added, “We share the sentiment of the majority of Afghan people who are appalled at this killing.”

Abdul Quadar Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) for the Khandahar region told IRIN News that Ahmed-jan’s death will have a “serious impact on women’s activities in the south where women are already suffering from … the deteriorating security and conservative traditions,”.

Fariba Ahmedi, a woman MP from Khandahar who was present at Ahmed-jan’s funeral told the Associated Press, “The enemy of Afghanistan killed her, but they should know it will not derail women from the path we are on. We will continue on our way,”.

Sonja Bachmann, a U.N. political officer who knew Ahmed-jan well told the New York Times that Ahmed-jan “did a good job, she worked in a very low-key way and worked hard to raise awareness about women’s issues.”

Reuters and Associated Press received phone calls, claiming responsibility for the attacks on behalf of Mullah Sadullah, a regional Taliban commander, but no confirmation of the claim has been possible.

Another caller, who identified himself as Taliban commander Mullah Hayat Khan told Al Jazeera that Ahmed-jan was killed because she worked for the government.

The Taliban-led insurgency has stepped up attacks in recent months, killing hundreds of people this year.

Last week, 19 Afghans working for reconstruction projects in the region were killed after their bus was ambushed.The Governor of Paktia province, a close associate of President Karzai, was killed in a suicide bombing on September 10.

Attacks on schools have also been stepped up. According to the Afghan education ministry, there have been 158 attacks on schools this year, compared to 146 last year. The attacks on schools are believed to be due partly to the Taliban’s opposition to educating girls, as well as a way to undermine the Afghan government and it’s reconstruction efforts.

Twelve suspected militants and two Afghan police officers were reported killed on Monday in separate incidents which also left eight others and a U.S. soldier wounded.

“People are scared, of course,” Ahmad-jan’s co-worker Haidar said, “How can we feel secure when the head of our department is killed in front of her house?”

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Internet group Anonymous today held further protests critical of the Church of Scientology.

The global protests started in Australia where several hundred protesters gathered at different locations for peaceful protests.

In a global speech, the Internet protest movement said Scientology “betrayed the trust of its members, [had] taken their money, their rights, and at times their very lives.” The protesters welcomed the public interest their protests have led to, and claimed they witnessed “an unprecedented flood of Scientologists [joining] us across the world to testify about these abuses.” The group said it would continue with monthly actions.

In a press statement from its European headquarters, Scientology accused the anonymous protesters of “hate speech and hate crimes”, alleging that security measures were necessary because of death threats and bomb threats. This also makes the Church want to “identify members” of the group it brands as “cyber-terrorists”.

Wikinews had correspondents in a number of protest locations to report on the events.

Anonymous states that the next protest is scheduled to take place on April 18, which happens to be the birthday of Suri, the daughter of Tom and Katie Cruise.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Oliver Hill, an American Civil Rights lawyer died today at the age of 100. Hill was attending breakfast, when he died “peacefully,” said a friend of Hill’s family, Joseph Morrissey. The cause is not yet known.

“As a pioneer for civil rights, an accomplished attorney, and a war veteran, Mr. Hill’s dedication to serving the commonwealth and the country never failed,” said Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine in a statement released to the press.

Hill won African American teachers the right to have equal pay in 1940, which was the first civil rights case he won in his career.

He was also the first African American to be elected to the city council in Richmond, Virginia in 1948.

Hill also filed several lawsuits against racial segregation in the U.S. public school systems in 1954. Those lawsuits later became as the ‘Brown vs. Board‘ which overturned laws dating back to 1896 which ruled that separate schools for African Americans and White Americans were “unequal.”

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This past Sunday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill known as “Rocky’s Law” that requires Illinois high schools, through the local school district, to buy catastrophic injury insurance up to US$3 million or medical costs for up to five years, whichever one comes first, that covers student athletes. The insurance must cover student athletes while they are competing.

The legislation was named after Rasul “Rocky” Clark. In 2000, the Eisenhower High School football player became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a tackle during a game. His school based health insurance covered the costs of his medical treatment. A legislator sponsoring the bill noted that the need for this type of insurance is rare. Clark’s mother attended the legislation signing. Her son died last year.

Before parents can claim money from school insurance, they first must pay out US$50,000. Schools have until January 1, 2014 to comply with the law. Schools cannot charge students more than US$5 to defray the cost of insurance. If a school district already requires student to be covered through private health insurance, they are exempted from this law.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Flickr and Getty Images have announced an extension on their one year partnership. The new deal will grant Getty Images access to all 40 million registered users images. To protect privacy, users must opt into the project, though details are yet to emerge.

To ensure that Getty Images doesn’t get free photographs, the owner of the image will be given a fee, however neither Flickr nor Getty Images have yet confirmed what those rates will be. It is believed it will be an industry standard rate, currently averaging between US$150 and US$240 per image.

One such success story of the partnership is Hal Bergman. He joined Flickr in 2006 and has said the partnership, which he originally had been part of, had helped his career take off.

“I have been doing this for six years on the side and a year and a half ago I gave up my day job in website development,” Mr. Bergman told BBC News, “I am working as a freelance and getting a lot of commission work and I would say this deal brings in about a third of my income”.

Bergman has a total of 200 images used by Getty Images, and over 2,500 on another site, which he did not specify.

The new alliance is said to help encourage people to retry Getty Images, as well as making Getty Images a far more competitive alternative to microstock photo sites. The move should also benefit Flickr, by making it more appealing to professional photographers to post their images on the site. It is still unclear what standards Getty Images will use for the licensing program when a customer wants a photo.

Monday, March 5, 2007

An aerial collision near Zell am See, Austria has killed 8 people, 5 Swiss citizens, 1 French, 1 German and 1 Austrian.

The collision occurred Monday afternoon between a Super Puma helicopter belonging to Helog S.A, based in Küssnacht (Switzerland), and a private Diamond DA20 “Katana” light aircraft which had taken off from the aerodrome at Zell am See.

All 7 of the passengers and crew from the helicopter were pronounced dead at the scene, as was the pilot of the light aircraft, which had no passengers on board.

The debris from the accident spread over a 20 metre radius and bystanders near to the incident reported seeing a “huge ball of fire in the sky”.

The reason for the accident is presently unclear as both craft have been confirmed as passing pre-flight testing at their respective take-off locations. Furthermore, Zell am See tower radioed the helicopter that a plane was taking off, to which the helicopter replied positively. This conversation should have been heard over radio by the pilot of the plane.

The site of the accident is now being guarded by police, pending the arrival of an investigation team and a delegate of the state attorney.

Friday, January 6, 2006

The new CBS Corporation began trading on the New York Stock Exchange once again on January 3 after officially finishing its split with Viacom two days earlier. The split had been in the works since around March 2005 when Viacom announced it was breaking into two publicly traded companies due to stock price stagnation.

In June 2005, Viacom’s board approved the split and saying the CBS Corporation name would be revived for one of those companies. One of these units would receive most of Viacom’s broadcasting and mass-media portion of subsidiaries (CBS, UPN, Infinity Broadcasting, now CBS Radio) along with Viacom Outdoor (now CBS Outdoor), Showtime Networks, and Paramount’s television studio and a few other operations and announced long-time excutive Leslie Moonves would head that new company.

The split is filled with twists and turns. Viacom was founded in 1971 as CBS’ television syndication division and was spun off in 1973. Westinghouse Electric Corporation bought CBS and changed its name to CBS Corporation. In a ironic twist, Viacom accquired their parent company in 1999 and CBS’ stock symbol was de-listed as it became a division of Viacom. Ironically, the new CBS Corporation is actually the original Viacom. A new Viacom was founded and spun off containing MTV Networks (which contains CMT and Spike TV, two cable networks originally owned by CBS) along with BET, Paramount’s film studio and home entertainment divisions, online virtual pet game Neopets, and a music publisher. It also partially owns Sega of America along with the Sonic the Hedgehog trademarks and is currently in the process of acquiring DreamWorks.

CBS unveiled its logo, the iconic CBS eye, and launched the corporation’s official wesbite, cbscorporation.com