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05 Jul 2011 20:32

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Tech, World: Data roaming price caps in Europe don’t go far enough

  • €2.23 the average cost, per megabyte, of roaming data charges throughout Europe — $3.22 a meg!
  • €0.90 the price cap currently being proposed, also per meg, for data usage — starting in July 2012
  • €0.50 the price cap suggested after by 2014 … which is way lower only in context source
  • » To put this in perspective: If you hop on your iPhone and reload this page roughly 80 times, that’s about a megabyte. If you hop on Pandora and listen to half of a two-minute Ramones song, that’s about a megabyte. When AT&T implemented its capped data plan a year ago, many people were upset about the 2 gig data cap for $25 dollars. Doing the math, that plan is roughly 82 megabytes per dollar. If the half-Euro-per-megabyte roaming price cuts in Europe take hold, those 82 megabytes would cost around $59 U.S. dollars, considering current exchange rates. Now multiply that by 25. Exactly our point.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jul 2011 17:38

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World: Syrian security crackdown brings violent repression to Hama

  • 10 Syrian citizens killed by security forces in the city of Hama source
  • » “Implacable armed repression”: Those were the words France used to describe the onslaught on the Syrian citizenry by security forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, as they lobbied the U.N. to adopt a firmer stance on the issue. The realities within Syria are dire right now — as we’ve mentioned before, human rights groups estimate over a thousand people have been killed, and over ten-thousand detained, so in an extremely depressing way, this number isn’t surprising. French MP Gerard Bapt doesn’t see much will for international involvement, either: “With the Arab League not moving and with a nation like Saudi Arabia saying nothing publicly to condemn the killings by the Syrian regime it is difficult to see international pressure rising beyond the economic.”
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jul 2011 16:50

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World: Indian official makes anti-gay remark, then steps it back

  • Unfortunately, this disease, where a man has sex with a man, which is absolutely unnatural and shouldn’t happen but it is happening, is spreading around the world and has also come to India. Even in our country the numbers of men having sex with men is significant.
  • Indian Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad • Making comments about the AIDS virus. He later tried to clarify that he didn’t mean gay people, but it’s kinda hard to prove that when he’s quoted saying this. He claims that it only sounded like this because of the way he said it in Hindi, but there’s no way of telling if that’s true. Let’s hope not, because placing a stigma on an entire group of people is wrong, but especially when it comes from government official, simply because it has more impact. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jul 2011 10:22

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World: News of the World opens up new realm of unethical journalism

  • Surely now we should hear from David Cameron and Ed Miliband. It’s utterly disgraceful that they’ve let this scandal run on for as long as it has. No more cowardice — we want action.
  • Labour parliament member Tom Watson • Reacting to the news that “News of the World,” the U.K. tabloid publication, hacked into teenager Milly Dowler’s voicemail after she went missing in 2002. But it gets worse — apparently, after Dowler’s voicemail got full, they deleted messages in hopes of receiving more of them. But the end result was that it gave her family false hope, because it made them think she deleted the messages. In reality, Dowler was murdered, but News of the World crossed a very strong ethical line in hopes of getting a story. It’s one they’ve crossed before, by the way. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jul 2011 16:03

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World: French writer Tristane Banon accuses DSK of attempted rape

  • Another rape accusation against Strauss-Kahn: At the same time as news has been swirling about weaknesses in the New York rape case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a French woman has come forward with a similar accusation. Tristane Banon, a French author, claims Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her during an interview for a book she published in 2003. Banon’s lawyers have said they intend to file a criminal complaint of attempted rape on Tuesday (the French statute of limitations for a rape charge is ten years), while Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers indicated they may file against Banon for slander. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jul 2011 15:52

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World: Rebels invite Gaddafi to stay in Libya … after he resigns

  • If he desires to stay in Libya, we will be the ones to determine the place and there will be international supervision on all his movements and communications.
  • Mustafa Abdel Jalil, a rebel leader in Libya • He’s saying that Gaddafi can stay in Libya after he resigns, so long as he has supervision. It just shows that rebels are more eager to get to a peace deal. Rather than having him exiled, they’re willing to let him hang around after he’s out of power. This is all coming in response to a proposal from the African Union that rebels have interpreted as saying that Gaddafi shouldn’t have any sort of power anymore. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jul 2011 15:36

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World: Hugo Chavez returns to Venezuela

  • An unexpected homecoming: On the heels of revealing his medical plight to the Venezuelan public (he recently revealed he had cancer surgery), Hugo Chavez has returned to his homeland. “Here I am then, in my house and very happy!! Good day to my lovely Venezuela! Good day to the lovely people! Thanks to my God! This is the beginning of the return,” the leader wrote on Twitter. This comes as a surprise — he was expected to stay in Cuba for further treatment for some time, but it makes sense that he’d see a return as the only way to quell speculation he’s physically unable to remain President. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

03 Jul 2011 16:39

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World: Making amends: Greece floats a completely different flotilla idea

  • blocked A couple days back, Greece blocked a flotilla headed towards Gaza from heading out of one of its ports. It understandably drew a lot of controversy from certain quarters of the political sphere — but briefly took attention off the country’s austerity crisis.
  • allowed Now, it seems that Greece is ready to offer up a mea culpa to Palestine — in coordination with the United Nations, they’ll send a ship loaded with aid over to Gaza, which they’ll offer up to the Palestinian Authority — but, as you’ll note, they aren’t working with Hamas. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jul 2011 10:06

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World: Thailand elections: It took a year, but the Red Shirts finally won

  • last year Tensions flared so high in Thailand that the country’s Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva was hounded by thousands of mostly-rural opposition figures often referred to as “Red Shirts” — a conflict that, at times, got bloody — literally, they dumped vials of blood on the ground to prove their point.
  • this year A year after the conflict with the Red Shirts (which briefly shut down parts of Bangkok) took hold, Vejjajiva has been defeated in a reelection bid. Hopefully Yingluck Shinawatra (the sister of ousted, but still popular, PM Thaksin Shinawatra) has better luck keeping political dissenters happy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jul 2011 12:50

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World: Another governor sacked in Syria after massive protests

  • Yesterday, large protests like this one took place in Hama province in Syria. Today, Bashar al-Assad’s reaction appears to involve sacking the region’s governor in an effort to retain a handle on the situation. No details were given on Ahmad Khaled Abdulaziz’s sacking, though you can probably guess that this large protest, at the same site where Assad’s father led a bloody crackdown 30 years ago, probably had something to do with it. (And it isn’t even the first sacking of its kind, either; two other governors have already lost their gigs.) This is just one sign of the grinding gears of change in Syria — things could get interesting this month. Assad plans meetings with opposition leaders on the 10th; and the opposition plans a large conference of their own on the 16th. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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