Saudi blogger wins Sakharov rights prize, sparking pardon calls

Yahoo – AFP, Arnaud Bouvier with Bryan McManus in Brussels, October 29, 2015

An Amnesty International activist holds a picture of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi 

during a protest against his flogging punishment on January 29, 2015 in front of 

Saudi Arabia's embassy to Germany in Berlin. The 30-year-old Saudi has been

 sentenced to 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam and is serving a 10-year jail term - a 

case which has drawn widespread international criticism. (AFP Photo/Tobias Schwarz)

Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam, was awarded the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on Thursday.

The 31-year-old, who was arrested in 2012, is an outspoken advocate of free speech whose public flogging in January triggered international outrage when he was subjected to a first round of 50 lashes.

European Parliament head Martin Schulz

 called on Saudi King Salman to 

immediately release blogger Raif

Badawi (AFP Photo/Thierry Charlier)

Announcing the award, parliament chief Martin Schulz called on Saudi King Salman to immediately release Badawi, denouncing his sentence as "brutal torture" and demanding that Riyadh live up to Europe's standards on human rights.

"This man has had... imposed on him one of the most cruel penalities which can only be described as brutal torture," Schulz said. "I call on the Saudi king to immediately free him."

Watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) echoed the call, urging King Salman to pardon the father of three.

Badawi, who co-founded the Saudi Liberal Network Internet discussion group, was detained in 2012 on cyber crime charges.

Like most Saudis, Badawi is a Sunni Muslim but his network had announced a "day of liberalism" and called for an end to the influence of religion on public life in the kingdom.

He was arrested and the website shut down on grounds it criticised Saudi Arabia's notorious religious police.

He was initially charged in 2013, and last year a Saudi court sentenced him to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, 

photographed in 2012

(AFP Photo)

His wife Ensaf Haidar, who fled to Canada with his children, hailed the award as "a message of hope and courage" which came just two days after she warned that her husband's flogging was expected to resume.

"I hope that this prize is going to help advance" Badawi's cause and allow him to rejoin his family, Haidar told AFP.

She said she had not spoken to him in six days and was not sure if he even knew that he had won the prize. "When I last spoke with him his morale was low, so I hope this news gives him hope," she said.

'A message to his torturers'

The award was also hailed by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) which said he had played a major role in promoting freedom of expression and attempting to foster public debate in Saudi Arabia.

"Raif has spoken up for all Saudis who simply dream of enjoying the same rights as other human beings. He has paid dearly for his commitment and this Sakharov Prize sends a clear and strong message to his torturers," said FIDH president Karim Lahiji.

Born on January 13, 1984, Badawi studied economics then went on to run an English-language and computer learning institute, says Haidar, who married him in 2001.

He eventually found his calling as a writer, focusing on free speech.

The network that he co-founded was described by Paris-based RSF as "an online discussion network whose aim is to encourage political, religious and social debates in Saudi Arabia".

Supporters of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi protest in Paris against his sentence of 

1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam", on May 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Stephane de Sakutin)

In a blog posting last year which was translated into English, Badawi wrote: "It requires courage to respect others' views, to appreciate others' beliefs and choices along with their right to believe them."

RSF named Badawi as one of three winners of its press freedom prize last year.

Sentence upheld

After his arrest, a court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah sentenced him in 2013 to seven years in jail and 600 lashes for insulting Islam and setting up the liberal network.

An appeals court overturned the original verdict, sending Badawi's case back for retrial with his sentence increased last year to 10 years and 1,000 lashes. The sentence was upheld by a Saudi court in June.

Citing an informed source, Badawi's wife on Tuesday said Saudi authorities had "given the green light to the resumption of Raif Badawi's flogging", saying it would take place "soon" at the prison where he is being held. The information was posted on a website dedicated to her husband's plight.

Ensaf Haidar, wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, in Berlin on May 21,

 2015 prior to the Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Awards 

2015 ceremony (AFP Photo/John Macdougall)

Britain on Wednesday announced that a Briton facing the threat of flogging in Saudi Arabia for being caught with home-made wine is to be released from custody.

The prestigious Sakharov human rights prize is given every year to honour individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression.

Last year, it was awarded to Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege for helping victims of gang rapes by soldiers.

Past winners include Pakistani education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, late South African president Nelson Mandela and Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Related Articles:

Blogger Raif Badawi's long struggle for freedom of expression

Saudi Arabia postpones flogging of blogger Badawi for third week

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi’s case referred to supreme court, says his wife

Saudi postpones blogger lashing on medical grounds

Protesters call for the release of Raif Badawi outside the Saudi embassy

in The Hague, Netherlands. Photograph: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Rex

Bringing the Internet within reach of 100 million Indonesians from 20 kms above Earth

Google Blog, Thursday, October 29, 2015  

In Indonesia today, only about 1 out of every 3 people are connected to the Internet. And even though most of their connections are painfully slow, they’re doing some pretty incredible things. Startups like motorcycle delivery service Go-Jek are building impressive adaptations to Indonesia’s unique challenges, while small businesses like fashionable hijab shop HiJup are using the web to redefine marketplaces.

Still, a majority of Indonesians don’t have access to the educational, cultural, and economic opportunities of the Internet. That’s why we’re pleased to announce that Indonesia’s top three mobile network operators—Indosat, Telkomsel, and XL Axiata—have agreed to begin testing Project Loon balloon-powered Internet over Indonesia in 2016. These tests represent an important step toward bringing all of Indonesia online.

From left to right: Ririek Adriansyah, CEO of Telkomsel; Dian Siswarini, CEO of
XL Axiata; Alexander Rusli, CEO of Indosat; Mike Cassidy, VP of Project Loon;
Sergey Brin, President, Alphabet Inc

Loon balloons act like floating mobile phone towers; flying on the stratospheric winds at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, each balloon beams an Internet connection down to the ground, and as one drifts out of range, another moves in to take its place. Loon can help telecommunications companies extend their networks; high in the sky, we can help overcome the difficulties of spreading equipment across an archipelago of 17,000 islands of jungles and mountains, providing connectivity to even the most remote islands.

Project Loon balloons travel approximately 20 km above the Earth’s surface in

 the stratosphere. Winds in the stratosphere are stratified, and each layer of wind 

varies in speed and direction. By moving with the wind, the balloons can be 

arranged to form one large communications network

  

Over the next few years, we’re hoping Loon can partner with local providers to put high-speed LTE Internet connections within reach of more than 100 million currently unconnected people—that’s enough speed to read websites, watch videos, or make purchases. From Sabang all the way to Merauke, many of these people live in areas without any existing Internet infrastructure, so we hope balloon-powered Internet could someday help give them access to the information and opportunity of the web.

But it’s not the only step Google is taking toward making the Internet both accessible and useful for people in Indonesia. Android One phones are helping to make high-quality smartphones more accessible in a country where most people first access the Internet on a mobile device. And along with that, we’re working to ease the use of data with features sure as Search Lite, which streamlines search so pages load more quickly, or by optimizing web pages so that they require less data to load. Indonesia is also one of the first countries where YouTube users can take videos offline to watch later during periods of low or no Internet connectivity.

We’re also doing what we can to ensure that language isn’t a barrier to the opportunities of the web. Google Translate was introduced for Bahasa in 2008, and more recently we’ve expanded it to Sundanese, a language that’s spoken by nearly 40 million people living on the island of Java.

Soon we hope many more millions of people in Indonesia will be able to use the full Internet to bring their culture and businesses online and explore the world even without leaving home. And for those of you who’ve never been to this country of rich culture and natural beauty, we invite you to head over to Google Street View to explore the famous temples at Borobudur and Prambanan.

Posted by Mike Cassidy, Vice President, Project Loon

Net neutrality in the air after EU Parliament votes in favor of TSM

The European Parliament has voted in favor of a telecommunications bill that drops roaming charges across the EU. However, the bill also threatens net neutrality in the 28-nation bloc.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Oct 2015

The European Parliament Tuesday voted in favor of the Telecommunications Single Market (TSM) bill after amendments proposed by several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were rejected.

This is excellent news for consumers & business! EP approves legislation on #netneutrality & end of #roaming

— Günther H. Oettinger (@GOettingerEU) October 27, 2015

"Today's vote puts an end to the legislative vote on the TSM. The parliament has shown leadership throughout the…process," said MEP Pilar del Castillo Vera after the EU Parliament passed the bill.

"There can be no doubt that the Internet is a valuable asset. It is full of opportunities for all. We need to handle this asset very carefully. This regulation establishes the guarantees required to ensure the Internet gives equal access to all without discrimination," Castillo Vera noted.

The TSM effectively ensures that telecommunications companies cannot charge mobile users while roaming within the 28-nation union.

Net neutrality in danger?

However, the bill also made telecommunications regulators and courts the final arbiters of net neutrality, leaving the Internet's future under their mandate.

"We are disappointed that the European Parliament has decided not to legislate on this critical issue," Estelle Masse, policy analyst at digital rights organization Access Now, said in a statement.

Goodbye #NetNeutrality :(

— Bastian Allgeier (@bastianallgeier) October 27, 2015

"By not supporting the necessary amendments to give clarity to the text, the Parliament has left it up to courts and national regulators to determine its meaning," Masse noted.

The bill's language remains vague with regards to the establishment of so-called "fast lanes" and zero-rating schemes.

'Determined'

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee said earlier this week that if the text remained unchanged, it could "threaten innovation" within the 28-nation bloc.

However, critics of the bill in its current form remain committed to ensuring net neutrality, or the concept of an open Internet that is treated equally, and "without discrimination, restriction or interference regardless of its sender, recipient, type or content."

.@Europarl_EN just adopted #TSM without amendments - Amendments for strong #netneutrality have all been rejected

— Access (@accessnow) October 27, 2015

"We are determined to work closely with regulatory authorities in order to bring the necessary clarity to the text during the nine-month consultation period," Massed said.

"The fight for net neutrality is not over. The EU telecoms regulators are now tasked to finish the work started by the EU legislators to ensure that free expression online is protected."

Friendly robot Pepper makes European debut in France

Yahoo – AFP, 21 Oct 2015

'Pepper' the humanoid robot communicates with the audience during a demonstration

 at WSJDLive technology conference in Laguna Beach, California, on October 20, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown)

Laguna Beach (United States) (AFP) - A humanoid robot name Pepper designed as an upbeat companion made its European debut on Tuesday helping shoppers with wine, and more, in a major shop in France.

The test run involves seven robots stationed in different parts of a Claye-Souilly region Carrefour store, where they are programmed to do things such as suggest food recipes or wine choices, or assess customer satisfaction, Magali Cubier of Aldebaran Robotics told AFP.

"The main focus is to entertain people and to test how they react to seeing a robot in a shop," Cubier said, standing opposite a pair of Pepper robots giving hugs and high-fives to attendees at a WSJDLive technology conference on the Southern California coast.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls (L) meets Softbank's humanoid robot 'Pepper', 

at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, on 

October 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Toshifumi Kitamura)

"It is the first time we are getting Pepper out of Japan, so we will see the reaction of users in France."

Aldebaran has sold 4,000 Pepper robots since they launched in Japan in June. The Paris-based company is about 98 percent owned by SoftBank Group in Japan.

Aldebaran sells one batch of 1,000 Pepper robots monthly, with an up-front price of $1,500 euros and then monthly subscription payments of about $200 euros for three years, according to Cubier.

Pepper was billed as a "new species" of robot capable of recognizing basic emotions such as happiness and sadness by looking at people's faces.

"Faces mean a lot to me; even more when they are smiling," a Pepper model said while describing its facial recognition capabilities during a demonstration.

"It is pretty clever because it keeps me from trying to interact with non-human things,. For example, those couches never talk back."

Japanese telecom giant Softbank's humanoid robot Pepper gestures alongside 

Tottori Prefecture Governor Shinji Hirai as they promote watermelon produce at a 

shop in Tokyo, in July 2015 (AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Aldebaran in September began gathering research that showed people tended either use the robots as day-to-day home companions or took creative approaches of building in their own software applications for small business purposes.

Pepper was at WSJDLive as part of a quest for partners in the hope of expanding to the US market, according to Cubier.

"We see robots being more and more present in our daily life to help us; assist us; entertain us, live with us," she said.

Pepper's effort to spread to France and beyond comes with the challenge of adapting robots to different ways emotions are expressed in the world's diverse array of cultures and places.

For example, Pepper will shake hands with shoppers in France -- but not greet them with robotic pecks on cheeks, something Cubier promised to look into.

Residents follow Zora’s instructions during a physical therapy class.

(Regy van den Brand)

Related Article:

How a robot ended up teaching exercise classes in a Dutch retirement home

EU court rules against Facebook over transatlantic data deal

Yahoo – AFP, 6 Oct 2015

The 'Safe Harbour' agreement reached by the United States and European 

Commission in 2000 was based on the premise that US laws offered similar 

privacy protection to those in the European Union (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)

Luxembourg (AFP) - The European Union's top court on Tuesday ruled that a key transatlantic data sharing deal relied on by companies such as Facebook was invalid in the light of spying revelations in the Edward Snowden scandal.

In a major blow to US tech firms, the court said the 2000 "Safe Harbour" agreement between the United States and the EU did not sufficiently guarantee the protection of Europeans' personal data and must be struck out.

The stunning decision stems from a David-and-Goliath complaint against social media giant Facebook lodged against Irish authorities by Max Schrems, an Austrian law student privacy campaigner.

Austrian right-to-privacy activist Max

 Schrems waits for the verdict at the

 European Court of Justice (SCJ) in 

Luxembourg on October 6, 2015

 (AFP Photo/John Thys)

"The Court of Justice declares that the (European) Commission’s US Safe Harbour Decision is invalid," the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg said in its three-page judgment.

The court said Irish authorities now had to decide whether transfer of data from Facebook's European subscribers to the United States should be suspended "on the ground that that country does not afford an adequate level of protection of personal data."

"YAY," Schrems tweeted after the judgment.

He later said in a statement that the decision was a "milestone when it comes to online privacy."

"It clarifies that mass surveillance violates our fundamental rights. This decision is a major blow for US global surveillance that heavily relies on private partners," he said.

Schrems filed the case against Ireland's data protection authority because Facebook's European headquarters are based there.

Major US web giants including Facebook and Apple have set up headquarters in Ireland to take advantage of favourable tax laws. Facebook data is then transferred to servers in the United States.

'Inaccurate assertions'

But Schrems had argued that the 15-year-old Safe Harbour deal is too weak to guarantee the privacy of European residents in the wake of details provided by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Snowden.

The data deal allows data transfers by thousands of businesses on the grounds that US laws offer similar protection to those in the 28-nation European Union.

The European Commission -- the executive arm of the EU -- is widely expected to announce the imminent agreement of a new version of the Safe Harbour pact with the United States.

There was no immediate reaction to the judgment from Washington, but last month the United States said an opinion by the EU court's top legal counsel which reached similar conclusions was based on "inaccurate assertions".

Former NSA contractor Edward 

Snowden leaked details of the vast

 surveillance programs (AFP Photo)

The case comes amid widespread tensions between Brussels and Washington on issues of regulation, with several EU anti-trust probes currently underway into US tech firms.

"The United States does not and has not engaged in indiscriminate surveillance of anyone, including ordinary European citizens," the US mission to Brussels said in a statement last week.

"We fully respect the European Union's legal process; however, we believe that it is essential to comment in this instance because the Advocate General's opinion rests on numerous inaccurate assertions about intelligence practices of the United States."

Snowden, who remains wanted by the United States and currently lives in Moscow, opened a Twitter account last week, just days before the judgment.

His revelations showed that the NSA's PRISM programme used Silicon Valley giants Apple, Google and Facebook to gather user data.

In the wake of the scandal, the EU and Washington began talks to revamp Safe Harbour.

Dutch flag carrier KLM to cut management by 25%, boost efficiency

DutchNews, October 1, 2015

Dutch airline KLM is poised to cut a quarter of its managerial jobs and support functions, broadcaster Nos says, after acquiring a copy of the reorganisation plan. 

The document states that KLM is too complex, too slow and too expensive. The company is too hierarchical, has too many managers and ‘has lost sight of its customers’. Slashing costs will involve ‘flipping all the switches’, Nos says. 

According to KLM, this means 25% of managers will lose their jobs and those who remain will have bigger departments to deal with. In addition, support, HR and communications departments, can be streamlined and made more efficient. 

The job cuts should lead to savings of €40m a year, Nos says. 

The plan was sent to the airline’s works council on July 8 and it has reacted positively, Nos says. 

The reorganisation has been on the cards for some time. A spokesman told the broadcaster that the changes would make KLM more future-proof but declined to say how many jobs will actually be lost.

Related Articles:

Fewer managers but more of them are women

Kids behaving badly? Here's the Dutch solution

Software developer Valve Corp in Bellevue, WA, has

300 employees and not one manager or boss. (Value Corp)

Who Needs Bosses? Not Game Company Valve

Zappos is going holacratic: no job titles, no managers, no hierarchy


"The New Paradigm of Reality" Part I/II – Feb 12, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" (without a manager hierarchy) managed Businesses, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, ..... etc.) (> 28 Min)