Daily Archives: 9. Mai 2014


09.05.2014 - 14:29 [ Ria Novosti ]

Augenzeuge: Nationalgarde in Mariupol schoss auf ungehorsame Polizisten

„In die Stadt zogen neun Schützenpanzerwagen und eine Kompanie von Soldaten ein“, so Komissarow in einem Interview für den lettischen Radiosender Baltkom. „Sie waren mit Schusswaffen und Granatwerfern bewaffnet. Diese Waffen wurden gegen Polizisten eingesetzt, die sich im Gebäude der Polizeizentrale verschanzt hatten.“ (..)

Ein anderes Bild schilderte der ukrainische Innenminister Arsen Awakow. Wie er via Facebook mitteilte, hatten rund 60 Volkswehr-Milizen am Freitagmorgen versucht, das Gebäude der Polizeizentrale der Stadt zu erstürmen. Ein Drittel von ihnen wurde dabei getötet.

09.05.2014 - 13:34 [ Paolo Becchi / Beppe Grillo´s Blog ]

The silence of the (non-) innocent

There’s something unsettling in the culture of our country. Or in what’s left of the „culture“ of this country. For the last two years now, we’ve been living in what I’ve defined as the “permanent coup d‘état”. I recognise that it’s a clear, radical definition. And I also recognise that it’s something that lots of people might not agree with. I’ve been told that, rather than talking about „coup d‘état“, I should have talked about a state of permanent exception, or of permanent emergency. The fact is – and at least I’m allowed to say this – that over the last two years, our Constitution, our constitutional way of doing things, has been subject to a series of transformations that, even though they haven’t altered the provisions written in the Constitution, they have, in fact, made it possible to transition from a parliamentary government to a presidential one. What I find disturbing is that coming from those very people whose profession means they should be dealing with all this, that is the constitutionalists, there has been a deafening silence all this time, a silence that continues to this day. They have nothing to say about everything that has been happening, nothing to object to.

09.05.2014 - 13:18 [ Bundesmnisterium der Verteidigung ]

Ministerin von der Leyen im Bundestag: Einsatz der OSZE-Beobachter war legitim

(05.05.) Die Einladung durch die Ukraine sei an alle 57 OSZE-Mitglieder gegangen, die Aufenthaltsorte der Mission seien „exakt bezeichnet“ gewesen, sämtliche Informationen seien allen OSZE-Mitgliedern zur Verfügung gestellt worden. Es sei ihr „völlig unverständlich, wenn die völkerrechtliche Legitimation der Mission infrage gestellt wird“, sagte von der Leyen. Sie betonte auch noch einmal das besonnene und kluge Verhalten der OSZE-Beobachter: „Oberst Schneider und sein Team haben unsere Hochachtung und unseren Respekt verdient“, so die Ministerin.

„Wenn jemand einen Rechtsbruch begangen hat, dann die Aggressoren“, stellte von der Leyen klar.

09.05.2014 - 13:12 [ Reuters ]

Ukrainian troops storm eastern police HQ, building ablaze

Ukrainian forces attacked police headquarters in the south-eastern port city of Mariupol on Friday in an attempt to drive out pro-Russian militants, and the building caught fire, according to a Ukrainian parliamentary deput. (…)

Local police in the eastern Donetsk region said they could not comment. Lyashko said a Ukrainian police commander had been killed by a sniper and one had been wounded.

09.05.2014 - 12:01 [ Kreml ]

Victory Day parade on Red Square

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Citizens of Russia, veterans,

Soldiers and sailors, sergeants and warrant officers, corporals and midshipmen, officers, generals and admirals, I congratulate you on Victory Day!

Sixty-nine years have gone by since the Great Patriotic War ended, but May 9 was and still is our biggest holiday. It is the day of our national triumph and our people’s pride, and also the day of sorrow and eternal memory.

On this day we see the overwhelming strength of patriotism and feel especially acutely what it means to be loyal to our homeland and how important it is to defend our country’s interests.

We must remain worthy of our forebears’ deeds. They fought to the death with the enemy, defending their native land, and they vanquished Nazism.

This victory was forged on the frontlines and on the home front, in partisan detachments and in the underground. The courage of blockaded Leningrad brought it closer, as did the bravery of Sevastopol’s defenders and the valour of thousands of soldiers who held their lines firm.

The fierce battles for Moscow and Stalingrad, Kursk and the Dnieper determined the outcome of the whole of World War II. The Soviet people’s iron will, fearlessness and steadfast courage saved Europe from enslavement.

It was our country that pursued the Nazis right back into their dens, dealt them the full and final blow, and achieved victory at a cost of millions of lives lost and terrible trials endured.

We must always preserve this sacred and unfading truth and not allow others to betray or forget these heroes who sacrificed everything for the sake of preserving peace in our world.

Friends, today we bow our heads in memory of those who are not with us any longer. Every family honours their devotion to their Fatherland.

The unbroken link between generations is our immense national treasure and it is here that Russia’s strength and dignity lies. We thank our veterans. We are proud of you.

There is no one dearer and closer to us than you on this day. On this day we honour you with flowers, fireworks and military parades, but most important of all, we give you the warmth of our hearts.

You not only traversed the tumultuous war years with honour, but also rebuilt the country and worked for the common good, knew the meaning of friendship, knew how to find joy in life, and this is the lofty legacy you handed on to us – this summit of creation, unity, and love for our Motherland.

We will never let you down. We will look after Russia and its glorious history and will make service to our country the highest value, as it always was throughout our history. I am sure it will always be so in the future too.

Glory to the victorious people!

Happy holiday to everyone!

Happy Victory Day!

Hurrah!

09.05.2014 - 12:00 [ Syrian Arab News Agency ]

Foreign Ministry: Bombing Carlton Hotel by so-called „Islamic Front“ affirms Syria‘s request from UNSC to add it to terrorism list

New York, SANA, Foreign and Expatriates Ministry stressed in two identical letters sent Thursday to the UN Secretary-General and Chairman of the Security Council that as the armed terrorist group calling itself „Islamic Front“ claimed responsibility of the bombing of the ancient Carlton Hotel in Aleppo, additional evidence is established that supports Syria‘s request from the Security Council to add this so-called „Islamic Front“ to the terrorism list.

09.05.2014 - 11:59 [ Techdirt ]

Keith Alexander: NSA Makes The Entire Internet Weaker To Protect You From Terrorists

We‘ve had plenty of discussions about how the NSA has weakened our infrastructure and put us all at much greater risk. A big part of the problem, we‘ve noted, is the dual role of the NSA and US Cyber Command, in which there‘s a combined offensive and defensive role to crack the technologies that „bad guys“ are using… while (they tell us) protecting the technologies that we‘re using.

In a new interview, former NSA boss General Keith Alexander attempts to defend this weakening of internet security — and, instead, proceeds to explain why it‘s such a huge problem:

09.05.2014 - 11:54 [ Frederik Obermaier,John Goetz / Süddeutsche ]

Geheimdienst verstärkt Kampf gegen Cyber-Angriffe

Wenn deutsche Geheimdienstler über die Gefahren des Internets reden, sprechen sie gerne vom Krieg. (…)

Bislang konnten wir nur auf Angriffe reagieren, die bereits stattgefunden haben, künftig können wir schon vorher tätig werden“, sagte BND-Präsident Gerhard Schindler am Donnerstag beim Symposium des Verfassungsschutzes, einer Art Klassentreffen der deutschen Sicherheitsbehörden.

09.05.2014 - 11:46 [ Bundeskriminalamt ]

BKA-Vizepräsident Jürgen Stock kandidiert für das Amt des Generalsekretärs bei INTERPOL

Die Internationale Kriminalpolizeiliche Organisation INTERPOL hat sich seit ihrer Gründung 1923 zu einem weltumspannenden Netzwerk von Polizeibehörden aus 190 Mitgliedsländern entwickelt. INTERPOL ist ein zentraler Akteur in der internationalen Sicherheitsarchitektur und angesichts zunehmender transnationaler Kriminalität auch für Deutschland der wichtigste globale polizeiliche Kooperationspartner.

09.05.2014 - 11:44 [ Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz ]

11. Symposium des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) „Wirtschaft und Verfassungssschutz kooperieren vertrauensvoll“

Unter dem Titel „Spionageabwehr und Wirtschaftsschutz“ eröffnete der Präsident des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen, heute Morgen das 11. Symposium des BfV in Berlin-Mitte und warb zum Auftakt für die Weiterentwicklung der Zusammenarbeit mit deutschen Unternehmen. (…)

Am Vormittag spricht Bundesinnenminister Dr. Thomas de Maizière zu den rund 250 Teilnehmern über das Thema “Spionagebedrohung für Staat und Wirtschaft – Deutschlands Souveränität stärken“. Weitere Redner sind der Beauftragte für die Nachrichtendienste des Bundes, Staatssekretär Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, Telekom-Vorstand Dr. Thomas Kremer und BND-Präsident Gerhard Schindler.

09.05.2014 - 11:42 [ Techdirt ]

How Comcast Is Trying To Turn The Internet Into The Old, Broken Phone System

Each day, the open internet/net neutrality battle gets a bit more interesting. We just covered Tim Lee‘s excellent look at how Comcast and other big telcos were effectively using interconnection disputes to get the same result as violating net neutrality, without technically violating the basic concept of what most people believe is net neutrality. And he‘s back with an even more important explanation of how Comcast‘s ultimate goal is to effectively make the internet more like the old phone system, post AT&T breakup, in which everyone had to pay to access the end points of the network. Ironically, they‘re trying to recreate the internet in the form of the old telephone network, while at the same time doing everything to resist being classified as a telephone network by the FCC.

09.05.2014 - 11:41 [ Watts Up With That? ]

The Global Climate Model clique feedback loop

Look, I actually have a Ph.D in theoretical physics. I’ve completed something like six graduate level math classes (mostly as an undergraduate, but a couple as a physics grad student). I’ve taught (and written a textbook on) graduate level electrodynamics, which is basically a thinly disguised course in elliptical and hyperbolic PDEs. I’ve written a book on large scale cluster computing that people still use when setting up compute clusters, and have several gigabytes worth of code in my personal subversion tree and cannot keep count of how many languages I either know well or have written at least one program in dating back to code written on paper tape. I’ve co-founded two companies on advanced predictive modelling on the basis of code I’ve written and a process for doing indirect Bayesian inference across privacy or other data boundaries that was for a long time patent pending before trying to defend a method patent grew too expensive and cumbersome to continue; the second company is still extant and making substantial progress towards perhaps one day making me rich. I’ve did advanced importance-sampling Monte Carlo simulation as my primary research for around 15 years before quitting that as well. I’ve learned a fair bit of climate science. I basically lack a detailed knowledge and experience of only computational fluid dynamics in the list above (and understand the concepts there pretty well, but that isn’t the same thing as direct experience) and I still have a hard time working through e.g. the CAM 3.1 documentation, and an even harder time working through the open source code, partly because the code is terribly organized and poorly internally documented to the point where just getting it to build correctly requires dedication and a week or two of effort.

09.05.2014 - 11:36 [ Techdirt ]

Medialink Threatens Customer With Lawsuit For Writing A Negative Amazon Review

It‘s an age-old story. Guy buys a router. Router sucks. Guy writes negative 1-star review on Amazon. Company threatens to sue him for defamation.

09.05.2014 - 11:35 [ Techdirt ]

Judicial Problem: Defending Free Speech Is More Likely When Justices Agree With The Speech

Democracy, as they say, is messy, but I think the messiest aspect of the American political system is the Supreme Court. Maybe messy isn‘t the right word. Maybe baffling would be better. The reason for my thinking so is that, growing up, I was always under the impression that Supreme Court Justices were something they really aren‘t. I pictured them as men and women of such knowledge and character that they were almost super-human. After all, these are the supreme-iest judges in the land; you‘d think they‘d be so far beyond you and I that they‘d be almost incomprehensible. An idiot Senator? Sure, I can picture that. Some jackass President? Hell, we jackasses are the ones that vote them in, so sure. But the Supreme Court? Gods, right?

09.05.2014 - 11:27 [ Techdirt ]

The Bizarro, Fact-free World Of Copyright Policymaking

If you‘re a regular visitor to this website, you‘re likely used to the never-ending parade of horribles detailing how copyright has been used to censor documents, stifle innovation and generally wreak all kinds of unintended havoc.

Even with this constant attention, it‘s sometimes easy to lose sight of exactly how world-champion strange copyright policy is.

09.05.2014 - 11:20 [ RT ]

Nuland has tough time justifying US involvement in Ukraine

During a two hour House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland shared her assessment of the US role in Ukraine‘s crisis and the upcoming presidential election.

But instantaneously she came under fire from Dana Rohrabacher, a republican congressman from California.

“We did have legitimate election before, and the legitimate president was removed after we had major street violence. There were pictures of people running around that we were told were neo-Nazis,” Rohrabacher challenged Nuland.

Nuland faced a hard time coming up with answers.