Utrecht, December 2013
IKV Pax Christi has strived to achieve the highest level of accuracy in our
reporting. However, at this point, there is still a marked lack of official
information available in the public domain about the use, production,
transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, as well as about investments
in companies that produce cluster munitions…

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights in 2013 and discussing where we are in the fight for free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy. Click here to read other blog posts in this series.

The start of a new year always presents an opportunity to think back on the successes and failures of the past year and to look forward to the future with a sense of hope and optimism. Before the countdown begins to 2014, let’s take a moment to reflect on the progress we’ve made towards abolition of the death penalty in 2013. We’ve got a lot to celebrate.

But there was another side of the story that was hidden behind a veil of U.S. government secrecy. For years, the CIA and the White House had been funneling money through the Catholic Church into Nicaragua to destabilize the government. In effect, the Reagan administration had an inside-outside game going, Cardinal Obando and a group of right-wing Catholic priests were spreading around money to subvert Nicaragua from the inside while the Contra rebels were inflicting bloody havoc from the outside.

The last of 22 Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group concentrated in Western China, were freed from Guantanamo Bay, according to an announcement from the Pentagon on Tuesday. Their freedom comes ten years after the U.S. military determined that the men posed no threat to American national security.

…

Hiermit erstatten wir Strafanzeige wegen sämtlicher in Betracht kommender Straftatbestände gegen Herrn Rechtsanwalt Thomas Urmann.

Der Strafanzeige liegt folgender Sachverhalt zu Grunde: Der Beschuldigte ist Geschäftsführer der U + C Rechtsanwälte URMANN + COLLEGEN Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH. Die vorgenannte Kanzlei hat Anfang des Monats Dezember im Auftrag der in der Schweiz ansässigen Firma The Archive AG im großen Stil Abmahnungen an Nutzer der Internet-Plattform Redtube verschickt. Sämtliche Abmahnungen sind – soweit hier bekannt –
von Rechtsanwalt Urmann unterzeichnet.

Red flags were raised by a handful of German lawyers who noted that almost everything about U+C‘s actions bordered on illegal. At the very least, U+C couldn‘t demand payment for activity not considered to be infringement by the German courts. The backlash began there.

Was vielleicht nicht jeder wusste: Auf EU-Ebene ist das genau so, und die ganzen Staatssekretäre sind CDU-Maulwürfe.

In case you can‘t read that, Wismeijer complained on Twitter about finding out that his Dell server is bugged by the NSA (which might be an exaggeration…) and included the @DellCares account in his tweet. That account wrote:

„Thank you for reaching out and regret the inconvenience. Our colleagues at @dellcarespro will be able to help you out.“

Mukungubila, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2006, said the attacks were in response to government harassment of his supporters.

Armed youths attacked the airport, a military barracks and the state television headquarters in Kinshasa on Monday before being repulsed by troops. The government had earlier said dozens were killed.

Tim Worstall at Forbes points out (via the Independent) that the overenthusiastic filter is sealing off access to the very people and entities who pushed so hard to make this catastrophe a reality.

„U.S. forces were not involved in any operations regarding Ansar Al Sharia leader Abou Iyadh today in Libya,“ a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command said.

Tunisia‘s state news agency TAP said that U.S. and Libyan forces captured Saifallah Benahssine, the leader of Tunisia‘s Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia and a veteran of Afghanistan who is also known as Abu Iyad, in the Libyan city of Misrata on Monday.