American Buddhist Net

A prostitution ring linked to alleged corruption in the awarding of public works contracts for the G8 summit in Italy involved as many as 350 women, investigating magistrates said yesterday.

The apparent scale of the “sex for favours” affair, which was previously said to involve three or four women, is a further blow to the centre-Right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

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The Soviet Union is gradually being rebuilt as Vladimir Putin eyes a return to the Kremlin. The man who declared the collapse of the Communist state to be the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” appears determined to forge a new empire.

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Tens of thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators gathered in at least four Spanish cities to protest against a new law that allows abortions without restrictions up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Organizers' spokesman Victor Gago said one march, carrying banners of "Yes to life," blocked the central Sol square of the capital, Madrid.

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...“Ordinary people, farmers and fishermen, taxpayers, doctors, nurses, teachers, are being asked to shoulder through their taxes a burden that was created by irresponsible greedy bankers,” President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said on Bloomberg Television.

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And in the American case, furthered by corrupt and dishonest government officials. ABN

LONDON — Monitored by millions of cameras and spied on by a secretive domestic intelligence network, Britons could be forgiven for feeling up in arms over the latest threat to their privacy: Intelligent garbage bins that can monitor how much they throw out.

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Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school 'hate registers' over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

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A Muslim woman is thought to have become the first passenger to be stopped from boarding a flight after refusing to go through a full body scanner for religious reasons.

The passenger was at Manchester Airport for a flight to Islamabad when she was selected at random to pass through the security screen.

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Men seen as likely to be violent towards their wives could be forced to wear an electronic tag under a law being debated by the French parliament.

The tag would have to be worn by men who have received a court order to stay away from their partner.

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It is not just women who are the victims of spousal violence

COPENHAGEN - A Danish newspaper on Friday apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech.

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The European Union has shown its righteous wrath by stripping Greece of its vote at a crucial meeting next month, the worst humiliation ever suffered by an EU member state.

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The American blogosphere is going increasingly “viral” about a proposal advanced at the recent meeting of the Davos Economic Forum by Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, that an equivalent of a “driver’s licence” should be introduced for access to the web. This totalitarian call has been backed by articles and blogs in Time magazine and the New York Times.

As bloggers have not been slow to point out, the system being proposed is very similar to one that the government of Red China reluctantly abandoned as too repressive.

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The freedom to speak your mind should be considered a fundamental human right. Without the freedom to write and say what you want, all other rights are next to meaningless. Governments fear the Internet not because it is "wild," but because it provides information they cannot control. Have you heard of a single grass-roots movement to control the Internet or to curtail freedom of speech? I doubt it. Regressive speech laws are always the products of governments or their fellow-travelers in think tanks and universities. People who want to control the Internet or abridge your right to speak your mind are enemies of human progress. ABN

Italy's government is drafting a decree that would give it control over online video content.

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Americans, do not be fooled. We are the last place on earth with decent free speech and Internet protections. One country after another, using a variety of excuses, has adopted free speech restrictions. In Italy's case, I will give Berlusconi a little bit of credit--there is not much pretense that his desire for control of the Italian Internet is not all about him. In other regions, excuses usually include protecting children, protecting citizens from bad information, or protecting citizens from "offensive" language or ideas. The child porn excuse can be seen to be false because most porn of this type is obtained not from websites but through P2P exchanges or bulletin boards; the bad information excuse is obviously one that can and is subject to political interpretation, as is the "offensive" language and ideas excuse. Most American already know, and none of us should forget, that the first amendment was designed not only to protect unpopular speech but also to emphasize the crucial importance of those protections by making it an amendment--the first one. ABN

THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT has buckled under pressure and approved the Sarkozy government's authoritarian plans to censor the Internet.

The government opposed all objections to its plans to filter Internet sites, which have been controversial throughout French society. Today La Quadrature du Net, a French openness group, said that the action would give the government total control over its citizens' access to the Internet. It added that Nicholas Sarkozy was using excuses to clear a path for his rules, whch ultimately would come at the expense of liberty.

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By MICHAEL HUDSON and JEFF SOMMERS

While most of the world’s press focuses on Greece (and also Spain, Ireland and Portugal) as the most troubled euro-areas, the much more severe, more devastating and downright deadly crisis in the post-Soviet economies scheduled to join the Eurozone somehow has escaped widespread notice. No doubt that is because their experience is an indictment of the destructive horror of neoliberalism – and of Europe’s policy of treating these countries not as promised, not as helping them develop along Western European lines, but as areas to be colonized as export markets and bank markets, stripped of their economic surpluses, their skilled labor and indeed, working-age labor generally, their real estate and buildings, and whatever was inherited from the Soviet era.

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DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - At least 10,000 Germans formed a human chain in Dresden on Saturday and stopped neo-Nazis staging a funeral march to remember victims of the Allied air raid that flattened the city 65 years ago.

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Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

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Iceland intends to become a bastion for global press freedom under a package of laws proposed by opposition MPs to defend freedom of speech, and protect sources and fight libel tourism.

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Icelanders hope to host controversial data from around world

My faith in humanity is close to being restored. Do it! Iceland rules! Come on you, Vikings, reconquer the weak minds in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that have allowed their freedom of speech to be stolen from them by idiots. Go for it! Pass free speech laws that will make the EU blush with shame for their cowardice! Same to you, you weak-kneed babies in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. What is the matter with you? Why allow morons to steal your most precious birthright? Iceland, show us the way! Have courage! We are with you! American Buddhist Net supports this effort 100,000%! ABN

By Jonathan Stray / Feb. 11 / 9 a.m.

On Tuesday, the Icelandic parliament is expected to introduce a measure aimed at making the country an international center for investigative journalism publishing, by passing the strongest combination of source protection, freedom of speech, and libel-tourism prevention laws in the world.

Supporters of the proposal say the move would make Iceland an “offshore publishing center” for free speech, analogous to the offshore financial havens that allow corporations to hide capital from authorities. Could global news organizations with a home office in Reykjavík soon be as common as Delaware corporations or Cayman Islands assets?

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Wikileaks and Iceland MPs propose 'journalism haven'

Awesome! Fantastic idea! Do it! Go for it! ABN

Thousands of far-right supporters have been given permission to go onto the streets of the German city of Dresden after a court authorised a neo-Nazi demonstration to mark the 65th anniversary of the allied bombing of the German city.

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Mikulov, South Moravia, Feb 8 (CTK) - The Czech police detained three women from Tibet who wanted to illegally travel from Poland via the Czech Republic to Austria last week, foreigner police spokesman Roman Pittner told CTK Monday.

They claimed they want to join their relatives in the celebrations of the forthcoming Buddhist New Year falling on Sunday, Pittner said.

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Council of Europe chair says pharmaceutical companies conspired with WHO to make vast profits from fake hysteria

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THE HAGUE - A DUTCH teenager who wants to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world solo on a yacht will appeal against a court placing her under child supervision, her lawyer said on Thursday.

Laura Dekker, 14, needs to complete her trip before she turns 17 to break the current record. But in October last year, a court in Utrecht barred the teenager from setting off on a round-the-world solo yacht trip for at least eight months, citing safety concerns and placing her in care.

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Internet potentially will lose one of its main sources of bestiality videos under a ban approved on Tuesday by the upper house of the Dutch parliament.

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THE security service MI5 has accused China of bugging and burgling UK business executives and setting up “honeytraps” in a bid to blackmail them into betraying sensitive commercial secrets.

A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.

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There is nothing hyperbolic in stating that a trial which has just started in Holland will have unparalleled significance for the future of Europe. It is not just about whether our culture will survive, but whether we are even allowed to state the fact that it is being threatened.

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This is what hate speech laws do. I hope Americans will never give up their right to free speech. I also hope that Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China, and every other nation and region in the world will gain, or regain, this invaluable and fundamental human right. As matters now stand, the USA is the only country in the world with decent free speech protections. Tragically, there do exist Americans who want to abridge this all-important right. We believe they should be opposed every step of the way. Once the right is gone you may not even be permitted to speak about it. Think I am putting it too strongly? From the article: If found guilty of this Alice-in-Wonderland accusation of ‘offending a group of people’, Wilders faces up to two years in prison. For speech. ABN

Back in November, UK ISP Virgin Media announced that it would start using deep packet inspection gear to start riffling through user traffic. The goal was to search some of the leading P2P networks in order to measure copyrighted material passing through them. Today, the European Commission indicated that the plan is problematic, and it will keep a close eye on the trial.

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Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years.

In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence.

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Alert readers should have no trouble figuring that one out. ABN

Was a top contender for the Romanian presidency zapped out of the race by a shadowy parapsychologist enlisted by his rival? The claim might be dismissed as preposterous in most other EU countries. But here, in the homeland of Dracula, Mircea Geoana's assertion that a "negative energy attack" led to his narrow loss to re-elected President Traian Basescu has been the talk of the nation.

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President Obama sent two of his top national security officials to Moscow on Wednesday to clear the last hurdles to a new nuclear pact, but a revelation that U.S. missiles will soon be deployed near Russian territory could complicate the talks.

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