News briefs:July 15, 2010

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Twin blasts, allegedly caused by improvised explosive devices, rocked two upscale malls in the main financial district in Aguinaldo Street in Iligan City on Thursday. At least three people were killed and forty-seven were wounded when two improvised crude bombs exploded and damaged the Unicity Commercial Center at 1:35 p.m. and the nearby Jerry’s Shoppers Plaza 10 minutes later.

The mall blasts occurred a day before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s scheduled visit to the City, her maternal hometown. Lanao del Norte police Superintendent Dimacuta Sanggacala said he “corrected the earlier report that six people had been killed, saying that some of those whom they thought were dead were seriously hurt.” “Forty-five people were injured and being treated at the Sanitarium City Hospital and Dr. Uy City Hospital,” he added.

The City of Iligan (Cebuano: Dakbayan sa Iligan; Filipino: Lungsod ng Iligan) is a highly urbanized city North of the province of Lanao del Norte, Philippines, and the province’s former capital. It is approximately 795 kilometers southeast of Manila with a population of 308,046 people as of 2007.

The provincial police said that CCTV video footages from both malls show two men both wearing scarfs, had placed the explosives inside bags and left at the package or baggage counters of the malls. An L-300 van was also destroyed in the blasts. The local SOCO forces, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (bomb experts) and the bomb-sniffing K9 unit of the 403rd Brigade were immediately dispatched to search the site for more victims.

Col. Nicanor Dolojan, commander of the Army’s 403rd said that “our suspect here are the lawless MILF group because of the type of the (improvised explosive device) that were used. That IED manifest their signature, using mortar rounds. Terrorism, which is their real intention, to sow terror in the area.That is our initial findings.” Iligan City Mayor Lawrence Cruz said that his local government received several “threats to bomb establishments – department stores, churches, schools, public places, and markets.”

Continuous clashes began in August between government troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, after the High Court annulled a Memorandum of Agreement on peace. Reuters reported that “five people were wounded in two blasts on December 4 in another part of Mindanao, which army officials blamed on rogue Muslim rebels fighting a long-running insurgency in the south.” “There have been at least three bomb attacks on bus terminals in the south since July as violence escalated after Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country’s largest Muslim rebel group, failed to sign a territory deal in August.” it added. In November, three people were also injured in the blasts of the Traveler’s Inn and the Caprice Lodge in Iligan City.

The Abu Sayyaf Group (lang-ar????? ??? ????; Jam??ah Ab? Sayy?f, ASG), also known as ‘al-Harakat al-Islamiyya’ is one of several militant Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, in Bangsamoro (Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao) where for almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for a state, independent of the predominantly Catholic Philippines.

The Times of India reported that “the southern Philippines region of Mindanao is the hotbed of a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency that has, in recent years, been suspected of harbouring Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden.”

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Wikinews has learned that a new entity calling itself The Regime used keylogging to gain an administrator password to 711chan.org, a site popular with the open vigilante group “Anonymous” that has recently been attacking Scientology online.

At 9:57 p.m. (eastern time) the site 711chan.org, was replaced, allegedly by The Regime by the title Church of Scientology along with a statement on the home page stating “This website has been deleted due to copyright claims from the Church of Scientology.” A search performed using Google, on 711chan has returned the number one result of the apparent hack. All that remains of 711chan.org is an apparent message to the members of the site to “run” and “hide.”

“711chan is full of fucking fail for siding with Gaia. I’m out of here, faggots. Enjoy your Gaia,” said the message, which currently is only available in a cached version.

At 1:45 a.m. on January 27, the site was replaced with “And now a message from our sponsors. YOU SUCK711chan will be back online shortly. I love you guys for helping me out. <3 plasma,” acknowledging the possibility 711chan was back in control of their site. The site’s name has been changed to “Church of 711.”

The Regime’s first attack went along with a message posted to 711chan’s website (quoted below) saying that “This site has not been blessed by The Regime and is deemed lame”, believing Anonymous to be self-proclaimed hackers (although this title was primarily used by the media). It also refers to Anonymous’ attempt to bring down the Church of Scientology (named ‘Operation Chanology‘), saying that “chanology is lame, scientology is lame”. It thereafter declared that the message board where Anonymous had been discussing Operation Chanology had been removed. Minutes later, 711chan stopped responding to queries.

The legitimate administrators of 711chan regained control after only three minutes, but it took nearly six hours to restore the site with recent additions missing. However, The Regime took the site down again twelve hours later, claiming to have removed the backups and stating, “all your db are belong to us” (an allusion to the phrase “all your base are belong to us“).

A new video posted to YouTube by someone who claimed to be The Regime shows a logo and uses a computer animated voice to threaten 711chan.org and their affiliates. The Regime, however, denies making the video saying “we are in no way responsible for making, nor are we tied to that video in any way.”

The video declares, “Dear ‘Anonymous’. We are The Regime. Your attacks on Scientology have not gone unnoticed.” The video’s text description states that “Your attacks on Scientology have not gone unnoticed, we have the money, resources and tools to put an end to your SP behaviour and so called hacking activities. You have soiled the good name of LRH and now it is you that have *our* attention.”

The acronyms in the text description are Scientology jargon “suppressive person” (a person who criticizes Scientology) and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Both terms were also used recently in a leaked internal Church of Scientology video featuring Tom Cruise promoting his beliefs. The video goes on to state that “Anonymous” has been declared “Fair Game” (another Scientology term).

The title of The Regime video, “Re: Message to Scientology”, is a reference to the video “Message to Scientology”, which was posted by “Anonymous” to YouTube on Monday. The original “Message to Scientology” video has been viewed over 1,000,000 times since it was posted.

“We have your IP addresses, your documents and secret plans. We own your 711chan, your IRC, and we are taking care of your raid forums. Call off your attacks on our religion immediately, or 4chan YTMND, something awful and your other bases will be brought to ruin. Do not underestimate us. You are out of your league. You have been warned,” added the video.

In an exclusive interview with Wikinews, the group is only called The Regime. When asked what their mission was, they stated “we have none.”

Wikinews also asked who or what was in charge of their group and they replied, “At one point, this would have been a complicated question as there were many tiers and positions of authority, however now leadership is confined to a single council.” They are also not affiliated with any other group and act alone with “no contacts with groups or individuals outside of itself.” They also refused to describe their group as a whole. They also stated to “define affiliated” when Wikinews asked if they were part of the Church of Scientology.

Their motivations are still not clear. When asked what motivates their group to do what they do, they replied, “What motivates any human to do anything? Money, Power, Respect? Choose one,” but also state that they will continue their attacks “if necessary.”

Wikinews also asked if The Regime was in any way affiliated with the Church of Scientology, including working for or against their beliefs or being a ‘branch of The Church’ The Regime simply replied, “We are not Scientologists, this is all we have to say on the subject.”

Sources within the “Anonymous” group have played down the actions of The Regime who – when announced on the IRC channel the group utilizes for communications – were said to be “… a bunch of gloryhunters ridin [sic] on our tails”. Another user of the IRC channel, calling himself “Anonz”, was quoted as telling other members of the group “… It’s funny how they call us scriptbunnies yet use scripts themselves.” The general consensus was that “Anonymous is not impressed.”

Friday, September 27, 2013

Tuesday, World Bank released the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development. The United States is referred to many times, often as a benchmark to foster understanding of recent gains for women in other parts of the globe. At the same time, United States women still lag behind US men in a number of areas.

In 2012, the authors note women in the United States still face challenges economically and socially. They are represented disproportionately in certain professions like teaching and nursing. They are paid less than their male counterparts. Jobs traditionally held by women also result in lower wages for men who hold these jobs. They are under-represented at the highest level of business, with only 28 of Fortune 1000 companies having a female chief executive officer. The bottom 20% of women economically have a slightly higher birth rate than their peers in the top 20%.

Immigrants to the United States from Southeast Asia and India have higher than expected male to female birth ratios, which the report authors suggest is partially deliberate sex selection based on cultural attitudes from home countries. In 2009, over half a million US women were victims of intimate partner violence. The report suggests US men have greater pension assets than US women. When compared to elderly US men, elderly women in the United States are more likely to live alone than with a spouse. US women are disproportionately under-represented in local police forces, accounting for less than 20% of all police officers. Women in the United States also bear a higher percentage of housework duties than men at 61%. When US women take part time work while raising children, they find it difficult to use that work experience to gain future full time employment. US women are disincentivized from re-entering the workforce after giving birth because of the high cost of childcare.

Many of the gains for United States women took place a while ago and took a long time to get. It took 40 years, 1870–1910, to see major improvements in the percentage of girls aged 6 to 12 attending school. In 1921, after women got the right to vote in the United States, the United States Congress passed the Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy Act. This assisted in lowering infant mortality from 23% to 15%.

The report says affirmative action in the United States resulted in jobs transferring from men to women, but the authors hedged and did not draw a conclusion about the economic impact of these legislative efforts other than to say the impact was not negative.

Many of the legislative victories for United States women came early compared to developing countries. Property rights for women, while later than some of their European counterparts like Norway and the United Kingdom, started to come by 1848. That year, the Married Women’s Property Act was passed in New York. It was the first legislation of its kind in the country. Other states soon followed. Women got suffrage on a state-by-state level in the country until they got federal suffrage in 1920. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination against women and allowed married women to make loans without their husband’s consent. In 1980, airlines were barred from discriminating against flight attendances for their marital status during the hiring and firing stage.

The number of United States respondents agreeing with the proposition “a university education is more important for a boy than for a girl” decreased from about 14% in the period between 1994 and 1999 to about about 9% in the period between 2005 and 2007. Similarly, the number of people who agreed with “when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women” decreased from 19% to about 8% over the same period.

The report cites current research from the United States and England showing the more education a mother has, the better the outcomes for her children will be.

Currently in the United States, females academically outperform their male counterparts in all academic areas including [[mathematics|math] and science. On the Programme for International Student Assessment math test though, US boys tested better than US girls by a score of roughly 495 to 480. US girls outperform boys on the literacy test with mean scores of approximately 510 to 490. In this regard, the report suggests US girls’ performance patterns resemble global ones.

Mali’s percentage of girls in primary school is equivalent to the United States in 1810 at around 34%. Burkino Faso is worse, matching the United States in 1780 with a percentage of roughly 25%. Niger’s current enrollment for girls is around 50%, around the same percentage as the United States in 1900.