Moray eels video

This video says about itself:

What is truly amazing about moray eels is that they have a second set of teeth! With rows of razor sharp teeth, they are known to be fierce underwater predators.

Dictator Suharto’s censorship law scrapped

This is a video about the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia in 1998.

From Associated Press:

Indonesia revokes book-ban law from Suharto days

By IRWAN FIRDAUS (AP) – 1 day ago

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A landmark decision striking down an Indonesian book-banning law that has been used since the days of ex-dictator Suharto to clamp down on dissent was welcomed Thursday by historians, authors and rights activists.

For more than four decades, the attorney general’s office could unilaterally prohibit publication or distribution of books deemed “offensive” or a “threat to public order.”

But the Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday such power should rest with a judicial court.

“It’s great,” said historian Hilmar Farid. “It symbolizes the end of a period of darkness for all of us. It will allow future generations to learn the truth about everything, from science to history.”

Suharto stepped down in 1998 after 32 years of dictatorial rule, leading to reforms in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million that freed the media, vastly improved human rights and gave citizens the right for the first time to directly pick their leaders.

Though the country is now seen as one of the most democratic in the region, some authoritarian policies remain in place, such as a continuing ban on communist and other left-wing organizations.

A group of authors and publishers whose books were banned last year asked the Constitutional Court to review the 1963 regulation that allowed it.

Their books — and others — touched on sensitive topics like separatist-torn Papua province, inter-religious conflicts, the role of the military and even scientific research.

In striking down the law, Judge Mohammad Mahfud told the court: “Any banning of books must be done through the legal process in a court.”

Hundreds of books have been banned since the 1960s, including almost all 34 books and essays by late Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an outspoken democracy advocate who spent 14 years in jail during Suharto’s reign.

In the last year alone, the government banned “Pretext for Mass Murder,” a book about the role of the military in Suharto’s rise to power by John Roosa, a professor at the University of British Colombia, and four other books written by Indonesians.

Artist and illustrator Alit Ambara said he was thrilled.

“It will give students the change to learn about the past from different perspectives,” he said, noting that history books continue to blame the Communist Party for an apparent abortive coup in 1965 that helped Suharto rise to power.

Videos showing the torture of West Papuans by occupying Indonesian soldiers have embarrassed the Indonesian government ahead of a scheduled visit in November by US President Barack Obama: here.

Captured on video, the Indonesian military’s torture of two Papuans in May highlights the extent of the violence and intimidation that exists throughout Papua: here.

Sharp tensions in Indonesian Papua following failure of “peace conference”: here.

Indonesian Police Accused of Systematic Torture of Prisoners: here.

Three Indonesian soldiers captured on video torturing civilians were sentenced today to just a few months in prison: here.

Sacred ibis in the Netherlands

This video says about itself:

An escaped Sacred Ibis on the Apaj Fishponds in the Kiskunsagi National Park, Hungary. The ring on the left leg is blue FW and on the right leg is IBIS ZOOSB 21. Is there anybody who missed this bird?

updated: the bird was escaped from Salzburg Zoo!

Vogels Nieuwslog in the Netherlands reports seeing seven great egrets and a sacred ibis in nature reserve Oudeland van Strijen.

See also this report.

This bird species, originally from southern Iraq and Africa, played a role in ancient Egyptian religion as the bird of the god Thoth.

Due to escapes from zoos, the sacred ibis is spreading in western Europe now.

It is said to have nested in nature reserves Botshol and Oostvaardersplassen recently.

Update 2013: here.

Related articles

• This is a ………..School for Ibis (burgessart.wordpress.com)
• A blushing Ibis (sharonrwagner.blogspot.com)

Film The Social Network

This video from the USA is called The Social Network Official Trailer.

The Social Network, directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), recounts the rapid enrichment of Mark Zuckerberg, a young Internet businessman and disputed creator of Facebook: here.

Another review of this movie is here. Yet another one is here.

Facebook Privacy Breach: Users’ Info Leaked To Advertising, Tracking Firms (REPORT): here.

Raymond J. Learsy: Facebook is one of the great triumphs of the American system. Innovation, courage, risk, entrepreneurial vision, a classic success story of the best of the American way. One in which each American, in varying degrees depending on one’s individual construct, can be proud. Clearly a myriad of investment houses and banks would have stepped in to fill a financial role for it. But of all the options, it has aligned itself with Goldman Sachs, a company whose actions at a time when the country needed financial help and vision rather chose to profit. Mr. Zuckerberg, we would have hoped you would know better: here.

Facebook and Twitter have received failing grades from Digital Society, a “digital think tank,” that created an “Online Services Security Report Card” ranking “which websites protect your account and which don’t”: here.

What Facebook Is Hiding From You: here.

How Feds Exploit Our Social Media ‘Narcissism’ To Watch Our Moves: here. And here.

New research from Geomium, an online social community to enhance local communication and interaction, has shown that millions of British women haven’t met at least a quarter of their online friends, and also see less of their friends since social networking became popular: here.

Facebook’s Plan To Share Users’ Home Addresses, Phone Numbers: here.

Assange: Facebook Is Most Appalling Spy Machine Ever Invented: here.

Facebook Users DROP In U.S.: Millions Left The Social Network In May 2011: here.

Before Facebook censors us, we’ll do it ourselves—Swedish photography gallery is latest to cover up explicit work: here.

Facebook Privacy In Question: Irish Regulators To Probe ‘Frictionless Sharing’ And More: here.

Would you believe Mark Zuckerberg killed a bison? Here.

The secret sexism of social media: here.

Racism in France and Germany

This video from the USA is called Truth Over Fear: Countering Islamophobia.

Prominent German politicians, including the chancellor, Angela Merkel, have defamed those practising the Muslim faith, thereby challenging the fundamental right to freedom of faith and conscience: here.

A new survey in Germany shows that 13 percent of its citizens would welcome a “Führer” – a German word for leader that is explicitly associated with Adolf Hitler – to run the country “with a firm hand”: here.

On October 7, the French Constitutional Council approved the anti-democratic ban on wearing full-face veils, such as the burqa or niqab, in all public places: here.

Today, we see that the rules of western European racism are shifting. On the one hand, they are becoming less racialist; on the other hand they are seeking to become official. How should we Europeans understand this, and how should we respond? In the first of her Inter Alia columns, Markha Valenta looks at the cross-continental emergence of Islamophobia: here.

Quebec’s Liberal government is pressing forward with Bill 94—chauvinist, anti-democratic legislation that would prohibit women wearing the Muslim burqa or niqab from receiving provincial public services, including health care and education: here.

Economic crisis, workers resist

This video says about itself:

France on Strike – 1995 (54 min). In December 1995 in France a massive national strike took place of railway workers, education workers, postal worker, students and many other public service workers and private industry workers to protest the attack on their pensions and on public services. This video from news footage shows the power of the strike, the democratic process of workers and students voting and discussing the strike in every location and the eventual victory of the national strike. The lessons of this strike for other public workers and students around the world are important today in showing how to organize a militant and democratic struggle. Labor Video Project, P.O. Box 720027 SF, CA 94172 www.laborvideo.org.laborvideo.blip.tv

Strikes by workers and students continued in France yesterday, as the government refuses to retract its pension cuts, and high school students carried out mass protests against the reform: here.

Greece‘s Acropolis remains closed to tourists amid ongoing strike: here.

Strikes erupt over public worker pay cut in Romania: here. And here.

Thousands of former army personnel rallied in central Bucharest on Monday against austerity measures foisted on them by their government under pressure from the US-based International Monetary Fund: here.

Slovakian workers demonstrate against austerity measures: here.

Research carried out by the BBC has revealed that some pension-selling companies take as much as 80 percent in fees and commission from some of their private pension plans: here.

USA: The Obama administration has rejected calls for a moratorium on home foreclosures despite revelations that banks illegally processed mortgage documents to speed up the eviction of families and seizure of their homes: here.

Some of the most powerful Wall Street investment firms, together with the New York Federal Reserve Bank, on Tuesday took a step toward launching legal proceedings aimed at forcing Bank of America to buy back as much as $47 billion in mortgage-backed securities: here.

The number of Americans filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday: here.

Wall Street moguls are confident that Americans will always believe that that the big boys are really worth their money. But for how long? Will the middle class finally get angry at the plutocrats who stole their dreams? Here.