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Monday, September 30, 2019

On Friday in Pakistan, Mohammed Waseem, brother of social media personality and feminist Qandeel Baloch, was sentenced for her murder to life in prison by a court in Multan. Waseem confessed to killing his sister by strangling her in 2016 in what has widely been called an honor killing. She was 26.

Baloch and Waseem’s mother, Anwar, wept upon hearing her son had been convicted and said she believed he was innocent. In August, the parents tried to have Waseem released by saying they forgave him for the killing. Until recently, Pakistani law allowed the perpetrators of honor killings to go unpunished if forgiven by the victim’s family.

Even though Waseem confessed to acting alone, several alleged accomplices, including Muslim cleric Mufti Abdul Qawi, were tried by the same court. All, including Qawi, were acquitted. Baloch was murdered a few weeks after publicly posting pictures of herself with Qawi on the Internet, and Qawi drew criticism for associating with her. Qawi was later accused of inciting the murder in some way, which he denied. Some of Qawi’s supporters threw flower petals as he was leaving the courthouse.

Waseem appeared in a news conference after his 2016 arrest in which he expressed no regret for his sister’s death and specifically mentioned family honor. He has since said his initial confession was forced.

“As women we must stand up for ourselves. As women we must stand up for each other[,]” Baloch wrote on social media shortly before her death. “I believe I am a modern day feminist.”

Qandeel Baloch made videos and social media posts depicting her dancing, singing, lying in bed or, on one occasion, offering to disrobe if Pakistan defeated India in a then-upcoming cricket match, all of which are considered controversial for women in Pakistan.

When Baloch was born, about 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Lahore, she was Fouzia Azeem, daughter to a poor farming family. At the time of her murder, Qandeel Baloch, nicknamed the “Kim Kardashian of Pakistan,” had about 750,000 followers on Facebook, and wrote about feminism. In an interview with Dawn, she said as a teenager she was forced into an abusive marriage by her family. She also said that her much-older husband attempted to disfigure her with acid. Baloch ran away from the marriage to a shelter with her son but later returned the boy to her husband when she could not support him.

Since Baloch’s death, Pakistan’s laws about honor killings have changed. Though the accused can still avoid the death penalty if forgiven by the victim’s family, the minimum prison sentence for the crime even if forgiven is now 25 years. Waseem is eligible to appeal.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new treatment for a type of leukemia (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) that uses a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer cells. Scientists extracted the blood from three male patients, all of whom suffered from advanced leukemia. They inserted a gene into the patients’ T-cells (the cells normally responsible for ridding the body of foreign pathogens such as viruses), and the gene reprograms the cells to actively seek out and kill cancer cells within the blood. They then returned the modified blood to the patients.

The patients initially reported symptoms similar to those of a bad case of the flu, but the researchers pointed out that this was likely due to the body’s response to rapid cancer cell death all at once. However, once the symptoms subsided, the scientists found that two of the three patients had no signs of leukemia and the third, while still sick, showed significant improvement. Additionally, they discovered that the modified T-cells not only killed existing cancer cells, but brand new ones as well.

Though optimistic, experts say that more research needs to be done to determine if this will be a viable treatment on a large scale and warn that this therapy would not be available as an approved treatment for several more years.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.

The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.

Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”

Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.

Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Paul Hester, drummer for the popular 1980s band “Crowded House”, was found dead in a Melbourne park Saturday.

An ambulance service spokeswoman told the Sydney Morning Herald that ambulance officers arrived at Elsternwick Park on Saturday afternoon. They reported Hester had “attempted suicide” and suffered “strangulation”. The 46-year-old-father-of-two was last seen walking his two dogs in the popular suburban park near his home on Friday evening.

Hester had a history with bouts of depression, but seemed to be coping well following eight years of therapy. Friends told the The Daily Telegraph, however, that he suffered a recent turmoil in his love life. Firstly, there was the end of his romance with long-time partner and mother of his two daughters, and then a parting last December with New Zealand singer Kashan, whom he planned to wed in May. There appeared to be no indication he was distressed when he left the house to walk his dogs.

Hester, from Melbourne, Australia, was a founding member of the internationally popular group Crowded House. Previously, he was in the band “Split Enz” with Crowded House leader Neil Finn during the early 1980s. He quit Crowded House in 1994, two years before the band broke up, and became a television personality in Australia with his own prime-time show, then working mostly as a freelance drummer [e.g. for Tarmac Adam]. He had his own music chat show, Hessie’s Shed, on Australian TV in the late 1990s, and also had a recurring role as Paul the Cook on the children’s program The Wiggles. He also hosted the successful Australian cable music channel MAX’s Sessions series.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

On Monday, digital security researchers Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens of Belgium’s KU Leuven university publicly disclosed a security vulnerability in the WPA2 Wi-Fi (wireless local-area networking) protocol, which they called KRACK (for Key Reinstallation Attack). Their study claimed KRACK affects every modern device using Wi-Fi; it can be fixed by a software update, researchers said.

Vanhoef wrote, “Attackers can use this novel attack technique to read information that was previously assumed to be safely encrypted. This can be abused to steal sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, photos and so on.” Vanhoef notified vendors about the flaw in July, including UNIX-like operating system OpenBSD. “If your device supports Wi-Fi, it is most likely affected. […] In general, any data or information that the victim transmits can be decrypted”, he wrote.

The study papers, which were submitted for review on May 19, were kept in confidence allowing companies to fix the security flaw. The United States-based Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) informed vendors on August 28. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it “could be resolved through a straightforward software update.” OpenBSD released their software patch on August 30.

Exploring the flaw which affected every device the researchers had tested, National Cyber Security Centre of the UK said “the attacker would have to be physically close to the target”. But due to this flaw, an attacker can send malware or ransomware on the websites, Vanhoef claimed.

Linux-based operating systems including Android v6.0 and higher are especially affected by this flaw, while Windows and iOS are not as vulnerable as Android by this flaw as they do not fully implement WPA2.

Microsoft reportedly has released security patches for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Google said Android operating systems would receive the updates in the software update scheduled to be made available on November 6. Apple has implemented the patch in the beta versions of their operating system iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS, however it is yet to roll out patches for stable operating systems.

WPA2 protocol has been used for more than a decade, and has been compulsory for Wi-Fi since 2006. KRACK would also affect various home appliances which can be controlled over Wi-Fi, within the so-called “Internet of things”. Andrew Martin from Oxford University said, “We can be sure a lot of these devices won’t be patched[…] Whether that matters for this attack or only for some future attack is yet to be seen.”

The study and its findings are scheduled for presentation at the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Computer and Communications Security conference on November 1.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Iranian police forces have faced criticism from Ayatollah Hashemi Shahrudi, the head of the judiciary who was appointed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for their re-invigorated campaign to do away with un-Islamic dress.

Ayatollah Shahroudi proclaimed, “Tough measures on social problems will backfire and have counter-productive effects.” Others have, of course, made it clear that un-Islamic dress can lead to moral corruption, engender innumerable vices, and hurt the Islamic character of the nation.

Some believe that no one had any issue with the creation of an Islamic atmosphere. The core of the matter revolves around the implementation of the Islamic dress code; additionally, heavy-handed measures should be shunned. For instance, Mehdi Ahmadi, information head of Tehran’s police, told Al Jazeera: “Some citizens may complain about the way the law is being enforced but they all agree with the plan itself.”

According to one student, “You simply can’t tell people what to wear. They don’t understand that use of force only brings hatred towards them, not love.” Nevertheless, Hojatoll-Islam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Iran’s interior minister who is in charge of policing, prognosticated positive feedback from the populace when he said, “People are unhappy with the social and moral status of the society. They expect that the fight against social insecurity be properly implemented.” Thus, Hujjat al-Islam Pour-Mohammadi re-iterated the necessity of proper implementation and methodology towards the restoration of morality in the Islamic Republic. Islamic officials and religious people affirm that this is indispensable to promote righteousness, curb sin, and bring open sinners to justice.

Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, hijab became mandatory in Iran for every woman including foreigners after over 98% of citizens voted for an Islamic government. Women may face caning up to 74 strokes for failing to observe hijab. In this recent crackdown, the authorities have arrested many citizens throughout the country. Not only have women been taken into custody for their hair being uncovered on their foreheads and tight clothes that show body shapes, For men they need to cover from knee to their waist as according to Sharia. Even a foreign journalist was detained because the photograph on her press card was indecent.

It has not been clear whence the directive for the re-newed clampdown emanated. Some have blamed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while Gholam Hossein Elham, the government spokesman, stated to reporters, “The police work as agents of the judiciary to confront crimes. The government as an executive body does not interfere in the affairs of the judiciary.” The following pre-election speech seems to corroborate this latter statement: