Thursday, June 8, 2006

Five South Korean workers have been kidnapped from a natural gas facility operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company in the Nigerian Delta.

A group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta is claiming responsibility for the attack and kidnappings and says that one kidnapper and at least six Nigerian soldiers were killed on a Nigerian military boat, when gunmen entered the facility. The group’s main demand is the release of a jailed militia leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari.

“[The Korean workers] are in good health and have been returned to one of our bases. As long as the units holding these individuals do not come under attack, no harm will come to the prisoners. We do not kill those fortunate to be captured by our fighters,” said the group.

The group also says that they “plan more attacks” on facilities and oil rigs in the near future.

“In the next few weeks our attacks will increase with the destruction of several facilities of crucial importance to the oil industry,” said the group.

One of the kidnapped victims is identified as Park Chang-am.

“I want Dad to come back so we can go fishing,” said the son of Chang-am, Park Myong-il.

Thursday, September 8, 2005

The German Anarchist Pogo Party ran a campaign ad (Download here — NSFW) which, instead of discussing the party’s politics, featured various party scenes set to a heavy metal soundtrack. The spot included revellers smashing furniture, pouring beer down each other’s throats, and women dancing topless. The spot ends with the proclamation: “My vote for the rubbish”.

The ARD refused to air the ad because it “violates the human dignity” and showed only a heavily censored version at an earlier airtime. The Party then sued the station and got an injuction by an appeal court in Münster only minutes before the next ad was due, forcing the ARD to air the spot uncensored, right before their evening news flagship.

The ad has offended a number of people, but has likely gained the party nationwide attention among its younger demographics who could access campaign websites online (appd.de). The Hamburg-based APPD and every other party is entitled by law to free television airtime on Germany’s public TV Station ARD and ZDF for its advertisements because it is an officially registered political party competing for the upcoming federal elections. Its next ad is scheduled for Monday night, although broadcasting authorities may again censor the ad.

The party has a membership of approximately 750 — German newspapers posit that the ads will have little impact on the upcoming election.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The popular social networking site Facebook agreed to purchase the Instagram photo-sharing mobile app for US$1 billion in cash and stock Monday.

The app, which can be used to apply faux-vintage filters to photographs, allows users to share photos with one another both directly and through posts to social networking sites. Instagram was founded less than two years ago by two Stanford University graduates near San Francisco, California and the purchase is one of the largest acquisitions in Facebook history following after a failed takeover bid in early 2011 which had been declined by Instagram.

Facebook, despite its prominence as the largest website for social networking in the world, has had difficulties expanding into the mobile market, particularly the realm of mobile advertising. As of yet, Facebook lacks an advertising platform for its apps and has yet to capitalize off the boom in mobile phone use that Instagram is intertwined with.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg noted the importance of the ability to post to multiple social media sites at once in a post. He wrote on his personal timeline, “We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience.” He said Facebook “plan[s] on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.”

Many other small services that Facebook has acquired, namely Gowalla, Hot Potato, and FriendFeed, were all shuttered shortly after acquisition. The co-founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, in a company blog post, has denied any claims that Instagram would share the fate of these past services. “It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience,” he wrote.

Many reasons have been put forth for the purchase, and Zuckerberg commented, “for years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

An autopsy performed on Tuesday revealed that the late Boyzone singer Stephen Gately “had died of natural causes”.

Officials from the Spanish island of Majorca that Stephen had suffered from an accumulation of fluid on the lungs, or as it is known in scientific terms, a pulmonary edema. The 33-year-old singer was found dead on a sofa in the lounge of his apartment. He had been out of the accommodation for the night while he was partying with Andrew Cowles, who was his partner.

There was a court hearing held earlier today in Majorca. The hearing only lasted for a short time. The judge had decided that the family of Stephen Gately would be allowed to take his body back to the Republic of Ireland, the country in which Gately grew up and had lived in, by plane. After discovering Stephen’s death, the other members of Boyzone took a plane flight to Majorca, so as to comfort Andrew Cowles. They have now flown back to their homes.

Monday, September 14, 2009

A viral election joke has landed several politicians in hot water as Norway goes to the polls to elect its parliament today. A hoax message turning voters away from polling stations is circulating in digital media. The message was also passed on by politicians, who have used social media like Twitter and YouTube to interact with the voters during the campaign. The targeted party is not laughing, and is warning that the activity could be seen as voter suppression.

“Due to full polling stations, Progress Party voters should send their vote by SMS [Standard Modular System] with shortcode FRP to 2009″ That message, and variations of it, was the joke circulating in social media such as Facebook and Twitter or by mobile phone messages.

Norway has taken significant steps towards e-government, such as a trial letting pre-calculated tax returns be filed by SMS. In this context, the General Secretary of the Progress Party, Geir Mo, said that the message was “sabotaging democracy”, because the damage would be done even if just one person believed the message. Kjell Ingolf Ropstad, one of the politicians who passed the message on, refused to apologize for doing it.

The main issue in the election has been whether voters should let the Labour Party dominated majority coalition government stay in power, or vote them out by voting for opposition parties.