Spain Arrests 4 Suspected Anonymous Hackers - ABC News
►http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/spain-arrests-suspected-anonymous-hackers-15807095
Police say they have arrested four suspected hackers allied to the loose-knit Anonymous movement in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites.
A National Police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.
US firm must return Spain shipwreck treasure
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/20122186547857739.html
A US federal judge has ruled that a Florida-based company that found sunken treasure from a 19th century warship must return 594,000 silver and gold coins to the Spanish government by next week.
The 17 tonnes of coins and other items are valued at more than $500m, making it the biggest sunken treasure recovery in history.
►http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ui05_salut-l-ami-adieu-le-tresor_news
What is Eurogendfor and what is it doing in Greece?
►http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php?topic=5353.0
"The European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) is an initiative of 5 EU Member States - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – aimed at improving the crisis management capability in sensitive areas. Since Wednesday, 17th December 2008, the High Level Interdepartmental Committee Meeting (CIMIN) decided to welcome the Romanian Gendarmerie to become a full member of the EGF. Therefore the EGF consists from that moment of 6 member states.
EGF responds to the need to rapidly conduct all the spectrum of civil security actions, either on its own or in parallel with the military intervention, by providing a multinational and effective tool.
The EGF will facilitate the handling of crisis that require management by police forces, usually in a critical situation, also taking advantage from the experience already gained in the relevant peace-keeping missions.
Based in Vicenza in the “Generale Chinotto” barracks, the EGF HQ is now developing a comprehensive and coherent operational system, which will permit to be ready in case of prompt deployment to crisis areas.
EGF goal is to provide the International Community with a valid and operational instrument for crisis management, first and foremost at disposal of EU, but also of other International Organizations, as NATO, UN and OSCE, and ad hoc coalitions."
From the same site and under Frequently Asked Questions, and I quote:
"Q.1.i. Who gives the mandate for operations in which the EGF is involved?
ACTA Survival Guide for Website Owners | EDRI
►http://www.edri.org/ACTAhowto
#ACTA et la #censure d’#internet
Under ACTA such examples will become commonplace:
1. domain name (...) It has already happened that a Spanish company - its online business disappeared overnight because the American registrar deleted the domain names. The crime? Providing travel services to Cuba – legal in Spain, illegal in the USA.
2. (...) avoid doing anything which would risk unilateral measures being taken by the registrar
3. Search engine (...) Google also takes voluntary measures to remove access to material that it fears is contrary to European law – although it continues to allow US consumers access to that material.
4. The payment service providers might freeze your accounts and block your payments (...).
5. The service or hosting providers may remove your website if they believe that any aspect of your site might be directly or indirectly breaking the law. (...)
6. You should also be aware that it also would be possible for your payment provider to disclose some of your financial information, even commercially sensitive information, to “judicial authorities or to the right holder (...).
7. It is important to be careful with linking to content on other websites or in choosing advertisements displayed (...)
8. Finally (...) advertising networks are increasingly being asked to take action by blocking payments to websites (...)
#Pirate_Party Protests Against Megaupload Shutdown
►http://thenextweb.com/eu/2012/01/24/megaupload-shutdown-the-catalan-pirate-party-launches-a-civil-action-aga
The Pirate Party’s Catalan branch (PP-Cat) is launching a collective civil action in Spain against the FBI with regard to #Megaupload shutdown, the organization announced yesterday.
The action already branched out on Twitter with the hashtag #megacomplaint. (...)
when Megaupload was shut down, millions of Spanish users potentially lost access to legit personal files they had uploaded. According to the Pirate Party, those may deserve legal recourse against the loss they sustained, as the FBI may have violated Articles 197 and 198 of the Spanish Penal Code by misappropriating #personal #data.
Incidence of anaphylaxis in the city of Alcorcon (Spain): a population-based study - Tejedor Alonso - 2012 - Clinical & Experimental Allergy - Wiley Online Library
►http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03930.x/abstract;jsessionid=AFD7F294437EDA2D9F670854234D375F.d02t04
Protestation.org Blog » Around 50 Police occupy a Police Station in Barcelona Spain against cuts
Today, 13 January 2012, about 50 mossos occupy a police station of Barcelona against the cuts. 50 agents of the Mossos d’ Esquadra (local police in Barcelona) have this morning burst in into the reception of the police station of the Catalan police of the Plaza de Espanya of Barcelona with the intention to spend the night, in a confinement with which they try to protest against cuts announced by Interior.
►http://www.protestation.org/blog/around-50-police-occupy-a-police-station-in-barcelona-spain-against-cu
Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis | World news | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/21/europe-migrants-crisis-irish-portuguese
A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.
Tens of thousands of Portuguese, Greek and Irish people have left their homelands this year, many heading for the southern hemisphere. Anecdotal evidence points to the same happening in Spain and Italy.
[...]
This year, 2,500 Greek citizens have moved to Australia and another 40,000 have “expressed interest” in moving south. Ireland’s central statistics office has projected that 50,000 people will have left the republic by the end of the year, many for Australia and the US.
Portugal’s foreign ministry reports that at least 10,000 people have left for oil-rich Angola. On 31 October, there were 97,616 Portuguese people registered in the consulates in Luanda and Benguela, almost double the number in 2005.
The Portuguese are also heading to other former colonies, such as Mozambique and Brazil. According to Brazilian government figures, the number of foreigners legally living in Brazil rose to 1.47 million in June, up more than 50% from 961,877 last December. Not all are Europeans, but the number of Portuguese alone has jumped from 276,000 in 2010 to nearly 330,000.
For departing Greeks the top destinations over the years, according to the World Bank, have been Germany, Australia, Canada, Albania, Turkey, UK, Cyprus, Israel and Belgium. Skilled Greeks are particularly likely to leave: as an example of what can happen, 4,886 physicians emigrated in the year 2000 (the last year for which the World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Factbook cites data for departing doctors), meaning the country lost 9.4% of its doctors in that single year. The World Bank gives the number of immigrants living in Greece as about 1.13 million in 2010, around 10% of the population. Most have come, over the years, from poorer countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia, it is likely that the majority of new arrivals lack the skills to replace the emigrants.
The Year in Pictures : Part I (The Big Picture)
►http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/12/the_year_in_pictures_part.html
Any “best of” list must surely be subjective. This one is no different. Choosing the best photographs of the year is an enormously difficult task, with many terrific photographs slipping through the cracks. But with major news events as a guide, and with single images I fell in love with throughout the year forcing their way into the edit, I look at my favorite pictures from the first four months of the year. Two main stories dominated headlines in the first part of the year: the Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the rising of the Arab Spring. The protests in the Middle East would spread to Greece, Spain, and eventually inspire the Occupy movement in Western nations. Other stories included a historic wave of tornados in the U.S., a Royal wedding in London, and the creation of the world’s newest nation in South Sudan. Images from the rest of the year will follow in posts later this week. (...) Source: The Big Picture
Spain: Police Target People Who Don’t ‘Look Spanish’
People who do not “look Spanish” can be stopped by police as often as four times a day, according to report by Amnesty International.
The report, titled ‘Stop Racism, Not People” claims discrimination in the country, often criticised for its history of racism, is condoned by the authorities.
According to Spanish law the police can check the identity of people in public places when there is a security concern.
However the report details incidents when deliberate identity checks on ethnic minorities have taken place with no grounds, while certain police stations in Madrid have weekly and monthly quotas for the number of illegal migrants they have to detain.
“This practice is unlawful under International human rights law,” said Izza Leghtas, Amnesty International’s researcher on Spain.
►http://euro-police.noblogs.org/2011/12/spain-police-target-people-who-dont-look-spanish
Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns
British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.
►http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8917077/Prepare-for-riots-in-euro-collapse-Foreign-Office-warns.html
(...)“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.
(...)Diplomats have also been told to prepare to help tens of thousands of British citizens in eurozone countries with the consequences of a financial collapse that would leave them unable to access bank accounts or even withdraw cash.(...)
Israel summons Spanish ambassador over Palestinian state issue - Israel News, Ynetnews
►http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4112444,00.html
The Foreign Ministry summoned Spain’s ambassador to Israel following Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez’s announcement that the European nation will recognize a Palestinian state in September.
Naor Gilon, who heads the Foreign Ministry’s European Division, expressed disappointment in Jimenez’s statements. The Spanish ambassador said in response that Spain’s position on the matter is contingent on the wording of the request that is to be submitted to the UN by the Palestinians in September, as well as on consultations with the European Union. (Ronen Medzini)
Kevin Mitnick on ’Ghost in the Wires’ and the Rise of the Hacktivists - The Daily Beast
The Godfather of Hacking
►http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/19/kevin-mitnick-on-ghost-in-the-wires-and-the-rise-of-the-hacktivists.h
The 48-year-old security consultant, once known to America as the world’s most notorious computer hacker, has finally returned home to Las Vegas after a three-week vacation in Spain—his first in 11 years—and there’s no time to reboot.
He was eventually sentenced to 46 months in prison—a portion of which was served in solitary confinement a result of the government’s overblown fears that he could whistle nuclear-missile launch codes into a phone—and ordered to pay thousands of dollars as reparation.
In recent months, hackers have been making headlines around the world. Groups like Anonymous, which burst onto the scene by famously taking down banks and online services that refused to do business with WikiLeaks last fall, followed soon thereafter by LulzSec, which spent the early summer months on a rampage hacking the systems at Sony, AT&T, and the CIA. From behind faceless avatars from unknown locales, they taunt their targets, the media, and the feds.
The only difference between Mitnick and the current generation, he explains, are the motives.
“I was never after the media attention when I was doing hacking. I didn’t want to be detected, to be honest with you, being caught,” he admits. “When I was in my juvenile years I never spoke to the media about it. These guys are loving the media attention, they have a completely different driver, and I don’t think it’s curiosity or intellectual challenge. I think it’s media attention, and the love, for a better word, to fuck with people. ”
Libya: Liam Fox directs the conflict from a Spanish hotel at taxpayer’s expense | Mail Online
►http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023900/Libya-Liam-Fox-directs-conflict-Spanish-hotel-taxpayers-expense.html
Liam Fox is running the war in Libya from his sunbed in Spain, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The Defence Secretary has flown out a team of officials from his ministry to join him on his two-week holiday so he can stay in control of the campaign against Gaddafi.
The advisers include a military assistant, a special adviser and a signaller who is responsible for military communications.
However, critics may ask why the Defence Secretary is on holiday at all while Britain is involved in two conflicts.
Shady Characters » The -symbol, part 2 of 2
►http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/08/the-symbol-part-2-of-2
The key to Stabile’s discovery was a letter sent from Seville to Rome on May 4th 1536 by a merchant named Francesco Lapi, in which Lapi discussed the arrival in Spain of three trading ships from the New World. Writing that an amphora of wine sold there for 70 or 80 ducats, he used the familiar ‘@’ symbol as an abbreviation for that word:[9]
The grumpy diplomats of the rogue state | The Electronic Intifada
►http://electronicintifada.net/content/grumpy-diplomats-rogue-state/10201
This idea that young Spaniards should be moved by atrocities committed more than 500 years ago and not by criminal policies that take place today, or the notion that one could single out the Spanish Inquisition as sole explanation for the wide public support for the Palestinian cause in Spain, can only be articulated by desperate Israeli diplomats who have long ago lost the moral battle in Europe.
But this new complaint — and I am confident that there are more to come — exposes something far more important. The civil society struggle in support of Palestinian rights in key European countries has been successful. With few resources, sometimes dependent on the work of very small groups of committed individuals, and aided lately by its biggest asset — the present government of Israel - this campaign has indeed made life quite hellish for every Israeli diplomat in that part of the world.
Fire Extinguishers and Fire Starters: Anarchist Interventions in the #Spanish Revolution - Infoshop News
►http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20110610123
Strawberry boom is a drain on Spain
►http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13546715
du pompage illégal de flotte pour faire pousser l’or rouge : la fraise #Espagne
The strawberry has always been one of the most prized tastes of summer. But meeting the growing demand for this favourite fruit - in Britain, Germany, France and beyond - is putting great strain on the environment in Spain.
Spain is the biggest exporter of strawberries worldwide, with an industry worth more than 400m euros (£345m) a year, which supports around 50,000 jobs. Intensive agricultural methods mean the fruit can be grown all year round.
Nine out of 10 strawberries are exported to Europe. Germany imports more than a third of Spanish production, closely followed by France.
But the “red gold”, as some Spaniards call it, has transformed not only European supermarket shelves, but also the landscapes of southern Spain.
#cdp #environnement #eau
Des anti pubs inspirés // jermalism : MaSAT - Madrid Street Advertising Takeover
►http://jermalism.blogspot.com/2011/04/masat-madrid-street-advertising.html
At 5:30am on March 30th, four stealthy teams of people took to the streets of Madrid, Spain. It took them but an hour to execute the mission. 106 text-based posters replaced 106 advertisements in four different busy areas of Madrid.
Unlike the incredible imagery from the previous NYSAT and ToSAT takeovers, this time around, 106 people from varying walks of life were asked to submit a piece of text via email.
Spain : First Communion fashion show at MADRID NOVIAS - Fashion News Spain
►http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/fashion-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=97012
Furthermore, based on the success of the last edition, a First Communion fashion show will once again take place, an entirely unique event in Spain that will feature the participation of the following companies: Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, Barcarola, Hortensia Maeso for Rubio Kids, Javier Larraínzar, Miquel Suay, Victorio&Lucchino and Lovely Day.
#mode ?
This is an Arab 1848. But US hegemony is only dented | Tariq Ali | Comment is free | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/22/arab-1848-us-hegemony-dented
If there is a comparison to be made with Europe it is #1848, when the revolutionary upheavals left only Britain and Spain untouched – even though Queen Victoria, thinking of the Chartists, feared otherwise. Writing to her besieged nephew on the Belgian throne, she expressing sympathy but wondered whether “we will all be slain in our beds”. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown or bejewelled headgear, and has billions stored in foreign banks.
Like Europeans in 1848 the #Arab people are fighting against foreign domination (82% of Egyptians, a recent opinion poll revealed, have a “negative view of the US”); against the violation of their democratic rights; against an elite blinded by its own illegitimate wealth – and in favour of economic justice. This is different from the first wave of Arab nationalism, which was concerned principally with driving the remnants of the British empire out of the region.
Pepe Escobar : Gaddafi goes Tiananmen
►http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB24Ak05.html
Blame it on that self-immolation in Tunisia. The great 2011 Arab revolt is very much like 1848 - the people’s spring that in a few months took Europe by storm and turned the political system of the Congress of Vienna upside down. The problem is the “domino” revolutions of the time, from the Sicily of the Bourbons to the Paris of Louis Philippe, failed. But still - what a pleasure today to reread Karl Marx as a journalist and editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, expanding on revolution and counter-revolution. His ultra-sharp analyses still apply.
Would Marx be facebooking and tweeting today he would see Arabs, everywhere, fighting for their dignity and self-expression. He would see how the young protester in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Shi’ite lawyer in the Pearl roundabout in Bahrain or the anti-Gaddafi teacher fighting for his life in Benghazi have erased the caricature of the bearded terrorist - which now only exists in Gaddafi’s imagination (and the nightmares of US neo-conservatives).
No religious fanaticism; no single-minded nationalism. Just like the Europeans in 1848, the Europeans in the 1940s fighting fascism, the Europeans of 1989 getting rid of the Berlin Wall. And Marx would probably predict how those poor conscripts in Libya - just like in Egypt - would rather join their compatriots than smash them with a Tiananmen option.
100 sharers are responsible for 75% of downloads over #BitTorrent | Console Digest
►http://www.consoledigest.com/100-sharers-are-responsible-for-75-of-downloads-over-bittorrent-1133.
A new research reveals that only a relatively small group of hackers are responsible for three quarters of files downloaded on BitTorrent. (...) Researchers in Carlos III University in Spain discovered that only a small “economically interested” group of people are responsible for most of the downloaded content on the file sharing network BitTorrent.
(...) Researchers examined over 50 thousand torrents on “mininova” and “Pirate Bay” websites and found that about 67% of the content uploaded and 75% of the content downloaded by users originates from a small group of about 100 users whose goal is to generally promote their private sites and profit from viewing ads on their sites. According to researchers, locating these uploaders and canceling the profitability of #advertising piratical content on BitTorrent may decrease the number of file sharers online in 40% and completely change BitTorrent.
#Google to fight Spanish demands to remove ’libellous’ links | Technology | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/16/google-court-spain-privacy
The technology giant has been ordered to remove almost 100 online articles from its search listings by #Spain's data protection authority, which Google warns would have a “profound, chilling effect” on freedom of expression.
From Florida to Spain, intrigue to stop a judge - Guantánamo - MiamiHerald.com
►http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/24/v-fullstory/1988022/from-florida-to-spain-intrigue.html
It was three months into Barack Obama’s presidency, and the administration — under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies — turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:
Don’t indict former President George W. Bush’s legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.
Rather than a resolution, though, a senior Spanish diplomat gave the former GOP chairman and housing secretary a lesson in Spain’s separation of powers. `The independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected,'' then-acting Foreign Minister Angel Lossada replied on April 15, 2009. Then for emphasis, `Lossada reiterated to Martinez that the executive branch of government could not close any judicial investigation and urged that this case not affect the overall relationship.’’