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Politics, Copyright and the First-Amendment Commons
On the eve of the Republican primary in Florida, the Romney campaign started running a new television ad called "History Lesson." Romney was coming off Newt Gingrich's double-digit win in South Carolina and the momentum in the campaign for the 2012 Republican seemed to be shifting, perhaps decisively, in Gingrich's favor. With only ten days between primaries, the Romney campaign needed a new, hard-hitting approach and it needed to act quickly.
The new ad was a key part of that. The thirty-second ad was quite simple and straightforward. The last couple of seconds were the obligatory "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message" while the first twenty- seven seconds were just a video clip from the NBC Nightly News broadcast of January 21, 1997. The familiar voice but much-younger face of anchor Tom Brokaw came up and Brokaw opened that evening's newcast with the lead story of the day: then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had been found guilty of ethics violations by the House of Representatives in a vote of 395-28 and had been ordered to pay a $300,000 fine in connection with the violations. (You can read the front page story of the January 22, 1997 Washington Post here.)
There can be little doubt about why the Romney campaign chose to run the clip from the Nightly News. The campaign wanted to hit Gingrich with what they say as a strong charge against him and they wanted to avoid accusations that they had cherry-picked the facts for the ad. What better way to do that than to use the expression of a highly-regarded, wholly independent source, such as Tom Brokaw and the Nightly News.
Brokaw and NBC saw the matter differently. As was widely reported, on January 28, 2012, three days before the Florida primary, NBC sent a letter to the Rommey campaign asking the campaign to cease using NBC news material in Romney campaign ads. NBC had made similar requests of other campaigns that had used material without first seeking permission from NBC. Brokaw himself was quoted as saying that "I am extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad" as Brokaw did "not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."
The letter istelf (a copy is available at Politico.com) is short and to the point. The material used in the Romney ad was under copyright and the Romney campaign was using the material without permission. The letter further suggested that the way in which the material was being used suggested that NBC had consented to its use. And beyond copyright, NBC complained that "this use of the voice of Mr. Brokaw and the NBC News name exploits him and the jouralistic credibility of the NBC News."
We start with legal issues and then turned to bigger picture considerations. On copyright, the core structure of copyright's fair use is use without permission. To complain of use without permission is simply to complain about how copyright is organized, which is fine, but when we think of what scope fair use should have the use by the Romney campaign seems as fair as it can get. It is apparent to all, I think, that the reason the campaign used the materials was precisely that NBC and other leading news organizations are seen as having journalistic credibility. The Romney campaign wanted to offer up an independent framing of the 1997 ethics charge, not one that was somehow seen as concocted by the Romney campaign. A 15-year old news clip was the perfect was to do this. And, of course, the age of the clip meant that no one could seriously think that NBC or Brokaw were, in 1997, endorsing the 2012 Romney campaign.
Beyond this, the trump card that NBC and Brokaw sought to play would seem to mean that professional video representations of historical facts would simply be taken off of the table for political campaigns. It is hard to see how NBC and similar organizations could ever consent to use, given that consent itself would seem to be inconsistent with the neutral role of news organizations. Far better to have the fair use regime, where there is no consent and no sense of endorsement by a news organiation of one campaign over another.
Then we get to the bigger picture on this. I have this sense, with more frequency than I would like, that major media organizations think of the First Amendment as something that runs in their favor but never against them. A First Amendment for me but not for thee. It would have been nice if NBC and Mr. Brokaw had seen this as an opportunity to invest in the First Amendment ecosystem. That would have meant acknowledging the legitimacy of the use of the video clip by the Romney campaign and the need for such use in a vibrant democracy. Instead, NBC saw its interest in the narrowest terms possible and threw away a great opportunity to demonstrate how the First Amendment should work in a robust democracy.
Filed under copyright by al
Government Pressures Twitter to Hand Over Keys to Occupy Wall Street Protester's Location Data Without a Warrant
February 21, 2012 | By Hanni Fakhoury
On October 1, 2011, over 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. Most of the protesters, including Malcolm Harris, were charged with the mundane crime of disorderly conduct, a "violation" under New York law that has a maximum punishment of 15 days in jail or a $250 fine.
And yet on the basis of a charge no more consequential than speeding ticket, the New York City District Attorney's office sent a poorly worded subpoena to Twitter requesting "any and all user information, including email address, as well as any and all tweets posted for the period of 9/15/2011-12/31/2011" regarding Mr. Harris' Twitter account, @destructuremal. Unsurprisingly, the government wanted to keep it quiet, but thankfully Twitter didn't listen. Instead, as it has consistently warned law enforcement, Twitter notified Mr. Harris, who through his lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, has moved to challenge the subpoena in court.
The subpoena is astonishing not only for its poor grammar, but also for the breadth of information the government wants for a trivial crime that hardly requires it. The government's request that Twitter hand over Tweets is unlikely to succeed because consistent with the Stored Communications Act, Twitter releases "contents of communication" (effectively Tweets and private messages between Twitter users) only with a search warrant. In any event, Mr. Harris' account is "public", meaning the government could obtain Tweets simply by checking out Mr. Harris' Twitter feed. Plus, requesting Tweets only highlights the absurdity of the entire situation: why would the government need Tweets from both before and after the October 1 protest to prove he was obstructing traffic on the bridge? Government fishing expeditions like this raise serious First Amendment concerns. Mr. Harris was very outspoken about his support of and involvement in the Occupy Wall Street movement. With this overbroad subpoena, the government would be able to learn about who Mr. Harris was communicating with for an extensive period of time not only through Tweets, but through direct messages. And with the government's request for all email addresses associated with @destructuremal, they could subpoena Mr. Harris' email provider to get even more information about who he communicated with. The First Amendment shouldn't be trampled with only an expansive subpoena in a case that barely registers as "criminal."
Given that much of Mr. Harris' Twitter information (like Tweets and followers) is already public, it's very likely that the government was really after something else: location data. By attempting to subpoena these records, the government can get around the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against warrantless searches by requesting information that includes IP addresses. Twitter keeps track of IP address information regarding every time a person logged into Twitter, as well as the IP address information related to a Twitter user's direct messages to other users, and the date and time information related to these log ins and direct messages. Armed with IP addresses, the government — without a warrant — can go to an ISP to determine who was assigned that particular IP address. And if that person connected on a mobile device — which is where the majority of Twitter users access their accounts — the ISP will hand over to the government the specific cell tower (and its corresponding geographic location) which that person used to access Twitter. This allows the government to piece together a map of where a person physically is when he opens Twitter on his smartphone, sends a direct message to a friend, or Tweets. And with that information, the government could get a record of Mr. Harris' movement over the three months it requested from Twitter. It's no surprise then that the government singled out Mr. Harris for this request: he currently has over 1,500 followers and 7,200 Tweets.
Allowing the government to gets its hands on this data with nothing more than an administrative subpoena renders the Fourth Amendment meaningless. Only with the protection of a search warrant, and the heightened judicial supervision that comes along with it, can the voracious appetite of law enforcement be curbed. As we've consistently argued, the Fourth Amendment protects this information. But another way to impose privacy protection from the prying hands of law enforcement is through Congressional reform of the badly outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("ECPA"). As part of the Digital Due Process coalition, EFF has been calling for Congress to update ECPA to conform with the realities of the 21st century.
It looks like judicial momentum may finally be on our side. In January of this year, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in United States v. Jones (PDF), ruling that law enforcement could not physically install a GPS device on private property without a search warrant. The majority opinion resolved the Fourth Amendment issue by looking exclusively at the physical installation of the GPS device. Importantly, however, in a concurring opinion, Justice Sotomayor warned that "physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance." Collecting IP addresses of a prolific Tweeter, and matching it with other easily obtainable information from other service providers, demonstrates this problem. In writing that society is unlikely to accept extensive warrantless surveillance as "reasonable", Justice Sotomayor called into question "the appropriateness of entrusting to the Executive, in the absence of any oversight from a coordinate branch, a tool so amenable to misuse, especially in light of the Fourth Amendment's goal to curb arbitrary exercises of police power to and prevent 'a too permeating police surveillance.'" Similarly, Justice Alito's concurring opinion noted that with "dramatic technological change, the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative."
Hopefully with the public breathing down its neck, Congress can finally act to fix a antequated set of laws. Malcolm Harris, like Birgitta Jonsdottir before him, took a stand to protect our privacy rights. You can too by telling Congress that its time to update ECPA and tell law enforcement once and for all that in order to get a person's location data, it needs to come back with a warrant.
Filed under government, internet, tracking by al
White House, Google, and Other Advertising Companies Commit to Supporting Do Not Track
February 23, 2012 | By Rainey Reitman
When Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer uncovered a Google workaround to circumvent the default privacy settings on Safari, EFF called on Google to change their tune on privacy by respecting the Do Not Track flag and building it into the Chrome browser. We specifically praised the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) multi-stakeholder process, which for a year has been convening consumer advocates, Internet companies, and technologists to craft how companies that receive the Do Not Track signal should respond. Today, in conjunction with the White House's new publication Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World (PDF), the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) announced (PDF) that it will embrace Do Not Track. (The DAA is the latest self-regulatory organization for online advertising companies.) This is a big step in the right direction for securing user privacy rights in the digital environment, but we've still got a long way to go. And, unfortunately, it looks like online advertisers are already working to water down the Do Not Track protections.
There are two parts to Do Not Track: technology and policy. The technology, a simple HTTP header ("DNT: 1"), allows a consumer to signal her privacy preference. The policy specifies what companies can and can't do when they receive the signal. Read more.
Today's announcements are great news for the Do Not Track technology. Google, a member of the DAA, has committed to add the feature to Chrome. While we haven't seen the user interface, presumably it'll be a one-click check box easily accessible through your browser settings, similar to what other browsers offer. Even better, Google and other members of the DAA — including Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL — are committing to adding support for the Do Not Track technical signal.
Today also brought good news for enforcing Do Not Track. The White House recognized that user privacy protections are nearly useless without a method of enforcement, so it has reaffirmed that companies that commit to respecting Do Not Track will be subject to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement.
Time to celebrate? Should we declare February 23rd V-DNT Day? Not quite. While today was a great advancement on the Do Not Track technology, it did not meaningfully move the ball forward on the Do Not Track policy. Even as Google and the other giant advertisers make strong gestures toward giving users meaningful choice when it comes to online tracking, portions of today's two announcements are also undermining some of the most powerful consumer protections. Specifically:
Favoring industry-crafted standards
The W3C is a long-respected Internet governance body that brings together a wide range of stakeholders — including civil liberties advocates, engineers, and industry representatives — to reach accord about standards affecting the future of the Internet. EFF and lots of other consumer groups are involved in the process, and anybody can read up on what's happening through the publicly available meeting notes. For a year, W3C has been working to pin down how various websites should respect the Do Not Track header. Internet companies, including Google, have been actively participating.
The DAA, on the other hand, is an industry group for online advertisers. It includes no consumer advocates or regulators and it doesn't offer an opportunity for public participation in their decision-making process. Historically, the DAA has eschewed providing users with powerful mechanisms for choices when it comes to online tracking. The self-regulatory standards for behavioral advertising have offered consumers a way to opt out of viewing behaviorally targeted ads without actually stopping the online tracking which is the root of the privacy concern.
While we appreciate that DAA is interested in respecting the Do Not Track flag, it's important that they engage with the larger Internet community in doing so. DAA should use the W3C for the purposes of defining Do Not Track and determining how websites that receive this signal should react. And the White House, similarly, should turn to the well-established W3C multi-stakeholder process for addressing these issues.
Chipping away at Do Not Track's simplicity
If you're using the most recent version of Firefox, you can turn on Do Not Track by going into your preferences and checking the box that says "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked." Pretty straightforward, from a user's standpoint. But DAA is trying to tamper with this simplicity. In its statement, the coalition of online advertisers say that they'll respect Do Not Track where a consumer "has been provided language that describes to consumers the effect of exercising such choice including that some data may still be collected." Then they noted their intention to "begin work immediately with browser providers to develop consistent language across browsers."
The most skeptical interpretation of this statement is that the straightforward language for turning on Do Not Track might turn into some slippery legalese that doesn't promise to do much of anything about tracking. We hope that's not the case; much of Do Not Track's power came from its straightforward, human-readable format.
No privacy-protective default settings
The DAA added another exception into their promise to respect Do Not Track: they won't respect the setting unless a user affirmatively chooses Do Not Track and won't respect it if "any entity or software or technology provider other than the user exercises such a choice." This seems geared toward preventing a privacy-protective browser from turning Do Not Track on by default.
It's important that advertising companies remember that users can express a preference simply by choosing a privacy-protective browser. In the same way many users may have chosen the Safari browser because of its privacy-protective policies regarding third-party tracking, many users in the future might affirmatively choose a browser that has Do Not Track enabled by default.
While there remain serious concerns about attempts to water down enforceable tracking protection for consumers, one thing is clear: Today represents a powerful step forward in helping users protect their online privacy. We applaud Google's decision to implement Do Not Track in the Chrome browser, and we're looking forward to collaborating with the DAA and other stakeholders in the W3C to communicate the concerns of users and advocates in online tracking issues.
Google Circumvents Safari Privacy Protections – This is Why We Need Do Not Track
February 16, 2012 | By Peter Eckersley and Rainey Reitman and Lee Tien
Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal published evidence that Google has been circumventing the privacy settings of Safari and iPhone users, tracking them on non-Google sites despite Apple's default settings, which were intended to prevent such tracking.
This tracking, discovered by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer, was a technical side-effect—probably an unintended side-effect—of a system that Google built to pass social personalization information (like, "your friend Suzy +1'ed this ad about candy") from the google.com domain to the doubleclick.net domain. Further technical explanation can be found below.
Coming on the heels of Google's controversial decision to tear down the privacy-protective walls between some of its other services, this is bad news for the company. It's time for Google to acknowledge that it can do a better job of respecting the privacy of Web users. One way that Google can prove itself as a good actor in the online privacy debate is by providing meaningful ways for users to limit what data Google collects about them. Specifically, it's time that Google's third-party web servers start respecting Do Not Track requests, and time for Google to offer a built-in Do Not Track option.
Meanwhile, users who want to be safe against web tracking can't rely on Safari's well-intentioned but circumventable protections. Until Do Not Track is more widely respected, users who wish to defend themselves against online tracking should use AdBlock Plus for Firefox or Chrome, or Tracking Protection Lists for Internet Explorer.1 AdBlock needs to be used with EasyPrivacy and EasyList in order to offer maximal protection.
Technical details: Google tries to poke a small hole in Safari's privacy protections, but the hole becomes very large
The Safari and iOS browsers have a useful privacy feature: they automatically reject third-party tracking cookies unless a user actively interacts with a widget or clicks on the third party's ads. This is a big step up from the default settings on most browsers. Advertisers typically use tracking cookies to create an invisible record of your online browsing habits, and large advertisers can track you across huge swaths of the web. Safari offers some protection against this type of passive tracking: it specifically prevents a site from setting cookies unless those cookies are from a domain name that you have visited or interacted with directly.
As Google engineers were building the system for passing facts like "your friend Suzy +1'ed this ad" from google.com to doubleclick.net, they would have likely realized that Safari was stopping them from linking this data using third-party DoubleClick cookies. So it appears they added special JavaScript code that tricked Safari into thinking the user was interacting with DoubleClick,2 causing Safari to allow the cookies that would facilitate social personalization (and perhaps, at some point, other forms of pseudonymous behavioral targeting). This was a small hole in Safari's privacy protections.
Unfortunately, that had the side effect of completely undoing all of Safari's protections against doubleclick.net. It caused Safari to allow other DoubleClick cookies, and especially the main "id" tracking cookie that Safari normally blocked. Like a balloon popped with a pinprick, all of Safari's protections against DoubleClick were gone.
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent infographic explaining this process.
The right hand is not talking to the left
Public statements by Google have indicated that parts of the company had a fairly good understanding of Safari's privacy protections:
In the screenshot above, Google states: "While we don't yet have a Safari version of the Google advertising cookie opt-out plugin, Safari is set by default to block all third party cookies. If you have not changed those settings, this option effectively accomplished the same thing as setting the opt-out cookie." If only that had stayed true.
Safari gives users an opportunity to block passive tracking by online advertisers. Google's decision to route around those settings took it down a dangerous road. Any code that was specifically designed to circumvent privacy protection features should have triggered a much higher level of review and caution, and that clearly did not happen.
Can Advertisers Learn That "No Means No" (PDF), a research study on flash cookies published in 2011, characterized online advertisers who used flash cookies to override user privacy settings as paternalistic:
Advertisers see individuals as objects. When conceived of as objects, consumers' preferences no longer matter. Privacy can be coded into oblivion or be circumvented with technology. Our 2009 and 2011 work empirically demonstrates that advertisers implement paternalistic judgments that subjects of targeted marketing cannot make proper judgments for themselves.
Today, Google looks just as paternalistic as ad networks setting flash cookies to outfox people who try to delete their cookies.
People around the world rely on Safari to browse the web, including iPhone users, whose choices are severely limited by Apple's walled garden. That's a lot of people who are denied a voice when it comes to online tracking.
It's Time for Google to Make Amends: an Open Letter to Google
Google, the time has finally come. You need to make a pro-privacy offering to restore your users' trust.
Internet users worldwide have loved your products for years, and we've often praised your stance on free expression and transparency and your efforts to limit government access to users' information. But when it comes to consumer choice around privacy, your commitment to users has been weaker. That's bad for users, for the future of the Internet, and ultimately, for you. We need to create an Internet that gives users meaningful choice about sharing their personal data, and we need your help to do it.
It's time for a new chapter in Google's policy regarding privacy. It's time to commit to giving users a voice about tracking and then respecting those wishes.
For a long time, we've hoped to see Google respect Do Not Track requests when it acts as a third party on the Web, and implement Do Not Track in the Chrome browser. This privacy setting, available in every other major browser, lets users express their choice about whether they want to be tracked by mysterious third parties with whom they have no relationship. And even if a user deleted her cookies, the setting would still be there.
Right now, EFF, Google, and many other groups are involved in a multi-stakeholder process to define the scope and execution of Do Not Track through the Tracking Protection Working Group. Through this participatory forum, civil liberties organizations, advertisers, and leading technologists are working together to define how Do Not Track will give users a meaningful way to control online tracking without unduly burdening companies. This is the perfect forum for Google to engage on the technical specifications of the Do Not Track signal, and an opportunity to bring all parties together to fight for user rights. While the Do Not Track specification is not yet final, there's no reason to wait. Google has repeatedly led the way on web security by implementing features long before they were standardized. Google should do the same with web privacy. Get started today by linking Do Not Track to your existing opt-out mechanisms for advertising, +1, and analytics.
Google, make this a new era in your commitment to defending user privacy. Commit to offering and respecting Do Not Track.
1. As this blog goes to press, we are unsure whether ad blockers for Safari can prevent the browser from sending requests, which is essential for this kind of privacy protection to be effective.
2. The code was web developers call a "hidden form submission", contained in a DoubleClick iframe. This code was only sent to Apple's browsers: Mayer tested 400 user-agent strings, and found that only Safari received the JavaScript that performed hidden form submissions.
Filed under Apple, Google, internet by al
UK Police Agency Takes Over Popular Music Website
February 17, 2012 | By Maira Sutton
News broke Tuesday that a British police agency called the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), had taken control of the popular music blog RnBXclusive and arrested one of the site's creators for fraud. The normal content from the site was completely unavailable, replaced with a new splash page: a notice from SOCA stating that it had taken control of the domain. Initial reports claimed that that the RnBXclusive.com domain had been seized by the UK government agency — bringing to mind images of a post-SOPA fractured Internet — but it turned out that the website takeover was done with the cooperation of the UK-based hosting company, Rackspace's UK arm. For its part, Rackspace claimed that the music site was taken down for breaching its Terms and Conditions.
The initial splash page that the site displayed after the takedown was replete with exaggerations and misstatements of law. Techdirt's Mike Masnick ripped the notice apart, explaining the problems with the way that SOCA handled the situation. The original SOCA notice has since been taken down and replaced with a more accurately worded statement, but an image of the original is viewable here.
The baseless claims in the original notice included the statement that a majority of the music files previously available via the site had been stolen, and that:
As a result of illegal downloads young, emerging artists may have had their careers damaged. If you have illegally downloaded music you will have damaged the future of the music industry.
Most disconcertingly, the notice stated that visitors who had downloaded music from RnBXclusive may have committed a crime with a penalty of 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. It also stated that SOCA has "the capability to monitor and investigate you, and can inform your Internet service provider of these infringements."
Then, in a move that could only be described as intimidating, it went on to display the visitor's operating system and IP address with a statement below that read, "The above information can be used to identify you and your location."
This situation is alarming on several levels. It is unknown whether there was a court order that directed the hosting provider to take down this site, or whether the hosting company voluntarily removed the previous content. Open Rights Group is reporting that Rackspace's UK arm is hosting the holding page. Why would it allow SOCA to put up the holding page without a court order?
We initially feared that this was a domain seizure, as when last year the domain registrar for .uk domains, Nominet, admitted to helping police authorities seize 3,000 websites and proposed new rules to expedite domain takedowns so that police authorities would not need court orders to do so. Whether this proposal was actually enacted remains unclear, but the chilling effect that both these cases have on free expression is undeniable.
Technology writer Glyn Moody reports that SOCA charged fraud because the music blog had allegedly been sharing pre-release works somehow obtained without authorization from music industry sites. If that's true, SOCA's involvement may not be quite as surprising as it initially appeared. But as SOCA has released no evidence in support of its allegation, it will be interesting to see how this proceeds.
In any case, this week's takeover sets a dangerous precedent for copyright enforcement measures in the UK. If the hosting provider took down this site voluntarily without any court oversight, it raises the prospects of future cases being dealt with in a similar extrajudicial manner. Though the Internet blacklist legislation which would have facilitated similar takedowns in the U.S. has been stopped for now, we must keep a close eye on these sorts of alternative methods of online censorship that are implemented in the name of copyright enforcement.
For more updates on this story visit Open Rights Group or follow them on twitter at @Openrightsgroup
Filed under government, internet by al
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text:
Libreville Airport
weather Libreville, Gabon 26 ° c 19:31
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Welcome to Gabon
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Stay In Libreville
Leon Mba in Libreville, 1st airport in Gabon
Leon Mba International Airport was named after the first President of the Republic of Gabon who governed from 1961 to 1967. Since its construction in the 1950s, Libreville airport has continued to improve and adapt its structure to welcome a multitude of airplanes. At the end of the 1960s, it adapted to very big carriers like the Boeing 747. Air navigation and landing equipment, instruments that are compliant with international specifications… everything is designed to access the airport in any local weather conditions. Thanks to its constant evolution, Libreville has become the main airport in Gabon, and the only one serving international destinations. In 2019, the number of passengers transiting through the airport reached 700,000!
14 airlines and 22 destinations served
14 airlines present scheduled flights from Libreville airport: Air Burkina, Air Côte d'Ivoire, Air France, Afrijet, Asky, Ceiba Intercontinental, Ethiopian Airlines, Mauritania Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Rwandair, Transair Congo, Camair-Co, Turkish Airlines, Tropical Air. From Libreville, 22 destinations are served, including 20 international destinations in Africa and Europe: Benin (Cotonou), Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou), Cameroon (Douala and Yaoundé), Congo (Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire), Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Equatorial Guinea (Malabo), Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), France (Paris), Gabon (Port-Gentil and Franceville), Ivory Coast (Abidjan), Mali (Bamako), Mauritania (Nouakchott), Morocco (Casablanca), Nigeria (Lagos), Rwanda (Kigali), Sao Tome and Principe (Sao Tome), South Africa (Johannesburg), Togo (Lomé), Turkey (Istanbul).
Two terminals to ensure a smooth traffic flow
Terminal 1 is the main terminal of Leon Mba airport, it allows for boarding on national and international flights. Covering 16,000 m2, it can accommodate up to 1.2 million passengers per year. The terminal has many shops and restaurants, as well as many services.
Terminal 2 is reserved for regional and national flights with Afrijet airline.
A special location
Located about fifteen minutes from the heart of the city, the airport is very easily accessible. It was built on the waterfront: all you have to do is cross the street and you will immediately find yourself at the beach. This discrepancy between modernity and nature is Gabon's hallmark.
Development / Perspectives
A renewal for Libreville airport
In recent times Leon Mba International Airport, Libreville has seen a lot of changes. In October 2018 The Government of Gabon changed the management of the airport to GSEZ-Airport, which is a PPP company with Government of Gabon, Africa Finance Corporation and Olam International as its major shareholders.
Since takeover, GSEZ-Airport has made significant amount of changes to the Infrastructure of the airport to improve, Passenger Facilities, Safety and Security. Following are some of the highlights:
Strengthen baggage handling systems
Reinforce security equipment
Introduce CUTE & BRS systems
Reinforce IT networks and datacenters
Improve stakeholder management (services to airlines such as caterers, fuelers, etc)
QHSE / SMS
Security, a priority commitment
Gsez Airport's management is committed to achieve the highest level of safety and to comply with national and international standards. The SMS (Security Management System) defines the individual and collective responsibilities of every parties involved. QHSE management (Quality, Hygiene, Safety, Environment) allows the airport to benefit from a high-performance activity in a controlled security environment.
See the airport's commitments by downloading the security policy statement
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Sanjiv Mehta relaunches East India Company
Victoria Hodgson -
Having acquired the rights to the company, Mumbai-born Sanjiv Mehta invested over £12m into The East India Company in advance of the company¹s relaunch. The East India Company will now reopen with a 2,000 sq ft store in Mayfair this month.
The East India Company store will begin by selling luxury foods including teas, exotic confectionary and bespoke velvet-lined hampers.
Diamond mail-order business
Before joining the family diamond trading business, Sanjiv Mehta studied finance at Sydenham College at Mumbai University.
At the helm of the family business, Sanjiv Mehta expanded it into one of the first mail order businesses of fine jewellery in India, with wholesale operations in the Middle East, the US and Japan.
Sanjiv Mehta's entrepreneurial colours have also been credibly earned through other ventures, such as selling tea wholesale in Russia and promoting other consumer products in India.
The East India Company
Sanjiv Mehta's international aspirations are clear for The East India Company. "The essence of the brand is in the stories it has to tell and in connecting people across the world," he tells the FT.
The relaunch of The East India Company will eventually see its products selling in other upmarket stores in both Britain and the US. But Sanjiv Mehta's ambitious plans don't stop there. He is also considering selling alcoholic beverages alongside his strawberry and champagne jam.
Dating back to the 17th century, and established by Queen Elizabeth I, The East India Company is steeped in history and culture. Sanjiv Mehta is passionate about this, and has made clear that he will try to preserve and develop the company's historical links.
"The East India Company holds limitless opportunities across many products, sectors and countries. We are determined to capitalise on the impeccable pedigree and enviable heritage of our brand," he continues.
For example, the addition of alcoholic drinks such as India Pale Ale and gin and tonic harks back to the British Empire, fulfilling Sanjiv Mehta's aim to build on the cultural heritage of the brand. The product range could even be extended as far as the introduction of furniture, jewellery and real estate.
In addition to the London store which will employ 35 people and is expected to turn over £6m in its first year the luxury foodstuffs
will also be available online at The East India Company e-commerce site.
But Sanjiv Mehta's motivations aren¹t purely financial. There are clear cultural implications to his takeover of the company: "People are rejoicing because an Indian has bought the EIC – it is a symbol of redemption."
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Rutherford Schools Construction Timeline
Submitted by Rutherford Schools
Construction to Begin in June at the K Center, Lincoln, Union, and the High School
Construction will start in June at four Rutherford Public Schools sites, with the fifth site due for work starting later this summer. Voters last September approved this comprehensive plan to improve and expand the borough's schools.
At its Feb. 24 meeting, the Board of Education approved the first of seven anticipated bid packages. Each one describes a collection of projects, and each one will be subject to the state-mandated process for competitive bids. The first bid was for work at Lincoln School, where two classrooms will be built atop an existing addition to provide critically needed academic and co-curricular space.
"We had very strong interest in that job," Business Administrator/Board Secretary Joseph P. Kelly said. "Fourteen contractors submitted bids, and several were below our budget projections."
The school board must accept the lowest qualifying bid, and that was from Catcord Construction Co. of Norwood, NJ. The cost was listed as $787,910, which is lower than the initial projections made when the district prepared for a bond referendum.
"That cost savings indicates that the construction market is very competitive right now," Kelly said. "There are no guarantees that future bids will have that same level of difference between projection and bid, but we are happy to start the process with that kind of good news."
Savings could help balance other bids that come in higher than projections, Kelly added. No matter how the final projection-versus-reality costs play out, the district cannot use bond funding to pay for any projects other than the ones approved by voters.
That two-room addition at Lincoln is expected to be substantially complete by the end of the 2020-21 school year. The next bids are due in March and April, and Kelly said everything is on schedule now to start work just before the school year ends. The timeline calls for renovations to begin mid-June at the High School's 1970s-era science labs. As soon as the school year ends, workers can start construction to build the second-story classrooms at Lincoln; replace moisture-damaged floors at Union School, and add an elevator and renovate restrooms at the Nurse's Office at the Kindergarten Center. The Union flooring project should be complete sometime this fall, followed by the High School science labs.
From a scheduling perspective, the most challenging project is expected to be the overhaul of the High School's Mortimer Wing. That heavily used instructional space, built in 1958, has inefficient and obsolete heating/cooling systems. Renovations will include new mechanical systems, a repaired exterior facade and upgraded doors. The timeline calls for that work to be done mostly during summers to minimize the impact on students, with it finishing in late 2023 as the final piece of bond-funded projects.
The Rutherford district will continue to use the website OneRutherford.com to keep historical background intact and share updated information.
School-by-School Summary, with targets for projects to be substantially complete:
Kindergarten Center – Work is planned to start after classes end in June 2020 to add a restroom to the Nurse's Office (target: fall 2020) and to add an elevator to provide complete accessibility to the multi-level building (target: late spring 2021). Installation of a new heating/cooling system for the Multi-Purpose Room is targeted to start and finish in summer 2021.
Lincoln – After classes end in June 2020, workers will begin to build two classrooms atop the existing addition to provide critically needed academic and co-curricular space (target: end of the 2020-21 school year).
Pierrepont School Plans
Pierrepont – Late in summer 2020, work will begin on the construction of a full-sized gym with a stage addition (target: before the 2021-22 school year starts). The current gym will be demolished in summer 2021, and construction will start on a two-story, 11-classroom wing (target: before the 2022-23 school year starts). Renovation of the Multi-Purpose Room will begin mid-summer 2021 (target: winter 2021).
Union School Plans
Union – In the summer of 2020, workers will begin replacing moisture-damaged floors and in the fall, they'll start restoring the school's front columns (target: winter 2021). Before the end of the 2020 calendar year, construction will begin to build a new gym (target: late fall 2021). Work can then begin to convert the old gym into three learning labs (target: spring 2022).
Rutherford High School Plans
High School – Even before classes end in June 2020, work can begin to renovate four substandard science labs (target: before winter 2020-21). Overhauling the Mortimer Wing will be challenging because it is heavily used. The timeline calls for that work to be done mostly during summers (target: late 2023).
Photography Exhibit by Jess Stiles
This is Frank Inglese, School Resource Officer


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HomeRuth Speaks Out
Ruth Speaks Out
This blog is maintained by the Ruth Institute. It provides a place for our Circle of Experts to express themselves. This is where the scholars, experts, students and followers of the Ruth Institute engage in constructive dialogue about the issues surrounding the Sexual Revolution. We discuss public policy, social practices, legal doctrines and much more.
The Seminarians Aren't OK. Here's What You Can Do About It.
By Jennifer Roback Morse
Published on October 31, 2019, at The Stream.
Seminary in Florence, Italy. Image courtesy of pixabay.com.
A recent Notre Dame study about sexual harassment in Catholic seminaries proclaimed, "only 6% of seminarians report sexual harassment." But don't break out the champagne just yet. The seminaries are not all cleaned up.
You see, this Notre Dame study is a good news, bad news situation. The good news is that only 6% of seminarians surveyed reported sexual harassment. The bad news is that less than half the seminaries in the U.S. participated in the survey. The problem is: we don't know which half is which.
My organization, the Ruth Institute has a special interest in this study. These results are completely consistent with the results of Fr. Paul Sullins' second report, Receding Waves: Child Sex Abuse and Homosexual Priests since 2000. Fr. Sullins is no slouch. He holds a doctorate in sociology and taught at Catholic University of America. He finds that recently ordained clergy are less likely to be abusers, and less likely to have male victims. Priests ordained within the last 10 years of his data collection are more likely to be orthodox, faithful and chaste. So, the Notre Dame findings are fully consistent with Fr. Sullins' findings from a very different set of data. The young guys are good guys. Good news, for sure.
But don't break out the bubbly. We still got problems.
Not Even the Courtesy of a Reply
You see, the Notre Dame researchers are serious people, doing serious work. They made good faith attempts to include all the seminaries and houses of religious formation. When some didn't respond, the McGrath Institute at Notre Dame went the extra mile. Their Executive Director, Dr. John Cavadini, wrote letters to U.S. bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and superiors of religious orders. He told them about the study. He asked that they grant permission to participate in the study to their seminarians.
In spite of this diligence, only about 50% of the seminaries participated in the survey. Nearly 40% (37% to be exact) of seminaries and houses of formation never gave him the courtesy of a reply. Another 15% of seminaries or houses of formation either flat out declined to participate, or they said they were interested but then never responded to multiple attempts to follow up.
It is hard to believe all these schools didn't know about the request.
It is also hard to believe that the schools that participated and the schools that didn't are similar in every relevant respect. Some seminary authorities decided to not respond to repeated inquires. Some seminary rectors decided to not allow their men to be informed about the opportunity to participate in the survey. I wonder why?
Do you think the institutions that tolerate sexual activity, voluntary or otherwise, would be eager to encourage their men to participate in a survey about sexual activity and harassment? A school with a corrupt rector, or a diocese with a history of tolerating sexual acting out in the clergy, do you think those are the places rushing to tell Notre Dame, "yes, oh yes, you can ask our students anything?"
Maybe it's just me. But I'm thinking, "no," and "no."
Wouldn't you like to know, which schools had the students that said, "sexual harassment isn't a problem here?" Wouldn't you like to know which seminaries had students who said that seminaries should "automatically expel all men who do not live chastely?" Wouldn't you like to know which schools couldn't be bothered to forward the invitation to participate emails to their students?
I'd love to know. I'm thinking you would too.
Which Seminaries Participated?
Now, I've done social science research. Promising confidentiality to participants is standard protocol. The professionals at Notre Dame are not going to reveal which schools participated.
But we, dear reader, have every right to ask our bishops and seminary rectors: did our seminary participate in this survey? We, the faithful, have every right to say, "If your school participated, we congratulate you with our sustained financial support! If our school didn't participate, why not? If you had a good reason to decline to participate, we would like to hear it."
If they don't answer a simple "yes or no" question, we have every right to draw our own conclusions.
At the same time, those seminaries that did participate can claim "bragging rights." They could say, "We released a list of our students for the Notre Dame research team to contact and invite to participate. We encouraged our men to cooperate." This would be no violation of any confidentiality agreement or of anyone's privacy. This would be perfectly ethical.
The students who participated in this survey sound like fine young men. When asked to volunteer suggestions for improving seminary life, they wanted their schools to provide stronger formation in chastity. But what about the other half of our seminaries? We have no way of knowing what is going on. Are they all corrupt? Just how bad are the bad schools?
Church authorities who have responsibility for seminaries, I call on you to address this question. If your men participated, we applaud you. Your men are an encouragement to us all. We thank you for them. We wish to help support you, and them.
If you don't answer these questions, our imaginations are left free to roam. You will have only yourselves to blame if our suspicions increase.
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And they're off…
So here we are; the trip has begun! Mr Prewett set off at 3am to collect me and then drive to Cardiff Airport. Half way to the airport, I thought I'd forgotten my wallet, so we turned back around and drove home again. Turns out it was in my suitcase all along! Great start!
We arrived at the check-in desk and one of Mr Prewett's suitcases was over the 23kg limit, but thankfully Karen, the check-in lady, was enjoying our jokes so much that she let the suitcase through without the £145 extra-baggage fee that she was supposed to charge!!
We then met up with three other teachers: Miss Joseph, Miss West and Miss Lloyd, from Treorchy Comprehensive School, who are also flying out to Uganda. They were slightly later than us to arrive at the airport, and the queue to the check-in desk had grown significantly, so we left them to it and went to join the queue for the security check. Our bags were scanned and I passed through the scanner without a problem. Mr Prewett, on the other hand, set off lots of alarms and beeps and had to be searched by the security guard. (I tried to take a photo for you, but wasn't allowed!!) Thankfully, it was just the metal zip on his jacket, so they let him through.
We're currently sat in the departure lounge waiting for our flight to board at 6:05am. We fly from Cardiff to Amsterdam, then onto Rwanda, and finally from Rwanda to Entebbe Airport, Uganda. We were supposed to fly directly from Amsterdam to Uganda but we had an email saying that the flight had been cancelled, so we're now flying via Rwanda.
When we arrive in Uganda, we'll hopefully be collected by a gentleman named Apollo, who will look after us whilst we are there. Because we arrive in Uganda so late, we'll be staying in a Hotel near the airport for our first night, but the following morning, Apollo will drive us over to Mbale, where we'll be based. It's a five hour trip across Uganda from Entebbe Airport to Mbale, so we're hoping to stop at a couple of places along the way, to see the scenery.
Both of us are really excited for the trip and we can't believe how quickly it's come around. Whilst out in Uganda, we'll be working with a local school called Busiu Primary School. We'll also be visiting a local orphanage.
We're hoping to use the money raised from our non-uniform day to buy school supplies and gifts for the children. Thank you SO much to everyone who also sent in donations and gifts. We have literally been blown away by your kindness and generosity. We're looking forward to updating you on the children's reactions when they receive your gifts.
We're just about to board our first plane, so we'll update you when we arrive in Amsterdam. Have a good morning!
Animal Fayre Choir Concert
The Steward Selfie, the Sandwich and the Pillow


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Meeting Coverage > NAMS
Flibanserin: Not Just for Premenopausal Women Anymore?
— Sheryl Kingsberg, PhD, urges clinicians to ask patients about sexual concerns
by Kristen Monaco, Staff Writer, MedPage Today October 14, 2017
PHILADELPHIA -- In postmenopausal women, treatment with the controversial drug flibanserin (Addyi) was effective for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), researchers reported here from a manufacturer-sponsored study.
The post-hoc analysis of the SNOWDROP trial found a total score improvement in the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) with flibanserin treatment versus placebo of 1.5 points (SE 0.5, P=0.01), according to lead author Sheryl A. Kingsberg, PhD, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and colleagues.
Presented at the annual meeting of The North American Menopause Society, five of the six domains measured in the FSFI improved, marked by significant changes in least-squares mean differences after 24-weeks of treatment compared to placebo:
Desire: 0.3 (SE 0.1), P<0.0001
Arousal: 0.3 (SE 0.1), P=0.003
Lubrication: 0.2 (SE 0.1), P=0.044
Orgasm: 0.2 (SE 0.1), P=0.044
Satisfaction: 0.3 (SE 0.1), P=0.004
Only pain did not significantly improve from baseline among the flibanserin group.
Flibanserin, a mixed 5-HT1A agonist/5-HT2A antagonist, is currently FDA approved for the treatment of premenopausal women with acquired, generalized HSDD, marked by a combination of reduced sexual desire and subsequent personal distress. Whether the agent has any beneficial effect in postmenopausal women has been less certain. (Indeed, its effectiveness in the premenopausal population has been questioned, despite the FDA approval.)
HSDD is the most prevalent sexual dysfunction among all ages of women, with about 1 in 10 women being afflicted, Kingsberg told MedPage Today.
Scores on the self-reported Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) range from 2-36, with a 26 or higher indicating sexual dysfunction.
This analysis included a total of 895 individuals – 432 on 100 mg flibanserin at bedtime daily and 463 on placebo. All participants were diagnosed with HSDD at least 6 months prior to the study, according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria, and those not meeting this criteria were excluded.
The ideal candidate for a pharmacologic option like flibanserin is someone with a recognized drop in sexual desire from a previously satisfactory level, and they miss it, Kingsberg explained.
"I think it's very important that clinicians who are not familiar with sexual medicine recognize that women very much want to talk about their sexual concerns, and that it is critically important to their health and quality of life," she highlighted, adding that not all women know recognize this to be a medical condition for which there is treatment for.
"So it is up to the clinician to ask, and I promise it will not take up their entire 15-minute office visit," she suggested. "If they use something like the [Decreased Sexual Desire Screener], if they ask an open-ended question, 'what sexual concerns do you have' -- most of my patients have some -- they can do that effectively and efficiently within 2 minutes, and it improves adherence to whatever treatment you come up with and patient satisfaction with the visit."
Kingsberg added that she has hopes for this pharmacologic treatment in postmenopausal women. "Unfortunately there's nothing that is FDA approved for postmenopausal women, yet," she said.
Last Updated October 16, 2017
The study was funded by Boehringer Ingelheim and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which markets flibanserin.
Kingsberg reported receiving research/grant support from Palatin Technologies and TherapeuticsMD; receiving consulting fees from AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Emotional Brain, Endoceutics, Materna Medical Inc., NovoNordisk, Nuelle, Palatin Technologies, Pfizer Inc., Sermonix Pharmaceuticals, Shionogi Inc., SST Corporation, TherapeuticsMD, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America LLC; receiving stock/stock options with Viveve; and testifying at the 2015 FDA Advisory Committee meeting regarding flibanserin.
North American Menopause Society
Source Reference: Kingsberg S, et al "Effect of flibanserin on sexual functioning in postmenopausal women: An analysis of female sexual function index domains" NAMS 2017; Abstract P-66.


Manama: Turki Bin Abdullah Al Dakheel has been appointed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UAE.
Al Dakheel was one of the 13 ambassadors who on Sunday took the oath before King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz at the Al Yamama Palace in Riyadh.
Al Dakheel is one of the best-known media figures in the Arab world, steadily rising in prominence thanks to his political talk shows and other appearances followed by millions of viewers who saw in him an outstandingly bold and direct interviewer.
In 2011, he was ranked as the 36th most powerful Arab figure by Arabian Business.
Al Dakheel was born in Riyadh in 1973 and studied at the Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University in the capital.
Fascinated by the media, he started writing for several newspapers and the list included Al Riyadh, Al Sharq Al Awsat, Al Majala magazine, Al Hayat and Al Watan.
He was always outspoken in his views and daring in the topics he selected. He retained the same style when he interviewed people on Al Arabiya Television, successfully blending simplicity, delicateness and boldness and building a remarkable reputation.
In an Op/Ed he published today in UAE newspaper Al Ittihad, Al Dakheel said it was a great honour for him to be appointed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UAE, the country "in which I have lived for the past two decades for professional reasons". It is an honour for me because I love ... the UAE, its people, and its rulers. For 20 years, my family and I never felt, for the slightest moment, that we were living in a country other than our own or mingling with people who are not ours," he wrote.
Al Dakheel said he was confident that "the great people of the UAE will ... thanks to their impressive origins, great ethics and love for their leaders, be able to do more in order to strengthen the strong relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia".


The Sink was originally a European style restaurant named Summer's Sunken Gardens. It's focal point was a large, sunken fountain in the middle of the dining room. To its patrons, the restaurant was fondly nick-named The Sink. A CU alum bought the place in 1949 and made the name official. They now have over 18 drafts lines and an newly upgraded kitchen.


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Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has exceeded the expectations of the developers. Over a year after release, through an entire season pass of DLC, fan demand has led to a new two-pack of DLC being sold to further flesh out the game. You can buy Extra Packs 1 and 2 together right now for $16.99, or buy Extra Pack 1 now for $9.99 and Pack 2 for the same price when it hits in February 2018. If you haven't played in a while, there's also new free downloadable content that adds the Hero Colosseum mode, where you can use digital figurines in a board game mode as well as a few new expert missions.
The two-pack's first half is out now, and includes four new playable characters: Buu (Gohan absorbed), Android 13, Dabura, and Taipon. You can have Zamazu as an instructor, and go on 5 new parallel quests. You can also use 13 new skills, 2 titles, 4 new costumes, and 8 Super Souls. Extra Pack 2 doesn't have much information yet, but has a brand new character named Fu who fights with a ninja sword.
The content is integrated into the rest of the game seamlessly and is More of the Same (tm), but the extra variety and challenges are welcome to fans of the series. Extra Pack 2 is slated to let you embark on Time Patrol missions with your master. You will also be able to customize official Dragon Ball characters as well, modifying their attacks and costumes. By the time both packs are out, it will really flesh out and be worth the price of entry.
The main reason this is getting any flak is that it's not part of the Season Pass. The game retailed for $60 and had a $30 Season Pass on top of it, so a few vocal people are criticizing the team for throwing more paid content out. The new content was unplanned, and made at the request of fans. It was outside of the original season pass' scope, hence the price tag. While we don't have a lot of information on Pack 2 yet, before it's over there will be 8 characters, new quests, costumes and an entire new scenario.
If you're a big fan of Xenoverse, the developers have added the new DLC as a thank you to the fans. While some may lament that it's not part of the Season Pass, that pass has gone above sale value so the new DLC can warrant a bit more investment. If you haven't bought into the series yet, as of the writing of this article the original game is discounted on the Xbox marketplace, softening the blow. True fans of the game will find the discounted double pack easily worth the admission fee.
Special thanks to the developers and publishers for providing a code for the downloadable content for review!


At 17 I was heavily influenced by movies of the Italian director Lucio Fulci.
As soon as I could lay my hands on a pencil… My first drawing.
Visual artist & storyteller. Another mortal watching the moon sneaking over walls and ceilings, trying to lick dusk out of rooms, inviting all kinds of 'old folks' visible yet unseen, dressed in lights and noises and all that.
Years ago I lived in an ancient farm at the Waal river in Beuningen, a small village near Nijmegen. As the house is built outside the dike, parts of the area will get flooded in wintertime, so there is no human activity or farming or building whatsoever and nights are pitchblack.
One stormy night, March 8, 1996, I was visited by a nightmare so gruesome, I woke up instantly to write it down. No inconsistent, abstractions or symbols but a clear and classic storyline. I could remember every detail of it, except for the name of the dark-eyed female protagonist. The story kept haunting me. With intervals I worked on it to compose a full-fledged novel.
In 2000 I moved to the city of Utrecht, got involved in internet and music business and lost sight of the concept. In 2007 I picked it up again and stayed in a Cornwall castle for a while where the howling wind inspired me to write the more haunting parts of the story.
In 2009 I forgot about the whole project again, until, out of the blue, I had a dream which provided me with the name of the female protagonist! How much more encouragement could one need?
It took me another year to finish the novel, but as a comic artist the 222 page manuscript did not satisfy me at all, so I had to turn it into a graphic novel.
July 2012 (Half way) I had to move from Utrecht with unknown destiny. This manor needing vacant property management saved me and guess what? It happened to be located only a few yards away from the old farmhouse where this strange story started 17 years ago.


Small and compact design, Clips on belt, Pedometer Stepcount 0-99999.
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