Russian court sentences neo-Nazi "White Wolves" to up to 23 years in prison for killings

A Russian court has sentenced nine ultranationalists to up to 23 years in jail for a series of hate-motivated killings.
The Moscow City Court said in a statement Thursday that 12 mostly underage neo-Nazis who called themselves "White Wolves" have been charged with 11 murders and one assault since April 2007.
It said a jury found nine of them guilty of six murders and one assault.
The group was formed on Adolf Hitler's birthday to "exterminate" non-Russians.
Its participants fatally stabbed Central Asians and other non-Slavs with dark skin or Asian features. They often videotaped the attacks and posted them online.
Russia has experienced a surge of racist assaults, xenophobia and neo-Nazism in recent years.
fox8

Neo-Nazi cleared by Latvian court

The Supreme Court of Latvia has overturned a two-year sentence to a certain Andris Jordans, convicted in 2008 a year after he declared himself the Fuhrer of a neo-Nazi campaign for ethnic cleansing. He glorified the Nazi Holocaust and called the Jews and the Gypsies scam which he would gladly deal with by mowing them down with a machine gun.

Symptomatically, the authorities defended him as a law-abiding gent with full entitlement to the freedom of expression and did not prosecute him before being urged to do so by the United Nations.
So what now for the cleared Mr Jordans?
We hear about this from the Latvian Euro-MP Tatyana Zhdanok.
Mr Jordans and his likes are regulars at reunions and commemorations held by former Latvian members of the Nazi SS.
The rhetoric at such gatherings exposes the participants as unreformed Nazis".
Unfortunately, the scourge is not confined to Latvia. Ahead of independence anniversary celebrations in neighbouring Estonia, for example, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has awarded service medals to five wartime collaborators with the Nazis.
Sixty five years after its defeat on the battlefield, Nazism is still going strong in certain parts of Europe.
ruvr

This you???? : Phishing attack hits Twitter users

(Editorial note: We don’t normally post items of this nature but there appears to be a large number of social networking users having their accounts compromised at the moment, so we thought we would post this report on one way it can happen.)

Messages asking "This you????" followed by a link are being sent via the system to unsuspecting users. If you click on the link you are taken to a fake Twitter login page, where hackers are just waiting for you to hand over your credentials. In fact, they can automatically post the phishing message from your account as soon as you hand over your details.

If you have received a message like this from one of your friends it is likely that their account has been compromised by cybercriminals.
It's bad enough if hackers gain control of your Twitter account, but if you also use that same password on other websites (and our research shows that 33% of people do that all of the time) then they could access your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, eBay, Paypal, and so forth.

So, be cautious about the links you click on, choose a strong password, and - if you have found that you're spreading suspicious messages from your Twitter account or believe that you have been compromised - change your passwords immediately.
You should also check your Twitter account and check the Settings/Connections screen. If there are any third party applications you don't recognise listed there, revoke their permission to access your account.

Here's a video about how it works.
 



It's bad enough if hackers gain control of your Twitter account, but if you also use that same password on other websites (and our research shows that 33% of people do that all of the time) then they could access your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, eBay, Paypal, and so forth.
So, be cautious about the links you click on, choose a strong password, and - if you have found that you're spreading suspicious messages from your Twitter account or believe that you have been compromised - change your passwords immediately.
You should also check your Twitter account and check the Settings/Connections screen. If there are any third party applications you don't recognise listed there, revoke their permission to access your account.

Sophos

Google Italy ruling threatens YouTube pursuit of profitability

Clear implication of Milan court's judgment against three executives is that every hosted video should be pre-screened
The judgment by a Milan court against Google's employees throws a bucketful of sand into the machinery of YouTube, the video site that the search engine company bought for $1.65bn in October 2006. The clear implication of its decision is that every video should be screened before it is put on to the site – and with more than 20 hours of video uploaded every minute worldwide (Google does not break down the figure for Italy), monitoring all that content, even for a single country, could prove enormously expensive.
That in turn would put profitability for the site – which is thought to have lost between $100m and $500m in 2009 – further away than ever. YouTube has never made an operating profit in its five-year history, and Google has been trying to sell adverts on videos to make the site profitable.
Italy recently seems to have taken a more extreme stance over internet content than many other European countries. Its tax authorities have demanded that eBay should hand over information about its customers relating to goods sold on the site between 2004 and 2007; Yahoo was fined €12,000 last year after Milan's public prosecutor demanded information about private emails sent by suspected criminals; and the Italian interior ministry has required Facebook to hand over personal information about users who created groups said to "glorify" Mafia bosses, and again last October over a group said to promote the violent death of Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister.
Today's judgment found three Google executives – David Drummond, Google's senior vice-president of corporate development and chief legal officer, Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, and George Reyes, a former chief financial officer – guilty of invasion of privacy following the uploading to Google Video in September 2006 of footage of four Italian teenagers bullying a youth with Down's syndrome. The premise is that Google is responsible for any content that appears on its site.

Google said on its blog that the ruling "attacks the very principles of freedom on which the internet is built". The company had argued that because it removed the video immediately after being notified of its content, and co-operated with the Italian authorities to identify the bullies so they could be brought to justice, it had discharged its duty. It said hosting platforms – such as YouTube, Facebook or Twitter – did not create their own content and so could not be held responsible for what other people upload.
Google is already fighting a number of legal actions over content on YouTube. The largest is from the entertainment company Viacom, which has accused the site of "contributory infringement" and other offences for carrying videos uploaded by users containing Viacom's copyrighted material.
The Italian decision creates a monumental headache for Google, which is already under pressure in Europe after the announcement last night that it faces an anti-monopoly investigation into whether it penalises competing websites in its search rankings. If it has to monitor every video before it appears on YouTube, that would push its costs up substantially: people are a comparatively expensive link in any business chain, which is why Google has sought to replace them with computers where possible.
The censoring of websites has become a hot issue in Italy in recent months, following a spate of hate sites against officials, including Berlusconi. The government briefly studied plans to black-out such sites after fan pages emerged praising an attack on the premier, but the idea was dropped after executives from Facebook, Google and Microsoft agreed to a shared code of conduct rather than legislation.

The Guardian

Facebook urged to act after memorial sites defaced (Australia)

Cyber attacks on Facebook pages set up to pay tribute to two murdered Australian children has prompted calls for the social networking site to be more accountable for its users.
Social media experts say it is natural that people who use sites such as Facebook or MySpace as a major form of communication should turn to these sites with personal tragedies.
These memorial sites often attract thousands of friends and well-wishers, as in the case of the pages set up after the deaths this month of Elliott Fletcher, 12, and Trinity Bates, 8.
Students from Brisbane College in the state of Queensland flocked to a memorial site set up after Fletcher was stabbed in a schoolyard fight two weeks ago, but it was defaced with offensive comments and images including child pornography and bestiality.
The same happened to a site set up in memory of Bates who was taken from her bed in Bundaberg, Queensland, with her body found in a nearby storm drain on Monday. A teenager accused of her murder was also revealed to be a Facebook friend of her parents.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has appealed to the owners of U.S.-based Facebook to find ways to stop a recurrence of these types of "sickening incidents".
"To have these things happen to Facebook pages set up for the sole purpose of helping these communities pay tribute to young lives lost in the most horrible ways adds to the grief already being experienced," Bligh wrote in a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg which was released to the media.
"I seek your advice about whether Facebook can do anything to prevent a recurrence of these types of sickening incidents.
A spokesman for Bligh said the premier had yet to receive a response from Zuckerberg.
But Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost said the site had rules to check content and reviewers were quick to respond to any reports of hate or threats against an individual, pornography, or violent photos or videos, and would remove the content, and either warn or disable the accounts of those responsible.
"Facebook is highly self-regulating, and users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive," Frost said in a statement.
She said in the tragic case of Elliott Fletcher, Facebook responded to reports of vandalism from others users and the police by removing the groups and disabling the accounts of the people responsible but that was about all the action possible.
"It is simply not possible to 'prevent' a person with a sinister agenda from undertaking offensive activity anywhere on the Internet where people can post content. Nor is it really possible in real life," Frost added.
Detective Superintendent Peter Crawford of Queensland police said people should think twice before setting up such social networking groups. As well as memorial sites, Facebook pages popped up vilifying the man accused of murdering Bates.
"I would say anybody thinking about putting these sites up in the future need to realise that they're going to attract these kinds of people," Crawford told radio station Fairfax Radio 4BC.
"The reality is once you open these sites up to open access to anyone on the Internet, you are going to attract unsavoury people and clearly that's occurred again."

reuters

Alleged Nazi Zentai appeals extradition (Australia)

An alleged Nazi war criminal living in Australia has appealed to the Human Rights Commission in a bid to avoid extradition to his native Hungary.

The lawyer for Charles (Karoly) Zentai this week asked commission President Catherine Branson to intervene, the Australian Associated Press reported Tuesday, on the grounds that there was no guarantee that Hungary could ensure a fair trial, especially in the absence of witnesses.
Zentai, 88, of Perth, is facing allegations in Hungary that he helped murder Jewish teenager Peter Balasz in Budapest in November 1944.
Zentai has vehemently denied the claim since he was first arrested by Australian Federal Police in 2005 after a Simon Wiesenthal Center investigation helped flushed out information on his whereabouts.
The Human Rights Commission cannot supersede the legal processes of Zentai’s extradition but could help Zentai pay for his legal fight against extradition.
Zentai's appeal is scheduled to begin March 31 in Perth Federal Court.

JTA

Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada reach record high

Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada rose to record levels, according to B'nai Brith Canada's annual audit.

The yearly survey released Wednesday showed an 11.4 percent increase in incidents in 2009 over the previous year to reach the highest number ever reported in the audit's 28-year history.
There were 1,264 anti-Jewish incidents last year, which encompassed acts of harassment, vandalism and violence. That compares to 1,135 incidents in 2008, and represents a five-fold increase over the last decade, B'nai Brith's League for Human Rights said.
The highest number of incidents for the year, 209, occurred in January, coinciding with Israel's war in Gaza, noted Frank Dimant, executive vice president of B'nai Brith Canada.
Last year in Canada saw 884 cases of harassment, 348 of vandalism and a doubling from 2008 of acts of violence, at 32.
The majority of incidents, 672, occurred in Ontario. That represents a slight drop over 2008 of 1.5 percent, while incidents in the Greater Toronto Area decreased by 11 percent. However, incidents in other parts of Ontario rose by nearly 50 percent.
There were 373 incidents in Quebec, a 52.5 percent rise over the 2008 data. Of these, 319 incidents took place in Montreal, representing an increase of 58.7 percent over the year before.
Nationally there were 111 incidents targeting Jews in their own homes, compared to 105 in 2008, and 137 incidents on university campuses, well above the 76 reported in 2008.
Another spike in incidens occurred just before Yom Kippur, when 10 synagogues were vandalized across the country, including four in Quebec on one night.
Dimant specifically cited an Islamic community newspaper, which accused Jews and Israelis of mass organ trafficking.

JTA

Would-be Miss California says God wants gays dead

A contestant for the 2010 Miss California pageant has given her views on same-sex marriage, saying that the Bible is "pretty black and white" on what should happen to gays.
Miss Beverly Hills 2010 Lauren Ashley, who evidently hopes to follow in the footsteps of last year's Miss California Carrie Prejean, was speaking to Fox News.
Ms Ashley said: "The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, 'If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.' The Bible is pretty black and white.
"I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that's a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life."
But the beauty queen was quick to point out she had plenty of gay friends, saying: "There's no hate between me and anyone."
Last year, Miss California Carrie Prejean lost the Miss USA pageant and her crown after announcing she disagreed with gay marriage.
Ms Prejean became a poster girl for the Christian right following her outburst and was revered by some as a martyr for Christian values.
But she was swiftly dropped when it was revealed she had had breast implants and appeared in home-made solo porn videos.
Ms Ashley said she had not yet met Ms Prejean but said: "She is definitely a beautiful person and I love that she stood up for what she believes in. I think that's gorgeous."

Pink News

Irkutsk Police Detain Suspect in Racist Assault (Russia)

Police in Irkutsk, Russia detained a far-right activist in connection with an assault on an ethnic Buryat, according to a February 11, 2010 report by the Teleinform news agency. Police charged the 19 year old suspect with "hooliganism" paradoxically announcing at the same time that he assaulted his victim out of racist animus. It is not clear from the report why, therefore, the suspect does not face hate crimes charges in
addition to "hooliganism," especially since he allegedly yelled racist abuse during the crime.
UCSJ