1.
Damascus
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Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
2.
Syrians
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Syrians, also known as the Syrian people are the inhabitants of Syria, who share a common Levantine Semitic ancestry. The Syrian republic has a population of nearly 17 million as of 2014, the dominant racial group is the Syrian descendants of the old indigenous peoples who mixed with Arabs and identify themselves as such in addition to ethnic Aramean. The Syrian diaspora consists of 15 million people of Syrian ancestry, who immigrated to North America, European Union member states, South America, Australia, and Africa. The name Syrians was employed by the Greeks and Romans to denote the inhabitants of Syria, however, the ethnic designation Syrian is derived from the word Assyrian and appeared in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Some argue that the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The Greeks used the terms Syrian and Assyrian interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Near East, starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the Seleucid ruler as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. However, the interchangeability between Assyrians and Syrians persisted during the Hellenistic period, in one instance, the Ptolemies of Egypt reserved the term Syrian Village as the name of a settlement in Fayoum. The term Syrians is under debate whether it referred to Jews or to Arameans, as the Ptolemies referred to all peoples originating from Modern Syria, the term Syrian was imposed upon Arameans of modern Levant by the Romans. Pompey created the province of Syria, which included modern-day Lebanon and Syria west of the Euphrates, in his book The Great Roman-Jewish War, Josephus, a Hebrew native to the Levant, mentioned the Syrians as the non-Hebrew, non-Greek indigenous inhabitants of Syria. The Arabs called Syria and the Levant Al-Sham, besides religious identities, the Syrian people is split between three identities, namely the Arab, Syriac, and Syrian identities. Many Muslims and some Arabic-speaking Christians describe themselves as Arabs, while many Aramaic-speaking Christians, also some people from Syria, mainly Syrian nationalists, describe themselves as only Syrians. The inhabitants of Syria descend from the ancient Semitic peoples of antiquity, mainly the Arameans and Phoenicians, as well as from the pre- and post-conquest Arabs of the 7th century. The majority of the Syrian people who refer to themselves as Arabs are the result of the linguistic Arabization of Syria following the Muslim conquest of the Levant. Arabisation and Islamization of Syria began in the 7th century, while it took centuries for Islam, the Arab identity. Syrians welcomed the Arabs as liberators which made Arabisation and conversion faster, caliph Uthman specifically ordered his governor, Muawiyah I, to settle the new tribes away from the original population. However, the ascendancy of Arabic as the language of the state prompted the cultural. The new Muslim converts mixed with the Arabs and shifted to an Arab racial identity, Syriac is still the liturgical language for most of the different Syriac churches in Syria. More recently, the Syriac Orthodox Church, which has been historically called Syrian, in Maloula the Christian majority is split in between the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, in addition to a Muslim minority
3.
Software engineer
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Prior to the mid-1960s, software practitioners called themselves computer programmers or software developers, regardless of their actual jobs. Many people prefer to call themselves software developer and programmer, because most widely agree what these terms mean, in many companies, the titles programmer and software developer were changed to software engineer, for many categories of programmers. In May 2015, the United States U, S. S. in all other engineering disciplines combined. The label software engineer is used liberally in the corporate world. Very few of the software engineers actually hold Engineering degrees from accredited universities. About half of all practitioners today have degrees in science, information systems. A small, but growing, number of practitioners have software engineering degrees, in 1997, PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore, India was the first to start a five-year integrated Master of Science degree in Software Engineering. Since then, software engineering degrees have been established at many universities. A standard international curriculum for undergraduate software engineering degrees was defined by the CCSE. As of 2004, in the U. S. about 50 universities offer software engineering degrees, the first software engineering Masters degree was established at Seattle University in 1979. Since then graduate software engineering degrees have been available from many more universities. Likewise in Canada, the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers has recognized several software engineering programs, in 1998, the US Naval Postgraduate School established the first doctorate program in Software Engineering in the world. Steve McConnell opines that because most universities teach computer science rather than software engineering, ETS University and UQAM were mandated by IEEE to develop the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge, which has become an ISO standard describing the body of knowledge covered by a software engineer. In business, some software engineering practitioners have MIS or computer information systems degrees, in medical software, practitioners may have medical informatics, general medical, or biology degrees. Some practitioners have mathematics, science, engineering, or technology degrees, some have philosophy or other non-technical degrees. For instance, Barry Boehm earned degrees in mathematics. Most software engineers work as employees or contractors, Software engineers work with businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Some software engineers work on their own as consulting software engineers, some organizations have specialists to perform each of the tasks in the software development process. Other organizations required software engineers to do many or all of them, entry-level software engineer or associate software engineer may be best
4.
Openclipart
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Openclipart is a community and collection of vector clip art that is free content. The projects slogan is, Openclipart is the largest community of artists making the best free original clipart for you to use for any reason. The Openclipart library, sometimes abbreviated as OCAL, was started in early 2004 by Jon Phillips and Bryce Harrington, developers for vector graphics software Sodipodi, and later its fork, Inkscape. The flag project progressed very well, resulting in a collection of over 90 flags made publicly available in SVG format, the project became known as Openclipart by April 2004, with the stated aim of all contributed images being dedicated to the public domain. In the early stages of the Openclipart project, a website was created that lacked thumbnails and was hard to browse, to help propagate the images in the library, downloadable Openclipart packages were released. These packages were available directly from the Openclipart website, or as an add-on for various Linux distributions including Fedora, each package included most of the clipart to date and were manually sorted into categories, a laborious process. The Openclipart package version 0.20 was released in 2010, the Openclipart packages received only a few more incremental updates during 2010, mostly for seasonal clipart. An overhauled Openclipart 2.0 website went live as a beta in February 2010 with a release in March 2010. The site introduced a change from the old ccHost software to the new AGPL-based Aiki Framework, the new site allowed anyone to browse and add to the Openclipart collection easily, and image thumbnails and improved search functions made the Openclipart library more accessible. These features contributed to increased use of the site, which was receiving over 5,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views daily. This release culminated the work of Jon Phillips, Andy Fitzsimon, Bassel Safadi, Michi, Ronaldo Barbachano, and Brad Phillips who assisted in the launch of the new system. The 3.0 website release incorporated a feature, allowing members to make note of their favorite clip art. On April 15,2013, Openclipart launched a new logo, on March 12,2014, Openclipart announced that Inkpad, an open source drawing app for Apple iPad, released library integration so that the entire collection is available to artists. As of late January 2017, Openclipart displays the works of over 5,800 artists who have contributed over 118,000 SVG graphics, the entire collection is available for free to download. All images are dedicated to the domain by their contributors and are stored in Scalable Vector Graphics format. Inkpad for iPad, with Openclipart Integration, the vector graphics editor Inkscape can import vector graphics online from Openclipart to your current workspace. These distributions are based on the 2005 pre-ccHost release, since regular releases stopped after the switch to ccHost software, Openclipart 0.19, the first version released after switch, was released in March 2009. With the recent release of version 2.0 and updated packages, Openclipart was included on the cover discs in Linux Format issues 123 and 132 as a package of browseable SVGs from the Openclipart collection
5.
Mozilla
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Mozilla is a free-software community created in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, the community is supported institutionally by the Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. On January 23,1998, Netscape made two announcements, first, that Netscape Communicator would be free, second, that the code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski from Netscape registered mozilla. org, Jamie Zawinski says he came up with the name Mozilla at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordination of the new community, originally, Mozilla aimed to be a technology provider for companies, such as Netscape, who would commercialize their open source code. When AOL greatly reduced its involvement with Mozilla in July 2003, in a report released in November 2012, Mozilla reported that their total revenue for 2011 was $163 million, which was up 33% from $123 million in 2010. Mozilla noted that roughly 85% of their revenue comes from their contract with Google. At the end of 2013, Mozilla announced a deal with Cisco Systems whereby Firefox would download, as part of the deal, Cisco would pay any patent licensing fees associated with the binaries that it distributes. Mozillas CTO, Brendan Eich, acknowledged that this is not a complete solution, in December 2013, Mozilla announced funding for the development of non-free games through its Game Creator Challenge. In January 2017, the company rebranded away from its logo in favor of logo that includes a, // character sequence from a URL, with the revamped logo, moz. On March 24,2014, Mozilla promoted Brendan Eich to the role of CEO, Eichs donation first became public knowledge in 2012, while he was Mozilla’s chief technical officer, leading to angry responses on Twitter—including the use of the hashtag #wontworkwithbigots. Protests also emerged in 2014 following the announcement of Eichs appointment as CEO of Mozilla, U. S. Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech, and you need free speech to fight for equality. Eichs resignation promoted a larger backlash from conservatives who felt he had forced out of the company internally. Reader comments on articles that were published close to the events were divided between support for OkCupids actions and opposition to them, supporters claimed the boycott was justified and saw OkCupids actions as a firm statement of opposition to intolerance towards the gay community. Mozillas manifesto mentions only its beliefs in regards to the Internet and Internet privacy, according to the Mozilla Foundation, The Mozilla Foundation pledges to support the Mozilla Manifesto in its activities. Firefox is a web browser, and is Mozillas flagship software product and it is available in both desktop and mobile versions. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current, as of late 2015, Firefox has approximately 10-11% of worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the 4th most-used web browser
6.
Creative Commons
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Creative Commons is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public and these licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright, but are based upon it. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, Wikipedia uses one of these licenses. The organization was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, the first article in a general interest publication about Creative Commons, written by Hal Plotkin, was published in February 2002. The first set of licenses was released in December 2002. In 2003 the Open Content Project, a 1998 precursor project by David A. Wiley, announced the Creative Commons as successor project, matthew Haughey and Aaron Swartz also played a role in the early stages of the project. As of January 2016 there were an estimated 1.1 billion works licensed under the various Creative Commons licenses, as of March 2015, Flickr alone hosts over 306 million Creative Commons licensed photos. Creative Commons is governed by a board of directors and their licenses have been embraced by many as a way for creators to take control of how they choose to share their copyrighted works. Beyond that, Creative Commons has provided institutional, practical and legal support for individuals and groups wishing to experiment, Creative Commons attempts to counter what Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, considers to be a dominant and increasingly restrictive permission culture. Lessig describes this as a culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, as of 2017, they are Paul Keller, Jonathan Nightingale, Chris Thorne. As of 2015, there are more than 100 affiliates working in over 75 jurisdictions to support, Creative Commons Korea is the affiliated network of Creative Commons in South Korea. In March 2005, CC Korea was initiated by Jongsoo Yoon, the major Korean portal sites, including Daum and Naver, have been participating in the use of Creative Commons licences. In January 2009, the Creative Commons Korea Association was consequently founded as an incorporated association. Since then, CC Korea has been promoting the liberal. Since March 15,2012 he has been detained by the Syrian government in Damascus at Adra Prison, on October 17,2015 Creative Commons Board of Directors approved a resolution calling for Bassel Khartabil release. All current CC licenses require attribution, which can be inconvenient for works based on other works. Critics also worried that the lack of rewards for content producers will dissuade artists from publishing their work, Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig countered that copyright laws have not always offered the strong and seemingly indefinite protection that todays law provides
7.
Index on Censorship
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Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, since May 2014, is Jodie Ginsberg, WSI was created by poet Stephen Spender, Oxford philosopher Stuart Hampshire, the then editor of The Observer David Astor, writer and Soviet Union expert Edward Crankshaw. The founding editor of Index on Censorship was the critic and translator Michael Scammell, the operation is based at 292 Vauxhall Bridge Road in central London. Index on Censorship magazine was founded by Michael Scammel in 1972 and it supports free expression, publishing distinguished writers from around the world, exposing suppressed stories, initiating debate, and providing an international record of censorship. The quarterly editions of the magazine focus on a country or region or a recurring theme in the global free expression debate. Index on Censorship also publishes works of fiction and poetry by notable new writers. Index Index, a round-up of abuses of freedom of expression worldwide, was published in the magazine until December 2008, the magazine has covered other challenges facing free expression, including religious extremism, the rise of nationalism, and Internet censorship. In the first issue of May 1972 Stephen Spender wrote, Obviously there is the risk of a magazine of this kind becoming a bulletin of frustration. However, the material by writers which is censored in Eastern Europe, Greece, South Africa, moreover, the question of censorship has become a matter of impassioned debate, and it is one which does not only concern totalitarian societies. Accordingly, the magazine has sought to shed light on other challenges facing free expression, including religious extremism, the rise of nationalism, and internet censorship. Issues are usually organised by theme, and contain a country-by-country list of recent cases involving censorship, restrictions on freedom of the press, occasionally, Index on Censorship publishes short works of fiction and poetry by notable new writers as well as censored ones. Recent issues under the editorship of Rachael Jolley have covered taboos, there have been special issues on China, reporting from the Middle East, and on internet censorship. The Russia issue won an Amnesty International Media Award 2008 for features by Russian journalists Fatima Tlisova and Sergei Bachinin, since January 2010 it has been published by Sage Publications, an independent for-profit academic publisher. Between 2005 and 2009, the magazine was published and distributed by Routledge, in addition to print and annual subscriptions, Index on Censorship is available on Exact Editions, an application for the iPhone/iPad and Android. It is also a partner with Eurozine, a network of more than 60 European cultural journals, other landmark publications include Ken Saro-Wiwas writings from prison and a translation of the Czechoslovak Charter 77 manifesto drafted by Václav Havel and others. Index published the first English translation of Alexander Solzhenitsyns Nobel Prize acceptance speech, stoppard became a member of the advisory board of Index on Censorship in 1978 and remains connected to the publication as a Patron of Index. Six months later, Index published the Hunger Strike Declaration from four student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Hou Dejian and Gao Xin. Index Index, a round-up of abuses of freedom of expression worldwide, continued to be published in each edition of the magazine until December 2008, when this function was transferred to the website
8.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
9.
Open-source model
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Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. According to scientists who studied it, open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, a 2008 report by the Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. In the early days of computing, programmers and developers shared software in order to learn from each other, eventually the open source notion moved to the way side of commercialization of software in the years 1970-1980. In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar and this source code subsequently became the basis behind SeaMonkey, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and KompoZer. Netscapes act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the Free Software Foundations free software ideas, the new term they chose was open source, which was soon adopted by Bruce Perens, publisher Tim OReilly, Linus Torvalds, and others. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use of the new term, a Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that open source is an intellectual property destroyer. I cant imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business, IBM, Oracle, Google and State Farm are just a few of the companies with a serious public stake in todays competitive open-source market. There has been a significant shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of FOSS, the free software movement was launched in 1983. In 1998, a group of individuals advocated that the free software should be replaced by open-source software as an expression which is less ambiguous. Software developers may want to publish their software with an open-source license, the Open Source Definition, notably, presents an open-source philosophy, and further defines the terms of usage, modification and redistribution of open-source software. Software licenses grant rights to users which would otherwise be reserved by law to the copyright holder. Several open-source software licenses have qualified within the boundaries of the Open Source Definition, the open source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7,1998 in Palo Alto in reaction to Netscapes January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator. They used the opportunity before the release of Navigators source code to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the free in English. Many people claimed that the birth of the Internet, since 1969, started the open source movement, the Free Software Foundation, started in 1985, intended the word free to mean freedom to distribute and not freedom from cost. Since a great deal of free software already was free of charge, such software became associated with zero cost. The Open Source Initiative was formed in February 1998 by Eric Raymond and they sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and they wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens attempted to open source as a service mark for the OSI. The Open Source Initiatives definition is recognized by governments internationally as the standard or de facto definition, OSI uses The Open Source Definition to determine whether it considers a software license open source
10.
Software developer
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A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
11.
Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War
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The civil uprising prior to the Syrian Civil War was an early stage of protests – with subsequent violent reaction by the Syrian state – lasting from March to 28 July 2011. The uprising, initially demanding democratic reforms, evolved from initially minor protests, the rebel Free Syrian Army was created on July 29,2011. Before the uprising in Syria began in mid-March 2011, protests were relatively modest, Syria, until March 2011, for decades had remained superficially tranquil, largely due to fear among the people of the secret police arresting critical citizens. Minor protests calling for government reforms began in January, and continued into March and this did not result in protests. Demonstrators clashed with police, and confrontations escalated on 18 March after Friday prayers. Security forces attacked protesters gathered at the Omari Mosque using water cannons and tear gas, followed by live fire, on 20 March, a mob burned down the Baath Party headquarters and other public buildings. Security forces quickly responded, firing live ammunition at crowds, the two-day assault resulted in the deaths of fifteen protesters. Meanwhile, minor protests occurred elsewhere in the country, protesters demanded the release of political prisoners, the abolition of Syrias 48-year emergency law, more freedoms, and an end to pervasive government corruption. The events led to a Friday of Dignity on 18 March, when protests broke out in several cities, including Banias, Damascus, al-Hasakah, Daraa, Deir az-Zor. Police responded to the protests with tear gas, water cannons, at least 6 people were killed and many others injured. On 25 March, mass protests spread nationwide, as demonstrators emerged after Friday prayers, at least 20 protesters were reportedly killed by security forces. Protests subsequently spread to other Syrian cities, including Homs, Hama, Baniyas, Jasim, Aleppo, Damascus, over 70 protesters in total were reported killed. Even before the uprising began, the Syrian government had made numerous arrests of dissidents and human rights campaigners. In early February 2011, authorities arrested several activists, including political leaders Ghassan al-Najar, Abbas Abbas, police and security forces responded to the protests violently, not only using water cannons and tear gas, but also beating protesters and firing live ammunition. As the uprising began, the Syrian government waged a campaign of arrests that captured tens of thousands of people, according to lawyers and activists in Syria and human rights groups. In response to the uprising, Syrian law had changed to allow the police. Arrests focused on two groups, political activists, and men and boys from the towns that the Syrian Army would start to besiege in April, many of those detained experienced ill-treatment. Many detainees were cramped in tight rooms and were limited resources
12.
Human Rights Watch
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Human Rights Watch is an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. C. and Zurich. The organizations annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Unions compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a practice of naming and shaming abusive governments through media coverage. Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America, asia Watch, Africa Watch, and Middle East Watch were added to what was known as The Watch Committees. In 1988, all of these committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch, pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of what it considers basic human rights. This includes capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, HRW advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press. These reports are used as the basis for drawing attention to abuses and pressuring governments. HRW has documented and reported violations of the laws of war. Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide, who are being persecuted for their work and are in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-time companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. In addition to providing assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who are being silenced for speaking out in defense of human rights. Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists around the world who demonstrate leadership, the award winners work closely with HRW in investigating and exposing human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998, Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide. It also co-founded the Cluster Munition Coalition, which brought about an international convention banning the weapons, HRW employs more than 275 staff—country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics – and operates in more than 90 countries around the world. The current executive director of HRW is Kenneth Roth, who has held the position since 1993, Roth conducted investigations on abuses in Poland after martial law was declared 1981. He later focused on Haiti, which had just emerged from the Duvalier dictatorship, roth’s awareness of the importance of human rights began with stories his father had told about escaping Nazi Germany in 1938. Roth graduated from Yale Law School and Brown University, HRW has been criticized for perceived bias by the national governments it has investigated for human rights abuses, and by NGO Monitor, and HRWs founder, and former Chairman, Robert L. Bernstein. Bias allegations include undue influence by United States government policy, HRW has routinely publicly responded to, and often rejected, criticism of its reporting and findings
13.
Firefox
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Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox was created in 2002, under the name Phoenix by the Mozilla community members who wanted a standalone rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. Even during its phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security. Firefox was released in November 2004, and was successful with 60 million downloads within nine months. Firefox is considered the successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL. Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32% at the end of 2009, usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. As of January 2016, Firefox has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage as a browser, making it the second most popular web browser. Firefox is still the most popular browser in Cuba, Eritrea, and Germany, with 85. 93%,79. 39%. It is also the most popular browser in many other African countries. According to Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a billion Firefox users around the world, the Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt, and Blake Ross. They believed the requirements of Netscapes sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suites software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, on April 3,2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird. The community-driven SeaMonkey was formed and eventually replaced the Mozilla Application Suite in 2005, the Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Phoenix was renamed due to issues with Phoenix Technologies, the replacement name, Firebird. In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser would always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion, after further pressure, on February 9,2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox. The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda, for the abbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF. The Firefox project went through many versions before the version 1.0 was released on November 9,2004, search, which is a front end of Microsoft search engine Bing, by default in most localizations. Firefox Hello is scheduled to be removed in September 2016, functions can be added through add-ons created by third-party developers
14.
Wikipedia
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Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that aims to allow anyone to edit articles. Wikipedia is the largest and most popular reference work on the Internet and is ranked among the ten most popular websites. Wikipedia is owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia was launched on January 15,2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Sanger coined its name, a portmanteau of wiki and encyclopedia, There was only the English language version initially, but it quickly developed similar versions in other languages, which differ in content and in editing practices. With 5,377,348 articles, the English Wikipedia is the largest of the more than 290 Wikipedia encyclopedias, in 2005, Nature published a peer review comparing 42 science articles from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia, and found that Wikipedias level of accuracy approached Encyclopædia Britannicas. Other collaborative online encyclopedias were attempted before Wikipedia, but none were so successful, Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9,2000, under the ownership of Bomis and its main figures were Jimmy Wales, the CEO of Bomis, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, while Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia, Sanger is credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal. On January 10,2001, Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a project for Nupedia. Wikipedia was launched on January 15,2001, as a single English-language edition at www. wikipedia. com, Wikipedias policy of neutral point-of-view was codified in its first months. Otherwise, there were few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia. Originally, Bomis intended to make Wikipedia a business for profit, Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. By August 8,2001, Wikipedia had over 8,000 articles, on September 25,2001, Wikipedia had over 13,000 articles. By the end of 2001, it had grown to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions and it had reached 26 language editions by late 2002,46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the final days of 2004. Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the servers were taken down permanently in 2003. Citing fears of commercial advertising and lack of control in Wikipedia and these moves encouraged Wales to announce that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and to change Wikipedias domain from wikipedia. com to wikipedia. org. Around 1,800 articles were added daily to the encyclopedia in 2006, a team at the Palo Alto Research Center attributed this slowing of growth to the projects increasing exclusivity and resistance to change. Others suggest that the growth is flattening naturally because articles that could be called low-hanging fruit—topics that clearly merit an article—have already been created, the Wall Street Journal cited the array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content among the reasons for this trend
15.
Sharism
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Sharism is a term for the motivation and philosophy behind the collaborative building of value that results from sharing content and ideas. Inspired by user-generated content, Sharism states that the act of sharing something within a community produces a value for each of its participants, the more you share. Following the analogy of an emerging Social Brain, Mao argues that the process of empowering people through sharing leads to collective ways of rethinking social relationships, Sharism has been particularly focused in China in order to promote the Open Web and combat Internet censorship. Notable proponents of Sharism as both a term and practice have included Larry Lessig and Ou Ning, in 2010 during a Creative Commons lecture in Beijing, Lessig mentioned Sharism in the context of openness and innovation in creative industries and intellectual property law in China. Also in 2010, Ou in his role as a curator choose Sharism as the theme for the Shanghai biennale exhibition Get It Louder. In an interview about the exhibition, Ou discussed Sharism at length, in 2012, Sharism Lab has been created with the purpose of providing experimental and theoretical background for a real-world implementation of Sharism. Several types of Sharism events have created for people to meet. Sharism Forum was held in October 2010 at the Get It Louder festival in Shanghai, another event called Sharism Presents offers an informal setup for people to share whatever they want with the attending audience. Sharism Workshops provide a framework for production through the act of sharing. Workshops have been held in Beijing, Doha and Warsaw and have included musicians, digital artists, in order to offer an easy way to share any kind of work online, the Sharing Agreement has been created in order to work around the increasing complexity of licenses. Many academics point to the downsides of such uncritical belief in the power of technology. User generated content has been reframed as Loser Generated Content, as the value of this sharing often ends up with companies, and not in the public domain. Within the art world, it has suggested that there are dangers of sharism
16.
Palmyra
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Palmyra is an ancient Semitic city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and the city was first documented in the second millennium BC. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD, the city grew wealthy from trade caravans, the Palmyrenes were renowned merchants who established colonies along the Silk Road and operated throughout the Roman Empire. Palmyras wealth enabled the construction of projects, such as the Great Colonnade, the Temple of Bel. The Palmyrenes were a mix of Amorites, Arameans, and Arabs, the citys social structure was tribal, and its inhabitants spoke Palmyrene, Greek was used for commercial and diplomatic purposes. The culture of Palmyra was influenced by Greco-Roman culture and produced distinctive art, the citys inhabitants worshiped local deities and Mesopotamian and Arab gods. By the third century AD, Palmyra was a regional center reaching the apex of its power in the 260s. The king was succeeded by regent Queen Zenobia, who rebelled against Rome, in 273, Roman emperor Aurelian destroyed the city, which was later restored by Diocletian at a reduced size. Before AD273, Palmyra enjoyed autonomy and was attached to the Roman province of Syria, the city became a Roman colonia during the third century, leading to the incorporation of Roman governing institutions, before becoming a monarchy in 260. Following its destruction in 273, Palmyra became a center under the Byzantines. Its destruction by the Timurids in 1400 reduced it to a small village, under French Mandatory rule in 1932, the inhabitants were moved into the new village of Tadmur, and the ancient site became available for excavations. ISIL sabotaged many artifacts and destroyed a number of buildings considerably damaging the ancient site, Aramaic Palmyrene inscriptions themselves showed two variants of the name, TDMR and TDMWR. The Greek name Παλμύρα is first recorded by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD and it was used throughout the Greco-Roman world. It is generally believed that Palmyra derives from Tadmor and two possibilities have been presented by linguists, one holds that Palmyra was an alteration of Tadmor. The second view, supported by some philologists, such as Jean Starcky, holds that Palmyra is a translation of Tadmor, Michael Patrick OConnor suggested that the names Palmyra and Tadmor originated in the Hurrian language. As evidence, he cited the inexplicability of alterations to the roots of both names. According to this theory, Tadmor derives from the Hurrian word tad with the addition of the typical Hurrian mid vowel rising formant mar, similarly, according to this theory, Palmyra derives from the Hurrian word pal using the same mVr formant. Palmyra is 215 km northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus, two mountain ranges overlook the city, the northern Palmyrene mountain belt from the north and the southern Palmyrene mountains from the southwest
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Wikimedia movement
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The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to Wikimedia projects. These volunteers are supported by organizations around the world, including the Wikimedia Foundation, related chapters, thematic organizations. The Wikipedia community is the community of contributors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and it consists of editors and Administrators, known as Admin. Wikimedia projects include, The Wikimedia Foundation is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco and it owns the domain names and operates most of the movements websites, like Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, as well as Wikimedia Commons. The WMF was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales as a way to fund Wikipedia, to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. According to the WMFs 2015 financial statements, in 2015 the WMF had a budget of $72 million USD, spending $52 million USD on its operation, Chapters are organizations that support Wikimedia projects in specified geographical regions, mostly countries. Wikimedia Deutschland is the largest chapter, with a budget of €20 million. WMDE allocates approximately €1 million to support the corporation responsible for distributing donations, to have the same procedure, every chapter follows the same process and requests its yearly budget at the funds dissemination committee. The foundation as internet domain owner of the project pages requests a share of the donations via the website in a country, a total of under 4 Mio USD is distributed via this way to chapters and thematic organizations. The legal base is a Chapters Agreement with the foundation, thematic organizations are founded to support Wikimedia projects in a focal area. User groups have less formal requirements than chapters and thematic organizations and they support and promote the Wikimedia projects locally or on a specific theme, topic, subject, or issue. At the beginning of 2016, there were 55 user groups, once they are recognized by the Affiliations Committee, they enter into a User Groups Agreement and Code of Conduct with the foundation. They have a program to encourage female editors
18.
Mezzeh
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Mezzeh is a municipality in Damascus, Syria, due west of Kafr Sousa. It lies to the southwest of central Damascus, along the Mezzeh highway and it started gaining importance when the French constructed Mazzeh Military Airport, which was the main airport in Damascus until Damascus International Airport opened. It also held the notorious Mezzeh prison until 2000, the municipality includes the Damascus University and contains many foreign embassies. The current presidential palace sits atop Mount Mezzeh and overlooks all of Damascus and it is one of the most modern and expensive areas of Damascus, especially the areas along the highway. The primarily Alawite Mezzeh 86 district is poor and has been described as a slum. Mezzeh was originally a village outside of Damascus and it was allegedly founded between 661-750 by Yemeni migrants. Mezzeh featured prominently in the 1941 Battle of Damascus, compton Mackenzie later described it at the time as being a large village standing at the junction of the road from Damascus to Beirut and Quneitra. In 2012, during the Syrian civil war, residents participated in anti-government protests, in March 2012, the area experienced heavy fighting between government forces and defectors. The Alawite Mezzeh 86 neighborhood has been targeted by bombings of civilian, presidential Palace, Damascus Former Mezzeh prison Mazzeh Military Airport Mezzeh Military Hospital. Cited as the location of photographs submitted in the 2014 Syrian detainee report
19.
European Parliament
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The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union. Together with the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, the Parliament is composed of 751 members, who represent the second-largest democratic electorate in the world and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world. It has been elected every five years by universal suffrage since 1979. However, voter turnout at European Parliament elections has fallen consecutively at each election since that date, voter turnout in 2014 stood at 42. 54% of all European voters. The Parliament is the first institution of the EU, and shares equal legislative and it likewise has equal control over the EU budget. Finally, the European Commission, the body of the EU, is accountable to Parliament. In particular, Parliament elects the President of the Commission, and it can subsequently force the Commission as a body to resign by adopting a motion of censure. The President of the European Parliament is Antonio Tajani, elected in January 2017 and he presides over a multi-party chamber, the two largest groups being the Group of the European Peoples Party and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. The last union-wide elections were the 2014 elections, the European Parliament has three places of work – Brussels, the city of Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Luxembourg is home to the administrative offices, meetings of the whole Parliament take place in Strasbourg and in Brussels. Committee meetings are held in Brussels, the Parliament, like the other institutions, was not designed in its current form when it first met on 10 September 1952. One of the oldest common institutions, it began as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and it was a consultative assembly of 78 appointed parliamentarians drawn from the national parliaments of member states, having no legislative powers. Its development since its foundation shows how the European Unions structures have evolved without a master plan. Some, such as Tom Reid of the Washington Post, said of the union, nobody would have designed a government as complex. Even the Parliaments two seats, which have switched several times, are a result of various agreements or lack of agreements, the body was not mentioned in the original Schuman Declaration. It was assumed or hoped that difficulties with the British would be resolved to allow the Council of Europes Assembly to perform the task, a separate Assembly was introduced during negotiations on the Treaty as an institution which would counterbalance and monitor the executive while providing democratic legitimacy. The wording of the ECSC Treaty demonstrated the desire for more than a normal consultative assembly by using the term representatives of the people. Its early importance was highlighted when the Assembly was given the task of drawing up the treaty to establish a European Political Community
20.
Catherine Ashton
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Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans, in the County of Hertfordshire by Tony Blairs Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and she was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006. Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007 and she was instrumental in steering the EUs Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliaments second chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner, in December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EUs foreign policy chief and it was announced on 17 November 2016 that Ashton will become Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 1 January 2017, succeeding Sir Richard Lambert and becoming Warwicks first female Chancellor. Catherine Ashton was born at Upholland, Lancashire, on 20 March 1956 and she comes from a working-class family, with a background in coal mining. She attended Upholland Grammar School in Billinge Higher End, Lancashire, then Wigan Mining and Technical College and she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology in 1977 from Bedford College, London. She was the first person in her family to attend university, Ashton lives in St Albans with her husband, Peter Kellner, the president of an online polling organisation, YouGov. She has two children and three stepchildren, between 1977 and 1983, Ashton worked for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as an administrator and in 1982 was elected as its national treasurer and subsequently as one of its vice-chairs. From 1979 to 1981 she was manager of the Coverdale Organisation. As of 1983 she worked for the Central Council for Education, for most of the 1990s, she was a freelance policy adviser. She chaired the Health Authority in Hertfordshire from 1998 to 2001 and she was created a Labour Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland in 1999, under Prime Minister Tony Blair. In June 2001 she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education, in 2002 she became Minister responsible for Sure Start in the same department. Ashton was sworn of the Privy Council in 2006, and she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the new Ministry of Justice in May 2007, in 2005 she was voted Minister of the Year by The House Magazine and Peer of the Year by Channel 4. In 2006 she won the Politician of the Year award at the annual Stonewall Awards, on 28 June 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Ashton to HM Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. As Government Leader in the House of Lords, she was responsible for steering the Lisbon Treaty through the Upper House, on 3 October 2008, Ashton was nominated by the UK to replace Peter Mandelson as the European Commissioner for Trade. And represented the EU in ending a dispute over banana imports, principally involving Latin America. On 19 November 2009, Ashton was appointed the EUs first High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and her appointment was agreed at a summit by 27 European Union leaders in Brussels
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Foreign Policy
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Foreign Policy is an American news publication, founded in 1970 and focused on global affairs, current events, and domestic and international policy. It produces content daily on its website, and in six print issues annually, Foreign Policy is under the leadership of CEO and Editor of The FP Group David Rothkopf, who joined FP in that role 2012 after being a regular contributor to the publication since 1997. Foreign Policy magazine and ForeignPolicy. com are published by The FP Group, the FP Group also produces FP Events, Foreign Policys events division, launched in 2012. Huntington hoped it would be serious but not scholarly, lively, in the Spring of 1978, after six years of close partnership, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace acquired full ownership of Foreign Policy. In 2000, a change was implemented from a slim quarterly academic journal to a bi-monthly magazine. Also, it launched international editions in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, in September 2008, Foreign Policy was bought by The Washington Post Company. In 2012, Foreign Policy grew to become the FP Group – an expansion of Foreign Policy magazine to include ForeignPolicy. com, in December 2013, FP expanded and modernized ForeignPolicy. com as part of a complete website redesign. The new site was designed to present FPs readers with an array of editorial features. Morning Brief - FPs daily digest of top global news, flash Points - Weekly reader of highlights from foreignpolicy. com delivered every Friday morning. Democracy Lab Weekly Brief - Reporting on a world in transition, south Asia Daily - A daily synthesis of news about Afghanistan, Pakistan and India Mideast Daily Brief - A daily morning overview of major news in the region. com. FP is the independent magazine that has won consecutive digital national magazine awards every year from being established in 2009. 2014 Foreign Policy received its first design recognition for The Surveillance State, “Turtle Bay, ” the reported blog by journalist Colum Lynch, won the Digital National Magazine Award for best reporting for a series of hard-hitting investigative articles about the United Nations. 2010 Foreign Policy’s “The Best Defense” column authored by Tom Ricks received the Digital National Magazine Award for best blog,2009 Foreign Policy won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in the 100,000 to 250,000 circulation category. Forbes RealClearWorld designated ForeignPolicy. com as a top international news site,2008 Folio Magazine Gold Editorial Excellence Award – Consumer Magazine, News/Commentary/General Interest, What America Must Do by Kenneth Rogoff, Jan/Feb 2008. FPs What America Must Do feature received the Eddie Award as a Gold Winner for the Consumer News/Commentary/General Interest category for a Single Article, Folio Magazine Silver Editorial Excellence Award – Consumer Magazine, News/Commentary/General Interest, A World Enslaved by Benjamin Skinner, Mar/Apr 2008. Folio Magazine Silver Editorial Excellence Award – Consumer Magazine, News/Commentary/General Interest, media Industry Newsletters Best of the Web Award in the blog category for Passport a blog by the editors of Foreign Policy. 2007 Foreign Policy won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in the 100,000 to 250,000 circulation category, Foreign Policy was presented as a Gold Winner by the Eddie Awards for “Who Wins in Iraq, ” in the Consumer News/Commentary/General Interest category. 2003 Foreign Policy won the National Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievement, FP Top 100 Global Thinkers Foreign Policy of the United States Official website Foreign Policy Passport at Foreign Policy
22.
Lawrence Lessig
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Lester Lawrence Larry Lessig III is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Partys nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 U. S. presidential election, but withdrew before the primaries. Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, in 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and he serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation. In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a candidacy for President of the United States. After accomplishing this, on September 6,2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Partys presidential nomination, Lessig has described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. In November 2015, he ended his campaign, Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, from 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the schools Center for Internet, Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as Professor and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, his lecture was titled Aarons Laws, Law. Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in The Wake Up Call, Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. Posner would later call him the most distinguished law professor of his generation, Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he traveled in the Eastern Bloc
23.
Joi Ito
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Joichi Joi Ito is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, Director of the MIT Media Lab and Professor of the Practice of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT. Ito has received recognition for his role as a focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage. Ito is the chairman of the board of PureTech Health, Ito was born in Kyoto, Japan. Company founder Stanford R. Ovshinsky was impressed with Ito, whom he thought of almost as his son. Ovshinsky helped Ito develop his interests in technology and social movements, Ito and his sister Mizuko Ito, who is called Mimi, spent summers in Japan with their grandmother who taught them traditional Japanese culture. At 14, he returned to Japan when his mother was promoted to president of Energy Conversion Devices Japan and he studied at the Nishimachi International School and for high school, the American School in Japan in Tokyo. Ito also learned street language, street smarts, and computers, One of few Japanese using modems before deregulation of networking reached Japan in 1985, Ito had found The Source and the original MUD by his teens. Ito returned to the United States to attend Tufts University near Boston as a science major. Finding his course work too rigid and believing that learning computer science in school was stupid, Ovshinsky encouraged him to return to school. Ito is one of Timothy Learys godsons—a close non-traditional family-like relationship, Itos sister is Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist studying media technology use, and the musician Cornelius is his second cousin. Ito currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife Mizuka Ito, Ito became a disk jockey working in nightclubs in Chicago such as The Limelight and The Smart Bar and to work with Metasystems Design Group to start a virtual community in Tokyo. Later, Ito ran a nightclub in Roppongi, Japan called XY Relax with help from Joe Shanahan of Metro Chicago/Smart Bar and he helped bring industrial music from Chicago and later the rave scene, including importing Anarchic Adjustment to Japan. Ito was the Chairman of Creative Commons from December 2006 until 2012 and he is on the board of Digital Garage, Culture Convenience Club, Tucows, and EPIC, and is on the advisory boards of Creative Commons and WITNESS. He is the founder and CEO of the capital firm Neoteny Co. Ltd. In October 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN for a term starting December 2004. In August 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation and he served on the board of the Open Source Initiative from March 2005 until April 2007. He currently serves as a Board Emeritus for OSI and he was a founding board member of Expression College for Digital Arts as well as the Zero One Art and Technology Network. In 1999, he served as the Associate to Mr. Mount on the film The Indian Runner, Ito also served as a Board Member of Energy Conversion Devices from 1995 to 2000
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Mitchell Baker
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Baker was trained as a lawyer. She coordinates business and policy issues and sits on both the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors and the Mozilla Corporation Board of Directors, Baker received a BA in Chinese studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1979, achieving a Certificate of Distinction. She received her JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California and she then worked for Sun Microsystems as an Associate General Counsel from November 1993 until October 1994. In November 1994, Baker was hired as one of the first employees of the department of Netscape Communications Corporation. Reporting directly to CEO Jim Barksdale, she set up the initial department. She was responsible for property protection and legal issues relating to product development. She also created and managed the Technology Group of the Legal Department and she was involved with the Mozilla project from the outset, writing both the Netscape Public License and the Mozilla Public License. In February 1999, Baker became the Chief Lizard Wrangler of mozilla. org, in 2001, she was fired during a round of layoffs at America Online, by then the parent of Netscape. Despite this, she continued to serve as the Chief Lizard Wrangler of mozilla. org on a volunteer basis, in November 2002, Baker was employed by the Open Source Applications Foundation, helping to guide the groups community relations and taking a seat on OSAFs Board of Directors. From the outset, she also had part of her assigned to working on mozilla. org issues. She retained her seat on OSAFs board, Baker became the President of the Mozilla Foundation and was appointed to the five-person Board of Directors. When the Mozilla Corporation was launched as a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation on August 3,2005. In addition, she joined the Mozilla Corporations Board of Directors, though she kept her seat on the Mozilla Foundations board. The reasons cited for this change was Mozillas rapid growth, which made it difficult for executives to continue to wear many hats, in 2015 she received a total of $1,022,912 in compensation from Mozilla. Mitchell Baker was listed among the 2006 Top 100 by TIME Magazine, in 2009, Mitchell Baker received the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Social Impact. In 2012, Baker was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society, bakers husband is Casey Dunn and she has one son
25.
Jillian York
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York is an American free-expression activist, the Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a founding member of Deep Lab. She is a regular columnist for Al Jazeera English, writes for Global Voices Online, the essential guide to customs & culture. From 2004 to 2007, York spent considerable time in Morocco, in 2006, York authored Morocco – Culture Smart. The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture, a book on Morocco. In 2011, she moved to the EFF, where she is the director of international freedom of expression and she is a founding member of the feminist collective Deep Lab with Addie Wagenknecht. York has been called one of the scholars on Internet control and censorship. Her research on the role of media in the Arab Spring has been widely cited. In June 2011, Foreign Policy named her one of the top-100 intellectuals discussing foreign policy on Twitter, yorks writing on free expression has also been published in The Guardian, Bloomberg and Foreign Policy. She is a regular columnist for Al Jazeera English and writes for Global Voices Online and she also co-founded Talk Morocco, which won the 2010 Deutsche Welle Best of Blogs Award for Best English-language blog. Yorks commentary and opinions include statements against censorship by corporations and social organizations at the request of state governments. In 2013, When Wired included few women in its first batch of Wired singal 101, Morocco, The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture jilliancyork. com talkmorocco. net Talk Morocco website Jillian York at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
26.
Al Jazeera
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Al Jazeera, also known as JSC, is a Doha-based state-funded broadcaster owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is partly funded by the House of Thani, the ruling family of Qatar. Al Jazeera is among the largest news organizations with 80 bureaus around the world, Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. While Al Jazeera officials have stated that they are independent from the government of Qatar. Nonetheless, Al Jazeera declared the exposure and denunciation of the lies which brought the State of Israel into existence as its mission, the original Al Jazeera channels willingness to broadcast dissenting views, for example on call-in shows, created controversies in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. The station gained attention following the outbreak of war in Afghanistan. Al Jazeera has been called a propaganda outlet for the Qatari government and its policy, by analysts and by news reporters. The network is sometimes perceived to have mainly Islamist perspectives, promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, and having a pro-Sunni and it is also accused of having an anti-Western bias. However, Al Jazeera insists it covers all sides of a debate, it says it presents Israels view, Irans view, in Arabic, al-ǧazīrah literally means the island. However, it here to the Arabian Peninsula, which is شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-ğazīrah al-ʿarabiyyah. Al Jazeera Satellite Channel now known as was launched on 1 November 1996 following the closure of the BBCs Arabic language television station, a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to suppress information, including a report on executions. Shares were held by investors as well as the Qatar government. Al Jazeeras first day on the air was 1 November 1996 and it offered 6 hours of programming per day, increased to 12 hours by the end of 1997. A more powerful Ku-band transponder became available as a peace-offering after its user, Canal France International, accidentally beamed 30 minutes of pornography into ultraconservative Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera was not the first such broadcaster in the Middle East, a number had appeared since the Arabsat satellite, the unfolding of Operation Desert Storm on CNN International underscored the power of live television in current events. In presenting The opinion and the opinion, it did not take long for Al Jazeera to shock local viewers by presenting Israelis speaking Hebrew on Arab TV for the first time. Lively and far-ranging talk shows, particularly a popular, confrontational one called The Opposite Direction, were a constant source of controversy regarding issues of morality and this prompted a torrent of criticism from the conservative voices among the regions press. It also led to complaints and censures from neighboring governments
27.
Hacker News
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Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Grahams investment fund and startup incubator, in general, content that can be submitted is defined as anything that gratifies ones intellectual curiosity. The site was created by Paul Graham in February 2007, initially it was called Startup News or occasionally News. YC. On August 14,2007, it known by its current name. It developed as a project of his company Y Combinator, functioning as an application of the Arc programming language which Graham co-developed. At the end of March 2014, Graham stepped away from his role at Y Combinator. Comments however can be down-voted after a user accumulates 500 karma points, since adopting a formal team of moderators, it has become more evident that stories are promoted to or demoted from the frontpage without a significant number of votes. Its unclear the criteria used in cases, which contributes to complaints about bias. Comments that go against the guidelines but still get a number of upvotes can be penalized by moderators. In general, moderators are trying to steer the community in a given direction, recently a political detox was implemented and revoked after a few days. Graham has stated he hopes to avoid the Eternal September that results in the decline of intelligent discourse within a community. The site has an attitude in moderating content, including automated flame. It also practices stealth banning in which user posts stop appearing for others to see, additional software is employed to detect voting rings to purposefully vote up stories. Graham adds that he gets a lot of vitriol from users personally with accusations of bias or censoring, News aggregators Y Combinator Official website
28.
Taipei
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Taipei, officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of the Republic of China. Sitting at the tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km southwest of the port city Keelung. Since 1949, Taipei has been the capital of the ROC after losing the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the name Taipei can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island, the city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also known to international visitors. As the capital city, Taipei is sometimes used as a synecdoche for Taiwan, prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area, in 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province, Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwans Japanese rulers embarked on a program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period, following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China. In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, the city is today home to Taiwans democratically elected national government. The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century, Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In 1875, the part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture, in 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894, all that remains from the Qing era is the north gate
29.
Syrian Civil War
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The Syrian Civil War is an armed conflict taking place in Syria. Syrian opposition groups formed the Free Syrian Army and seized control of the area surrounding Aleppo, over time, some factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015, the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel joined forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in support of the Syrian government, while beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO countries began launching airstrikes against ISIL. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL, and some groups of severe human rights violations. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis, over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. Syria became an independent republic in 1946, although democratic rule ended with a coup in March 1949, a popular uprising against military rule in 1954 saw the army transfer power to civilians. From 1958 to 1961, a union with Egypt replaced Syrias parliamentary system with a highly centralized presidential government. The secular Baath Syrian Regional Branch government came to power through a successful coup détat in 1963, for the next several years Syria went through additional coups and changes in leadership. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, declared himself President, on 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. They labeled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule, the government survived a series of armed revolts by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. Upon Hafez al-Assads death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain, initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, the Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms, Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs, make up roughly 74 percent of the population. Syria Muslims are 74 percent Sunnis, and 13 percent Shias,3 percent were Druze, not all of the Sunnis are Arabs. Bashar is married to a Sunni, with whom he has several children and he is affiliated with the sect that his parents belong to, the minority Alawite sect which comprises an estimated 8-12 percent of the total population. Assyrians, an indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian Semitic people, numbering approximately 500,000, are mainly in northeast Syria. A larger population lives over the border in northern Iraq, other ethnic groups include Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Greeks, Mhallami, Kawliya, Yezidi, Shabaks, and Mandeans. Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, the country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates
30.
Rebecca MacKinnon
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Rebecca MacKinnon is an author, researcher, Internet freedom advocate, and co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices Online. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing, rebecca MacKinnon was born in Berkeley, California. When she was three years old, MacKinnons family moved to Tempe, Arizona, where her father Stephen R. MacKinnon took a job as Professor of Chinese History at Arizona State University. Her parents academic research careers led her to pass most of her school years in Delhi, India, Hong Kong. She graduated from Tempe High in 1987 and she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1991 with a B. A. in Government. After graduating, she served as a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, MacKinnon joined CNN in 1992 as Beijing Bureau Assistant and moved up to Producer/Correspondent by 1997 and Bureau Chief by 1998. In 2001 she became Tokyo Bureau Chief, during her time with CNN, she interviewed notable leaders including Junichiro Koizumi, Dalai Lama, Pervez Musharraf, and Mohammad Khatami. In the spring of 2004, MacKinnon was a fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and that summer, she joined Harvard Law Schools Berkman Center for Internet & Society as a Research Fellow, where she remained until December 2006. Among her projects at the Berkman Center, MacKinnon founded Global Voices Online in collaboration with Ethan Zuckerman, in January 2007 she joined the Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong, where she remained until January 2009. From February 2009 to January 2010, she conducted research as an Open Society Fellow, then in February 2010 she joined Princeton Universitys Center for Information Technology Policy where she is a visiting fellow, working on a book about the future of freedom in the Internet age. Regarding the Middle East, MacKinnon wrote that the Internet empowers people, in September 2010, MacKinnon became a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation. In January 2007, she joined the inaugural Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board, MacKinnons first book, Consent of the Networked, The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom, was published by Basic Books in January 2012 and won the Goldsmith Book Prize. In an interview, she said that she argues in the book that and it depends on how the technology is structured, governed, and used. Governments and corporations are working actively to shape the Internet to fit their own needs
31.
Human Rights Day
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Human Rights Day is celebrated annually across the world on 10 December every year. The day is marked both by high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues. In addition it is traditionally on 10 December that the five-yearly United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights, many governmental and non-governmental organizations active in the human rights field also schedule special events to commemorate the day, as do many civil and social-cause organizations. Human Rights Day is the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the measure was received by both advocates and critics alike as being more declarative than legislative, more suggestive than binding. Combating poverty, deprivation and exclusion is not a matter of charity, by tackling poverty as a matter of human rights obligation, the world will have a better chance of abolishing this scourge in our lifetime. Poverty eradication is an achievable goal, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights occurred on 10 December 2008, and the UN Secretary-General launched a year-long campaign leading up to this anniversary. Because the UDHR holds the record as the most translated document. On December 9,2001, President George W. Bush made a Presidential proclamation that Human Rights Week began on December 9 and he also made the same proclamation on December 10,2008. In South Africa, Human Rights Day is celebrated on 21 March and this massacre occurred as a result of protests against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. South African Human Rights Day was declared a holiday when the ANC was elected as the government with Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected leader. Parliaments role on this day is to empower the people so that the democratic processes becomes known to all South Africans and it is celebrated on 11 December in Kiribati
32.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. In April 1990, Barlow had been visited by a U. S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in relation to the theft, Barlow described the visit as complicated by fairly complete unfamiliarity with computer technology. I realized right away that before I could demonstrate my innocence, Barlow felt that his experience was symptomatic of a great paroxysm of governmental confusion during which everyones liberties would become at risk. Barlow posted an account of experience to The WELL online community and was contacted by Mitch Kapor. The pair agreed that there was a need to defend civil liberties on the Internet and this generated a large amount of publicity which led to offers of financial support from John Gilmore and Steve Wozniak. This generated further reaction and support for the ideas of Barlow, in late June, Barlow held a series of dinners in San Francisco with major figures in the computer industry to develop a coherent response to these perceived threats. Barlow considered that, The actions of the FBI and Secret Service were symptoms of a social crisis. America was entering the Information Age with neither laws nor metaphors for the appropriate protection, Barlow felt that to confront this a formal organization would be needed, he hired Cathy Cook as press coordinator, and began to set up what would become the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formally founded on July 10,1990, by Kapor and Barlow, who soon after elected Gilmore, Wozniak. Initial funding was provided by Kapor, Wozniak, and an anonymous benefactor, in 1990, Mike Godwin joined the organization as its first staff counsel. Then in 1991, Esther Dyson and Jerry Berman joined the EFF board of directors. C, the creation of the organization was motivated by the massive search and seizure on Steve Jackson Games executed by the United States Secret Service early in 1990. Similar but officially unconnected law-enforcement raids were being conducted across the United States at about time as part of a state–federal task force called Operation Sundevil. However, the Steve Jackson Games case, which became EFFs first high-profile case, was the rallying point around which EFF began promoting computer-. In 1993, their offices moved to 1001 G Street in Washington, more recently, the organization has been involved in defending Edward Felten, Jon Lech Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov. The organization was located at Mitch Kapors Kapor Enterprises offices in Cambridge. By the fall of 1993, the main EFF offices were consolidated into an office, in Washington. During this time, some of EFFs attention focused on influencing national policy, in 1994, Berman parted ways with EFF and formed the Center for Democracy and Technology, while Drew Taubman briefly took the reins as executive director. There, it took up residence at John Gilmores Toad Hall
33.
Jaysh al-Islam
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Jaysh al-Islam, formerly known as Liwa al-Islam, is a coalition of Islamist and Salafist units involved in the Syrian Civil War. Its primary base of operations has been the Damascus area, particularly the city of Douma, Jaysh al-Islam is the largest rebel faction in the area, as was Liwa al-Islam. The group was a part of the Islamic Front, the organization has rejected membership of the Free Syrian Army. The group along with Ahrar ash-Sham are the rebel groups supported by Saudi Arabia. The group aims to create an Islamic state under Sharia law, Liwa al-Islam was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with the Al-Nusra Front, on 29 September 2013,50 rebel factions operating mostly around Damascus announced they were merging into a new group called Jaysh al-Islam. Liwa al-Islam was the dominant faction in this merger, and its leader Zahran Alloush was announced as the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, thirty-eight of the original groups listed as joining the merger were already members of, or affiliated with, Liwa al Islam. By November 2013,60 groups had merged into Jaysh al-Islam, the new groups creation was said to have been negotiated and spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, who believed that Al-Nusra Front was gaining too much strength. After the merger, The Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia was preparing to give the group millions of dollars to arm and train its fighters, and use instructors from Pakistan to help train the group. Jaysh al-Islam has criticized the Syrian National Coalition, stating that the group should be led by those who are fighting in Syria rather than leaders in exile, on 26 April 2015, they established the Fatah Halab joint operations room along with other major Aleppo based groups. On the 24 January 2017 several factions from Jaysh al-Islam based in Aleppo left to join Ahrar al-Sham, on 25 January 2017, Jaysh al-Islams Idlib branch joined Ahrar al-Sham. A new video of training camps was released by Jaysh al-Islam, the Islamic Front criticized ISIS, saying, They killed the people of Islam and leave the idol worshippers and They use the verses talking about the disbelievers and implement it on the Muslims. Jaysh al-Islam released a video showing the execution of ISIS members and his spokesman went on to claim that the sectarian and Islamist rhetoric Alloush had previously made was only intended for internal consumption and to rally his fighters. Jaysh al-Islam has been designated as a terrorist organization by Syria, Russia, Iran, al-Nusrah is the other group there – Jabhat al-Nusrah. They are a designated terrorist group by the United Nations, on 6 October 2012, Liwa al-Islam captured two 9K33 Osa SAM systems in Eastern Ghouta with at least 12 missiles total. A video was posted on 29 July 2013, with it being used to shoot down a Syrian Mil Mi-8, in November 2013, the group captured two training-jets from the Syrian Air Force and showed them on the runway. But so far, they havent been used in combat, on 30 June 2015, Jaysh al-Islams website published a 20-minute video that showed its fighters executing 18 alleged ISIL militants by shotgun. The video, which included some English subtitles, stated the killings were in revenge for recent beheadings of captured Jaysh al-Islam fighters by ISIL, in August and September,2015, Jaysh al-Islam shelled and stormed Adra Prison
34.
Amnesty International
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Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights that claims to have over 7 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organisation is to research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961, following the publication of the article The Forgotten Prisoners in The Observer on 28 May 1961, Amnesty draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to public opinion to put pressure on governments that let abuse take place. Amnesty considers capital punishment to be the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, the organisation was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its campaign against torture, and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978. Amnesty International was founded in London in July 1961 by English labour lawyer Peter Benenson, researchers have never traced the alleged newspaper article in question. In 1960, Portugal was ruled by the Estado Novo government of António de Oliveira Salazar, the government was authoritarian in nature and strongly anti-communist, suppressing enemies of the state as anti-Portuguese. The newspaper reader feels a sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, Benenson worked with friend Eric Baker. It marked the launch of Appeal for Amnesty,1961, the aim of which was to mobilise public opinion, quickly and widely, in defence of these individuals, the Appeal for Amnesty was reprinted by a large number of international newspapers. In the same year, Benenson had a published, Persecution 1961. In July 1961 the leadership had decided that the appeal would form the basis of a permanent organisation, Amnesty, Benenson ensured that all three major political parties were represented, enlisting members of parliament from the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party. On 30 September 1962, it was officially named Amnesty International, between the Appeal for Amnesty,1961 and September 1962 the organisation had been known simply as Amnesty. From the very beginning, research and campaigning were present in Amnesty Internationals work, a library was established for information about prisoners of conscience and a network of local groups, called THREES groups, was started. Each group worked on behalf of three prisoners, one each of the then three main ideological regions of the world, communist, capitalist and developing. The international movement was starting to agree on its principles and techniques. In 1967 Peter Benenson resigned after an independent inquiry did not support his claims that AI had been infiltrated by British agents, later he claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become involved in Amnesty. Leading Amnesty International in the 1970s were key figures Seán MacBride, Amnesty International believed that the reasons underlying torture of prisoners by governments, were either to acquire and obtain information or to quell opposition by the use of terror, or both
35.
MIT Media Lab
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The MIT Media Lab is an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology devoted to projects at the convergence of technology, multimedia, sciences, art and design. Staff and students have backgrounds ranging from engineering and computer science to sociology and music. As of 2014, it has diversified its research into neurobiology, biologically inspired fabrication, socially engaging robots, emotive computing, bionics, the One Laptop per Child was one of the notable research efforts which grew out of the Media Lab. The Media Lab has been conducting workshops around the world. The Media Lab has regional branches throughout the world which are responsible for conducting such events, the MIT Media Lab was founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner and opened its doors in the Wiesner Building at MIT in 1985. It grew out of the work of MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, joichi Ito was named director of the MIT Media Lab in 2011. Previous directors include Nicholas Negroponte, Walter Bender, and Frank Moss, the Media Lab has approximately 70 administrative and support staff members. Associate Directors of the Lab are Hiroshi Ishii and Andrew Lippman, pattie Maes and Mitchel Resnick are co-heads of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. The Labs Chief Knowledge Officer was Henry Holtzman, inventing a better future is the theme of the Media Labs work. A current emphasis of Media Lab research, which encompasses the work of research groups, is on human adaptability. This focus was highlighted by the May 9,2007 symposium h2.0, new minds, new bodies, new identities. The event was organized by Hugh Herr and John Hockenberry, and featured Oliver Sacks, Michael Graves, Aimee Mullins, Michael Chorost, Susan Hockfield, the day-long program featured work that is blurring the distinction between able bodied and disabled, demonstrating technologies at the neural-digital interface. Work represented emphasized the merging of technology with bodies and minds, the symposium provided many examples of work that is the next step in the so-called digital revolution. Research projects at the Media Lab aim to have a impact on humanity at large. This work, while intended for those considered to be disabled. One of the focuses of the Media Lab was technology for the developing world, work that continues with projects such as the One Laptop per Child project. Other research foci include machines with common sense, viral communications, smart prostheses, advanced sensor networks, innovative interface design, projects range from a program that can convert drawings to musical compositions, to wearable sensors for monitoring health, to electronic ink. A large number of research focus on topics related to human computer interaction
36.
Center for Civic Media
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The MIT Center for Civic Media is a research and practical center that develops and implements tools that support political action and the information needs of communities. Its mission reads in part, The MIT Center for Civic Media creates and it was founded in 2007 as a joint effort of the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Comparative Media Studies program. The founders planned to develop new technologies and practices to help newspapers attract readers as a number of Americans use the Internet as their primary news source. Ethan Zuckerman was announced as the Centers new director in June 2011, others affiliated with the center include Sasha Costanza-Chock, Benjamin Mako Hill, William Uricchio, Jing Wang, and Jeffrey Warren. The Center creates tools for deployment and testing in geographic communities, like the Media Lab, the work is iterative, experimental, and draws in large part on the work of current graduate students. But unlike much other work at the Media Lab, Center tools are expected to have immediate applications, grassroots Mapping grew into the larger Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, which won a $500,000 Knight News Challenge grant for its work. Sourcemap, which maps supply chains of consumer goods, between the Bars, a blogging platform for prisoners Crónicas de Héroes/Hero Reports, a method for reporting small acts of civic heroism. CHOICE, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries Apr
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