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The family of a Dorchester pastor is praying for his safe return from captivity in Egypt, after he and an Everett woman and their tour guide were kidnapped while traveling on a religious mission.

Michel Louis, 61, pastor of the Free Pentecostal Church of God, appears to be all right but has diabetes and may require medical attention before long, his son said.

Were all in good spirits because we know the God we serve is in control of the matter, his son, Jean Louis, the churchs youth pastor, said.

He said his father was on an annual mission to Israel with a group of clergy. Jean Louis confirmed the identity of the female captive as Lisa Alphonse of Everett.

Louis family thanked clergy from around the world for their support.

The Egyptian Bedouin who kidnapped Louis and Alphonse and their guide Friday said hell take more hostages of different nationalities if police dont release his uncle from prison.

If my uncle gets 50 years (in prison), they will stay with me for 50 years. If they release him, I will release them, Jirmy Abu-Masuh said of the captives.

But Abu-Masuh, a 32-year-old truck driver from the Tarbeen tribe in the Sinai Peninsula, said the hostages will remain safe.

He said they were treated as guests and given tea, coffee and a traditional lamb dinner reserved for special occasions in Bedouin culture.

I told them nothing will happen to you. You are my guest, he said.

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Family of pastor kidnapped in Egypt waits for word

The Irish Times - Saturday, July 14, 2012

INE McMAHON

Social network sites calls for boycottSocial networking sites were alive with backlash following the not guilty verdict in the Michaela McAreavy trial.

Social network sites calls for boycott

Social networking sites were alive with backlash following the not guilty verdict in the Michaela McAreavy trial.

A Facebook group called Boycott Mauritius was set up on Thursday and has almost 5,000 members.

The group calls on members to show your disgust at the actions of the island of Mauritus and to boycott the island.

The comments included:Shame on the Mauritius Supreme Court. Shame on the Defense counsel. Avoid this country at all costs. There is no justice in this country.

Another contributor said: People may feel angry, emotional and dismayed but we could boycott every country in the world for its failings in the judicial/legal system. Certainly the pressure should be put on the Mauritius government to sort its own procedures out.

Several group members urged people to boycott the holiday island and slammed the decision of the Mauritius judicial system, while others paid wishes to the McAreavy and Harte families.

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Social network sites calls for boycott

Bucks County's voter ID task force has come up with dozens of ideas about ways county officials can get the word out concerning the state's new voter ID law.

They range from simple things like posting information to the county website and social media sites to wacky things like asking Bucks County Commissioner Charley Martin to do a rap video about the new law. (Though the rap video was only a half-serious suggestion.)

They cover every possible means of communication face-to-face conversations, mailers, print media, blogs, social media and videos and touch all age groups.

And most of them shouldn't cost the county a single dollar.

"We're trying to be fiscally responsible," said Neil Samuels, a member of the task force and deputy co-chairman of the Bucks County Democratic Committee.

Task force moderator Richard Coe, who is also the executive director of the Kids Voting program in Bucks County, said county officials didn't know the state would pass the voter ID law and didn't budget money for informing residents about it.

Making the recommendations cost-neutral also makes it easier for the county to implement them.

The committee will present its full list of more than 30 recommendations to the commissioners at their July 25 meeting.

"We dont expect that the county commissioners will be able to do all of these things, but it will give them a list to work from," Coe said.

More than 25,000 voters in Bucks County roughly 6 percent of registered voters do not have a driver's license or state-issued photo ID, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. State officials have said they plan to mail information to each person on the list.

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Voter ID task force recommends ways to get the word out

July 12, 2012

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

The Russian parliament yesterday unanimously decided to adopt a bill which allows them to exercise a greater control over the Internet. Now, many Russians are worried this is just the first step to widespread censorship by the Russian government.

Only one man stands between this bill and the law: Russias president, Vladimir Putin.

Similar to the Internet protests which occurred when the U.S. Government voted on bills SOPA and PIPA, some Russian websitessuch as search engine Yandex, LiveJournal, and the Russian version of Wikipediaused their sites as a platform to speak out against the new bill. The Russian Wikipedia, for example, went black once more in protest, warning visitors the bill could lead to the creation of a Russian analogue to Chinas great firewall.

The bills authors say the new measures would help crack down on offensive and troublesome sites, such as sites which feature child-pornography or sites which promote drug use and suicide. Should Putin sign this bill into law, the Russian Government would create a sort of federal blacklist for any site which is found to be outside of the regulations. The owners and operators of these blacklisted sites would be forced to take down and remove these sites.

Though this bill was unanimously passed through the Duma, Russias Parliament, the calls of the protestors may have been heard after all. For instance, according to the Guardian, MPs sought out and removed any vague language which could have been used to immediately shut down any site with the ambiguously defined bad content. The Duma instead opted to use more specific language, shutting down sites which contain child pornography, drug use or suicide. Any other site with questionable content would require a court-order before being placed on the blacklist and subsequently removed. If these websites cannot be taken down, the ISPs and hosting companies responsible for the site will be forced to take it down on their end.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev backed the law as he spoke to Radio Free Europe.

Peoples basic rights and freedoms must be upheld, including the right to information on the one hand and the right to be protected against harmful content on the other hand.

Those who oppose Putin have long feared that such a crackdown on the Internet could happen and now worry that this bill will be the final stop in between Putin and censorship.

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Will New Bill Bring Internet Censorship In Russia?

The Russian legislature's lower house on Wednesday adopted a bill that, according to tech companies in the country, could lead to Internet censorship.

The bill, which includes amendments to several current laws, still needs to be signed and in the meanwhile Russian tech companies continue to protest the legislation, trying to influence the political process before the bill is formally adopted by the upper house.

The bill passed by Russia's lower house, the State Duma, aims to make it easier to block sites that host child pornography, promote drugs or provide instructions about how to commit suicide. But the Russian IT industry sees a basis for Internet censorship because it is unclear how the blocking procedure will work.

The industry is mainly protesting the bill because the State Duma has proposed to block websites through IP and DNS blockades.

Despite approval of the law, Wikipedia Russia, the initiator of the protests that decided to block access to its own site in protest Tuesday, is mildly positive.

"Our protests had an effect," said Vladimir Medeyko, director of the Russian Wikimedia foundation, in an email. Although the protest did not have the same effect as the online upheaval against SOPA in the U.S. (the bill was put on ice), there nevertheless was an impact, Medeyko said.

Even though the bill was passed by the State Duma, several significant amendments were introduced the night before the vote, Medeyko said. The definition of illegal content became much clearer, and the list of authorities who may decide which sites can be blacklisted became shorter, he said. The FSB, Russia's successor of the KGB, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were excluded from the list, he said. According to the latest draft of the law, Rostelecom, Russia's state-controlled telecommunications operator, is the only non-government body that can blacklist parts of Russia's Internet, said Medeyko.

In addition, the legislators agreed to include representatives of Wikipedia's parent organization, Wikimedia, in the working group overseeing the bill and its implementations, Medeyko said. This was a breakthrough, he said, since members of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), an NGO that represents the Russian IT industry, were rejected at an earlier stage.

However, representatives from RAEC, and possibly also Wikimedia representatives, are to be included in a working group from the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media that will look at possible amendments to the law, Medeyko said.

He also emphasized that several key state officers, including Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev, explicitly stated that the Internet in Russia will remain "a territory of freedom," he said.

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Tech Companies Continue Protests After Russia Adopts Online 'censorship' Bill