KUWAIT?? A Kuwaiti man accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammad on Twitter has denied making any such comments, saying that his account must have been hacked, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
The Interior Ministry said last week that authorities had arrested a man on suspicion of defaming the Islamic faith and the Prophet, his companions and his wife on the messaging site.
The ministry did not name the man but said he was being held ahead of court proceedings. Lawyer Khaled al-Shatti confirmed the man being held was his client Hamad al-Naqi, from Kuwait's Shi'ite Muslim minority.
Dozens of Sunni activists protested last week to condemn Naqi, and some members of parliament have called for him to be executed. Several of Kuwait's main newspapers have run editorials condeming the alleged act.
"He denies all accusations," Shatti told Reuters. He quoted Naqi as telling authorities during an interrogation: "I am a Shi'ite Muslim. I cannot speak such words."
Defaming Islam is illegal in Kuwait under the 1961 press and publications law, but is not usually punishable by death as it is in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where the case of a columnist facing similar accusations has drawn international attention.
Naqi has not accused a specific person of posting the comments on his account but said he was sure his account had been hacked, his lawyer said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the lawyer's account.
Twitter is very popular in Kuwait, where many public figures use the site to debate current events and share gossip.
Kuwaiti authorities also searched Naqi's computer and said they had found information showing he was a supporter of pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain, Shatti said.
Kuwait is particularly sensitive to developments in fellow Gulf state Bahrain where the Sunni Muslim monarchy has launched a crackdown on protesters who are mainly Shi'ite Muslims.
Kuwaiti MPs from across the political spectrum have voiced concern about sectarian tension in their country. Shi'ites make up around 30 percent of Kuwait's roughly 1 million native citizens.
If Naqi is found guilty of insulting the Prophet then the penalty would be one year imprisonment, his lawyer said. If he is also convicted of "sedition" ? specifically inciting strife ? then the penalty is a maximum of 10 years.
In September a Kuwaiti court convicted a man for insulting Gulf rulers and posting inflammatory sectarian comments online, but he was released immediately because of time already served while awaiting trial, according to a human rights activist.
(Reporting by Ahmed Hagagy and Sylvia Westall; Editing by Alison Williams)
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Biznet Internet Solutions is pleased announce their bank approval for funding to expand their small business digital marketing offering ? Sprout. Sprout employs local digital marketing tactics to generate valuable leads for small businesses.
Biznet intends to invest these funds to hire a dozen new team members in the next 18 months. This will allow Sprout to offer its services to more metro Detroit businesses as well as create more digital jobs in the area.
Todays business financers arent quick to fund just any business, they are beginning to understand the digital shift that is occurring in the business world and want to see businesses planning for this change as well. Biznets recent funding is proof that banks are eager to support companies that are driving this digital movement.
It took a long time and turning over a lot of stones to get this necessary funding; at one point we were even ready to sell a portion of the company. We knew a good business plan was key and our long history of providing digital and web services would help our cause. We just didnt know how long it would take for investors and banks to embrace the shifting business world, said Kevin Krason, CEO of Biznet Internet Solutions.
Biznet has provided web services including site development and digital marketing to metro Detroit area businesses and beyond for over 15 years. In this time, it has grown and changed to meet the digital needs of the surrounding area and its client base across the US. As businesses, both large and small, have begun to understand the importance of using the internet to reach potential customers, Biznet has adapted their service offerings in support. This recent funding will fuel those efforts through the Sprout program.
Each day, I drive around metro Detroit and notice that every other building is for sale or lease. I know that this is largely due to the economy shifting from brick-and-mortar businesses to digital businesses. Its exciting to see banks acknowledge and support this change through funding businesses like Biznet; this is a good sign the Michigan economy is turning around, said Kevin.
Sprout harnesses the power of local digital marketing in order to generate valuable leads for small businesses. The package includes the creation of an optimized website, the use of a proprietary lead tracking system called Traction, as well as continued monthly digital marketing efforts.
The targeted marketing strategies employed by Sprout and the pay-for-performance pricing are appealing to a multitude of small business owners. In these tough economic times, many companies have ruled digital marketing to be unattainable. As an affordable solution that generates unique, qualified and local leads, Sprout will able to help many small businesses across Michigan and the US thrive again.
About Biznet Internet Solutions
Based in Wixom, Mich., Biznet Internet Solutions is an ROI-focused, full service web solutions company. Core offerings include creation of business and mobile websites, advertising agency support and Internet marketing, including search and social media marketing. For more information, visit http://www.biznetis.net.
About Sprout
Sprout is a subsidiary of Biznet Internet Solutions and offers local businesses the opportunity to enjoy the lead generating benefits of digital marketing on a pay-for-performance basis. Each lead driven to the business is local, unique, and qualified, we guarantee it! Learn how to grow your business with Sprout at http://withsprout.com/
I would prefer happy, rambunctious puppies, about eight weeks old and from the same litter if possible; come to think of it, Dalmatian pups would be ideal, because when I was alive I was a huge fan of what's-black-and-white-and-red-all-over jokes and it would be nice to leave a lasting literary legacy.
I further wish that my consumption by puppy be streamed live on YouTube and shared across all social media, now known or to be invented, bringing joy to tens of millions 8-to-11-year-old boys.
Yet it may surprise you to learn that this final selfless act is illegal in every U.S. state anyone would care to die. Americans remain perversely sensitive about what should be done with their leftovers, going so far as dolling up their dead and installing them in tiny private apartments, where, thanks to modern hermetics, they are not even food for the worms.
It's a shame. Our bodies, especially when still fresh, are extraordinary useful, in most cases more useful than the previous people who used them. I'm not suggesting a Soylent Green solution (though I can recommend the 1973 movie, set in a dystopian future in which global warming is wreaking havoc with the weather and vast income disparity has resulted in rioting in the streets. The year is 2022.) But I do think we could be doing a lot more after we're dead.
That's why when I die -- assuming I haven't found a way around our country's puritanical anti-puppy-chow laws - I've left instructions that I be dismantled for parts. I'm told that my various bits can be relocated into up to eight other people, one of whom, odds are, would be Kevin Bacon. What the doctors don't want I'm giving to the scientists, to experiment on and win Nobel prizes with. Whatever remains after that will be left out as carrion, because I hate to waste food, and afterwards, I'd love it if my skull and bones were used as educational tools or movie props.
That's just me. You may have religious objections (You would be wrong, most likely.), or you may live in one of the 24 states that still don't allow folks to consent to organ donation on their driver's licenses. Or maybe you never learned to share. So when your time comes, go ahead and rot. Me, I'm going to be a spooky skeleton.
April is Share Your Meat Month. For more information, visit organdonor.gov.
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Follow Larry Doyle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thelarrydoyle
The use of a podcast (an internet channel for communication of information) in order to effectively reach a sector of a business market is increasingly being used today. The people decided and more each day, they want to be part of a specialized newsletter to them information on specific topics they are interested in. Podcasting is a great way to get information about a specific group of participants enter into the form of video, audio files or PDF file.
A podcast is similar to a station as a radio or television reception. Additional tasks such as video or audio, text, or even written to the podcast channel is added, the competitor will these additional tasks when they are posted on an ongoing basis.
In this way, these podcasts act as a favorite radio station or TV program series that people are accustomed to self-determination, so they want the information that they are. If this information about your product or service business, all that is best for you and your company.
Many business owners say their customers are the best customers podcasts. This is because the best information about the company is put into these subscriptions. The contractor is to provide very personal information in a podcast on their business, and to explain and demonstrate what they have to offer to buyers who use this method podcast.
First A presence Podcast
First you need to set up a podcast channel so you can broadcast messages to subscribers. There are many kinds of software on the market to help you create a podcast channel.
Then you have to create accounts directory of podcasts and sends your message to these accounts during their podcast directories to their customers and building a basis for the expansion of the potential prospects for your business.
2.Create Podcast Channel
When presenting a podcast channel that is created, it should be on iTunes and several podcast directories and respected authority.
Of particular note here is that iTunes customers to purchase products and services are used on the Internet, and do it regularly. Your credit card is the file to the iTunes directory, so that they can buy something with one click.
This is good news for you because they are used to buy products and services online. If you have a product or a service that can be sold online, you may notice that your subscribers to iTunes podcasts give you the best conversions on the sale of all perspectives.
There are companies on the Internet, which will create a podcast channel and transmit the information to podcast directories can be found to publish information about your company.
Third Comments to podcast directories
Now that you have created your podcast channel, it is time to produce the video and produce your audio presentation, or write your articles and submit them to the best directories of podcasts.
And once they are submitted, the information comes to the subscribers in these directories, you will eventually come to your site, learn more about your company and buy your products and services.
Higher-spending hospitals have fewer deaths for emergency patientsPublic release date: 3-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Craig Boerner craig.boerner@vanderbilt.edu 615-322-4747 Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt study provides warning against spending cuts for certain patient populations
Higher-spending hospitals do have better outcomes for their emergency patients, including fewer deaths, according to a Vanderbilt study released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Vanderbilt's John Graves, Ph.D., assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, along with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, examined Medicare ambulance and hospital data from 2002-2008, finding that higher-cost hospitals have significantly lower one-year mortality rates compared to lower-cost hospitals.
"At least for emergency, acute patients in our study, overall mortality was reduced 20 to 30 percent in higher spending hospitals," Graves said.
"Doing more in the hospital, including being treated in a teaching or high technology hospital has a positive impact on outcomes. We found that right up front."
Treatment in a teaching hospital reduced the risk of death within 1 year by 4 percent, while the most technologically advanced hospitals conferred a 4.7 percent risk reduction. High levels of initial treatment intensity in emergency situations conferred the most protection, reducing risk by 18 percent
The researchers were then able to replicate their initial finding using additional data from New York State that matched exact patient addresses to hospital discharge records. There, they found that patients who live very near each other but on either side of ambulance-dispatch boundaries go to different types of hospitals and receive different levels of care.
The research runs counter to current thinking, which suggests hospitals that spend the most on Medicare patients have no better outcomes and no better patient satisfaction than hospitals that spend less, or even much less.
Some researchers have suggested that Medicare costs nationwide could be reduced 20 to 30 percent, without harming quality of care.
Graves said his study doesn't discount the idea there is wasteful spending, but it does provide evidence that some hospitals spending more on acute or emergent care can have better survival outcomes.
The idea makes intuitive sense, but teasing out the complexities of cost versus quality has been difficult and some influential research in the last decade has failed to find benefits for spending more.
"An inefficient hospital, a high acuity hospital, and a technologically advanced hospital all will exhibit high cost structures, and each may or may not be better at saving lives," Graves said. "The challenge is being able to 'unbundle' the complex cost-mortality association and pinpoint areas that can be improved upon to lower costs without harming quality."
Graves said the paper is important because it shows a creative approach can remove major barriers to more accurate cost-effectiveness research.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Higher-spending hospitals have fewer deaths for emergency patientsPublic release date: 3-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Craig Boerner craig.boerner@vanderbilt.edu 615-322-4747 Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt study provides warning against spending cuts for certain patient populations
Higher-spending hospitals do have better outcomes for their emergency patients, including fewer deaths, according to a Vanderbilt study released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Vanderbilt's John Graves, Ph.D., assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, along with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, examined Medicare ambulance and hospital data from 2002-2008, finding that higher-cost hospitals have significantly lower one-year mortality rates compared to lower-cost hospitals.
"At least for emergency, acute patients in our study, overall mortality was reduced 20 to 30 percent in higher spending hospitals," Graves said.
"Doing more in the hospital, including being treated in a teaching or high technology hospital has a positive impact on outcomes. We found that right up front."
Treatment in a teaching hospital reduced the risk of death within 1 year by 4 percent, while the most technologically advanced hospitals conferred a 4.7 percent risk reduction. High levels of initial treatment intensity in emergency situations conferred the most protection, reducing risk by 18 percent
The researchers were then able to replicate their initial finding using additional data from New York State that matched exact patient addresses to hospital discharge records. There, they found that patients who live very near each other but on either side of ambulance-dispatch boundaries go to different types of hospitals and receive different levels of care.
The research runs counter to current thinking, which suggests hospitals that spend the most on Medicare patients have no better outcomes and no better patient satisfaction than hospitals that spend less, or even much less.
Some researchers have suggested that Medicare costs nationwide could be reduced 20 to 30 percent, without harming quality of care.
Graves said his study doesn't discount the idea there is wasteful spending, but it does provide evidence that some hospitals spending more on acute or emergent care can have better survival outcomes.
The idea makes intuitive sense, but teasing out the complexities of cost versus quality has been difficult and some influential research in the last decade has failed to find benefits for spending more.
"An inefficient hospital, a high acuity hospital, and a technologically advanced hospital all will exhibit high cost structures, and each may or may not be better at saving lives," Graves said. "The challenge is being able to 'unbundle' the complex cost-mortality association and pinpoint areas that can be improved upon to lower costs without harming quality."
Graves said the paper is important because it shows a creative approach can remove major barriers to more accurate cost-effectiveness research.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Since a dominant majority of members of Parliament are not aware of the technological aspects of laws, they never pay attention to crucial laws pertaining to cyber law, e-commerce, e-governance, e-health, etc. ... Further, Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) and Perry4Law Techno Legal ICT Training Centre (PTLITC) have also started various techno legal e-learning courses, education, research and trainings for staff, employees, committees, committee members, ...
Lindsay Lohan will soon be transforming herself into Elizabeth Taylor for a TV movie -- but an even more dramatic transformation has been happening to the actress right before our eyes. A new viral video "morphs" photos of Lohan, 25, to show how rapidly she's aged over the past few years. Watch below, but be warned: It's actually quite disturbing.
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Public release date: 3-Apr-2012
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