The Israeli parliament has passed a law in effect banning citizens from calling for academic, consumer or cultural boycotts of Israel in a move denounced by its opponents as anti-democratic.
The “‘Law for Prevention of Damage to the State of Israel through Boycott” won a majority of 47 to 38, despite strong opposition and an attempt to filibuster the six-hour debate. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not take part in the vote.
Under the terms of the new law, an individual or organisation proposing a boycott may be sued for compensation by any individual or institution claiming that it could be damaged by such a call. Evidence of actual damage is not be required.
The new law aims to protect individuals and institutions in both Israel and the Palestinian territory it has occupied illegally under international law since 1967. It in effect bans calls for consumer boycotts of goods produced in West Bank settlements, or of cultural or academic institutions in settlements. It also prevents the government doing business with companies that comply with boycotts.
A coalition of Israeli human rights groups immediately issued a letter of protest over the new law.
Hassan Jabareen of Adalah, a legal centre for Israeli-Arab citizens, said: “Defining boycott as a civil wrong suggests that all Israelis have a legal responsibility to promote the economic advancement of the settlements in the occupiedPalestinian territories. This means that Israeli organisations opposing the settlements as a matter of principle are in a trap: any settler can now constantly harass them, challenging them to publicly declare their position on the boycott of settlements and threatening them with heavy compensation costs if they support it.”

Today we want to turn our attention to Booz Allen Hamilton, whose core business is contractual work completed on behalf of the US federal government, foremost on defense and homeland security matters, and limited engagements of foreign governments specific to U.S. military assistance programs.
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For the Lazy we have assembled some facts about Booz Allen. First let’s take a quick look of who these guys are. Some key personnel:
* John Michael “Mike” McConnell, Executive Vice President of Booz Allen and former Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and former Director of National Intelligence.
* James R. Clapper, Jr., current Director of National Intelligence, former Director of Defense Intelligence.
* Robert James Woolsey Jr, former Director of National Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
* Melissa Hathaway, Current Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils
Now let’s check out what these guys have been doing:
* Questionable involvement in the U.S. government’s SWIFT surveillance program; acting as auditors of a government program, when that contractor is heavily involved with those same agencies on other contracts. Beyond that, the implication was also made that Booz Allen may be complicit in a program (electronic surveillance of SWIFT) that may be deemed illegal by the EC.

One work-around that seemingly nullifies the concerns over range and charging is the brain child of the world’s most prominent electric car advocate, Shai Agassi. In his native Israel last year, he launched a startup called Better Place that allows electric-car users to swap their drained battery for a new fully charged one at a network of “switch stations” at the same time as it would take to fill a car with petrol. And because Better Place owns the batteries, the owner of the car need not worry about the deteriorating condition or high price of the battery.
If the idea gains traction – Agassi is already in talks with the Chinese government, which promised last year to invest $15bn in seed money to kickstart its own electric car industry – then it could seriously challenge not just our perception of electric cars, but also the interests of oil companies with their vast global network of petrol stations.

Medical records disclosing that Gordon Brown’s infant son had cystic fibrosis were illegally obtained by The Sun newspaper as part of a News International campaign against him and his family, friends of the former prime minister claims.
Mr Brown was a repeated target for investigators working for the tabloid and its sister newspapers, The Sunday Times and the News of the World, it was alleged.
The newspapers obtained highly personal medical and financial information about him and his family.
The most emotive claim relates to Mr Brown’s son, Fraser, diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 2006, soon after his birth. His condition was disclosed on The Sun’s website in November 2006, when he was four months old.
Mr Brown and his wife, Sarah, had only recently learned of their son’s condition, which often leads to a shortened lifespan. They were dismayed the paper had details of his illness.
Mrs Brown said she was sad to learn about the alleged invasions of her family’s privacy. She wrote on Twitter: “It is very personal and really hurtful if all true.”

Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of BSkyB appeared to be dead in the water last night after proof emerged that executives at his British newspaper empire mounted a cover-up of the full scale of alleged criminal wrongdoing at the News of the World.
In another extraordinary day in the phone-hacking scandal, Downing Street sources confirmed that Government lawyers were drawing up a strategy to halt the £9bn deal which looked a certainty only a week ago.
As Nick Clegg threatened to split the Coalition by siding with a Labour plan to block the takeover, a senior Government source said last night: “We are working on a plan to suspend the deal while the police investigation is taking place. But we have to ensure it doesn’t get thrown out by judicial review.”
The U-turn came after one of News International’s own papers revealed that an internal report carried out in 2007, after the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed, had found evidence that illegally accessing voicemails was more widespread at the paper – and that payments had been made to police officers.
An anonymous executive was quoted as saying that the report had been like a “ticking time bomb”. The report suggests there was a deliberate cover-up by unidentified executives at News International, which had told Parliamentary inquiries in 2007 and 2009 there was no evidence journalists other than Goodman had been involved in phone hacking, nor that it had attempted to suppress evidence of illegality.

The company running Australia’s immigration detention centres has acknowledged the work is traumatic for staff following the death of a young guard troubled by the hanging of a teenage asylum-seeker.
Kieran Webb died while holidaying with his family last Wednesday after working for six months as a security officer at the Curtin immigration detention centre in Western Australia’s far north, according to a memo to all staff from government contractor Serco last Friday.
There were no suspicious circumstances, Serco Immigration Services managing director Chris Manning wrote in the memo.
“If you feel the need for emotional support arising from the work you do, please consider speaking to someone,” he said.
“It is important we acknowledge that our line of work can at times place us in difficult and traumatic situations as we manage vulnerable people in our care.”
Five detainees have killed themselves in immigration detention centres since last September. Self-harm and threats of self-harm occur daily, and a psychologist is employed full-time by Serco to help guards deal with the fallout of acts such as lip-sewing, slashing and attempted hangings.
The Australian has been told detainees are taking increasingly dramatic steps to draw attention to their grievances. On Christmas Island last Thursday, a detainee sewed his lips together and had a friend tie him to the compound fence in a crucifix position.
On March 28, Mr Webb was among guards who cut down a 19-year-old Afghan detainee who hanged himself in his room.
Mr Webb was deeply affected by the death and by the unrest that followed, according to guards who worked alongside him at the time.

Two from United Voice, a union that represents workers:

A month after Villawood Detention Centre was burned to the ground, Serco was pushing to reduce staffing on key shifts.