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Pirate needs 200,000 video views to avoid being sued –
A convicted software pirate has been handed an unusual punishment. The man, named only as Jakub F, will be spared having to pay hefty damages – as long as a film denouncing piracy he was made to produce gets 200,000 views.
He came to the out-of-court settlement with a host of firms whose software he pirated after being convicted by a Czech court. In return, they agreed not to sue him. The 30-year-old was also given a three-year suspended sentence. The criminal court decided that any financial penalty would have to be decided either in civil proceedings or out of court. The firms, which included Microsoft, HBO Europe, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, estimated that the financial damage amounted to thousands of pounds, with Microsoft alone valuing its losses at 5.7m Czech Crowns (£148,000). [BBC] The video had received over 212,000 views by today. See Video of the Day
Asteroid mining made legal after passing of ‘historic’ space bill in US –
Business opportunities in space could soon be about to open up for adventurous entrepreneurs after US Congress signed off on a bill to legalise space mining. While some websites are already offering investors the chance to step onto the intergalactic property ladder with a plot on the moon from £16.75, asteroid mining is predicted to become a trillion-dollar industry over the next few decades. Private companies in the US can now legally extract materials from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies after a commercial space act was approved by Congress. [Daily Telegraph]
Video of the Day –
SDÍLENÍM TO ZAČALO, SDÍLENÍM TO MŮŽE SKONČIT
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Other News Stories –
- Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown
- The Turkish military releases what it says are a series of audio recordings of warnings issued to a Russian jet before it was shot down near the Syrian border. (ABC Australia)
- Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015)
- The Palestinian Ministry of Health says a 21 year-old man has died in clashes with Israeli Army soldiers. (AP)
- Military intervention against ISIL
- British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a speech to the House of Commons says that Islamic extremists have already threatened citizens of the United Kingdom and UK military airstrikes against ISIL in Syria will serve only to make the UK safer. Cameron also says that the UK cannot outsource its security and must stand by France in the wake of the November 2015 Paris attacks. (BBC)
- Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Minister of Defence, calls on the United Kingdom to join France in bombing ISIL. (The Guardian)
- 2015 Brussels lockdown, Paris attack aftermath
- Belgian authorities reduce the threat level in Brussels from its highest level of four to three. The escalation to level four came after suspects in the ISIL attacks in Paris were linked to the city. Suspected Paris gunman, Salah Abdeslam, who lived in Brussels for several years, remains at large. (BBC)
- A suspicious powder feared to be anthrax found at a Brussels mosque, close to the European Union headquarters, is a false alarm. Testing determines it is flour. (Reuters) (Intenational Business Times)
- Boko Haram
- At least 18 people are killed and over 100 homes torched after Boko Haram militants attacked a village near the commune of Bosso in Niger‘s southern Diffa Region. (AFP via Yahoo)
- Disasters and accidents
- At least 15 people are killed after a Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter carrying oil workers crashes in eastern Siberia near the Yenisei River. (AP via ABC News) (Reuters)
- A sinkhole the size of a football field swallows a large section of beach on Australia‘s North Stradbroke Island. Local authorities have warned beach-goers to stay away from Jumpinpin beach due to fears the sinkhole could grow even larger. (The Guardian)
- 2015-16 Australian bushfire season
- A New South Wales Rural Fire Service firefighter dies while fighting an out of control bushfire near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley. (Daily Telegraph)
- At least eleven people have died and 70 injured after two buses carrying tourism workers collide in the eastern Dominican Republic. (AP)
- International relations
- Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to Africa
- Pope Francis condemns the way young people have been “radicalized in the name of religion to sow discord and fear,” during a talk in Nairobi, Kenya. (Washington Post)
- Pope Francis celebrates a historic Mass in Kenya before delivering a stern environmental warning to the world. “It would be sad, and I dare say even catastrophic, were particular interests to prevail over the common good and lead to manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and projects,” the Pope said, urging nations to reach agreement over curbing fossil fuel emissions. (CNN)
- 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21)
- France is deploying more than 10,000 personnel to provide security for the two-week UN Climate Change Conference that opens in Le Bourget in Paris on Monday, November 30, 2015. Around 150 heads of state or government are expected to attend COP21’s opening day. (Xinhua News Agency)
- Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015
- Queen Elizabeth II (U.K.) arrives in Malta for the Commonwealth summit what begins tomorrow. The then-future Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh lived on the island from 1949-51. The Commonwealth is a group of 53 nations; most member states were once part of the British Empire, 16 remain Commonwealth realms. (Telegraph)
- Song Tao is named head of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, a key post responsible for relations with other communist parties, replacing Wang Jiarui. (SCMP)
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