Indonesia's selfie-snapping monkey is PETA 'Person of the Year'

Agencies
December 6, 2017

Jakarta, Dec 6: An Indonesian monkey who shot to fame after it snapped a grinning selfie - and sparked a landmark US copyright case - was named "Person of the Year" on Wednesday by The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The animal rights group said it was honouring Naruto, a crested black macaque with a goofy-looking grin, to recognise that "he is someone, not something".

In 2011, the monkey pressed the shutter button while staring down the lens of a camera set up by British nature photographer David Slater on the island of Sulawesi.

The photos quickly went viral and PETA launched a lawsuit that claimed the then six-year-old Naruto should be "declared the author and owner of his photograph".

"Naruto's historic selfie challenged the idea of who is a person and who is not and resulted in the first-ever lawsuit seeking to declare a non-human animal the owner of a property, rather than being declared property himself," PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said.

The court case set off an international debate among legal experts about personhood for animals and whether they can own property.

Slater maintained he owned the rights to the pictures since he engineered its creation - setting up the tripod and walking away for a few minutes, only to find out that the monkey had grabbed his camera and snapped away.

The British photographer won the first hearing in California but PETA then appealed to a higher court.

The case was settled in September - before that court could make a ruling - with Slater agreeing to donate 25% of any future revenue from using or selling the monkey selfies to help protect the habitat of crested macaques in Indonesia.

Authorities and activists have been trying to persuade villagers on Sulawesi to stop consuming the critically endangered monkeys, one of many creatures that form part of the local indigenous community's diet.

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News Network
May 6,2020

Hyderabad, May 6: Away from city lights, two hours before Sunrise, people in India and across the world can witness Annual Meteor Shower called Eta Aquarids till May 28.

Observed since time immemorial, Meteor shower are commonly known as shooting stars which are nothing but dust flakes of comet/asteroid entering earth atmosphere.

This Annual Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower peaked on Wednesday at 02.30 am on Wednesday whereas presence of Full Moon was an obstacle outshining bright streaks of lights of this meteor shower zipping across the South Eastern sky.

As this meteor shower is active till May 28, people can still watch this celestial spectacle in early morning every day, Planetary Society of India (PSI) Director N Sri Raghunandan Kumar interacting with UNI said.

As per International Meteor Organization (IMO), 50 meteors per hour are expected to be seen on day of peak today. And this number would vary as days pass on till May 28 while earth passes through dust cloud of comet debris in its orbit.

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Agencies
May 15,2020

Kolkata, May 15: Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy, who was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Teesta Parer Brittanto', died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, his family members said.

Roy was 84 and he is survived by his son. His wife had died earlier.

He was admitted to the hospital near his residence at Baguihati, in the eastern fringes of the city, on Wednesday after having symptoms like sodium potasium imbalance, sugar problem and breathing problem, his family members said.

He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at 10.50 PM.

A regular contributor to a number of Bengali dailies, he was a staunch critic of the attacks on liberals by in the country in recent times and attended protest meetings despite his failing health.

He was born in Pabna in present-day Bangladesh on December 17, 1936. He had five decades of career as a writer.

Besides Teesta Parer Britanta', he will be remembered for books like Borisaler Jogen Mondal , Manush Khun Kore Keno and Samay Asamayer Brittanto . His first book was Jajati.

His last rites will be performed tomorrow.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday warned of a Trojan malware campaign which is targeting India's co-operative banks using COVID-19 as a bait.

Seqrite, the enterprise arm of IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies, detected the new wave of Adwind Java Remote Access Trojan (RAT) campaign.

Researchers at Seqrite warned that if attackers are successful, they can take over the victim's device to steal sensitive data like SWIFT logins and customer details and move laterally to launch large scale cyberattacks and financial frauds.

According to the researchers, the Java RAT campaign starts with a spear-phishing email which claims to have originated from either the Reserve Bank of India or a nationalised bank.

The content of the email refers to COVID-19 guidelines or a financial transaction, with detailed information in an attachment, which is a zip file containing a JAR based malware.

Upon further investigation, researchers at Seqrite found that the JAR based malware is a Remote Access Trojan that can run on any machine which has Java runtime enabled and hence it can impact a variety of endpoints, irrespective of their base operating system.

Once the RAT is installed, the attacker can take over the victim's device, send commands from a remote machine, and spread laterally in the network.

In addition, this malware can also log keystrokes, capture screenshots, download additional payloads, and extract sensitive user information, Seqrite said, adding that such attack campaigns can effectively jeopardise the privacy and security of sensitive data at the co-operative banks and result in large scale attacks and financial frauds.

To prevent such attacks, users need to exercise ample caution and avoid opening attachments and clicking on web links in unsolicited emails.

Banks should also keep their operating systems updated and have a full-fledged security solution installed on all the devices, Seqrite advised.

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