Global Aerospace and Defense Telemetry Market 2015-2019 …

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Telemetry is an automated mode of communication that is used for the measurement of data received from remote and inaccessible points. It can be through wired mode (telephone networks and optical links) or wireless mechanisms (radio, infrared, and ultrasonic waves). Aerospace and defense telemetry transmit information from satellites, spacecraft, or defense systems to a control station on Earth or to space vehicles with transmitting and receiving systems.

TechNavio's analysts forecast the Global Aerospace and Defense Telemetry market to grow at a CAGR of 2.57 percent over the period 2014-2019.

Covered in this Report

This report covers the current scenario and growth prospects of the Global Aerospace and Defense Telemetry market for the period 2015-2019. It presents a global overview, market shares, and growth prospects by region (the Americas, and the EMEA and APAC regions). The report also provides the market landscape and a corresponding analysis of the prominent vendors in the market. In addition, the report discusses the major drivers influencing the growth of the market. It also outlines the challenges faced by the vendors and the market at large, as well as the key trends emerging in the market.

TechNavio's report, Global Aerospace and Defense Telemetry Market 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the Americas, and the APAC and EMEA regions. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

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Global Aerospace and Defense Telemetry Market 2015-2019 ...

Group of lawmakers set sights on state's aerospace industry

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A group of Colorado lawmakers wants to ensure that the state's aerospace industry lives long and prospers.

The Colorado Aerospace and Defense Caucus advocates for the massive impact that the space and defense industries have on the state's economy. But the caucus started out, shall we say, going where no caucus has gone before.

"Last legislative session, some interns and I were watching ' Star Trek' during lunches and breaks, and we thought 'Why don't we start a Star Trek Caucus?' " said Rep. Paul Rosenthal, D-Denver. "Let's have some fun while we do some serious work."

The Star Trek Caucus shared an equal appreciation for watching the crew of the USS Enterprise explore the universe and for the state's role in real space exploration missions such as NASA's MAVEN and Orion.

To that end, it invited experts from various areas of Colorado's aerospace economy to speak at its meetings before members watched the show. Presenters included former state Rep. Joe Rice, now the director of government relations at Littleton-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

"Unfortunately, not a lot of legislators took it seriously, so we decided to make it more serious," Rosenthal said.

Hence, the Colorado Aerospace and Defense Caucus was born.

The group now a bipartisan team helmed by Rosenthal; Rep. Dan Nordberg, R-Colorado Springs; Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa; and Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora no longer watches "Star Trek" together. It does, however, work closely to promote Colorado's aerospace and defense industries in the statehouse.

Rosenthal, who also teaches at Ridge View Academy, a youth-corrections facility in Watkins, feels strongly about getting the next generation of space advocates on board to the point of taking his students to Lockheed Martin's Waterton Canyon campus to see spacecraft up close.

"I definitely have a long history of being interested in aerospace ... and people tend to focus on things that people promote," he said. "This is one of my passion projects promoting the aerospace and defense industries and getting kids in there."

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Group of lawmakers set sights on state's aerospace industry

Israel Aerospace Industries touts new electro-optical payload

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BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Israel, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- An electronics payload that incorporates as many as seven sensors has completed flight tests on manned and unmanned aircraft.

Israel Aerospace Industries describes its M-19HD payload as an all-weather high-definition, compact, multi-spectral, multi-sensor, single line-replacement unit payload that provides continuous day/night surveillance.

It is 22.6 inches wide, 27.3 inches high, and weighs between 165-187 pounds. Among its options are HD day cameras, infrared cameras, laser designator with in-flight bore sight, laser range finder, electron-multiplied charged-coupled-device camera or short-wave infrared camera.

The MD-19HD was originally designed for use on IAI's Heron-1 and Heron TP unmanned aerial vehicles, as well on aerostats and manned platforms, the company said.

"The M-19HD payload is the ideal system for long-endurance ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions and area dominance," said Shlomo Gold, acting general manager of IAI's Tamam Division. "The M-19HD provides powerful sensors, high stabilization and unique image processing features, together with long range persistent surveillance capabilities.

"The M-19HD follows IAI's tradition of innovation and offers our customers high performance and a cost-effective solution."

The MD-19HD is available for the international market.

2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Israel Aerospace Industries touts new electro-optical payload

States aerospace sector slims down, but economic impact grows

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An updated assessment of aerospaces outsized impact on Washington state estimates that last year the industry supported 267,000 jobs here and paid out $22 billion in wages and $635 million in state taxes.

Seattle Times aerospace reporter

The number of Washington workers employed directly in aerospace edged down last year, but the industrys overall economic impact still grew, according to a new analysis commissioned by advocates for the industry.

Last year, the state had 93,400 aerospace jobs, down 800 from the previous year, a decline that was largely due to job cuts at Boeing.

Yet the increased economic impact was also due to Boeing, because of its injection of $320 million last January when each member of the Machinist union was paid a ratification bonus of $10,000 after they voted to extend their contract and accept a pension freeze to secure the 777X for the state.

That really boosted overall wages, even though the jobs actually went down, said Spencer Cohen, the analyst with Seattle-based consulting firm Community Attributes Inc. (CAI) who prepared the data.

The extra spending by Boeing Machinists supported a lot of indirect jobs in sectors such as retail and auto sales, Cohen said.

As a result, the new study estimates that in 2014 the aerospace industry supported a total of 267,000 direct and indirect jobs that paid out $22 billion in wages.

CAI estimates the state took in $635 million in taxes due to aerospace activity, including $201 million in direct business taxes paid by aerospace companies, plus additional business taxes paid by suppliers to those companies and sales taxes on items bought by employees.

Boeings commercial-jet activities generated $528 million in taxes for the state including direct taxes paid by Boeing, direct taxes paid by Boeing suppliers, and sales taxes directly and indirectly linked to its business.

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States aerospace sector slims down, but economic impact grows

Alcoa Acquiring Titanium Supplier RTI In $1.5 Billion Deal

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Credit: AP Photo/Gene Puskar, File

Alcoa might be the worlds third largest aluminum producer, but in recent quartersthe company has been working to rebrand itself as a lightweight metals provider,bolstering its profitable aerospace business with multi-billion-dollar acquisitionsof businesses like jet-maker Firth Rixson and aerospace supplier Tital.In thelatest such acquisition, Alcoa has announced that it will buy RTI International Metals, a worldwide titanium supplier.

Alcoa announced Monday morning that it will acquire RTI in astock-for-stock deal worth $1.5 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Alcoa will receive all of RTIs outstanding stock while RTI shareholders will receive a very precise2.8315 Alcoa shares for eachof their RTI shares. Based on Alcoas$14.48 per-share closing price on March 6, this gives RTI a value of $41 per share.

In explaining the deal, Alcoa said that acquiring RTI will strengthen its aerospace portfolio and expand its titanium offerings. RTIs parts-assembly operations should alsoallow Alcoa to produce larger and more complex aerospace components.

Alcoa is accelerating its value-add growth engine by acquiring titanium leader RTI, Alcoa CEOKlaus Kleinfeld said in a statement Monday morning. We are combining two innovators in materials science and process technology, shifting Alcoas transformation into a higher gear. RTI expands our aerospace portfolio market reach and positions us to capture future growth to deliver compelling value for customers, shareholders and employees.

The aluminum maker is projecting $100 million in synergies by 2019, with RTI contributing $1.2 billion in revenue by that time as well. Alcoa also said thatRTI grows its pro forma 2014 annual aerospace revenues by 13% to $5.6 billion.

For RTIs part, CEO Dawne Hickton said Monday that innovation and scale are critical to winning in both the titanium and aerospace industries today, which is why this transaction is such a natural strategic fit for both RTI and Alcoa. Hickton went on to add that she is pleased to have a deal that will deliver immediate value to RTIs shareholders.

Pending the necessary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to close in the next three to six months.

Following the announcement of the $1.5 billion deal, shares of RTI surged while Alcoa sank: RTI is currently up 41%, while Alcoa is down 4.5%. Year-over-year, Alcoa is up 13.5% and RTI is up 46.3%.

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Alcoa Acquiring Titanium Supplier RTI In $1.5 Billion Deal

Climate deniers and other pimped-out professional skeptics: The paranoid legacy of Nietzsches problem of science

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Looking back years later at his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gave himself credit for being the first modern thinker to tackle the problem of science itself, for presenting science for the first time as problematic and questionable. Dude! If the perverse German genius could only have known how far the problem of science would extend in our age, or to what ends his critique of Socratic reason would be twisted. He might be delighted or horrified in equal measure one thing you can say for Nietzsche is that his attitudes are never predictable to see how much we now live in a world he made, or at least made possible.

It may seem like a ridiculous leap to connect a scholarly work about ancient Greek culture published in 1872 with the contemporary rise of climate denialism and other forms of pimped-out skepticism, in which every aspect of science is treated by the media and the public as a matter of ideological debate and subjective interpretation. Im not suggesting that the leading climate skeptics, corporate shills and other professional mind-clouders seen in Robert Kenners new documentary Merchants of Doubt have read Nietzsche and based their P.R. playbook on what he would have termed an appeal to the Dionysian impulse, the primitive, violent and ecstatic forces that lie below the surface of civilization. (You can see two prime specimens at the top of the page: James Taylor of the libertarian-oriented Heartland Institute and longtime oil lobbyist William OKeefe, who now heads the George C. Marshall Institute, a climate-obsessed right-wing think tank.) They didnt have to. That impulse is baked into human culture at this point, and it can be exploited without entirely being recognized or understood.

Im not discounting the most obvious elements of the 21st-century assault on science, which are amply addressed in Kenners film and other recent works on the subject. There is certainly a heated cultural and political conflict over the issue of climate change, but there is no scientific debate, no matter how many times Fox News hosts repeat that phrase. Enormous financial interests are at stake, as oil companies and other big stakeholders in the fossil-fuel economy seek to fend off or delay a major social restructuring that could destroy their business. Ideological hangover from the Cold War and the 1960s, especially among a certain paranoid strain of the conservative movement, has turned the climate issue into a symbolic confrontation between American freedom and the sinister global forces of academia and environmentalism, often understood as the new faces of Communism. As former Republican congressman Bob Inglis a staunch conservative and former climate skeptic who was defeated by a Tea Party rebel in 2010 puts it, issues of tribal loyalty are at work here that trump rational questions about the validity of scientific evidence.

Inglis is the most interesting individual interviewee in Merchants of Doubt, partly because he stands apart from the competing ideological choruses on this issue and has taken on the thankless task of proselytizing his fellow Christian conservatives, one terrifying Deep South radio show at a time. His remarks about tribalism also nudge us toward the Nietzschean subtext of the climate fight, by which I mean not just the question of what political or corporate agendas are being served since thats pretty obvious but why the right-wing counterattack against a previously uncontroversial scientific consensus has been so effective with the general public.

In other words, we need to ask new versions of the questions Nietzsche himself asked: What does all science in general mean considered as a symptom of life? What is the point of all that science and, even more serious, where did it come from? Beneath the political, economic and tribal conflict over climate science lies a profound sense that what Nietzsche described as the Apollonian forces of social order, in this case being the book-learning of the professoriate and the rules and regulations of government, cannot contain or comprehend the chaotic and mysterious nature of reality. There is considerable truth in that, which was Nietzsches great insight how much truth and what kind of truth, and how these competing forces can best be managed, being precisely the important questions.

For the sanctimonious forces of liberalism, committed to a one-way human narrative from darkness into enlightenment, it is always tempting to blame such retrograde impulses on a uniquely American combination of ignorance, isolation and religiosity. Those factors have played their part in our nations history, but self-righteous rube-shaming is unlikely to lead to political victory, and does not address what appears to be a deep-seated species preference for passion over reason, sensuality over intellect, Dionysian excess over Apollonian discipline. To say that such a phenomenon exists and must be confronted is not to endorse it uncritically, a confusion that has often led to misreadings of Nietzsche. If those of us who would like to save the planet ignore or deny the dark allure of the Dionysian impulse, we have already conceded the high ground on the battlefield of human imagination, and are likely to lose everything.

Merchants of Doubt is primarily based on the influential 2010 book of the same name by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which traces the strategy and tactics of climate denial back to the tobacco industrys 50-year propaganda war against clear-cut medical evidence and increased government regulation. Our product is doubt, as one infamous internal memo, found amid the reams of tobacco-industry documents pried free from the corporate vaults, put it. Advised by consultants at the P.R. firm Hill & Knowlton never to directly deny the mounting evidence that cigarettes were addictive and deadly, tobacco execs and their hired scientific hands insisted for decades that they simply werent sure. Maybe and maybe not! We need more research and more evidence! We dont personally believe these things are harmful just because smokers are many times more likely to die of lung cancer but who really knows?

In a devastating montage near the end of Kenners film, we see how leading Republican politicians, who appeared to accept the scientific consensus on climate change until a few years ago, have come to echo this rhetoric almost word for word. John McCain, Mitt Romney, John Boehner and even George W. Bush all used to agree that climate change was real and in large part caused by human activity; Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi once did a public-service announcement together urging bipartisan action on the issue. Those were the days, my friends. After the Tea Party uprising of 2010 and climate counterattacks by the Koch brothers Americans for Progress, the oil industry-funded blogger and pundit Marc Morano and numerous others, that all changed. Boehner, Gingrich, Romney and every other Republican candidate or official in the country was forced to flip to the Heck, Im no scientist school of mandatory agnosticism. (We should spare half a kind thought for McCain, who even in his diminished and compromised post-Sarah Palin condition retains a few shreds of integrity.)

Building on the work of numerous other scholars notably the Australian economist and ethicist Clive Hamilton, whose book Requiem for a Species goes somewhat deeper into the same issues Oreskes and Conway identify a tiny group of renegade right-wing scientists who have established themselves as professional contrarians and saboteurs, seeking to muddy the waters on a whole range of issues from tobacco to acid rain to pesticides and carbon emissions. This cabal has been led by the physicists Bill Nierenberg, Fred Seitz and Fred Singer, who were leading figures in Cold War weapons design but possess no academic expertise in any discipline relating to climate science. Their importance to the climate-denial movement lies in their possession of legitimate Ph.D.s, their ability to comb through scientific studies and cherry-pick confusing or contradictory data points, and most of all their eagerness to defend free-market capitalism against all efforts to restrain it or redirect it.

This handful of devoted obfuscators, buttressed by an army of industry-funded experts from recently invented right-wing think tanks Morano, OKeefe, Taylor and pretty much all the other dudes who show up on TV in that role possess no actual background in science has ingeniously capitalized on the mainstream medias fetish for balance and succeeded in sowing widespread confusion. Since Barack Obama took office in 2009 which coincided, not by accident, with the launch of a major climate-skeptic counterattack opinion polling has consistently reported that at least 40 percent of Americans believe that the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated. That level had never been reached in 12 years of previous surveys. Its bizarre and distressing that such transparently bogus tactics worked so well, but it could only have happened if the seeds fell on fertile ground. For a whole range of reasons, reflecting both Americas chronic political divisions and the deeper cultural forces at work beneath them, many people ached to believe that the scientific bad news simply wasnt true.

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Climate deniers and other pimped-out professional skeptics: The paranoid legacy of Nietzsches problem of science

Casper College, Casper, Wyoming, USA – Education for a …

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Welcome to Casper College Casper College offers more than 50 academic majors and 30 technical and career field options. The academic side of the college is organized into five different Schools: Business and Industry, Fine Arts and Humanities, Health Science, Science, Social and Behavioral Science.

Under each school are several departments. Your major area of interest, or major, is located within one of these departments. Each school of the college has a Dean and an academic assistant, both of whom can be very helpful in navigating you through a course of study.

If you're deciding based on academics, we've got plenty of options. In fact, we have more than 80 programs. Finish your certificate in one year. Finish your associate's in two years. Stay on campus a little longer and get your four-year degree, or even a master's with one of our partner institutions. Whichever option you choose, you'll be learning from the finest faculty who care about you and your future.

And Casper College is an amazing value. For Wyoming residents, tuition is less than $1200 a semester. In fact, students from many other states find that tuition at Casper College for them is less than resident tuition for colleges in their own states! With a generous scholarship program and plenty of federal aid available, tuition is affordable for nearly everyone.

In fact, Casper College's "participation rate," the percentage of citizens in the service area who take classes, is among the highest in the country. Thousands more are served through ABE/GED services, the Center for Training and Development, the Goodstein Foundation Library, continuing education classes, theatre productions, museums, conferences, special events and innovative educational programs/partnerships.

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Casper College, Casper, Wyoming, USA - Education for a ...

Grade school hosts science fair

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SENECA Students of Seneca Grade Schools South Campus held their Science Fair on Feb. 20.

After months of work, designing, testing and reporting on their chosen topics, students submitted 24 projects for judging, according to a news release from the school.

The results were announced after parents viewed the projects and enjoyed refreshments.

Previous winners, Krista Eikleberry and Jennie Paulsen, spoke of their memorable science club experiences, and the student council Voices students helped present the awards.

The winners of the science fair were honored with prizes donated by local businesses: grand prize, sponsored by Cargill, to How Much Can You Learn by Jacob Ursua; second place, sponsored by Fergarias: The Pitch and Efficiency of Wind Turbines by Amber Vroman, and Renewable Wind Energy by Luke Sangston; and third place, sponsored by Joseph Herrera: Wind Power Energy by Brandon Applebee and Harley Wayne, and The Human Mind, by Krista Eikleberry.

Special awards also were given for a variety of categories, including Most Creative Display Board, sponsored by Family Video, to Following the Rain by Reese Sanburg and Maggie Carpenter; Most Original Project, sponsored by Roxy Theater to The Guppy Games by Meagan Potter; Best in Category, Life/Behavioral Science, sponsored by Jimmy Johns to Gender Wars by Ava Terry; Best in Category, Chemistry, sponsored by Papa Johns Pizza to Sticky Science by Lily Saager; Best in Category, Consumer Science, sponsored by Sams Pizza to Big Name Bust by Riley Johnson; Best in Category, Environmental Science, sponsored by Wendys to Battle of the Fertilizers, by Justine Ursua and Brooke Roseland, and Best in Category, Physical Science, sponsored by Jimmy Johns to Electric Pickle by CJ Wignes and Austin Marshall.

Six students, Jennie Paulsen, Isaiah Swon, Jacob Ursua, Garrett Granby, Meagan Potter, and Krista Eikleberry, will be advancing to the Regional Science Fair at Northern Illinois University in March.

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Grade school hosts science fair

College Unveils $40.5 Million Social-Behavioral Science Building

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Mesa Colleges new Social and Behavioral Science Building. Photo credit: Alexander Nguyen

A $40.5 million, three-story classroom building opened at San Diego Mesa College on Tuesdayfor social and behavioral science courses.

The nearly 74,000-square-foot structure, funded by the San Diego Community College Districts $1.6 billion in construction bonds, is one of several new facilities to open in the last several years at Mesa, City and Miramar colleges.

It is inspiring to watch the transformation of Mesa College. As they have with the opening of each new building, the students have taken over the Social and Behavioral Sciences Building and made it their own, said college President Pamela Luster.

To watch the interaction between faculty and students, and to see the true educational benefits that these facilities bring, underscores the return on investment that the voters of San Diego have made to education and to Mesa College, she said.

In addition to classrooms, the building provides laboratory space for the psychology, anthropology and geography programs.

The two bonds, one approved by voters in 2002 and the other in 2006, have also provided the Clairemont Mesacampus with a health facility, a 45,000-square-foot humanities building and a 206,000-square-foot math and science complex. A new commons and an exercise science building are under construction.

City News Service

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College Unveils $40.5 Million Social-Behavioral Science Building

Brief CBT Reduces Suicide Attempts among At-Risk Soldiers

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By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 16, 2015 ~ 1 min read

New research finds that short-term cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) dramatically reduces suicide attempts among at-risk military personnel.

Investigators from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio led the two-year study on 152 active-duty soldiers who had either attempted suicide or had been determined to be at high risk for suicide. All soldiers were stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado.

They found that soldiers receiving CBT were 60 percent less likely to make a suicide attempt during the 24-month follow-up than those receiving standard treatment.

The results have been published online by The American Journal of Psychiatry.

The findings are particularly encouraging, given that rates of active-duty service members receiving psychiatric diagnoses increased by more than 60 percent during a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rates of suicides and suicide attempts rose in comparable numbers.

The significant increase in military suicides over the past decade is a national tragedy, said Alan Peterson, Ph.D., a co-investigator on the study.

The Department of Defense has responded by investing significant resources into military suicide research, and the findings from this study may be the most important and most hopeful to date.To see a 60 percent reduction in suicide attempts among at-risk active-duty soldiers after a brief intervention is truly exciting, Peterson said.

Other University of Texas Health Science Center investigators included Stacey Young-McCaughan, RN, Ph.D., and Jim Mintz, Ph.D.

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Brief CBT Reduces Suicide Attempts among At-Risk Soldiers

Internet Censorship in China: Well Sing it for You

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One Chinese government agency is so proud of how well they censor the Internet that they put their feelings to music.

One Chinese government agency is so proud of how well they censor the Internet that they put their feelings to music.

by Sisi Wei and Yue Qiu ProPublica, Feb. 12, 2015, 4:31 p.m.

ProPublica investigates the threats to privacy in an era of cellphones, data mining and cyberwar.

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Chinas Internet censorship agency now has its own choral anthem, a song titled The Mind and Spirit of Cyberspace Security. The New York Times reported Thursday that the lyrics to the song whichpraises the agencys commitment to the global village, evolving it into its most beautiful form were written by Wang Pingjiu, who also wrote the lyrics for the opening song to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

ProPublica watched, translated and subtitled the video.

Although the Times reported that copies of the video are being deleted quickly, ProPublica found copies easily via the popular Chinese social media site Sina Weibo.

In the song, employees proudly declare not only loyalty to their work, but that it is transforming the world into a better place. Lyrics include:

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Internet Censorship in China: Well Sing it for You

Concerns Grow Over Censorship in Hong Kong

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HONG KONG

In Hong Kong, where last years pro-democracy protests ended in a stalemate with the Beijing-backed government, there are signs of increasing state censorship.

A new report has found that Hong Kong police have requested more web posts to be taken down during the last four months than in the previous four years combined.

That data, plus recently revealed rules regarding Executive Council members interviews with the media, have added to the concerns of democracy activists, who say the citys history of freedom of expression is gradually eroding under Chinese rule.

Darcy Christ, a researcher with the Hong Kong Transparency Report at the University of Hong Kong, has seen an increase in the number of web sites being taken down.

"There is definitely a spike, but like I say, its mostly in the case of take down requests. That's not to discount that, but definitely user requests are one other important issue especially after the occupy protests," said Christ.

Since October, Hong Kong police have made 101 requests to websites and service providers to delete content. That figure compares with 29 requests in the preceding nine months of last year and a total of 65 requests in the previous three years combined. Last year police also made more than 4,000 requests for online user information, such as email and IP addresses.

Lawmaker and Internet entrepreneur Charles Mok has called for greater independent scrutiny and oversight of such police requests.

"My concern is that the police is stepping up and using its power whether or not it is invested in law, but at least they have the execution of power and they seem to be telling these social media sites to take down messages," said Mok.

Last month the PEN American Center, a New York-based writers group, wrote a report warning that Hong Kongs more open media was showing signs of increased self-censorship, and coverage more tailored toward the business interests of their financial backers.

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Concerns Grow Over Censorship in Hong Kong

Zimbabwe censors '50 Shades of Grey' scenes

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Published February 20, 2015

Zimbabweans going to the movies will have to watch a tame version of "Fifty Shades of Grey" after censors ordered an edit of the film adaption of the bestselling erotic novel.

The censors demanded that erotic scenes from the R-rated drama be deleted before it is shown in the southern African country.

"There are scenes in the film that are just too indecent to be shown to the public," said Isaac Chiranganyika, the Board of Censors secretary, said on Friday. The film based on EL James' book of the same name, explores themes of bondage and domination.

Movie theatres in Zimbabwe will only be allowed to show a censored version of the film. While most theatres have agreed to run the chopped-up version, one theater in the capital Harare said it won't screen "Fifty Shades of Grey" at all, because heavy censorship would remove too much.

"It was felt that heavy censorship would compromise the integrity of the film," the Sam Levy Village shopping center, site of the movie theater, said on its Facebook page.

Zimbabwean artists and filmmakers have regularly criticized the board's decisions to censor works that were seen as too erotic, violent or political. The board's chairman, Heya Malaba, 95, has been uncompromising about erotic movie scenes in the past.

For those who want to watch the whole film, pirated copies should soon be available on city street corners.

"I just have to wait a week or so and I will be buying 'Fifty Shades of Grey' for $1 from the vendors," said Harare resident Stam Zengeni. "So no problem."

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Zimbabwe censors '50 Shades of Grey' scenes

Free speech didnt cause Denmark tragedy

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Last weekends shootings in Copenhagen are a test for Denmark. Its tempting to argue that Denmarks soft approach to dealing with radical Muslims has been found wanting. In truth, its the countrys conflicted approach to freedom of expression that demands closer scrutiny. In the wake of this years terror attacks on cartoonists who have mocked the Prophet Muhammad, what the West needs above all is clarity and simplicity in its policies dealing with integration and free speech.

As thousands of Danes laid flowers at the two sites where a lone gunman named by the local press as 22-year-old Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein shot a filmmaker and a synagogue guard and wounded several police officers, a few others brought their bouquets to the place cops shot El-Hussein himself. On that street in Norrebro, the area sometimes known in Copenhagen as Little Arabia, one of the mourners told Danish TV2 it was unfair that cartoonists were allowed to draw the prophet with a bomb on his head, while when a brother puts a smiley face on Facebook, hes a terrorist and he should be in prison.

This remark would ring true in France. After the deadly attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last month, the French government arrested 54 people for hate speech. The best-known of them, comedian Dieudonne Mbala Mbala, was recently ordered to pay a $37,000 fine for condoning terrorism in a Facebook post that appeared to express solidarity both with the terrorists and their victims. This was clear evidence that France was willing to tolerate and defend Muhammad cartoons, which offend most Muslims, but not anti-Semitism, of which Dieudonne has been repeatedly guilty, or public apologies for Islamist terror. The French attitude toward hate speech is thus unapologetically selective. People who point out the contradictions are treated to lengthy explanations about how blasphemy shouldnt be treated as hate speech in a secular country. Muslims might understandably reply that the offended party knows better whats offensive and what isnt.

Unlike France, Denmark has laws not only against hate speech but also against blasphemy. In several high-profile cases, however, the country has refused to apply them to anti-Muslim expression. When, in 2005, the newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 Muhammad cartoons, including one by Kurt Westergaard that depicted the prophet with a bomb on his head, Muslim organizations lodged a complaint with the prosecutors office but saw it dismissed on the grounds that the papers editorial freedom in matters of public interest justified the publication. Then, in 2012, the Supreme Court of Denmark acquitted Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard of hate speech. Hedegaard was initially ordered to pay a fine after a blogger reported that he had said that Islam permitted Muslim men to rape women. But he appealed the decision and the Supreme Court decided he was not guilty since he was not explicitly speaking for publication.

I can see how a Muslim might view these judicial decisions as unjust. On the other hand, the Danish government also doesnt prosecute radical Islamists for their beliefs (much less smiley faces on Facebook). In fact, it has the worlds mildest attitude toward fighters returning from Syrias battlefields. They arent prevented from entering the country; nor are they arrested, or even surveilled. Instead, they are offered public assistance to get job training.

Aarhus, the countrys second-biggest city, has 30 residents who fought in Syria, a third of the countrys total. A majority of them had attended a single radical mosque that openly supports Islamic State. Instead of closing it down or harassing its leaders, Danish police and local officials have been meeting with the returning fighters at the mosque to survey their feelings about being in Denmark again. The strategy has been to keep up a dialogue with the clerics and their flock to dissuade more people from going over to fight for the caliphate.

Denmarks approach to integration allows most people, regardless of their religion or heritage, to pursue their own preferred way of life. Residents of Denmark including Muslims generally appreciate this framework. In 2011, two Danish academics, Marco Goli and Shahamak Rezaei, conducted a survey to find out whether radical Islamist sentiment among young Muslims ages 15 to 30 was somehow correlated with the degree of their integration into Danish society. They found no meaningful connection: The 5.8 percent of their sample they identified as radical Islamists mostly spoke Danish at work or at school and had a higher proportion of Danish girlfriends and boyfriends than their less radicalized peers. The group was not overrepresented among the poor or educationally disadvantaged.

The radicals, however, appeared to be more sensitive to what they saw as discrimination, and they were more likely to have a history with the police. Goli and Rezaei could only conclude their stand was a matter of personal attitude and free choice, something for which the Danish culture has an ingrained respect. The results from this study while not supporting a link between migrant integration and radicalism do appear to be quite compatible with the core liberal (in the non-partisan sense of that term) notion that for the individual, integration is a right, but not an obligation, the researchers wrote.

Its understandable that attacks like those perpetrated by El-Hussein would give rise to discussions of how a country allowed them to happen. But I would argue that the Danish authorities did nothing wrong. No one would have benefited from more restrictions on Muslims, more police harassment, more attempts to force radicals to become assimilated or leave. A lone wolf terrorist can evade the most severe government dragnet.

In fact, Denmark would have done well to repeal its blasphemy and hate speech laws, since they are barely used against anyone, anyway. They only create confusion and suspicion, while a simple and clear policy of absolute freedom of speech would be easy to explain. (One could even evoke a quote from Sigmund Freud: The first human to loose an insult at his enemy rather than a weapon was the founder of civilization.)

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Free speech didnt cause Denmark tragedy

Georgetown fourth-worst college for free speech

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College campuses are supposed to be welcoming academic arenas where young people can discuss and argue ideas in a spirit of free and open inquiry.

But after a recent incident, in which Georgetown University safety personnel removed pro-choice protesters from a sidewalk adjoining the campus, student groups there are wondering how free they really are to express ideas.

In terms of promoting dialogue, the university could do a better job, said Caleb Younger, a junior and member of the universitys Georgetown Democrats. There is some aggression toward certain groups, and the university is put into a difficult position.

The incident helped the D.C.-based Jesuit-run university earn a dubious distinction this week: Georgetown was named one of 2014s 10 worst colleges for free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit that advocates free speech and religious liberty in academic environments.

Our colleges and universities are supposed to be where students go to debate and explore new ideas, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said in a statement. But too often on the modern college campus, students and their professors find their voices silenced by administrators who would rather they be absent from the often-contentious marketplace of ideas.

Patrick Coyle, vice president of the national organization Young Americans for Freedom, said that genuine dialogue is lacking on campuses across the country. He cited an incident at Penn State in which students werent allowed to distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution in the Student Center on Constitution Day.

The problem goes across the country. Universities are afraid of being challenged. Instead of challenging students with another event or speaker, they shut it down with bureaucratic maneuvers and tricks. It all goes back to political correctness. You go to a college to discuss various ideas, and some schools have a problem with that, Mr. Coyle said.

Georgetown officials restrict certain student activities to free speech zones, where spontaneous protest and speech of all kinds are allowed. One zone is popularly known as Red Square, and it sits in the center of campus.

We believe that our speech and expression policy is very appropriate for our campus community, said Rachel Pugh, the universitys senior director for strategic communications. [Our policy] offers students broad freedom of expression in keeping with our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit university.

The Speech and Expression Committee advises the vice president for student affairs on the universitys speech and expression policy. The panel provides education about the policy and decides whether it needs to be clarified or amended. The committee also reviews complaints, which can be referred to a sanctioning body.

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Georgetown fourth-worst college for free speech

Lebanese Artists Battle State Censorship

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BEIRUT, LEBANON

State censorship has long played a role in guiding the arts in Lebanon, where a permissive culture and a delicate sectarian balance come head to head.

In the face of what they complain are arbitrary clampdowns, though, some activists and playwrights are taking the fight for free speech to the courts. MARCH is a civil rights organization that works with playwrights whose scripts, it says, failed to make it through governments required approval process.

Using content from articles, blog posts and TV shows already online and uncensored, it submitted four plays that tackled some of the most taboo topics in Lebanon: politics, the countrys civil war, Zionism, religion and homosexuality.

Lea Baroudi, co-founder of MARCH, said the plays never made it past the censors. Now the group is launching a court appeal, and is campaigning to ensure that any decisions to ban or censor content are formalized.

A lot of people think there is no censorship in Lebanon, or that the laws are pretty correct, she said. What we wanted to show and prove is that the laws on censorship are completely arbitrary. All they do is oppress arts and culture in Lebanon, as the only people who suffer are the artists and play directors.

"The censorship is not even efficient, as the content we used could be found elsewhere. So if you are trying to protect communities, it is not working, said Baroudi. Danger of offending The deadly attack on staff at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, thought to have been a response to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, sparked widespread debate about the limits of free speech.

In Lebanon, more than a hundred gathered in central Beirut's Samir Kassir square - named after a Lebanese journalist killed by a car bomb in 2005 - in an act of solidarity and support for free speech.

However, others defend the role of censorship, insisting that free speech can go too far, given Lebanon's sectarian diversity and, especially, at a time of regional upheaval.

Baroudi argued the very concept of censorship, however, is often a misplaced one. Art is very cathartic and in our point of view this strategy of making everything taboo in order to please and appease every group and community is not making things better. Its making them worse and its building up the tensions.

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Lebanese Artists Battle State Censorship

Dylan Moran: Panel shows I have an absolute horror of those

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Dylan Moran, photographed in the Lake District for the Observer. Photograph: Gary Calton

Dylan Moran is an energetic man. When we speak, hes whizzing around the Lake District trying out material (to scare myself) before he embarks on his extensive Off the Hook tour. But the one place you wont find him is on any kind of panel show. Maybe its because hes Irish, he explains, but he just cant abide what he sees as a peculiarly British trait: Theres an institutionalised love of games, an institutionalised passion for parlour games, a kind of ludic obsession with passing time in a non-threatening way. And that just gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies, the vapours; it makes me want to shriek, running over the hills, picking up my clothes. I have an absolute horror of that people sitting around on the radio making puns; the panel shows where you get a load of blokes who are trying to out-monkey each other, and the room is throbbing with testosterone and hatred for other people and for themselves. I cannot take it.

Lucky, then, that the 43-year-old comedian, who grew up in West Meath, in the Irish midlands, and now lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two children, loves live work or, as he describes it, when you find out what it is youre after. Having just returned from Lithuania, hell be on the road in the UK from now until the end of May, with tours planned for Ireland, mainland Europe, Australia and the US.

When I started [in comedy], it was like putting pirate in your career-choice box

Part of the enjoyment is meeting comedians from other countries; at last years Edinburgh festival, Moran, Eddie Izzard and promoter Mick Perrin brought a group of comedians over from Germany, Italy and France to perform for the first time in English.

Edinburgh is where things really got going for Moran, who at 24 was the youngest-ever winner of the Perrier comedy award, back in 1996. It was a stellar start to a career that went on to encompass Black Books, the Channel 4 sitcom that saw Moran create and play the miserabilist bookshop proprietor Bernard Black, as well as parts in films such as Notting Hill, Shaun of the Dead and Calvary.

When I started [in comedy], it was like putting pirate in your career-choice box, he says, explaining that the tail-end of 1980s comedy, with its influences from America, was still very exciting and fresh and rebellious. Now, he concedes, referring to the rise of stadium tours and DVDs, its a little more like when the chain shops pop up around the country.

Thats why he likes to stay under the radar. Hes still winnowing material for Off the Hook, for which hes written and illustrated some pamphlets that he describes as squibs. Hes unsure that theres an overarching theme to the tour beyond, perhaps, the vantage point of his time of life. I dont imagine Im alone in having over the past few months maybe years, even felt like I have to check with my friends and peers all the time that this [stage of my life] is quite as extraordinarily unstable and mad and changeable as it seems to me it is, he explains. Because a lot of the time people wonder, is that just my age, is that just time passing by, and me being more aware of whats going on everywhere?

I ask him how the instability of the times and the threats faced by freedom of speech and satire has affected what comedians do. You dont have any choice, he replies. You just have to laugh at it. The alternative is saying nothing, going quiet Thats not going to happen.

Off the Hook tours nationwide until 30 May

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Dylan Moran: Panel shows I have an absolute horror of those