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People gather around the wreckage of a car bomb in Homs last week. Isis fighters control up to a third of Syria as well as swaths of Iraq. Photograph: Sana/Reuters

Islamic State (Isis) fighters in Syria claim they have taken control of a gas field in the central province of Homs, the second it has seized in a week after battles with government forces.

The hardline Sunni Islamist group posted 18 photos on social media showing the Islamic State flag raised in the Jahar gas field as well as captured vehicles and weaponry, according to the Site jihadi website monitoring service.

Reuters could not independently confirm the events due to security restrictions.

Isis fighters, who control up to a third of Syria as well as swaths of Iraq and have declared a caliphate in the territories they control, seized the larger Shaar gas field on 30 October.

So after the (Shaar) company and the (positions) surrounding it became part of the land of the caliphate, the soldiers advanced, conquering new areas, and all praise is due to Allah, Islamic State said in the message.

Yesterday they tightened control over Jahar village and the Mahr gas pumping company, and nearly nine (positions) supported by heavy weaponry such as tanks, armoured vehicles, and heavy machine guns of various calibres, it added.

The report said Isis had captured two tanks, seven four-wheel drive cars and several heavy machine guns.

A US-led coalition has conducted air strikes against Islamic State since September. The US says it is not coordinating with forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to combat the Islamist group.

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Isis fighters capture second Syrian gas field in a week

WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.

On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area but ban others.

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They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out, said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAAs Kansas City center said police did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didnt want media in there.

FAA procedures for defining a no-fly area did not have an option that would accommodate that.

There is really ... no option for a TFR that says, you know, OK, everybody but the media is OK,' he said. The managers then worked out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.

Police said at the time, and again as recently as late Friday to the AP, that they requested the flight restriction in response to shots fired at a police helicopter.

But police officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed rumors.

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AP Exclusive: Ferguson no-fly zone aimed at media

Denis OBrien. Photograph; Dara Mac Dnaill

The Department of Communications will mark Halloween by taking charge of the new dual-notification system for media mergers, as government responsibility for the area transfers from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to its domain.

Minister for Communications Alex White will make the call on whether or not a media merger is in the public interest, while the new Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) will determine if a deal can go ahead on competition grounds.

The legislation governing media ownership and control was updated earlier this year in Part 4 of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2014, which commences tomorrow.

Whites department is still working on the guidelines that will underpin how the media mergers process will work in practice. These guidelines are expected to address the levels of media ownership that would be regarded as contrary to the public interest.

They may also detail the indicators that will be used to assess diversity - both of content and ownership - in the media sector and determine whether a merger should go ahead.

The guidelines will be published in draft form in early November, the Department says.

They are unlikely to prove too spooky for Independent News & Medias biggest shareholder, Denis OBrien, who also owns the Communicorp radio group. OBrien is officially deemed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland not to control INM.

But there are some who find OBriens growing media influence a concern. Communicorp station Newstalk is now the largest supplier of radio news in Ireland after last week signing a contract to provide news to six UTV radio stations. The agreement prompted Samus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, to call on White to cry halt to what he described as this latest threat to media diversity.

In Dublin alone stations either owned by Communicorp or already supplied news by Newstalks syndicated service have a combined market share of 39.1 per cent, while UTVs music stations FM104 and Q102 have a combined 18.5 per cent share of listeners.

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Media mergers regime change tomorrow

In a new study, researchers have discovered that posts on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter could help control the spread of HIV.

Although public health researchers have focused early applications of social media on reliably monitoring the spread of diseases such as the flu, Sean Young of the Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that we were still in the early stages of testing how powerful these technologies would be.

He added that with the right tools in place, social media could offer a rich source of psychological and health-related data generated in an environment in which people are often willing to share freely.

His recent work on Behavioral Insights on Big Data (BIBD) for HIV offers the tantalizing possibility that insights gleaned from social media could be used to help governments, public health departments, hospitals, and caretakers monitor people's health behaviors "to know where, when, and how we might be able to prevent HIV transmission."

Young details a social-media-based intervention in which African American and Latino men who have sex with men shared a tremendous amount of personal information through social media, including when or whether they had "come out," as well as experiences of homelessness and stigmatization. What's more, they found that people who discussed HIV prevention topics on social media were more than twice as likely to later request an HIV test.

In the context of HIV prevention, tweets have also been shown to identify people who are currently or were soon to engage in sexual- or drug-related risk behaviors. Those tweets could be mapped to particular locations and related to actual HIV trends.

Young said there was a need for updated infrastructure and sophisticated toolkits to handle all of those data, noting that there are about 500 million communications sent every day on Twitter alone.

Although privacy concerns about such uses of social media shouldn't be ignored, Young said there was evidence that people had already begun to accept such uses of social media, even by corporations looking to boost profits.

The study is published in the journal Cell Press.

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Facebook, Twitter may help restrain spread of HIV, says study

Exton, Pennsylvania (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

Media Supply, Inc., a leading supplier of duplication services, supplies and equipment, announced the release of its 2014 promotional products catalog, as well as its new procurement center in Hong Kong. The diverse catalog is built upon the elite sourcing skills of Media Supplys international team, which has the ability to supply customers with a wide variety of promotional products.

The new Media Supply catalog features custom printed promotional items, also know as ad specialties, including Bluetooth speakers, portable device chargers, smart phone compatible sports bracelets, headphones and even GoPro camera pole mounts. When customized with a companys name and logo, these items make ideal holiday gifts for clients and employees.

Were excited about our new procurement center in Hong Kong, beyond just the support it gives our international sourcing, said Frank Quinlisk, Media Supplys Vice President. It can also assist our clients with negotiating agreements, export expertise, international forwarding, packaging insight and quality control.

Almost every American business uses promotional products, making them a $20.5 billion industry, and for smart marketers, items like Bluetooth speakers, USB flash drives and device chargers deliver a more efficient cost per impression than just about every other major marketing effort. Additionally, the staying power of a logo-imprinted gift easily exceeds other advertising. A recent study by ASI that examined global advertising specialty impressions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London, Sydney, revealed that 38% of respondents owned between 1-5 promotional products, and an amazing 13% owned more that 21 products with some type of logo. Numbers like this clearly demonstrate that applying a custom logo to a leading edge technology product greatly increases the number of eyes exposed to an organizations brand.

Media Supplys new promotional catalog is available by visiting Media Supplys catalog request page, where interested parties can elect to receive a physical or electronic version of the catalog. Media Supplys promotional products are also available for view on ASIs website, under ASI number 70302.

About Media Supply: Media Supply, Inc. offers data products, duplication equipment, consumables, services and fulfillment, designed to meet the requirements of those wishing to distribute products and information in data, audio or video form. The company's key products and services are DVD, CD & Blu-ray Disc publishers, USB duplicators, duplication and fulfillment services and premium promotional product supplies. Media Supply is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit http://www.mediasupply.com or call 1.800.944.4237.

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Media Supply, Inc Announces New Procurement Center in Hong Kong and Release of 2014 Promotional Products Catalog