WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed and three others were injured when a woman faculty member opened fire at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus on Friday, a spokesman for the university said.

Spokesman Ray Garner told reporters in Huntsville, Alabama, that the shooter was caught outside a science building in the campus. But the spokesman declined to identify the shooter or the victims.

According to the spokesman, five of the victims, including all three of those killed and two of the injured, were faculty members of the university. The third injured was a staff member. No students were involved in the incident.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11, 2010 (IPS) - The relentless attacks on educational institutions in war zones - along with growing threats against academics, teachers and school-going children - have jeopardised one of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - education for all by 2015.

As a result, over 40 million children worldwide are missing out on primary school, particularly in conflict-affected fragile states, says a new report released here by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Many of the children are forced to miss school "due to direct attacks on their learning spaces, their teachers or even on themselves as learners."

"In situations of armed conflict and insecurity, deliberate attacks on, and threats against learners, academics, teachers and educational facilities are both a barrier to the right to education, and a serious protection issue," says Mark Richmond, director of UNESCO's division for the coordination of U.N. priorities in education.

The commitment made by the international community to achieve the goal of "education for all" (EFA) by 2015 has been threatened by these attacks, he adds.

It is quite interesting watcing this unfold. As far as I can see, with Buzz Google made a number of fundamental errors:

- The team that developed Buzz are apparently all young, male, supergeeks - alpha early adopters - who have clearly supped deep of the Kool Aid that is Google approach to Privacy (ie its dead, get used to it), a la Eric Schmidt

- The Google Business Model wants to open up people's data as much as possible (hence the Schmidtian view on Privacy), and thus the service was built to grab and expose all data it sees as the default condition

- Google say Buzz product was user tested, but I suspect it was by the same demographic who built it rather than the people who may use it.

- Older, Wiser heads were clearly either not involved in the product review process, or overruled due to the above points' considerations.

So the stage is set for a service that is built to be massively abusive of user privacy.