Bonjour Planet Earth: April 2012

Monday, April 30, 2012

Peru investigates mysterious deaths of pelicans and dolphins...

Authorities in Peru are investigating the death of over 538 pelicans, along with other birds, on the northern coast of the country, the Peruvian ministry of production said Sunday.

The new environmental investigation comes on the heels of an incident earlier in April when 877 dolphins washed up dead on the same stretch of coast.

It was not immediately clear if the deaths were connected.

The birds appear to have died on the beach, and more tests are needed to determine the cause of death, the ministry of production said.

The Peruvian Sea Institute surveyed about 43 miles (70km) of beach coastline on Sunday and estimated that 592 birds were dead along the shore. Full story...

Related posts:

200 dead cows in Wisconsin...

Sheep being mutilated by aliens in UFO's, claim English farmers...

Millions of dead fish in the Philippines...

The rise of the global police state...

(...)

The TSA , it has been revealed, has total control over “jurisdiction over all forms of mass transit.”

Samuel Huntington spoke of the coming technological surveillance state where he states that the Western global Elite have responded to the excess of democracy with technological enhancements.

While austerity threatens to further enslave the masses with debt they do not owe and the Elite are investing in the corporatism that is bubbling to the surface, a police state is manifesting under their illegitimate rule.
The attitude of government is to spy on its citizens without accountability and restraint.

The US government has been hard at work shredding the US Constitution.

The UK’s parliament has been passing “anti-social” restraints to force their people into submission.

France, Spain and other EU countries are under direct rule of technocratic bankers who were not elected, but placed into power.

Corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook have given their information over to the DHS and NSA while claiming they are not. Full story...

Related posts:

Chinese comedian Joe Wong on being American...

Related posts:

The 2012 London summer olympics: more than meets the "eye?"

Beginning at the end of July, the 2012 Summer Olympics are going to be held in London. We are noticing increasing discussion on certain forums and sites suggesting that something – and we emphasize Andrew W. Griffin something – may happen at the London Summer Olympics.

We already know there are anti-terror drills being conducted in advance of the games, and a recent report said terrorists are “plotting (a) cyanide poison hand cream attack,” according to the London Telegraph.

Is this simple fearmongering to justify their tyrannical police state or is something in the works?

And just today we see a report out of Reuters noting that Pool Re, the state-backed British reinsurer that covers terror attack-related commercial property losses, has $7.3 billion of assets to cover the Olympic Games.” Just in case. Full story...

Related posts:

Who invented the Olympic Torch ceremony?

France's election choice is between a jackanapes and a dunderhead...

(...)

Across the Channel, the wretched French must be wishing that they had someone who would do. This Sunday, they face a dreadful choice, between a jackanapes and a dunderhead. Five years ago, it all seemed so promising. Jacques Chirac had spent 12 years as President, doing nothing except revel in pomposity, and corruption. M Sarkozy appeared to be different. He gave the impression of radical energy: of seeking to occupy the Elysee to do something, not just to be something.
It was a wholly misleading impression. Almost as soon as he took office, the new President went to Versailles. He was given the grand tour, but his guides could not help concluding that this was his first visit. He seemed dutifully uninterested, until he was shown some apartments normally reserved for the French Prime Minister. "I'll have those" he announced: "They're too good for him".

Shortly afterwards, he went to see the President of Italy. That office is a dignified part of the Italian constitution rather than an efficient one (if there is such a thing). All the same, dignity matters, and one might have thought that Carla Bruni's husband might have shown some respect to Italy's Head of State. Not so: in the course of a half-hour meeting, M Sarkozy's mobile rang four times. On each occasion, he answered it and had a conversation. At the end, the Italian President said that he had arranged a press conference. "Conference de presse," Nicholas Sarkozy replied: "ca ne vaut pas la peine". He then left. Full story...

Related posts:

'Voting is worthless' Global protests share contempt for democracy...

Bersih 3.0: Malaysian govt miscalculates again...

(...)

For starters, it appeared that the government had miscalculated by banning the rally in the first place. Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein earlier on had said the rally hadn’t “gained much traction,” and that it wasn’t a security threat. However, hardliners apparently won out, with the Kuala Lumpur city government banning the event only to have protesters show up from all over the country.

In the end it also appeared that police hadn’t learned the lessons from Bersih 2.0, the July 2011 rally in which 1,600 people were arrested and many more were beaten and brutalized, earning international condemnation for authorities.

Certainly, once again the international press appeared to be firmly on the side of the protesters, with news reports pretty much uniformly leading with police unleashing “tear gas and chemical-laced water Saturday at thousands of demonstrators who demanded fair rules for national elections expected soon.” Full story...

Related posts:

Why did the Queen wear yellow when Malaysian prime minister came calling?

US concern at Malaysia crackdown on "Bersih" protests...

Vatican 'accepted one billion lire' to bury mobster in basilica next to former popes...

The Vatican is facing a deepening controversy over the burial 22 years ago of a notorious crime boss, with reports emerging that the church accepted a one billion lire (£407,000) payment from the mobster's widow to allow his interment in a basilica.

A source at the Holy See told the Ansa news agency that "despite initial reluctance" the then vicar-general of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, "in the face of such a conspicuous sum, gave his blessing" to the controversial interment of Enrico De Pedis, the former boss of Rome's notorious Magliana gang. The money was reportedly used on missions and to restore the Basilica of St Apollinare, where the mobster was laid to rest next to popes and cardinals after his death in 1990.

The claims, which the Vatican has not commented on, may explain how such a reviled criminal was buried in such a hallowed site. Last week, to deflect growing criticism and to help resolve a 30-year-old murder mystery, it emerged that Vatican officials had decided to move the remains of De Pedis from his special crypt. Full story...

Related posts:

Boarding the train in India...

Related posts:

Aldi staff 'filmed women shoppers bending over'

Employees at Aldi Süd secretly filmed female customers – especially those wearing short skirts and revealing tops – and swapped the videos among themselves, according to allegations published in Der Spiegel.

It said the videos zoomed in on women with short skirts and revealing tops as they leaned over to pick up food in the frozen section or bent down in other sections of the store to pick up an item. The videos were then burned onto CDs and traded among the employees, the report said.

The magazine said the company would not comment on the specific claims but did say that mistakes may have been made in individual cases.

The report said employees in Frankfurt am Main, Dieburg and other stores in the Hesse region were mainly behind the secret videos. Full story...

Related posts:

Chinese woman kills man by squeezing his testicles...

A female scooter rider in Haikou City, Hainan Province, China killed a man in a fight by squeezing his testicles until he died. The incident happened during a dispute over parking space.

According to China24.net, the Chinese woman, 41, rode on a scooter to an elementary school in Meilan District, Haikou City, to pick up her child. A shop owner objected when she tried to park in front of his shop. The Telegraph reports the two soon fell into a quarrel as the woman insisted she would park her scooter.

Huffington Post reports a shouting match developed into a physical confrontation and the woman called her brother and husband to come to her aid. When the two men arrived, a violent fist fight erupted. The woman gave a helping hand to her husband and brother by grabbing at the 42-year-old man's testicles and squeezing till the man collapsed in agony. Full story...

Related posts:

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Swaziland's king and the private jet...

Swaziland's autocratic King Mswati has obtained a private jet worth millions, despite the majority of his countrymen continuing to live in abject poverty.

The twin-engined McDonnell Douglas DC-9 was reportedly given to the Sherborne-educated king by "development partners and friends" as a present for his 44th birthday.

But Swazi opposition groups say the king has owned the jet for some time but has been claiming instead to have chartered it. They claim the jet was worth as much as £30 million but more conservative estimates put the cost at up to £2.5 million.

They questioned how the king can justify such spending when seven in 10 of his 1,186,000 subjects live below the international poverty line of $1 (62p) a day, and a financial crisis in the landlocked country has seen Aids orphans go without medication and schoolteachers go unpaid. Full story...

Related posts:

Swaziland's super-rich king has no money for Aids orphans...

King of Swaziland's wife no. 12 caught in bed with justice minister!!!

Swaziland, where the poor starve and the king is, well, king...

King of Swaziland evicts residents to grab their land, but evicted fight back...

Michelle Obama's $500,000 shopping trip in Spain...

The First Lady's whirlwind tour of Spain in 2010 better have been a once in a lifetime trip, because her getaway cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars.

The highly controversial and lavish trip drew ire at the time, but the White House assured the public that the Obamas picked up the tab on their own.

But new information from Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates government corruption, detailed the extensive security costs to the United States Air Force and Secret Service.

The Obamas' highly publicized and polarizing vacations may cost the First Family even more, as voters appear to be disheartened by their extravagance. Full story...

Related posts:

Malaysian cops beating up protestor during rally...

Related posts:

How Apple avoids paying billions in taxes...

Apple, the world’s most profitable technology company, doesn’t design iPhones here. It doesn’t run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn’t manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby.

Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states.

Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains.

California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero.

Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year. As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world. Full story...

Related posts:

Vengeful dentist removes all of her ex-boyfriend's teeth!!!

A woman in Poland is facing jail time after she surgically removed all 32 of her ex-boyfriend's teeth.

Dentist Anna Mackowiak had been recently dumped by Marek Olszewski, who made an appointment with her to get a toothache investigated.

NDTV reports that Mackowiak allegedly gave Olszewski an anaesthetic, then surgically removed all of his teeth.

She then wrapped his head in bandages, so that he wouldn't immediately notice the difference. Full story...

Related posts:

Sarkozy rocked by new evidence that he received £42m gift from Gaddafi that helped bring him to power...

Nicolas Sarkozy's dwindling hopes of being re-elected to the French presidency were last night rocked by new evidence that Colonel Gaddafi donated £42 million to the campaign that brought him to power.

French law bans candidates from receiving cash payments above £6,300, but a news website claimed that the massive donation was laundered through bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland.

Mr Sarkozy is now under huge pressure to explain himself in the light of what his opponents called compelling evidence.

A document made public in Paris is said to show that the French leader and the former Libyan dictator made an illegal financial deal that propelled Mr Sarkozy to power in 2007. Full story...

Related posts:

Egypt: French prime minister enjoyed free holiday courtesy of Mubarak...

Terrorizing, smuggling and assault: all in a week's work at the TSA...

The TSA’s had a banner week. It began with former Head Cheese, Kip Hawley – the guy who foisted the liquids-in-baggies nonsense on us – bleating that the agency is “broken” and it’s no wonder Americans hate it. As if to prove him right, screeners beat up on little girls – twice. And it was only Monday. By Wednesday, cops had arrested four screeners at Los Angeles International who took a break from pawing passengers to smuggle illicit drugs through checkpoints. Meanwhile, a Congressman alleged assault after a “very aggressive … pat-down.”

Hmmm. Seems there are several clues here that perhaps we might want to, oh, I don’t know, abolish this vile agency.

(...)

Or, in the TSA’s words, Isabella “had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family who had not completed the screening process.” Uh-oh. That shot across the Homeland’s bow galvanized the Warriors on Terror. Thank Heaven for their practice in neutralizing cupcakes and strip-searching octogenarians: these crack troops knew exactly how to protect us from affectionate grandkids. Isabella’s mother reports that they began “yelling” at the little girl, “demand[ing] she too must sit down and await a full body pat-down.” Indeed, they scared her so badly that she “did what any frightened young child might, she ran the opposite direction. … I will never forget the look of pure terror on her face.”

Ergo, the TSA declared Isabella a “high-security-threat.” But fear not: two Warriors chased this “not cooperating” “suspect” (their actual phrasing, per Ms. Brademeyer) while ordering her mother “to have no contact with my child.” Eventually, they captured Isabella, frisked her to ensure that Granny hadn’t slipped her a WMD during their brief hug, and allowed the family to board their flight. “It was an awful sight,” Ms. Bradenmeyer says in understatement as vast as the federal debt. “…My daughter is very shaken up about this, and has been waking up with nightmares.” Full story...

Related posts:

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Hot chicks skateboarding...

Related posts:

North Korea elite enjoy good life despite sanctions...

Nuclear-armed North Korea has been under heavy sanctions for years but there is little sign of any effect on the elite in Pyongyang, who enjoy unfettered access to upmarket cars and consumer goods.

The economy of the isolated North - where famine killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s - is widely believed to be battered and stuttering, but the luxury shops of the showcase capital tell a different story.

According to expatriates living in the city, there are ever more cars on the roads and traffic in the centre is increasingly busy.

Many vehicles are old, but the number of newer Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Toyota and Land Rover models is on the rise. Full story...

Related posts:

Giant rabbits and virgin blood: the krazy world of Kim Jong-il...

Getting married in South Korea? Bring cash, lots of cash!!!

The Beatles may have sung "all you need is love," but in South Korea a couple wanting to get married also needs cash, a lot of it - nearly $200,000 (122,925 pounds), or more than four times the average annual income.

The sky-high costs stem from a combination of cultural traditions that mandate expensive pre-wedding gifts between families, such as mink coats and diamond rings, along with a decades-old custom that the groom must fork over money to provide a home.

The average cost for a wedding in 2011 rose about 270 percent from 1999, while the inflation during the same period rose 45.5 percent. Total costs far outstripped the average annual household income at around 48.3 million Korean won ($42,400), according to government data.

Thus, young couples seeking to unite in wedded bliss are forced to borrow from parents or take out loans. With candid discussions of money a cultural taboo in Korea, many are reluctant to speak about the high cost of exchanging vows. Full story...

Related posts:

Tourists to be banned from Amsterdam's cannabis cafés...

Foreign tourists will be banned from entering cannabis cafes in Amsterdam after a ruling by a Dutch judge.

The judge upheld a new law to stop foreign visitors from entering Holland's famous coffee shops - meaning they could be banned by the end of the year.

Under the new law, Dutch residents will still be allowed into the cafes, as long as they have valid identification, or possibly hold a new "weed pass".

The restrictions come amid concerns that tourists are visiting the country solely for drugs and that foreign dealers are selling illegally back at home.

The ban is due to start in three southern provinces next month, and go nationwide by the end of the year. Full story...

Related posts:

Singapore girl's charms fade as airline battle heats up...

Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) is missing the party in its own home. Tourist spending in the city jumped by half since 2008, aided by two new casinos and a 23 percent rise in passenger traffic through Changi Airport.

That growth hasn’t been reflected in the carrier’s passenger numbers, which are down by 2.2 million in the period. The 12 percent drop is the largest of the 12 biggest publicly traded full-service airlines in the Asia Pacific, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Persian Gulf rivals are vying for premium passengers and low-cost operators are poaching budget travelers.

Singapore Air’s slide contrasts with Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (293), whose passenger numbers have risen 11 percent since 2008 because its Hong Kong base and a tie-up with Air China Ltd. help it sell tickets in the world’s most populous nation. Singapore Air, overtaken by Air China in 2009 as the biggest airline by market value, will probably report a sixth straight decline in quarterly profit when it announces fiscal full-year earnings May 9, according to analyst estimates. Full story...

Related posts:

Foreign pilots and passengers dump Air India over safety concerns and poor service...

Air India "adjusts" extra passengers in cockpit and toilets!!!

World air traffic in a 24-hour period...

Assad's soldiers bury a man alive. (Graphic)

Don't miss:

Friday, April 27, 2012

We are all suspects now. What are we going to do about it?

You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Center may monitor whether you are typing not merely "al-Qaeda", but "exercise", "drill", "wave", "initiative" and "organisation": all proscribed words. The British government's announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years. What has changed is that a state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy.

What are you going to do about it?

(...)

The prognosis is clear now: the malignancy that Norman Mailer called "pre fascist" has metastasized. The US attorney-general, Eric Holder, defends the "right" of his government to assassinate American citizens. Israel, the protege, is allowed to aim its nukes at nukeless Iran. In this looking glass world, the lying is panoramic. The massacre of 17 Afghan civilians on 11 March, including at least nine children and four women, is attributed to a "rogue" American soldier. The "authenticity" of this is vouched by President Obama himself, who had "seen a video" and regards it as "conclusive proof". An independent Afghan parliamentary investigation produces eyewitnesses who give detailed evidence of as many as 20 soldiers, aided by a helicopter, ravaging their villages, killing and raping: a standard, if marginally more murderous US special forces "night raid". Full story...

Related posts:

Egyptian women fight "sex with dead wives" law...

A DRAFT Egyptian law that would allow a husband to have sex with the corpse of his wife up to six hours after her death is being contested by a national woman's group, reports al Arabiya News.

The proposal, dubbed the 'Farewell Intercourse' law, is currently going through the majority Islamist parliament. Fighting it is the National Council for Women (NCW), which says the law "marginalises" and "undermines" the status of women in Egypt.

The group is also contesting another draft law that would permit a 14-year-old girl to marry. Currently the age limit is 18.

Egyptian journalist and TV anchor, Jaber al-Qarmouty, lent his support to the NCW protest. "It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?" he asked. Full story...

Related posts:

German artist banned from strangling puppies...

A German artist who planned to strangle two puppies to death on stage in a Berlin theatre has been told that highlighting the plight of sled dogs in Alaska is not a good enough reason to kill the dogs.

The performance, entitled "Death as Metamorphosis," was to take place next week in a small theatre in the Spandau district of Berlin. Accompanied by funeral music and a gong, the artist was going to strangle two puppies with cable ties after a brief meditation.

According to a report in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper, the provocative piece was meant to highlight the plight of sled dogs in Alaska and hunting dogs in Spain, which are said to be killed in the same way once they can no longer work.

The artist's planned performance was influenced by "traditional Thai art forms," the Express newspaper reported. Full story...

Related posts:

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

"The internet is for porn"

‘The internet is for porn,’ is the title of a song on hit musical Avenue Q.

And it turns out the lyricists had touched on a home truth, because researchers have discovered that a staggering 30 per cent of all internet traffic is pornography.

The biggest porn site on the web - Xvideos - receives 4.4billion page views and 350million unique visits per month, according to a report on the ExtremeTech website.

The only sites that surpass this in size are the likes of Google and Facebook.

(...)

The ExtremeTech investigation surmised that YouPorn accounts for two per cent of internet traffic, with 30 per cent of all web traffic being pornography related.

Earlier this year thousands of YouPorn users had their personal passwords and emails leaked online by hackers. Full story...

Related posts:

Keep out the Grass: 'Israel behaving like Iran'

Related posts:

Robert Mugabe fighting for life in Singapore hospital?

The coalition government is rocked by the news that another cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow has been suspended again amid reports that President Mugabe is battling for his life in Singapore, sources in government revealed last night.

A senior Zanu-PF official whose identity cannot be revealed said the President is undergoing intensive treatment in Singapore and he also comfirmed that some members of his family have since joined him after boarding a chartered private jet on Saturday evening.

Mugabe reportedly went to Singapore to oversee university postgraduate studies arrangements for his daughter Bona, but this has not helped quell speculation that the president had health issues to contend with. Full story...

Related posts:

Sunday, April 08, 2012

German writer Guenter Grass declared "persona non grata" in Israel...

Israel has declared the German author Guenter Grass "persona non grata" and barred him from entering the country.

Grass, a Nobel laureate, recently criticised Israel in a poem.

In it, Grass condemned German arms sales to Israel, and said the Jewish state must not be allowed to launch military strikes against Iran.

Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says Grass is not welcome because he has tried "to inflame hatred against the State and people of Israel."

Yishai, the leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Israel's coalition government, suggested that Grass should go to Iran, "where he would find a sympathetic audience should he want to continue disseminating his warped and mendacious work." Full story...

Related posts:

Günter Grass condemns Israel in new poem...

Privacy matters even if you have " nothing to hide"

When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "I've got nothing to hide," they declare. "Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private."

The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. The data-security expert Bruce Schneier calls it the "most common retort against privacy advocates." The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an "all-too-common refrain." In its most compelling form, it is an argument that the privacy interest is generally minimal, thus making the contest with security concerns a foreordained victory for security.

The nothing-to-hide argument is everywhere. In Britain, for example, the government has installed millions of public-surveillance cameras in cities and towns, which are watched by officials via closed-circuit television. In a campaign slogan for the program, the government declares: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." Variations of nothing-to-hide arguments frequently appear in blogs, letters to the editor, television news interviews, and other forums. One blogger in the United States, in reference to profiling people for national-security purposes, declares: "I don't mind people wanting to find out things about me, I've got nothing to hide! Which is why I support [the government's] efforts to find terrorists by monitoring our phone calls!" Full story...

Related posts:

Swiss village strikes gold, but villagers not impressed, prefer peace and tranquility...

It was not a question many villagers will ever have to face - and theirs was an answer that even fewer would probably give.

But when residents of a remote Alpine valley were offered a share of a fortune that would have brought them tens of millions of pounds, they said "No".

Swiss banks may be bulging with gold ingots, but the inhabitants of a cluster of villages in the Medel Valley have shown themselves less than keen to dig the stuff out of their own mountains.

After months of anguished debate, the villagers voted in a referendum last week to stop a Canadian mining company prospecting for the estimated $1.2 billion worth of gold ore believed to be lie in seams beneath the surrounding snow-capped mountains. Full story...

Related posts:

Anger in Swiss village over BASE jumpers killing themselves...

Authorities in Swiss village get death threats after threatening to kill dogs...

The secrets of Zug, the 'hick Swiss town' where the world's shadiest deals are done...

An African takes on Swiss alpine farming...

Russian daredevil climbs Moscow skyscraper...

Related posts:

Crazy Russians in homemade bungee jump!!!

Two guys in Paris tempting the devil...

Facebook, apps and You. The battle to own your data...

Not so long ago, there was a familiar product called software. It was sold in stores, in shrink-wrapped boxes. When you bought it, all that you gave away was your credit card number or a stack of bills.

Now there are "apps"—stylish, discrete chunks of software that live online or in your smartphone. To "buy" an app, all you have to do is click a button. Sometimes they cost a few dollars, but many apps are free, at least in monetary terms. You often pay in another way. Apps are gateways, and when you buy an app, there is a strong chance that you are supplying its developers with one of the most coveted commodities in today's economy: personal data.

Some of the most widely used apps on Facebook—the games, quizzes and sharing services that define the social-networking site and give it such appeal—are gathering volumes of personal information.

A Wall Street Journal examination of 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some seek the email addresses, current location and sexual preference, among other details, not only of app users but also of their Facebook friends. One Yahoo service powered by Facebook requests access to a person's religious and political leanings as a condition for using it. The popular Skype service for making online phone calls seeks the Facebook photos and birthdays of its users and their friends. Full story...

Related posts:

Saturday, April 07, 2012

US Marine faces dismissal for criticising President Obama...

A US Marine is facing dismissal from the military for criticising President Obama on his Facebook page.

Sergeant Gary Stein imposed Mr Obama's face on mocked-up film posters, including one for the movie "Jackass".

Prosecutors say Sgt Stein repeatedly ignored warnings from superior officers, and that the postings are in breach of military regulations.

He argues that he has a constitutional right to freedom of speech. Full story...

Related posts:

You’ve suffered 'care’, so you lose your child! Social workers and the State on the rampage again...

Critics of the Government’s plans to extend the secrecy of Britain’s court system are still insisting that, where courts operate behind closed doors, this is likely to allow justice to be horribly abused. They are, of course, quite right. But they do not point out that a perfect illustration of their case is what goes on daily in many of our family courts.

Last week, I learned of the case of a sensible but desperately unhappy 17-year-old, who has just lost her child forever. She herself has spent most of her life in local authority care, although she maintains that she was quite rightly taken away when young from her mother, who was a drug addict and an alcoholic.

The girl nevertheless seems to have triumphed over such adversity and, having found a boyfriend, she last year had a baby. The couple would have been only too happy to bring up the child together. The boyfriend is said to be “a brilliant dad”. Full story...

Related posts:

France's Marine Le Pen blasts Goldman Sachs, the Euro...

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said on Saturday U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs "topples governments everywhere" and the euro is "devastating" for her country as she sought to boost her flagging campaign to become president.

Le Pen has slipped in opinion polls ahead of a first-round vote later this month, with one survey showing her in fourth place behind conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, Socialist front-runner Francois Hollande and hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.

(...)

In a speech that played to populist fears about immigration, unemployment and the power of financial markets, Le Pen painted Goldman Sachs as an all-powerful institution that controlled entire nations as well as the European Central Bank.

"Goldman Sachs topples governments everywhere," she told supporters in Lyon, southeast France.

"Goldman Sachs places its men at the top of euro zone countries. Goldman Sachs puts its man at the head of the European Central Bank," she went on. "In Greece, Italy, the ECB, oligarchs have taken power." Full story...

Related posts:

Incarcerated Childhood: US kids prosecuted as adults...

Related posts:

The Delhi child servant scandal that has outraged India...

(...)

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the story is why it has caused such fury in a country where, after all, the sight of a youthful servant rarely raises a flicker of curiosity. Delhi's thriving middle class would crumble without its army of domestic servants, whose presence enables couples to go out to work and continue to boost an economy projected to be the largest in the world by 2050.

The most liberal members of that society think nothing of employing a maid, a driver, a sweeper, a cook, a gardener and a couple of house boys who sleep on the roof, or in tiny shared rooms.

(...)

The outcry over the Delhi maid was encouraging, said Ribhu, in that it opened people's eyes to the reality of what is going on. But he is not getting too excited about the arrests. They were, he said, an anomaly in a country where many people simply do not understand that using children as servants is wrong."Recently, I was in a mall where I saw a couple with a 10- or 11-year-old girl taking care of their baby while they were eating. When I confronted them, the lady replied that: 'She is in such a good condition here – she would starve to death in her village. Who will go feed her there? And she has even been taught English'," he said. "When I asked her if she realised that she was committing a crime, she replied that the girl was being kept just like her own daughter and she is 'even brought to the mall … can anyone in her village even dream of such a luxury, of going to the mall?' "I explained as nicely as possible to her husband that if I were to call the police to their house, they would be arrested, and if the girl was 'like their daughter', why was she not eating with them at the same table? And he had no answer." Full story...

Related posts:

Sex and the Lion City! Scandals galore in prim and proper Singapore...

In recent months, a surprising number of public scandals like teenage prostitution, adultery and molest have been making the headlines in Singapore. They involved people in high places, including top civil servants, an opposition MP, a senior bank executive, a school principal and others.

A series of sex scandals have hit this once prim and proper city like some sort of virus and it is worrying Singapore’s conservative fathers.

The puritanical façade was erected for the outside world and his own people by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew since independence.

Now a year after his retirement, Lee, who still keeps a quiet watch on trends as Member of Parliament, is seeing his hard work gradually dissipating.

In recent months, a surprising number of public scandals like teenage prostitution, adultery and molest have been making the headlines. Full story...

Related posts:

Macbeth too much for Thailand! Play about a king's murder is banned...

Thai film censors have banned a politically charged adaption of the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, apparently out of concerns that it could be construed as disruptive to Thailand's still fragile societal strains.

According to an article in a Bangkok-based film publication, Wise Kwai’s Film Journal, censors have banned Shakespeare Must Die, co-directed by artists Samanrat Kanjanavanit, also known as Ing K., and Manit Sriwanichpoom despite the fact that it had received financial support from the Thai Khem Kaeng (Strong Thailand) "creative economy" initiative of the Cultural Ministry's Office of Contemporary Art and Culture.

A trailer for the three-hour Shakespeare Must Die shows that the film “plays on images from Thailand's turbulent and violent political past, including 2010 anti-government red-shirt protests and the 1976 Thammasat massacre, in which a hanging corpse was beaten with a chair,” the film journal reported. The Thammasat massacre was a particularly bloody affair in which students from various universities protesting the return to Thailand of the onetime dictator Thanom Kittikachorn were shot, beaten and their bodies mutilated. At least 46 were killed although many more are believed to have died. Full story...

Related posts: