Bonjour Planet Earth: April 2016

Friday, April 29, 2016

Sri Lanka: A troubling spate of arrests across the northern and eastern provinces...

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PEARL is deeply concerned by Sri Lanka’s latest arrest and detention under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of Subramaniyam Sivakaran, a Tamil activist and journalist from the North-East. Sivakaran was arrested in Mannar by the Terrorism Investigation Department on Wednesday, April 27. The arrest came days after he publicly criticized the PTA and the continued detention of Tamils under the Act.

Abductions and arrests of many Tamils across the North-East, although commonplace for decades, have been greatly increasing in recent weeks. The Sri Lankan state continues to deploy its notorious “White Vans” to abduct Tamils, who in some cases later turn up in police or military custody. Although the current government recognized the flawed nature of the PTA and pledged to review and repeal it, the law remains in force and security forces continue to use it to detain Tamils. The existence and application of the PTA also facilitates abuses in custody, like torture and sexual violence. Full story...

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Moscow schoolgirl fools airport security and flies to St. Petersburg ticketless...

An 11-year-old schoolgirl has confounded Russian police and airport officials after managing to fly unnoticed from Moscow to St. Petersburg without documents and tickets.

On the evening of April 25 the girl, a Moscow resident, did not return home from school and her parents began to worry. She was later discovered at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport, having boarded a plane at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, somehow eluding all inspections.

According to the girl, who had never flown on an airplane before, her motive was that she had really wanted to see St. Petersburg. Having arrived at Vnukovo, she joined a family couple with children. Evidently, the security guards accidently let the girl pass with the other children.

Incredibly, she was not asked for documents at any of the inspection points in the airport. She boarded the plane, belonging to Aeroflot subsidiary Rossiya, by mixing with adults and took an empty seat. Full story...

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New study shows mass surveillance breeds meekness, fear and self-censorship...

A newly published study from Oxford’s Jon Penney provides empirical evidence for a key argument long made by privacy advocates: that the mere existence of a surveillance state breeds fear and conformity and stifles free expression. Reporting on the study, the Washington Post this morning described this phenomenon: “If we think that authorities are watching our online actions, we might stop visiting certain websites or not say certain things just to avoid seeming suspicious.”

The new study documents how, in the wake of the 2013 Snowden revelations (of which 87% of Americans were aware), there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al-Qaeda,’ “car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.'” People were afraid to read articles about those topics because of fear that doing so would bring them under a cloud of suspicion. The dangers of that dynamic were expressed well by Penney: “If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.”

As the Post explains, several other studies have also demonstrated how mass surveillance crushes free expression and free thought. A 2015 study examined Google search data and demonstrated that, post-Snowden, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the US government” and that these “results suggest that there is a chilling effect on search behavior from government surveillance on the Internet.” Full story...

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German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens...

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Identity 2016: 'Global citizenship' rising, poll suggests...

People are increasingly identifying themselves as global rather than national citizens, according to a BBC World Service poll.

The trend is particularly marked in emerging economies, where people see themselves as outward looking and internationally minded.

However, in Germany fewer people say they feel like global citizens now, compared with 2001.

Pollsters GlobeScan questioned more than 20,000 people in 18 countries.

More than half of those asked (56%) in emerging economies saw themselves first and foremost as global citizens rather than national citizens.

In Nigeria (73%), China (71%), Peru (70%) and India (67%) the data is particularly marked.

By contrast, the trend in the industrialised nations seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Full story...

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Factory Farms (Graphic)

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Robert De Niro enters the vaccine safety battle...

Can vaccines trigger autism? This is the topic of the film “Vaxxed”, which was originally scheduled to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, but was pulled from the lineup on March 26.

The decision has created so much blowback and publicity that whoever was pushing for its removal may have cause to regret it because it has given the film a much higher public profile than if it had simply been screened as scheduled.

The Tribeca Film Festival was started by Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal in 2001 in an effort to revitalize lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.

Strange as it may seem, according to Rosenthal, it was primarily other filmmakers that were threatening to pull their films out of the prestigious festival unless “Vaxxed” was removed. De Niro says he will look into who lodged the complaints, and why. Full story...

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Furious Germans abandoning their "lyin' corporate media" in droves...

You can see it coming, you know it instinctively, you warn about it and write about it. Then everything comes out much worse than anyone could have predicted. And they had secretly hoped that somehow a miracle would save them – that the soothsayer inside them might just turn out to be wrong. Then the German IVW, [which does the sales auditing for the amount of publications sold within a given period,] presents us with the bill for the first quarter of 2016. And it's much worse than anyone had feared: double-digit losses for the number of mainstream tabloids sold in Germany. The readers are running away in droves…

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And when you take out the red herring publication “B.Z.” from the BILD/B.Z. group (1,997,319), that amounts to 1.8 million BILD publications that are in paid circulation — that’s with throwing a few more rags into the count.

So after 15 years of dominating the newsstands, the BILD gravediggers have driven away a good 3 million of its readers.

That’s a bitter morning gift for the newly designated executive editor of BILD, Tanit Koch. There was a time when BILD had five million buyers. Per day. Full story...

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Malaysia’s bomohs: Witch doctors in modern society...

Last week, students at several schools in the town of Pengkalan Chepa in the eastern Malaysian state of Kelantan suddenly began screaming and gyrating, seeing a particular Malay ghost called Pontianak, also known as Kuntilanak in Indonesia — evil, half-dead, foul-smelling, dripping blood with a nail stuck in her neck, a shrieking female poltergeist.

The case of girls in school dorms or dorm-like habitats in multinational microchip assembly plants such as those in Penang is not new. In the 1970s and 1980s they were regular occurrences, with factories filled with screaming women, and western multinationals kept close contact with bomohs, or Malay shamans, to dispel the spirits.

Nor are they are unique to Malaysia although Malaysia seems a particular center for the phenomenon. They have been observed since the Middle Ages, where nuns in a French convent simultaneously began mewing like cats, according Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Good, writing in the Skeptical Inquirer in May of 2000. Episodes, the two wrote, typically occur in small, tightly knit groups such as schools, factories, convents and orphanages.

Growing up, I recall elite boarding schools such as those Mara Junior Science Colleges experiencing mass hysteria and group-dynamics demon possession as well In a Kuantan town in the mid-1970s. One ghost was said to look like an angry belly-rubbing monk from Thailand, a “bomoh-Siam-looking ghost” that sat on the rooftop of the girls’ dorms. One girl said she saw him and the dormitory exploded into humming and screaming and ghost-dancing and praying, and the bomoh was called in. He brought a live chicken as a tool for healing. Full story...

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Bomoh called in as girls in Malaysian school are hit by hysteria...

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"Bomohs" in Malaysia capture 12 djinns from possessed girl and seal them up...

Malaysian girls fall for bomoh’s virginity ‘restoration’ con!!!

Thailand expats rattled by new visa form...

Many members of Thailand’s vast expatriate community are up in arms over a three-page Immigration Bureau form introduced recently, asking for a wide range of personal information and raising fears that critics or people the military doesn’t like may be targeted.

The information the government is asking for includes bank details, all social media used by name and email address, car brand, model, color and plate numbers, “clubs, restaurants, shops, hospitals and other places” they may frequent, Thai and foreign persons whom they may be in contact with by name, surname, occupation and addresses before they can complete applications for 90-day visas.

Although the government has stressed that most of the information is voluntary, some expats are furious. As Thailand’s two-year-old military dictatorship has continued to wear on, antagonism has grown towards foreigners, particularly against the foreign press. In contrast to earlier times, the whole process of obtaining visas has become more onerous.

For those who in the past could skip over to the nearest border to renew their tourist visas for 60 or 90 days, the government has cracked down to the point that some longtime westerners in the country are considering moving to Cambodia, where seemingly things are a bit less strict. Full story...

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A visit to India's ... visa temple???

Smoking dead scorpions is Pakistan's latest dangerous addiction...

“I started scorpion smoking in the mid 60s,” recalls 74-year-old Sohbat Khan.

It was Ayub Khan’s era, and Sohbat was only 20 years old. He would frequent the famous Jalil Kabab house, which is how he met the vendor who sold scorpions worth Rs1 or Rs2 right next to the eatery. The men got their supply from Peshawar’s Matani area, which is rich in scorpions because of its insufferably hot weather.

Sohbat says he has quit smoking scorpions. His eyes are sunken from years of addiction, and his pale face and hollow cheeks betray a dependence on opium. “Nasha pa nasha khatmege,” he says, smiling— drugs are beaten by other drugs.

His addiction to opium doesn’t bother him as much; Sohbat says opium’s affects are far safer than scorpion smoking. He knows his body is too old to bear the high, but there are days he still feels the pull.

“Chars aw powder kho asi gup dai,” Sohbat says in way of explanation—“Hashish and heroin’s so-called relief is nothing in front of scorpion.” Full story...

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

'Leave us alone': teens plea to parents suffering from exams stress...

Britain's stressed out teenagers just want their parents to leave them alone during exam time, according to a new report.

For the latest research shows that exam stress will affect 8 in 10 teens' behaviour, health or appearance this summer.

But the study warns that parents can also be a key distraction or even frustration, with many teens pleading to be left alone to revise.

And the report highlights the best and worst things that parents can say or do during the fraught revision period.

With just weeks to go until the exam period, a new study by National Citizen Service (NCS), the country's flagship youth empowerment programme, reveals the expected impacts of exam stress on the health, hygiene and mood of British teenagers over the course of the revision period and how parents can not only spot the signs but avoid adding to the pressure and fuelling anxiety levels. Full story...

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Mother replaced daughter in vital French exams!!!

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Turkey objects to dead teen photo in Geneva exhibition...

Turkey has asked authorities in Geneva to remove an exhibition picture that blames President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the death of a Turkish teen injured during anti-government demonstrations, a Swiss official said on Monday.

Berkin Elvan spent 269 days in a coma after being hit in the head by a police tear gas canister during the anti-government protests that rocked Istanbul in May and June 2013.

He died in hospital in March 2014 aged 15.

His injury and subsequent death helped galvanise opposition to Erdogan's government and the heavy-handed tactics used by the police.

His picture is featured in a photography exhibition across the street from the United Nations complex in Geneva, which is supported by the city and press freedom group Reporters Without Borders. Full story...

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India orders ‘panic button’ for mobile phones in bid to protect women...

Mobile phones sold in India will be required to have a “panic button” after Jan. 1, part of the government’s efforts to address women’s safety in a country where incidents of reported rape continue to rise.

“It's a game changer,” Maneka Gandhi, the minister of women and child development, told reporters Tuesday.

The country’s department of telecommunications set up new rules released this week that require all low-tech feature phones to have a panic button configured to the number key 5 or 9 and all smartphones to have a feature that will engage when the on-off button is pressed three times.

Officials decided that having a physical “panic button” was faster than using an application for the mobile phone, Gandhi’s ministry said. In addition, all mobile phones will be required to have GPS by 2018.

The Indian Cellular Association, which represents the cellphone industry, has expressed support for the plan, but “it remains unclear whether manufacturers like Apple would play ball,” the daily Business Standard noted. Full story...

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Women form special cab service in Delhi -- catering exclusively to women...

Hillsborough inquests: Fans unlawfully killed, jury concludes...

Ninety-six football fans who died as a result of a crush in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed, the inquests have concluded.

The jury found match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield was "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence" due to a breach of his duty of care.

Police errors also added to a dangerous situation at the FA Cup semi-final.

The prime minister said the inquests had provided "official confirmation" fans were "utterly blameless".

After a 27-year campaign by victims' families, the behaviour of Liverpool fans was exonerated.

The jury found they did not contribute to the danger unfolding at the turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's ground on 15 April 1989. Full story...

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Zawadi

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Monday, April 25, 2016

Singapore is taking the ‘Smart City’ to a whole new level...

This wealthy financial center is known world-wide for its tidy streets and tight controls on personal behavior, including famous restrictions on the sale of chewing gum to keep the city clean.

Now Singapore may soon be known for something else: the most extensive effort to collect data on daily living ever attempted in a city.

As part of its Smart Nation program, launched by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in late 2014, Singapore is deploying an undetermined number of sensors and cameras across the island city-state that will allow the government to monitor everything from the cleanliness of public spaces to the density of crowds and the precise movement of every locally registered vehicle.

It is a sweeping effort that will likely touch the lives of every single resident in the country, in ways that aren’t completely clear since many potential applications may not be known until the system is fully implemented. Already, for instance, authorities are developing or using systems that can tell when people are smoking in prohibited zones or littering from high-rise housing. But the data collected in this next phase—and how it’s used—will go far beyond that. Full story...

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Dutch newspaper publishes cartoon depicting Turkey’s Erdogan as an ape crushing free speech...

After a Dutch journalist was arrested in Turkey this weekend for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the most-read newspaper in the Netherlands on Monday published a front-page editorial cartoon that shows Erdogan as an ape, apparently crushing Europe's free speech.

The cartoon, published by the populist daily De Telegraaf, has an ape with Erdogan's face squashing a woman who appears to be Ebru Umar, the Dutch writer with a Turkish background who was arrested in Turkey on Sunday. In the cartoon, the Turkish president is standing on a rock labeled "Apenrots" — a Dutch term meaning "monkey rocks" that is used to refer to the Dutch Foreign Ministry but can also refer to a place where one dominant individual holds power.

The cartoon is titled "the long arm of Erdogan."

Umar, a columnist for the newspaper Metro, had been detained by Turkish authorities who were investigating tweets she had sent about Erdogan. Umar was released Sunday, but she says she has been ordered to remain in the country as the investigation proceeds. Full story...

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Bangladesh LGBT editor hacked to death...

Bangladesh police say a top gay rights activist and editor at the country's only LGBT magazine is one of two people who have been hacked to death.

The US ambassador to Bangladesh condemned the killing of Xulhaz Mannan, who also worked at the US embassy.

Another person was also injured when the attackers entered a Dhaka flat.

Since February last year suspected militants have killed several secular or atheist writers and members of religious minority groups.

The two men were murdered two days after a university teacher was hacked to death by suspected Islamist militants.

So-called Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility - but the Bangladeshi government insists there is no IS presence in the country. Full story...

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TTIP: UK Government found trade deal had 'lots of risk and no benefit' in its only assessment...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will have "few or no benefits to the UK", according to the only official assessment of the deal commissioned by the UK Government.

The warning was disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request by anti-TTIP campaigners Global Justice Now.

The group filed a request to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills to ask what risk assessments had been made about the treaty.

The BIS said it had carried out only one such review in 2013, when the London School of Economics was commissioned to conduct a study.

The study found TTIP would have limited political and economic benefits and may result in "meaningful economic costs in the UK".

"All in all, it is doubtful UK investors will find additional protections from an EU-US investment protection treaty beyond those currently provided, and enforced, under US law," the study found. Full story...

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Saturday, April 23, 2016

City installs floor traffic lights for smartphone addicts...

Many visitors to European cities are acquainted with the danger.

You are busy trying to navigate your way through some labyrinthine old town using a map or a phone when suddenly you feel yourself lurching to the side.

Only an attentive local dragging you by the scruff of the neck has come between you and a grisly end, caught in the fangs of the serpentine tram or bendy bus creeping up behind you.

Well, it’s not only you.

In the age of the smartphone, wide-eyed tourists and dead-eyed local commuters alike are spending ever more time gawping into a screen as they wander around town, and ever less time paying attention to the world around them.

The phenomenon has even been given its own German name, “smombie” - a combination of smartphone and zombie - which was voted “youth word of the year” in 2015. Full story...

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Saudi Arabia may be in for a nasty shock when Obama steps down...

Foreign leaders visiting King Salman of Saudi Arabia have noticed that there is a large flower display positioned just in front of where the 80-year-old monarch sits. On closer investigation, the visitors realised that the purpose of the flowers is to conceal a computer which acts as a teleprompter, enabling the King to appear capable of carrying on a coherent conversation about important issues.

One visiting US delegation meeting with King Salman recently observed a different method of convincing visitors – or at least television viewers watching the encounter – that he can deal with the escalating crises facing Saudi Arabia. The king did not look at the group but at a giant television screen hanging from the ceiling of the room on which was appearing prompts. Simon Henderson, the Saudi expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who tells the story, writes that off to one side in the room was an aide who “furiously hammered talking points into a keyboard".

Of course, King Salman is not the only world leader past or present whose inability to cope has been artfully concealed by aides and courtiers. But eyewitness accounts of his incapacity does put in perspective the claim by the White House that President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia and two hour meeting with the king on 20 April was “cordial” and cleared the air after a troubled period in Saudi-US relations. Full story...

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The millionaires building bunkers in their mansions and buying land outside cities to flee to over fears of social uprising as police stock up on riot weapons...

Millionaires concerned about civil unrest are investing in bomb-proof bunkers and buying land outside cities so they can escape during riots, experts have claimed.

Elite residents across the U.S. are said to be concerned about rising crime rates following the clashes in Ferguson in 2014.

One company, Vivos, which deals in underground bunkers, claimed they are being snapped up by 'wealthy' individuals with a 'fear of the uprising from the 99 per cent'.

Economist Robert Johnson added to RT that unrest was one of the main driving forces behind the changes in behaviour, according to Infowars.

It comes as a new report on global riot control systems emerged showing that products are increasingly being bought and stockpiled by law enforcement departments.

Whips, batons, armoured vehicles and updated water cannon systems are all popular with forces preparing for any trouble. Full story...

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Welcome to the devolution: The high-tech world is making us weak and weird...

Our bodies weren’t meant for this world we’ve built. That’s why your back hurts. The things you think are normal are not. The world around you is an alien landscape, a science fiction movie set.

This is not the matrix. This is our everyday, modern life. But if you’ll take a step back with me, you might find that there is hardly anything ordinary about the world we’ve built. The very built-ness of our world is precisely what makes it so foreign to our bodies. In some ways the banal conveniences we seek out and enjoy are actually killing us by a thousand tiny cuts over decades and decades.

Of course, a thousand cuts over the course of a lifetime is a much better way to go than say, one big wound from a sabre tooth tiger taking a bite out of your head. Or finding yourself exposed with no shelter on a freezing tundra. We have eliminated some of the worst things that humans have experienced for most of our history on this planet. That’s quite the accomplishment. But we’ve traded these dangers for the perils of inactivity: heart disease, type II diabetes, some forms of cancer, back pain, joint pain, and possibly a smorgasbord of mental health issues.

Consider the kitchen counter. As you rinse your dishes, blend your smoothie, and grate your cheese, everything is within arms reach. At most you’ll take a few steps to the fridge, bending or squatting for a few seconds to put the bologna back in the crisper. (You fool! Bologna doesn’t go in the crisper!) Full story...

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Iranian women call on Western tourists to violate hijab law to fight against oppression...

As more and more Western tourists visit Iran, foreign women are being urged to break the country’s strict Islamic dress code to “make a stand” about the restrictive laws.

It is illegal for women to go out in public without wearing headscarf in the country, where thousands of undercover agents and “morality police” patrol the streets to check for violations.

Women found to have their hair or bodies inadequately covered can be publicly admonished, fined or even arrested.

But thousands of Iranians have been risking punishment by taking off their hijabs (headscarves) in public and snapping photos as part of a defiant online campaign to counter the “oppressive" law.

Now, the founder of My Stealthy Freedom is urging Western tourists to join them in a show of solidarity. Full story...

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Friday, April 22, 2016

A tribute to Prince from the cast of The Color Purple...

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Our Saudi ‘allies’ humiliate Obama...

Poor President Barack Obama flew to Saudi Arabia this past week but its ruler, King Salman, was too busy to greet him at Riyadh’s airport.

This snub was seen across the Arab world as a huge insult and violation of traditional desert hospitality. Obama should have refused to deplane and flown home.

Alas, he did not. Obama went to kow-tow to the new Saudi monarch and his hot-headed son, Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef. They are furious that Obama has refused to attack Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syria’s Assad regime.

They are also angry as hornets that the US may allow relatives of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi royal family, which is widely suspected of being involved in the attack.

Interestingly, survivors of the 34 American sailors killed aboard the USS Liberty when it was attacked by Israeli warplanes in 1967, have been denied any legal recourse. Full story...

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Super rich who hide money in tax havens to be unmasked...

Offshore companies could be banned from owning property in the UK if they fail to reveal their owners under new Government proposals to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion.

Plans to unmask the beneficiaries of offshore shell companies, which can be used by criminals to hide illegally-obtained money, will be unveiled by David Cameron at an international anti-corruption summit in London next month.

While owning property via an offshore company is not illegal, it allows the real owners to evade detection because only the company’s name must appear on public registers.

A Government consultation document published ahead of next month's summit warns that property in the UK “can provide a convenient vehicle for hiding the proceeds of crime.”

“The high values of property in London in particular presents an opportunity for criminals to launder considerable sums of money,” it adds. Full story...

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The Romanian foreign minister accuses the Saudi ambassador of sexual molestation and murder of a local female secretary...

Lazăr Comănescu, the Romanian minister of foreign affairs has summoned the Saudi ambassador to Bucharest following accusation that Abdulrahman I. Al Rassi has sexually abused and later murdered Ioana Veliscu, a 25-year-old Romanian medical student who worked in the Saudi embassy as a secretary.

"According to preliminary forensic reports, the victim had been sexually abused and later strangled with a belt. Ioana's body was found floating in a pond in the vicinity of Grozăvești Power Station, 24 miles south of Bucharest," Mr. Comănescu told AFP.

"Both president and prime minister sent letters of condolence to Ioana's family. Due to diplomatic immunity we couldn't arrest the ambassador. Today we gave all members of Saudi legation in Bucharest, namely the culprit, a 48 houres ultimatum to leave the country. We are waiting for the police investigation to end before officially launching a diplomatic complaint, though we expect Interpol to help us extradite the murderer to Romania to face trial as soon as possible," Romanian National News Agency quoted the minister as saying on Monday.

"The Romanian government requested that the Saudis revoke the accused's immunity but they chose not to, so we decided formally expel all Saudi diplomats as we deem the case sufficiently serious," said Mr. Comănescu.

Earlier this year, a Romanian maid working in the Saudi ambassador's residence in Bucharest was allegedly beaten up, raped and threatened by the Saudi diplomat not to divulge the crime. Source...

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Thursday, April 21, 2016

Malaysia school shut amid 'mass hysteria' over sightings of a black figure...

A school in Malaysia was forced to close after sightings of a mysterious "black figure" sparked a suspected outbreak of "mass hysteria".

The panic began last Monday when several students and teachers in the city of Kota Bharu said they had seen a "black figure" in the school.

Sightings continued to be reported for the next two days, with about 100 people affected by what they believed were supernatural experiences.

The school was shut on Thursday while Islamic traditional experts, scholars and even witch doctors were called in to carry out prayer sessions and "exorcisms".

Although the school reopened on Sunday, screaming and shouting continued to be heard at SMK Pengkalan Chepa 2 secondary school on Sunday, according to Free Malaysia Today.

"Our students were possessed and disturbed [by these spirits]. We are not sure why it happened. We don't know what it is that affected us," a senior school staff member told the BBC. Full story...

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Don't eat the carpet in India!!!

‘Dangerous love’: China issues comic warning ‘handsome foreign boyfriend’ may be spy...

China has released a comic titled “Dangerous Love” that warns female government workers about dating foreigners who could turn out to be spies.

The 16-panel comic, which you can see below, was issued by a Beijing district government on Friday to mark China’s National Security Education Day. It is aimed at enlightening its employees on the importance of confidentiality and the laws relevant to it in order to fight espionage carried out by foreign nations.

The comic, which was posted to numerous public bulletin boards, tells the story of a young Chinese civil servant named Xiao Li, or Little Li, who falls for a “visiting scholar researching issues about China” named David after meeting him at “a gathering” organized by “a foreign friend.”

Like any classic love story, Xiao Li and David “begin a romantic involvement,” and it transpires that Xiao Li works for the “foreign publicity department.”

Dapper David asks many questions about what Xiao Li does at work, but she’s oblivious to his conniving ways, because “having a handsome, romantic and talented foreign boyfriend is pretty good.” More + comic...

Watchdog says press freedom in decline in 'new era of propaganda'

World press freedom deteriorated in 2015, especially in the Americas, advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday as it released its annual rankings, warning of "a new era of propaganda".

The World Press Freedom Index ranks 180 countries on indicators such as media independence, self-censorship, the rule of law, transparency and abuses.

This year's report warned of a climate of fear that has seen world leaders "developing a form of paranoia about legitimate journalism."

Christophe Deloire, secretary general of the Paris-based group told AFP there had been a decline in all parts of the world, with Latin America of particular concern.

"All of the indicators show a deterioration. Numerous authorities are trying to regain control of their countries, fearing overly open public debate," he said. Full story...

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Declassified memo shows multiple Saudi connections to 9/11 plotters...

Recently declassified information that a flight certificate of an Al Qaeda operative linked to 9/11 turned up in an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington is raising fresh questions about the Kingdom's ties to the terror attack.

The certificate was for Ghassan al Sharbi, an extremist captured in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay. Al Sharbi, who went to flight school with the 9/11 hijackers but did not take part in the attacks, buried a cache of documents near where he was staying in Pakistan, “including an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. containing his flight certificate.”

The certificate and other revelations were laid out in a 47-page work plan prepared for the FBI in June 2003 but not declassified until last July. The documents sought to verify the credibility of an FBI informant "with whom 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar resided.” The hijackers, both Saudi citizens, crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

The documents list other prominent Saudis and potential links to the attacks, including: Full story...

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Obama appeases Saudi head-choppers...

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Best toast of the night...

John O'Reilly hoisted his beer and said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife!" That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night! He went home and told his wife, Mary, "I won the prize for the best toast of the night."

She said, "Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?" John said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife." "Oh, that is very nice indeed, John!" Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of John's drinking buddies on the street corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, "John won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Mary."

She said, "Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised meself. You know, he's only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep, and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come."

Janna Jihad, the youngest journalist in Palestine...

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'Insult Turkey's Erdogan' contest set up by Spectator magazine...

A UK-based magazine has offered a prize to the author of the most offensive poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is suing a German comedian over a satirical verse.

The Spectator is offering £1,000, donated by a reader.

It comes after Germany opened the door for a comedian to potentially be prosecuted over a TV broadcast.

Jan Boehmermann had recited a satirical poem on the TV channel ZDF which made sexual references to President Erdogan.

Mr Boehmermann is now under police protection and Angela Merkel's government has approved a criminal inquiry, under a little-used law concerning insults against foreign heads of state. Full story...

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France bills McDonald's $341 million for unpaid tax ...

French authorities have sent McDonald's France (MCD.N) a 300 million euro ($341 million) bill for unpaid taxes on profits believed to have been funnelled through Luxembourg and Switzerland, business magazine L'Expansion reported on Tuesday.

It said tax officials had accused the giant U.S. burger chain of using a Luxembourg-based entity, McD Europe Franchising, to shift profits to lower-tax jurisdictions by billing the French division excessively for use of the company brand and other services.

McDonald's France declined to comment on developments in the ongoing French tax investigation, first reported in 2014.

"McDonald's is one of the biggest payers of company tax in France and we're proud of it," the group said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Tuesday. McDonald's has paid 1.2 billion euros in tax and invested another 1 billion in the country since 2009, it said, creating 10,000 jobs.

In January 2014, McDonald's confirmed that its French offices had been searched by tax officials three months earlier, after L'Expansion reported that it was suspected of transferring 2.2 billion euros out of the country to evade tax. Full story...

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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

What if the empire held an election and nobody came?

What if a presidential candidate threw a political rally, and nobody came? What if a government held an election, and nobody voted? What if that same government started a war, and nobody participated, whether in body or in spirit?

These questions are related.

Election season is trudging on, as are the wars. Many fans of peace hold out hope that if the former turns out a certain way, the latter may at last be mitigated.

Some are terrified of Hillary Clinton. And who can blame them? As Secretary of State, “Dick Cheney in a pantsuit” was midwife to so many of the disasters that wrack the world with bloodshed and chaos to this day. Many anti-war folk of a left-leaning persuasion are flocking to Bernie Sanders.

Others are more concerned with finally toppling the neocons from their perches of power. And who can blame them? The roots of our geopolitical plight reach back to before Clinton’s executive tenure, when the Bush administration neocons were launching their plans to remake the Greater Middle East. Many anti-war folk of the right-leaning persuasion are looking to Donald Trump to be their neocon-slayer.

But is this really the best we can do? Full story...

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Only 6% of Americans trust the media ...

As accusations of bias fly during an election year, a new report shows that Americans have serious misgivings about the media, with only six percent saying they have “a great deal of confidence” in the press.

A survey of more than 2,000 adults released on Sunday showed that trust in the media has dipped to dramatically low levels. About 52 percent of respondents said they have “some confidence” in the press, while 41 percent said they have “hardly any confidence.”

“Over the last two decades, research shows the public has grown increasingly skeptical of the news industry,” the report from the American Press Institute reads. “The study reaffirms that consumers do value broad concepts of trust like fairness, balance, accuracy, and completeness. At least two-thirds of Americans cite each of these four general principles as very important to them.”

According to the study, most people couldn’t name a specific instance that damaged their confidence in the media, but about 40 percent could remember a case, generally involving a report that turned out to be inaccurate or was perceived as biased, which caused them to lose their trust. Full story...

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