Friday, September 29, 2017

Panama Papers: India’s biggest movie stars being probed...

Indian film stars, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgan have come under the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies in the country for alleged irregularities linked to the mention of their names in the Panama Papers case.

Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai submitted documents in connection with the probe of the case on Wednesday with the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the economic offense investigation wing of the government of India which primarily deals with money laundering.

Sources in the Indian Finance Ministry have revealed that the income tax department of the country has initiated a total of 33 investigations in connection with the names revealed in the Panama Papers and several others are in the offing. It is noteworthy that, the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif had to resign from his post owing to the revelations in the Panama Papers.

The Panama Paper leaks contained data from 210,000 offshore companies incorporated by a law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama.

These leaks alleged that Amitabh Bachchan was chairman of at least four offshore shipping companies created in 1993 in tax havens. Of the four companies, one was reported to be in the British Virgin Islands and three were in the Bahamas. The companies in question were Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, Lady Shipping Ltd, Treasure Shipping Ltd, and Tramp Shipping Ltd. Amitabh Bachchan has denied the allegations.

The Panama Papers were leaked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2016 and named several world leaders and celebrities who had allegedly siphoned off money abroad in offshore companies. Source...

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Nestlé pays $200 a year to bottle water near Flint – where water is undrinkable...

Gina Luster bathed her child in lukewarm bottled water, emptied bottle by bottle into the tub, for months. It became a game for her seven-year-old daughter. Pop the top off a bottle, and pour it into the tub. It takes about 30 minutes for a child to fill a tub this way. Pop the top, pour it in; pop the top, pour it in. Maybe less if you can get gallon jugs.

Luster lives in Flint, Michigan, and here, residents believe tap water is good for one thing: to flush the toilet.

“I don’t even water my plants with it,” she said.

Flint became synonymous with lead-poisoned water after government officials, looking to save money, switched the city’s water supply from Detroit city water to water from the corrosive Flint river.

Once the city had switched, the number of children with elevated lead exposure doubled; residents reported unexplained rashes and losing hair. An unpublished study recently found fetal deaths in Flint increased by 58% during the crisis. Full story...

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The Ryanair fiasco: how NOT to handle a crisis...

You hear a lot in my line of work about how to handle a crisis. In a year like this, you hear about it even more. Uber. Pepsi. United Airlines. The list goes on. But it was a different airline that found its way into the news this month: Ryanair, who had to cancel up to 50 flights a day after ‘messing up’ the holiday rosters for their pilots. It was an embarrassing slip-up but not something that Ryanair couldn’t bounce back from quickly. And in spite of that, here we are, weeks later, and the crisis has only become worse.

On the Monday after the news emerged, Ryanair’s shares fell 2.4%. Commentators agreed that the direct short-term impact on Ryanair profits would be inconsequential, but that diagnosis changed soon after. What quickly became obvious to anyone in my business is that the Ryanair situation is a case study in how not to handle a crisis, and what poor crisis management can lead to. The first issue was the explanation. In lieu of giving a clear and precise statement accepting responsibility and pledging action, the airline offered a vague, feeble explanation that seemed to blame everything except the airline, from striking French air traffic controllers to thunderstorms. The closest thing to an acceptance of fault and a genuine apology came from Ryanair’s marketing officer. ‘We have messed up in the planning of pilot holidays,’ he said. Good effort.

It’s intelligent for businesses or individuals to proactively look, in most cases, to control the narrative before the story spirals out of control and is flooded with phrases taken out of context, misleading stories or full-blown inaccuracies. It isn’t intelligent to fail to supply relevant information that a perfunctory check by a journalist will uncover. For example, it was quickly discovered that Norwegian- a Ryanair rival - had hired 140 Ryanair pilots this year. Even if this wasn’t the reason that Ryanair couldn’t cope with the pressures that led to the crisis, everyone now assumes it was. Full story...

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Boodle fight: The Filipino feast feeding hundreds...

Filipino police seek drug informants via ‘drop boxes’

Want to get rid of your mother-in-law, or a creditor, or just an unpleasant neighbor you don’t like in the Philippines? The Philippine National Police have established public “drop boxes” for informants to anonymously submit the names of alleged drug dealers and users in President Rodrigo Duterte’s murderous drug war, which is thought to have killed more than 10,000 people so far, most of them poor and powerless.

According to the Washington, DC-based NGO Human Rights Watch, the neighborhood informant system was first reported in July in Quezon City, a part of Metro Manila, and has since spread to at least two cities and several towns in two provinces. The police chief of Quezon City said when he launched the system that he would put one drop box in each of the city’s 142 barangays or neighborhoods.

It was a variant of this kind of informant system that police used in Thailand in 2003, when then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra implemented his own drug war. During the next three months, some 2,800 purported drug dealers or users were killed and thousands of others were forced into coercive “treatment” for drug addiction. An official investigation later discovered that more than half of those who had been gunned down had no connection whatsoever to drug dealers. They were people that police or informants wanted dead because of grudges or unfounded suspicions. Full story...

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The 4-letter code you never want to see on your boarding pass...

There are plenty of reasons flying is stressful, but one of the biggest headaches of modern air travel is the security procedures. Who knows what fresh nightmares the TSA will have cooked up for you by the time you hit the
terminal?

Well, there’s at least one hint you can use to determine whether or not you’ll be spending a little more time in the security area on your way to your gate, and it has nothing to do with that bottle of water you’re carrying.

As both  Refinery29 and Business Insider have reported, there's a four-letter code at
the bottom of your boarding pass that can tell you whether you'll be pulled aside for extra screening.

If you see the letters “SSSS” at the bottom of your ticket, you’re in for a little extra attention at the security checkpoint. To compound the headache, you won’t be able to print your boarding pass at home, and will have to get it when you arrive at the airport. Full story...

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Swaziland: King Mswati III takes 14th wife after Umhlanga Reed Dance Festival...

King Mswati III of Swaziland has taken another wife. During the recent Umhlanga Annual Reed Dance, King Mswati III chose 19 year-old Siphele Mashwama as his 14th wife.

King Mswati III took his 14th wife after this year's Reed Dance Festival. Siphele Mashwama, a 19 year-old girl and the daughter of Swaziland Cabinet minister Jabulile Mashwama, is Mswati's 14th wife.

Mswati (49) usually picks his wives during the Umhlanga annual reed dance. Most of the girls he picks are in their late teens. Despite banning divorce in his kingdom, King Mswati has separated from three of his wives.

Siphelele received red feathers known as emagwalagwala, a bird associated with the royal family during the reed dance. She graduated from Waterford Kamhlaba World University College. King Mswati III recently attended the United Nations General Assembly with his new wife. Full story...

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Moscow deploys facial recognition to spy on citizens in streets...

Moscow is adding facial-recognition technology to its network of 170,000 surveillance cameras across the city in a move to identify criminals and boost security.

Since 2012, CCTV recordings have been held for five days after they’re captured, with about 20 million hours of video stored at any one time.

"We soon found it impossible to process such volumes of data by police officers alone," said Artem Ermolaev, head of the department of information technology in Moscow. "We needed an artificial intelligence to help find what we are looking for."

Moscow says the city’s centralized surveillance network is the world’s largest of its kind. The U.K. is one of the most notorious for its use of CCTV cameras but precise figures are difficult to obtain. However, a 2013 report by the British Security Industry Association estimated there were as many as 70,000 cameras operated by the government across the nation. Full story...

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Monsanto banned from European parliament...

Monsanto lobbyists have been banned from entering the European parliament after the multinational refused to attend a parliamentary hearing into allegations of regulatory interference.

It is the first time MEPs have used new rules to withdraw parliamentary access for firms that ignore a summons to attend parliamentary inquiries or hearings.

Monsanto officials will now be unable to meet MEPs, attend committee meetings or use digital resources on parliament premises in Brussels or Strasbourg.

While a formal process still needs to be worked through, a spokesman for the parliament’s president Antonio Tajani said that the leaders of all major parliamentary blocks had backed the ban in a vote this morning.

“One has to assume it is effective immediately,” he said. Full story...

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Wednesday, September 27, 2017

The “ethnic cleansing” of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, explained...

Worship of naked girls in south Indian temples abuse, slavery...

The practice of keeping young girls in village temples to be worshipped as goddesses as part of rituals in south India amounts to abuse and slavery, the national rights commission said.

The rituals in which girls are dressed as brides and then “their dresses are removed, virtually leaving them naked” is a form of the banned devadasi system, the National Human Rights Commission said in a report published on Monday.

Practice in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and parts of western India, the devadasi system, which “dedicates” girls to a life of sex work in the name of religion, continues despite being outlawed in 1988.

“They are denied to live with their families and have education. They are forced to live in Mathamma temples, deemed to be ... public property and face sexual exploitation,” the commission said in a statement.

The report was referring to a 15-day festival in parts of Tamil Nadu, which concluded on Tuesday, where local goddesses are worshipped and seven young girls are chosen by the community to stay in the temple. Full story...

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Fortean phenomenon: Huge block of ice crashes from sky into woman's garden

A large block of ice has fallen from the sky and crashed into a residential garden in East Renfrewshire.

The ice struck the garden of Lyndsey Helliwell, who lives in Busby, at around 10.55am, making a loud bang and forming a crater.

She told STV News: "My friend Eleanor works for my husband from our home.

"She heard a massive almighty boom and she felt the walls of our stone house shake."

The crater caused by the ice falling measures 1.4m by 1.2m. Pieces of ice from the main block are also scattered across the garden.

"It could have killed someone or wrecked your car," Lyndsey said. More + photos...

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More people were arrested last year over pot than for murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery — combined...

In 2016 more people were arrested for marijuana possession than for all crimes the FBI classifies as violent, according to 2016 crime data released by the agency on Monday.

Marijuana possession arrests edged up slightly in 2016, a year in which voters in four states approved recreational marijuana initiatives and voters in three others approved medical marijuana measures.

These figures should be regarded as estimates, because not all law enforcement agencies provide detailed arrest information to the FBI. But they do show that the annual number of marijuana arrests is down from their peak in the mid-2000s and stands at levels last seen in the mid 1990s. Marijuana use, particularly among adults, rose during this time.

Marijuana possession remains one of the single largest arrest categories in the United States, accounting for over 5 percent of all arrests last year. More than one in 20 arrests involved a marijuana possession charge, amounting to more than one marijuana possession arrest every minute.

This article is roughly 500 words long. Assuming an average adult reading speed of around 250 words per minute, that means that in the time it takes you to finish this story, an average of two Americans will be arrested for marijuana possession. Full story...

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The lawyer holding India’s government to account...

Bottled water: Are you paying for a colossal fraud?

The recent lawsuit against Nestle Waters of North America alleges their bottled Poland Spring water is not spring water at all, but sourced from ordinary groundwater, much like the same stuff that comes directly out of your tap at home.1 The lengths to which Nestle has gone to protect their bottled water brand speaks to the love affair that Americans have developed for bottled water.

Water sold in a bottle may be labeled distilled, spring, mineral, artesian or sparkling to name a few. More than 17 million barrels of oil are used in the manufacture of bottled water and 50 billion water bottles are used and discarded every year.2 The cost of bottled water may be as much as 2,000 times more than tap water;3 eight glasses of water each day from your tap costs approximately 49 cents per year while the same amount in bottled water costs $1,400.4.

Bottled water now holds the second largest share of the beverage market, well ahead of milk and beer.5 If you are looking for the most expensive bottled water, look for Acqua di Cristallo, which sells for nearly $50,0006 a bottle, sourced from France and stored in a 24-karat gold bottle with a sprinkling of gold dust for good measure.

Many buy and drink bottled water as they believe the quality of the water is better, cleaner and potentially better tasting. Bottled water companies count on this belief to drive sales. However, Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani account for 24 percent of the bottled water sold in the U.S. and both are bottled, purified municipal water.7 In fact, a report by Beverage Marketing Association states that nearly half of all bottled water is sourced from tap water. Full story...

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Is porn harmful? The evidence, the myths and the unknowns...

Few things are truly universal. But while people across the world speak different languages, eat different foods and even feel different emotions, millions across the world watch porn. Despite being so widely consumed, porn is maligned as the source of society’s ills. It’s even been labelled a public health hazard by politicians in Utah.

Porn has transformed over the past few decades, due to the availability of the internet and faster web connections. It is also becoming more immersive than ever before. Take virtual reality. Earlier this year, researchers from Newcastle University in the UK pointed out that VR changes the experience of porn from detached observer to protagonist. They warned that this has the potential to blur the line between reality and fantasy, perhaps damaging relationships and encouraging harmful behaviour.

But what does the evidence actually say about how porn may or may not be affecting people? Can research provide any answers? The truth is that it is a difficult question for scientists to study. The nature of porn dictates that researchers must either rely on people self-reporting their porn habits, or show it to them in laboratory settings that are unnatural. (And no doubt, slightly awkward, too.) Full story...

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Singapore teen blogger Amos Yee walks free in US...

Singaporean teen blogger Amos Yee was released from US detention Tuesday after a court upheld a decision to grant him asylum.

Photos showed Yee, who has been jailed twice in native Singapore for critical views on race and religion, leaving a US immigration facility in downtown Chicago with a friend and his belongings stuffed in a plastic bag.
A photo posted on his Facebook page was captioned: "Amos Yee is now a free man."

"I'm kind of stunned right now," he told the Chicago Tribune. "It's very surreal."

In a statement posted on Facebook earlier Tuesday, his law firm said that a panel had upheld the decision on March 24 to grant asylum to Yee and he would soon be released. Full story...

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Saudi Arabia to allow women to obtain driving licences...

Women in Saudi Arabia have been granted the right to drive, overturning a cornerstone of Saudi conservatism that had been a cause célèbre for activists demanding reforms in the fundamentalist kingdom.
‘I felt like one of my father’s songbirds, let out of its cage’: driving as a woman in Saudi Arabia

 King Salman ordered the reform in a royal decree delivered on Tuesday night, requesting that drivers’ licences be issued to women who wanted them.

Following the decree, women will no longer need permission from a legal guardian to get a licence and will not need a guardian in the car when they drive, said the new Saudi ambassador to Washington DC, Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz.

“I think our leadership understands our society is ready,” he told reporters. Full story...

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Tuesday, September 26, 2017

The two most hilarious things NASA has ever said...

Calls to punish skeptics rise with links to climate change, hurricanes...

Calls to punish global warming skepticism as a criminal offense have surged in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but it hasn’t discouraged climate scientists like Judith Curry.

A retired Georgia Tech professor, she argued on her Climate Etc. website that Irma, which hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Saturday, was fueled in large part by “very weak” wind shear and that the hurricane intensified despite Atlantic Ocean temperatures that weren’t unusually warm.

That is the kind of talk that could get policymakers who heed her research hauled before the justice system, if some of those in the climate change movement have their way.

“Climate change denial should be a crime,” declared the Sept. 1 headline in the Outline. Mark Hertsgaard argued in a Sept. 7 article in the Nation, titled “Climate Denialism Is Literally Killing Us,” that “murder is murder” and “we should punish it as such.”

The suggestion that those who run afoul of the climate change consensus, in particular government officials, should face charges comes with temperatures flaring over the link between hurricanes and greenhouse gas emissions.

“In the wake of Harvey, it’s time to treat science denial as gross negligence — and hold those who do the denying accountable,” said the subhead in the Outline article, written by Brian Merchant. Full story...

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'Warding off evil' or 'channeling the Illuminati'? Twitter conspiracy theorists claim ulterior motives behind Prince Harry's 'devil horn' hand gesture when posing for photo with Melania Trump...

A strange moment during Melania Trump and Prince Harry's first meeting while at the Invictus Games has left social media in a bit of a frenzy.

While posing for a picture at the event in Toronto, Canada, Twitter conspiracy theorists noticed something off about Prince Harry's hand - it was in the sign of devil horns.

As Trump stood arms to her sides, Harry's hand was partially tucked into his jacket. But while his middle and ring finger were tucked inside his coat along with his thumb, his other fingers held outside.

And the photos quickly went viral with many speculating the secret message his royal highness was trying to say while taking the photo with the US First Lady.

Chris Kaufman said: 'Maybe people should start questioning why Prince Harry flashed a Satanic hand symbol during his meeting w/ Melania Trump. Strange!' More + photos...

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If Amazon takes over the world...

Four tech giants - Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google - have added $2 trillion to their combined market capitalization since the 2007-09 recession, a sum that approaches the GDP of India. The concentrated wealth and power of these companies has alarmed many observers, who see their growth as a threat not just to consumers and other businesses but to American society itself.

After spending most of the past decade researching these companies, I’ve come to the conclusion that our fears are misplaced in focusing on what I call the Four. We should instead be worrying about the One: one firm that will come to dominate search, hardware and cloud computing, that will control a vast network of far-flung businesses, that can ravage entire sectors of the economy simply by announcing its interest in them.

That firm is Amazon. Jeff Bezos has been disciplined and single-minded in his vision of investing in the most enduring consumer wants—price, convenience and selection. Coupled with deft execution, it has made Amazon the most impressive and feared firm in business.

As for the other three, don’t be misled by their current successes. They are falling behind as the One marches ahead. Full story...

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Turned into drug-addicts by their doctors, then abandoned by the NHS: The people driven to the brink of suicide - by pills designed to treat depression...

Benzos have stolen the best years of my life,’ says Neil Evans. ‘They were supposed to be a temporary solution for an anxiety attack, but I’ve been on them for ten years and they’ve made me feel far worse — much more anxious and agitated.’

But when Neil has tried to come off the drugs, he has experienced ‘crippling’ withdrawal symptoms.

‘Your brain goes into meltdown: it’s worse than the drug’s side-effects that you’re trying to get rid of,’ says the 50-year-old former journalist from Bristol. ‘I’d curl up in a ball on my bed and just cry all the time.’ Neil admits that, at times, he felt so desperate, he thought about ending his life. He even considered going to Dignitas, the assisted dying organisation in Switzerland.

‘Several times in the past couple of years, I’ve found myself browsing their website, even though I don’t have a terminal illness,’ says Neil.

‘Ending my life was something I felt very serious about. This was completely out of character. Before benzos, my life wasn’t perfect, but my future held promise. Full story...

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All night long at the airport...

French train inspector demands limbless man prove he's disabled!!!

Philippe Croizon, a household name in France after achieving the remarkable feat of becoming the first quadruple-amputee athlete to swim the Channel, was travelling on the TER train between Rouen and Paris.

Having no arms or legs obviously meant Croizon qualified for reduced-cost travel on account of being severely disabled.

Nevertheless a ticket inspector on the service demanded Croizon show his "carte d'invalidité", an ID card disabled people must carry to prove they are eligible for a discount.

Apparently the fact Croizon was in a wheelchair and clearly has no forearms and hands nor lower legs and feet, wasn't enough to convince the inspector.

 A shocked Croizon tweeted out a picture of himself with the hashtag #triste (sad) and "touteestpossible (anything is possible) but remained calm during the exchange. Full story...

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Oxford student 'too bright' for prison is spared jail for stabbing boyfriend...

An Oxford medical student “too bright” to be given a prison sentence has been allowed to walk free from court - despite the judge acknowledging that she broke her bail conditions.

Lavinia Woodward, 24, who stabbed her Cambridge University boyfriend in the leg with a bread knife, was spared jail yesterday as she was commended for her “strong and unwavering determination” to address her drug addiction.

As she left the courtroom, Woodward was seen mouthing the words “thank you” to the judge as she was ushered out of the dock in tears by her family.

The decision was last night criticised by criminal justice campaigners, who said that the lenient ruling would deter men who had fallen victim to domestic abuse from coming forward.

It comes four months after Judge Ian Pringle QC described Woodward, an aspiring heart surgeon, as an “extraordinarily able young lady”, whose talents meant that a prison sentence would be “too severe”. Full story...

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Traveler who refused to give device passwords to police found guilty of obstruction in UK court...

A UK court has reaffirmed the power for state agents to use sweeping counterterrorism legislation to require travelers hand over the passwords for their digital devices for their contents to be searched at borders.

A London court today found Muhammad Rabbani guilty of willfully obstructing the police by failing to hand over device passwords and the PIN code for his smartphone after he had been detained at a UK airport.

Rabbani is international director of Cage, an advocacy organization for communities impacted by Western counterterrorism policies.

He says he had been returning from a business trip to the Middle East last year when he was detailed and questioned. He declined to provide his passwords because he said he wanted to protect sensitive information provided to Cage by a client who had been subjected to torture. Full story...

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Sunday, September 24, 2017

Freedom or security?

A very short piece by Robert Higgs, recently published on Everything Voluntary, caught my attention in a big way, and you can read it here. The key sentence therein that caught my eye was this: “Except for a tiny minority, avowals of the love of liberty are little more than hot air. Given a choice, people choose something else.”

To bolster his case, Higgs points out that it is material prosperity – not predominantly the prospect of individual freedom – that fuels migration to the “freer” societies. One might argue that prosperity of necessity goes hand in hand with freedom, and while this remains true in an overarching sense, one need only look at places like Nazi Germany or modern-day China to see examples of relatively well-heeled despotisms. Were or are these magnets for migrants? If not, it is only because better options were/are available; i.e., societies of greater bounty still, perhaps with better or looser immigration policies in the bargain.

 In short, if Higgs's observations are correct – and I see nothing which seriously refutes them – it means that other than a remnant, people don't want freedom inasmuch as they want “free” things. They don't want liberty as much as they want security. Full story...

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2nd Indian spiritual guru arrested for rape...

Rajasthan's famed 'Falahari Baba', charged with raping a 21-year-old woman at his ashram in Alwar, has been arrested this afternoon after three days of investigation. Facing allegations of sexual assault, the self-styled Godman had checked himself into a private hospital in Alwar earlier this week saying he was suffering from high blood pressure.

The police today got a medical examination conducted on him at a government hospital in Alwar where his sugar and blood pressure were found to be normal. He has now been sent to judicial custody for 15 days.

"In the medical tests conducted on Falahari Baba, his ECG, Sugar and Blood Pressure have been found to be normal," said Paras Jain, Additional Superintendent of Police, Alwar.

Kaushlendra Prapannacharya Falahari Maharaj, 70, is dubbed "Falahari" because of his reported fruits-only diet. The Baba has been seen in photographs with top political leaders and celebrities. Full story...

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Why death is an illusion...

End of the line for the supermarket checkout?

Can you imagine popping into a supermarket, picking up what you want from the shelves then marching out again without so much as breaking your stride? Well that day is just around the corner.

Sainsbury’s has come up with an app that could finally kill off the drudgery of standing in a checkout queue to pay for your shopping.

The supermarket is testing technology that will allow customers to scan shopping on their smartphones, then simply leave the store.

The cost of the goods will be deducted directly from their bank account or credit card via their phone.  Full story...

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Spurned lover chops Indian man's GENITALS off after she found out he was marrying another woman...

A man had his genitals chopped off by a spurned lover after she found out he was marrying another woman, according to reports.

The injured man, named only as 26-year-old Irshad, met up with his lover, 30, for 'one last time' before he was due to tie the knot with a bride of their parents' choice.

The scorned lover invited him to a guest house in Kattipuram, India where she cut off his genitals with a knife on Tuesday, it is claimed. More + photos...

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UN peacekeepers in Congo hold record for rape, sex abuse...

She had been orphaned by a brutal conflict, but the 14-year-old Congolese girl found refuge in a camp protected by United Nations peacekeepers.

The camp should have been safe the day she was raped. A delegation from the U.N. was paying a visit, and her grandmother had left her in charge of her siblings. That was the day, the girl says, that a Pakistani peacekeeper slipped inside their home and assaulted her in front of the other children.

But that was not the end of her story. Even though she reported the rape, the girl never got any help from the U.N. She did become pregnant, however, and had a baby.

 If the U.N. sexual abuse crisis has an epicenter, it is the Congo, where the scope of the problem first emerged 13 years ago — and where promised reforms have most clearly fallen short. Of the 2,000 sexual abuse and exploitation complaints made against U.N. peacekeepers and personnel worldwide over the past 12 years, more than 700 occurred in Congo, The Associated Press found. The embattled African nation is home to the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping force, which costs a staggering $1 billion a year. Full story...

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Saturday, September 23, 2017

Nestlé makes billions bottling water for which it pays nothing...

In rural Mecosta County, Mich., sits a near-windowless facility with a footprint about the size of Buckingham Palace. It’s just one of Nestlé’s roughly 100 bottled water factories in 34 countries around the world.

Inside, workers wear hairnets, hard hats, goggles, gloves, and earplugs. Ten production lines snake through the space, funneling local spring water into 8-ounce to 2.5-gallon containers; most of the lines run 24/7, each pumping out 500 to 1,200 bottles per minute. About 60 percent of the supply comes from Mecosta’s springs and arrives at the factory via a 12-mile pipeline. The rest is trucked in from neighboring Osceola County, about 40 miles north. “Daily, we’re looking at 3.5 million bottles potentially,” says Dave Sommer, the plant’s 41-year-old manager, shouting above the din.

Silos holding 125 tons of plastic resin pellets provide the raw material for the bottles. They’re molded into shape at temperatures reaching 400F before being filled, capped, inspected, labeled, and laser-printed with the location, day, and minute they were produced—a process that takes less than 25 seconds. Next, the bottles are bundled, shrink-wrapped onto pallets, and picked up by a fleet of 25 forklifts that ferry them to the plant’s warehouse or loading docks. As many as 175 trucks arrive every day to transport the water to retail locations in the Midwest. “We want more people to drink water, keep hydrated,” Sommer says. “It would be nice if it were my water, but we just want them to drink water.” Full story...

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Women have quarter of a brain’, Saudi cleric claims...

(...)

According to the cleric, women only have half a brain to begin with, but, when they attempt to factor shopping into their feeble minds, that halves again and they “end up with only a quarter,” as cited by the Jerusalem Post.

A video of Al-Hijri’s sexist musings was circulated online, provoking a backlash from many in the kingdom who used the hashtag “Al-Hijri says women have a quarter of a brain” to voice their anger.

“She became pregnant with him, gave birth to him, raised him, spent sleepless nights for him until he grew up and now he calls her a woman with a quarter of a brain. He and his like must be banned from appearing anywhere,” wrote one irate user.

“I swear to God those who have a quarter of a brain are you and your likes who handed you platforms to deliver hardline views. It is the woman who raises man and she is the core of success,” said another. Full story...

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Simon's cat: new black and white...

Nightmare in Burma...

Few people have ever heard of Myanmar’s Rohingya people. Not many more could find Myanmar on a map – particularly after its name was changed some years ago from Burma to Myanmar.

The exception is Burma’s sainted lady leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who became a worldwide celebrity and Nobel Prize winner. The media loved her, a sort of Burmese Joan of Arc versus its brutal military junta.

But now, tragically, the Rohingya are headline news thanks to Myanmar’s brutal ethnic cleansing of one of the world’s most abused, downtrodden people.

Almost as revolting is the world’s failure to take any action to rescue the Rohingya from murder, rape, arson and ethnic terrorism. In recent weeks, over 270,000 Rakhines have been driven from their homes in Rakhine State in western Myanmar and now cower in makeshift refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh in the midst of monsoon season. Full story...

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Facebook can't hide behind algorithms...

First, the company admitted a “fail” when its advertising algorithm allowed for the targeting of anti-Semitic users.

Then on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg said he was handing over details of more than 3,000 advertisements bought by groups with links to the Kremlin, a move made possible by the advertising algorithms that have made Mr Zuckerberg a multi-billionaire.

Gross misconduct, you might say - but of course you can’t sack the algorithm. And besides, it was only doing what it was told.

“The algorithms are working exactly as they were designed to work,” says Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia.

Which is what makes this controversy so extremely difficult to solve - a crisis that is a direct hit to the core business of the world’s biggest social network. Full story...

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