Bonjour Planet Earth

Taiwan bans sex and violence in the media...

2009-12-11T19:46:00.014+01:00

Taiwan's parliament changed laws on Friday to ban gratuitous images of sex and violence in the island's racy media following a surge in parental complaints.

Passage of a bill that outlaws explicit photos, television scenes and online graphics comes after officials issued two fines, totaling T$1 million ($30,900), against the publisher of mainstream newspaper Apple Daily over its online imagery.

"Entire families see this. Children see it. Only in Taiwan do we have these images. You go to Hong Kong and it's not there," said Ke Ming-hsiu, aide to legislator Hung Hsiu-chu who sponsored the bill with broad bi-partisan support. More...

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Two female NYC teachers caught naked in classroom!!!

2009-12-10T22:52:00.008+01:00

Who's hot for teacher? Looks like the other teacher.

Two female Romance language instructors were tossed out of their Brooklyn high school after being caught "undressed" in an empty classroom, sources told the Daily News Tuesday.

Students at James Madison High School in Midwood were watching a talent show in the auditorium while Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro were speaking the international language of love, sources said.

A janitor stumbled on French teacher Mauro, 33, and Brito, 29, a married Spanish instructor, and tattled to school officials on Nov. 20. More...

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John Pilger on Iraq: normalising the crime of the century...

2009-12-10T22:26:00.007+01:00

I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day only to learn he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man. We met soon after he had resigned from the Foreign Office in 1991 and I asked him if the government knew that Hawk fighter-bombers sold to Indonesia were being used against civilians in East Timor.

“Everyone knows,” he said, “except parliament and the public.”

“And the media?”

“The media – the big names – have been invited to King Charles Street (the Foreign Office) and flattered and briefed with lies. They are no trouble.”

As Iraq desk officer at the Foreign Office, he had drafted letters for ministers reassuring MPs and the public that the British Government was not arming Saddam Hussein. “This was a downright lie”, he said. “I couldn’t bear it”. More...

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Aishwarya Rai in Rahman's "Kannamuchi Yennada"

2009-12-10T21:09:00.004+01:00

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German caught smuggling geckos ... in his underwear!!!

2009-12-10T20:13:00.008+01:00

A German visitor was caught trying to board a flight at Christchurch Airport on Sunday with 44 endangered geckos and skinks hidden in his underwear.

Customs staff says it was the look on his face that gave him away as he tried to board the plane.

Hans Kurt Kubus, a 58-year-old from Bad Munstereifel, Limbach, Germany, pleaded guilty in Christchurch District Court on Monday to five charges of trading in exploited species, and two of hunting absolutely protected wildlife. More...

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If the world is getting warmer, why is the US battling freezing winds and ice?

2009-12-10T20:04:00.008+01:00

HEAVY snow has blanketed much of the central US following a massive winter storm that left residents battling frigid temperatures and icy roads.

Some parts of Michigan and Ohio are expected to get up to a metre of snow as the system which has battered the country since Sunday makes its way northwards up into Canada.

"This one came roaring through, it came in off the west coast, started really getting put together in Utah and then just blasted across the plains," Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said today.

"As the system moves through, back behind it all this Arctic air came pouring south out of Canada and sweeping across the plains." More...

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People in India committing suicide for a separate State called Telangana...

2009-12-10T17:27:00.009+01:00

Three more people committed suicide Wednesday in support of the demand for a separate Telangana, taking to 25 the death toll since the mass movement began 10 days ago.

A person each in Warangal, Karimnagar and Medak districts ended their lives.

Raju, a worker of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), died of burn injuries at the MGM Hospital in Warangal town. The 25-year-old had set himself ablaze three days ago. More...

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Dancing Pedro...

2009-12-10T17:10:00.006+01:00

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Don't be taken hostage by "climate change" and its bogus "moral standard..."

2009-12-10T16:45:00.007+01:00

There is no doubt that every human on earth bears the responsibility of protecting our mother planet. However, the efforts of trying to mitigate global warming would go sour if they were used as a pretext for containing the economic and social development of developing countries.

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Currently, emissions cuts apparently have become mankind's new "moral standard." Anyone who is slow in reducing emissions would be hastily accused of damaging people's livings and development, and regarded as the common enemy of mankind.

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It is unfair that developed countries consume much luxurious energy, and meanwhile developing countries are forbidden from consuming enough energy to develop their economy and improve people's living standard. Full story...

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Obama accepts Nobel Peace prize and makes a speech justifying war...

2009-12-10T16:31:00.012+01:00

Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for "the continued expansion of our moral imagination." Yet his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it. More...

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India to form new southern state of Telangana...

2009-12-10T13:41:00.010+01:00

India's government has said it plans to allow a new state to be created from part of southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Home Minister P Chidambaram said the process of forming the state of Telangana would begin soon.

Campaigners for a Telangana state say the region has long been neglected. One of their leaders has ended a hunger strike. His supporters are celebrating.

But 70 state assembly members are resigning in protest, which observers say could lead to a political crisis. More...

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Fear-mongering global warming propaganda targets children...

2009-12-10T13:19:00.008+01:00

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Pakistan may be poor but its president has assets worth $1.5 billion...

2009-12-10T10:24:00.006+01:00

The President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, has assets of $1.5 billion (£920 million) around the world, according to the country’s main anti-corruption body.

A report by the National Accountability Bureau said that the wealth accumulated by Mr Zardari was “beyond his means”. It said Mr Zardari allegedly owned properties and bank accounts in several countries, including Britain, the US and Spain. In 1996 he allegedly bought a $4 million, 355-acre estate in Surrey.

Investigators said that most of Mr Zardari’s fortune was made during his wife Benazir Bhutto’s two terms in office as Prime Minister in the 1990s. They alleged that the money had come from kickbacks and commissions on government deals. More...

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Relatives in China put needle in girl's brain to kill her because they wanted a boy?

2009-12-10T10:11:00.008+01:00

DOCTORS in southwest China have removed a needle from the brain of an 11-year-old girl, believed inserted after birth in an attempted murder by relatives who had wanted a boy.

Rusted needle shards were detected by doctors in August after fruitless attempts by the girl's mother over the years to find the cause of an apparent mental disability, the Sichuan Online news website reported.

The girl, identified as Ping Ping, did not begin walking or talking until she was six, currently has the intelligence level of a three-year-old, and has suffered for years from unexplained fevers, it said. More...

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Serious allegations of violent racism against Asians at Philadephia high school...

2009-12-10T09:55:00.012+01:00

In emotional testimony yesterday, Asian students described being victimized at South Philadelphia High for years, often as school staffers stood by, encouraged the attackers, or hurled racial slurs.

Duyngoc Truong, a South Philadelphia student who was beaten last week, told the School Reform Commission that being let down by those in charge "hurt our bodies, it also hurt our hearts. We have the right to go to school and we need to be treated fairly."

The meeting was a dramatic crescendo in a situation that began Dec. 2, school officials said, when a disabled African American student was beaten up by two Asian students outside school. More...

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John Lennon and the over population myth...

2009-12-09T22:28:00.008+01:00

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Man films himself having sex ... with his dog!!!

2009-12-09T22:16:00.009+01:00

AN EDINBURGH man has admitted filming himself having sex with his pet dog.

John Kerr, 30, appeared from custody at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday where he admitted taking the mobile phone footage as he sexually abused the Staffordshire Terrier.

Fiscal depute Aidan Higgins said a friend of Kerr's had found a phone behind his couch and looked at it to find out who it belonged to. When he saw two clips of the accused with his pet he got in contact with the previous owner of the dog who had given it to Kerr in April this year. More...

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The weird, bloodless cattle mutilations of Colorado...

2009-12-09T21:51:00.011+01:00

Manuel Sanchez tucks his leathery hands into well-worn pockets and nods toward a cedar tree where, last month, he found his fourth mysteriously slaughtered calf in as many weeks.

"I have no idea what could do this. I wish I did," he says.

Four calves, all killed overnight. Their innards gone. Tongues sliced out. Udders carefully removed. Facial skin sliced and gone. Eyes cored away. Not a single track surrounding the carcasses, which were found in pastures locked behind two gates and a mile from any road. Not a drop of blood on the ground or even on the remaining skin. More...

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Swedish group renames hymen as ... vaginal corona!!!

2009-12-09T21:31:00.008+01:00

A Swedish sexual rights group unilaterally proclaimed a new English term for what it considers one of the most misunderstood parts of the female anatomy.

“The mythical status of the hymen has caused far too much harm for far too long,” the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) said in a statement.

“The new term in English is vaginal corona.”

The linguistic declaration comes on the heels of what RFSU considers a successful campaign carried out in Sweden aimed at dispelling a number of myths surrounding the hymen and virginity. More...

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Switzerland has a low crime rate because its citizens are armed...

2009-12-09T19:22:00.009+01:00

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Woman in India forced to have 6 abortions because in-laws did not want female child. WTF!

2009-12-09T19:11:00.009+01:00

A pale Amisha Bhatt, 33, stood out in the crowd of rural women from over 15 districts of Gujarat who had gathered at Town Hall to participate in a public hearing of cases of violence against women. The public hearing was organized by Mahila Adhikar Abhiyan.

As women narrated their tales of rape, domestic abuse, Amisha's body shook as she relived the horror of repeated abortions and physical abuse she was subjected to by her in-laws in their obsession for a male heir.

Currently residing with her parents in Vastrapur, Amisha says that she was subjected to six abortions over eight years, the last being early this year. In between, she gave birth to a girl Kamya, who was saved because Amisha went to her parents' house because she took ill. More...

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India eases visa control for five countries...

2009-12-09T18:56:00.008+01:00

India has decided to introduce visa on arrival on a pilot basis for citizens of Singapore, Finland, New Zealand, Luxembourg and Japan, a tourism ministry official said Wednesday.

The scheme has been introduced for one year. The countries have been decided on the basis of being potential source markets for India without security concerns.

"The modalities of the implementation of the scheme are being worked out with all the stakeholders and will be notified very shortly," the official said.

The official said that the introduction of Visa on Arrival scheme was expected to provide a quantum jump in tourist arrivals to India from these countries.

Source

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In the past 6 years, police in Brazil have killed more than 11,000 people...

2009-12-09T18:38:00.009+01:00

Police in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people in the past six years, many in execution-style murders, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch.

Few of the officers have been charged in the extrajudicial killings, which are often labelled in police reports as the deaths of suspects who resisted arrest, the report said.

The 122-page declaration echoes a 2008 United Nations' finding that police throughout Brazil were responsible for a "significant portion" of 48,000 slayings the year before. More...

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Baby abuse in an Italian nursery...

2009-12-09T14:48:00.008+01:00

Maltraitance dans une crèche en Italie...

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Roche and Tamiflu come under heavy criticism in new study...

2009-12-09T14:02:00.013+01:00

A new study has cast aspersions over the effectiveness of Roche’s antiviral Tamiflu and the company stands accused of not making enough data available to evaluate its risks and benefits properly.

An expert review published by the BMJ says there is no clear evidence that the antiviral most commonly used against influenza – Tamiflu (oseltamivir) - prevents complications like pneumonia in healthy people. The study, which updates a 2006 review published in The Cochrane Library, acknowledges that Tamiflu (and other neuraminidase inhibitors) have a modest effect in reducing flu symptoms and infectivity in otherwise healthy adults by about one day. However, it claims that there is insufficient published data to know if oseltamivir reduces complications in otherwise healthy adults. More...

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