Bonjour Planet Earth: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

‘Americans denied right to free speech’

The US has eroded freedom of speech, moral values and human rights for the American people over the past decades, a political activist tells Press TV.

“[US President] Barack Obama came into office as a constitutional professor and we have seen him do more damage to our constitution than even George Bush did,” said Tighe Barry, an activist with the CODEPINK group.

The advocate further criticized Washington for manipulating the American public by denying them the information needed to make decisions in the political atmosphere.

“It is unfortunate because the people do need to have this information if they are going to make good decisions on what they want out of their foreign policy from their leaders,” said Barry. Full story...

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The relentless march of the US police state...

US govt claims ... just like the Nazis ... that the truth is too dangerous and...

Across Europe, free speech and democracy face their biggest threat since...

The global war on free speech...

Teen questioned by FBI over YouTube school project video...

Son of Nestlé exec in Switzerland charged for nude videos posted on porn sites...

The son of an American executive at Nestlé in Switzerland faces felony charges in the US for secretly filming women in the Lake Geneva region and uploading the video to a porn site, according to media reports.

The 19-year-old student at Villanova University in Philadelphia, identified as T.J., placed his iPhone in a bathroom to record the women undressing.

A friend of one of the victims alerted her after seeing the video online, NBCNews.com reported.

US police said the video shows the woman undressing with her bare breasts exposed.

The young man admitted to police that he secretly hid his iPhone in the bathroom of his parents’ home, where he filmed guests as they undressed.

He later uploaded the images to the porn site from his dormitory room at university. Full story...

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Nepal police crack down on long hair...

Police authorities in Kathmandu are facing flak from residents following a drive targeting young boys and a few girls for keeping long hair and wearing earrings.

On Monday, police detained 711 persons including three girls as part of a campaign to bring down incidents of theft, loot and other criminal activities.

But instead of taking action based on past records of those detained, the main criterion behind the action was the length of their hair and their appearance.

After rounding them up from all corners of the city the police took down names, fingerprints and photos of the detainees before releasing them. Some also had their hair cut by the police. Source...

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Nepal bans schools from using western names...

Schools in Nepal banning mini-skirts, mobile phones and motor-cycles!!!

Pakistani policeman kills sister for wearing jeans...

90 Iraqi teenagers stoned to death for "emo" haircuts...

Sri Lanka police detain 200 young couples for kissing and holding hands!!!

South African police face inquiry over death of man 'dragged behind van'

South Africa's police watchdog is investigating the death of a Mozambican taxi driver who was allegedly handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged through the streets.

Video footage taken by a bystander of the incident, near Johannesburg, has been shown in the local media.

President Jacob Zuma condemned the death, describing the footage as "horrific" and "disturbing".

Rights groups often accuse South African police of brutality. Full story...

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Nearly half of Saudi women are beaten at home...

Nearly half Saudi women are beaten up by their husbands or other family members at home and many of them are hit by sticks and head cover, according to a university study published in local newspapers on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, the study found that the Bedouin men who still dwell the desert in the conservative Gulf Kingdom, are less violent than Saudi men in urban areas.

The study was conducted by Dr Lateefa Abdul Lateef, a social science professor at King Saud University in the Capital Riyadh. It involved female students at the university and some Saudi women covered by the government’s social security.

“The study showed that nearly half those covered by social security and more than a third of the female students at the university are beaten up at home,” Dr Lateefa said, quoted by the Saudi Arabic language daily Almadina. Full story...

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Saudi women and abusive fathers...

Six Saudi sisters sue father over marriage objections!!!

Dance as form of resistance: Salafists fail to stop 'Harlem Shake' in Tunisia...

Salafist Muslims tried to prevent the filming of current Internet craze the "Harlem Shake" at a Tunis school on Wednesday, but were driven off after coming to blows with students, a correspondent said.

When the dozen or so ultra-conservative Muslims, some of them women in veils, showed up at the Bourguiba Language Institute in the El Khadra neighbourhood, a Salafist bastion, students shouted "Get out, get out!"

One of the Salafists, wearing military gear and carrying a Molotov cocktail he never used, shouted "Our brothers in Palestine are being killed by Israelis, and you are dancing."

The Islamists eventually withdrew, and the students were able to film their production. Full story...

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Egyptian students arrested for dancing ‘Harlem Shake’

Harlem Shake with naked chicks and pizza... (18+)

‘No shot, no ticket’: Ethiopians decry Israeli birth control policies...

Ethiopian women have told RT that Israeli medics forced them to take the controversial Depo-Provera birth control vaccination without explaining the severe side effects of the drug, which can leave a woman unable to become pregnant for up to two years.

The birth control vaccination was reportedly a requirement for the women to immigrate to Israel: “They told me if you don't take the shot, we won't give you a ticket, so I took the shot, but I didn't know that it would prevent pregnancies. I didn’t know,” one woman told RT correspondent Paula Slier.

The gruesome side effects of Depo-Provera are so severe that the drug is not recommended for most patients.

“We are talking about a contraception that has heavy medical and mental effects – period irregularities, vaginal bleeding, osteoporosis, alongside mental side effects like depression, mood swings, rage and more,” said Sharon Eliyahu-Chai of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Full story...

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Microsoft and Google's pathetic, revealing and frightening war...

If it wasn't so harmful, it would be funny: a marketing battle between the two technology giants Microsoft and Google over who lacks integrity and is exploitative. It's been going on for a while and with every thrust and block the thing becomes more grotesque and more revealing.

First, by way of introduction, well...you don't need an introduction.

If you're using Windows, your computer lives Microsoft. If you don't, you use a Microsoft product (like Word or some smaller program you don't notice on your desktop) or someone sends you stuff using one. You can't escape MicrosSoft if you use a computer.

Google is to your Internet life what Microsoft is to your workspace. Even if you don't use its increasingly popular Gmail program, you have used Google Search at some point. So prominent is our use of this resource that, in English, "google it" is now an accepted phrase. No, there is no Google-less life in this country.

So a marketing duel between these two fills the air with the very loud clanging of the very large swords. Full story...

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Microsoft hypocritically attacks Google over privacy...

Skype makes chats and user data more available to police...

How Facebook is tracking you...

How Google is becoming an extension of our minds...

Your computer is watching you: How sinister 'cookies' track your...

Class Divide: UK masses slide into poverty as austerity ramps up...

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Mali, and remote-control war...

The evolving military operation in Mali continues to offer insight into the changing nature of global conflict. The French campaign is proceeding in the north of the country, with Britain (as an earlier column in this series anticipated) directly involved in combat operations via its Sentinel R1 radar reconnaissance-aircraft. The Sentinel missions aid French forces as they target rebels who are seeking to regroup (see Tony Osborne, “Dodging the Ax”, Aviation Week, 18 February 2013 ). Britain's capacity here is needed by the French, who lack this kind of capability since their Horizon helicopter-based system was scrapped (and who are also finding that they are in urgent need of armed-drones).

In this regard, a hundred United States troops have set up a new base for Predator drones across the border in Niger (see Eric Schmitt & Scott Sayare, “U.S. opens new front with drone base in Niger, New York Times, 25 February 2013). The Predators - located just outside the capital, Niamey - will initially be used for reconnaissance, thus augmenting the Sentinel R1, though modified versions are readily available for weapons delivery. This is the second permanent US base in sub-Saharan Africa after Djibouti, around 5,000 kilometres to the east.

(...)

France's embrace of such weapons is part of an accelerating worldwide trend towards remotely-operated systems, which also involve non-western states (such as Iran) and armed movements (such as Hizbollah) as well as Israel (see, for example, "An asymmetrical drone war", 19 August 2010); "Suicide-bombs without the suicides: why drones are so cool", 13 September 2012); and "Drone wars: the new blowback" [29 November 2012]).

A striking example is China's reported plan to use an armed-drone to assassinate a Myanmar drugs boss, Naw Kham, outside its own territory. In the event, the Chinese captured him, and he now awaits a death sentence following his trial. Full story...

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‘New race for colonies begins in Africa’

The other side of French airstrikes on Mali: ‘They ruined everything I had'

Dumb and dumber: A secret CIA drone base...

Obama plans to use military drones against American journalists, freedom...

Chinese scientists unveil mind-controlled drone...

India's political despair...

There is an overwhelming sense of disconnect among the citizens of India for the upcoming 2014 general election. Not even the current €560 million VVIP (very very important persons) helicopter procurement scandal, which has ensnared retired Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, a former chief of the Indian Air Force, and his relatives, has disturbed the ennui in the populace.

India's shrill TV news anchors line up politicians, retired judges and social activists every night with exaggerated outrage to debate abuse of power, corruption and even murder but nothing changes.

Despite the campaign of reformer Anna Hazae, which drew millions of protesters last year, ther appears little shame among the political class. About a third of sitting members of parliament have serious criminal cases pending against them. Long misused and abused by politicians, the lowly-paid police are demoralized and cynical. The courts carry a backlog of cases that take forever to be heard. Citizens have lost faith in the institutions of the state. The world's greatest democracy is dysfunctional and no one seems to care anymore -- least of all the electorate.

India is a nation without leadership. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long given up any pretense of vision or mission for the country. He is waiting to be released from his thankless burden next year. He would have gone earlier if the party had a credible replacement. True power remains behind the curtain with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her coterie of confidants. Full story...

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Incorruptible Indian bureaucrat hounded out of office for fighting graft – 43 times...

Popular war on corruption ignites India...

The $34 billion Coalgate scandal: will India ever be able to tackle corruption?

Saviour or Sonia's poodle, asks UK paper about India's PM Manmohan Singh...

Elections Bollywood style: India's chutney democracy...

Chinese boss outsources daughter's homework to nine employees...

A Chinese manager outsourced his 12-year-old daughter's homework to nine of his employees.

The senior executive's plan was disclosed when one of his disgruntled workers told a local newspaper.

The worker, who gave his name as Mr Chen, said it took three days to finish the work. "We stayed up late for two nights," he said. "The girl was quite demanding. She only needed to do one of the four options but insisted on doing them all, without getting involved herself in any way."

Students were asked to follow their parents to their home towns and either draw a picture, create a video, take photographs or write an essay about the changes over the past decades. Full story...

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German school bans homework for two years!!!

Singapore, the tuition nation...

French pilots offered jobs ... in Indonesia!!!

Outsourced, outwitted and way out hilarious!!!

Four found guilty over sharia law whipping in Australia...

Four men have been found guilty of assault after a Muslim convert was whipped as punishment under sharia law for drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

It is the first time a case like this has come before the Australian courts.

Four men broke into Christian Martinez's Silverwater unit in Sydney's west in 2011 and whipped him 40 times with an electrical cord in the name of religious law.

Mr Martinez was a recent convert to Islam.

The day before the attack he had drunk alcohol and taken drugs and had called his religious mentor, Wassam Faayad, to confess. Full story...

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Muslim convert in Sydney gets 40 lashes for drinking...

The Taliban of Timbuktu...

Mali: Students flee Sharia laws in northern schools...

Muslim cleric in Australia calls for beheading of Dutch politician...

When Brazilians sing about melons!!!

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Don't go test driving without a bra!!!

Leather Hands and "Vertical Lines"

How to make a plum cake!!! Yummy...

Do you want to touch my breasts?

"This shop does not receive the Japanese, the Philippines, the Vietnamese and dog(s)."

A SIGN at a Beijing restaurant barring citizens of nations involved in maritime disputes with China - along with dogs - has triggered a wave of online outrage among Vietnamese and Filipinos.

The Beijing Snacks restaurant near the Forbidden City, a popular tourist spot, has posted a sign on its door reading "This shop does not receive the Japanese, the Philippines, the Vietnamese and dog(s)."

Photographs of the controversial sign have gone viral in Vietnamese-language forums and featured heavily in Philippine newspapers and websites.

Vietnam's state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper ran a story saying the sign had "ignited online fury". It claimed many Vietnamese feel this is another example of Chinese "extreme nationalism that deserves to be condemned". Full story...

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Vietnam workers kept like slaves at Vinastar factory in Russia...

Vietnamese women on sale: free replacement if one runs away...

Filipino outrage at Hong Kong "racist" writer...

East Asia welcomes foreign workers, but no permanent residents, please...

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

15-year-old rape victim in Maldives sentenced to 100 lashes for pre-marital sex. WTF!

A 15-year-old rape victim has been sentenced to 100 lashes for engaging in premarital sex, court officials said.

The charges against the girl were brought against her last year after police investigated accusations that her stepfather had raped her and killed their baby. He is still to face trial.

Prosecutors said her conviction did not relate to the rape case.

Amnesty International condemned the punishment as "cruel, degrading and inhumane".

The government said it did not agree with the punishment and that it would look into changing the law.

Zaima Nasheed, a spokesperson for the juvenile court, said the girl was also ordered to remain under house arrest at a children's home for eight months. Full story...

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Indian school teacher brutally raped in Maldives...

Choking off freedom in the Maldives...

Maldives police accused of sexually harassing female detainees...

India: Sisters aged 6, 9 and 11 raped, murdered and thrown down well...

India child sex victims 'humiliated' - Human Rights Watch...

Man catches wife and his best friend watching his home-made bonking video ...

There was mayhem at a house in Gwabalanda suburb in Bulawayo after a man caught his wife and best friend watching a bonking video he had shot with his wife.

The incident which has become talk of the suburb took place on Monday. It is said in the video which brought about the storm, the man Nkanyiso Ngwenya and his wife Nomasonto Ngwenya are seen sharing the fruit of nature. The video is reported to have been shot in December when the man returned from from South Africa where he works.

However, it still is a mystery as to what drove the woman into sharing her bedroom affairs with her husband's best friend. Sources who spoke to our news crew said the woman and Nkanyiso's friend, who was only identified as Nkosilathi and is a cross border transporter (umalayitsha) are often seen together.

"Why would she play the video to her husband's friend? I think they were gauging the man's bedroom skills," alleged a source who is a friend to the couple. Full story...

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Dude in Taiwan buys porn DVD, discovers wife and friend in hot action!!!

Cheating man's penis disappears after bonking a married woman!!!

Groom in Norway attacks best man over sex with bride-to-be!!!

India: kiss and tell girlfriend lands groom in jail on his wedding night!!!

Two couples in China divorce, swap partners ... and remarry!!!

Computer in Delhi slum wall leads to million dollar TED prize...

Sugata Mitra on Tuesday was awarded a million-dollar TED Prize to pursue the promise of building schools in the Internet cloud where young minds can learn unfettered by grown-ups.

Mitra's journey to the prestigious TED gathering in the Southern California city of Long Beach began more than a decade ago in Delhi, when he stuck a computer in a hole in a slum wall to see what the children would do.

"I left it to the wolves, so to speak, knowing it would be smashed open and sold," Mitra said of that day in 1999.

"Eight hours later I came back to find them browsing the Internet in English," he recalled. "I realized I had accidentally stumbled onto something universal."

What the physicist-turned-educator seemingly stumbled upon was a way of teaching children better suited for workplaces, cultures and economies increasingly driven by fast-changing technology. Full story...

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A journey to unschooling...

Meet India's 12-year-old headmistress!!! Wow!

Customer service in Japan...

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How the UN caused Haiti's cholera crisis but won't be held responsible...

If a multinational corporation behaved the way the U.N. did in Haiti, it would be sued for stratospheric amounts of money. And that's just for starters: Were Unilever or Coca-Cola responsible for a cholera outbreak that killed 8,000 people and infected 640,000 more, and for subsequently covering up its employees' failure to adhere to basic sanitation standards, it is likely their executives would have difficulty visiting countries claiming universal legal jurisdiction. They would have to contend with Interpol red notices, along with the occasional cream pie attack. And the companies themselves would go into damage control mode, akin to BP's post-oil-spill public relations blitz, or Wal-Mart's pivot toward promoting American-made products. They'd acknowledge the need to convince skeptical consumers that their corporate behavior had changed.

The U.N. and its leadership won't have to worry about any of this. But maybe it should.

As award-winning journalist Jonathan Katz established in a bombshell chapter of his recent book, The Big Truck That Went By, a base for Nepalese U.N. peacekeepers next to the Artibonite River was the origin of the cholera epidemic that swept through Haiti in October of 2010. There had been no reported cases of cholera in Haiti for a century; now, the disease is endemic, and it is projected to kill as many as 1,000 people a year until it is eradicated, according to Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and a lawyer representing Haitian claimants against the U.N. Former president Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy for Haiti, has admitted that U.N. peacekeepers were responsible for the outbreak. But Katz, the AP's Haiti correspondent in the years after the country's devastating 2010 earthquake, was at the receiving end of a bungled U.N. cover-up of the epidemic's cause. The World Body actively discouraged and even impeded journalists and public health investigators attempting to trace the causes of the pestilence. The U.N. never admitted responsibility, even as a U.N. commissioned-report left little room for doubt (the entire saga is recounted in Katz's chapter, which should be read in full). Full story...

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Iran's nuclear threat and infantile conservatism...

Regularly now, The Washington Post, as always concerned with fairness and balance, runs a blog called "Right Turn: Jennifer Rubin's Take From a Conservative Perspective."

The blog tells us what the Post regards as conservatism.

On Monday, Rubin declared that America's "greatest national security threat is Iran." Do conservatives really believe this?

How is America, with thousands of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, scores of warships in the Med, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, bombers and nuclear subs and land-based missiles able to strike and incinerate Iran within half an hour, threatened by Iran?

Iran has no missile that can reach us, no air force or navy that would survive the first days of war, no nuclear weapons, no bomb-grade uranium from which to build one. All of her nuclear facilities are under constant United Nations surveillance and inspection.

And if this Iran is the "greatest national security threat" faced by the world's last superpower, why do Iran's nearest neighbors – Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan – seem so unafraid of her? Full story...

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Sri Lankan military 'raping Tamil Tigers'

The Sri Lankan military is using rape and extreme sexual violence against men and women suspected of links to the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

The international human rights group said rape and sexual violence against Tamil Tiger suspects was common during the 26 year long civil war which ended with the LTTE's defeat in 2009 but continues to be used today against the government's political opponents.

Its report details 75 cases of rape and sexual assault by members of the Sri Lankan security forces from 2006 to 2012 – three years after the civil war ended when the army encircled the remaining LTTE forces in a tiny 'no-fire zone' in the far north of the country and killed most of its leaders.

The Sri Lankan government has been accused of war crimes for its conduct of the final stages of the war, including allegations that thousands of civilians were killed by shelling of the 'no-fire zone' but has rejected the claims as politically motivated. Opponents say it has developed a siege mentality and allowed a culture of impunity to continue. Full story...

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Lion lights: Masai boy scares off lions with flashy invention...

Richard Turere, 13, doesn't like lions. In fact, he hates them. Yet this bright Maasai boy has devised an innovative solution that's helping the survival of these magnificent beasts -- by keeping them away from humans.

Living on the edge of Nairobi National Park, in Kenya, Turere first became responsible for herding and safeguarding his family's cattle when he was just nine. But often, his valuable livestock would be raided by the lions roaming the park's sweet savannah grasses, leaving him to count the losses.

"I grew up hating lions very much," says Turere, who is from Kitengela, just south of the capital Nairobi. "They used to come at night and feed on our cattle when we were sleeping."

(...)

He fitted a series of flashing LED bulbs onto poles around the livestock enclosure, facing outward. The lights were wired to a box with switches and to an old car battery powered by a solar panel. They were designed to flicker on and off intermittently, thus tricking the lions into believing that someone was moving around carrying a flashlight. Full story...

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The young man from Malawi who built windmills...

Afghans build open-source internet from thrash! Wow!

Meet Moses Nderitu, "the loo-king of Nairobi".

Rajasthan's barefoot school as a beacon of light for the world...

What most schools don't teach...

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Tony Blair: People are still 'very abusive' to me 10 years after the Iraq War

Tony Blair has told how people are still “very abusive” to him 10 years after the Iraq War, adding that he has given up trying to “persuade people it was the right decision”.

In comments which could be interpreted as self-pitying Mr Blair said that it did not matter whether the continuing controversy about Iraq had “taken a toll on me”.

He said that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was “20 times as bad” as Syria’s President Assad but admitted that it would take a “generation” to make Iraq safer than it was in 2003.

Mr Blair is still crticised for sending British troops into Iraq on March 20, 2003 in the mistaken belief that its Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion, more than one million people marched through London against the Iraq invasion. Full story...

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

60 lab studies now confirm cancer link to a vaccine you probably had as a child...

Dr. Maurice Hilleman made astounding revelations in an interview that was cut from The Health Century — the admission that Merck drug company vaccines had been injecting dangerous viruses into people worldwide. Bear in mind that Dr. Hilleman was the developer of Merck’s vaccine program. He developed over three dozen vaccines, more than any other scientist in history. He was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He received a special lifetime achievement award from the World Health Organization. Hilleman was one of the early vaccine pioneers to warn about the possibility that simian viruses might contaminate vaccines.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

I think it’s important to remember history when it comes to vaccines, especially in light of current developments.

For starters, the HPV vaccine Gardasil, which is being vigorously pushed on unsuspecting young girls and women to theoretically guard against cervical cancer still has never been proven to actually prevent cancer. On the contrary, evidence suggests that under certain circumstances the vaccine increases your risk of precancerous lesions by nearly 45 percent, and an ever increasing number of girls are being seriously injured by this unnecessary vaccine.

As of December 13, 2010, 20,915 adverse reactions had been reported in the United States alone, including 89 deaths, 297 miscarriages or stillbirths, and 370 reports of abnormal pap smears post vaccination.

All of this from a vaccine that has only been on the market for four years! Full story...

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Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigns after sexual allegations by four priests...

Irish-born Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien has resigned effective immediately and will not take part in the papal conclave. His resignation means there will be no British representative at the conclave.

O’Brien had been accused by four priests of sexual exploitation when they were much younger, with some of the charges going back 30 years. He had previously denied the charges. They made an official complaint to the Papal Nuncio in Britain.

In a statement, the Antrim-born prelate said he had previously submitted his resignation as per usual when a cardinal reaches 75 but “the Holy Father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today."

Cardinal O'Brien said "I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me - but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor." Full story...

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Usain Bolt handed €229,000 to race in Paris...

The fastest man on planet earth Usain Bolt has been signed up to run the 200m at the Diamond League meeting in Paris in July, organisers said on Tuesday. He will be paid €229,000 - that's a cool €1,145 per metre.

Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt will appear in Paris this summer where he is expected to set the track alight as well as burn a whole in the pockets of event organisers.

"With Bolt, we know that we will easily fill the Stade de France." said the head of the meeting, Laurent Boquillet, adding that organisers had shelled out €229,000 ($300,000) to bring the Jamaican track king to the French capital on July 6.

Bolt, 26, won 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay gold at last year's Olympics in London, repeating the feat that he first achieved in Beijing four years earlier and cementing his reputation as the greatest sprinter of all time.

Boquillet said the fee was standard for a runner of Bolt's calibre, pointing out that before his Olympic triple feat last year, he was available for $250,000 per meeting. Source...

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Two kids run over by train, railway employee burnt alive in India...

Two children were runover by a speeding train while crossing the tracks at Gulabganj railway station near here on Tuesday, triggering violent protests and arson in which a railway employee was burnt alive and another was battling for life with serious injuries.

Siblings Mohammad Ali (5) and his eight-year-old sister Icra were crushed to death by a speeding Sampark Kranti Express at Gulabganj station, about 20 km from here, when they were crossing the tracks in the absence of a foot overbridge from under a stationary goods train, railway sources said.

The tragic incident came on a day when Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presented his maiden budget in the Lok Sabha that included a slew of safety measures.

Sources said the incident apparently occurred as no announcement was made about the fast approaching Sampark Kranti Express, which does not halt at Gulabganj.

Earlier reports attributed to police had said that the children got crushed by a goods train which moved suddenly when they were crossing from under it. Full story...

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Raid of the day: Robin Pratt, shot and killed in front of her daughter...

In March 1992, police in Snohomish County, Washington conducted six simultaneous raids on members of the same extended family. An informant had implicated the targets of the raids for the robbery of an armored car and the murder of its driver a year earlier.

One of the raids was on the home of Larry and Robin Pratt. The informant had implicated Larry Platt. Though police knew there were likely to be innocent people and possibly children in the house, they decided on the pre-dawn, no-knock raid instead of confronting Pratt as he was coming or going to work. The police had also obtained a key to the apartment from a landlord, but decided instead to enter the residence by slamming a 50-pound battering ram through a sliding glass door.

As they executed the raid, shards of glass flew out toward the Pratts' six-year-old daughter and five-year-old niece sleeping nearby. The police confronted 28-year-old Robin Pratt as she came out of her bedroom to see what was wrong. She immediately dropped to her knees. She briefly raised her head, looked at Dep. Anthony Aston, and said, "Please don't hurt my children." Aston then fired a single bullet into Pratt's neck. She bled out and died in front of her daughter.

The police then went to the bedroom, where they confronted Larry Pratt and put a gun to his temple. When he asked if he could move, the officer said if he did, he'd blow Pratt's head off. Full story...

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Church of Scientology accused of holding woman in isolation...

The Church of Scientology in Sydney has been accused of holding a young Taiwanese woman hostage after she suffered a mental breakdown.

In March 2012, Alice Wu was hospitalised after she punched a window at the Church of Scientology's headquarters in Dundas, in Sydney's west.

Ms Wu badly damaged her right hand in the incident. Her family claims she was trying to escape the facility at the time.

The Church of Scientology denies the allegations, saying Ms Wu was not held captive or forced to do anything against her will.

Ms Wu was 20 and studying commerce when she signed Scientology's billion-year contract in late 2011, joining the elite Sea Organisation and moving from her home town of Taichung to Sydney.

Taiwan has become the major recruiting ground for the Church of Scientology in Australia, following a sharp decline in membership locally. Full story...

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'Manning shouldn't serve even one day in prison'

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Son shoots home invaders, saves parents...

The son of a homeowner on Thursday night shot and killed one of three suspected intruders at a home in west Harris County, officials said.

The shooting happened about 9 p.m. at the house on Brook Garden near Cloudbrook, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the Harris county Sheriff's Office.

Gilliland said the homeowner heard a knock at the front door and when he opened it the suspects rushed inside. One of the suspects carried a pistol and another had a shotgun.

The owner yelled for his adult son to get a gun and the younger man rushed down a hall to a bedroom. One of the suspects followed him. Gilliland said the son grabbed a gun and fired three shots, hitting the man. The wounded man died at the scene. Full story...

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Mexican priest with comic book robe sprays congregation with holy water gun!!!

We doubt the next pope will spray his congregation with a water gun filled with holy water but he may want to take inspiration from the way a Mexican priest is making his Mass much more enjoyable.

Father Humberto Alvarez not only drenches people with his water toy, he also wears a snazzy robe that features images of Superman, Spiderman and Batman.

The priest chose the characters because of their ‘struggle and effort to overcome fear and find peace and forgiveness’.

He added these were traits he wished to pass on to the members of his Ojo de Agua church in Saltillo, Mexico.

The comic book characters and water gun antics are aimed at children but it seems the adults enjoy it just as much, although the priest puts the gun away during adult services. Full story...

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Crosses chopped down: 'Anti-church hysteria' spreads across Russia...

In Holland you can chat with an angel ... on her cell-phone!!!

Holy Water ‘Vice Lolly’ goes on sale in London!!!

Monday, February 25, 2013

Singapore soccer players go door-to-door to bring in crowds!!!

Fed up of playing in front of sparse crowds in Singapore's poorly attended S.League, players from Balestier Khalsa are going door-to-door to try to drum up their fan base.

"The more often the players go knocking on doors, the higher the chances of them becoming familiar with residents," Balestier chairman S Thavaneson told Monday's Today newspaper.

"Who knows, they may become curious and decide to watch a game or two."

While Singaporeans are huge football fans, they are far more interested in watching English Premier League giants Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal on television rather than going to see local teams like Balestier, Woodlands Wellington and Tanjong Pagar United.

Average attendances in the 12-team S.League fell to 932 last year and organisers are heavily promoting a 'Support our S.League' campaign to address the concerns. Full story...

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Singapore sentences 4 Chinese strikers to jail...

A Singapore court sentenced four Chinese immigrant bus drivers on Monday to up to seven weeks in prison for instigating the city-state's first labor strike in 26 years.

Three of the men were sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment. A fourth driver faced an additional charge of publicizing the strike in an online post and received a seven-week jail term for his larger role.

Another driver was jailed for six weeks in December and has been deported.

In the Nov. 26-27 strike, 171 Chinese bus drivers for a public transport company protested over being paid nearly a quarter less than their Malaysian colleagues. The strike disrupted about 5 percent of the country's bus services.

Senior district Judge See Kee Oon said the sentences needed to be long enough "to ensure that others are not emboldened toward attempting similar displays of dissatisfaction over employment terms or conditions." Full story...

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There's a staggering conspiracy behind the rise of consumer culture...

Americans weren't always addicted to buying things.

Long before U.S. consumers racked up $11.3 trillion in aggregate debt, people used to save money for things they actually needed.

But in the age of plenty that followed World War I, corporations countered the threat of overproduction with a manipulative psychological strategy.

"We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture," wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. "People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

This conspiracy, enabled by new sophistication in advertising and supported by the government, was shockingly effective. Full story...

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Our ancestors' teeth were a lot healthier than ours...

Prehistoric humans didn't have toothbrushes. They didn't have floss or toothpaste, and they certainly didn't have Listerine. Yet somehow, their mouths were a lot healthier than ours are today.

"Hunter-gatherers had really good teeth," says Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. "[But] as soon as you get to farming populations, you see this massive change. Huge amounts of gum disease. And cavities start cropping up."

And thousands of years later, we're still waging, and often losing, our war against oral disease.

Our changing diets are largely to blame.

In a study published in the latest Nature Genetics, Cooper and his research team looked at calcified plaque on ancient teeth from 34 prehistoric human skeletons. What they found was that as our diets changed over time — shifting from meat, vegetables and nuts to carbohydrates and sugar — so too did the composition of bacteria in our mouths. Full story...

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Wombs for rent: Indian surrogate mothers tell their tales...

As baby Lili celebrates her first birthday in Australia, far away in India her surrogate mother recalls the day the child was born – and on whom she never laid eyes.

“I averted my gaze,” says Seita Thapa, recounting her experience of giving birth at the Surrogacy Centre India clinic in New Delhi last February on behalf of a gay male couple who used an egg donated from another woman.

“Why would I want to see the child? – I have my own children,” said the mother of two teenagers aged 16 and 18, adding that the clinic gives courses that “prepare us mentally for the fact it’s not our baby”.

Commercial surrogacy is a booming industry in India with legions of childless foreign couples looking for a low-cost, legally simple route to parenthood.

While the Indian government has been pushing the country as a medical tourism destination, the issue of wealthy foreigners paying poor Indians to have babies has raised ethical concerns in many Indian minds about “baby factories”.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, a leading business association, estimates the industry now generates more than $2 billion in revenues annually. Full story...

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Drone strikes kill real people; here are the ones I know...

Yesterday, Senator Lindsay Graham, made the following remark:

“We’ve killed 4,700.”

“Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of al Qaeda.”

And in this swift statement, all the damage caused and all the lives destroyed by drone strikes have been justified – just because Senator Lindsay “hates” it.

A huge number of civilian victims of the US drone attacks in Waziristan still remain silhouettes to euphemisms like ‘collateral damage’. Their voices are muted under the constant humming of US drones circling their villages causing constant fear and immense psychological damage. Full story...

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