Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Living in fear of female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone: 'I'm not safe in this community'

Near Delhi, mob kills 50-year-old, injures son over ‘rumours’ they ate beef ...

A 50-year-old man, Mohammad Akhlaq, was beaten to death and his 22-year-old son severely injured on Monday night in UP’s Dadri, allegedly by residents of Bisara village, after rumours spread in the area about the family storing and consuming beef, police said.

Six people were arrested in connection with the attack, around 45 km from Delhi, sparking protests that led to police firing, damage to vehicles and injuries to a 20-year-old welder who works for the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) facility in the area.

Police said they have sent samples of meat taken from Akhlaq’s home “to the forensics department for examination”. Akhlaq’s daughter, Sajida, said the family had “mutton in the fridge” and not beef.

The attack on Akhlaq and his family took place around 10 pm in Bisara after an announcement about the family consuming beef was allegedly made at a local temple, police said. Full story...

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Saudi royal calls for regime change in Riyadh...

A senior Saudi prince has launched an unprecedented call for change in the country’s leadership, as it faces its biggest challenge in years in the form of war, plummeting oil prices and criticism of its management of Mecca, scene of last week’s hajj tragedy.

The prince, one of the grandsons of the state’s founder, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, has told the Guardian that there is disquiet among the royal family – and among the wider public – at the leadership of King Salman, who acceded the throne in January.

The prince, who is not named for security reasons, wrote two letters earlier this month calling for the king to be removed.

“The king is not in a stable condition and in reality the son of the king [Mohammed bin Salman] is ruling the kingdom,” the prince said. “So four or possibly five of my uncles will meet soon to discuss the letters. They are making a plan with a lot of nephews and that will open the door. A lot of the second generation is very anxious.”

“The public are also pushing this very hard, all kinds of people, tribal leaders,” the prince added. “They say you have to do this or the country will go to disaster.” Full story...

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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Fifa scandal: Jack Warner banned for life...

Jack Warner has been banned for life by Fifa, more than four years after quitting football.

The governing body’s ethics committee today announced the outcome of an investigation into Sepp Blatter’s disgraced former vice-president, who is also facing criminal charges in the United States over an alleged £100 million fraud.

Warner’s ban begins at the same time as Fifa’s ethics committee examines evidence that could lead to the suspension of Blatter and Michel Platini over a £1.3m suspected criminal payment to the Uefa president.

The ethics committee previously chose not to pursue a case against Warner, the former president of Concacaf, because he was no longer involved in football.

 But a change of policy saw it go after Trinidad and Tobago’s former minister of national security, even though any ban would be merely symbolic for a man who had little prospect of returning to the game. Full story...

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39 manly uses for coconut oil in your bushcraft kit...

When it comes to packing for an outdoor adventure, leave the single-purpose items at home unless you have a pack mule to carry it all. Each item in your camping/bushcraft/survival kit should be able to perform at least three different tasks beyond its intended purpose.

Manly woodsmen, listen up. The women folk are more aware of the benefits and well ahead of us in using this stuff. Time to catch up!

It may not be as sexy as an ax or knife, but smart woodsmen should pack this non-sexy stuff in all their kits – bushcraft, EDC, Get Home Bag, camping, etc. I rarely go to the woods without it. As a utilitarian resource, I also keep a small container in my shop, bathroom, kitchen, school desk, and truck.

Here’s your multi-tasking resource… Full story...

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Norwegian comic strip likens Israel to Nazis, North Korea...

The Israeli embassy in Norway condemned the Scandinavian country’s third-largest paper for publishing a cartoon that calls Israel a nation of “murderers” comparable to Nazi Germany and North Korea.

Dagbladet on Thursday ran the comic strip, which shows a woman at an organic supermarket unsuccessfully searching for ethically made food products.

“Organic food, huh?” the text in the first panel reads, according to a translation on Hebrew news site Ynet. “But what’s the point if the food is produced unethically?”

The next panel shows the woman holding up an orange saying: “These oranges are from Israel. You are supporting murderers.”

Next, she picks up a box of pasta to examine its label. “This macaroni was manufactured in North Korea? How did you even get this?” she asks.

In the last panel, the woman holds a box of frozen pizza marked with a swastika bearing a “Made in Nazi Germany” label and incorporating the logo of the Nazi SS organization. She says: “And this pizza is from N… What is this store, anyway?” Full story...

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Yemen conflict: Deadly attack on wedding party, 38 killed...

At least 38 people are reported to have been killed in an air strike on a wedding party in south-western Yemen.

Medics said women and children were among those who died in Wahijah, a village near the Red Sea port of Mocha.

The Saudi-led coalition, which began an air campaign in March to defeat the Houthi rebel movement, denied it was responsible for the attack.

However, witnesses said warplanes targeted the celebration and Yemeni officials acknowledged a "mistake".

The UN says almost 4,900 people have been killed in the past six month, including 2,200 civilians. Full story...

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Iran’s president blames U.S. for Middle East violence...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday offered to help root out terrorism in the Middle East and said the United States and its support for Israel are a major cause of the violence.

Rouhani told the U.N. General Assembly that terrorists excuse their brutality as a reaction to military interventions and occupations by what he termed “newcomers” to the region.

“If not for the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes,” he said.

Rouhani’s speech was closely watched because it was his first address to the world body since Iran finished a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States and five other nations. He said the deal, finalized in July, marked a “new chapter” in Iran’s dealings with the world, so his swipe at the United States was striking. Full story...

Pirate Bay founder finally free after three years...

Gottfrid Svartholm, also known as Anakata, was a founding member of The Pirate Bay and played a key role during the site’s early years.

He has spent the last three years in prisons in Sweden and Denmark, for a variety of offenses. Last month his prison time in Denmark ended and after serving a final month in Sweden he is now a free man.

At this time Gottfrid and his family prefer not to make any public statements, which is understandable considering all that’s happened, but his mother just confirmed the good news.

His release marks the end of a tough time with several consecutive setbacks.

It all started in 2011 when Gottfrid received a one-year prison sentence for his involvement with the notorious site, which he initially avoided. Full story...

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Monday, September 28, 2015

Will Saudi Arabia stop UN from investigating its war atrocities in Yemen?

The Saudi Arabian government is unleashing a vigorous diplomatic campaign to block a United Nations proposal for a human rights investigation into the country's six-month-old military assault on Yemen—waged with the backing of international powers including the United States.

President Barack Obama has so far remained silent on the resolution, which was submitted by the Netherlands Thursday and calls for the UN Human Rights Council to launch a probe into abuses committed by all parties.

The Dutch proposal requires the UN High Commissioner to "dispatch a mission, with assistance from relevant experts, to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Yemen." In addition, the resolution calls for players to grant access to humanitarian aid, in a clear reference to the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed naval blockade that is choking off food and medical aid.

The proposal follows the call, earlier this month, by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein for an "international, independent, and impartial" investigation into human rights violations. Groups including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, the Gulf Center for Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch have also urged the international community to end the "impunity that fuels humanitarian crisis" in Yemen. Full story...

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Sepp Blatter payed off Michel Platini with £1.3 million to stop presidency challenge...

FIFA president Sepp Blatter paid Michel Platini, his nearest rival in a leadership election £1.3million ‘weeks’ before the Frenchman pulled out of the contest, it has been alleged.

Claims Mr Blatter personally authorised the ‘disloyal’ payment to UEFA chief Mr Platini were included in a statement by the Attorney General of Switzerland announcing legal action against the 79-year-old Swiss last week.

Investigators believe Mr Blatter improperly used FIFA funds to direct two million Swiss Francs to his closest challenger for FIFA’s top job in February 2011.

The two men were scheduled to go head-to-head in a June election involving representatives of all six global football federations, before Mr Platini suddenly withdrew from the contest.

 It came just two months after the 2022 World Cup had controversially been awarded to Qatar, as Mr Blatter was campaigning for his fourth term in office. Full story...

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Joywave - Tongues...

India clamping down on critics of Modi, activist groups...

It takes courage to accuse a powerful politician — a man who would go on to become India's prime minister — of encouraging riots against a minority. Police officer Sanjiv Bhatt did just that. And he says he is paying the price for it.

Bhatt was arrested months after he filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2011, alleging that Narendra Modi incited anti-Muslim violence that killed more than 1,000 people in the western state of Gujarat. At the time, Modi was the chief minister of the state, and Bhatt was an officer of the police intelligence.

Then, earlier this year, Bhatt was fired after 27 years on the job for taking more leave than he was allowed.

His dismissal comes amid the stiffest crackdown in decades on critics and activist and aid groups perceived to be undermining India's image and interests.

 Since Modi took office last year, more than 9,000 humanitarian and human rights groups have lost their registration to receive foreign funding, effectively shutting many down, and dozens of activists have been threatened with arrest. Full story...

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‘Dead’ woman emerges 31 years after she disappeared and 28 years after a man confessed to killing her...

A woman who vanished 31 years ago and was assumed dead after a man confessed to killing her has emerged alive and well, admitting she plotted her own disappearance.

The alleged murder victim, Petra Pazsitka, from the northern German city of Braunschweig, was 24 when she disappeared in 1984 while living in student accommodation.

The woman, now 55, concocted a plan involving moving into an apartment she had been secretly renting. She had put aside more than 4,000 Deutschmarks for her new life (worth $3,000CD in today’s money).

Pazsitka, who had completed a university thesis on computer languages, was last seen going to the dentist on July 26, 1984. She left the practice to take the bus to her parents in nearby Wolfsburg, according to a friend. Full story...

Sunday, September 27, 2015

GM mustard in India: a case of monumental fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency...

The approval and planting of large-scale field trials of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is currently taking place. According to environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues, this is completely unconscionable. It is occurring even as the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Report awaits adjudication in India’s Supreme Court, which expressly recommends a bar on herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops. As a result, Rodrigues is mounting a legal challenge as the lead petitioner in a Public Interest Litigation.

Large-scale field trials may only be conducted when a crop has comprehensively cleared all biosafety protocols in rigorous independent long-term testing and appraisal. However, this has not been the case with GM mustard. Rodrigues argues that official regulators have even hidden all data from the public and the independent scientific community, which is against constitutional provisions and the orders of the Supreme Court. She concludes this means one thing: mandatory rigorous biosafety protocols have not been carried out and the data pertaining to ‘mustard DMH 11’ therefore needs to be concealed.

Requests for data have been refused. Rodrigues asserts that the secrecy surrounding GM mustard exemplifies the appalling state of regulation and smacks of corruption. She thus concludes the Indian government is using underhand means to introduce GM crops into Indian agriculture. There appears to be no place for science or transparency in this process, which will inevitably contaminate India’s mustard diversity.

Mustard DMH 11 is an herbicide-tolerant crop that has been made resistant to Bayer’s glufosinate, which is even more toxic that glyphosate. Glufosinate is a broad spectrum herbicide that causes nerve damage and birth defects and is toxic to most organisms. It is also a neurotoxin of mammals that doesn’t easily break down in the environment. Full story...

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FIFA: Blatter a 'suspect', Platini 'questioned'

After months of probes following raids in Zurich which led to the indictment of more than a dozen top officials, Swiss investigators said their attention had now turned to actions carried out by Blatter and Platini.

"Swiss criminal proceedings against the President of FIFA, Mr. Joseph Blatter, have been opened on September 24, 2015 on suspicion of criminal mismanagement...and - alternatively - misappropriation," said a statement from Switzerland's attorney general's office (OAG).

Blatter, 79, had already announced his decision to stand down because of corruption allegations against other top officials and Platini had been the favourite to win an election to be held in February to succeed him.

Swiss prosecutors said Blatter was being investigated over the 2005 sale of World Cup television rights to the Caribbean Football Union, then run by former ally Jack Warner, a deal which had been "unfavourable for FIFA".

 Blatter was also suspected of a "disloyal payment" of two million dollars to Platini in February 2011 allegedly made for work the Frenchman carried out for FIFA between 1999 and 2002, before he was elected as head of UEFA. Full story...

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What the fear of death does to your beliefs...

Over a decade ago, psychologists John Jost, Jack Glaser, Arie Kruglanski, and Frank Sulloway launched a far-reaching and in-depth analysis of politically conservative belief. Sweeping through the scientific literature, they sought to determine what psychological variables predicted conservatism. Their resulting meta-analysis consisted of 22,818 cases from twelve countries. What they found was intriguing, yet unsurprising. Conservatism was tied to a need for order, structure, and closure as well as intolerance of ambiguity. It negatively correlated with being open to new experiences.

One trait in particular led the pack, however, and this one was somewhat surprising. That trait? Death anxiety. That's right. There was no stronger predictor of conservative political belief than a "persistent fear of one's own mortality."

Death is inevitable, a fate destined for all of us. Yet despite its universality, it is the ultimate unknown. We can peer into the distant reaches of space and time, yet we will almost certainly never see past our own mortality. Death is an end. As conscious, living beings, it is only natural to be afraid of it.

And those who fear it more, it seems, tend to be ideologically conservative. Full story...

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The Pope’s 3 biggest hypocrisies since he came to America...

For a man who is supposed to represent the highest virtues of Christianity, Pope Francis sure has habit of racking up hypocrisies on a regular basis. However, it’s surprising how many of these hypocrisies were spawned in just the past few days. In fact, they’ve been mounting since the moment he embarked on his trip to North America, and I mean that quite literally.

As he pontificates to us about the threat of global warming and criticizes climate deniers, he does so while traveling the world in his Boeing 777.

(...)

And earlier this year, he criticized the wastefulness of consumerism and unchecked growth for contributing to climate change, and then went on to call out air conditioning for being a particularly wasteful technology. He of course, wrote this criticism in his air-conditioned home, right next to the Vatican’s air-conditioned archives.

But his hypocrisy is not limited to his environmental statements. The Pope has also been busy asking Americans to accept more immigrants, while he resides over a nation that is surrounded by walls on all sides, and maintains some of the most stringent immigration laws in the world. Full story...

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'Despicable' Saudi prince 'sexually abused multiple women during three-day party at his $37m Beverly Hills compound'

A Saudi Prince sexually abused and beat at least three women during a three-day party in his $37 million Beverly Hills home, a new lawsuit claims.

The graphic new allegations against Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud, 28, were filed by his alleged victims on Friday night.

It comes two days after the monarch, who does not have diplomatic immunity, was arrested on suspicion of forcing a woman to perform oral sex on him.

According to the suit seen by the LA Times, Al-Saud's alleged victims described his behavior as 'extreme', 'outrageous', and 'despicable' as they were 'imprisoned' for days.

Police reported a 'party atmosphere' when they arrived at the house after a bleeding woman was allegedly seen trying to climb out of the housing compound. Full story...

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China’s ambassador tells Malaysia to stop the racism...

Huang Huikang, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, is expected to be summoned to the country’s foreign ministry on Sept.28 to explain a remarkable visit last Friday to the center of a Chinese area threatened by Malay-supremacy thugs. He pointedly inserted himself into racial tension in the country, saying at the time that the Chinese government is opposed to terrorism, extremism and discrimination based on race.

Such an action by an ambassador, not just in Malaysia but anywhere, is virtually unheard of. By any measure, it constitutes unprecedented interference in domestic politics and is viewed by critics as a raw assertion of Chinese power. China is now Malaysia’s second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade amounting to US$28.2 billion in 2014 and may well be the largest, since Malaysia’s trade with Singapore is US$33.3 billion and Singapore acts largely as an entrepôt, shipping goods on to other countries.

Huang’s stroll through Chinatown as Malay “Red Shirt” supremacists threatened the area was a clear indication that China would not tolerate any form of criminal intimidation. But it has also raised serious concerns in the ethnic Chinese community that what is regarded as mainland ham-handedness could make it worse for them rather than better.

Nonetheless, Huang’s visit to the Petaling Street area appears to have played a role in bringing to a halt, at least for now, growing threats and intimidation by the Red Shirts led by a United Malays National Organization division chief named Jamal Md Yunos against Chinese hawkers and merchants in the area. The street is the epicenter of the urban Chinese community, home to the historic 127-year-old central market and hundreds of Chinese street hawkers and traders. Police arrested Jamal Yunos and warned Red Shirt protesters against marching through the area. The Red Shirts had been scheduled to march through Petaling Street on Saturday, Sept. 26, amid outright threats of violence. Full story...

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Friday, September 25, 2015

Companies track employees on- and off-duty via special software & SM...

Prince Salman convoy triggered Hajj stampede...

The Arabic-language daily al-Diyar said in a report on Thursday that the convoy of Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud played a central role in the deadly crush on the third day of the annual Hajj pilgrimage earlier in the day.

The report said that Salman, who had sought to attend the huge gathering of pilgrims in Mina, a large valley about five kilometers (three miles) from Mecca, arrived at the site early on Thursday accompanied by a huge entourage.

The report said 200 army forces and 150 police officers escorted the prince.

The report said the presence of the prince in the middle of the population prompted a change in the direction of the movement of the pilgrims and a stampede.

The Lebanese daily further said that Salman and his entourage swiftly abandoned the scene, adding that the Saudi authorities seek to hush up the entire story and impose a media blackout on Salman’s presence in the area.

However, officials in Saudi Arabia have denied the report, calling it "incorrect." The Saudi health minister has blamed the pilgrims for the tragedy. "If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided," Khaled al-Falih said.  Full story...

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Why Israelis can burn Palestinians alive and get away with it...

“I was on the balcony of my home. I heard Saad screaming, ‘Help me. They’ve killed me,’” explains Ibrahim Dawabsha in a new short documentary produced by the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq (watch it at the top of this page).

Ibrahim rushed out to find Saad Dawabsha and his wife, Riham, lying on the ground, their bodies on fire.

A masked figure stood near Saad, and another stood near his wife.

Ibrahim carried Saad and then Riham away from their burning home, and then rescued their 4-year-old son Ahmed from inside.

“I took him to my neighbor’s house. The neighbor told me that there was also another child inside the house. His name was Ali. I went back to Saad’s home. At that time, the whole house was on fire.”

While villagers waited for firefighters to arrive, they tried in vain to rescue baby Ali, who perished in the fire. Full story...

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The third world side of the American dream: In Los Angeles, the 60,000 homeless are everywhere as municipal officials declare a "state of emergency."

On Tuesday, after acknowledging their failure in stemming the surge of homelessness in the city, municipal officials in Los Angeles, California took the drastic step of announcing they were declaring a "state of emergency."

In Los Angeles, the homeless are everywhere.

From encampments in freeway underpasses, to the high-value streets of Venice, they live in clusters of tents, or under tarpaulins spread over shopping carts, in parking lots and neighborhoods from downtown's skid row to Studio City and beyond, this is where the homeless live.

The announcement from Mayor Eric Garcetti and seven members of the City Council was powerful in that it resonated loudly in a city that has seen an 85 percent increase in the homeless in just two years.

Besides opting to declare a state of emergency over the crisis, the Mayor also wants to "free up" $100 million to devote to the problem. Full story...

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Saudi teen sentenced to be crucified for attending pro-democracy protest...

A teenager who was arrested in 2012 for taking part in an anti-government protest in Saudi Arabia will be crucified and beheaded after his latest appeal was dismissed.

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was apprehended aged 17 after a closed trial found him guilty of encouraging pro-democracy protests using his Blackberry.

His rejected appeal was held in secret and has left all his legal avenues exhausted, meaning he could be executed at any moment.

Zena Esia, from the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights said: "The only way to get Ali out of this would be a royal pardon.

"Whether he will be released or not depends on what the king decides."

Despite this campaigners in the UK and across the world are losing hope that he will be granted the pardon by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Full story...

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Sanskrit writings reveal UFOs visited India more than 6000 years ago...

(...)

The truth is – people haven’t just wondered. They’ve known. Visitations by other-worldly beings have been happening through many cultures around the world, possibly for eons, and this is ‘disclosed’ in numerous ancient documents.

When the military industrial complex, or, NASA, as a small part of the cabal strong arm ‘discloses’ that ‘we’re going to have definitive evidence within decades’ it’s a ruse. Even JFK’s murder, and the silencing of thousands of whistleblowers is less astounding when you consider how long many human beings have been aware of the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial beings. While the efforts to hide this fact from modern humanity have been circumspect in the least, this news has very much been out in the open for those willing to look.

Only in very recent times have human beings questioned whether or not we were joined by other life forms in this universe. There is good reason for this.

The Vedas illustrated two main categories for UFOs. They are described in Sanskrit, using terms that are normally reserved to describe architecture, automata, military siege engines, and other mechanical contrivances, or in more recent works, such as the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and the Ramayana, there are more descriptions. One book called the Vaimanika Shastra (The Science of Aeronautics) is said to have been downloaded while a yogic sage was deep in trance, and it supposedly contains much knowledge from the Akashic records. Some of these texts infer that these crafts were controlled with our minds – essentially utilizing advanced technology which has been withheld from the masses in modern times. Full story...

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Singapore shuts schools, distributes free masks for haze...

Singapore shut schools Friday and began distributing free anti-pollution masks to the elderly and other vulnerable people as a thick smoky haze cast covered the island-nation with pollution reaching its worst level this year.

The haze — a pall of grayness that resembles wintry fog and virtually obliterates the skyline while even seeping inside homes — is an annual problem for the region, resulting from forests being burned in neighboring Indonesia to clear the land for farming and plantations.

Repeated efforts to bring the offending companies to book have not helped. Meanwhile, people in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia suffer from the smoke, a serious health hazard, especially for the elderly, children and those with breathing problems.

The three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), which measures air pollution in the country, hit 341 on Friday morning, the highest level this year, before dipping below 300, the hazardous mark. Full story...

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Thursday, September 24, 2015

This is Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without the internet...

Murders of internet bloggers accused of being atheists by Islamist groups...

Bonya Ahmed is herself a writer and was also married to perhaps the most famous atheist killed this year, Avijit Roy - the moderator of a popular online blog called "Free Thinking," which defended secular and humanist ideas.

She and her husband were attacked together in February. Bonya lost fingers and was scarred, but lived. Her husband was hacked to death with machetes in a manner that followed the same gruesome pattern of later killings. They had returned home from the US, where they lived, to the Dhaka Book Fair.

The back story to Bangladesh's blogger murders is complex, but here are the facts in brief: in recent years, a group of people who deny the existence of God, some using rational arguments and others using dark and satirical humour, has grown up on the Bangladeshi internet. Other internet bloggers are not atheists, but instead better described as secular campaigners: they use the internet to strongly argue that religion should be kept out of politics.

In this mostly Muslim nation, these bloggers attracted the attention of Islamic groups - especially after they were part of street rallies demanding a death sentence for an Islamist leader convicted as a war criminal. Full story...

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GSK dumps live polio virus into Belgian rivers used for swimming and fishing...

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) dumped 45 liters (12 gallons) of live, concentrated polio virus into a Belgian river on September 2, according to a press release by the country’s Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment’s Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP).

Poliomyelitis, more commonly known simply as “polio,” is a viral disease that is typically transmitted between people via the fecal-oral pathway. In 90 percent of cases, the disease produces no noticeable symptoms. In about 1 percent of cases, the virus spreads into the nervous system and preferentially destroys motor neurons in the spinal cord, brain stem and the brain’s motor cortex. This produces the paralysis characteristic of the disease.

(...)

The vaccine manufacturing mix-up is only the latest scandal for GSK, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company. In 2010, FDA tests uncovered traces of swine virus in the company’s Rotarix (rotavirus) vaccine. In addition, traces of avian leukosis virus were found in the company’s measles vaccine, and traces of simian retrovirus in the RotaTeq vaccine.

In 2012, a confidential GSK document was leaked to the press, revealing that over the course of two years, 36 infants had died following vaccination with the company’s 6-in-1 shot Infanrix Hexa. The same report documented 1,742 instances of adverse reactions to Infanrix Hexa, 503 of them considered extremely serious.

The same year, the Argentinean government fined the company for causing the deaths of 14 babies during illegal vaccine trials between 2007 and 2008. Full story...

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Volkswagen CEO likely to get $32 million pension after leaving...

Martin Winterkorn, engulfed by a diesel-emissions scandal at Volkswagen AG, amassed a $32 million pension before stepping down Wednesday, and may reap millions more in severance depending on how the supervisory board classifies his exit.

After Winterkorn disclosed Wednesday that he had asked the board to terminate his role, company spokesman Claus-Peter Tiemann declined to comment on how much money the departing CEO stands to get. Volkswagen’s most recent annual report outlines how Winterkorn, its leader since 2007, could theoretically collect two significant payouts.

Winterkorn’s pension had a value of 28.6 million euros ($32 million) at the end of last year, according to the report, which doesn’t describe any conditions that would lead the company to withhold it. And under certain circumstances, he also can collect severance equal to two years of “remuneration.” He was Germany’s second-highest paid CEO last year, receiving a total of 16.6 million euros in compensation from the company and majority shareholder Porsche SE. Full story...

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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

2.3 million applicants fight for 368 menial, low-wage office jobs in India

When a northern Indian state announced a few hundred job openings for low-level office workers who run errands and make tea, the response was staggering.

About 2.3 million people applied for the 368 jobs with the government of Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds of candidates with doctorates and other advanced degrees applied for the jobs that pay about 16,000 rupees ($240) a month and require a fifth-grade education.

The massive number seeking the menial jobs reflects high unemployment levels in the state — India’s most populous — and across much of the country.

Senior administrative officer Prabhat Mittal said Friday that the state government will conduct a written exam to screen the applicants because interviewing all of them would take four years.

“This is astoundingly high number of applicants,” senior government officer Alok Ranjan said. Full story...

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Future generations will never get why we allowed these five crimes to happen...

Picture yourself still alive in the future. Perhaps after the new world order is fully operational (2030 or beyond). By then perhaps it's too late. Humanity had become enslaved forever. Imagine a large percentage of humanity is now dead and gone. Billions succumbed to various diseases all linked to toxins and diseases that you now realize could have been easily avoided. The human species, you now realize, became victims of their own corruption, greed, subsequent policies and mind games. The species had become so locked in to their pre-determined paradigms that by the time enough people began to think on their own too many of them died off one way or another.

The "war on terror" that never did seem to end turned out to be the perfect tool to rationalize permanent war against everyone, anywhere, everywhere and at anytime. The human species essentially killed itself off. All along while one tiny segment of the planet known as the globalists, financial elite or illuminati operating under the guise and interest of nation states all danced along to a script they had laid out many years prior. The script told the story of how they were going to kill everyone off to conquer the world. The generations that lived during that time, as a whole ignored the warnings. Truth seekers, revolutionaries, independent journalists and alternative news entities kept warning for years about this out of control top-down corruption and many other ongoing conspiracies but the overall complacency of the species did not allow for quick enough significant action to take place to stop this agenda.

Before we knew it, it was too late. The wars, the fatalities, the depopulation agenda had all finally come to fruition. The human suffering immeasurable and unimaginable to the average mind would be blocked from sight and mind. Most people alive and surviving in this new world order system would be constantly subjected to wireless signals that provide news and entertainment and control what you see and hear. So if a person doesn't see the suffering, then to that person it's as if it's not happening. Full story...

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Kittens meet puppies for the first time...

As Malaysia's PM struggles in graft scandal, his party plays the race card...

When thousands of Malay Muslims marched through Kuala Lumpur last week to support his scandal-wracked government, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak kept his distance.

He neither attended nor officially endorsed the racially charged rally by members of Malaysia's majority community.

But several members of Najib's political party told Reuters they helped an ultranationalist Malay group stage the "Malay Pride" rally. Critics accused the organisers of stoking racial tensions in multicultural Malaysia to distract from a multi-million-dollar corruption scandal swirling around the prime minister.

Protesters at the rally held signs reading "Don't insult Malays and Islam" and "#najibstays". Some were eventually dispersed by riot police outside Chinatown, where many Chinese businesses are located.

There, witnesses said, they hurled racial abuse against ethnic Chinese and threatened a repeat of 1969, when ethnic rioting killed hundreds of people, mostly Chinese. Communal tension has simmered in the succeeding decades, and some fear that racially volatile mass gatherings like the Sept. 16 rally could spiral into violence. Full story...

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Sri Lanka shaken: UN reveals 'shocking findings' of crimes committed by military against Tamil Tiger terrorist group during civil war...

The United Nations has said that “shocking findings” of sexual violence and torture committed by the Sri Lankan military during and soon after its three-decade war against the Tamil Tiger terrorist group could amount to war crimes and called for the creation of a “hybrid special court” to handle cases.

“Our investigations have laid bare the horrific level of violations and abuses that occurred in Sri Lanka,” said the UN High Commissioner Zeid Al-Hussein in a long-awaited report.

“One shocking finding...was the extent to which sexual violence was committed against detainees, often extremely brutally, by the Sri Lankan security forces, with men as likely to be victims as women,” detailed the report.

The UN findings describe rape and sexual violence committed as a deliberate policy to inflict torture, particularly during interrogation sessions by security forces. According to minority Tamil survivors this was also rampant in many local detention sites. Full story...

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Modi and Monsanto: a wake up call for India...

Immediately prior to Narendra Modi being elected India’s PM last year, there were calls from some quarters for him to usher in a Thatcherite-style revolution. The hope was that he would accelerate the trend of privatisation, sops and tax breaks to business, deregulation, land and labour reforms, etc., and would also eradicate ‘blockages’ to various projects (i.e. remove dissent and relax or do away with existing procedures).

What Margaret Thatcher did in the eighties was to make Britain friendly to global capital. Global financial institutions became the mainstay of the economy and much local manufacturing industry was offshored. Under Thatcher, anti-trade union legislation, welfare reforms and pro-business policies became the order of the day. Three decades on and Britain has one of Western Europe’s most ‘flexible’ workforces in terms of a lack of protection and rights.

Thatcher’s policies helped to deindustrialise Britain and financialise the nation with a deregulated and corrupt City of London finance sector being a key driver of the economy. The result is record corporate profits, an unofficial unemployment rate of 30 percent, high personal debt, bank bail outs, stagnant demand, increasing national debt and ‘austerity’ for the masses. Any semblance of democratic rights that did exist have become gradually eroded as global capital increasingly dictates. Full story...

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