Thursday, March 31, 2016

Restaurant menus are playing mind tricks to make us spend more ...

Anyone who thinks they order what they want when they go to a restaurant may be surprised to learn that they're probably not as in control as they think.

In fact, marketing experts have revealed that food menus are designed to make you order more expensive items.

They'll probably be the reason why you have a starter, or dessert, or both, even when you weren't planning on it.

And all because they've been planned to have the biggest psychologically persuasive impact on you possible. Full story...

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Britain is third worst country in EU for nanny state regulation...

Britain is the third worst country in the European Union for nanny state regulation, a new analysis has found.

A league table of state regulation puts Britain just behind Finland and Sweden as the most meddling country in the EU.

The 2016 Nanny State Index, published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs, gave every EU country a score out of 100 according to how it regulates private lifestyle choices on alcohol, food, soft drinks, tobacco and e-cigarettes.

 Excessive regulation and punitive 'sin taxes' have resulted in the UK sitting third in the league table. Ireland takes the fourth spot. The Czech Republic gets the lowest score, making it officially the most liberal country in the EU. Full story...

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The secret confessions of a dominatrix...

Malaysia’s prime minister Najib has allegedly spent ‘millions’ on luxury goods...

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has bought millions of dollars worth of luxury items using funds that investigators believe were siphoned from a struggling state development fund, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday morning local time.

It is the latest development in a scandal that has embroiled Najib and led many Malaysians — including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, once Najib’s political mentor — to demand his resignation.

Last July, the Journal and the London-based investigative news website Sarawak Report reported that Najib’s personal accounts held nearly $700 million in funds that had been traced to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a debt-saddled investment fund launched by Najib during his first months in office in 2009. (Last month, the Journal reported that the sum was larger than originally believed — upwards of $1 billion.) Full story...

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'War on Drugs' has made no difference to number of users and actively harms public health...

The five-decade long international “War on Drugs” started by US president Richard Nixon has harmed the public health and should be scrapped in favour of a process of decriminalisation, a major new report has concluded.

Anti-drug policies and laws have had “no measurable impact on supply or use” and cannot be justified on scientific or public health grounds, according to the authors of study commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Ivy League university and The Lancet.

The report presents “compelling evidence” that countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic have decriminalised non-violent minor drug offences with positive results, including “public health benefits, cost savings, lower incarceration [rates] and no significant increase in problematic drug use”.

Urging action from countries such as the US and UK which still have highly strict drugs policies, the authors called on governments to consider “regulated markets” for cannabis like those in Uruguay and the US states of Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska. Full story...

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Using Adblock Plus to block ads is legal, rules German court—for the fifth time...

Using Adblock Plus to block ads on websites is legal, a German regional court has ruled. The suit, brought by the company behind the leading German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, is the fifth such case to be decided in favour of the makers of the software, who are based in Germany. The court in Munich also ruled that the "Acceptable Ads initiative," a scheme that requires larger companies to pay for their ads to be whitelisted by Adblock Plus, is acceptable under German law.

As a blog post by Adblock Plus's Ben Williams explains, the court found that there is no contract between publishers and visitors to websites as a result of which users have “agreed” to view all the ads a publisher serves. "To the contrary, said the court, users have the right to block those or any ads, because no such contract exists," Williams writes. "Additionally, the judge ruled that by offering publishers a way to serve ads that ad-blocking users will accept, the Acceptable Ad initiative provides them an avenue to monetise their content, and therefore is favourable, not disadvantageous, to them."

In a significant rebuke to the company behind Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Munich regional court said that "the law does not exist to save or uphold publishers’ business model(s). Rather, according to the ruling, it is up to them to innovate."

A similar court case was brought last September against Adblock Plus's parent company Eyeo by the German publishing giant Axel Springer, this time in Cologne. According to an earlier post on the Adblock Plus site, the publisher claimed it was "the constitutional right of the press to advertise," and that the Adblock Plus software was infringing on that right. Full story...

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Pirate Bay allowed to continue operating by Sweden court...

(...)

The decision is a blow to a group of rights holders that included Sony Music, Warner Music and Nordisk Film, which had tried to hold the ISP’s users responsible for copyright infringement. The hope was to bring Sweden into line with other European states, which have effectively banned the file-sharing site.

The backdrop here takes place in 2014, when several firms, including Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music, Nordisk Film, and the Swedish Film Industry filed a case against Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget, pushing for the provider to block The Pirate Bay from operating. The companies wanted to make Bredbandsbolaget culpable for its customers’ copyright infringements, with the ISP refusing to comply and stressing that its role is solely to provide Internet service to customers, and to keep information flowing in freely. After months of litigation, the Stockholm District Court found that Bredbandsbolaget does not facilitate copyright infringement, or “piracy” of intellectual property.

Now that we’re back to the present, it would appear that the companies that filed the suit last year are not happy with the decision. According to Per Stromback of FTVS, the umbrella group behind the lawsuit, it was The Pirate Bay and other piracy sites that were victorious in Friday’s court decision. “The ruling is a serious failing for the Swedish judicial system that is already falling behind,” Stromback said in a statement. “Swedish film and music creators deserve better.” Full story...

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French minister compares veil wearers to 'negroes who accepted slavery'

France's women's rights minister has sparked fury by comparing Muslim women who choose to wear the headscarf to "negroes who accepted slavery".

Laurence Rossignol appeared on French TV criticising fashion brands that market hijabs as "irresponsible".

She later said using the word "negro" had been a mistake, but insisted she had only used it in connection with the works of an 18th Century thinker.

Thousands have signed a petition for her to resign.

Ms Rossignol told Buzzfeed the word "negro" was no longer used except to refer to Baron de Montesquieu's writings on slavery. Full story...

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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Heavy boobs ...

TERI, Pachauri, sexual harassment and The Guardian’s poor journalism...

The Guardian newspaper published from London is considered to be one among the world’s most credible sources of news, commentary and analysis. So when a thoroughbred in the media space offers an unchallenged platform to an internationally renowned person accused of sexual harassment in his country, questions will and must be raised. The Guardian’s interview with Dr. Rajendra Pachauri slaps journalistic deontology. It is also a slap on the Indian judiciary. We at The News Minute (TNM) want to call this one out.

Dr. Pachauri is a celebrated expert on sustainable development and related issues. He sits on many chairs and high positions. He is not, as The Guardian says, a Nobel Laureate. He was head of the Geneva-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on whose behalf he collected the Nobel Prize in 2007 (shared with former US Vice President Al Gore). He resigned from this post in 2015 following the allegations in India making him the highest United Nations (UN) official to do so.

However, his eminence is not related to the matter at hand which is one of sexual harassment. A case is making its way through New Delhi’s courts and in a 500-page charge-sheet, Delhi police has been quoted as saying they have “enough evidence” to prosecute Dr. Pachauri. Full story...

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Johor sultan says be Malay not Arab...

It is not often that modern Malaysian sultans, least of all from Johor, make sage public statements. But a mix of wisdom and exasperation was evident in the recent words of Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar:

“If there are some of you who wish to be an Arab and practice Arab culture, and do not wish to follow our Malay customs and traditions, that is up to you,” he said, adding: “I also welcome you to live in Saudi Arabia. That is your right but I believe there are Malays who are proud of the Malay culture.”

He had been using Malay terms since he was a child and intended to go on using them, he said. Thus he was going to use the term Hari Raya Puasa rather than the Arabic Eid-el-Fitr for the festival at the end of Ramadan. Likewise the Malay term for Arabic Iftar, the fast-breaking meal during Ramadan, was Buka Puasa. The Sultan was noting the slavish following of Arabian practices that has spread in Malaysia over recent decades.

The Sultan also took issue with those criticizing him for shaking hands with many women during the annual Kembara Makhota, a travel tour in which he travels around the state to meet as many people as possible. “Why must I change? You do not have to be fanatic. If they are not sure, I ask if they want to shake my hands. If they do not want to shake my hands, there is no problem,” he added. Full story...

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Flash floods in Chennai last November caused economic losses of $2.2 billion...

The flash floods in Chennai last November were the largest disaster, causing estimated economic losses of $ 2.2 billion, according to the latest sigma study by Swiss Re. India's total economic losses from all disasters, including natural and man-made events exceeded $6.2 billion (or 6.8 per cent of worldwide losses) in 2015

The study said insured losses were estimated at around $755 million, making these floods the second costliest insurance event in India on sigma records.

According to the study, India's total economic losses from all disasters, including natural and man-made events exceeded $6.2 billion (or 6.8 per cent of worldwide losses) in 2015, down from $13.4 billion (11.9 per cent of global losses) in 2014.

 Total insured losses were $1 billion, up from $971 million the year before. Based on sigma criteria, there were 25 catastrophic events in India last year, up from 20 in 2014. Full story...

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Singapore aims to become the world's first smart city-state...

From the glass-walled conference room overlooking a minimalist two-story office just across the street from Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus Rift, the space would fit any number of well-heeled startups in San Francisco.

The difference with this industrial-style loft in the trendy SoMa district is that the money that helped pay for the work space (obligatory neon accents and all) didn't come from a nearby venture capital firm. It came from the government of the world's third-richest country.

"To make the brand more relevant, we had to move to the city," said Victor Tan, who runs Block 71, the Bay Area outpost for the investment arm of Singapore's national technology agency. "That's why we pay the ridiculous rents."

Tan helmed a startup in China before working for the government of the Southeast Asian city-state home to 5.5 million people. He has been Singapore's man on the ground for three years now, moving his operation up to San Francisco from nearby Silicon Valley last year.

His current task: Land Singapore on the map for global tech talent as officials back home ramp up a lofty, tech-centric development plan called "Smart Nation." Full story...

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The media—a house of spin built on lies...

Faycal Cheffou, the only person to be charged with last week’s Brussels attacks that killed 31 people, was released on Tuesday of this week.

The authorities seized and named Cheffou hours after the attacks. Media outlets were quick to condemn him.

He was suspected to be the “man in the hat” at Brussels airport. The suspected third bomber was caught on CCTV pushing a luggage trolley next to two men thought to be bombers.

Police released Cheffou due to a lack of evidence. But the press seemed convinced of his guilt only days earlier and wanted to join the dots for us.

The Guardian newspaper excitedly reported on “Cheffou’s suspicious movements at the time of his arrest in Brussels”. Full story...

Turkey 'demands deletion' of German video mocking ErdoÄŸan...



The Turkish government has reportedly ordered the deletion from the internet of a German satirical video that pokes fun at President Recep Tayipp ErdoÄŸan and condemns his human rights record.

Germany’s ambassador to Turkey, Martin Erdmann, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Ankara last week, according to German media, and asked to justify the contents of the short film made by Extra 3, the popular satirical television programme.

“We demanded that the programme be deleted,” a Turkish diplomat told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.

The complaints centre on a two-minute song, Erdowi, Erdowo, ErdoÄŸan, which was broadcast by the TV channel NDR on 17 March. The lyrics mock the president for everything from his “showy palace with a thousand rooms, built without a permit in a conservation area” to his crackdown on press freedom, and for “jailing journalists for writing things he doesn’t like”. Full story...

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Modi’s BJP faces farmers’ ire over cattle sale ban...

A ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter in India’s richest state is threatening to push millions of farmers into penury, deepening distress in the countryside and fanning resentment against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

Slaughter of cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, has historically been banned in most states but was rarely enforced in India, the world’s largest exporter of beef.

But over the past year, states ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), such as Maharashtra, have broadened the ban to include other types of cattle, like bulls and bullocks, and Hindu vigilantes have stepped up attacks on traders to enforce the prohibition.

The stricter rules come as Modi and the nationalist BJP lay greater stress on India’s Hindu faith, to which the majority of the population belongs. Minority groups, including around 180 million Muslims, have expressed concern over the implications. Full story...

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Japan’s retirees turn to crime for a better life in prison...

Japan’s prison system is being driven to budgetary crisis by demographics, a welfare shortfall and a new, pernicious breed of villain: The recidivist retiree. And the silver-haired crooks, say academics, are desperate to be behind bars.

Crime figures show about 35 per cent of shoplifting offences are committed by people over 60. Within that age bracket, 40 per cent of repeat offenders have committed the same crime more than six times.

There is good reason, concludes a report, to suspect the shoplifting crime wave, in particular, represents an attempt by those convicted to end up in prison — an institution with free food, accommodation and healthcare.

The mathematics of recidivism are gloomily compelling for the would-be convict. Even with a frugal diet and dirt-cheap accommodation, a single Japanese retiree with minimal savings has living costs more than 25 per cent higher than the meagre basic state pension of ¥780,000 (S$9,415) a year, according to a study on the economics of elderly crime by Mr Michael Newman of Tokyo-based research house Custom Products Research. Full story...

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Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study...

A new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research offers a sobering look at the oft-touted "democratizing" effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority opinion.

The study, published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived to be in the minority. This research illustrates the silencing effect of participants’ dissenting opinions in the wake of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

The “spiral of silence” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in which we tailor our opinions to fit the online activity of our Facebook and Twitter friends. But this study adds a new layer by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship. Full story...

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Israel passes law to cap bankers' salaries...

Israel has introduced one of the world’s toughest curbs on bank executives’ salaries in an effort to narrow a big pay gap between bosses and workers.

The legislation was pushed through by the finance minister, Moshe Kahlon, who, before last year’s parliamentary elections, ran on a platform of lowering the cost of living and reforming Israel’s banks. It was approved in parliament overnight in a 56-0 vote and will take effect in six months.

Bankers’ pay is a sensitive issue in Israel, especially since banks make large profits partly from a wide variety of fees on such things as deposits and withdrawals.

According to parliament’s finance committee, salaries at financial firms have grown substantially in recent years and a quarter of the 40 listed companies in Israel with the highest pay levels are financial ones.

 “There is a moral significance beyond the economic significance in this law,” Kahlon said on Tuesday. “It symbolises narrowing pay gaps, solidarity and consideration for the weak.“ Full story...

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

The White Temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand...



Woman is sentenced to death for cutting out her lover's heart when she discovered he had secretly filmed them having sex in Bangladesh...

A young woman who cut her lover's heart out and slashed his throat has been sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Fatema Akhter Sonali, 21, acted out of revenge after the man refused to marry her and secretly kept recordings of the couple having sex, prosecutor Quazi Shabbir Ahmed said.

She had also found video footage of him having sex with other women on his laptop, Ahmed said.

"It's rare for a woman to be sentenced to death. But her case was exceptional," he told AFP.

"She admitted to the court she killed her lover, Emdadul Haq Shipon, for refusing to marry her and for keeping a recording video of their sexual intercourse in his laptop."

The judge delivered Sonali's sentence on Monday in a packed court in the southwestern city of Khulna. Full story...

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War in Yemen kills many children, leaves others malnourished - UNICEF...

Hundreds of thousands of children in Yemen face life-threatening malnutrition, millions lack access to health care or clean water, and some have been drafted as soldiers in the year-old war, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Tuesday.

A UNICEF report said all sides had "exponentially increased" the use of child soldiers in the conflict between Houthi forces, allied to Iran, and a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. It knew of 848 documented cases, including boys as young as 10.

"On average, at least six children have been killed or injured every day," said the report "Childhood on the Brink". UNICEF has confirmed 934 children directly killed and 1,356 injured, but says they are "only a tip of the iceberg".

"Sixty-one percent of those (children) killed and injured were in (Saudi-led) air strikes across the country," Julien Harneis, UNICEF's Representative in Yemen, told a briefing by telephone from the capital Sanaa.

All sides have violated international law by using indiscriminate and disproportionate force that means "children die unnecessarily and wrongly", he said, citing multiple coalition strikes on outdoor markets. Full story...

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Outrage after Peugeot chief sees €2.5million salary doubled...

A decision by PSA Peugeot Citroen to double its chairman's salary to €5 million has sparked angry debate in France, with Finance Minister Michel Sapin on Tuesday qualifying the raise as "harmful".

Carlos Tavares, the chairman of Europe's second biggest carmaker, earned €5.24 million ($5.8 million) in 2015, up from 2.75 million in 2014, company documents showed last week.

The company's supervisory board hailed Tavares for leading Peugeot through a restructuring process that moved it back into the black in 2015 with a net profit of €1.2 billion.

 As criticism rose over the move, Sapin said the government, which has a 13-percent stake in the company, asked its representatives to vote against the salary increase. Full story...

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Minnesota cafe owner shows homeless man job, not the door...

A baggy-clothed homeless man who walks up and down Minneapolis' Lake Street begging for change got more than he bargained for when he strolled into Cesia Abigail's cafe two weeks ago.

Instead of turning away the man, the 25-year-old owner of Abi's Cafe asked, "Why don't you have a job? You know nothing is given to me for free, right?"

Bowing his head down to avoid eye contact, the man named Marcus replied: "Well, I have a lot of felonies and no one wants to hire me for that. So, now I had to turn myself to the streets and get money the only way I know -- stealing and asking for money."

Despite hitting a rough patch in her business, a soft-hearted Abigail decided to offer the man a job washing dishes for the day.

"You want a job? Then I have one for you," Abigail told him. Full story...

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FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help...

The Justice Department is abandoning its bid to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack because investigators have found a way in without the tech giant’s assistance, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Monday.

In a three-sentence filing, prosecutors wrote that they had “now successfully accessed the data” stored on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and that they consequently no longer needed Apple’s court-ordered help getting in. The stunning move averts a courtroom showdown pitting Apple against the government — and privacy interests against security concerns — that many in the tech community had warned might set dangerous precedents.

It is unclear how, precisely, investigators got into the phone, or what FBI agents learned about the plot from the materials they were able to review. On the eve of a hearing in the case last week, the FBI had signaled that it might have found a way into Farook’s device, writing in a court filing that “an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method.” But government officials said they wanted to test that method further before employing it in Farook’s case, and they did not offer details about who proposed it or how it would work. Full story...

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Dangerous highway in the Philippines

Monday, March 28, 2016

Girl who was turned into a meme by bullying 4chan members at just 11 says viral fame killed her dad and left her friendless in a foster home...

Jessi Slaughter posted a four and a half minute video talking about 'haters' in 2010 to YouTube after rumors began swirling that the 11 year old had slept with a 25-year-old singer.

The video, laced with profanity and brash language caught the attention of the MySpace-era internet.

But when the child posted another video where her father, Gene Leonhardt, furiously defended his crying daughter, spouting out lines like 'you done goofed' and warning viewers he had contacted 'the cyberpolice', the internet unleashed its fury.

That was the turning point that transformed Jessi into a meme and her life into a living hell.

Six years after the internet began bullying Jessi - who now goes by Damien and they/them pronouns - to the point of needing to be placed in institutionalized psychological care, they says the video changed their life.

When the summer of 2010 ended and Damien returned to school, they said their friends - 'a clique of 'emo' kids' - disowned them. More + photos...

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The Lahore attacks are just the latest atrocity in a war on Christians...

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

Yesterday, more than 70 people were killed in Lahore in a suicide attack targeted against Christians celebrating Easter. In recent years, too, people around the world have been appalled by images of attacks on churches in Pakistan, where 85 people died when two suicide bombers rushed the Anglican All Saints Church in Peshawar, and in Kenya, where an assault on a Catholic church in Wajir left one dead and two injured. Full story...

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Yoga 'cures cancer,' claims senior Indian government official...

A "cure for cancer" using yoga could be scientifically proven within a year, a senior Indian government official has claimed.

The head of India’s ministry for alternative medicine said researchers at a Bangalore institute were in the process of submitting research showing that yoga techniques could be used to prevent or arrest the disease.

“The institute has found a technique of yoga for the prevention and cure of cancer. They have proved it. The process uses only practising of special asanas [poses],” said Shripad Yasso Naik.

Speaking at a conference in Goa on Saturday, Mr Naik said the technique could be prescribed to patients within a year, once research documents submitted to the ministry had been verified, and could even replace chemotherapy.

 Dr HR Nagendra, chancellor of the Bangalore-based Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA), confirmed to the Sunday Express that the research was taking place. Full story..

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Vaxxed: Tribeca festival withdraws MMR film...

New York's Tribeca Film Festival will not show Vaxxed, a controversial film about the MMR vaccine, its founder Robert De Niro says.

As recently as Friday, Mr De Niro stood by his decision to include the film by anti-vaccination activist Andrew Wakefield in next month's festival.

The link the film makes between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism has been widely discredited.

"We have concerns with certain things in this film," said Mr De Niro.

Mr De Niro, who has a child with autism, said he had hoped the film would provide the opportunity for discussion of the issue. Full story...

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Singapore SMRT tragedy exposes company culture that needs fixing...

The tragedy that struck SMRT last week (22 March) and its reaction to the crisis have exposed a leadership stuck in permanent panic mode and a company culture that needs fixing.

The genesis of its series of troubles is the under-investment in maintenance by its former chief executive officer, Saw Phaik Hwa. But its reaction to a series of breakdowns and disruptions - the most serious of which happened in July last year - and last Tuesday’s deaths of two of its trainees show that lessons have yet to be learnt.

Immediately after the two were killed by an oncoming train, CEO Desmond Kuek rushed to tell the world that there were no safety lapses. The very next day, SMRT had to do a turnaround when it announced that one of the procedures was actually not followed.

Not only does this kind of a reversal on what happened 150m away from the Pasir Ris station put a serious question mark on its leadership, but it also shows a serious flaw in decision making and judgement. Full story...

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What airplane toilets do with your waste...

Suicide bomber targeting Christians kills 65, mostly women and children, in Pakistan park...

A suicide bomber killed at least 65 people, mostly women and children, at a park in Lahore on Sunday in an attack claimed by a Pakistani Taliban faction which said it had targeted Christians.

More than 300 other people were wounded, officials said.

The explosion occurred in the parking area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park close to children's swings. The park is a popular site for members of Lahore's Christian community, many of whom had gone there to celebrate the Easter weekend holiday.

Witnesses said they saw body parts strewn across the parking lot once the dust had settled after the blast.

"When the blast occurred, the flames were so high they reached above the trees and I saw bodies flying in the air," said Hasan Imran, 30, a resident who had gone to Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park for a walk.

Officials said 65 people were killed and about 300 wounded. Police Superintendant Mustansar Feroz said most of the casualities were women and children.

The Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the attack. Full story...

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Sunday, March 27, 2016

Why we should fear a cashless world...

The health food chain Tossed has just opened the UK’s first cashless cafe. It’s another step towards the death of cash.

This is nothing new. Money is tech. The casting of coins made shells, whales’ teeth and other such primitive forms of money redundant. The printing press did the same for precious metals: we started using paper notes instead. Electronic banking put paid to the cheque. Contactless payment is now doing the same to cash, which is becoming less and less convenient. In the marketplace convenience usually wins.

That’s fine as long as people are making this choice freely. What concerns me is the unofficial war on cash that is going on, from the suspicion with which you are treated if you ever use large sums of cash to the campaign in Europe to decommission the €500 note. I’m not sure the consequences have been properly considered.

We already live in a world that is, as far as the distribution of wealth is concerned, about as unequal as it gets. It may even be as unequal as it’s ever been. My worry is that a cashless society may exacerbate inequality even further. Full story...

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Three-quarters of teachers 'see pupils turn up to school hungry'

An alarming survey has revealed almost three-quarters of teachers have seen pupils come to class hungry, as schools are forced to compensate to meet childrens’ basic needs.

NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, published the findings of their third annual survey, which highlighted the impact of ‘financial hardship’ is steadily growing.

Over the last year, 71 per cent of teachers saw their pupils come to school hungry, while more than a quarter have given their own food away to students.

And over half have seen their school give food to hungry children.

Of the 3,250 teachers surveyed, more than half said some youngsters were unable to afford uniform, with 15 per cent claiming they have given pupils clothing. Full story...

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Dalits in Tamil Nadu continue to pay with their lives for marrying outside their caste while parties look the other way...

Mariamma last spoke to her son P Muthukumar around 5 pm on November 13, 2014. It was just before he left with a friend to meet his girlfriend in response to a call from her. The 23-year-old, a chemistry postgraduate and the first Dalit youth in their neighbourhood in Palani in southern Tamil Nadu to complete a master's degree, was in the middle of his BEd. "I tried calling him an hour later but his phone remained switched off," Mariamma told ET Magazine earlier this week.

When a worried Mariamma along with her husband, Paramashivam, went looking for their boy later in the evening, they were told that a body had been found in a well in Virupatchi, around 20 kilometres away. "When we reached the spot, the DSP told us that our son had stolen a chicken and was trying to escape when he tripped and fell into the well," says Paramashivam at the couple's two-room house, dominated by photos of a bespectacled Muthukumar.

Even then, says Paramashivam, the attempt was to portray his son as a petty thief, to make him fit into the imagined stereotype of a Dalit. Muthukumar's parents and activists dismiss the accidental death theory and say that those responsible for his death should be brought to book. They allege that his girlfriend's family got him murdered to safeguard their "honour" — after all, Muthukumar was a Dalit and his girlfriend, Bhuvaneshwari, a Goundar, officially a backward caste but socially dominant .The police registered a case under Section 174, or suspicious death, but the family has now approached the courts to get justice. Full story...

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Death toll climbs to 41 in Iraq stadium bombing...

Iraqi officials say the death toll from a suicide bombing at a soccer stadium that was claimed by the Islamic State group has climbed to 41, with another 105 people wounded.

The security and public health officials provided the updated toll Saturday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The bombing took place Friday during a match in the small stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles (50 kilometres) from the capital, Baghdad. IS claimed the attack, saying it had targeted Shiite militiamen.

The extremist group has lost ground in recent months in Iraq and Syria, but has struck back with a series of large attacks targeting civilians. IS claimed this week's attacks in Brussels, which killed 31 people. Source...

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Aliens: Are we looking in the wrong place?

Saturday, March 26, 2016

National vaccine scandal in China becomes source of frustration and outrage...

Scattered reports from around China over the years of mysterious deaths of children after being vaccinated suddenly took on a sinister new significance recently after a large smuggling ring dealing in adulterated inoculants was broken up.

The scandal has focused renewed attention, and anger, at endemic corruption and regulatory oversight in China. These are common themes of complaint among Chinese, though in this case they have been expressed with uncommon fury, and by individuals who rarely stick their necks out.

Food and drug authorities in eastern China said that the illicit vaccine business they busted had involved over 300 individuals in 24 provinces, over 2 million vaccinations, and 570 million yuan ($88 million). Authorities are charging a mother and daughter as chief culprits in the ring; they were detained last year in Shandong Province.

The women did not have proper refrigeration facilities for the vaccines, which according to state media were the kinds used to treat rabies, polio, hepatitis A, and other diseases. Full story...

Kenyan woman edits herself into holiday photos with hilarious consequences!!!

A woman from Kenya has edited herself into a series of other people's holiday photographs on her Facebook page.

Not being able to afford a trip to Asia, Sevelyn Gat inserted herself into snaps standing next to a plane, on the Great Wall of China and at a temple.

The photoshopped images were so bad that they've been liked thousands of times.

Nairobi businessman Sam Gichuru has now come to her rescue and raised enough money for her to go on holiday. More + photos...

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