Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Chinese sex abuse: sleep with me, not kids...

Suddenly all kinds of people in China are offering to sleep with the headmaster.

The unusual outpouring is in response to a recent spate of sex abuse cases, including that of a school principal who spent the night in a hotel room with four underage girls. Artists, activists, university students and police officers are photographing themselves — some nude and provocatively posed, some angry and menacing — with the message:

"Principal, get a room with me. Leave the young students alone."

The online campaign — mixing performance art, satire and outrage — has tapped into public anger over sexual abuse against children. It's a problem in China partly because of a lack of sex education and partly because Chinese society has become unmoored from traditional strictures after decades of rapid economic change and social change.

(...)

The national debate on the problem began in early May, when a primary school principal was caught spending a night with four schoolgirls — all under the age of 14 — in a hotel room in southern China's Hainan province. Chen Zaipeng, the principal, has been fired and charged with rape.

 Members of the public reacted with astonishment to the high-profile case, and have been reading with fury as at least seven more cases of sexual abuse by school teachers or employees against young girls have come to light over the past three weeks from different parts of China. Some victims were as young as 8. Full story...

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Air turbulence created chaotic meatime mess on Singapore Airlines flight! Photos...

When turbulence strikes, it’s better when it happens before mealtime.

Instagram photos by a passenger on a recent Singapore Airlines flight SQ308 from Singapore to London show a chaotic mess after his flight hit a rough patch and lost altitude, sending meals flying. The passenger’s coffee, he said, ended up on the ceiling.

The passengers were warned to expect a bit of turbulence, Alan Cross told ABC News. It was announced the breakfast service would be temporarily suspended and the fasten seat belt sign came on.

About a minute later, the captain came on with a rather urgent-sounding order for all flight attendants to immediately take their seats, Cross said.

“I remember thinking that that his tone was a bit odd,” he said.

Cross described the turbulence that quickly followed as “like being in an elevator with a cut cable or free-falling from some amusement park ride.”

Everything that wasn’t tied down, including a few people, hit the ceiling, he said. More + photos...

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Monday, June 03, 2013

Shocking video of Somalian stoned to death by South African mob (Graphic)



Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon has expressed concern over the safety of the Somali community in South Africa.

In a letter to President Jacob Zuma, Mr Shirdon enumerated the woes that the Somali community in South Africa had to contend with.

“I appeal to the Government of the Republic of South Africa, as a matter of urgency, to intervene and contain this unnecessary and unfortunate violence against Somali business communities to preserve peace and stability, thereby further strengthening and promoting brotherly relations between our two peoples and governments,” said the PM in his statement issued in Mogadishu.

Mr Shirdon particularly reacted to the latest killing of Somali business people and looting of their properties.

He also sent his condolences to the families of the Somalis who were killed during the recent violence in Diepsloot, Pretoria and Booysens Park, Port Elizabeth. Full story...

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Singapore: Internet freedom under threat...

Alarm bells rang among the Singaporean online community as the government revealed a new licensing scheme for news websites that could potentially give a heavy blow to grassroots citizen journalism.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) has announced that Singaporean news websites with about 50,000 unique hits a month will now require individual licences to operate.

These licenses come with a 50,000-Singapore dollar (US $39,500) "performance bond" and a commitment to take down anything deemed to be in breach of content standards within 24 hours.

Ten websites were singled out in the MDA's announcement as being in need of individual licences. Only one of them - Yahoo! Singapore - does not belong to a local mainstream media outlet. Yet the outcry among Singaporeans has shown that no one really believes the government will stop at these ten.

Singapore's mainstream media has been licensed and regulated for years. Under the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA) and the Broadcasting Act, the government has had the power to grant or deny permits to operate, as well as to appoint management shareholders. Full story...

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"People are very, very angry." Protests, demands grow in Turkey...

Protests continue to swell across Turkey as tens of thousands of people joined the fourth consecutive day of anti-government actions in which "the demands of the protesters have broadened with their numbers."

"We have had enough of the way [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan understands democracy and the way he wants to dictate his rules," Ozgur Aksoy, an engineer demonstrating in Gezi Park on Monday, told Agence France-Presse.

"It's not only about the park here, it is about everything else in the last 10 years. People are angry, very angry."

(...)

"There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society." Full story...

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Japan tsunami relief money spent on ... counting turtles!!!

Billions of public money meant for people hit by Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami was spent in areas unaffected by the disaster, with projects ranging from counting sea turtles to promoting wine and cheese events.

Local authorities were surveyed by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to find out what happened to the 200 billion yen (£1.31 billion) Tokyo had set aside for economic reconstruction after the disaster.

It said in 38 prefectures that were outside the stricken northeast, 97 per cent of people employed with the money were not from the disaster zone.

In a town in southern Kagoshima prefecture, which lies around 800 miles from the devastated city of Ishinomaki, three million yen was spent on the protection and observation of sea turtles.

 Ten people were employed to count the creatures as they came ashore and to remind sightseers not to interfere with them. Full story...

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Unmarried Chinese mothers to be fined...

Plans to fine women who have children out of wedlock have caused outrage in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

On Monday, state media reported that under draft legislation being considered by the city's government unmarried mothers and women who had children with men who were already married would be charged hefty "social compensation fees".

The plans, drawn up by family planning officials in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, are designed to target women who "knowingly have children out of wedlock", according to a report in the Global Times newspaper.

 State media said the aim of the legislation was to "intensify family planning management and keep the birth rate at a low level." The unveiling of the draft legislation came just days after China was appalled by the case of Baby 59, a newborn baby boy who was miraculously rescued from a sewage pipe in Zhejiang province. Full story...

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A woman "possessed" by a demon...

Cat caught smuggling cell phones into Russian jail!!!

The Russian prison service said Monday it had caught a cat being used as a courier to smuggle banned cell phones and chargers into a prison camp in the country's remote far north.

The prison service in the Komi region said on its website that the cat was detained Friday evening as it climbed the fence of the region's Number One corrective labour camp with two cell phones, batteries and chargers strapped to its back using tape.

It posted a photograph of the black-and-white cat held up by the scruff of its neck by a guard with the bulky package still stuck to its fur.

"They have foiled various attempts to smuggle banned objects into Prison Colony Number One before, but in the case of the cat, the prison colony is at a loss: nothing like this has happened in the prison's history," the regional prison service said. Source...

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Ex-professor in Singapore jailed for sexual favours...

A Singaporean judge on Monday sentenced a former law professor to five months in jail for accepting sex and gifts from a student in exchange for good grades.

The case is one of several recent corruption trials to hit this Southeast Asian city-state, which has a reputation of cultivating a clean bureaucracy.

Tey Tsun Hang was fired from the National University of Singapore last week after being convicted of six counts of corruption involving what was described in court as "unbecoming" behavior for a senior educator.

 Chief District Judge Tan Siong Thye sentenced the 42-year-old to five months in jail and ordered him to pay a fine of 514 Singapore dollars ($408). He plans to appeal and is expected to be freed on bail while awaiting further hearings. Full story...

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People have killed their fear of authority - and the protests are growing...

(...)

The protests that have now engulfed the country may have begun in Gezi Park in Taksim, the heart of Istanbul. It was never just about trees, but the accumulation of many incidents. With the world's highest number of imprisoned journalists, thousands of political prisoners (trade unionists, politicians, activists, students, lawyers) Turkey has been turned into an open-air prison already. Institutional checks and balances have been removed by the current AKP government's political manoeuvres and their actions go uncontrolled. On top of this growing authoritarianism, the most important reason for people to hit the streets in support of the Gezi resistance was the arrogant tone of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan. Even on Sunday, when millions of people were joining the demonstrations, he called the protestors "looters". Throughout his tenure, his rhetoric has been no different. He has repeatedly called his political opponents "alchoholics, marginals, sniffers, bandits, infidels". His mocking sarcasm has become his "thing" over time, and even some of his closest colleagues accept that "he no longer listens to anyone".

Then, there is the fear. This kind of thing is hard to report in a prominent newspaper. That is perhaps why the international media have not reported that the fear of government and the Prime Minister has been growing even among non-political people. You can easily hear your grocery shop man saying "I think my phone is tapped". The mainstream media has not covered it, but we have read reports on social media about people being arrested for making jokes about the government. That is perhaps why for the past two days every wall in Taksim Square is full of curses against the Prime Minister. The public is enjoying the death of the "cruel father figure" with the most sexist curses I have ever seen in my life. And I have seen some. But there is a more important component to the protests. Full story...

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India needs a sexual revolution...

Twice a year, in spring and fall, India's Hindus celebrate Navrati, a nine-day festival during which they pray each day to a different female deity. Navrati culminates in "kanya puja," or a day of maiden worshiping: Every household invites over the young girls of the neighborhood and, led by the father or patriarch, bows before them, washes their feet, prays to them, offers them a specially prepared feast of vegetarian delicacies and showers them with gifts and money.

Growing up, I would make several weeks' worth of allowance on that one day. But this ancient practice wasn't meant to pamper the girls. It served to remind men of the qualities—mental courage, spiritual wisdom, purity of mind and strength of character—embodied in the feminine spirit, without which, according to Hindu scriptures, the cosmos would collapse into decadence and chaos.

Such veneration of women may surprise foreign observers of India, considering the recent epidemic of rapes there and publicity about the everyday harassment that Indian women face—lewd gestures, catcalls, groping and worse. Some have blamed modernity, suggesting that India needs to return to its past. But when it comes to "eve teasing" (as this practice is euphemistically called), I would argue the opposite: It is precisely the stubborn hold of India's prudish culture that has made many Indian men so callow.

 Arun Arushi Narodin, who writes for the online magazine Bodhi Commons, reports that 90% of urban women in India experience harassment. But that almost certainly understates the problem. I've never met an Indian woman—rich or poor, upper or lower caste, pretty or homely, young or middle-age—who hasn't been harassed. Indeed, street-level harassment is like traffic for drivers, an unavoidable nuisance women confront whenever they leave the house. It fundamentally alters how they walk, talk, travel and dress in public. It impels them to assume a body language least likely to draw attention—to cover themselves, as it were, in an invisible burqa. Full story...

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Russia Today becomes first TV news channel to hit 1 billion views on YouTube...

It's official: RT is the first TV news channel to reach 1 billion views on the video-sharing website YouTube, beating its long-established rivals to the mark.

RT is the first dedicated news network to join YouTube's elite "1 billion club", more typically dominated by comedy clips, music videos and entertainment shows produced by such networks as BBC or CBS.

“We proved that the mass YouTube audience isn’t just about kittens and Justin Bieber. There’s real demand for serious news online delivered in the right way,” RT chief online content editor Kirill Karnovich-Valua comments on RT’s breakthrough.

“It’s a massive landmark,” Google VP and Head of Content for YouTube Robert Kyncl commends RT’s achievement,attributing the network’s success to “learning and earning” an online viewer base. Full story...

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Turbulence in Turkey: Massive protest sweeps Istanbul's Taksim...

Gang-raped by four men at the age of 13, her village classed her as a "black virgin" and ordered her killed....

WHEN she was gang-raped by four men at the age of 13, her village classed her as a "black virgin" and ordered her killed.

In the rural village of Dadu in southern Pakistan, tradition held that Kainat Soomro's own family should murder her, as her sexual assault had made her a token of disgrace.

Four years later, Kainat is alive and a documentary about her story is premiering on television in the US.

But that doesn't mean she or her family is safe.

As the film Outlawed in Pakistan shows, Kainat Soomro is still "destined to be killed" because she took the step - extraordinary in Pakistan - of fighting for justice. Full story...

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A Singapore wealth manager under fire amid crackdown...

The email landed at a tough time for David Chong, the colourful founder and chairman of Portcullis TrustNet, one of Asia's biggest wealth advisory companies.

By threatening to publish offshore companies and trusts held by his clients, it hit a raw nerve at a company whose customers rely on its discretion. But it also came as the wealth management industry faces a wave of global scrutiny from regulators trying to weed out tax dodgers.

The email from a group of investigative journalists said it wanted to expose how the rich compound the world's economic problems by using offshore tax loopholes to minimise tax payments.

The message struck at the heart of a global debate over the moral divide between savvy tax planning and exploitation of loopholes that critics say mean governments miss out on corporate and individual tax revenues.

Singapore, like other wealth management centres, is in the regulatory spotlight and Chong said the reporters unfairly singled out Portcullis as one of the villains. Full story...

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Three goats put behind bars for damaging police vehicle!!!

The Western trend of charging pet owners for the misbehaviour of their animals seems to have entered the city. The Kilpauk police have filed a complaint against a woman whose three goats reportedly damaged a police patrol vehicle. The goats have been handed over to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

Police usually park their patrol vehicles outside G3 Kilpauk police station on Poonamallee High Road, near large trees where goats graze.

Police said the goats had a record of damaging vehicles of residents and shopkeepers. The goats "crossed the line" recently, said an officer, when they damaged the station's new patrol vehicle, a maroon Innova. "We got the vehicle two days ago," said an officer on duty.

According to the complaint, about 12 goats dented the vehicle and climbed on top of it, "damaging the wipers and glass, and scratching the paint of the bonnet and body".  Full story...

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Vinegar cancer test saves lives, India study finds...

A simple vinegar test slashed cervical cancer death rates by one-third in a remarkable study of 150,000 women in the slums of India, where the disease is the top cancer killer of women.

Doctors reported the results yesterday at a cancer conference in Chicago. Experts called the outcome "amazing" and said this quick, cheap test could save tens of thousands of lives each year in developing countries by spotting early signs of cancer, allowing treatment before it's too late.

Usha Devi, one of the women in the study, says it saved her life.

"Many women refused to get screened. Some of them died of cancer later," Devi said. "Now I feel everyone should get tested. I got my life back because of these tests."

Pap smears and tests for HPV, a virus that causes most cervical cancers, have slashed cases and deaths in the United States. But poor countries can't afford those screening tools.

 This study tried a test that costs very little and can be done by local people with just two weeks of training and no fancy lab equipment. They swab the cervix with diluted vinegar, which can make abnormal cells briefly change color. Full story...

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China's first lady Peng Liyuan steals the show in Latin America...

President Xi Jinping made history as the first Chinese leader to visit Trinidad and Tobago, but it is his glamorous wife Peng Liyuan who has turned the trip into a media sensation.

Peng is stealing the spotlight as she joins Xi on the visit to the dual island country off the coast of Venezuela, the first stop on a tour that will also take the couple to Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States.

Neither rain, the throngs jostling to see the visitors, nor the constant burst of camera flashes chronicling her public appearances flustered the impeccably dressed Chinese first lady, a former opera star fluent in English.

"She's a very beautiful person, very warm, and to chat with her in English was very wonderful," gushed Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar after meeting Peng.

 Peng understands the celebrity life: before Xi's rise to power she was a well-known soprano who toured the world promoting Chinese opera and music. For 24 years she also starred in an annual Lunar New Year gala broadcast on Chinese state television. Full story...

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Monsanto shares fall as South Korea joins pause in wheat imports...

Investors drove down the price of Monsanto shares by 4 percent on Friday as South Korea joined Japan in suspending imports of U.S. wheat after an unapproved strain of genetically modified wheat was discovered in a field in eastern Oregon.

The strain of wheat, designed to resist harmful effects from Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, was never commercially developed by the St. Louis-based agriculture giant in large part because wheat growers did not want to risk retaliation from their biggest export markets.

Fields used to test new crop varieties are burned and checked for surviving crops. So the mysterious appearance of the Monsanto wheat has raised questions about how the strain traveled there and whether it is lurking in the commercial wheat crop.

As a precaution, South Korea, which last year bought about half of its wheat imports from the United States, said it would halt purchases while it runs tests this weekend on wheat and flour that it has already imported. The European Union is also testing supplies.

“This is an embarrassment for Monsanto, not as much with the public as it is with food companies, ” said Gene Grabowski, executive vice president of Levick, a communications and public relations firm. Grabowski, a former senior executive at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said cereal and other food product firms selling in Japan or Europe haven’t wanted to go to the expense of making sure their wheat sources were free of genetic engineering. Full story...

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Sri Lanka: what is the new halal?

Remember halal?

The mighty roar against halal sprang up, literally out of nowhere, and occupied the public square with lightening speed. For three months, the anti-Halal campaign raged, subsuming all other concerns and devastating everything in its path, including the decades-old amity between Buddhists and Muslims (without which the Eelam War could have taken a different trajectory). Then, as abruptly as it came into life, halal died.

Today Halal lays forgotten, in an unmarked grave, in the graveyard of bogus issues.

Before its sudden and momentary elevation to the political centre-stage, halal languished in a stagnant pool of Sinhala-Buddhist extremist slogans, the sort which are either too impractical or too divisive for any sensible government to touch. And there are plenty of slogans left in that quagmire, quite a few even more inane and insalubrious than halal.

Someone with a surfeit of power and a dearth of principles may decide to select another of those slogans, and turn it into the issue of the hour. Full story...

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Sunday, June 02, 2013

Secret court jails father for sending son 21st birthday greeting on Facebook after he was gagged from naming him...

A father has been jailed at a secret court hearing for sending a Facebook message to his grown-up son on his 21st birthday.

Garry Johnson, 46, breached a draconian gagging order which stops him publicly naming his son, Sam, whom he has brought up and who still lives with him.

In a case which is certain to fuel concerns about Britain’s shadowy network of secret courts, a judge sent the former music executive to prison for contempt at a closed-doors family court hearing in Essex at the beginning of last month.

He was not arrested by police or even represented by a lawyer.

The order silencing Mr Johnson – which follows an acrimonious divorce eight years ago – means he cannot mention either of his boys, 21-year-old Sam and Adam, 18, in public, even by congratulating them in a local newspaper announcement when they get engaged, married or have children in the future.

The extraordinary gag is set to last until the end of his life, although his boys are now adults. Last night they condemned their father’s jailing as ‘cruel and ludicrous’. Full story...

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Monsanto is a ticking time-bomb for US agriculture: Japan cancels large wheat contract...

It has already begun: Japan has just cancelled a large contract to purchase U.S. wheat. “We will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat effective today,” Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, told Reuters.

As many readers well know, I predicted precisely this scenario just yesterday in a Natural News article warning about the consequences of genetic pollution. There, I wrote, “All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized — and possibly even rejected — by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture.”

Now we’re already seeing the result: the ditching of U.S. wheat by world nations that want nothing to do with GMOs.

This proves, without any question, that Monsanto’s genetic experiments which “escaped” into commercial wheat fields are now going to devastate U.S. wheat farmers. Expect the floor to drop out on wheat prices, and watch for a huge backlash against the USDA by U.S. farmers who stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this. Full story...

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Truck driver nearly beaten to death by cops for traffic ticket...

UN lashes out at Britain’s human rights record...

The UN’s torture watchdog has hit out at the British government for human rights abuses. In its harshest criticism yet of the British government, the panel warned that urgent action is needed for the country to meet international standards.

The UN Committee against Torture focused on human rights abuses during the so-called war on terror and the mistreatment of prisoners in British custody in Iraq. It also flagged up some 40 separate incidents on which the UK government must act.

The findings highlighted the British governments actions following 9/11 and the commission urged the British government to quickly establish an inquiry into whether detainees held overseas were ill-treated or tortured by British officials.

The report reads that the committee is “deeply concerned at the growing number of serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment, as a result of the state party’s military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

(...)

The watchdog also urged the UK government to halt the deportation of failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. The deportation of failed Tamil asylum seekers has led to their torture or ill-treatment on return and the UK government hasn’t changed its policy on the issue despite a ruling by the High Court in February ordering them to suspend deportations. Full story...

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Bride elopes with boyfriend, so groom marries her sister!!!

It's stuff Bollywood flicks are made up of. A bride eloped with her boyfriend, leaving the groom waiting at the marriage mandap at Ramteke Nagar on Wednesday. The woman, 22, returned in the evening, married to the man she loved. The groom, disheartened at first, had another surprise waiting for him, as the bride's family did not send him back empty-handed. They convinced the bride's younger sister to marry the groom, and everyone went home happy at the end of the day.

The drama started when a family from Pandhrabodi rushed to Ambazari police station with a request to help them find their daughter Reema (name changed), whose marriage was scheduled at 11am. The groom Shekhar (name changed), a computer teacher from Walni, had already reached the marriage venue with a 'baraat' of around 300 people. The bride's nervous family told police that she had left home early morning and was not traceable, with her mobile phone also unreachable.

Reema's family members also revealed that she was close to one Ravi (name changed). Sources in the neighbourhood also told the cops that Reema often frequented Ravi's place and the couple had been in a steady relationship.

 Cops from Ambazari police station immediately rushed to Ravi's place at Sudamnagari. But Ravi too was untraceable and his mobile phone was switched off. The cops immediately flashed the registration number of Ravi's bike on the wireless to trace him, assuming that Ravi and Reema had gone together. Full story...

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Mass protests rage on in Turkey...

Turkey has seen a second day of running battles between police and protesters, with demonstrators taking over a central square in Istanbul.

Riot police pulled back on Saturday after being accused of heavyhanded tactics, but there were fresh clashes near the offices of the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The unrest has spread to other cities across the country, with police on Saturday blocking a group of demonstrators from marching to parliament and the prime minister's office in Ankara.

Stone-throwing protesters clashed with police in the Kizilay district of the Turkish capital as a helicopter fired tear gas into the crowds.

Riot police with electric shock batons chased demonstrators into side streets and shops.

There were also protests in the Aegean coastal city Izmir.

During the day, crowds of protesters in Istanbul chanting "shoulder to shoulder against fascism" and "government resign" marched on Taksim Square in one of the largest demonstrations against Erdogan's government. Full story...

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Scotland has recognized the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey...

Scotland has recognized the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

The Parliament of Scotland has voted for the motion recognizing April 24 a commemoration day of the Armenian Genocide victims. The motion was introduced by Marco Biagi, Edinburgh Central, Scottish National Party.

“That the Parliament notes that 24 April is the anniversary of the government of the Ottoman Empire arresting Armenian intellectuals in 1915, which is generally considered to be the beginning of the forced relocations and expulsions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in a systematic genocide over the course of eight years; believes that the Armenian tragedy gives the people of every nation reason to pause and reflect; commemorates all those who have fallen victim to genocide or attempted genocide, and recognizes this and all other genocides as tragedies that should never be repeated in any part of the world,” the document reads. Source...

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Cops taser and then shoot man to death after family calls 911 for his depression...

A California sheriff's deputy needlessly Tasered and then shot a man to death after his father called 911 seeking help for his son's depression, the family claims in court.

Parents and two brothers of the late George I. Ramirez sued Stanislaus County, its sheriff's department, Sheriff Adam Christianson, and Deputy Art Parra Jr. in Federal Court.

George Ramirez, the father, says he called 911 on April 16, 2012, seeking help for his son. Ramirez says in the complaint that he told the 911 operator that his son was depressed, but never said that the family was in danger or that a crime was in progress.

Deputy Parra responded, finding the father changing a headlight and the mother indoors doing housework. The family says Parra asked about the son's whereabouts, but did not ask for details regarding his condition or why the family called 911.

Parra found Ramirez on the couch watching television, unaware that his family had called 911. Parra confirmed his identity and placed him under arrest by ordering him to stand up and turn around, according to the complaint. Full story...

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Who says dogs can't sing ... and play the piano!!!

Pot smoking to become Swiss ticketing offence...

Possession of small amounts of marijuana will become a ticketing offence in Switzerland starting this autumn.

A revision of the country’s drug laws, set to take effect on October 1st, will allow police officers to issue 100-franc ($105) tickets for people caught smoking a joint.

On-the-spot fines will replace a court appearance in cases of cannabis possession involving amounts of 10 grams or less.

The federal government issued a reminder of the planned change on Friday.

It follows amendments to drug laws adopted by the senate and the house of representatives (national council) on September 28th 2012.

 If the person ticketed agrees to pay the fine, he or she can avoid appearing in court. Full story...

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Three strikes for file-sharing failes to halt music sales decline in France...

For years, France’s adoption of the so-called graduated response for dealing with illicit file-sharing has been trumpeted by entertainment companies as a success story to be replicated around the globe. The only true barometer of success, however, is the sound of cash leaving customers’ pockets and into those of the entertainment industry. Just-released figures from the French music industry show that three strikes has done nothing to halt the decline – sales in 2013 are already down 6.7%.

Last month a nine-member panel lead by former Canal Plus chairman Pierre Lescure produced a 700 page report advising on policies for advancing entertainment industries in the digital age.

After the realization that it had not been effective, one of the report’s recommendations was to scrap the Hadopi agency, the body that currently administers the so-called “Three Strikes” anti-piracy system.

The conclusion was that although a reduction in illicit file-sharing on P2P networks such as BitTorrent had been achieved, there had also been an increase in use of other services, including streaming, over which Hadopi has no control. More importantly – crucially, one might argue, the panel concluded that the three strikes mechanism had failed to benefit authorized services as promised. Full story...

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Saturday, June 01, 2013

Count Dracula and his descendent Count Backwards...

The Daily Mail ran an article the other week that began with the line ‘Dracula was on to something’.

And, once having read the title of that article – The vampire treatment that ‘rejuvenates’ ageing hearts – the inference should be obvious to all.

The actual article its self, is about how Scientists have used a dose of young blood to rejuvenate ageing hearts… Not that this is a new discovery, albeit the Daily Mail would have you believe it is.

And, that aside, I would imagine that the Daily Mail intend – in all probability – the reference to Dracula to be nothing more than a light hearted way to start the article.

However, as soon as I read that first line, I immediately made a connection with a darker side to it.

You see, Dracula was actually based on the very real Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, AKA Vlad the Impaler, who was a member of the House of Drăculești, who are a branch of the House of Basarab, also known by the hispatronymic name: Dracula. Source

Bit like a fucking history lesson this, isn’t it? Full story...

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Indian-American Arvind Mahankali wins US National Spelling Bee...

Indian-American Arvind Mahankali, after years of heartbreakingly close calls, triumphed Thursday night in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, New York, correctly spelled 'knaidel,' the word for a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. The bee tested brain power, composure and, for the first time, knowledge of vocabulary.


Arvind finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012, and both times, he was eliminated on German-derived words. This time, he got one German word in the finals, and the winning word was from German-derived Yiddish, eliciting groans and laughter from the crowd. He spelled both with ease.

"The German curse has turned into a German blessing,'' he said.

(...)

Arvind becomes the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner and the 11th in the past 15 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the title in 1999 and was later featured in the documentary ``Spellbound.'' Full story...

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No eating on the train ladies...(18+)

Riots, barricades, street battles as police fight protesters in Turkey...

Thousands of protesters in Istanbul clashed with police in the most violent rally Turkey has seen in years. Hundreds have been injured and dozens arrested in fierce rioting which the media has dubbed the Turkish Spring as it spreads across the country.

The protests in Turkey have entered their second day Saturday morning, with thousands of demonstrators in Istanbul and Ankara being teargased and targeted with water cannons by police.

The Friday morning police crackdown on peaceful Occupy-style protesters rallying against the demolition of a landmark park in Istanbul, have over the day and night grown into massive street battles with police using teargas and water cannons against thousands of demonstrators and rioting spilling over to other Turkish cities, including the capital Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.

 What started out as a protest against cutting down trees in the Istanbul Gezi Park turned into a broader demonstration against Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which the demonstrators accuse of having grown increasingly authoritarian. Full story...

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Qatar joins other Gulf States in clamping down on online media...

The Gulf nation of Qatar is set to approve a range of new measures that aim to monitor online activity by its citizens, and could well lead to punishment for websites and users that breach the ‘general order’.

The draft of the country’s new media laws has moved on to an advisory council for final approval, and has been expected at least for the past year.

In March, Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari, Qatar’s Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, publicly stated that social media would be covered by the new media laws as “it is the most important form of free expression in the present world.”

Now, as AP reports, Qatar will seek wide leeway that could see consequences for online items considered a threat to ‘state security’, and it further outlaws news, video or online posts that violate the ‘sanctity’ of a person’s private life, regardless of whether it is slanderous.

 The new measures seem to resemble those enacted in other Western-backed Gulf states such as Kuwait and Bahrain, which have sharply increased arrests linked to social media posts that insult or otherwise undermine rulers. Full story...

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Turkey protests spread as Istanbul sit-in turns violent...

Anti-government demonstrators took to the streets in cities across Turkey after a sit-in at a park in Istanbul over plans for a construction project turned violent on Friday, with police using tear gas and water cannon to break up protesters.

Turkish riot police used tear gas and water cannon Friday to end a peaceful sit-in by hundreds of people trying to prevent trees from being uprooted in an Istanbul park. The dawn raid ignited a furious anti-government protest that took over the city’s main square and spread to other cities.

In a victory for the protesters, an Istanbul court later ordered the temporary suspension of the project to uproot the trees. But demonstrators around the country kept up protests denouncing what they called a heavy-handed crackdown and a government seen as displaying increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

Police took action on the fourth day of the sit-in against a government plan to revamp Taksim square. Officers clashed with angry demonstrators in surrounding areas, firing tear gas canisters and pushing people back with water cannon. A cloud of smoke from the gas filled the square and scattered protests continued into the night. Full story...

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Richest 1% control 39% of world's wealth and growing...

The wealthiest 1 percent now control 39 percent of the world's wealth, and their share is likely to grow in the coming years, according to a new report.

The world's total private wealth grew 7.8 percent last year to $135 trillion, according to the Boston Consulting Group's Global Wealth report. The top 1 percent control $52.8 trillion, and those worth $5 million or more control nearly a quarter of the world's wealth.

That concentration is likely to increase in the coming years as the wealth of the wealthy grows faster than overall global wealth. The number of millionaires in the world surged by 10 percent year, reaching 13.8 million. The study predicts that global wealth will grow around 4.8 percent a year over the next five years—though millionaires will see their wealth grow nearly twice as fast.

Those worth $5 million or more will see their wealth grow 8 percent, while those worth more than $100 million will see their wealth grow 9.2 percent. The $100-million-plus group will see their share of global wealth grow to 6.8 percent in 2017 from the current 5.5 percent. Full story...

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Medical sex worker for the handicapped in Japan...

Turkey: Police are packing people into the subway stations and throwing in tear gas, attacking hospitals where the injured are being treated...

I can be the first to admit that I've never been very politically active. I always watched from the sidelines. This is the first time in my 30 years that tears well up for what is happening just up the road from where I write these words.

Living abroad for many years, it was easy to brush off foreign news of civil unrest. Watching it on TV was always like some action movie, easily commented upon and then quickly brushed off as I watched in local bars or airport lounges.

Seeing the Istanbul police attacks for the first time today was chilling. Police are not only using tear gas, but plastic bullets, water cannons and physical violence. The photographs are all over social media worldwide.

Police are packing people into the subway stations and throwing in tear gas, attacking hospitals where the injured are being treated. A man and a girl have reportedly been killed. Even a politician has been seriously injured. Full story...

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