South Korea sees surge in infidelity after law change ending jail for adultery...

More South Koreans have been embarking on extra-marital affairs since the nation's top court abolished a law that made adultery illegal and punishable with a prison term.

A survey conducted by Macromill Embrain in August determined that 39.3 percent of South Korean men and 10.8 percent of women have been unfaithful to their spouses.

For the men, that figure is an increase of 2.4 percent on a similar survey conducted in 2014, while the rate is up 4.3 percent for women.

The study suggested that wealthy people tended to have more affairs, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, with more than half of the married people earning W7 million (GBP3,848) per month indulging in illicit relationships.

Age was also a factor, with more than 30 percent of people in their 50s having affairs, but less than 20 percent of 20- and 30-somethings admitting to cheating. Full story...

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Man builds car made from scrap...

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Fury after Saudi Arabia 'chosen to head key UN human rights panel'

The United Nations has been criticised for handing Saudi Arabia a key human rights role - despite the country having “arguably the worst record in the world” on freedoms for women, minorities and dissidents.

Critics, including the wife of imprisoned pro-democracy blogger Raif Badawi – sentenced to 1,000 lashes for blogging about free speech – labelled the appointment “scandalous”, saying it meant “oil trumps human rights”.

Mr Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, who is leading an international campaign to free her husband, said on Facebook that handing the role to Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was effectively “a green light to start flogging [him] again”.

UN Watch, an independent campaigning NGO, revealed Mr Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was elected as chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council. Full story...

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'Europe’s Guantanamo': Refugees in Hungary fed 'like animals in pen' (VIDEO)

Dramatic footage has emerged showing people at Hungary's main refugee camp on the border with Serbia being fed like wild animals. Crowds of refugees, children and women among them, shout to get the officers' attention, struggling to catch the bread thrown to them through the air.

Some 150 people can be seen at Roszke camp in a fenced-in enclosure inside a big hall as Hungarian police, equipped with helmets and hygiene masks, throw bags of sandwiches at them.

The video was shot secretly by an Austrian volunteer who visited the flashpoint camp earlier this week. The footage, which was uploaded on YouTube late Thursday, had over 25,000 views by Friday afternoon.

"It was like animals being fed in a pen, like Guantanamo in Europe," Alexander Spritzendorfer, whose wife, Michaela filmed the scenes, told AFP. The couple came to Roszke to bring food, clothes and medication to the refugees. More + video...

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The Amish don't get autism, but they also don't vaccinate...

People outside the alternative health community are often confused by the lack of autism in the Amish people. The Amish do not experience autism, or most of the other learning disabilities that plague our technological society. They live in a society that consists of outdated technologies and ideals, at least by contemporary standards.

Their diet consists of eating organic, fresh, locally-grown produce, and of course, they do not follow the established vaccination routines. To the dismay of the mainstream media and the medical establishment, this has resulted in a healthier people, who are void of all of our chronic diseases. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are virtually non-existent in Amish villages. Equally non-existent are our modern, chemically-engineered medicines, enhanced (chemically engineered) foods, G.M.O. (genetically engineered) foods, and of course, vaccines. How is it that those who are without the so-called “miracles” of modern orthodox medicine are healthier? The truth about health, medicine, and how they both relate to the Amish has become an embarrassment to some rather powerful people.

There have been 3 (yes three) verified cases of autism in the Amish, and two of those children were vaccinated. No information is available for the third child, who was likely vaccinated himself. The strong correlation between vaccinations and autism is becoming undeniable, unless you work for the medical establishment (pharmaceutical company), the government, or the Adveritising companies called Mainstream Media. Proponents of the status quo actually claim that the Amish must have a super gene that makes them immune to autism. They rationalize that autism must be some type of genetic failure, which attacks brains based on religious affiliations. It is truly the best of F.D.A. and A.M.A. science in all its shining glory. Vaccine proponents are willing to espouse any ridiculous explanation, so long as they do not have to accept that their industry is causing chronic disease. Due to all their help, children in the United States have a stunning 2% chance of developing autism, and that percentage is growing rapidly. Full story...

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Filipinos trapped in their own country...

A Filipina grandmother who is currently living in Thailand recently told a friend she hasn’t visited her home country in years, and that in fact she is afraid to because despite fact that she has a valid passport, she might not be allowed back out by arbitrary decisions of officials of the Immigration department.

That isn’t as farfetched. Another woman who had spent several years working in Spain, flew back to visit her family in Bataan before flying on to Hong Kong. When she returned to Manila to fly out, immigration authorities stopped her for no discernible reason. It took three weeks and a blizzard of paperwork justifying her trip – okayed by Hong Kong – on a regular passport rather than one for domestic helpers.

These stories happen often enough to arouse genuine concerns among overseas Filipinos and often lead to journeys being aborted, delayed or interrupted by demands of officials to produce proof of intent when exiting the country.

The immigration practices of what is supposed to be a free, law-governed nation, a liberal if chaotic democracy. It also has a government which claims to be tackling the official corruption that is widely acknowledged to be a key reason why The Philippines has fallen behind most of the rest of Southeast Asia over the past 50 years. Full story...

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Geneva man left homeless after Bolivian family moves into his flat...

A 38-year-old man has been sleeping in his car for a month after a family took over the Geneva apartment he is renting while he was visiting relatives in Tunisia, local media are reporting.

The limousine chauffeur has been unable to gain access to the two-room apartment because it was fraudulently rented to the family, according to Le Courrier newspaper, which first reported on the case earlier this week.

The man, identified as Anis, told the newspaper he travelled to Tunisia for several months to attend the funeral of his father and the birth of his daughter.

Before he departed in May, he left keys to the apartment with an acquaintance, who agreed to pick up the mail and look after the place as insurance against possible break-ins.

 But when Anis returned in August he discovered the person with whom he had placed his confidence had sub-let the apartment to a Bolivian family, Le Courrier reported online. Full story...

Is masturbation good for you?

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Russian factory pays workers in bricks!!!

A building materials factory in the Russian region of Tula has paid its employees in bricks after it fell behind on salary payments, according to local media.

The factory owed the employees 4.4 million rubles ($64,000) in unpaid wages.

"To date we have paid off about 900,000 rubles ($13,000) of back pay to our employees in bricks. We have no other option. Our company accounts have been arrested," the CEO of the factory told the media.

Fourteen years ago the factory was acquired by another company which modernized the plant, and now has an outstanding debt of 47 million rubles ($690,000).

"The factory fell behind on wages because we’ve been producing bricks since the beginning of the year, but did not get any cash as we were repaying the debt," the CEO explained.

The Arbitration court has introduced supervision and appointed a bankruptcy trustee for the factory. On November 26 the court is to consider the bankruptcy of the enterprise. Source...

Case of the Saudi diplomat and the raped Nepali women: Waive immunity, Delhi tells Riyadh...

As the diplomatic crisis over the Saudi diplomat accused of raping two Nepalese women employed by him showed no signs of easing, India has asked the Saudi government to waive the official’s diplomatic immunity and cooperate in the investigation.

Chief of Protocol Jaideep Mazumdar called on the Saudi Ambassador, Dr. Saud Mohammed Alsati, on Thursday and formally asked that diplomatic immunity be waived for the First Secretary, who allegedly held the women as sex-slaves at his residence in Gurgaon. In a tweet, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup wrote that the Chief of Protocol had “conveyed the request of Haryana police for cooperation of the Embassy” to the Saudi Ambassador.

According to the Gurgaon police’s detailed report submitted on Wednesday, the diplomat and his father-in-law were accused of raping the women, a crime to which their wives were accomplices, and they had sought permission to proceed against them and question them at the earliest.

 “There is prima facie evidence of abuse, sodomy and rape by the diplomat and his father-in-law,” said a senior official handling the case, warning that the serious nature of the charges meant the case could “escalate if allowed to linger.” Full story...

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Finland to raise taxes on the wealthy to cover refugee costs...

Finland's government on Thursday proposed increasing capital gains tax and income tax on high earners to help pay for a 10-fold increase in refugees expected to arrive this year, its finance minister said.

The EU migrant crisis proposes a political as well as a financial challenge for the coalition, whose foreign minister, Timo Soini, heads the Eurosceptic party, The Finns, which campaigned for tighter controls on immigration.

Finance Minister Alexander Stubb said the highest bracket of capital gains tax would be raised by 1 percentage point while people earning more than 72,300 euros ($81,000) would be required to pay a so-called solidarity tax for two years, lowering the threshold from 90,000 euros.

"These will help to cover higher immigration costs which we estimate to be about 114 million euros this year," Stubb told a news conference. Full story...

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Bride shortage in North India drives men to look far afield...

When Sadhuram Berwal wanted to get married, his family went about it in the traditional Indian way, asking relatives, neighbors and local temple priests to suggest a young woman. But after an extensive search among women of his caste in his area, no suitable bride could be found.

A larger factor had narrowed the field sharply: a skewed male-female ratio that is particularly pronounced in his home state of Haryana, in India's north, due to sex-selective abortions in a society where many families prize boys over girls, mostly for economic reasons.

Through a friend, Berwal eventually found a woman 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) to the south, in the state of Kerala, who was willing to marry him. But with a different language and profoundly different customs, she was overwhelmed by her new life.

That dramatic decision more than 10 years ago shocked his village of Sorkhi at the time but has become increasingly common these days in northern India, where the dearth of eligible women is starkest.

 In Sorkhi, buffaloes roam the dirt roads, winding their way to a massive pond, the main feature of the sleepy village. Women go by driving slow-moving oxcarts, loaded with grass and other fodder for cattle. It's as if life has not changed over the decades in Sorkhi's bucolic routine, although the village of 7,000 is just 150 kilometers (95 miles) west of New Delhi, India's capital. Full story...

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Eric Cantona reveals plans to invite desperate refugees to live at his home, as he blames Western governments for creating the global migrant crisis...

French football legend Eric Cantona has launched a furious attack on Western governments for creating the global migrant crisis, adding that he plans to invite refugees to live with him.

Saying he was ready to open up his own luxury home to foreign arrivals, the former Manchester United star said: 'We create wars for economic reasons and then people flee countries because we've created chaos and we're not even able to receive them.'

The 49-year-old, who is now an actor, has been disgusted by a rise in xenophobia stirred up by right wing politicians in his home country and abroad.

Asked by Le Parisien newspaper if he would take people in, 'King Eric' said: 'Of course, certainly, and it would be good if the 65 million French people would all be willing to accept them.' Full story...

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Understanding the refugee crisis in Europe, Syria, and around the world...

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Non-Muslims advised to stay out of Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia on September 16th 2015...

Non-Muslims should avoid the city on September 16 to prevent provoking the red-shirted participants of the planned rally for Malays, activist Datuk Jamal Md Yunos said today.

Jamal, who heads a self-styled coalition of Malay groups, reportedly said he thinks it will be best for non-Muslims to follow the advice in messages being spread on social media for the latter group not to turn up at the city centre on Malaysia Day.

He said his own red shirt group has cancelled plans to turn up and stage a counter-rally to the Bersih 4 rally last month, as emotions may run high during such gatherings.

“These kinds of rallies are demonstrations. So those who come may be over-emotional.

“If they see a rival group during the rally, of course there will be provocation,” the Gabungan NGO-NGO Melayu chairman was quoted telling news portal Malaysiakini. Full story...

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Top female student takes on corruption in Egypt after scoring zero on exams...

Softly spoken schoolgirl Mariam Malak has become an unlikely symbol of the fight against corruption in Egypt after scoring the sum total of zero in her final exams.

The 19-year-old top student, a teacher’s daughter in a small village in the poor southern province of Minya, dreams of becoming a doctor like her two brothers.

In previous years she aced her exams, and had expected a similar result in her final year.

Now nicknamed the “zero schoolgirl” in the local press, Malak had scored 97% in her previous two years.

But Malak was shocked to find that she had been failed in her finals, and says her answers had been replaced with someone else’s – clearly not in her handwriting. Full story...

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Children as young as SIX quizzed by police over 'sexting'

Kids as young as just SIX have been questioned by police over 'sexting'.

More than 1,000 children under the age of 18 have been investigated for sending nude or explicit images of themselves on social media or messaging services since 2012, data obtained by the Sun through Freedom of Information requests suggests.

The number of investigations into under-18s for making, possessing or distributing indecent images rose from 150 three years ago to 742 in the past year, while a quarter of those arrested were under the age of 13.

It comes after the National Crime Agency (NCA) launched a campaign in June, revealing it received on average one report a day of a child protection issue linked to the craze. Full story...

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Nine countries where it is better to grow old than the UK...

Nine countries provide a better environment for older people than the UK, as Britain's ability to provide income security for its ageing citizens falls.

The UK rose one place to rank 10th on the third annual Global AgeWatch Index from charity Age International, despite slipping three slots to 14th place in the income security category.

"Recent Government statistics suggest that the long-term decline in pensioner poverty may have stalled," said Jane Vass, head of public policy at Age UK. "The index clearly shows that while the UK is a good place to age, we could be doing better."

The Global AgeWatch Index measures the quality of life of older people across the four categories of income security, including pensions and the poverty rate; health status, such as life expectancy; capability, which covers employment and education; and enabling environment, from physical safety to public transport access. Full story...

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‘Sometimes, 7-8 men raped us in one day…we thought we were going to die,’ says woman rescued from Saudi diplomat’s home...

“Last four months were a curse for us. It was so ugly…we thought we were going to die in that house and our families would never even find our bodies,” said the 20-year-old woman from Nepal, who had been sexually abused for months.

The woman and her 44-year-old mother were rescued from the Gurgaon residence of a diplomat from Saudi Arabia on Monday night. Hired as domestic help, they were allegedly held hostage at the house and sexually abused every day for the last four months by the diplomat and his ‘guests’.

“There were days when seven to eight men — all from Saudi Arabia — would assault us. If we resisted, the diplomat and his family would threaten to kill us and dispose of our bodies in the sewer,” said the older woman. She claimed that on one occasion, the diplomat had even slashed her on the arm with a knife. Full story...

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'Protest of Pain' - Ethiopian Israelis' anger and pain at second class status...

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History teacher denies native american genocide, native student disagrees, gets expelled...

A Native American student at Cal State Sacramento University was told by her history teacher that there was no genocide against the indigenous population of North America. When the student, Chiitaanibah Johnson, took issue with this claim and challenged him, she was ejected from the class and expelled.

The professor said he didn’t care for the term “genocide” as he didn’t think it accurately describes what happened in relation to Native American history.

U.S. History Professor Maury Wiseman accused Johnson of “hijacking” his class when she challenged him on this. He also pointed out that he was very offended at her accusations that he was a “bigot” and “racist.”

The professor cancelled class for the rest of the day and apologized for the 19-year-old sophomore’s “disruptions.”

By the end of the week, he had expelled her from the class, according to Vincent Schilling, writing for Indian Country Today Media Network. Full story...

The Era Of Cyborgs has begun: 10,000 people already have digital chip implants...

Technology seems to be on a runaway course either to free humanity or to enslave us. On one end we see massive continued investment in replacing humans with robots, both economically and socially.

Parallel to this trend, we are seeing advancements in neuroscience being made from global projects like the BRAIN initiative in the U.S. and its counterpart in Europe, the Human Brain Project. These projects seek to decode the human brain and tailor it for "treatments," as well as to enable the realization of full brain-computer-interface technology. The pace of these developments has increased toward the dizzying, such as a "living" transistor that uses DNA merged with graphene, the advent of quantum computing and nanocomputing, the creation of avatars, DNA nanobots, and a range of neuro applications that are beginning to transform our fundamental relationship with the "real" world. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

One respected scientific journal has announced that the era of cyborgs has definitively begun, as an array of medical applications are merging us with machines and computer systems. This is also happening in tandem with augmented reality applications that have entered the consumer space. Full story...

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Twenty nine peers claimed almost £750,000 in expenses without speaking a word in House of Lords...

Twenty-nine peers who did not speak in a single Lords debate during the last five-year Parliament bagged nearly £750,000 in expenses.

The figures, unearthed for the Daily Mirror by the Electoral Reform Society, also show that in the last 12 months of the Coalition, 64 silent Lords and Ladies claimed £1.2million.

Our findings will pile pressure on PM David Cameron to reform the scandal-hit upper chamber, which the Mirror is campaigning to have abolished.

The 29 peers who did not speak in the chamber include Margaret Thatcher’s former private secretary, crossbencher Lord Powell of Bayswater. He last spoke in November 2008 but claimed £67,200 in five years, including £8,300 in its last 12 months. More + photos...

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The nightmare since 9/11 — 14 years of war, torture and kidnappings...

Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it? Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?

Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation, the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of a global surveillance system whose reach -- from foreign leaders to tribal groups in the backlands of the planet -- would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen years, that is, of the improbable made probable. Full story...

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The Gift...

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Vending machines in Washington DC dispense free books to children...

A vending machine is usually where a person buys snacks and drinks.

In Washington, D.C., some vending machines are providing a new snack: free children’s books.

The Book Vending Machine program is the first of its kind in the U.S. It is the newest addition to "Soar with Reading", a literacy program started five years ago by JetBlue Airlines.

Dozens of books that appeal to children are within reach, at the push of a button...

….stories about dinosaurs, elephants, knights, robots and lots of other things.

And the kids get a lot of encouragement. More + video...

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India's politicians blame rape on Chinese food, cell phones, jeans...

What do noodles, condoms, and the West have in common?

All are painfully absurd reasons that a number of Indian leaders have pointed to as explanations for why rape remains such a problem in their country, which became infamous in the world's eyes after a fatal gang rape in December 2012. Indian authorities seem willing to blame just about anything — except for rapists themselves — for the rising rates of sexual violence.

Here are eight of the more offensively ridiculous reasons they’ve cited.

The latest scapegoat for supposedly encouraging immorality and rape is ex-porn star Sunny Leone. A Canadian-Indian by origin, Leone has a massive fan following in India, and has shot to (publicly accepted) fame after appearing in mainstream movies and reality shows in the country. This past week, however, she offended the former chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women Barkha Shukla Singh, who wants a condom advertisement featuring Leone that recently reappeared on Indian television to be banned. Full story...

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Former bishop admits sexually abusing young men, prosecutors and police allowed him to escape charges 22 years ago...

A former Church of England bishop has admitted sexually abusing 18 young men decades after his victims first complained.

Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, pleaded guilty on Tuesday morning to two counts of indecent assault relating to two young men and one charge of misconduct in public office, which relates to the sexual abuse of 16 young men over a period of 15 years from 1977-1992.

Ball, 83, has connections to Prince Charles, whom he has described in the past as “a loyal friend”.

On Tuesday, the Crown Prosecution Service allowed two charges of indecently assaulting two boys in their early teens to lie on file. The deal, hammered out in secret with CPS lawyers, means Ball will not face trial on perhaps the most serious alleged offences, which involved boys aged 13 and 15.

Bobbie Cheema QC, for the crown, told the Old Bailey in London there had been a great deal of communication between prosecutors and the defence, which had resulted in the pleas. Full story...

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Porn app secretly takes photos of users to ransom them...

A US internet security firm has discovered smartphone malware disguised as a free porn service that covertly takes pictures of users through the front camera and then demands ransom from them, threatening the victim with disclosure of personal information.

A malicious program called ‘Adult Player’ masquerades as a video service offering free pornography, the American Zscaler internet security company found. After installation, if a front-facing camera is available, the malware takes a covert snap shot of the user. Then it locks the smartphone, displaying a ransom banner that is very difficult to bypass.

The app demands $500 to release control of the device and reappears even after rebooting the smartphone.

In their blog post the internet security specialists said that “this ransomware acts as a porn app named ‘Adult Player’ and lures victims who assume it is a pornographic video player.”

“When the victim starts using it, the app silently takes a photo of the victim, which is then displayed on the ransomware screen, along with the ransom message,” they added.

The message claims the phone has been locked “for safety reasons” and demands that a payment be transferred via PayPal. Full story...

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Fake rice made with paper found in Guangdong, China...

Fake rice made of tiny pieces of rolled up paper were discovered earlier this week in Guangdong province after a woman noticed that her lunch was a bit harder to chew than usual.

The woman surnamed Cai told reporters that she and her family hadn't noticed anything amiss until about half way through their meal when she bit down on a piece of rice that was "unusually hard."

According to Apple Daily, Cai then took the piece out of her mouth, inspected it closely and watched in amazement as she rolled it out into a tiny strip of paper.

Cai told local police she had bought the rice from a street vendor who had assured her that the rice was grown locally out in the other countryside "without the use of any pesticides." You know, he's not a liar. Full story...

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Out of service: 50 thousand US war veterans surviving on homeland's streets...

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Yet another Met Office 'warmer, drier summer’ left us shivering in the rain...

Yet again, the Met Office told us this year that we could expect a summer “warmer and drier than average”. Yet again, the rain poured down, culminating in those August bank holiday downpours, while our summer ranked as only the 178th warmest since records began in 1659. Almost every year since 2007 it has been the same story. The Met Office predicts a summer “warmer and drier than average”, as in its famous “barbecue summer” of 2009, only for the heavens to open while we shiver for weeks on end.

And the reason is always the same. The climate change-obsessed “experts” at the Met Office, led by its chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, whom we pay nearly £250,000 a year, have programmed their £33 million “super-computer” to share their belief that the world is in the grip of runaway global warming.

 This was why, on July 1, the Met Office gleefully trumpeted that it had been the “hottest July day ever”, simply because one solitary temperature gauge next to a runway at Heathrow got momentarily caught in a blast of hot air from a passing airliner. Full story...

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The “collateral damage” of US-NATO wars: Europe’s refugee crisis, depraved morality of UK prime minister David Cameron

UK Prime Minister David Cameron this week said “as a father I felt deeply moved” by the image of a Syrian boy dead on a Turkish beach. As pressure mounts on the UK to take in more of those fleeing to Europe from Syria and elsewhere. Cameron added that the UK would fulfil its “moral responsibilities.”

On hearing Cameron’s words on the role of ‘morality’, something he talks a lot about, anyone who has been following the crisis in Syria would not have failed to detect the hypocrisy. According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009. He told French TV:

I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business… I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.

Writing in The Guardian in 2013, Nafeez Ahmed discusses leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, that confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.” Full story...

Mosul: Iraqi woman kills senior Isis commander after forcing her to act as sex slave...

An Iraqi woman has reportedly killed an Islamic State (Isis) militant commander Abu Anas. She allegedly killed Anas three months after he forced her to marry his militant comrades.

Saeed Mamouzini, spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Mosul, told the al-Sumaria TV network that the woman killed the terrorist, know as Abu Anas, in Tal Roman district, west of the IS-held city of Mosul. The report comes two days after IS militants brought non-Iraqi women to Mosul as sex slaves, following an order by Ibrahim al-Samarrai (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), the regional IS leader.

Hana Nawafili, a spokeswoman for the Iraqi Observatory for the Defence of Battered Women, told Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency on 18 July that IS terrorists had gang-raped seven female residents of Fallujah, situated about 69km (43 miles) west of Baghdad, and then murdered them. Full story...

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Sick of Windows spying on you? Go Linux...

You can try to turn Windows 10's data-sharing ways off, but, bad news: Windows 10 will keep sharing some of your data with Microsoft anyway.

There is an alternative: Desktop Linux.

You can do a lot to keep Windows 10 from blabbing, but you can't always stop it from talking. Cortana, Windows 10's voice activated assistant, for example, will share some data with Microsoft, even when it's disabled. That data includes a persistent computer ID to identify your PC to Microsoft.

If you do use Cortana, you'll be sharing your keystrokes and voice with Microsoft. That's to make Cortana and other Microsoft applications work better; but if privacy is your first concern, just forget about using Cortana.

And, that's leads to another problem. You see, Windows 10 is Not a desktop operating system in the way every earlier version of Windows is. Windows 10 is a hybrid cloud/desktop operating system. Full story...

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Health insurers in Switzerland eye higher costs for the 'lazy'

CSS, one of Switzerland’s biggest health insurers, said on Saturday it had received a “very positive” response so far to its pilot project, launched in July, which is monitoring its customers’ daily movements.

The MyStep project, developed in conjunction with the University of St Gallen and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, is using digital pedometers to track the number of steps taken by 2,000 volunteers until the end of the year, synchronizing that data with an online portal on the CSS website.

The project, the first of its kind in Europe by an insurer, “should reveal whether and how insurance companies can introduce an appropriate offer tailored to customers’ needs,” Volker Schmidt, head of technology at CSS, said in a statement.

The pilot also aims to discover to what extent insured people are willing to disclose their personal data, and whether self-monitoring encourages them to be more active in everyday life, pushing them to take 10,000 steps a day. Full story...

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METALLICA and "One"

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The secret world of tennis gambling...

The bookies knew something was up. Eleven bettors, nine of them based in Russia, had just put millions of dollars via the English sportsbook Betfair on Martin Vassallo Arguello beating Nikolay Davydenko in their match at the Orange Prokrom Open in Sopot, Poland on August 2, 2007. The wagers, which pushed the total betting volume to 10 times past average, came in after Arguello, ranked 87th in the world, had dropped the first set 6-2 to Davydenko, ranked 4th in the world. Davydenko eventually retired from the match in the third set, citing a stress fracture in his left foot.

If the fix was in, no one was bothering to cover their tracks.

Per their agreement, Betfair alerted the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the governing body of men’s professional tennis, of the suspicious betting patterns and voided all bets placed on the match. The ATP launched an inquiry that lasted more than a year, the association’s longest ever investigation of match fixing. Both Davydenko and Arguello were cleared by the ATP of any wrongdoing due to a lack of evidence.

Regardless, you’d be hard pressed to find a tennis fan or gambling expert who doesn’t believe the match was fixed. Harder still would be finding anyone from either group who doesn’t believe match fixing is an ongoing problem in tennis. Why it happens is simple: Tennis is perfectly suited—in every way—for match fixing. Full story...

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UK parliament to consider petition to arrest Netanyahu as it reaches over 100,000 signatures...

The British parliament will consider a petition on its website seeking the arrest of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for “war crimes” after it reached its target of 100,000 signatures.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold talks in London this September. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014,” says the petition published by Damian Moran, an anti-Israel activist, on August 7.

Parliament considers all petitions that receive more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.

However the British government had already dismissed the petition to arrest the Israeli PM. “Under UK and international law, visiting heads of foreign governments, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have immunity from legal process, and cannot be arrested or detained,” it said in a statement. Full story...

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Myanmar dares the world’s next mass atrocity ...

Attacks on Rohingya Muslims could escalate ahead of November’s election. Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbors must act now.

The world’s next mass atrocity may very well take place in Myanmar. Attacks against the ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims threaten to escalate in the runup to elections this November. With few voices standing up for the Rohingya inside Myanmar, the only way to stop the attacks is for the world to speak out and demand their protection.

Violence since 2012 has killed scores and left 140,000 trapped in displacement camps that have been described as open air prisons. More than 1 million face persecution in Myanmar and nowhere in the world are there more known precursors to genocide.

Living in horrendous conditions where they are denied the most basic of rights, even the right to self-identity, the Rohingya are trying to escape any way possible. This played out in Southeast Asia in May 2015 when thousands were abandoned by human traffickers in the Andaman Sea and over 100 mass graves were discovered in human trafficking camps along the Thai-Malaysia border. Full story...

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Met Office boss slams Emma Thompson and the BBC for 'scaremongering' with claim that the world's temperature will rise by 4C by 2030...

One of Britain’s top climate scientists has launched a blistering attack on actress Emma Thompson and the BBC, accusing them of ‘scaremongering’ over the speed of global warming – and risking a worsening of the refugee crisis.

Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office and a professor at Exeter University, launched his attack on Twitter about an interview Ms Thompson gave to Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis last Wednesday.

He followed it up with a longer critique – an extract of which this newspaper publishes today – on the website of HELIX, a prestigious EU-wide climate research programme which he also directs.

The actress, a Greenpeace activist who that morning had taken part in a protest against Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, warned that if the drilling went ahead, the world would be a staggering 4C hotter by 2030.

She said: ‘If they take out of the Earth all the oil they want to take out, if you look at the science, our temperature will rise 4 degrees Celsius by 2030, and that’s not sustainable.’

Ms Maitlis did not challenge her. Full story...

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Phone calls a thing of the past as Britons use smartphones for everything but phoning...

Conversations over the phone have become a thing of the past for many Brits, with one in four adults now almost never using their smartphone to make a traditional call, according to a report.

Accountancy firm Deloitte, which surveyed 4,000 adults in the UK, found that 25 per cent of those that owned a smartphone had not used it to make a call over their mobile network in the last week.

This represented a steep decline from three years ago, when just 4 per cent of smartphone owners had not used it to make a call. The same period has seen a surge in the popularity of messaging services and social networks, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.

Deloitte warned that the decline of voice conversations, which is particularly prevalent among those in their teens and twenties, may have a damaging effect on interpersonal skills and job prospects.

 While the research did not include landline telephones, and suggested the decline in traditional mobile calls was being somewhat offset by internet phone call services like Skype, it showed that for many people, speaking over the phone is becoming far less frequent. Full story...

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iPads replace waiters & cashiers in a San-Fransisco restaurant...

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TV host John Oliver has become America's social justice warrior...

Craig Watts has spent the better part of three decades trying to bring attention to the inequities between major agricultural companies and farmers like himself.

It's a battle that suddenly changed a few months ago.

"If you've got a problem and you want it fixed, call John Oliver," he said. "That's my theory now."

Watts was featured in a segment in May on Oliver's HBO show, "Last Week Tonight," that illustrated how the companies most associated with chicken in the U.S. take advantage of farmers. Since then, things haven't been quite the same.

"In 18 minutes, he did what we've been trying for 30 years to do and that is just reach a general, broader audience. The story that he told, I cannot tell you how hard that is to tell to someone that is not really familiar with it." Full story...

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