Mother of Saudi man sentenced to crucifixion begs Obama to intervene...

The mother of a Saudi protester sentenced to death by beheading and crucifixion has begged Barack Obama to intervene to save her son’s life.

In her first interview with foreign media, Nusra al-Ahmed, the mother of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, whose case has made headlines around the world, described the intended punishment as savage and “backwards in the extreme”.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Reprieve, the US talkshow host Bill Maher and the British prime minister, David Cameron, have all weighed in with calls for clemency to stop Nimr, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, from being beheaded and then crucified.

The oil-rich state is facing increasing diplomatic scrutiny over the severity of its penal system as it takes over the chair of the UN human rights council.

Asked how she was coping knowing that at any moment her son could be put to death following the Saudi supreme court’s rejection of his appeal, Ahmed said: “For other people every hour is composed of 60 minutes, but for me every hour is 60 beats of pain.” Full story...

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Here the rain never finishes: exclusive CIA torture report...

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Horrid carcass of Indonesia – 50 years after the coup...

Last year, I stopped travelling to Indonesia. I simply did… I just could not bear being there, anymore. It was making me unwell. I felt psychologically and physically sick.

Indonesia has matured into perhaps the most corrupt country on Earth, and possibly into the most indoctrinated and compassionless place anywhere under the sun. Here, even the victims were not aware of their own conditions anymore. The victims felt shame, while the mass murderers were proudly bragging about all those horrendous killings and rapes they had committed. Genocidal cadres are all over the government.

Don’t get me wrong: there is really nothing wrong with maturity. But instead of maturing elegantly into something noble, like a precious wine, Indonesia just decayed into disgusting vinegar, or spoiled milk, or most likely into something much, much more sinister – a monstrous decomposing carcass in the middle of a once socialist, progressive and anti-imperialist Asia.

After the 1965 coup backed by the US, Australia and Europe, some 2-3 million Indonesians died, in fact were slaughtered mercilessly in an unbridled orgy of terror: teachers, intellectuals, artists, unionists, and Communists vanished. The US Embassy in Jakarta provided a detailed list of those who were supposed to be liquidated. The army, which was generously paid by the West and backed by the countless brainwashed religious cadres of all faiths, showed unprecedented zeal, killing and imprisoning almost everyone capable of thinking. Books were burned and film studios and theatres closed down. Full story...

Snowden and Allies issue warnings as Australia unleashes mass spying...

whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to warn the country's residents about the privacy violations that come along with the legislation.

The new laws require Australian telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) to store user metadata—like phone records and IP addresses—for two years, during which time it may be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant. Civil liberties and internet freedom groups have criticized the laws as invasive and unconstitutional.

"Beginning today, if you are Australian, everything you do online is being tracked, stored, and retained for 2 years," Snowden wrote, linking to a campaign by advocacy group GetUp! that gave instructions on how to circumvent the data retention scheme.

(...)

After a similar metadata dragnet was attempted in Germany, it was deemed unconstitutional in 2010. Further, the German Parliament's Working Group on Data Retention published a study in 2011 which concluded that Germany's similar metadata dragnet, which had been found unconstitutional in 2010, had resulted in a .006 percent increase in crime clearance rates—a "marginal" boost that showed "the relationship between ends and means is disproportionate." Full story...

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This man builds luxury bomb shelters for the billionaires afraid of doomsday...

As we roll down US Highway 41 in Terre Haute, Indiana , my guide insists I give him my iPhone. Then he tosses me a satin blindfold. The terms of our trip were clear—I wasn't to know where we were going or how we got there.That's because we're on our way to the undisclosed location of an underground bunker designed to survive the end of the world, whatever form that apocalypse takes.

When I remove my blindfold, I am standing in a grassy clearing looking at a boxy concrete structure that serves as the entrance to a Cold War–eragovernment communications facility gutted and reborn as Vivos Indiana. This is the Ritz Carlton of doomsday shelters, a hideout where residents can wait out a nuclear winter or a zombie apocalypse in luxury and style while the rest of humanity melts and disintegrates. The living area has 12-and-a-half-foot ceilings, sumptuous black leather couches, wall art featuring cheerful Parisian street scenes, towering faux ferns, and plush carpets. Faith Hill croons from a large-screen TV set in front of three rows of comfybeige reclining chairs. The cupboards are stocked with 60 varieties of freeze-dried and canned foodstuffs; an evening meal might include spaghetti aglio e olio topped with skillet fried steak chunks, a fresh tomato-and-zucchini salad fresh from the hydroponic garden, and decadent turtle brownies. An eight-by-nine bedroom is designed for four people (there are larger units for six) and comes with double-queen bunks clothed in 600-thread-count ivory sheets and duvet covers worthy of a four-star hotel, a comparison highlighted on the Vivos website.

I plop down on a Sealy's Presidential Pillowtop mattress and decide, yes, a person could sleep here quite soundly while the world burns. Full story...

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Claiming Delhi's streets to 'break the cage' for women...

Just as night falls, about 60 young women and men begin marching through some of Delhi university's premier colleges.

Many are carrying posters, they shout slogans, halt outside women's hostels, recite poems and break out into impromptu dances.

"We don't need no false protection, you can't cage half the nation," they sing.

One young man plays a drum hanging around his neck, while a woman wearing a red sari gives a lively speech.

At regular intervals, the participants - Delhi university students past and present - whistle and clap in approval or chant "shame, shame".

The issue that has brought all these men and women out on to the streets is what is called the "curfew hour" in women's hostels - the deadline by which residents must return to their rooms. Full story...

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Singapore introduces Robocoach to keep older citizens in shape...

It can’t fight crime or act as a butler but Robocoach is working with Singapore’s older citizens to help them stay healthy with regular exercise.

The android with metal arms and a screen for a face is already leading sessions and will roll out its services to five “senior activity centres” across the city-state this year, according to Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), a government body that supports the country’s tech industry.

“It has been effective in engaging seniors to do their exercise routines correctly with its motion-sensor technology,” the IDA told the Guardian.

“Feedback has been positive as seniors enjoy a novel way in physical exercises,” it said, although interaction with human volunteers is “just as important”.

Unlike the fictional superhuman cyborg Robocop from the 1987 film, whose primary directive is to fight crime with lethal force, Robocoach is part of a project that “aims to bridge the digital divide among seniors aged 50 and above”. Full story...

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Video shows police in Savannah, Georgia tasing a bloody, restrained Matthew Ajibade in the testicles before his death...

It is now abundantly clear that Matthew Ajibade was murdered by police in Savannah, Georgia. For over 10 months, police and prosecutors have concealed the video evidence of his murder not only from the public, but from Ajibade's closest friends and family members. His death in police custody was ruled a homicide by coroners, but the whole of Savannah's government has colluded in covering up the sadistic and brutal murder of a beloved artist and photographer who was a student at Savannah College of Art and Design.

The video below is awful and is confirmation that the United States tortures and kills its prisoners on American soil. Torture is not something that happens far away in Abu Ghraib: It's happening here.

In case you can't stomach the video, here's an explanation of what happens, so that you can understand it and prepare to speak out against it.

On New Year's Day 2015, Matthew Ajibade was arrested after a mental health crisis. Instead of being taken to a hospital, Ajibade, who was otherwise in perfect physical condition, was taken to jail—against his family's wishes. In a video we received last week, police are seen punching and kicking Matthew Ajibade in the face and head before restraining him. More + video...

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Freedom in the Congo...

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Half of world's wealth now in hands of 1% of population...

Global inequality is growing, with half the world’s wealth now in the hands of just 1% of the population, according to a new report.

The middle classes have been squeezed at the expense of the very rich, according to research by Credit Suisse, which also finds for the first time that there are more individuals in the middle classes in China – 109m – than the 92m in the US.

“Middle class wealth has grown at a slower pace than wealth at the top end,” said Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Credit Suisse. “This has reversed the pre-crisis trend which saw the share of middle-class wealth remaining fairly stable over time.”

The report shows that a person needs only $3,210 (£2,100) to be in the wealthiest 50% of world citizens. Some $68,800 secures a place in the top 10%, while the top 1% have more than $759,900. The report defines wealth as the value of assets including property and stock market investments but excludes debt.

 About 3.4 bn people – just over 70% of the global adult population – have wealth of less than $10,000. A further 1bn – a fifth of the world population – are in the $10,000-$100,000 range. Full story...

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Christopher Columbus was a lost sadist. There shouldn't be a holiday in his name...

The second Monday in October has been designated an American federal holiday in Christopher Columbus’s honor since 1937. To most people in the United States, this commemoration of his 1492 landing in the Bahamas no longer has much meaning – many Americans outside of large Italian American communities are only dimly aware that it’s an official holiday. Many people don’t even get the day off work, instead trading Columbus Day for the day after Thanksgiving.

The holiday’s popularity has been waning for some time. In cities like Seattle and Minneapolis, it has been already been renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a reminder that Columbus’s voyages set off a chain of events that wreaked havoc on native populations in the New World. It’s time to make that piecemeal commemoration official: stop celebrating Columbus and start celebrating the native cultures he began the process of displacing.

For generations, school children learned to recite, “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. They then learned the story of the brave explorer who navigated into uncharted territory with sailors who were frightened of falling off the edge of a flat earth. That tale, much of it created by Washington Irving (the man who gave us The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), is bunk. Mariners knew full well the earth was round, including Columbus and his crew. Columbus just thought the circumference of the earth was thousands of miles smaller, and thus that the islands of the Caribbean were the East Indies. Our holiday celebrates a man who was lost. Full story...

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Operation Midland: who are the nine people accused of being part of a 'VIP paedophile ring'?

In August 2015 Harvey Proctor, the former Conservative MP, held an extraordinary press conference in which he said that he and eight other men were being pursued by the police after being named as paedophiles by an alleged victim called "Nick".

Scotland Yard's Operation Midland was set up to examine allegations that children were murdered as part of a VIP paedophile ring operating in Westminster. The allegations centred on two locations - the Elm Guest House in Barnes, London, and the Dolphin Square apartments in Pimlico.

Operation Midland arose out of Operation Fairbank, an investigation into child sex abuse that was set up following claims by Tom Watson MP that the police should examine claims of a "powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No.10".

 Here we profile the nine men, living and dead, who were named by Mr Proctor. Full story...

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How India's writers are fighting intolerance...

On the morning of 30 August, Malleshappa Kalburgi, a leading Indian scholar and well-known rationalist thinker, was talking on his mobile phone to a friend when the doorbell rang.

Dr Kalburgi, 77 was an open-minded, liberal thinker from the southern state of Karnataka whose uncompromising scholarship had often offended powerful Lingayat - an influential Hindu sect that dominates life and politics in the state - as well as Hindu right-wing groups.

When he opened the door, he was shot at close range; his wife and daughter took him to the local hospital, where he was declared dead.

A month-and-a-half later, the murder of this scholar has set off an unusual movement with little precedent. Writers from across the country are standing up in protest against the Sahitya Akademi, a literary body that represents 22 of India's languages, and the state. Full story...

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PM Narendra Modi's silence emboldening 'thuggish violence,' says Salman Rushdie...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "silence" along with that of institutions like the Sahitya Akademi is permitting a new "degree of thuggish violence" in India, celebrated Mumbai-born author Salman Rushdie said, amid a raging debate over 'rising intolerance' in India.

Speaking exclusively on NDTV's The Buck Stops Here from London, Mr Rushdie said, "There are attacks on ordinary liberties, the ordinary right of assembly, the ordinary right to organize an event in which people can talk about books and ideas freely and without hostility, that seems to be in real grave danger in India today."

Making it clear that he wasn't taking sides between the Congress and the BJP, the 68-year-old author said that he was no supporter of the Congress which had banned his book, but believed that there was something different unfolding in India today.

 "I am not a fan of any political party. I don't support either side of this argument. Obviously, when 'The Satanic Verses' was banned, it was banned by the Congress of Rajiv Gandhi and then, there was the episode of Jaipur which was the last time we had to talk like this by long distance. And of course, I am not any kind of fan of that. But I think what's crept into Indian life now is a degree of thuggish violence which is new. And it seems to be, I have to say, given permission by the silence of official bodies, by the silence of the Sahitya Akademi which is what so many of the writers are protesting about, by the silence of the Prime Minister's Office. Mr Modi is a very talkative gentleman, he has a lot to say on a lot of subjects and it would be very good to hear what he has to say about all this," Mr Rushdie said. Full story...

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Simon's cat in box clever...

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Villagers in Guatemala burn their mayor to death after political rivalry escalates...

A mob has killed a village mayor in western Guatemala in apparent reprisal for an attack on a political rival that resulted in the death of two teenage girls.

A prosecutors’ office spokeswoman, Julia Barrera, confirmed the death of 43-year-old Bacilio Juracan of Concepción, about 180km west of Guatemala City and near the popular tourist destination of Lake Atitlan.

Villagers blamed Juracan for an attack on Sunday on a former mayoral candidate, Lorenzo Sequen, who was riding in a pickup with relatives when about 10 armed and masked men opened fire. His daughter and niece, both 17, were shot dead and at least five others, including Sequen, were wounded.

Hours later hundreds of people surrounded city hall and a home where Juracan had sought refuge, then burned him to death. They also burned vehicles and at least six buildings including a restaurant and an internet cafe.

Sequen told police he had been threatened repeatedly by civic authorities after he called for an audit of the village government. Full story...

Sri Lanka Tamil prisoners on hunger strike demand release...

Tamil prisoners in Sri Lanka, some held without charge since the 1990s, have gone on hunger strike to press for their release.

Some 223 inmates have joined the fast in jails in Colombo, Anuradhapura, Jaffna and Kandy.

Most have been imprisoned on suspicion of links with the defeated Tamil Tiger rebel group.

Tamil politicians are calling on the authorities to either release them, grant them bail or put them on trial.

They are being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which allows the security forces to detain people for up to 18 months without bringing them before a court.

But some have been jailed since 1997. Full story...

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Playboy announces it will no longer feature pictures of nude women...

Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

In a wood-paneled dining room, with Picasso and de Kooning prints on the walls, Mr. Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: the magazine, a leader of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women.

Mr. Hefner, now 89, but still listed as editor in chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.” Full story...

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Saudi Arabia bombs second Yemeni wedding in a week - at least 23 dead...

Airstrikes by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia hit a house south of the capital on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people who were attending a wedding party, said witnesses and a local medical worker.

The attack was the second airstrike on a wedding in Yemen in a little over a week, and it added to growing criticism over the coalition’s air campaign, which has killed more than 1,100 civilians over the past six months, according to the United Nations.

On Sept. 28, coalition warplanes bombed wedding tents on the Yemen’s Red Sea coast, killing at least 70 people.

Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive in March against rebels known as the Houthis after they drove the Saudi-backed government from power. As war has spread throughout the country, more than 2,355 civilians have been killed — the majority of them in coalition airstrikes, human rights workers say.

The airstrikes on Wednesday were in Dhamar Province, about 50 miles south of Sana, the capital, on the house of Muhammed al-Sanabani, said a cousin, Tawfiq al-Sanabani, who was nearby. Full story...

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Outrage as it's revealed Facebook paid just £4,327 corporation tax last year - less than a UK worker on £26,500 salary pays...

Facebook paid less tax last year than the average British worker – despite making £105million from advertising and other sales.

The social media giant’s UK business handed over just £4,327 in company taxes, while a Briton earning the average salary would have paid more than £5,000 on their income.

The revelations will add to the debate over how to ensure multinational firms such as Facebook – which has claimed that at least a third of UK adults visit its website every day – pay their fair share in each country in which they operate.

The company’s 362 UK staff took home an average of £210,000 in pay and bonuses last year, according to its latest accounts.

Facebook’s British arm was able to slash its tax bill by reporting an accounting loss of £28.5million last year, having handed out £35.4million to its workers through a share bonus scheme.

This scheme was worth more than £97,000 on average for each member of staff, the company accounts show.

In contrast to Facebook’s tax payment of £4,327, a single worker on the average UK salary of £26,500 would be liable for £3,180 in income tax and £2,213 in national insurance contributions – a total of £5,393. Full story...

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Bulgarian model Vesi...

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A measles death, vaccines, and the media’s failure to inform...

Last week, it was widely reported in the mainstream media that the autopsy of a woman who died of pneumonia earlier this year in the state of Washington found that she had been infected with measles, making this the first confirmed case of measles-related death in the US since 2003. Playing its usual role, the mainstream media is up in arms, blaming the death on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and telling parents that to not vaccinate is irresponsible. Rather than journalists doing their job by asking hard questions about public policy and seeking out the answers, they choose to act as nothing more than a mouthpiece for government health departments and dutifully tow the official line on vaccine policy.

The woman who died was not among the unvaccinated. On the contrary, she not only had been vaccinated, but reportedly was tested and found to have a protective antibody titer. She nevertheless became infected with measles while seeking medical attention in a clinic. She died from pneumonia, which can be caused by any number of other bacterial or viral infections besides measles, including the common cold and flu. The reason her immune system couldn’t handle the infection was because doctors had her on immunosuppressive drugs. Hence, medical intervention was a contributing factor in her death.

The media, as ever, is pushing the theory of herd immunity to encourage vaccination. Everyone needs to be vaccinated to protect infants and the immunocompromised, we are being told. The argument implies that the individual from whom the deceased caught the measles was unvaccinated, but that is pure speculation; for all we know, the person she contracted the measles virus from had been vaccinated, too. Full story...

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Malaysia race tension a move to detract from PM’s troubles?

On Sept. 30, a force of 19 Malaysian immigration officers – all ethnic Malays – raided a Malacca karaoke parlor to arrest women illegally in the country who were working as prostitutes. That instigated a melee when as many as 40 Chinese characterized as thugs and gangsters attacked the immigration officers, injuring three of them.

That in turn threatened to trigger yet another of Malaysia’s frequent racial brouhahas, with ethnic Malay marchers promising to descend on Malacca to avenge Malay dignity, until angry authorities put a stop to it. But there is deepening fear among opposition leaders and others that one of these incidents – with apparent backing from the United Malays National Organization – will spiral out of control, triggering harsher laws and arrests of opposition figures.

The theory is that the events are designed to take the heat off UMNO and Najib and divert attention from investigations into the affairs of the debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd. state-backed investment fund, as well as the transmittal of US$681 million into his personal bank account in 2013 from unknown sources.

The man who threatened to lead the Malacca marchers is a close supporter of Prime Minister Najib Razak, Mohd Ali Baharom, the president of the Armed Forces Veterans Association. Baharom was denounced by Malacca police, Malacca’s chief minister, Idris Haroun, and immigration officials who say that he and his followers were seeking to foment an incident that would upset the state’s racial harmony. Full story...

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Hazed in: Pollution hits Singapore fitness industry...

Pollution from the burning of Indonesia's rain forests appears to be claiming another casualty: physical fitness in Singapore.

Poor air quality is keeping people indoors, denting demand for outdoor exercise in the usually balmy city-state.

"We're an outdoor fitness company, with up to eight sessions a day outside," Lisa Clayton, a director of OzFit/UFit Bootcamps, said Wednesday. "We have had to cancel pretty much most of them over the last two weeks."

 She said her company usually catered to as many as 100 people a day training outside, but has instead hosted bootcamps at indoor locations, such as condominium function rooms, for about 60 people a day. Full story...

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9 cities abolish Columbus Day in favor Indigenous Peoples’ Day...

Nine cities in states across the US have pressed for resolutions to recognize October 12 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather than Columbus Day. Eight of those cities passed resolutions in the last two months and three adopted a resolution just this week.

The City Council of Albuquerque, New Mexico voted six to three on Thursday to recognize October 12 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in a new proclamation:

“Albuquerque recognizes the occupation of New Mexico’s homelands for the building of our City and knows indigenous nations have lived upon this land since time immemorial and values the process of our society accomplished through and by American Indian thought, culture, technology.”

The proclamation noted 500 years of Indian resistance since the arrival of Christopher Columbus and marked the day “in an effort to reveal a more accurate historical record of the ‘discovery’ of the United States of America,” and to “recognize the contributions of Indigenous peoples despite enormous efforts against native nations.” Full story...

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James Bay - Let it go, a breakup story...

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Spanish police find Albanian man hidden in car boarding ferry to UK...

Spanish police found an Albanian migrant hidden in the trunk of a car that was about to board a ferry on Thursday in the northern port of Santander bound for Britain.

Officers became suspicious during a routine control of vehicles on Thursday night as they were about to board the ferry headed for Plymouth on the south coast of England, police said in a statement.

They then carried out a "detailed" inspection of the car in question and found a man, an Albanian national, in the trunk of the vehicle, the statement added.

 Police detained the female driver of the car, a Spanish national from the northern province of Guipuzcoa, and were checking whether the man hiding in her car was a legal resident of Spain. Full story...

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Boy, 16, becomes seventh Palestinian killed by Israeli security forces in just 24 hours...

A 16-year-old boy has become the seventh Palestinian has been shot dead by Israeli security forces in just 24 hours as a wave of violence continues.

He had allegedly launched a stabbing attack near Damascus Gate, in Jerusalem's Old City, and then tried to attack police officers on Saturday morning.

"Two men stabbed lightly are receiving medical treatment," said police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld. "Police officers shot and killed terrorist at the scene."

It came hours after militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Israel overnight. A spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said warning sirens sounded but the rocket landed in countryside in southern Israel and did not cause any casualties. Full story...

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Amish girl, 12, cancer free two years after being forced into hiding to avoid court-ordered chemotherapy...

A 12-year-old Amish girl appears to have beaten cancer , two years after her she and her parents refused chemotherapy and went into hiding.

Sarah Hershberger now appeared 'healthy and active' according to an Ohio judge, who ordered the end of a court-appointed medical guardianship that sought to limit the parents' rights to make medical decisions.

The family's previous attorney said in 2013 that the parents did not wish to subject their daughter to chemotherapy and believed that the will of God would triumph, Reuters reported.

The family had then gone into hiding, seeking alternative therapies.

On Friday, Medina County Probate Judge Kevin Dunn said the girl "shows no outward symptoms of the lymphoma with which she was previously diagnosed." Full story...

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Singaporean jailed for fixing football match...

An Indian-origin Singaporean has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for fixing a football league match by bribing the referee and a national-level player of Indian-descent here, a media report said today.

Selvarajan Letchuman, 52, had yesterday admitted to one charge of corruption and two cheating charges involving S$15,500 ($11,111)

He had fixed the results of a May 2012 match between Singapore and Sarawak teams in the Malaysian Super League by bribing Malaysian referee Shokri Nor, 50, and Thanasegar S Sinnaiah, 40, an Indian-origin Malaysian national football player.

Singapore’s LionXII won the May 22 match by 3-0.

 The results won Selavarajan S$20,625 bets placed with the Singapore Pool, which runs lotteries and betting on football. Prior to the match week, Selavarajan had worked out an arrangement on bet sharing with Shokri and Thanasegar. Full story...

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India moves to stop flow of housemaids to Saudi Arabia after hand-chopping ...

After an Indian domestic worker's hand was chopped by her Saudi employee and sex slavery, MEA looks for other options.

Alarmed by frequent allegations of sex slavery, arm-chopping and sadistic domestic torture of housemaids in Saudi Arabia, India is considering a total ban on recruitment of housemaids by that country.

This follows the chopping of a domestic worker’s hand by her Saudi employer which India has described as “unacceptable.” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has also ordered the MEA to pursue the matter with the Saudi Foreign Ministry in Riyadh.

According to an MEA statement, the Indian Embassy in Riyadh has asked for ‘severe punishment’ for the employer who amputated Kasthuri Munirathinam of Vellore.

The idea of the ban was discussed by Ms. Swaraj at a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) and the Ministry of External Affairs on October 8. Full story...

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Lawfare: Assange, Snowden & Dotcom face same prosecutor in US...

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Australia asylum: Philippines in talks to take refugees...

Australia says it is in talks to potentially resettle refugees that tried to reach its shores illegally in the Philippines.

Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said both countries had yet to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

A similar deal with Cambodia has been criticised as an expensive failure.

Asylum seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are currently being held at offshore detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Australia says its measures - supported by both the main political parties - have deterred human traffickers and saved lives.

However, activists have reported harsh conditions and abuses at the offshore camps, and are urging Australia to soften its stance. Full story...

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Why Saudi Arabia gets away with murder...

An Islamic regime in the Middle East may soon behead a young man and hang his corpse up for display. ISIS? Iran? No—America’s ally Saudi Arabia. And because it’s the Saudis, the Obama administration’s silence has been deafening.

In 2012, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was a 17-year-old pro-democracy activist in the Arab Spring. After harsh government crackdowns, protests turned violent, particularly in Qatif, a majority-Shiite region in majority-Sunni Saudi Arabia. Al-Nimr was arrested, along with others, and charged, at first, with relatively low-level political crimes related to the protests, such as “going out to a number of marches, demonstrations, and gatherings against the state and repeating some chants against the state.”

But then al-Nimr’s uncle, a prominent Shiite cleric, began giving fiery sermons against the regime. He, too, was arrested, on more serious charges of inciting sectarian strife, aiding terrorists, and “insulting Gulf leaders and scholars.”

Suddenly, the younger al-Nimr’s charges were increased as well, to include the capital crimes of attacking police and sheltering criminals. According to al-Nimr’s father, the teen was tortured until he confessed, and he was subsequently sentenced to death.

Contrary to some reports, the exact method of execution has not yet been determined. Beheading is the most common—compared to ISIS, Saudi Arabia beheads people relatively mercifully, by sword—but firing squads and even stoning have occasionally been used. Full story...

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Saudi Arabia: Employer chops off hand of Tamil Nadu woman for trying to escape torture...

A woman from Tamil Nadu -- working in a Saudi household as a domestic help -- has been hospitalised in Riyadh in a critical condition after her right hand was chopped off by her employer, as per TV reports.

Kasturi Munirathnam, who has suffered severe injuries on her body and limbs, has been admitted to Kingdom Hospital, Manorama News reported.


The woman, who hails from North Arcot near Vellore, had reached Saudi Arabia two months ago. In August, Kasturi was first taken to Damam and later shifted to a house in Riyadh, where only women stayed.

She was reportedly burdened with heavy workload and was not even allowed to have telephonic conversation with her relatives in India.

When Kasturi managed to get help from a Tamil Nadu native, she was locked up inside a room and was subjected to mental and physical torture ever since. Full story...

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Fifa: Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini & Jerome Valcke suspended...

Fifa has provisionally suspended its president Sepp Blatter, secretary general Jerome Valcke and vice-president Michel Platini for 90 days.

The punishments were handed out by the ethics committee of football's world governing body, which is investigating the three over corruption allegations.

It also banned ex-Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon for six years.

Issa Hayatou, who heads Africa's football confederation (Caf), will act as Fifa president during Blatter's ban.

 Spain's Angel Maria Villar is expected to head Uefa - European football's governing body - while Platini is suspended. Full story...

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India’s temples of sex...

This extremely conservative country was once home to the world’s first sex treatise and the erotic art on display is perhaps more shocking now than when it was created.

In December 2013, India’s LGBT community suffered a severe setback as the country’s Supreme Court ruled homosexuality to be a criminal offence. More recently, in August 2015, the Indian government imposed a ban, lifted conditionally a few days later, on more than 800 websites deemed pornographic, in an ostensible bid to curb child pornography and sexual violence.

India has been a particularly conservative country for the last few hundred years, influenced by the puritanism of several groups, including Islamic dynasties, British overlords and the country’s own Brahmin priestly caste. But India was not always like this. Sexual norms were far more liberal before the 13th Century, giving equal importance to the secular and the spiritual. Sex was taught as a subject in formal education, and Kamasutra, the world’s first sex treatise, was written in ancient India between the 4th Century BCE and the 2nd Century.

In fact, if you look closely, reminders of these more liberal times can be seen across the country. They’re literally carved in stone in the form of erotic motifs on the lower walls of the 13th Century Sun Temple at Konark in the east Indian state of Orissa. Nudity is prominent in the paintings and sculptures of heavenly maidens at Maharashtra’s Buddhist rock-cut monastic caves, Ajanta (2nd Century BCE) and Ellora (5th to 10th Centuries). Full story...

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Swiss basketball star slams police in US trial...

Swiss NBA star Thabo Sefolosha insisted on Wednesday that he was targeted with unjustified police violence after an incident outside a night club, at his trial for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Lawyers for the Atlanta Hawks forward, who is black, maintain that New York police officers who arrested him handled him so aggressively that they broke his leg. Police say Sefolosha was belligerent, and that he called an officer a midget.

In any event, lawyers for the player, and Sefolosha himself, have cast the incident as another case of overzealous police handling of black men.

 A wave of police killings of unarmed black men has become a defining issue across the United States, sparking a wave of protests and giving birth to a new generation of rights activists. Full story...

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Welcome to the New Middle East...

Travelling with Syrian friends nowadays can be truly unpleasant. Even in the Arab world. Or should I say: especially in the Arab world.

At times, it's plain drama, other times it's utter comedy; depending on the immigration officer and the backroom intelligence agent.

Despite the solidarity with their cause in the West and East alike, officially, they are mostly unwelcomed, even rejected.

I tell them half- jokingly that they've been "Palestinised". They take it in part as a compliment; part as a curse.

Sadly, it's the curse that's the truth, considering what they face because of violence and displacement and that the worst will likely continue. Full story...

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