Bonjour Planet Earth

Monday, May 27, 2013

Skyrocketing India CEO salaries under scanner...

A decision by India's richest man to forgo millions of dollars in salary has brought the sensitive issue of exorbitant CEO pay back to the realm of public debate.

Earlier this month shareholders were told Mukesh Ambani - the 56-year-old billionaire chairman of Reliance Industries (RIL) - had chosen to voluntarily waive an annual pay hike of $36m. He had refused similar increases four times in the past, although the majority of shareholders had approved it.

Reliance Industries said in a statement: "The decision to freeze his own salary reflects his desire to continue to set a personal example for moderation in managerial compensation levels."

Ambani's current salary is about $1.5m per month, and his overall fortune is estimated at $21.5bn from his controlling stakes in petrochemicals, oil and gas, textiles, retail and telecom companies. He is currently ranked 22nd on the Forbes list of world billionaires.

Disproportionately high senior management salaries continue to be a sensitive issue for a large chunk of listed companies in India. A recent survey by global human resource outsourcing firm Aon Hewitt shows that average wage disparity between India's CEOs and entry-level employees is the highest in the world. Full story...

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European Parliament MPs earn 2000 per cent more than their countrymen...

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India jail-born man bails mother after 19 years...

In a dusty tenement in a crowded neighbourhood in the Indian city of Kanpur, a young man takes out a bright yellow sari from a shopping bag and presents it to his mother.

"Do you like it?" he asks her. "Yes," is her reply.

It is an innocuous scene, except that the young man, Kanhaiya, has waited a long time to give his mother a gift.

Nineteen years ago, his mother Vijai Kumari was convicted of murder - wrongfully she claimed.

She was granted bail on appeal but she did not have the 10,000 rupees ($180; £119) she needed to post bail. Her husband abandoned her and no-one else came forward to help her.

"I thought I'd die in prison," she says. "They told me in there that no one ever gets out."

She was pregnant when she went to jail. Four months later, Kanhaiya was born. Full story...

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More Indians have stopped believing in God...

The latest Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism has found that the number of non religious people in India has risen.

As against 87% saying they were religious in the same survey in 2005, the percentage has fallen to 81% in 2013. In other words, a drop by 6% in seven years.

The survey also found a 1% dip in the number of people calling themselves as an atheist. In 2005, 4% people said they didn't believe in God. In 2012, that had dipped to 3%.

(...)

Globally, the trend is similar. Religiosity has dropped by 9%, while atheism has risen by 3%. The report says there is a notable decline across the globe in self-description of being religious.

Pakistan is among the few countries which has seen an increase in the number of people who call themselves religious - by 6%.

Argentina, home to the present Pope, saw a 8% dip in people calling themselves religious.

South Africa has seen a 19% dip in those calling themselves religious, US 13%, Switzerland and France 21% and Vietnam 23%. Full story...

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Woolwich case alibi to suppress Muslims...

The British government is mulling new restrictions on Muslims by setting up a new anti-terrorism task force which it claims will tackle radical preachers and extremism, amid fears that the government is exploiting the recent murder of a soldier to suppresse Muslims.

British Home Secretary Theresa May said the group will review powers and laws to crack down on what she described as extremist Muslim hate-preachers.

May told the BBC the moves include pre-emptive censorship of Islamic websites, easing regulations to ban more Islamic groups, putting pressure on universities and mosques to dismiss the so-called hate preachers and closing the so-called unregulated Islamic schools.

May, who made no reference to hate-preaching by anti-Muslim extremists including the English Defense League, also claimed the move aims at preventing the threat of Muslims’ radicalization. Full story...

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Facebook can't keep turning a blind eye to the women-haters it enables...

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but what do you do after raping a deaf mute? Simple: Break her fingers so she can't tell anyone!

That – and here I'll apologise both for that opening and for what follows – is vile. Beyond belief that it be accepted as humour in this day and age. (Although I'll note, in passing, that it is also staple fare for some of our supposedly "edgier" comics, who get away with such stuff because their quick-fire style means they deliver one obscenity and are on to the next before you realise what you've just heard).

And its by no means the worst. Facebook is awash with such viciousness. Images of women beaten, bruised, murdered, raped in all their technicolour glory.

If you have a strong stomach, WomenActionMedia! (WAM!) have been collecting examples.

Only, these are jokes, doncha know? Because they carry witty captions such as "She Broke My Heart. I Broke Her Nose", or "Women deserve equal rights. And lefts". Full story...

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We've moved on from the Iraq war – but Iraqis don't have that choice...

The dust in Iraq rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a ball; and it carries, according to Dr Jawad Al-Ali, "the seeds of our death". An internationally respected cancer specialist at the Sadr teaching hospital in Basra, Dr Ali told me that in 1999, and today his warning is irrefutable. "Before the Gulf war," he said, "we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48% of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long after. That's almost half the population. Most of my own family have it, and we have no history of the disease. It is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us; the mushrooms grow huge; even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."

Along the corridor, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician, kept a photo album of the children she was trying to save. Many had neuroblastoma. "Before the war, we saw only one case of this unusual tumour in two years," she said. "Now we have many cases, mostly with no family history. I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. The sudden increase of such congenital malformations is the same."

Among the doctors I interviewed, there was little doubt that depleted uranium shells used by the Americans and British in the Gulf war were the cause. A US military physicist assigned to clean up the Gulf war battlefield across the border in Kuwait said, "Each round fired by an A-10 Warhog attack aircraft carried over 4,500 grams of solid uranium. Well over 300 tons of DU was used. It was a form of nuclear warfare."

(...)

Iraq is no longer news. Last week, the killing of 57 Iraqis in one day was a non-event compared with the murder of a British soldier in London. Yet the two atrocities are connected. Their emblem might be a lavish new movie of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Two of the main characters, as Fitzgerald wrote, "smashed up things and creatures and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness … and let other people clean up the mess".

The "mess" left by George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq is a sectarian war, the bombs of 7/7 and now a man waving a bloody meat cleaver in Woolwich. Bush has retreated back into his Mickey Mouse "presidential library and museum" and Tony Blair into his jackdaw travels and his money. Full story...

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Runyoka: Binga woman in Zimbabwe caught again cheating, this time got stuck to boyfriend...

In a confirmed case of runyoka, Manjolo villagers were left dumbfounded when a Binga man was caught mysteriously stuck to a married woman while having sex.

It took My Zimbabwe nearly a week to get hold of reliable sources and gather substantial information pertaining the incident due to communication barriers associated with most rural areas. The incident reportedly took place two weeks ago when a man who identified himself as Clever Muleya was caught red-handed, busy enjoying horizontal gymnastics with a woman married to Simon Ndlovu.

A reliable source who eventually revealed much information to My Zimbabwe News crew after being offered a hefty 'thank you', said she had never witnessed such a strange incident in her life.

"It was on Tuesday last of last week when a neighbour woke me up and urged me to go to the Ndlovus to catch glimpse of a unbelievable 'magnetic' development that had come true courtesy of Ndlovu's wife. I went to their homestead and I found his wife sleeping with another man whose penis was stuck inside her organ.

"Ndlovu simply called upon other neighbours to come and witness the shocking incident that was taking place 'live' in his own bedroom. The visibly shocked Ndlovu then called a police neighbourhood watch member who advised him not to do anything that was against the law," said the source.

The woman added that Ndlovu took the keys and locked the 'stuck' cheating couple inside then left his homestead without telling anyone where he was heading to. Full story...

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The great olive oil farce...

It started with a food scare in Portugal nine years ago, and it ended last week in high farce in Brussels.

The subject of the furore was a Europe-wide ban on what – until now – had never seemed much of a transgression: the practice of restaurants serving olive oil in jugs or dipping bowls.

Critics called the ban “bonkers” and “barmy”; its proponents said it was vital to stop unscrupulous restaurateurs passing off cheap oil as the more expensive extra virgin variety.

The upshot was restaurants would have to spend a small fortune buying in specially prepared bottles of tamper-proof olive oil to serve to customers, many of whom had never realised there was a problem in the first place.

The Sunday Telegraph can today piece together the tale of the Great Open Bottle Olive Oil Ban. It is a story of vested interests, powerful lobbyists and an apparent failure of democratic accountability.

It involves a byzantine voting system known as comitology – of which more later – which allows bureaucrats to vote in secret. Full story...

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'Nanny state' warnings are rubbish, says man who drinks 40 pints a day...

Nanny state takes seven "fat" children from their parents...

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Facebook censors pictures of children rallying against GMOs during global March Against Monsanto...

In one of the most devastating acts of destruction of its own credibility, Facebook engaged in yet more censorship of Free Speech with the suspending of an account that posted a photo of children rallying against Monsanto during today's global March Against Monsanto.

The picture shows two children of Natural News reader Andrea Lalama. They are carrying hand-drawn signs that read:

"ORGANIC FOOD It's My Medicine - Label GMOs - Say NO to GMO"

and

"BIOPESTICIDES = AUTISM - SAY NO TO GMO"

After this picture was shared on Facebook by Natural News, Andrea's account was immediately suspended. Facebook displayed a message on her account which read (see screen capture, below): Full story...

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The ruling class as full-time sadistic torturers...

(...)

Having said this, it is also true that the ruling class will lie about specific topics, when they are of special importance and when lying carries benefits that are valuable to them. Yesterday, in his widely-heralded speech (another one, God help us), Obama said:"We unequivocally banned torture..." This is flatly, unequivocally not true. It is a lie. Yes, Obama knows he is lying. There is no way in hell he cannot know he's lying. But I expect serial murderers to lie. What is equally disgusting -- and even more disgusting, from one point of view -- is that almost everyone, including almost all "dissenting" writers, are willing to accede to the lie. The near-universal embrace of this lie has conferred numerous benefits on Obama and the ruling class in general. Most critically, acquiescence in the lie encourages people to view Obama as humane, decent, even enlightened; because people have willingly surrendered not only what ought to be perpetual skepticism about power but their most basic analytic abilities, the lie has allowed Obama literally to get away with murder. This is the very rare occasion where "literally" means literally.

(...)

So we come to Angelina Jolie and her widely-read, widely-praised article, "My Medical Choice." It is an article written by an unimaginably privileged person, about procedures available only to those who are enormously privileged. Those who can afford to do what Jolie did (even if it's only being tested in the way she was) almost certainly already have all the information she offers. As for everyone else -- which is most people -- well, it's just another meal or ticket they will never be able to afford, another trip they can never take, another home they can only look at and gape in wonder that people live in such splendor. This is how the people who matter live, you worthless, putrid thing; gaze in wonder on your betters. Of course, in this case she's talking about people's lives, so the contrast is much starker. Jolie's article is an exercise in narcissistic self-congratulation; it is immensely sadistic and cruel.

Oh, Arthur, some will wail. She's sharing, she's trying to educate. How can anyone be angry about that? If it is impossible for most people to take any of the actions Jolie recommends, what's the point -- except to remind them that they will never be able to avail themselves of procedures that might save their lives? To remind people of matters of this kind is cruel, unforgivably so in my view. Full story...

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Our American Pravda...

Rogue President Obama: Defending the Indefensible...

(...)

Obama defended drone strikes. He did so disingenuously. Extrajudicial killing is lawless. Weasel words fell short of explaining his failure to close Guantanamo. What he said didn’t wash.

He lied. He blamed Congress for his own transgression. He bears full responsibility. He can close Guantanamo today. He can do so with a stroke of his pen.

As president and commander in chief, he’s fully authorized to do so. Congress has no say. He can order all uncharged prisoners released. Indefinite detention is lawless.

He claimed a nonexistent terror threat. The only ones are those he and complicit allies invent. They’ve done so throughout his tenure. They continued what Bush officials began.

In 2009, Obama promised change. He spurned what he pledged to uphold. He did what core supporters thought impossible. He exceeded the worst of his predecessor.

He turned truth on its head. He claimed extrajudicial murder is legal. On 9/11, America was attacked, he said. Doing so was state-sponsored terrorism. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were wrongfully blamed. Full story...

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How corporations are subverting attempts to rein in their power...

In 2009, when the government of El Salvador refused to issue an environmental permit to a Canadian mining corporation, community activists in Las Cabañas rejoiced. For years they had been fighting a pitched battle against the efforts of the company, Pacific Rim, to mine for gold in their region - plans that included the dumping of toxic arsenic in their rivers. It was not a campaign without risk. Four Salvadoran anti-mining activists have been assassinated in the course of their courageous efforts. That victory, however, may well prove to carry a high cost for the people of El Salvador. In a legal assault filed in a World Bank trade court, Pacific Rim is now demanding $315 million in compensation payments from the Salvadoran government, an amount equal to one third of the country’s annual education budget.

That is just one example among many where citizens have fought for and won an important policy victory only to find that victory undermined by corporations using the growing web of international investment rules and arbitration courts. There are many others. Public health campaigners in Uruguay won a huge victory in 2010 when the national government passed new health laws to discourage tobacco consumption. Even though those new laws (including aggressive new warnings on cigarette packages) directly mirrored the guidelines of the World Health Organization, the U.S. corporate tobacco giant Philip Morris retaliated with a $2 billion legal action against the government.

Nowhere is this muscle-flexing by multinational corporations a greater threat than on issues related to sustainable development. The result is a little known but enormous legal obstacle planted directly in the policy path toward a sustainable future. The Democracy Center has just documented that threat in an important new report released this week: Unfair, Unsustainable and Under the Radar: How Corporations Use Global Investment Rules to Undermine a Sustainable Future. Full story...

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Bitter election creates long-term headache for Malaysia's Najib...

Malaysia's divisive election has left a bitter taste for millions of people that risks creating a long-term problem of legitimacy for Prime Minister Najib Razak's long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

The outrage was clear at a busy intersection across from one of Kuala Lumpur's fanciest shopping malls, where a huge poster of Najib and his deputy had been defaced -- a rare display of public disrespect in the Southeast Asian nation.

One of the scrawled comments poked fun at the unconvincing share of the votes won by Najib's ruling coalition in its May 5 election victory: "47 percent PM," it said.

"If you don't like it, you can leave," mocked another, alluding to a comment by Najib's new home minister that those unhappy with the result -- and the electoral system that produced it -- should pack up and emigrate.

(...)

Hardliners have urged a crackdown on dissent and blamed minority ethnic Chinese voters for deserting the ruling coalition. That has raised racial tensions in a country whose ethnic Malay majority dominates politics and enjoys special privileges to offset what its leaders see as its disadvantaged position compared to relatively wealthy ethnic Chinese. Full story...

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The power of nonsense: how laughter makes life better...

(...)

When we feel a heart-felt chuckle, it can cure a panoply of ills. Laughter lowers cortisol levels (which are linked to all sorts of stress-related diseases including heart disease and high blood pressure.) Getting the giggles also increases the antibodies in your blood, which boosts the immune system so we can more easily evade bacteria, viruses and parasites.

In a recent study, laughter was found to boost the immune system by as much as 40 percent! In the study women watched funny films in one group and dull boring films in another. When the films were completed, researchers took samples of the women’s killer cells, our natural disease fighting cells, and mixed them with cancer cells to see what would happen. The women who had laughed out loud in the films had much healthier immune systems, capable of even destroying cancer cells, than the women who had watched some boring tourism films. Now that’s a powerful way to keep people from being sick without spending trillions in health care costs. Instead of pumping violence and anger into our media channels, how about a little more hilarity?

Laughter also makes us more physically beautiful as it brings increased blood flow to the skin through increased aerobic activity in the lungs and heart. Laughter even lessens depression. Full story...

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The horrific moment female police officer beats suspect with baton 10 times who dies hours later...

A horrifying video shows the moment a woman police officer beats a suspect repeatedly with a baton.

The man, who had allegedly threatened a Sacramento shop assistant, later died in police custody.

Officers had been called to the city's Metro PCS store in Folsom Boulevard on Friday, after reports that a shop assistant was in danger.

As they tried to handcuff the suspect, who had tried to barricade himself inside the store, the man resisted and a violent struggle followed.

A shopper, who sent her footage to CBS13 under the condition of anonymity, filmed the moment the man was held to the ground as a police officer struck him repeatedly with her baton. Full story...

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Protesters across globe rally against Monsanto...

Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces, organizers said.

Organizers said "March Against Monsanto" protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators waved signs that read "Real Food 4 Real People" and "Label GMOs, It's Our Right to Know."

Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply.

Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified. But critics say genetically modified organisms can lead to serious health conditions and harm the environment. The use of GMOs has been a growing issue of contention in recent years, with health advocates pushing for mandatory labeling of genetically modified products even though the federal government and many scientists say the technology is safe.

The 'March Against Monsanto' movement began just a few months ago, when founder and organizer Tami Canal created a Facebook page on Feb. 28 calling for a rally against the company's practices.Full story...

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Saturday, May 25, 2013

Student science experiment finds plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router...

Five ninth-grade young women from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community.

It started with an observation and a question. The girls noticed that if they slept with their mobile phones near their heads at night, they often had difficulty concentrating at school the next day. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone's radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to handle such an experiment. So the girls designed an experiment that would test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant instead.

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. Although by the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. While the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived. Full story...

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Sexual assault is a 'scourge' on U.S. military...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called sexual assault a "scourge" on Saturday as he addressed graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where a sergeant stands accused of videotaping female cadets in the showers.

"Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal - a profound betrayal - of sacred oaths and sacred trusts," Hagel said. "This scourge must be stamped out."

His comments came a day after President Barack Obama delivered a similar message to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy, saying sexual assault threatened to erode trust and discipline in America's armed forces.

The Pentagon is reeling from a series of sex-related scandals in recent weeks, including cases in which military advocates for victims of sexual assault were themselves accused of sex crimes.

A study released by the Defense Department two weeks ago estimated that reports of unwanted sexual contact in the military, from groping to rape, rose 37 percent in 2012, to about 26,000 cases from 19,000 the previous year. Full story...

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Myanmar imposes two-child limit on Rohingya Muslims...

Officials in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine have placed a two-child limit for Muslim Rohingya couples in a gross violation of fundamental human rights and amid accusations of ethnic cleansing against the community.

Local authorities said on Saturday that the new measure will be exercised in the townships of Buthidaung and Maundaw, where about 95 percent of the population are Muslim.

Rakhine state spokesman, Win Myaing, said the measure was enacted a week ago, and was meant to stem population growth in the Muslim community.

Human rights groups say the policy makes Myanmar the only country in the world to impose such a restriction on a religious group.

They also warn that the new move will serve to fan the flames of sectarian violence in Myanmar.

Human Rights Watch has accused Rakhine authorities of fomenting an organized campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya Muslims. Full story...

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Military quietly grants itself power to police streets without local or state consent...

The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “war on drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.

The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule: “Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.”

Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military.” He says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.” Full story...

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Stockholm riots leave Sweden's dreams of perfect society up in smoke...

LIKE the millions of other ordinary Swedes whom he now sees himself as one of, Mohammed Abbas fears his dream society is now under threat. When he first arrived in Stockholm as refugee from Iran in 1994, the vast Husby council estate where he settled was a mixture of locals and foreigners, a melting pot for what was supposed to be a harmonious, multi-racial paradise.

Two decades on, though, "white flight" has left only one in five of Husby's flats occupied by ethnic Swedes, and many of their immigrant replacements do not seem to share his view that a new life in Sweden is a dream come true. Last week, the neighbourhood erupted into rioting, sparking some of the fiercest urban unrest that Sweden has seen in decades, and a new debate about the success of racial integration.

"In the old days, the neighbourhood was more Swedish and life felt like a dream, but now there are just too many foreigners, and a new generation that has grown up here with just their own culture," he said, gesturing towards the hooded youths milling around in Husby's pedestrianised shopping precinct.

"Also, in Sweden you cannot hit your children to discipline them, and this is a problem for foreign parents. The kids can feel they can cause whatever trouble they want, and the police don't even arrest any of them most of the time." Full story...

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How the smartphone killed the three-day weekend...

Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer and all it evokes: vacations, slower workweeks, casual dress codes, getting the pool ready and pulling out the outdoor furniture.

It would seem an ideal time to take a break, but our ability to unplug and relax is under assault. A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation—or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors' questions.

There's plenty of debate among economists and psychologists whether the economy is to blame, or we do this to ourselves. There's little arguing that the concept of a Sabbath is in serious danger.

"It's like an arms race … everything is an emergency," said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying help people unplug more often. "We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive, and we can't keep going on like this." Full story...

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Kashmir's self-styled godman arrested for rape of young girls...

A 42-year-old self-styled Sufi dervish Gulzar Ahmed Bhat was arrested on Wednesday by Jammu and Kashmir police for raping and sexually abusing several young girls at his religious centre, Khansahib in Budgam district.

Gulzar Bhat, who went by the name Syed Gulzar, ran a residential institution for girls which offered short duration courses in religious studies. The self-styled dervish used to promote himself on local TV channels and publish promotional advertisements in local newspapers.

The scandal came to light when one of Gulzar's disciples, Imtiyaz Ahmad Sofi saw him indulging in a sexual act with a young girl. Police said Gulzar was arrested after four girls recorded their confessional statement before the court of the sub-judge in Budgam on Tuesday.

Police said at his centre with over 500 girl students, the self-styled god-man had been repeatedly exploiting the girls sexually on the pretext of "purifying" them. The charlatan had employed a few women who would motivate the girls to please the godman. Full story...

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Spain's Princess Cristina to be investigated for tax fraud...

Princess Cristina, the youngest daughter of Spain's Juan Carlos, is to be investigated for possible tax fraud and other financial crimes in the latest twist in an embezzlement scandal plaguing the Spanish royals.

The princess was initially named as a suspect and subpoenaed to testify in an investigation of fraud and embezzlement centring on her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, the Duke of Palma, but the decision was reversed by a judge on appeal earlier this month.

However, the same judge on Friday ordered a fresh probe into the financial affairs of the Infanta after examining 10 years of her tax returns submitted to the court in the investigation against her husband.

Jose Castro, investigating magistrate at the Palma de Majorca court in charge of the Noos case, ordered Spain's Treasury to provide him with a report on the Princess's property and other assets. Full story...

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Claws come out as PETA goes after anonymous online commenters for shelter kill claims...

The animal rights group PETA is hunting down personal information for anonymous commenters who allegedly defamed the organization by lambasting its pet euthanasia policy on the Huffington Post, according to a new Manhattan civil lawsuit.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the court to release names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other private details about three bloggers who reacted to an April 2 posting by a no-kill shelter advocate that's received almost 5,000 comments and 240,000 "likes" on Facebook.

The missive, "SHOCKING PHOTOS: PETA's Secret Slaughter of Kittens, Puppies," purportedly shows dead and dying pets at the group's Virginia headquarters.

The suit quotes "ambersomerville" on April 8 calling the group “animal Kevorkians.”

PETA needs to identify the anonymous commenters to bring a lawsuit against them.

A spokesman for Huffington Post declined to talk about pending litigation. Source...

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USA lags behind others in paid vacation, holidays...

Memorial Day weekend will kick off the summer travel season for many Americans, but some workers won't be able to kick back on a vacation this year.

Nearly one in four Americans (23%) has no paid vacation days, according to a report released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C.

"Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked," says report co-author John Schmitt, a senior economist at the center.

The report analyzed national and international data on 21 democracies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The group of 21 countries includes 16 in Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the USA. Full story...

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Friday, May 24, 2013

Hazara, one of the most persecuted ethnic groups on the planet...

Imagine that you live in Afghanistan. Your ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years, but you are a minority. In fact, you are a minority two times over, because the religion you practice is different from the one most people practice, and the way you look is different from the way most people look.

In the 1890's, Emir Abdur Rahman comes along. He is a king who reserves special scorn for your people, and in order to control territory and to scare troublesome groups into obedience, he makes an example out of yours. Your people are easy to target -- the different-believers, the different-lookers.

Many of you escape, but millions of you don't. So many of your people are killed that you believe fewer than half survived. Even statues that look like you are attacked.

For the next century, those of you who survive are relegated to the bottom rungs of society. The king has made it difficult for your people to gain admission to university and places a ceiling on the rank you can achieve in the military. Later, a group that calls itself The Students, or the Taliban, will take over the country and declare it every Afghan's duty to kill your people.

Imagine, though, that you are one of the lucky ones, and you escape before the king or The Students can get you. You go to a country next door. Full story...

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Afghanistan: The Hazaras and ethnic cleansing...

Rohingya: the world's most forgotten and abused people...

How Bangladesh treats the Rohingya refugees...

Scarred and scared, Pakistani Hindus seek refuge in India...

Quebec teachers strip search students during math exam...

A school board north of Montreal has launched an internal investigation after school staff strip searched 28 high school students to find a cellphone during a year-end exam.

The board admits that staff at Cap-Jeunesse high school in Saint-Jerome, QC, "lacked judgment" for asking 28 Grade 10 students to remove their clothes when a phone went missing last week.

The students were ordered to put their phones on a teacher's desk to prevent cheating during a math exam but one phone was unaccounted for, prompting teachers to order the strip search.

"They put us in a small room," one teenage girl, who didn't give her name, told QMI Agency. "(They said) 'take off your bra, then raise your arms.' They even tapped us on the back."

School board spokeswoman Nadyne Brochu admits the teachers went too far. Full story...

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From drugs to dance in the South African slums...

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European Parliament MPs earn 2000 per cent more than their countrymen...

Politicians at the European Parliament can earn up to 2,000 per cent more than the salary of the countries they represent, according to a new survey.

A German consumer price checking site looked at the salaries of MEPs from 27 countries, and then compared that to the amount they would earn at home.

Bulgarian MEPs come out as those who benefit the most, with their salary of €213,924 annually (£184,000) comparing the most favourably with the national average of €9,948 (£8,540). It would take the average Bulgarian 108 years to earn the same amount that a MEP takes home after just one five-year term.

The least comparatively well-off MEPs are those from Luxembourg, where the average gross national income is €44,704 – meaning that the MEPs earn 379 per cent more than their citizens.

British MEPs earn 695 per cent more than the average UK citizen, who will receive €26,902 (£24,000). Full story...

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EU to spend £1bn of taxpayers' money on pensions for retired eurocrats in 2010!!!

Secret report says Euro MP fat cats get filthy rich by bogus deals at taxpayer expense...

Mandelson is still being paid £8,000-a-month by EU two years after quitting Brussels..

Mexico resists Monsanto corn...

Saturday 25 May is a chance to say ‘no’ to genetically modified foods, with actions taking place all over the world against GM giant, Monsanto. The movement in Mexico is growing considerably, as local people are challenging the introduction of Monsanto corn in the crop’s historic birthplace, out of concern for what it could mean for traditional cultures, local diets and the biodiversity of the broader environment.

In late April, world renowned Indian ‘seed activist’ Vandana Shiva travelled to the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca to join a gathering of Mexican farmers, indigenous leaders and environmentalists, fighting to protect Mexico’s native corn crops against the imposition of genetically modified alternatives.

The group gathered for the ‘Pre-audiencia Nacional: Contaminación Transgénica del Maíz Nativo’ in the shadows of the Sierra Juárez mountain range, in response to the Mexican government’s proposal to allow the seeding of twelve million hectares of genetically modified corn. The proposal followed an initial pilot project in which Monsanto was allowed to plant GMO corn in test sites in 2009. While many local communities remain adamantly opposed to the move, extensive lobbying by Monsanto, with support from the world’s richest man, Mexican Carlos Slim, and considerable efforts by the Gates Foundation, have raised real fears that local concerns may be ignored.

While Slim, the Gates Foundation and Monsanto argue that GMO technology will feed the world’s poor, many locals deem the imposition of transgenic crops a serious threat to the native varieties of corn that have been at the core of rural Mexican cultures for millennia. Full story...

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Philippines cemetery provides Manila's poor a place to live among the dead...

Every morning, Alberto Lagarda Evangelista, 71, leaves the two-storey, lemon-yellow home he has lived in for the past decade and walks to work at the cemetery next door. As a caretaker of about 20 graves, Evangelista earns just 20,000 pesos (£315) a year, a sum so small that he must share his house with seven other people – all of whom are dead.

Evangelista lives and works in the Cementerio del Norte, a sprawling, 54-hectare green space in north Manila that is also home to some 1,000 other families. Here in the Philippines' largest public graveyard, century-old tombs have been converted into stalls selling sachets of shampoo and instant noodles, clothes lines are strung between crosses and car batteries power radios, karaoke machines and television sets. Evangelista's home is a mausoleum housing eight graves. The breezy second storey where the owners pay their annual respects to the dead doubles as his bedroom. "Just look at my view," he says, pointing his cigarette out towards the grave-studded horizon.

Today, the shady lanes are busy with the sundry activities of any normal neighbourhood: a group of boys plays basketball; adults while away the afternoon heat with sodas and playing cards; couples canoodle atop the graves that double as their beds; and women prepare chicken adobo in their mausoleum cafes. Full story...

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For the fourth time since 1956, Portland voters reject fluoridation...

Fluoride supporters, it appeared, had everything going for them.

Five Portland city commissioners had voted to add fluoride to the city water supply. Health advocacy groups, and many of the city's communities of color, lined up behind the cause. And proponents outraised opponents 3-to-1.

But none of that was enough. For the fourth time since 1956, Portlanders on Tuesday night rejected a plan to fluoridate city water, 60 percent to 40 percent.

"There's a libertarian component to Oregon politics ... a kind of opposition to what the establishment might want," said Bill Lunch, a political science professor at Oregon State University. "Those who have more money, despite the kind of popular presumptions in this regard, don't always win elections." Full story...

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