UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors and high profile supporters help define the difference between the terms "refugee" and "migrant". These words are being splashed across media headlines because of the ongoing European Refugee Crisis. The film features actors Cate Blanchett, Colin Firth, David Morrissey, Douglas Booth, Kristin Davis, John Abraham and Patrick Stewart, singers Barbara Hendricks and Rokia Traore, writer Neil Gaiman, model Helena Christensen and comedian/tv host Craig Ferguson.
DARPA responded to a request from Fusion that “brain-neural interfaces” have not yet been implanted in soldiers, though test devices have been implanted in the brains of volunteers already undergoing brain surgery. We’ve changed the headline to reflect that implantation of chips in soldiers’ brains has not happened yet.
For decades, DARPA, the secretive research arm of the Department of Defense, has dreamed of turning soldiers into cyborgs. And now it’s finally happening. The agency has funded projects that involve implanting chips into soldiers’ brains that could one day enhance performance on the battlefield and repair traumatized brains once the fog of war has lifted.
“Of the 2.5 million Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 300,000 of them came home with traumatic brain injury,” journalist Annie Jacobsen told NPR. “DARPA initiated a series of programs to help cognitive functioning, to repair some of this damage. And those programs center around putting brain chips inside the tissue of the brain.”
Visitors to a London exhibition celebrating freedom of expression this week found plenty of familiar taboo-busting work, from Jamie McCartney’s The Great Wall of Vagina, a nine-metre long cast featuring the genitals of 400 women, to Kubra Khademi’s video of an eight-minute walk she made through Kabul in Afganistan, dressed in lushly contoured body armour. But they will have looked in vain for one work detailed in the catalogue by an artist known only as Mimsy.
Isis Threaten Sylvania is a series of seven satirical light box tableaux featuring the children’s toys Sylvanian Families. It was removed from the Passion for Freedom exhibition at the Mall galleries after police raised concerns about the “potentially inflammatory content” of the work, informing the organisers that, if they went ahead with their plans to display it, they would have to pay £36,000 for security for the six-day show.
In Isis Threaten Sylvania, rabbits, mice and hedgehogs go about their daily life, sunning themselves on a beach, drinking at a beer festival or simply watching television, while the menacing figures of armed jihadis lurk in the background. “Far away, in the land of Sylvania, rabbits, foxes, hedgehogs, mice and all woodland animals have overcome their differences to live in harmonious peace and tranquility. Until Now,” reads the catalogue note. “MICE-IS, a fundamentalist Islamic terror group, are threatening to dominate Sylvania, and annihilate every species that does not submit to their hardline version of sharia law.”
Shadi Petosky, a American transgender woman, took to social media earlier this week to divulge the horrifying details of harassment she faced by TSA agents at the Orlando airport. But this deeply upsetting narrative is not unique to Petosky, according to Jen Richards, a transgender woman who spoke with HuffPost Live on Thursday.
Richards, a writer and activist who is also friends with Petosky, told host Josh Zepps that she felt "empathetic horror" for her friend and described her own similarly "mortifying" experience at the Chicago Midway Airport in 2013. She said she was repeatedly asked to go through the body screener by an "apologetic" TSA agent who pointed out an "anomaly" over her genitals. Richards tried to explain the situation but said she was eventually detained in an entirely different part of the airport for a full body search.
Billie JD Porter reveals what it's really like to grow up in China, where respect for state and elders is being drilled into the next generation. If you don't fit in, you are often seen as a failure. She visits a special bootcamp where kids are sent to be 'fixed' by their parents, and she discovers that many there are gaming addicts. As she explores China's glamorous gaming world, she asks what China's obsession with gaming really says about pressure and individual freedom in the world's most populated nation.
With so many countries involved in the fighting, it's no surprise that Syria's civil war isn't ending any time soon.
On Sunday, millions of people around the world will enjoy the sight of a “blood moon”, as a lunar eclipse combined with a “supermoon” combines to make our natural satellite appear red in colour. Sales are emergency-preparedness retailers ahead of a combination of a lunar eclipse and a supermoon, but church says not to get carried away. Observers might not enjoy themselves quite so much, however, if certain prophecies turn out to be true and the phenomenon heralds the beginning of the apocalypse.
Sunday will be the fourth appearance of a blood moon over the last two years, in what is known as a tetrad series. The last time was in 1982; the next will be in 2033. If some religious leaders are to be believed, none of us will live to enjoy that next blood moon. Most such leaders are of groups on the fringes of organised belief, although this week leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints felt moved to reassure those among its followers who are worried.
Irvin Baxter runs Endtime Ministries in Plano, Texas. He posts regular YouTube videos speculating over whether this series of blood moons could signal the end of the world. “Some prophecy teachers are declaring boldly that this tetrad just ahead signals that something is getting ready to happen, which will change the world forever,” Baxter said on his website.
It’s difficult to know where to begin on this one. Conspiracy theorist, radio host and talking throat-polyp Alex Jones recorded a video in which he dressed up like a psychotic clown — complete with bloody gloves, a lab coat and a rubber clown mask that made his already shredded voice sound even less understandable.
Why?
Apparently, he was reacting to Salon‘s recent publishing of an article written by a Tennessee-based writer named Todd Nickerson, who confessed to being a pedophile. Nickerson’s article describes how he’s never acted upon his sexual attraction to children and how his pedophilia was likely a consequence of being molested in his front yard when he was 7-years-old.
Full disclosure: I’m also a contributor to Salon, but regardless, I can’t criticize Salon‘s decision to run the article. While I think Nickerson and others like him are vile and unforgivable, he has every right to express his opinion, and I seriously doubt many, if any, readers were stirred to sympathize with someone who very well could act upon his urges, making him even worse. The horrendousness of pedophilia is obvious, so I won’t even bother ranting about it. Would I have run the article? I doubt it. But best case, if it offers enough insight into the mind of a pedophile that allows us to better identify and prevent child molestation, then publishing it was absolutely the right thing to do. Critics of Salon need to explain how this is a bad thing.
There are millions of people who listen to Jones and hang onto his every word. His business model is to exploit, for notoriety and treasure, the paranoia of his audience. And this might be the craziest example of that model so far.
On the site of former Nazi concentration camp Dachau, outbuildings that used to belong to the complex's herb garden are now being used to house refugees. Once a place of fear and death, children can now be seen playing on the site where inmates were forced to spend hours toiling in the cold and rain to cultivate plants intended for use in medicine.
"The buildings belonged to the former plantation, to the herb garden, which was one of the worst labour detachments of Dachau concentration camp, where especially Jewish and religious prisoners were working in order to make the soil arable and to plant medicinal herbs. It was one of the worst labour detachments because the work was mostly outside, and the death rate was immense. And as such it was a place of death and terror," head of Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site Gabriele Hammermann said.
The garden complex does not belong to the official memorial site, but is being used by the city authorities to house the homeless and asylum seekers whose applications have been recognised, giving them a home to start their new lives in Germany.
What is it that makes us human? Is it that we love, that we fight? That we laugh? Cry? Our curiosity? The quest for discovery?
Driven by these questions, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent three years collecting real-life stories from 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Working with a dedicated team of translators, journalists and cameramen, Yann captures deeply personal and emotional accounts of topics that unite us all; struggles with poverty, war, homophobia, and the future of our planet mixed with moments of love and happiness.
filmsforaction.org - www.human-themovie.org - Part 2 - Part 3
Ali Mohammed al-Nimr's name is well-known in eastern Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of the country's Shia minority and the scene of a burgeoning protest movement. Ali, 21, is the nephew of Shia cleric and activist Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, who was jailed and sentenced to death for his fiery speeches against Saudi Arabia's ruling House of Saud dynasty, which has controlled the Arabian Peninsula since the 1930s. Sheikh al-Nimr was detained and then sentenced to death on terrorism charges as well as "waging war on God" for his speech during anti-government protests in Qatif, a city that saw massive street protests followed by a bloody crackdown by the Saudi authorities in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Most of the 2.7 million Shia in Saudi Arabia live in al-Ahsa and al-Qatif districts in the country's eastern province, which also contains the bulk of the kingdom's oil. Ruled by a Sunni monarchy and under a strict interpretation of Islam, Wahabbism, Shia are often portrayed as heretics or agents of Riyadh's major rival, Iran. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr faces death by beheading and crucifixion for alleged participation in anti-government protests Facebook
It was revealed this week that Ali's appeal against the death penalty has been denied and he will be put to death by the Saudi authorities, first beheaded and then his body strapped to a cross and left to rot.
Ali was arrested in 2012 when he was 17 years old for taking part in a protest. According to anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, Ali was tortured and forced to sign a confession in 2012 and after two years he was sentenced to death in May 2014. During his "trial", Ali raised the claims of torture but no investigation took place and the court used the confession to sentence him, the charity claims. He was convicted under a range of charges, from the most seemingly innocuous to the gravely serious. As well as being accused of being part of a terrorist organisation, carrying weapons and targeting security patrols with Molotov cocktails, Ali was also charged with encouraging others to protest using his BlackBerry and explaining to others how to give first aid, Reprieve claimed in a statement on 17 September.
Still think you have plenty of time?
Posted by Pastor Darrell W. Garrett on woensdag 22 juli 2015
Why is the refugee crisis all over the news? How is this related to Syria? Why should we care at all?
Playing For Change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music.
While images of Hungarian riot police officers firing tear gas and water cannons at migrants along the Serbian border on Wednesday appalled human rights activists, the mayor of one small town in the south of Hungary remains concerned that his nation might still seem too welcoming to those fleeing war or poverty.
To remedy this, Laszlo Toroczkai, an ultranationalist with a flair for the dramatic, released a personal “Message to illegal immigrants from Hungary” on Facebook and YouTube late Wednesday, threatening them with arrest and displaying his town’s security hardware in a video edited in the style of a big-budget action movie.
Perpetual war, grinding poverty and a time bomb of overpopulation resulting in millions of refugees crossing continents. A fitting description perhaps for the emergency facing Europe today – but those problems also fuelled a German architect’s extraordinary 1920s scheme to resettle millions of Europeans in Africa. The “Atlantropa” scheme proposed to form land bridges between Africa and Europe by damming and partially draining the Mediterranean, allowing millions of Europeans to find a new life in what would become the southern zone of a Eurafrican supercontinent. It would, of course, lead to European domination of Africa – a fact deemed acceptable in an era scarred by racism and colonialism.
The plan was the result of Herman Sörgel’s experience of the First World War, the economic and political turmoil of the 1920s and the rise of Nazism in Germany. It convinced him a new world war could only be avoided if a radical solution was found to European problems of unemployment, overpopulation and an impending energy crisis.
In line with the colonial and racist attitudes of the times, Mr Sörgel envisaged Africa to be entirely at the disposal of Europe, a continent with plenty of space to accommodate Europe’s masses. While his proposal may sound absurd to our ears, it was taken seriously by architects, engineers, politicians and journalists at the time. The extensive Atlantropa archive in the Deutsche Museum in Munich abounds with architectural drawings for new cities, the dams and bridges of the future continent as well as letters of support and hundreds of articles about the project, which appeared in the German and international popular press, as well as in specialised engineering and geographical magazines.
“Horrific killer drones! Ankle-shattering leg irons! Cluster bombs! And electric stun batons that cause excruciating pain but leave no trace!” The cheery voice and cartoon imagery leave no doubt that this advert for the world’s biggest arms fair is a sharp spoof, produced for Amnesty International to highlight the British government’s willingness to flog weapons to repressive regimes via the Defence and Security Equipment International’s jamboree at the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands.
But a separate campaign is also leading to many posters cropping up at bus stops and on tube trains that require a second glance. “Important announcement, Travelling on the DLR from 15th to 18th September?” reads one, using London Underground fonts and branding with the DLR line turning into the image of a tank. “This September, a swarm of arms dealers will be descending on the DLR … Customers are requested to help stop the arms fair.”
The 300 posters are by artists who exhibited work at the Museum of Cruel Designs (PDF) in Banksy’s Dismaland. A collective called the Special Patrol Group helped distribute it around London using “Ad Space Hack Packs”, a £6 pack of Allen keys which it claims “gain access to around a third of bus stop advertising space on the planet”. (Transport for London is not amused by this flyposting “vandalism”.)
The al-Aqsa mosque complex in the heart of Jerusalem, has witnessed a third day of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians. Police tried to clear the protesters, some of whom barricaded themselves inside the holy site.
From the site: The Temple Mount Faithful | Working to Rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount
Do not fear any human power, trust only the G‑d of our forefathers. Remove the foreign Arab Islamic occupation of the Holy Temple Mount of the G‑d of Israel, purify the Holy Hill of G‑d Almighty like our forefathers did in times past and rebuild the end-time Holy Third Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the pagan abomination and the shameful situation on the Holy Hill of G‑d. Remove immediately the flags of ISIS, Hamas, and other foreign flags from the location of the Holy Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the incitement against the G‑d and people of Israel perpetrated by the Arab Islamic Mufti and other Islamic speakers from the most Holy Hill of G‑d in Jerusalem, the location of the Shekina of G‑d, which is now in captivity by the agents of the Satan of ISIS and other cruel terrorists.
Never ever in the history of Israel have the people of G‑d allowed such a terrible and satanic anti-godly event to happen on the holiest place of G‑d in the entire universe and it should immediately be stopped. It breaks the heart of the people of Israel and many righteous friends of Israel throughout the world. More of this here..
One of the most notable reactions to the growing refugee crisis has been the incredible response by soccer fans. But not in Israel, where racist chants and placards tell a different and more hostile story.
The world of sport, particularly soccer, has really made a huge welcome effort across Western and Northern Europe.
In Germany, several leading soccer teams came onto their pitches wielding banners that read: “Refugees Welcome.” Their fans followed suit, dropping banners across their stadiums that welcomes refugees. The same could be seen in England, where fans dropped banners, too. Premiership team Arsenal donated ticket sales to charities supporting refugees, and right down at local team level, fans were not only dropping banners in welcome, but preparing welcome packages of food, clothing and other essentials.
However, Israeli soccer fans took a quite different approach to the matter. Fans of the Tel Aviv team, the Maccabis, dropped a banner over the weekend which read: “Refugees Not Welcome.”
Israel is disintegrating under the weight of its own fascism, while the world is watching. It cannot be long until either the world takes action, or yet another breathtaking injustice is perpetrated.
The Tea Party crazies came out in full force on Wednesday at the “Stop the Iran Deal” rally.
It was a star-studded cast that included all the well known names of the conservative far-right, including Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, and even Donald Trump.
Even though Republicans didn’t have enough votes to block the deal, nothing was going to stop these “patriots” from parading around in front of the capitol. They showed up in funny costumes, “we hate Obama” signs, and with enough energy to match their stupidity.
Several Tea Partiers were given an opportunity to say what they would do instead if the negotiation process were left up to them, and not Obama. After all, they claim this is a bad deal. So, it’s interesting (and downright funny or scary – you be the judge) to hear what their alternative plans would be.
Why are mainstream media outlets like CNN and BBC only broadcasting footage which shows the migrants in a positive light?
Parties across Europe are appealing to voters through nationalistic, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Stupid Christian Comments #13. This video series dives head first into stupid christian comments found on the internet. Marvel at the stupidity and enjoy!
The number of Syrian refugees that are trying to make it to the EU is rising fast. What is more surprising though is where they are not trying to go. They are not headed to the Gulf States because those countries are refusing to let any of them in.
The trombonist Rico Rodriguez has died at the age of 80. More at The Independent
Hi, I'm Baxter! My last owner didn’t love me and I knew I just had to get outta there. At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without him by my side… Ahem, you know the rest.
Abby Martin debuts The Empire Files exploring the U.S. Empire and its rise to world hegemony at teleSUR English.
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich makes an eloquent and impassioned argument about how the devastating effects of America's widening income inequality not only threaten the middle class but also the very foundation of democracy itself. Please support the filmmakers & on-going project here: http://inequalityforall.com
Russia is providing “serious” training and logistical support to the Syrian army, Vladimir Putin has said, in the first public confirmation of the depth of Russia’s involvement in Syria's civil war. Commenting on reports that Russian combat troops have been deployed to Syria, the Russian president said discussion of direct military intervention is “so far premature,” but did not rule out that such a step could be taken in future.
“To say we're ready to do this today - so far it's premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying when asked about Russian intervention in Syria during an economic forum in Vladivostok.
"We really want to create some kind of an international coalition to fight terrorism and extremism," Mr Putin said. "To this end, we hold consultations with our American partners - I have personally spoken on the issue with US President Obama."
Angelina Jolie slammed the U.N. for failing Syrian refugees during a briefing to the Security Council on Friday. "We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world's inability to protect and defend the innocent," Jolie, a U.N. special envoy for refugees, told the council.
Jolie has travelled to the region 11 times since Syria's civil war began in 2011. Close to 4 million Syrians have fled the country and are living as refugees in the region and abroad. "Nearly 4 million Syrian refugees are victims of a conflict they have no part in, yet they are stigmatized, unwanted, and regarded as a burden," Jolie added.
Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, professor and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli--Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust.
Conspiracy theorists are often mocked and called tin-foil hat wearing loonies, but whatever people may say, they have got the occasional thing correct. And sometimes the truth is even scarier than speculations and theories. These are the terrifying conspiracy theories that turned out to be true.
As Saudi ground troops enter Northern Yemen with US backing, Amnesty International charges Saudis with alleged war crimes
After the tragic crisis in Syria, more than half of all Syrians have left their homes. Where are they?