Dutch Black Pete in London
30 Nov 2014
Are Business Leaders Psychopaths?
The Trews is a YouTube web series by English comedian, actor and activist Russell Brand. "The Trews" features Brand offering his take on media as it appears in newspapers, television clips or advertisements, as well as Brand responding to comments from viewers. The show often features interviews with celebrities, activists or other guests. The series is produced and edited by ex-Independent journalist Johann Hari. (Wikipedia)
28 Nov 2014
Mass animal sacrifice at Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival
The Asia for Animals coalition is deeply concerned about the forthcoming Gadhimai Festival, held in honour of the Hindu Goddess Gadhimai, due to take place in Nepal on 28th and 29th November 2014. The festival is scheduled once every five years, will see the slaughter of many thousands of animals.
Despite campaigning by Nepalese, Indian and international animal-welfare organisations, the organisers of the festival and the Nepalese government allowed the 2009 slaughter to take place, where it was estimated that a quarter of a million animals were brutally slaughtered without stunning, resulting in extreme fear and pain.
Campaigners continue to lobby the organisers to cancel the slaughter, but despite worldwide protests, they have not introduced a single measure to alleviate the tremendous suffering. Animals are transported in appalling conditions, often with no food or water for two to three days before the sacrifice, before being forced to witness the killing of countless others before they are slaughtered themselves, including the killing of mother animals in front of their offspring.
Asia for Animals Coalition - The Gadhimal Festival: Why it must never happen Again (Think Differently About Sheep)
25 Nov 2014
Saint George and The "White Whore"
Lana Lokteff from Radio 3Fourteen and Red Ice Creations reviews the propaganda found within the TV show Saint George, starring George Lopez. She’ll also take a look at the politics of George Lopez’s stand-up comedy and discuss the strained relationship between Latinos and European Americans.
No indictment for Ferguson officer
A white police officer will not face charges for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager in a case that set off violent protests and racial unrest throughout the nation. A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson, 28, for firing six shots in an August confrontation that killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said Monday night.
Crowds of protesters filled streets near the Ferguson police station following the announcement. A police car and stores were set on fire, other stores were looted, gunfire was heard and bricks were hurled. Police said they had been fired on and responded with smoke bombs and pepper spray before using tear gas.
Police later said they came under heavy automatic weapon fire, and some buildings were left to burn because of the danger. County police said an officer suffered a gunshot wound, but it was unclear if it was because of the protest violence. Protests sprang up in cities from New York to Los Angeles and remained mostly peaceful.
USA Today – Ferguson Decision: No Justice for the Family of Michael Brown (Alternet)
24 Nov 2014
They Put Her In Solitary Confinement For 7 Months. Before That, She Was In A Prison Full Of Men
Because, while Johanna is a woman, she is also transgender. And because of her gender identity, Johanna's life is in constant danger. The bias and hatred against transgender women is very real, as Johanna's story sadly shows. Often, the people who commit violence against transgender women assume that they must be gay men because they might wear make-up or might wear their hair long.
Not only is she a transgender woman, she is a transgender woman who crossed the U.S. border undocumented. This makes things more complicated. Because, unfortunately, she didn't find help. Instead, she found herself in the immigration detention system. Johanna was placed in a jail — with men.
...being locked up was a nightmare. She was beat up by a male cellmate. Then, guards told her the only safe way to house her was solitary confinement. There, she sat in a 6-by-13-foot cell for 23 hours a day with no human contact and no view of the outside world. She waited for an asylum decision for seven months. Johanna decided that going back home was far better than being locked up in solitary confinement. She was deported to El Salvador. Almost as soon as her plane landed in the San Salvador airport, more nightmares followed.
Turkish President: 'Equality between men and women is against nature'
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said equality between men and women is “against nature” at a summit in Istanbul. He sparked outrage with the speech made at a convention organised by women’s groups campaigning to eliminate gender discrimination in all its forms.
“You cannot make women and men equal; this is against nature,” Mr Erdoğan told the meeting full of women including his own daughter, Today’s Zaman reported. “You cannot subject a pregnant woman to the same working conditions as a man. You cannot make a mother who has to breastfeed her child equal to a man. You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist regimes did…this is against her delicate nature.” The President reportedly claimed that Islam dictated motherhood to be the prime role of women, reciting a hadith saying that “heaven lies at your mother’s feet”.
23 Nov 2014
22 Nov 2014
Modern Israel Is Looking Like Nazi Germany
The genocidal public discourse against Palestinians and non-Jews in Israel is reaching fever pitch, and if we’ve learned anything from the horrors of the 20th century it is that fascism doesn’t stop, it must be stopped. We need to call time on Israeli fascism.
Independent Israeli journalist David Sheen brought this image to attention, with this tweet:
You may find this image shocking, eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, African Americans through the era of the Jim Crow segregation laws, or the UK hotel signs of the 1950’s reading ‘No Blacks, no dogs, no Irish’. I do not make these comparisons for kicks, hype or wanton disregard for these past horrors. It is because of those disgraceful periods in our history that we must not stand by while it happens again.
Fascism Grips Israel (Global Research) - Einstein Letter Warning Of Zionist Facism In Israel
21 Nov 2014
Life After Qaddafi — Libya: A Broken State
Three years after the Libyan revolution and the subsequent downfall of its dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the country has descended further into chaos and insecurity. Rebel militias, radical Islamists and former Qaddafi commander Khalifa Haftar are among the different groups vying for power and oil wealth, creating a vacuum in which violence and militancy reign supreme.
20 Nov 2014
Universal Children's Day - 20 November
By resolution 836(IX) of 14 December 1954, the General Assembly recommended that all countries institute a Universal Children's Day, to be observed as a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children. It recommended that the Day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world.
The Assembly suggested to governments that the Day be observed on the date and in the way which each considers appropriate. The date 20 November, marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.
40 000 Maasai told to leave homeland as hunters move in
Activists celebrated last year when the government said it had backed down over a proposed 1 500 sq km “wildlife corridor” bordering the Serengeti National Park that would serve a commercial hunting and safari company based in the United Arab Emirates.
Now the deal appears to be back on and the Maasai have been ordered to leave their traditional lands by the end of the year. Maasai representatives will meet the prime minister, Mizengo Pinda, in Dodoma today to express their anger. They insist the sale of the land would rob them of their heritage and directly or indirectly affect the livelihoods of 80 000 people. The area is crucial for grazing livestock on which the nomadic Maasai depend.
Unlike last year, the government is offering compensation of 1 billion shillings (£369 350), not to be paid directly but to be channelled into socio-economic development projects. The Maasai have dismissed the offer. “I feel betrayed,” said Samwel Nangiria, co-ordinator of the local Ngonett civil society group. “One billion is very little and you cannot compare that with land. It’s inherited. Their mothers and grandmothers are buried in that land. There’s nothing you can compare with it.”
Nangiria said he believes the government never truly intended to abandon the scheme in the Loliondo district but was wary of global attention. “They had to pretend they were dropping the agenda to fool the international press.” He said it had proved difficult to contact the Ortelo Business Corporation (OBC), a luxury safari company set up by a UAE official close to the royal family. The OBC has operated in Loliondo for more than 20 years with clients reportedly including Prince Andrew.
Activists opposing the hunting reserve have been killed by police in the past two years, according to Nangiria, who says he has received threatening calls and text messages. “For me it is dangerous on a personal level. They said: ‘We discovered you are the mastermind, you want to stop the government using the land’. Another said: ‘You have decided to shorten your life. The hands of the government are too long. Put your family ahead of the Maasai.’”
Wildest Things in the World
A musical tribute to the legendary conservationist & crocodile hunter Steve Irwin
19 Nov 2014
China and the New World Order
Military tensions, cyber espionage accusations, a brewing currency war; with every passing day, the headlines paint a convincing portrait of an emerging cold war between China and the West. But is this surface level reality the whole picture, or is there a deeper level to this conflict? Is China an opponent to the New World Order global governmental system or a witting collaborator with it?
18 Nov 2014
Tension rises over Russia-West standoff
Romanians and other eastern Europeans who remember Russia's past aggressions are worried about the West's ability and willingness to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin. Al Jazeera's Ali Velshi reports from across Europe and the high Arctic as part of Al Jazeera's New Cold War series, looking at the stakes of the conflict.
17 Nov 2014
ANONYMOUS #OpKKK
Following a week in which a chapter of Ku Klux Klan threatened to use “lethal force” against Ferguson protesters, the hacker collective known as Anonymous announced Operation KKK (#OpKKK) designed to harass the white supremacist group.
After Anonymous posted photos and personal information, including addresses and job positions, of Klan members living in the St. Louis area on Saturday, the Klan taunted the hacker group on Sunday only to see Anonymous take over their Twitter account two hours later.
16 Nov 2014
Westminster paedophile ring investigated over murder links
An alleged victim of the British Westminister "paedophile ring" currently being investigated by police has told officers he saw a Conservative MP murder a young boy at a sex party.
The allegation in the Sunday People comes after detectives examining allegations of historic sex abuse launched a new investigation into "possible homicide". Scotland Yard said officers working on Operation Fairbank, which is looking into claims that there was a paedophile ring with links to government, have been made aware of allegations concerning "serious non-recent sexual abuse", said to have occurred more than 30 years ago.
The paper, which has worked with investigations website Exaro, printed the the testimony of a man named 'Nick' who said he had known of three murders committed by the group.
But his most sensational claim was that a 12-year-old boy was strangled to death by a Tory MP at a orgy in the 1980s. “I watched while that happened. I am not sure how I got out of that. Whether I will ever know why I survived, I am not sure," he told the paper, describing how he and the victim had been driven to the party together. “I knew we were being taken somewhere to be sexually abused by powerful men. But I had no idea of the true horror of what was about to happen.
“The MP was particularly nasty, even among the group of people who sexually abused me and others. I still find it difficult to talk about these incidents after all these years.” Nick told the paper his father had arranged for the men to have sex with him. He has given the name of the MP to police working on Operation Midland, a strand of the Operation Fairbank inquiry and has allegedly help compiled “e-fit” pictures of the apparent murder victims.
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