Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Let’s stop blaming America...

I AM a proud and loyal Saudi citizen, but I am tired of hearing constant criticism from most Arabs of everything the United States does in its relations with other countries and how it responds to global crises. No nation is perfect, and certainly America has made its share of mistakes such as Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq. I am fully aware of what happened when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unprecedented abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. However, what would we do if America simply disappeared from the face of the earth such as what happened to the Soviet Union and ancient superpowers like the Roman and Greek empires? These concerns keep me up day and night. It’s frustrating to hear this constant drumbeat of blame directed toward the United States for everything that is going wrong in the world. Who else do we think of to blame for our problems and failures? Do we take personal responsibility for the great issues that affect the security and prosperity of Arab countries? No, we look to America for leadership and then sit back and blame it when we don’t approve of the actions and solutions it proposes or takes. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Arabs turning their backs on America, thanks to Obama's silence on uprisings... 
  2. 25% of Arabs 'never' or 'hardly' read books...
  3. Saudi Arabia's betrayal to the Islamic world...
  4. Reel Bad Arabs: how Hollywood propaganda vilifies an entire people...
  5. "Where is Khaled?" Saudi man who defied State may have disappeared... 

Video of tortured boy’s corpse deepens anger in Syria...

Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a round-faced 13-year-old boy, was arrested at a protest in Jiza, a southern Syrian village near Dara’a, on April 29. Nothing was known of him for a month before his mutilated corpse was returned to his family on the condition, according to activists, that they never speak of his brutal end.

But the remains themselves testify all too clearly to ghastly torture. Video posted online shows his battered, purple face. His skin is scrawled with cuts, gashes, deep burns and bullet wounds that would probably have injured but not killed. His jaw and kneecaps are shattered, according to an unidentified narrator, and his penis chopped off.

 “These are the reforms of the treacherous Bashar,” the narrator says. “Where are human rights? Where are the international criminal tribunals?” More...

Watch the video (Graphic)

Don't miss:
  1. This is what's happening in Syria (WARNING. Extremely graphic)
  2. 8000 people missing or in detention in Syria...
  3. 'In Syria we have been scared all our lives. Now at least we have hope, too"
  4. Syria: Assad's regime of torture...
  5. The State continues to kill in Syria... (Graphic) 
  6. Syrian troops 'have killed more than 1,000 civilians in brutal crackdown  

Dark girls: self-esteem and prejudice within the black community...

Australia considers banning live animal exports to Indonesia: cattle beaten, whipped and kicked prior to slaughter...


The Federal Government is considering banning live animal exports to some countries after ABC TV broadcast disturbing footage of Australian cattle being mistreated in Indonesian abattoirs.

Last night's Four Corners program featured footage of Australian cattle being beaten, whipped and kicked prior to slaughter in Indonesia.

According to analysis of the footage by RSPCA chief scientist Bidda Jones, some animals show signs of possible consciousness when they are dismembered.

Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig has introduced an immediate moratorium on a type of animal restraint box used in live exports and says he wants a full briefing before deciding on whether to impose export bans. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Pigs buried alive in Korea! WTF!
  2. This is what you don't see when you have shark's fin soup...
  3. Dairy's dark side: cruelty at New York's largest dairy farm (Graphic)
  4. How they kill pigs in Egypt. (Graphic)
  5. Hatchery Horrors: unwanted chicks crushed to death...  
  6. The Port Harcourt meat market in Nigeria (Graphic)

Mother of three in Scotland convicted of file-sharing...


A mother-of-three from Ayrshire has become the first woman in Scotland to be convicted of sharing illegally downloaded music files.
Anne Muir, 58, was caught with more than 30,000 files worth an estimated £54,792 in the mainstream market and was sentenced today to three years probation.

The mother-of-three was sentenced at Ayr Sheriff Court, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said.

Muir was caught with the files at home by police on June 27 2008, following a joint investigation with the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) - the body which represents the UK record industry. More...

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  1. Teen fined $2900 for downloading a movie illegally ...
  2. France starts reporting "millions" of file-sharers...
  3. Artists make more money in the file-sharing age than they did before...
  4. US government finally admits most piracy statistics are bullshit...
  5. Boston student ordered to pay $675,000 for file-sharing... 

In Australia, you can be fined for swearing!!!


Swearing will be banned in another Australian state, if it approves a new law later this week.

Police in Victoria will be able to fine people guilty of "obnoxious" swearing up to AU$240 (£155) on the spot, according to AFP.

A Victorian attorney-general explained the reasoning behind the pending legislation, telling ABC Radio: "This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings." More...

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  1. Swearing is good for your health... 
  2. A look at that great English word "Fuck..."
  3. Korean dude's lesson on how to swear in English!!!
  4. More woes for the town called Fucking!!! 
  5. A child swearing and cussing...
  6. In Australia, it's OK to tell the police to fuck off!!!
  7. In Spain, you can call your boss a son of a bitch!!!
  8. Asian grandma learns English!!! 

Monkey burnt to death in South Africa because "it was talking to people..."


A vervet monkey was burnt to death in Kagiso informal settlement, west of Johannesburg, after residents believed it was linked to witchcraft, The Star newspaper reported on Monday.

"In an incident described as 'barbaric' by the Community-led Animal Welfare (Claw), residents chanted 'kill that witch!'," The Star said.

It reported that the monkey wandered into the settlement last week Monday, May 23, and was pelted with stones, shot at by police, and then burnt to death.

The monkey fled the mob and temporarily found shelter in a tree, but was pulled out, put in a bucket and doused in petrol.  

"Someone struck a match. (The monkey) got out of the bucket and dropped down dead. They continued throwing stones at it," Kagiso resident, Tebogo Moswetsi was reported as saying. More...
 
Don't miss:
  1. Woman in India blinded with scissors for being a "witch". WTF!
  2. "Shape-shifting" South African monster strikes again...
  3. Grandma burnt alive in Ghana for being a "witch"
  4. India: monkeys fall to their deaths, temples are erected...
  5. The horny langur and Indian women...
  6. 10,000 people attend monkey wedding in India... 

Bilingualism sharpens the brain, helps resist Alzheimer’s disease...

(...)

As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language.

 But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important. Full story...

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  1. Being bilingual a good brain work-out, experts say... 
  2. French is booming in English-speaking Africa...
  3. Stephen Fry on words and language...
  4. Low-caste Dalits in India build a temple ... to the English language!!!
  5. Watch the translation!!! Hilarious...
  6. Proficiency in English around the world.  
  7. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew admits that bilinguism policy was a serious mistake... 

Will Kissinger, Bush & Blair be brought before The International Court?


That the former Serb General Ratko Mladic was able to escape detection for sixteen years, beggars belief. The relative’s house he used as a ‘safe house’ was reportedly searched some four times – presumably with Mladic being told to take a stroll while they took place. That the butcher of Srebrenica was finally arrested this week is largely down to the fact that Serbia’s accession to the European Union hung on him being apprehended and that the government in Belgrade now leans more towards pragmatic engagement than the nihilist nationalism that once had the Balkans in flames.

Clearly alleged war criminals can run and may be allowed to hide, until they run out of friends or are no longer worthy bargaining chips. But the question has once again been raised; when is the comparatively new and increasingly more effective hand of international justice going to be strengthened? Or to put it more directly, when will it’s supporters be able to say to their critics that international justice is not ‘victor’s justice’? More...

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  1. On Tuesday, Sept. 11th. 1973, freedom was attacked in Chile...
  2. Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death...
  3. Chileans stage Kissinger protest in Geneva...
  4. Oil, blood money, Lockerbie and Tony Blair...
  5. Tony Blair must be arrested, says John Pilger...
  6. Fisk: Obama, man of peace? No, just a Nobel prize of a mistake...
  7. A million widows and millions of fatherless children...
  8. Twelve children killed in another US massacre in Afghanistan... 

Blondes on parade cheer up Latvia...



Decked out in pink, their locks glinting in the sunshine, hundreds of blondes have marched arm-in-arm through the Latvian capital Riga in a bid to raise spirits in the slump-stricken Baltic state.

Tourists and locals marvelled as more than 800 blondes wove their way through the streets on Saturday for the second edition of what organisers say they hope will become a regular annual event.

"I feel very good to be surrounded by so many beautiful women. It's great to be blonde," local student Linda said.
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For the 19-year-old, who turned out with her dog Sniffs, the event is mostly a fun day out with friends. More...

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  1. An island run exclusively by blondes???
  2. Is your husband "urban" or "rural?" Ah, blondes...
  3. Budapest is the capital of ... France?????
  4. The blonde and the jigsaw puzzle...
  5. Denmark's Roskilde Festival naked run 2010!!! 
  6. Sexy auto show in Budapest, Hungary... 

Egyptian general admits 'virginity checks' conducted on protesters...


A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Egyptian women protestors forced to take virginity tests by army officers...
  2. CBS reporter Lara Logan in Cairo sex attack...
  3. Egyptian women get Harrasmap, a website to fight harassement...
  4. Egypt declares war on virginity-faking devices!!!
  5. Rape victims in India still undergoing the "two-finger" test! WTF!

Why idolise footballers?


The worst thing about this ongoing kerfuffle over superinjunctions is that it keeps forcing me to contemplate the extra- curricular activity of men who kick balls around lawns for a living. Since I'm not into sport, I simply don't "get" the deification of footballers. I can see they've got a demanding physical task to do, and I can appreciate that some do it better than others – but that's the extent of my understanding. When they're not at work, what's so interesting about them? Seriously, what?

It's like living in a world in which half the population has inexplicably decided to worship shire horses. But as if that wasn't strange enough, they're not content to simply admire the animals' ability to pull brewery wagons: they also want to know what the horses get up to back at the stables. And when Dobbin goes on a hay-eating binge, or tries to mount a donkey, not only will they voraciously read all about it, they'll judge him for it. They'll phone HoofTalk FM to pontificate on air about what a bad horse he is. In behaving like a simple horse, Dobbin, who is richly rewarded with nosebags and thoroughbred fillies, has committed the ultimate crime: he's set a bad example to their children. More...

Don't miss:
  1. A genius, yes. But Alex Ferguson is also a lout...
  2. Ryan Giggs, private lives and injunctions... 
  3. Rooney-gate: Time to kick hypocrisy out of football...
  4. Girls in Britain 'want to be famous and sleep with footballers'
  5. We know Rwanda is the story that matters. Yet still we turn to Rooney...
  6. British teacher warns against celebrity culture...
  7. The World Cup and South Africa, the dark side... 

Too young to wed: the secret world of child brides...


Because the wedding was illegal and a secret, except to the invited guests, and because marriage rites in Rajasthan are often conducted late at night, it was well into the afternoon before the three girl brides in this dry farm settlement in the north of India began to prepare themselves for their sacred vows. They squatted side by side on the dirt, a crowd of village women holding sari cloth around them as a makeshift curtain, and poured soapy water from a metal pan over their heads. Two of the brides, the sisters Radha and Gora, were 15 and 13, old enough to understand what was happening. The third, their niece Rajani, was 5. She wore a pink T-shirt with a butterfly design on the shoulder. A grown-up helped her pull it off to bathe.

The grooms were en route from their own village, many miles away. No one could afford an elephant or the lavishly saddled horses that would have been ceremonially correct for the grooms' entrance to the wedding, so they were coming by car and were expected to arrive high-spirited and drunk. The only local person to have met the grooms was the father of the two oldest girls, a slender gray-haired farmer with a straight back and a drooping mustache. This farmer, whom I will call Mr. M, was both proud and wary as he surveyed guests funneling up the rocky path toward the bright silks draped over poles for shade; he knew that if a nonbribable police officer found out what was under way, the wedding might be interrupted mid-ceremony, bringing criminal arrests and lingering shame to his family. More...

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  1. She's only 10, but she's already been married, raped, beaten and divorced!!
  2. Yemen's child brides, the Nujood Ali story...
  3. Yemen child bride 'bleeds to death' 
  4. 80-year-old Saudi marries 14-year-old girl...
  5. 44% of India's brides are under-age... 
  6. The 11-year-old Indian girl who said "No" to marriage...
  7. Poverty and baby brides: this is terribly sad.
  8. Child marriage in the Muslim world...
  9. At what age can a girl have sex? This guy claims to have the answer... 

Monday, May 30, 2011

Israeli soldiers talk about power and abuse of power...

Tamil policemen excluded from Sri Lanka parade...


A Tamil policeman from northern Sri Lanka says he feels hurt that he and 25 Tamil colleagues were excluded from a recent parade of security forces.

He said they were pulled out at the very last moment. He believes it was because of their ethnicity.

But a police spokesman said there was no discrimination and it was "wrong" to say anyone was withdrawn.

Meanwhile, a UN official says he thinks a controversial video, purportedly from the recent civil war, is authentic. More...

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  1. Sri Lankan military committed war crimes says U.N. panel... 
  2. Telling the truth about the atrocities in Sri Lanka... 
  3. UN told of 'deteriorating' human rights situation in Sri Lanka...
  4. 5,000 Tamils are still held off-limits in Sri Lanka... 
  5. International condemnation after journalist arrested in Sri Lanka...
  6. Photos allege Sri Lanka massacre of Tamils...(Graphic)

Bangladesh woman takes man's penis to police station as evidence of rape...


Police in southern Bangladesh say a woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempt to rape her and took it to a police station as evidence.

The incident took place in Mirzapur village, Jhalakathi, about 200km (124 miles) south of the capital, Dhaka.

Monju Begum, 40, a married mother of three, told police that neighbour Mozammel Haq Mazi forced his way into her shanty and started assaulting her.

Mr Mazi, who denies the accusation, has been admitted to a nearby hospital. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Pastor with "magic penis" burnt alive in South Africa...
  2. Angry wife in Vietnam cuts off husband's penis!!!
  3. India: woman beheads would-be rapist... 
  4. "I'm a jealous wife; his penis should belong to me,"
  5. Don't mess around with penis-slashing Thai women!!!
  6. Jilted woman blows up boyfriend's penis with firecrackers!!! 

“Too many people are using religion as a sword to fight those with whom they disagree..."


Retired pastor Kirk Minor remembers a time when working with his church was centered around people, and not rhetoric – and he’s wondering where those days went.

“We’re finding more and more that there are a lot of people out there doing a lot of talking and protesting and bellyaching, but fewer people actually walking the walk,” said Minor, author of Journey Across The Tiber: My Many Rooms. “We have extremists protesting funerals of gay soldiers, pundits decrying the use of abbreviations for the word Christmas and activists campaigning for prayer in public schools. These are all very divisive issues, and have little to do with the good works the Bible wants the faithful to perform.”

Minor bemoans that the Bible has become a book with which to bludgeon people. More...

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  1. You don't have to be born again; you have to grow up. Wow!
  2. Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'
  3. French Catholic fundamentalists attack " Piss Christ" art work...
  4. Pakistani girls flee Islam and seek asylum in Sri Lanka...
  5. Atheists and Jews know more about religion than the believers!!!
  6. Pakistan: Silence has become the mother of all blasphemies... 

Businessman loses €25,000 in Manchester United Champions League bet!!!


After being dominated for 90 minutes by an utterly unstoppable Barcelona side at the weekend's Champions League final, Manchester United fans could be forgiven for still feeling a little sick - though perhaps not as sick as one Letterkenny fan.

According to the Donegal Daily, a well-known businessman dropped €25,000 on a losing bet for the Red Devils last weekend. At odds of 7/4, he stood to win nearly €19,000 had the side continued onwards from Wayne Rooney’s first-half equaliser.

A close friend of the Letterkenny businessman who lost the fortune, told the daily: “He’s just sick….and he’s taking a fair bit of stick over it as well. More...

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  2. Man Utd fan kills 4 Barcelona fans in Nigeria...
  3. Man United fan stops council painting house in Man City’s colours!!!
  4. Bolton fan quits job in Australia to watch his idols play in FA Cup semi-final!!! 

Grow-your-own food group attracts 10,000 members in Ireland...



A GRASSROOTS organisation which teaches people how to grow their own food and encourages them to "barter" has attracted an estimated 10,000 members nationwide.

Grow-it-yourself (GIY) Ireland was set up in response to a realisation that ordinary people were incapable of producing their own food.

With almost 100 groups nationwide, it brings people together online and in communities to learn from each other and exchange tips, ideas and produce.

 A spokesperson for GIY said the organisation — membership of which is free — is carrying out a census of members which it expects to reach 10,000 "GIYers" nationwide. More...

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  2. It's still safe to eat after the "use-by" date... 
  3. Shoppers just can't avoid GM foods...
  4. What's wrong with our food system? An 11-year-old's point of view...
  5. Food Fascism in the Land of the Free...
  6. Life without supermarkets? 

Pakistanis turn to conspiracies...


Facing a surge in violence after the killing of Osama bin Laden, Pakistanis take comfort in conspiracy theories alleging Indian or U.S. agents — not Muslim countrymen — are behind the attacks, especially last week's naval base assault.

Lawmakers, media pundits, retired generals, even government officials often hint at suspicions of a "foreign hand" in the violence, despite there being no evidence and often explicit claims of responsibility by militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban.

On television talk shows and in newspapers, conspiracy theories abound, underscoring challenges facing the United States as it seeks to convince Pakistan's overwhelmingly anti-American population it faces a shared enemy in the Taliban.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fought back Friday against those stories. "America cannot and should not solve Pakistan's problems; that is up to Pakistan," she said. "But in solving its problems, Pakistan should understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not make problems disappear." More...

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  1. Thousands protest US drone attacks in Pakistan...
  2. The US is our biggest threat, say almost 60 per cent of Pakistanis...
  3. 'US killed Bin Laden clone in Pakistan'
  4. Top US government insider: Bin Laden died in 2001, 9/11 a false flag...
  5. The 33 Chilean miners and masonic symbols...
  6. Is an international conspiracy behind world events? 

French police close down popular piracy website...


Police have closed down one of France's most popular websites for downloading pirated content and arrested three men who ran it, an officer said Saturday.

Liberty Land, set up in September 2009, was one of the most frequented sites in France, claiming 800,000 users accessing and sharing pirated music, films and software.

Jean-Philippe Vidal, chief of the Rennes gendarmerie leading the probe, said three men aged between 25 and 30 were arrested in Marseille, near Le Havre and in the Paris suburb of Montreuil and charged with organised counterfeiting. More...

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  1. France halts ‘three strikes’ IP-address collection after data leak...
  2. Some pirates in Sweden turn file-sharing into a religion!!!
  3. Music website bosses to pay £625,000 for selling Beatles songs illegally...
  4. US shuts down websites in piracy crackdown... 

Yoga for Indian soldiers in Kashmir!!!

Germany to abandon nuclear power by 2022...


German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government decided Monday that all of the country's nuclear power plants should be shut down by 2022.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen also said that the country's seven oldest reactors, which were taken off the grid pending safety inspections following the nuclear disaster in Japan in March, would remain offline permanently.

All but three of Germany's newest reactors would be closed by 2021, said Roettgen, and the rest would be shut down a year later.

Roettgen said that a disputed 2.3 billion euro a year tax on spent fuel rods will not be scrapped, however, even as the coalition plans to go ahead with the shutdown. More...

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  1. Switzerland to phase out nuclear power by 2034... 
  2. Two guys enter Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor evacuation zone ...
  3. Taiwanese singer Lee Mi strips to protest nuclear power...
  4. The Japanese nuclear crisis explained...
  5. Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette...
  6. Switzerland's no-star hotel is a nuclear bunker!!! 

Yemeni army kills 20 protesters in Taiz...

Yemeni forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh have shot dead at least 20 people and wounded hundreds more when they opened fire on protesters in the second-largest city of Taiz, sources said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene on Sunday said police fired live ammunition, tear gas and used water cannons to disperse demonstrators protesting outside a municipal building.

"At least 20 protesters have been killed," a protest organiser told AFP.

The demonstrators in the southern city had been demanding the release of a fellow protester who was arrested on May 28. More + video...

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  2. Yemen troops shoot 35 protesters dead... 
  3. This is what's happening in Syria (WARNING. Extremely graphic)
  4. Bahraini female doctors recount detention 'horror'
  5. Million dollar mosques surrounded by hungry Muslims...
  6. Why the US, European and al-Jazeera silence on Bahrain's murderers? 

Midwives on motorbikes spread sex sense in Cambodia...


Sitting in the shade of a large tree and surrounded by a group of women, Cambodian midwife Ly Siyan holds up a colourful poster displaying a range of contraception options.

She patiently waits for the giggles to subside when she points to a condom, aware that the two dozen women in the village of Chanloung in northwest Siem Reap province have rarely experienced such an open discussion about sex.

Once the 37-year-old has their full attention again, she talks about long-term contraceptive methods and debunks some of the more persistent myths about their side-effects.

For mother-of-two Beun Chem, 27, who wants to hold off having more children so she can focus on running her small shop, the midwife's explanations are eye-opening. More...

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  1. How India promotes condoms and safe sex!!!
  2. Filipino president ready to accept excommunication from church for...
  3. Conservative Catholic group in Philippine village bans condoms...
  4. Women freeze eggs while waiting for Mr.Right...
  5. Abortion hotline in Pakistan faces violent opposition...
  6. Foetuses 'found dumped' in India...
  7. The "infoladies" of Bangladesh!!! Cool... 

Don't throw your food away: it's still safe to eat after the "use-by" date...


My supper looks absolutely normal — a ready-made pasta meal with a salad of tomatoes and rocket, and a bread roll, then chocolate cornflake cake for dessert. It looks fine, tastes fine and, most important, 24 hours after eating it, I feel fine.

This is remarkable — because all the items I consumed were two weeks past their ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates. I bought them on April 29, and ate them on May 16.

Had I followed the labels, I’d have had just a few days to eat this food after buying it. In fact, all but some raw chicken were fine to eat up to a week after their date stamps — and some were still edible another week after that. More...

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  1. "Best before" dates to be scrapped on food products? 
  2. Britons waste £17bn worth of food a year...
  3. The Swedish obsession with "best-before" dates on foodstuff...
  4. What a waste... my family is throwing away £1,800 worth of food a year...
  5. Rotten meat sold to blacks in South Africa...
  6. America throws away nearly half of its food...

Cops vs citizens in the United States...

Arabs turning their backs on America, thanks to Obama and his silence on uprisings...


This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America's new role in the region. It was pathetic. "What is this 'role' thing?" an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. "Do they still believe we care about what they think?"

 And it is true. Obama's failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab "spring", save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain's cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia. And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Britain training Saudi forces to crush "Arab spring..."
  2. Why is US backing force in Libya but not Bahrain, Yemen? 
  3. U.S. quietly expanding defense ties with Saudis on vast scale...
  4. Why the US, European and al-Jazeera silence on Bahrain's murderers? 
  5. To the people of the Midddle East: copy Switzerland, not the US...
  6. We're not being told the truth about Libya...

Millions of dead fish in the Philippines...


Wildlife experts have been baffled by the sudden death of more than 800 tons of fish which have rotted on farms in a lake near Taal volcano south of Manila.

Residents were stunned when the milkfish, a widespread local dish, began dying and floating of the surface late last week.

Officials have banned the sale of the rotting fish, which are being buried by the truckload in Talisay and four other towns in Batangas province.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources official Rose del Mundo said today that the number of dying fish has now eased off slightly. More...

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  1. It's raining worms in this Scottish school! Worms???
  2. Hundreds of dead starfish wash up on Welsh shore...
  3. Millions of fish found dead in California marina...
  4. 2 million fish found dead in Maryland...
  5. Dead birds that fell from the sky in Arkansas... 

In 2010, 128 children died after vaccines in India: doctors clueless about reasons...

More children in India are dying every year soon after being vaccinated, and the government has no clue why. Union health ministry statistics obtained under the Right to Information Act show that 128 children died in 2010 due to adverse effects after immunization (AEFI). That count has risen in the past three years, with 111 such deaths in 2008 and 116 in 2009.

AEFI is a general term that covers various reasons, including bad vaccine quality due to breaks in the cold chain, contamination and complications due to pre-existing conditions of the child. Coincidentally, AEFI deaths in 2008, when the government closed down all three public sector vaccine units and began buying from private suppliers, were three times the figure for 2007. TOI first reported in March this year that up to 2009, the toll was moving upwards. The 2010 figures confirm the trend.

"We are very concerned," Union health secretary K Chandramouli said, "but we can't attribute all such deaths to one reason." Asked specifically if the vaccines were responsible for the deaths, he replied: "I can't say that offhand."

 Refusing to point out specific reasons, he said "lack of diligence at the field level and carelessness" could be among the reasons. More...

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  1. India halt vaccine programmes after the deaths of four children...
  2. Narcolepsy cases rising in Sweden after swine flu vaccine ...
  3. " Pfizer vaccine tests killed 11 children and left dozens disabled."
  4. Bill Gates wants the whole world vaccinated!
  5. Vaccine deaths and injuries skyrocket as cover-up implodes...
  6. Flu vaccines causing seizures in children...
  7. WHO swine flu advisers had links to drug firms! Surprise, surprise... 

Message From Anonymous ( IP ACT)

Twelve children killed in another US massacre in Afghanistan...


American forces in Afghanistan killed twelve children and two women in a night-time bombing of two houses in Nawzad district of Helmand province Saturday. The incident, one of several involving civilian deaths recently, is yet another atrocity committed by the US-NATO forces engaged in the illegal occupation.

According to local Afghan officials, the fourteen civilians died as they slept in two family compounds in a small farming community about 80 kilometres north of Helmand Province’s capital, Lashkar Gah. Six others were reported wounded in the airstrike, though differing accounts have emerged of the total number of dead and wounded. President Hamid Karzai’s office said that 10 children, two women, and two men were killed, while NATO officials said nine civilians had died.

Family members and neighbours of the victims furiously denounced the operation. One survivor, Noor Agha, told Reuters: “My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed ... the Taliban were far away from my home; why was my house bombed?” More...

Don't miss:
  1. Girl, 12, killed in NATO raid on wrong Afghan home ...
  2. Children and civilians continue to die in Afghanistan...
  3. US missiles slam into home and vehicle in Pakistan, killing 20 people...
  4. U.S. doesn't count civilians killed by drones...
  5. US drone attack massacres 38 elders in Pakistan...

Sunday, May 29, 2011

More myth than massacre at Srebrenica...


Headlines explaining former Serbian General Ratko Mladic's May 27 arrest allege his 1995 responsibility for massacring 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. True or false is at issue. More on that below.

Meanwhile, inflammatory accounts already convicted him by accusation, including New York Times writers Dan Bilefsky and Doreen Carvajal headlining, "Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial," saying:

Arresting him "signal(ed) Serbia's intention of finally escaping the isolation it brought on itself during the Balkan wars," ones Western media, including The Times, consistently misreported on throughout the 1990s, culminating in NATO's 1999 war of aggression, falsely called humanitarian intervention.

Inflating Srebrenica deaths to "10,000....including 3,500 children," Bilefsky and Carvajal called the alleged massacre "the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the European continent since World War II," Mladic to stand trial for "war crimes...." More...

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  6. Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms trafficking ring... 

Cucumber fear spreads across Europe ...


Authorities in the Czech Republic and Austria have taken some Spanish-grown cucumbers off store shelves over fears they are contaminated with E.coli.

The move came after illness in Germany caused by infected cucumbers led to at least 10 deaths.

The cucumbers, believed to have been imported from Spain and contaminated with E.coli, left people ill with hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS).

Hundreds of people are said to have fallen sick.

Officials in the Czech Republic said affected cucumbers may also have been exported to Hungary and Luxembourg. More...

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For kids, soccer is a real winner...


In the past 15 years, soccer has gone from last to second place behind baseball as the most popular sport played by children. Approximately 1,800,000 youngsters participate in youth leagues and 220,000 adolescents (nearly one half young women!) play in high school programs.

Yet it remains a foreign game to the generation of adults who never played it and a non entity to network TV producers who cannot fit commercials into soccer s non stop action. If you want to see an avid football fan yawn, show him video highlights of the last world championship soccer series.

So why has soccer grown in popularity? The obvious answer is that kids seem to know what's best for them!

Children like to play sports, not learn them, and soccer is certainly simple enough. You simply tell youngsters to chase a ball and kick it without using their hands. If it goes into the net, so much the better ! More...

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  4. This is how you take a penalty kick, folks!!! 

Bahraini female doctors recount detention 'horror'


Out of prison but in fear of being rearrested, Bahraini Shiite women doctors have spoken of abuse and torture by police after being accused of backing pro-democracy protests in the Sunni-ruled monarchy.

Although medics usually enjoy protection in conflicts by virtue of their profession, many Shiite doctors and nurses in Bahrain were rounded up in the March crackdown on a month-long pro-democracy protest.

Authorities accused them of abusing their jobs and siding with their co-religionist protesters.

Doctors at Manama's Salmaniya central hospital, not far from the capital's Pearl roundabout that became the focal point of protests inspired by the Arab uprisings, were also accused of lying and exaggerating on satellite channels to pile pressure on the government.

Some of the women doctors recently freed told AFP how they were made to confess to such allegations under torture and after being subjected to verbal abuse. More...

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  2. Bahraini state terror continues...
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  4. Bahraini forces rape and kill poetess Ayat al-Ghermezi...
  5. Bahrain cops in drive-by shoot and kill...
  6. Bahrain: torture in hospitals and attacks on innocent people...(Graphic) 

French minister quits over sexual harassment accusation...


A French junior minister accused of having sexually harassed staff of a town hall where he is mayor has resigned from the government.

Civil service minister Georges Tron, who denies the allegations, told Le Parisien on Saturday he did not want to be a burden to the government.

His resignation comes in the wake of the US arrest of ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn earlier this month.

He is charged with sexually assaulting a chamber maid in a New York hotel. More...

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  1. Sarkozy's minister in "foot massage" sexual assault accusation! O lah lah... 
  2. Her name was Africa. His was France. Her name was silence. His was power.
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  4. Strauss-Kahn: Spotlight on France's 'macho' culture... 
  5. The Mitterrand dynasty, scandals and hypocrisy...
  6. French culture minister Mitterrand in 'boy sex' scandal...
  7. Turkish politicians quit over sex video scandal... 

Narcolepsy cases rising in Sweden after swine flu vaccine ...

Ninety-three people in Sweden, most of them children, have been diagnosed with narcolepsy since taking the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix last winter, according to figures from the Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket).

In 88 of the 93 cases, the agency has identified a direct correlation between the vaccine and the onset of narcolepsy, a sleep disorder causing extreme drowsiness and daytime sleep attacks.

According to the Swedish Association of Persons with Neurological Disabilities (Neurologiskt handikappades riksförbund - NHR), the agency is examining a further 135 cases involving children and will present its full findings later this summer.

 NHR announced on Friday the launch of a 250,000 kronor ($40,000) research grant to facilitate studies of the relationship between Pandemrix, a drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and narcolepsy. More...

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  7. Allergy fears halt distribution of GlaxoSmithKline swine flu vaccine in Canada... 

Kumar, Singapore drag queen and stand-up comedian...

Pro-life groups call for Pepsi boycott over aborted fetal cell lines...

Scores of prolife groups are calling for a public boycott of food giant, PepsiCo, due to its partnership with Senomyx, a biotech company that uses aborted fetal cells in the research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.

LifeSiteNews previously reported on Senomyx’s partnership with major food corporations, most notably PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, and Nestlé.

Pro-life watchdog group, Children of God for Life (CGL), is now joined by major pro-life organizations calling upon the public to target PepsiCo in a boycott.

Pepsi is funding the research and development, and paying royalties to Senomyx, which uses HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney cells) to produce flavor enhancers for Pepsi beverages.

“Using isolated human taste receptors we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor,” says the Senomyx website. More...

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  5. 600,000 mice are sacrificed each year for botox cosmetics... 

Britain training Saudi forces to crush "Arab spring..."

Britain is training Saudi Arabia's national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is "a major concern".

In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.

The MoD response, obtained yesterday by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for "all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transport ". More... 

Don't miss:
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  4. U.S. quietly expanding defense ties with Saudis on vast scale... 
  5. Why the US, European and al-Jazeera silence on Bahrain's murderers?
  6. Outrage at dictators invited to royal wedding... 

Cops in Bristol stayed in car and refused to help as woman was being beaten up...


A STUDENT risked her life to help a woman being beaten by thugs – because police parked only yards away refused to leave their patrol car.

The victim was lying on the pavement in full view of the two policemen when Marie Wastlund, 27, saw three hooded figures punching and kicking her.

The officers, parked 25 yards away, ignored her pleas for help. They left the car only when Miss Wastlund’s friend banged on their window. But by then the yobs had fled. More...

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  5. 4 cops strip and assault woman in police cell... 

'Best ever' Barca gave us a hiding: Ferguson...


Sir Alex Ferguson hailed Barcelona as the best side he has ever faced after the Spanish giants outclassed Manchester United to lift the Champions League at Wembley on Saturday.

Ferguson said United had been "given a hiding" after the Catalans handed his team a ruthless masterclass in a one-sided final at Wembley, where Pep Guardiola's men romped to a 3-1 victory.

 "In my time as a manager I would say yes, this is the best team I've faced," a disappointed Ferguson told a press conference afterwards. More...

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  4. On soccer and bullfighting: the coded messages in Spain's national sports... 

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Thailand and Burma, the dark side...

A gay teen describes her experience at a Utah WWASP brainwashing facility...


The Utah company “Teen Escort Services” is regularly contracted to forcibly kidnap LGBT teens in the middle of the night and bring them to a detention facility for re-education. Those facilities are said to be “boot camps”, places where “trouble-causing” children can be re-educated, but seriously, when you hear the testimonies of the people who get in…

On May 10th of 2007 at around 2:30 in the morning two strangers barged into my bedroom. I started screaming and crying, as in my mind I was sure that these two strangers had broken into my house and were going to abduct me, rape me, kill me, or in some way harm me. They immediately told me that if I did not shut up that they would handcuff me. I was not being in any way violent or threatening. I was reacting in fear for my life by being vocal and hoping that someone would come to help. I had no idea what was going on. I stopped screaming, still in fear for my life. They started going through my closet digging out clothes as I was only in a night gown. They still had not explained what was going on. I asked, frightened, what the wanted from me, trying to see if I could in some way appease them and get them to leave. They then explained that they were going to take me to a school. It took me a second to understand what they meant by this, as this was an extremely bizarre way to introduce a child to a new school. It then occurred to me that this was what my mother had arranged for my brother several years ago when she had him shipped away to Cross Creek. The two strangers were from Teen Escort Service, a for-profit company that transports teenagers, usually by force, to WWASP (World Wide Association of Specialty Programs) facilities. More...

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  5. "I am an Obama scholar..." Affirmations or brain-washing?
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