All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

How a ‘Jews for Jesus’ Moment Backfired for Mike Pence

A look at the contentious history of Messianic Judaism, and why a campaign event prayer provoked controversy after the synagogue attack.

New York police investigate deaths of Saudi sisters found bound together | US news | The Guardian

The day before the bodies were discovered on 24 October, the sisters’ mother told detectives that she had received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, ordering the family to leave the US because her daughters had applied for political asylum, New York police said on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia’s consulate general in New York said in a statement that it had “appointed an attorney to follow the case closely”. It said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and “extended its support and aid in this trying time”. It added that the sisters were students “accompanying their brother in Washington”. The case has immediately heightened tension over relations with Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul earlier this month.

Source: New York police investigate deaths of Saudi sisters found bound together | US news | The Guardian

Raab backtracks hours after hinting Brexit deal just weeks away

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Keir Starmer describes Brexit secretary’s U-turn as ‘one of quickest in political history’

Dominic Raab has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after appearing to suggest that the UK’s increasingly fraught Brexit negotiations with the EU could be completed in three weeks’ time.

The Brexit secretary admitted there was “no set date for the negotiations to conclude” three hours after a letter he had sent to a select committee was released in which he said he was happy to appear before it on 21 November after “a deal is finalised”.

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Boris Johnson under fire over expenses-paid £14k Saudi Arabia trip

That cheap? ROTFLMAO

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Former UK foreign secretary visited Jeddah days before Jamal Khashoggi murder

Boris Johnson accepted a £14,000 trip to Saudi Arabia from the country’s foreign affairs ministry only a few days before the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered in the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Fresh disclosures in the register of members’ interests reveal that the former foreign secretary visited Jeddah on a three-day trip in September, where travel, food and accommodation were all provided for him.

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Hearing of woman rights defender Israa Al-Ghomgham, who faces execution, postponed – IFEX

During the first session of her trial, the Public Prosecution presented a list of eight main charges against Al-Ghomgham, including allegedly: “joining a terrorist entity aimed at creating chaos and unrest within the Kingdom,” “participating in marches and gatherings in the province of Al-Qatif and encouraging young people to go to those marches and gatherings in addition to photographing, documenting and publishing these gatherings through social networks sites,” “participating in the funeral of victims of security clashes with protesters,” “preparing, sending and storing material that would harm the public order and punishable under Article 6 of the Cybercrime Act of 2008,” “creating an account on social networking sites and using it to encourage rallies to riot and incite young people against the state and security forces in addition to publishing pictures and video clips of these rallies and marches about a number of victims of security clashes,” and “creating a channel on YouTube for the publication of video clips of victims of security clashes.” The prosecution asked the court to sentence her to death by beheading and the SCC postponed the hearing to 28 October 2018.

Source: Hearing of woman rights defender Israa Al-Ghomgham, who faces execution, postponed – IFEX

We are heading for a New Cretaceous, not for a new normal

via aleksey godin

A lazy buzz phrase – ‘Is this the new normal?’ – has been doing the rounds as extreme climate events have been piling up over the past year. To which the riposte should be: it’s worse than that – we’re on the road to even more frequent, more extreme events than we saw this year.
We have known si…

By Peter Forbes

Read at Aeon

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It’s spooky how much the virus linked to “polio-like illness” isn’t coming from immigrants – Virology Down Under

EV-D68 is not a new virus to the US of A Maybe you checked out the dedicated US CDC webpage on EV-D68? Or the Wikipedia page? Maybe the page by the American Council on Science and Health?  How about this American Academy of Pediatrics story or this one in Vox, or this in the LA Times? One thing the links above all have in common; they mention that EV-D68, was first discovered in children in California in 1962. Yeah, that California. The one in the US, where AFM cases are currently occurring. Not Central America, the current source of migrants fleeing corruption, gangs and poverty for a better life.

Source: It’s spooky how much the virus linked to “polio-like illness” isn’t coming from immigrants – Virology Down Under