All posts by nedhamson

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

‘We are Nazis to the bitter end’: right-wing group on trial for terror – The Local

To communicate, they used the messaging app KakaoTalk and exchanged hateful slogans like: “We are Nazis until the bitter end”.They even referred to themselves as “terrorists”, while disparaging refugees as Untermenschen (subhumans), “wretched parasites”, “cattle” and “biologically deficient units”. They said such people must be “annihilated”, “slain”, or “hanged at the next lamp post”.

Source: ‘We are Nazis to the bitter end’: right-wing group on trial for terror – The Local

Ben Carson incorrectly suggests African slaves were ‘immigrants’ to US | US news | The Guardian “No words to explain his views or words.” #LoserTrump, #SillyTrump, #DumpsterTrump

Enslaved Africans were, of course, not immigrants, and were transported in the cramped, disease-infested holds of ships while shackled stationary as property of “new world” and European corporations. The enslaved had virtually no knowledge of where they were being taken, and less than 10% of the tens of millions of Africans transported wound up on the shores of the US, with a majority landing in South America and the Caribbean. Carson earned instant and biting ridicule for his remarks, with many online poking fun at the former neurosurgeon.

Source: Ben Carson incorrectly suggests African slaves were ‘immigrants’ to US | US news | The Guardian

WHO | Yellow fever – Brazil

As of 3 March 2017, yellow fever virus transmission continues to expand towards the Atlantic coast of Brazil in areas not deemed to be at risk for yellow fever transmission prior to the revised risk assessment, supported by the scientific and technical advisory group on geographical yellow fever risk mapping (GRYF), and published by WHO in the Disease Outbreak News of 27 January 2017, and on the WHO International Travel and Health website on 31 January 2017 and 14 February 2017.

Source: WHO | Yellow fever – Brazil

The Assassination of Basel A’raj

Once… we were cursed with occupation … Today, we are cursed with an arm that is there inside us serving the occupation …

نادية حرحش

You probably never heard this name before. I cannot say I haven’t. Last year, somewhere during this time, a group of young men disappeared in the Ramallah area and were found later by the Palestinian security forces, where they were held with them for more than six months without charges. No one knew anything about what happened. People were speculating, and rumors were spread more than details that could make any sense. The group was made of five or six young activists, and it was said that they attempted attack against Israel. Their disappearance was as strange as their arrest that ended finally after a public unrest after their hunger strike.

The rest of the story is not a surprise. The Palestinian security forces release them and weeks later, or months, Israeli troops arrest them one after the other. The only one that was unarrested and became wanted by the…

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IRIN | EXCLUSIVE: Drought leaves 80,000 Sri Lankans in need of “life-saving” food aid

“Over 900,000 people are in urgent need of food assistance,” says the emergency assessment obtained by IRIN and dated 7 March. Of those, about 80,000 people need “urgent life-saving support”.The drought is affecting 23 of the island nation’s 25 districts, across all nine provinces.Already, many families are being forced to “eat less preferred food, limit portion sizes, reduce number of meals per day,” according to the assessment, which was produced by the government’s disaster management and relief authorities in cooperation with UN agencies, including the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization.“Irreversible coping strategies such as taking children out of school and selling of livelihood assets could be further increased as a result of the exhausted nature of food consumption based coping strategies,” the report warns.

Source: IRIN | EXCLUSIVE: Drought leaves 80,000 Sri Lankans in need of “life-saving” food aid

Patrons Walk Out As Ala. Official Pushes Voter ID At Selma Anniversary Service

“We can’t be polite about this. We can’t be casual or cavalier,” Barber told a reporter. “We have more voter suppression in recent years than we’ve seen since Jim Crow.”He said that Merrill’s promotion of the voter ID law was “another lie.””I don’t care if you came as secretary of state, to stand up and tell another lie, to push the lie of voter ID and confuse people, normalize it, on a day when the nation is watching,” Barber said. “You cannot come and stand in that pulpit and promote a voter suppression tactic and then we just sit there.”He said that “democracy is at stake.””You cannot have a democracy where voter suppression is normalized, where people will politely let people say to them what they’re doing, in their face and in their church, and it’s okay,” Barber said. “To respect injustice is to be a part of it.””If you undermine voting,” he added, “everything else falls apart.”

Source: Patrons Walk Out As Ala. Official Pushes Voter ID At Selma Anniversary Service

‘Israelis won’t rent to us, they’re disconnecting us from electricity’ | +972 Magazine

The Petah Tikva municipality disconnected dozens of apartments where African asylum seekers were living from electricity, the mayor doesn’t like seeing black people in public, and casual racism has a common occurrence. Faisal, a refugee from Darfur, describes what it’s like to live in a city where he is unwanted.

Source: ‘Israelis won’t rent to us, they’re disconnecting us from electricity’ | +972 Magazine

An Afghan Family, With Visas in Hand, Is Detained in Los Angeles – The New York Times

The scene at the airport was “chaotic, panicked; it was a mess,” said Lali Madduri, a lawyer with the firm Gibson Dunn, which is representing the family pro bono. “The whole time the children are crying, the woman is crying. They can’t understand what’s going on.

”The father had arrived on Thursday with his wife and three children, ages 7, 6 and 8 months, on Special Immigrant Visas, according to the lawyers’ habeas corpus petition filed on Saturday in Federal District Court in Los Angeles. Those visas were created by Congress for citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan who have helped the United States military or government as drivers, interpreters or in other jobs — work that often makes them targets in their home countries.But instead of being allowed to enter the United States, the family has been detained, according to the court papers.

“I’ve never, ever heard of this happening,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, or IRAP, which filed the petition. “They go through so many layers of security clearance, including one right before they get on the plane. ”Calling the detention “egregious, inhumane and unconstitutional,” the group petitioned the court to release the family, whose names were not publicly revealed. The judge did not order the family be released, but set a hearing in the case for Monday.According to Ms. Heller, the father was being held Saturday night at a men’s immigration detention facility in Orange County, Calif. His wife and children were taken to a detention center in downtown Los Angeles.

Sikh man shot in the arm says gunman told him ‘go back to your own country’ | World news | The Guardian #LoserTrump

A Sikh man who was shot in the arm late Friday said the gunman approached him as he worked on his car in his suburban Seattle driveway and told him to “go back to your own country”.

Source: Sikh man shot in the arm says gunman told him ‘go back to your own country’ | World news | The Guardian

#LoserTrump Seeks Inquiry Into Unproved Allegations That Obama Tapped His Phones –  “Really desperate to deflect from treason with Russians!”

Senior law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked in the Obama administration have said there were no such secret intelligence warrants regarding Mr. Trump. Asked whether such a warrant existed, James R. Clapper Jr., a former director of national intelligence, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, “Not to my knowledge, no.”“There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign,” Mr. Clapper added.