All posts by nedhamson

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

Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada

Similarly, Israel Hayom, the pro-Netanyahu newspaper owned by casino billionaire, Republican financier and anti-Palestinian donor Sheldon Adelson, ran photos of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen alongside Neshat Melhem, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who killed three Israelis on New Year’s Day, with the slogan, “A chilling similarity.” But as +972 Magazine noted, the only similarity is that the men had shaved heads and glasses, and that they came from Muslim backgrounds. Israel Hayom pointedly did not mention what +972 Magazine called “the more obvious parallel – between Mateen and Yishai Schlissel, who attacked the Jerusalem Pride Parade in June 2015 and murdered a teenage girl with a knife.” Schlissel, a Jewish extremist, had served time in prison for a similar attack a decade earlier.

Source: Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada

“Prison is easier than exile for me,” Zainab Al-Khawaja on being forced to flee Bahrain – IFEX

Al-Khawaja expressed on her twitter account @angryarabiya her feelings about being forced to leave Bahrain, saying “I cannot begin to express the pain I feel [about] having to leave my beloved country. Infact I almost didn’t. Prison is easier than exile for me.” She added, “It pains me to leave, but I leave carrying our cause on my back, and my love for my country in my chest.” Her sister Maryam Al-Khawaja, GCHR Co-Director, said it was “the most difficult decision she’s ever made, and I agree. I wouldn’t wish exile on anyone.” Zainab Al-Khawaja also confirmed that she will continue her peaceful human rights work to support freedom in her country, saying, “We Bahrainis will do all that is in our power for our great grandchildren & their children to live free on this land long after they’re gone.”

Source: “Prison is easier than exile for me,” Zainab Al-Khawaja on being forced to flee Bahrain – IFEX

Trump Suggests Obama Is Somehow Behind The Orlando Massacre: Gothamist – NewsBreak WTF News

As some families waited to learn whether their loved ones are among the dead in Orlando Monday morning, Donald Trump appeared on television and suggested that President Obama was pleased with, and perhaps even encouraged, the mass shooting. Trump offered up his YouTube-comments-grade conspiracy live on (where else?) Fox & Friends, leaping from his typical Obama criticisms to something much more sinister all in one sentence. “He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other,” Trump said. “We’re led by a man who is a very—look, we’re led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot—they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can’t even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable.”

Source: Trump Suggests Obama Is Somehow Behind The Orlando Massacre: Gothamist

Highlights From Hillary Clinton’s Speech – The New York Times

Here are the highlights: • Mrs. Clinton, invoking a “nightmare that’s become mind-numbingly familiar,” said it was “not a day for politics.” The shooter may be dead, she said, “but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive.” • Mrs. Clinton said that despite some progress in combating Islamic State forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria, the group would “seek to stage more attacks” wherever it could. She pledged to make the targeting of “lone wolves” a top priority as president. • Noting that the shooter in Orlando, Fla., had been on the F.B.I.’s radar, Mrs. Clinton said the country required “more resources for this fight” and called for the removal of “weapons of war” from the streets. • Mrs. Clinton, noting the acrimonious national debate over guns, said everyone should be able to agree that “If the F.B.I. is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun.” • Mrs. Clinton said it was “long past time” for the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait to stop allowing their citizens to finance extremists. • Mrs. Clinton, observing that the shooting targeted a gay nightclub, said that “an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans.” Addressing gay Americans, she said, “You have millions of allies who will always have your back. And I am one of them.” • Seeking to contrast her approach with the self-promotional impulses of Donald J. Trump, Mrs. Clinton said America was “not a land of winners and losers,” calling it “a country of ‘we,’ not ‘me.’” • Mrs. Clinton called to mind the sense of national unity after the Sept. 11 attacks, reminding voters that President George W. Bush quickly “sent a message of unity and solidarity” to Muslims. “It is time to get back to the spirit of those days,” she said, “the spirit of 9/12.”

Source: Highlights From Hillary Clinton’s Speech – The New York Times

Bougainville Women Turn Around Lives of ‘Lost Generation’ | Inter Press Service

Nowadays, youths struggle to improve their lives and find a job because they are traumatised. During the Crisis, young people grew up with arms and knives and even today they go to school, church and walk around the village with knives,” Tagu explained. Tens of thousands of children were affected by the decade-long conflict, which erupted after demands for compensation for environmental damage and inequity by landowners living in the vicinity of the Panguna copper mine in the mountains of central Bougainville were unmet. The mine, majority-owned by Rio Tinto, a British-Australian multinational, opened in 1969 and was operated by its Australian subsidiary, Bougainville Copper Ltd, until it was shut down in 1989 by revolutionary forces. The conflict raged on for another eight years after the Papua New Guinea Government blockaded Bougainville in 1990 and the national armed forces and rebel groups battled for control of the region. Many children were denied an education when schools were burnt down and teachers fled. They suffered when health services were decimated, some became child soldiers and many witnessed severe human rights abuses. Tagu was in fifth grade when the war broke out. “There were no schools, no teachers and no services here and we had no food to eat. I saw people killed with my own eyes and we didn’t sleep at night, we were frightened,” he recalled. Trauma is believed to contribute to what women identify as a youth sub-culture today involving alcohol, substance abuse and petty crime, which is inhibiting some to participate in positive development.

Source: Bougainville Women Turn Around Lives of ‘Lost Generation’ | Inter Press Service

MP: ‘Only thing worse than a devout Muslim is a convert’ – The Local – Denmark

Ahrendtsen also directed his comments toward devout Muslims in general.    “Devout Muslims damage democracy and therefore we need to crack down on them. And converts are particularly extreme – in fact, they are the worst,” the DFer said.    The organisation AnmeldHad (Report Hate) said over the weekend that it would file a formal complaint against Ahrendtsen on Monday, contending that his remarks violate article 266b of Denmark’s penal code, best known as “the racism paragraph”.   “We were contacted by numerous people who were offended by the remarks Alex Ahrendtsen made on Friday night,” the organization’s chairman, Qasam Ijaz, told TV2.    “They were deeply offensive comments and when a member of parliament speaks in that way, it become acceptable for normal Danes to express themselves in the same way,” Ijaz added.    Ahrendtsen said he wasn’t particularly worried about the complaint leading to a criminal charge.

Source: MP: ‘Only thing worse than a devout Muslim is a convert’ – The Local

Two injured after man fires air gun at refugee home – The Local – Breaking WTF News!

The 21-year-old man targeted the shelter from his third-floor apartment just 40 metres away in the shooting on Sunday, police said in a statement. The mother of the Macedonian girl had noticed that her child was hurt in the leg but initially thought someone had thrown stones or sand at her. But shortly after, a witness saw the suspect shooting from his apartment, wounding an 18-year-old Syrian in the leg. Police searched the man’s apartment and removed an air rifle and munition. The suspect was however not detained as “there were no grounds for arrest”, a police spokesman told AFP. “It is unclear if the act was politically motivated,” added police, adding that investigations were ongoing.

Source: Two injured after man fires air gun at refugee home – The Local

Massacre in Orlando: Most victims in Orlando shooting were of Hispanic descent | In English | EL PAÍS

Danny Concepción, a 47-year-old Puerto Rican man, has come to ask for information about his 50-year-old cousin, who went to the club with her 22-year-old son. Orlando officials say her cousin is not on the list of the 53 wounded, which means that, though there is no official announcement yet, she is dead. “She was a single mother raising two sons, a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old who lived with her,” Concepción says. She had five other children from other relationships and she was close with the son whom she accompanied to the nightclub. He was gay and she wanted to be part of his world. “She never judged him,” Concepción says. The son has survived the attack but he saw his mother get shot at the club.

Source: Massacre in Orlando: Most victims in Orlando shooting were of Hispanic descent | In English | EL PAÍS

My Father is an Indian, My Mother a Nepali, and I’m a ‘Stateless’ Child: Apsana – The Ladies Finger – “Racism, sexism, religious bias have no boundaries!”

I am twenty-six now, which is a common age for a girl to get married in my community. I might marry soon. And once I get married to a Nepali guy, I know I will be qualified enough to apply for the citizenship of this country. This constitution gives more credentials to a Nepali man than a Nepali woman despite holding the same citizenship certificates. My husband, a Nepali man, will be the person who will liberate me from this crisis.Though this might be a way out for me, I wonder how my brothers are going to fight for it. Also Read:  How We Make Our Way in Dilli Sheher I have fought lots of battles which I have lost. But I still feel independent and am able to face numerous upcoming fights for my rights. If I ever get a citizenship through my to-be-husband, I am sure I would consider myself a humiliated Nepali throughout my life.

Source: My Father is an Indian, My Mother a Nepali, and I’m a ‘Stateless’ Child: Apsana – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

I Moved Into a House With Lots of Windows. Here’s Why I Had to Cover Them Up – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

There are these tics I’ve developed—a reflexive check out of the windows at that streetlight; my heartbeat speeding up a little when I hear a scooter pass by. I’ve made myself sit in that room, read in it, and write in it. I haven’t yet managed to fall asleep in it. I tell myself that this too, shall pass. And if it doesn’t—well, nobody needs to know. The streetlight stands, grey and ordinary, amidst the green that has sprung up after the rains. The curtains flutter blue and white under the creaking ceiling fan, thin enough to let the light in, opaque enough to keep the world out.

Source: I Moved Into a House With Lots of Windows. Here’s Why I Had to Cover Them Up – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger