All posts by nedhamson

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

City of Tehran’s female workers fired ‘for own well-being’ – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Tehran City Council member Gholamreza Ansari said on the issue of segregation, “In a situation where a worker has no choice but to work two shifts for the financial security of one’s family, these limitations will have negative consequences and will cause corruption, bribery and fraud.”

Ansari went on, “These kinds of actions have high costs and are only propaganda … and have no relation to the spirit of our religion and ethics. Separating the sexes has been tested many times in various places, such as our universities, and it has not been successful.”

via City of Tehran’s female workers fired ‘for own well-being’ – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Radio host gunned down in front of his children in Mazar-e-Sharif – Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is appalled to learn that 27-year-old local radio host Kaled Aghah Yaghubi was gunned down in front of his children in his home in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of the northern province of Balkh, on 13 July. His murder comes amid a continuing wave of violence against journalists.

“They rang on his front door at around 1 p.m.,” said Ahmad Fahim Hagh Bin, the manager of Radio Lahzeh, the local station that Yaghubi worked for. “As soon as his four-year-old son opened the door, the gunmen looked around the room for Yaghubi and then opened fire.”

via Radio host gunned down in front of his children in Mazar-e-Sharif – Reporters Without Borders.

French Law Kicks Packaged Food Out of the Kitchen

Restaurant-goers in France will start seeing a funny little symbol on their menus this week: a skillet with a house on top, indicating your menu choice is made in-house.

It’s part of a new law meant to battle against the surprising amount of factory-made, pre-packaged food in French restaurants, and celebrate the country’s culinary traditions.

However, many in the industry say the law doesn’t go far enough, because it allows dishes made from frozen, pre-peeled or pre-cut products to count as home-made.

via French Law Kicks Packaged Food Out of the Kitchen.

Celebrating cellulite isn’t the route to happiness | Bella Mackie | Commentisfree | The Guardian

This desire to rejoice in our form, whatever its shape, is yet another way for women to see our bodies as the priority. We may refuse to see our cellulite as ugly or unsightly, but we are still being asked to focus on an external part of ourself, to flip the negative into a positive and examine our physical attributes from a different angle. Is this what we see as progress? If you cannot imagine a blog where men happily praise each others’ beer guts then the answer must surely be no.

I have spent the past year running. I’ve got stronger and leaner. I can feel my physical strength increasing. I have learned to appreciate how each part of the body connects, and how wonderful it is to be able to use it fully. But this trend towards body positive language and imagery requires us to do the opposite; it asks us to see our bodies as superficial.

When writing about the history of the suffrage movement, Jeanette Winterson argued that if a woman cannot feel comfortable in her own body then she has no home. In order to feel fully at ease with ourselves, perhaps we should throw off the notion that one’s body, and one’s specific body parts, must be seen as either praiseworthy or wanting. Acceptance, rather than jubilation, is the only way we women might have a real chance of moving away from the constant fixation with our image.

via Celebrating cellulite isn’t the route to happiness | Bella Mackie | Commentisfree | The Guardian.

Kidnapped women, kids are ‘sex slaves’ in DR Congo | News , World | THE DAILY STAR

Anyone listening? Didn’t think so, since this has been going on for decades. As long as minerals keep flowing from Congo to rest of the world’s industries – no one seems to really care.

“Victims have been held as sex slaves – sometimes for months at a time – and sexually assaulted violently by several men, several times a day,” MSF psychologist Ana Maria Tijerino said in a statement.

The aid group also warned that men are being kidnapped and put to work as laborers in the gold and diamond mining region of Okapi, in the east of the vast, mineral-rich nation.

In just one village between May and early July, MSF said its medical teams provided consultations for 3,586 people and treated 143 women, three men and two children who had suffered sexual violence.

Last month a team treated 20 women in a single village who had been raped, it said.

“Violence and sexual violence are nothing new in DR Congo,” Tijerino said. “But for the victims, these atrocities are not normal. No one should have to accept violence on this level.”

MSF warned that many of the victims of sexual violence kept captive for weeks were not receiving vital medical aid that could protect against HIV, sexually transmitted infections or pregnancy.

“Months after an assault, the physical and psychological trauma is still apparent in the survivors,” Tijerino said. “Many suffer from pain, infected wounds, stress, depression and nightmares. They are scared for the future and haunted by what they have lived through.”

via Kidnapped women, kids are ‘sex slaves’ in DR Congo | News , World | THE DAILY STAR.

Israel warns 100,000 Gazans to evacuate their homes | Maan News Agency

So if this child is killed because he has no place to go – it will be his fault because he was warned, or it makes it OK for the homes of 100,000 people to be destroyed?

Israel urged 100,000 Gazans to flee their homes on Wednesday, but the warning was largely ignored despite an intensification of the military’s nine-day campaign.

via Israel warns 100,000 Gazans to evacuate their homes | Maan News Agency.

Israel to demolish 3 homes of Hebron men suspected of killing teens | Maan News Agency

Never have understood this and wonder if homes of three people who have admitted killing of Palestinian teen will be similarly demolished?

Israeli forces on Tuesday delivered demolition orders to the families of two Palestinians in Hebron Israel accuses of kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers.

More than a week ago, Israeli forces partly demolished two of the houses, which belonged to Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan al-Qawasmi.

via Israel to demolish 3 homes of Hebron men suspected of killing teens | Maan News Agency.

Those Worthless Lives Of The Middle East

No words – just tears and hopes to add.

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

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Those worthless people of Gaza. How many have died since Tuesday? It doesn’t even matter but I’ll list the number anyway: 154, and those 154 people don’t matter. Some will chant praises to their martyrdom and others will lament how their lives were lost, but they are but a number in a conflict that won’t end, a number to be buried deep in the Arab subconscious between seasons of Arab Idol, Ahla Sot and Elissa’s albums. Gaza was still an open air prison a few years ago and it will remain an open air prison a few years from now. It’s just only remembered at specific instants when their going gets slightly tougher. We get infuriated at the hypocrisy that Israel killing Arabs includes when its entire existence can be taken back, in one way or another, to Western guilt over the Jewish holocaust. But when you come to think of…

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Wild Horse Oversight Act (H.R. 5058) – {Not!} GovTrack.us

The act would hand over protection and/or destruction of wild horses and burros to each state and tribal organization. The Federal government would no longer protect or manage the welfare of these wild animals.

So, if Utah, New Mexico, or Montana decided it wanted to round up all “their” animals and sell them to slaughter houses for export or consumption in US, they could and US horse burgers would be a big deal in in areas of the world where they are used to eating horses. If you are not in favor of Pinto tacos, or Mustang steaks – you might want to write your Representative.

Chris Stewart

Representative for Utah’s 2nd congressional district

via Wild Horse Oversight Act (H.R. 5058) – GovTrack.us.

A federal pro-choice bill that would stem the anti-choice tide in the states

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today on the Women’s Health Protection Act. Sounds like the name of an anti-choice bill deceptively cloaking itself in friendly “pro-woman” language like so many of them do, right? But no–for once, it’s the real deal: an pro-choice law that–to quote the opposition–”would wipe out almost every single pro-life law on abortion.”

I don’t know that it would quite do that, but the bill does straightforwardly affirm that “access to safe, legal abortion services is essential to women’s health and central to women’s ability to participate equally in the economic and social life of the United States.” It prevents states from passing restrictions on abortion that would not be placed on “medically comparable procedures“–taking direct aim at “bad medicine” laws, like unnecessary ultrasounds and biased counseling, that interfere with the patient/doctor relationship, as well as TRAP laws that are shutting down clinics under the guise lie of patient safety.

via A federal pro-choice bill that would stem the anti-choice tide in the states.