Category Archives: Fail!

Paris massacre: One attacker identified, rifles found in getaway car – The Hindu

The intent of the coordinated terror attacks in Paris on Friday night was clearly to deepen religious and political divisions within France, the media quoted prosecutors as saying.One of the dead terrorists had carefully placed a Syrian passport in his pocket in an obvious attempt to drive popular hostility against Syrian refugees who have been entering Europe, fleeing from the civil unrest in Syria.The attacks are believed to have been launched in retaliation for French military involvement in Syria and Iraq.‘Well-coordinated attacks’The media quoted officials as saying that the well-coordinated attacks were planned and executed by a cross-country team with links to Syria and West Asia, Belgium, Germany and France.“We must now see what measures President Hollande puts in place,” said Aurelien Mondon, an expert on French politics from the University of Bath.“Terrorism seeks to divide and unfortunately these attacks will create fertile soil for that. The media and French politicians must be very careful not to target sections who are already discriminated against.”

Source: Paris massacre: One attacker identified, rifles found in getaway car – The Hindu

The Streets of Paris are as Familiar to me as the Streets of Beirut · Global Voices

I come from a privileged Francophone community in Lebanon. This has meant that I have always seen France as my second home. The streets of Paris are as familiar to me as the streets of Beirut. I was just in Paris a few days ago.These have been two horrible nights of violence. The first took the lives of over 40 in Beirut; the second took the lives of over 120 people and counting in Paris.It also seems clear to me that to the world, my people’s deaths in Beirut do not matter as much as my other people’s deaths in Paris.We do not get a “safe” button on Facebook. We do not get late night statements from the most powerful men and women alive and millions of online users.We do not change policies which will affect the lives of countless innocent refugees.This could not be clearer.I say this with no resentment whatsoever, just sadness.

Source: The Streets of Paris are as Familiar to me as the Streets of Beirut · Global Voices

Taslima Nasreen: ′Wahhabism has invaded Bangladesh′ | Asia | DW.COM | 13.11.2015

For the past 21 years, Nasreen has been living in exile in various countries, including India, Sweden, Germany and the United States.Due to her criticism of Islam, multiple fatwas have been issued against the author calling for her assassination. Still, 53-year-old Nasreen doesn’t mince her words when she talks about freedom of expression and the rise of religious fundamentalism in Bangladesh.The South Asian nation has been afflicted by rising Islamist violence in recent months. Extremists have been blamed for the killings of at least four atheist bloggers and a publisher since the start of this year.In an exclusive DW interview, Nasreen, who recently returned to India from the US, talks about the shrinking space for free thinkers in Bangladesh and said that Islam cannot be exempt from the critical scrutiny that other religions go through.Nasreen also believes Bangladesh will be headed for a complete disaster if the government fails to bring Islamic terrorists to justice.

Source: Taslima Nasreen: ′Wahhabism has invaded Bangladesh′ | Asia | DW.COM | 13.11.2015

EU report declares glyphosate herbicides safe despite UN results | News | DW.COM | 13.11.2015 {The “fix” is in – follow the money!}

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said glyphosate, a key ingredient in the Monsanto-made herbicide Roundup, is unlikely to cause cancer in humans through a report on Thursday.The agency advises the European Commission and its report could lead the 28-member European Union to renew approval of the herbicide. Back in March, the UN’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) had classified products containing glyphosate as “probably” carcinogenic.The EFSA is proposing to set a higher safe limit of human exposure to glyphosate, at 0.5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. The previous EU evaluation had set an acceptable daily intake of 0.3 milligrams per kg of body weight.

Source: EU report declares glyphosate herbicides safe despite UN results | News | DW.COM | 13.11.2015

Death Penalty Focus : “Ethnic Adjustment” and the death penalty – {Bizarre and Racist reasoning to kill intellectually disabled people!}

In a 2013 case (Hernandez v. Stephens), the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a state court can find a defendant is not intellectually disabled if his IQ score if brought up to the bottom of the non-disabled range after being “scaled to Mexican norms.” Ramiro Hernandez, convicted of killing his employer in Texas, had IQ test scores in the 50s and low 60s, one of which was ethnically adjusted to a 70. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal in April 2014, and he was executed two weeks later.

Source: Death Penalty Focus : “Ethnic Adjustment” and the death penalty

ISIS warns Russia, says ‘blood will spill like an ocean’ – Times of India

Isis militant group has released a new video threatening to launch attacks in Russia “very soon”.Issued by the group’s foreign language propaganda wing, the al-Hayat Media Centre, the video combined footage of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and graphic depictions of executions with a threat that “soon, very soon, the blood will spill like an ocean”.

Source: ISIS warns Russia, says ‘blood will spill like an ocean’ – Times of India

Canada’s Sikh defence minister faces racial abuse – The Times of India

The incident of disrespect to the minister prompted Chief Warrant Officer Kevin West to send an e-mail to soldiers warning against such conduct, the newspaper said. He lamented the fact a high-ranking member of the forces made “negative” comments about the minister and warned them against disrespectful behaviour, adding that to say he is angry would be an understatement.The Forces issued a strong statement on Wednesday condemning the behaviour. “We are very much aware of an incident in which a Canadian Armed Forces member wrote inappropriate comments on social media about the new minister of national defence,” Forces spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said.”Racist attitudes are not compatible with military ethos and with effective military service. Any conduct that reflects such attitudes will not be tolerated,” he said. “As previously stated by chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance, bullies have no place in the organisation.”

Source: Canada’s Sikh defence minister faces racial abuse – The Times of India

Oklahoma Execution Irregularities Mirror Previous Errors By Arizona Involving Same Corrections Official | Death Penalty Information Center

Robert Patton, the director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections who oversaw the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, the use of the wrong third drug in the execution of Charles Warner, and the failed execution of Richard Glossip, was also involved in a number of Arizona executions that violated that state’s execution protocol, a BuzzFeed investigation revealed. Lockett was Oklahoma’s first execution under Patton, just two months after he became corrections director. For the previous five years, he was part of the team that planned and oversaw executions in Arizona. A 2011 deposition given by Patton in a federal court challenge to Arizona’s execution protocol disclosed similar failures to adhere to state execution protocols. BuzzFeed reports that, 3 years before the Lockett execution, Patton had been involved in several Arizona executions in which corrections personnel could not find an arm vein suitable for execution and instead, as in Lockett’s execution, inserted the IV into an artery in the executed prisoner groin. In direct violation of Arizona’s execution protocol, the executioners covered the IV with a sheet, risking that officials would be unable to detect problems with the IV. In investigating the Lockett case, the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety found that the same deviation from Oklahoma’s protocol prevented executioners from discovering problems with the IV until Lockett began to move during the execution, at which point prison personnel discovered clear liquid and blood under the sheet and noticed that Lockett had swelling “between the size of a golf ball and tennis ball” at the IV insertion site. Patton then called off the execution, but Lockett died from a heart attack 45 minutes after the execution began. In his 2011 deposition, Patton admitted that he never checked the forms that identified which drugs and what amounts of those drugs were to be used in Arizona executions. In January 2015, using the wrong third drug in its three-drug protocol, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner. An investigation into that execution is ongoing, and state officials have not said who was aware at the time that the wrong drug was being used. The state also halted the execution of Richard Glossip in September when prison officials became aware two hours before the execution that they had obtained the same wrong drug.

Source: Oklahoma Execution Irregularities Mirror Previous Errors By Arizona Involving Same Corrections Official | Death Penalty Information Center

Video: Undercover soldiers invade hospital, execute patient, kidnap another | PNN

Israeli soldiers dressed as Palestinian civilians (Musta’ribeen) Thursday overnight broke into Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron, and executed a patient and kidnapped another. The group of 21 armed Musta’ribeen (AKA Death Unit), invaded the hallways of the hospital, terrorized the nurses, stormed the room of Abdullah Shalaldeh (27) in surgery section, shot him with four bullets in the chest and the head and inside his ear, causing his immediate death.Abdullah Shalaldeh (27) who was executed by Musta’ribeen unitThe agents also reportedly opened fire on his cousin, Azzam Shalaldeh, injured and kidnapped him from the hospital.

Source: Video: Undercover soldiers invade hospital, execute patient, kidnap another | PNN

NYPD Admits Spying On Muslim College Students But Denies “Overarching Blanket Surveillance”: Gothamist

“What we are currently in the process of trying to settle with [the NYPD], is what we saw as a systematic violation of the old Handschu guidelines,” he added. “They were reading [the guidelines] in a way that was too loose. The criminal predicate became, somebody’s a Muslim, Muslims are potential terrorists, therefore we investigate Muslims.”Soon after the story was posted, Todd Fine, a first-year history PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan, started a petition demanding that the CUNY Chancellor, James Milliken, “formally state [his] opposition to these [NYPD] operations and work actively to stop them.” The petition has since been handed into the Chancellor’s Office with over five hundred signatures.Michael Arena, the director for communication and marketing at CUNY, told Gothamist, “The petition is currently under review by the University office of legal affairs.”Toward the end of the WNYC interview, Miller said that the need to prevent terrorist attacks sometimes came into conflict with the need to respect constitutional rights. “We have two sets of tensions that pull against each other every day, and the hardest thing to have to do is find a balance.”We asked Rumaysa, one of the three former Brooklyn College students we interviewed who knew Mel the undercover, what she thought of Miller’s explanation (Rumaysa is a pseudonym—all the women requested anonymity).”To be honest it hurts to think that the surveillance-induced trauma I’ve had to deal with is simply dismissed as collateral damage, if even that,” she said.

Source: NYPD Admits Spying On Muslim College Students But Denies “Overarching Blanket Surveillance”: Gothamist