Category Archives: Fail!

Japan marks 70 years since its surrender ended World War II Some Still Support Japan’s War – fail

Hiromichi Moteki, secretary-general of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, said he was “disappointed” by the tone of the statement by the prime minister on the eve of the anniversary, in which Abe apologized for the “immeasurable damage and suffering” the nation’s military caused before and during the war.

“We have no reason to apologize to other nations in Asia that became independent because the Japanese military took on the European colonial powers,” Moteki told DW. “We helped them achieve freedom and they should be thanking us.”

 

Nationalist Moteki claims Japan’s aim was to “liberate” Asia from colonialism

Liberating Asia?

Like many nationalists, Moteki believes that Japan invaded and occupied parts of the Pacific and mainland Asia to create a “co-prosperity sphere” and that it was liberating its neighbors from colonialism.

Equally, Moteki and many on the right in Japan are convinced that China triggered the Sino-Japanese war in August 1937, there was no massacre of civilians in Nanking four months later, the United States provoked Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and “comfort women” were not coerced across Asia and the Pacific to serve as prostitutes for Japan’s soldiers.

via Japan marks 70 years since its surrender ended World War II | News | DW.COM | 15.08.2015.

Settlers torch Bedouin’s tent, spray slogans calling on “Burning of All Arabs”

PNN/ Ramallah/

Israeli settlers from the “Pay The Price” extremist groups on Thursday morning have torched a tent in which lives a whole Bedouin family from Arab A-Kaabneh tribe, in Samia village West of Ramallah.

Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) field worker, Zakaria Sadah told the Official Agency that settlers have burned down the

via Settlers torch Bedouin’s tent, spray slogans calling on “Burning of All Arabs”.

CENSORED NEWS: U.S. EPA tells Navajo People to Waive their Rights – Gold King spill

The U.S. EPA has been seeking signatures from the Navajo People on Standard Form No. 95 which, if signed, will waive future claims against the U.S. EPA.

“The Federal Government is asking our People to waive their future rights because they know without the waiver they will be paying millions to our People. This is simple; the Feds are protecting themselves at the expense of the Navajo people and it is outrageous.” said President Begaye

Standard Form No. 95 states the following:

I CERTIFY THAT THE AMOUNT OF CLAIM COVERS ONLY DAMAGES AND INJURIES CAUSED BY THE INCIDENT ABOVE AND AGREE TO ACCEPT SAID AMOUNT IN “FULL SATISFACTION AND FINAL SETTLEMENT OF THIS CLAIM”

All signors will be limited to the specific claims filed, and any future claims for injuries caused by the Gold King Mine will be waived.

“The U.S. EPA has admitted they are at fault and stated this disaster will last for decades. This is unacceptable. The damages to our People will be long term and the Navajo Nation will not settle for pennies. I have consistently stated that the Navajo people deserve to be compensated for every penny lost. I will not allow fine print to let U.S. EPA off the hook. The Navajo people deserve better from the United States government.” said President Begaye

The U.S. EPA has been attending local public hearings across the Navajo Nation, in Shiprock, Aneth and Olijato and passing out Standard Form No. 95 to participants urging them to sign the form. The Navajo Nation Attorney General has advised that Form No. 95 will settle for current claims and preclude all future claims from the spill.

“We are also concerned for our neighbors, and whether this Standard Form No. 95 is being circulated in other communities. This is not just hurting the Navajo People but all those in the Four Corners Region. Think twice before you sign this form, we must hold U.S. EPA fully accountable for their negligence.” said Vice-President Nez

via CENSORED NEWS: U.S. EPA tells Navajo People to Waive their Rights – Gold King spill.

Mexican activist in missing students case killed near Acapulco | News | DW.COM | 10.08.2015

Jimenez had worked with families of the disappeared to find information and evidence, which he had then passed on to the authorities. “This area, we have always said it, it’s a cemetery,” he said in an interview last December.

Since the group began their investigations in November, 129 bodies have been found and handed over to the authorities for identification.

The 43 students are believed to have been arrested by local police on the instructions of the local mayor and his wife. They were handed over to a criminal gang and killed.

via Mexican activist in missing students case killed near Acapulco | News | DW.COM | 10.08.2015.

Frances Oldham Kelsey, F.D.A. Doctor Who Exposed Danger of Thalidomide, Dies at 101 – The New York Times

The sedative was Kevadon, and the application to market it in America reached the new medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in September 1960. The drug had already been sold to pregnant women in Europe for morning sickness, and the application seemed routine, ready for the rubber stamp.

But some data on the drug’s safety troubled Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a former family doctor and teacher in South Dakota who had just taken the F.D.A. job in Washington, reviewing requests to license new drugs. She asked the manufacturer, the William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati, for more information.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

The Public’s Quiet Savior From Harmful MedicinesSEPT. 13, 2010

Retro Report: The Death and Afterlife of ThalidomideSEPT. 23, 2013

Thus began a fateful test of wills. Merrell responded. Dr. Kelsey wanted more. Merrell complained to Dr. Kelsey’s bosses, calling her a petty bureaucrat. She persisted. On it went. But by late 1961, the terrible evidence was pouring in. The drug — better known by its generic name, thalidomide — was causing thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, Canada and the Middle East to be born with flipperlike arms and legs and other defects

via Frances Oldham Kelsey, F.D.A. Doctor Who Exposed Danger of Thalidomide, Dies at 101 – The New York Times.

New Hampshire’s Planned Parenthood Defunded Because White Men Know Best

This post was originally published on the Community site.

Continuing the trend of white men having a lot to say about women’s health care, three Republicans on the New Hampshire Executive Council removed state funding from New Hampshire’s Planned Parenthood on Wednesday over the objections of the state’s pro-choice governor, Maggie Hassan. This leaves thousands of their constituents at risk of losing vital services, and it makes New Hampshire one of the three states to remove funds from the organization this week.

All white dude council

(Voted to defund: Kenney, Sununu, Wheeler)

So how did this fairly obscure entity manage to override a sitting governor? The answer is rooted in New Hampshire’s longstanding distrust of centralized authority. The Executive Board, which arose out of the state constitution as a check on gubernatorial power, approves members of boards and commissions, judicial appointments, and state contracts. And, since all of the members of the Council are male, this effectively means that the only female Democratic governor has to share power with a bunch of dudes.

Three of these men are very concerned about the manufactured scandal that is Planned Parenthood legally donating fetal tissue. So following Governor Hassan’s refusal to honor demands for an investigation of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s fetal tissue donations (the entity doesn’t even participate in a voluntary tissue donation program), the Republican Councilors rejected a $640,000 contract that constitutes a third of the budget for the state’s five Planned Parenthood clinics.

While this move was ostensibly meant to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s ability to provide abortion services, the dollars from the general fund that were at issue were not being used for abortions. Instead, the actual effect of this decision will be the decimation of other services that Planned Parenthood provides such as birth control, health education, cancer screening, and STD testing and treatment.

Christopher Sununu, one of the councilors who voted to defund Planned Parenthood, summarized the stakes best on Wednesday:

“In my district — I represent about a quarter-million people —

via New Hampshire’s Planned Parenthood Defunded Because White Men Know Best.

Fourth blogger on radical Islamist hit-list hacked to death – Reporters Without Borders

“We are shocked by this act of incredible barbarity and violence and offer our heartfelt condolences to Niloy Neel’s wife and friends,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk.

“He is the fourth secularist blogger to be murdered in Bangladesh, following Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman and Ananta Bijoy Das. How many more shocking murders will be needed before the authorities act? We have repeatedly urged the government to respond by taking concrete protective measures. And we have already said that their passivity is tantamount to giving a blank cheque to those responsible for these extremely violent crimes.”

Ismaïl added: “Today we would like to tell the authorities that, as well as sharing much of the blame for Neel’s murder, they must answer for their failure to bring those responsible for the murders of the other bloggers to justice. And we will keeping reminding them that the lack of protective measures is unacceptable.”

A member of the Shahbag movement, Neel criticized Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalism in his blog posts. The holder of a master’s in philosophy from Dhaka University, he was described as a “free-thinker” by Asif Mohiuddin, a Bangladeshi blogger who found refuge in Germany after surviving a similar attack in 2013.

via Fourth blogger on radical Islamist hit-list hacked to death – Reporters Without Borders.

Mexico: “We Are the Problem Because We Disturb the Government and the Narcos” · Global Voices

“The human traffickers grab you as a woman, the hired killers if you’re a student. Here we are all the problem, disturbing the Government as well as the narcos; we’re faced with repression on two fronts, the legal and the illegal. Because the narcos are the government in this state. The narcos are the ones in power; the Zetas are literally the ones who manipulate this whole state, rule it; here they charge you use rights, there they charge you to operate a bar, they charge you just to have a job,” said the young University of Veracruz graduate who, up to the time of her death was cultural affairs promoter.

Vera’s body was found last Friday, July 31, together with those of other three women and photojournalist Rubén Espinosa, 31, in an apartment in Mexico City’s Narvarte section. Vera’s body showed signs of “a gunshot wound to the head and multiple abrasions.” Both Espinosa and Vera were well known in Veracruz for publicly denouncing the violence and out-of-control impunity in the city, especially after 2010, when Javier Duarte de Ochoa took the reins of the state government.

via Mexico: “We Are the Problem Because We Disturb the Government and the Narcos” · Global Voices.

www.german-foreign-policy.com German arms dealers bribe Greeks

The German judiciary has initiated new criminal proceedings against German arms companies because of their multi-millions in bribes payments in Greece. Last month, the states attorney’s office in Munich brought charges against a former manager of the Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) tank producing company. He is charged with having personally pocketed up to €1.5 million of a much larger bribe without paying the adequate taxes. Other managers, for example of the Rheinmetall arms manufacturer, are also being threatened with criminal charges. In late last December, a German court sentenced the Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall company to pay the unprecedentedly inflated profit of nearly €37 million into the budget of the Federal State of Bremen. These €37 million were paid by the Greek government for bribery-induced arms deliveries. In answer to its compensation demands, the Greek government is being told that Rheinmetall cannot be punished twice for the same offense. Greek lawsuits against German managers usually remain without consequences, because the German government refuses extradition to Greece after German courts gave more lenient sentences, than they could have expected from a court in Athens. The Greek government estimates its damages alone from the bribes in arms deals at €100 million.

via www.german-foreign-policy.com.

Dubai (ROTFLOL) to build world’s largest indoor ski resort as part of Meydan City project | World news | The Guardian

Dubai to build world's largest indoor ski resort as part of Meydan City project | World news | The Guardian

(The added cost of your gasoline this summer is paying for this!) Dubai, the Gulf emirate known for extravagant projects and scorching temperatures, has announced it will build the world’s largest indoor ski resort, with a 1.2-kilometre run.

Dubai’s current indoor ski resort, opened in 2005 in the Mall of the Emirates, remains the largest in the world, according to the Guinness World Records website, boasting a 400-metre slope.

The slope runs year-round despite summer temperatures in Dubai that can top 45C (113F).

The new covered ski resort comes as part of a scheme dubbed Meydan One, also to include the world’s tallest residential tower at 711metres (2,333ft), a dancing fountain sweeping up to 420m (1,378ft), a vast shopping centre, 350-room hotel and marina, according to a government statement.

via Dubai to build world’s largest indoor ski resort as part of Meydan City project | World news | The Guardian.