Category Archives: Global Politics

Pro-Israel group NGO Monitor teams up with Europe’s far-right | The Electronic Intifada

Displaying enormous hypocrisy, NGO Monitor appears happy to ally itself with actual peddlers of bigotry. Next week, it will jointly host an event in the European Parliament chaired by a representative of the far-right Danish People’s Party.Anders Vistisen, the politician in question, would be a suitable candidate to run Donald Trump’s Nordic fan club – if such a thing exists. In some respects, Vistisen has acted as a vanguard for the politics of division that the US president espouses.Trump made his infamous call for a Muslim entry ban in December 2015. Vistisen urged similar measures in Denmark almost two years before then.More recently, Vistisen has advocated that a barbed-wire fence should be erected on Denmark’s border with Germany in order to keep refugees out. He also favors the Australian model of detaining refugees in large camps.

Source: Pro-Israel group NGO Monitor teams up with Europe’s far-right | The Electronic Intifada

Evolution theory to be scrapped from Turkish schoolbooks | News | DW | 23.06.2017 – dumber youth to assure idiots rule the country!

A chapter entitled “Beginning of Life and Evolution” will be deleted from the standard biology textbooks used in high schools in Turkey, with the explanation that the “controversial” material was difficult to understand for average students, education authorities have said.”We are aware that if our students don’t have the background to comprehend the premises and hypotheses, or if they don’t have the knowledge and scientific framework, they will not be able to understand some controversial issues, so we have left out some of them,” Alparslan Durmus, head of the national education board, said.The material will remain available only to students who are on the path to go on to university, aged 18 or 19, he added. The changes are part of a new curriculum that will go into effect at the start of the 2017-2018 academic year, which was formulated in accordance with “Turkish values,” Durmus said.From embracing religious headscarves at some schools to shifting curricula, school education in Turkey has grown increasingly religious under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). The issue of teaching evolution has been fought over for years.

Source: Evolution theory to be scrapped from Turkish schoolbooks | News | DW | 23.06.2017

London pride: hope after despair – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

In case if any of you were wondering if I’m writing an angry piece, I would like to stress that you are absolutely right. This is an angry piece by a very angry black woman. I’m owning this and I’m not apologising for it either.FGM is a form of sexual assault against the girl child. It must be treated as such. Grabbing a child or even a baby who is just few days old, spreading her legs apart and touching her genitals is multiply violating even before the cutting begins. When the physical mutilation takes place, a deep rooted emotional wound is also created. When I talk about FGM I always refer to the child. I feel that that there’s a lack acknowledgment of the harm caused on a child by FGM which leads to a lack of support for those affected by such physical and emotional violence. There seems to be more focus on negotiating with ‘practicing communities.’In dialogues about any form of harm we need to think about who makes up the practicing community. The answer is very simple: globally we are all from communities where women and girls suffer gender-based violence, including FGM. Explain how FGM on black girls is barbaric but the blonde, blue-eyed girl who has designer vagina surgery in Harley street is an acceptable part of modern life.

Source: London pride: hope after despair – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

This Is What Kleptocracy Looks Like | Dame Magazine

Think of the CREW lawsuit as a lawsuit on behalf, essentially, of every private entity that will lose money to Trump over the years—restaurant owners, hotel bookers, hotel owners, wedding planners, and so on. Trump has already made clear he’s happy to promote his businesses generally by linking them to his presidency. Look at Mar-a-Lago: An official State Department website praised the virtues of Mar-a-Lago as the Winter White House. Trump doubled the cost of Mar-a-Lago membership (to a cool $200K) right after he took office. Actual people are losing actual money when foreign government personnel book with Trump instead of the competition.

Source: This Is What Kleptocracy Looks Like | Dame Magazine

Inoreader – Thursday Open Thread | Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known

The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step — complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone.” In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia’s role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by the Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.’s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn’t done meddling.“They’re coming after America,” Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election. “They will be back.”

Source: Inoreader – Thursday Open Thread | Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known

Qatar’s crisis is about freedom of expression – IFEX

It is not only a diplomatic crisis, but a crisis for free expression in an already restrictive region. As some analysts have pointed out, the singling out of Qatar has as much to do with the country’s alleged support of terrorism as it does with neighboring countries’ desire to shutter Al Jazeera, Qatar’s flagship media organization. Al Jazeera, a comprehensive media outlet funded by the Qatari government with several international satellite television channels, websites, and online video operations, is not exactly a beacon of free expression – it rarely reports negatively on Qatar or other Gulf countries, for example – but it has stood strong in its reporting on the Arab region and much of the world, covering topics that other outlets often ignore.

Source: Qatar’s crisis is about freedom of expression – IFEX

Inoreader – Monday Open Thread | Update on the Legislation Evil Known As Trumpcare- Fighting the Senate

The Legislative Evil known Trumpcare is going forward in the Senate.I will remind you, now, and always…Trumpcare is a TAX CUT BILL MASQUERADING AS A HEALTHCARE PLAN.THE TAX CUTS DECIMATING MEDICAID are the foundation to giving tax cuts to millionaires and bilionaires.They want to cut 880 BILLION from Medicaid..then LIE that cutting 880 BILLION from a program WILL NOT MEAN CUTS IN SERVICE?THE EVERLOVING PHUCK??!!?They are going to STEAL HEALTHCARE FROM THE MOST VULNERABLE IN ORDER TO GIVE RICH PEOPLE A TAX CUT. They are crafting Trumpcare in the Senate, in secret, with no hearings.

Source: Inoreader – Monday Open Thread | Update on the Legislation Evil Known As Trumpcare- Fighting the Senate

We Don’t Need Megyn Kelly To Shine a Light On a Dumpster Fire | Dame Magazine

The way Jones sees it, shadowy groups within the U.S. government orchestrated—or at least refrained from preventing—the 9/11 attacks, the Boston Marathon massacre, the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Murrah federal building, and the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. He has even suggested that President Obama was responsible for the 2013 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. When Jared Lee Loughner went on his January 2011 rampage in Tucson, killing six people and severely wounding U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Jones told Rolling Stone: “This whole thing stinks to high heaven. … My gut tells me this was a staged mind-control operation. The government employs geometric psychological-warfare experts that know exactly how to indirectly manipulate unstable people through the media.”Kelly’s assertion that many don’t know him is probably true. He only has around 600,000 followers on Twitter (though that number will likely jump post NBC interview). And even though that may be true it is irrelevant. In fact, it is actually a good thing.Shining a light? Honestly, Kelly missed the boat on that one. Jones has been outed, debunked, marginalized, and ridiculed into relative silence. And anyway, according to Jones’s divorce lawyer the Alex Jones on Infowars is just a persona, a character:

Source: We Don’t Need Megyn Kelly To Shine a Light On a Dumpster Fire | Dame Magazine

Ex-U.S. Attorney Bharara tells of ‘unusual’ calls he received from Trump | Reuters

The third call, however, came two days after Trump’s inauguration. That time, he said, he refused to call back.”The call came in. I got a message. We deliberated over it, thought it was inappropriate to return the call. And 22 hours later I was asked to resign along with 45 other people,” he said.

Source: Ex-U.S. Attorney Bharara tells of ‘unusual’ calls he received from Trump | Reuters