Category Archives: human rights

Palestinian who filmed Hebron shooting faces threats to his life | +972 Magazine

Last week B’Tselem filed a complaint with Israeli police, claiming that Hebron police prevented Abu Shamsiya from submitting his own request following threats he received on the internet.Abu Shamsiya describes how last Sunday he arrived at the police station in Hebron to file a complaint about the threats, which included comments such as “I will kill you, you disabled asshole,” “your time will come,” and threatening videos. After a lengthy wait he was told that the station was too busy and that he should return the following day. The next day, after another long wait, he was told that he could not file a complaint, since the only officer who could deal with issue was not present. Abu Shamsiya returned for a third day, waiting a number of hours to be helped. When he approached one of there investigators, he was told to go home and threatened with arrest should he refuse to do so.

Source: Palestinian who filmed Hebron shooting faces threats to his life | +972 Magazine

Zika virus: Singapore reports new strain originating in Asia; Malaysia detects first local case – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Singapore has reported 215 cases of Zika infections, as scientists in the city-state said the virus strain came from within Asia and was not imported from Brazil.Key points:Scientists say the virus evolved from South-East Asia strain and was not importedMalaysia says it expects the number of local transmissions to growIt is urging residents to adopt preventative measuresThe Ministry of Health and National Environment Agency said in a joint statement on Saturday evening that of the 26 new cases reported on Saturday, 24 were linked to a cluster in the Aljunied district where the country’s first locally-transmitted cases were reported.The statement did not say where the other two cases were from.A week after Singapore reported its first case of locally transmitted Zika infection, local scientists say they have completed genetic sequencing of the virus.”The analysis found that the virus belongs to the Asian lineage and likely evolved from the strain that was already circulating in South-East Asia. The virus from these two patients was not imported from South America,” the statement said.

Source: Zika virus: Singapore reports new strain originating in Asia; Malaysia detects first local case – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun – The New York Times

For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes.Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.

Source: Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun – The New York Times

Romeo the miracle dog survives Italy quake – The Local

All hope of finding Romeo alive appeared to have disappeared until Friday evening, when the couple returned to their home in the company of a group of firemen assigned to help them recover key belongings from the rubble.Almost as soon as they came into the tiny medieval village, Romeo heard their voices and began barking.”We immediately began moving masonry from where the barking was coming from and incredibly we got to him and he was in pretty good condition,” one of the firemen told the ANSA news agency.”Luckily some beams had fallen in a way that they were holding up the weight of everything above them leaving Romeo with a little niche that he was able to survive in.”

Source: Romeo the miracle dog survives Italy quake – The Local

Lebanese MP Hadi Hobeish Destroys A Forest In Akkar To Build His Villa | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

The Ministry of Agriculture allowed the MP to cut down: 295 pine trees, 578 Oak trees and 55 Pistacia trees. All of the trees that he was allowed to cut down were thousands of years old. The fact of the matter is, however, that he didn’t only cut down those but he destroyed thousands more in order to build his mansion and make the road as efficient as possible.The end result is a Lebanese MP getting what he wants, destroying an entire forest in doing so, and the Lebanese government not only letting him do that but almost rolling down the red carpet for such an atrocity to take place.Hadi Hobeish pretends to want what’s best for his hometown, which is why he throws around annual summer festivals bringing in Lebanese singers who wouldn’t visit that area otherwise. When the attention cools down, however, he proceeds to do what everyone else does and bend the laws at his will, destroy whatever he can destroy in order for him to have his way.Not only did MP Hobeish destroy the forest, but he did it using governmental money because the decree stipulated that the road needed to be done for “public reasons.”The road only leads to his house.Welcome to the jungle.

Source: Lebanese MP Hadi Hobeish Destroys A Forest In Akkar To Build His Villa | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

A Deep, Shady Dive Into Trump’s Alleged Mob Ties: Gothamist

Trump’s connection to Shapiro was scrutinized again in 1984. Shapiro told a grand jury that he funneled thousands of dollars in contributions from Trump to Atlantic City mayor Michael J. Matthews, who Trump was barred from contributing to on his own because of his casino ownership. While Trump denied the charge, telling the Journal “I’m not interested in giving cash, OK?”, Shapiro’s brother Barry said that Trump never reimbursed Kenneth for his illegal contributions on Trump’s behalf. Trump refusing to pay a bill is of course, more believable than Trump not being interested in donating money to politicians.There was also the case of Robert LiButti, a major horse race gambler who talked about John Gotti as his “boss” and was a major gambler at Trump Plaza in the late 80s. Trump denied having anything to do with LiButti in an interview with the paper, but LiButti’s daughter told Yahoo that she rode on Trump’s helicopter and yacht, and that Trump came to her 35th birthday party. “I like Trump, but it pisses me off that he denies knowing my father. That hurts me,” she told the site earlier this year.And while most of Trump’s mob connections happened back in the 1980s, the Journal also brought up the case of Felix Sater, who worked with Bayrock Group, a real estate company that leased space in Trump Tower. Bayrock helped Trump brand his name on properties like the Trump SoHo condos and a Florida hotel, and the Journal reports Sater described himself as the number two person in the company. Sater also had been convicted in 1998 as part of a Mafia-linked boiler room scheme.Added up, it doesn’t suggest that Trump knows where the bodies are buried. On the other hand, for a man who’s been making his case that as a businessman and political neophyte he’ll just hire the right people to help him make decisions, it’s part of a pattern of a startling lack of vetting by the man. But hey, I’m sure that when he needs contractors and cheap labor for his big beautiful wall he’ll do the the most fabulous vetting we’ve ever seen.

Source: A Deep, Shady Dive Into Trump’s Alleged Mob Ties: Gothamist

Gretchen Carlson Reportedly Recorded Roger Ailes’ Grossness With Her iPhone: Gothamist

Sherman details how Carlson’s decision to fight back started two years ago:Taking on Ailes was dangerous, but Carlson was determined to fight back. She settled on a simple strategy: She would turn the tables on his surveillance. Beginning in 2014, according to a person familiar with the lawsuit, Carlson brought her iPhone to meetings in Ailes’s office and secretly recorded him saying the kinds of things he’d been saying to her all along. “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve” that way, he said in one conversation. “I’m sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to,” he said another time.After more than a year of taping, she had captured numerous incidents of sexual harassment. Carlson’s husband, sports agent Casey Close, put her in touch with his lawyer Martin Hyman, who introduced her to employment attorney Nancy Erika Smith. Smith had won a sexual-harassment settlement in 2008 for a woman who sued former New Jersey acting governor Donald DiFranceso. “I hate bullies,” Smith told me. “I became a lawyer to fight bullies.”

Source: Gretchen Carlson Reportedly Recorded Roger Ailes’ Grossness With Her iPhone: Gothamist

Trump visit to Mexico: I have never seen a Mexican begging in the US | In English | EL PAÍS

Rather than undocumented, 40% of Mexican and Central American immigrants are  really refugees. They are boys and girls fleeing hunger, rape, extreme poverty and threats against their lives by criminal gangs back home. They have been denied a job and a safe and dignified life by their own countries. Rather than a problem of security and terrorism, it is a humanitarian crisis.Yet never in my life have I seen a Mexican begging on the street in the United States. They are honest, hardworking people who contribute to and benefit the economies of both countries in invaluable ways. But, in the interests of both sides, they will remain a community of 11 million invisible people.Rather than undocumented, 40% of Mexican and Central American immigrants are refugeesOur government should have named Trump ‘persona non grata’ a long time ago. Because he preaches hate and division in his own country and shamelessly distorts reality, countless US television stations, international corporations, heads of states and members of his own party have ended relationships and contracts with an individual whose terrifying sociopathic and fascist outbursts have polluted the world and hurt the fundamental values that Americans are proud of.Yet, unexpectedly, our president has asked him to visit our country, giving him an opportunity and a platform that Trump has used to crown himself in Arizona, jokingly promising his followers that the “amigo” who had just opened the door of his house to him did not know yet that he was going to pay for a wall, or that Trump was going to send him back millions of his dirty and criminal people.Our president, with his insubstantial shyster language, did not articulate or demand anything specific from his visitor. Trump has had the unprecedented honor of being the first American presidential candidate to visit our country, thus soiling the memory and history of our nation.One hundred and sixty-eight years ago, Antonio López de Santa Ana gave away almost half of our territory. President Peña Nieto has just given away the little bit of dignity that was left us.

Source: Trump visit to Mexico: I have never seen a Mexican begging in the US | In English | EL PAÍS

A NEW BLOG…FINALLY. | Jane Fonda

I have to confess, under normal circumstances, I would feel some compassion for Donald Trump. I have known and loved men who had some of the same issues as he does. But unlike him, they chose, with time, to move towards the light. I feel certain that things occurred early in his life that caused him to be what he has become. But clearly, he’s made no effort to look at himself objectively and attempt to change/heal.And, as these are far from normal circumstances–the fate of the world is at stake and that is no exaggeration– I have moved past compassion to fear and anger.I will say no more because everything has been said and said and said.I think.So I will pray, and meditate that things are going to turn out all right and that Hillary will win. I will also pray that Democrats will take back the Senate and I’m doing all that I can to make that a reality from afar. Were I not making this movie in Colorado I’d be walking precincts, knocking on doors, not just for Hilary, but for all of the Dem women running for the Senate around the country. I’ve met them and they’re fierce and good.

Source: A NEW BLOG…FINALLY. | Jane Fonda