Category Archives: Viva!

Lebanon Slipping To The Dark Ages: Charbel Khalil Wants To Start a Gay Conversion Therapy Group In The Name of St. Charbel

With each passing day, news transpiring out of Lebanon get more and more disheartening as the latest seems to be a wannabe “comedian” deciding it’s time for him to start a “conversion therapy group” for gay people in the country.

The comedian in question is Charbel Khalil. I forget when the last time this man dabbled with relevance, but he wants to be in the spotlight again as he launches hocus pocus, unethical and unscientific torture methods under the guise of his namesake saint.

In a series of tweets, Khalil announced his intention to quick start the “St. Charbel Project” to “help” gay men and women to get rid of their gayness. As he got criticized, he then amplified his homophobia by blocking anyone who opposed his message, calling them pejorative words and doubling down on his message. You can find his tweets here:

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Charbel Khalil’s feeble attempt at relevance is something that has been deemed by scientists as inhumane, barbaric and obviously useless. The mere fact that, in 2019, something like this could be allowed or even started when any respectable scientific body has stopped recognizing homosexuality as a disease for around a lifetime, is horrifying.

It’s another step in that downward spiral of a country that is fast circling the drain in all the ways that matter.

You see, what Charbel Khalil is proposing is a violation of basic human rights. People will applaud him, because at a time when a lyric can upset millions, basic decency does not even register.

What Charbel Khalil wants to do is an affront to anything that is scientific and logical. But that’s not the kind of thinking people like him and those who like him dabble in. They’re probably the same kind of people who think global warming is a myth as their face melts off in the July heat.

And let’s not even forget that what Charbel Khalil wants to do is an insult to the saint whose name he’s plastering on his crime.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a laughing matter. I pity the LGBT people who will fall victim to this man’s actions because they live in a country that has permeated the notion that their sexuality and their being cannot coexist. Live and let live does not run in Lebanon circa 2019, looking more like 1472. How could they when they want to police how you pray, what you watch and listen to, and now how they think they can control your body’s urge to love?

I pity the children of these many figures who may one day end up gay, only to face the insurmountable rejection that is their own family denying them a safe space, in a Country that is anything but.

Today, what those tweets constitute is another nail in the coffin of the hopes of a modern Lebanese state. From attempts to ban Mashrou Leila, to now kick-starting a practice being banned everywhere in the modern world, how low do we want to sink?

From a failed economy, to a failed state, to failed freedoms and now to failed basic human decency, I wonder where Lebanon’s rock bottom will be?

Asylum Closure Could Increase Undocumented Crossings

By Manuel Ocaño

The closure of opportunities to apply for asylum from could force some migrants to try to enter the United States in an undocumented manner, warned José María García Lara, coordinator of one of the main shelters in Tijuana, the Juventud 2000 refuge.

The measure implemented last week “will push the (migrant) community to look for options to get out (of Mexico), regardless of what they see happening in security at the border,” said the leader of Angels Without Borders.

García Lara said that most of the people in the shelters are families that most likely would not be willing to risk crossing the border with their children in an undocumented way, but “it is not ruled out that some try, despite the pressure of border authorities. ”

“As we are in the border area, the conditions are set for some to try to cross,” he said.

He said that since the migrants in the shelter learned about the new disposition of the US government to deny practically all cases of asylum, except those of victims of human trafficking, they began to think about alternatives and one of the most mentioned is to seek refuge in Mexico.

The United States government canceled without warning the passage of migrants moving from Tijuana to San Diego to apply for asylum.

Migrants in the immediate vicinity of the pedestrian checkpoint of El Chaparral told Excélsior that no one has passed to apply for asylum since Thursday of last week, without the US authorities giving any explanation. On average, between 50 and one hundred people passed by.

“Since there is no way to enter legally, because they closed the possibilities of requesting asylum and no longer request it, obviously there are migrants who feel desperate and some of them think of crossing undocumented,” said Garcia Lara.

The three alternatives that migrants have mentioned are undocumented crossing, returning with their families to their places of origin and staying in Mexico as refugees if they get that option.

In the case of Guatemala, to prevent some migrants from trying to reach undocumented US territory, that country’s consul in Tijuana, Erick Cardona, offered to pay the return ticket to his country to Guatemalan migrants who request it.

With the new provision, which requires that Central American migrants first request asylum in Mexico and only if Mexico rejects it can they apply for it in the United States, asylum requests continue only for Mexican families who also seek asylum, originating mainly from Guerrero and Michoacán.

‘I Should Be More Careful With Twitter’: Marianne Williamson on Those Mental Health Comments

A hack job, i a hack job, is a hack job. It’s clear that drug companies promote over-prescription of their products and that some over-prescribe as a result. Drugs would cost less, if drug companies were not spending millions upon millions pushing them in medical offices and on screen in ads using paid actors to pretend they are benefiting from the drug being advertised on tv or online. Ms. Williamson, a spiritual adviser and long shot presidential candidate, stood by her claim that antidepressants are overprescribed, which experts say stigmatizes mental illness.

‘What keeps me going? My patients,’ says France’s oldest doctor at 98

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After 70 years, Dr Christian Chenay still wants to help people in the ‘forgotten’ suburbs of Paris

On a quiet street in a low-income Paris suburb, the doctor’s waiting room was so full that patients spilled out on to the pavement. Some from distant housing estates had travelled here as early as 4am to be sure of a place in line.

“This doctor is really loved because he takes time to listen to you, he calms you down,” said Yamina Derni, 63, who had been treated for benign tumours. “You don’t even notice his age.”

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Boris Johnson plans to frighten Europe then charm it. Here’s why he’ll fail | Jonathan Powell

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I spent 10 years negotiating with EU leaders. They don’t trust him, and simply won’t be fooled by his bluster

• Jonathan Powell was chief of staff to Tony Blair

The new prime minister insists blind ambition is enough. Like Peter Pan, if we do believe, we do, we do, then it will come true. We can have a new exit deal with the European Union within 99 days without the “undemocratic” Irish backstop because he wills it so. This Tinkerbell delusion is about to be tested on the wheel of harsh reality when Boris Johnson goes to meet his European colleagues. But even his first step has backfired. When he, unwisely, upped the ante by making refusal of the Irish border backstop a precondition for talks, the EU negotiator Michel Barnier immediately rejected the move. Now Johnson will have to back down even to get a meeting.

The prime minister’s strategy, however, remains clear: he will combine public threats and private charm. First, he will frighten Europe by giving every impression of going hell for leather for a no-deal Brexit. He has certainly appointed the right team to frighten them – Dominic Raab, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. Like us, EU leaders have seen the movie. And then he hopes the leaders will melt in the face of his personal charm when he comes to visit them.

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A US-born teen was in border custody for 23 days. Now he’s suing the government

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Francisco Galicia and his mother are speaking out on the inhumane conditions they say he endured while detained

A mother and her American-born teenage son are suing two US government agencies and speaking out over the inhumane conditions they said he endured while taken into border custody for more than three weeks.

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The world knows what is happening to the Uighurs. Why has it been so slow to act?

because no trading partners with China are willing to act and Russia as well as USA don’t really care!

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A reluctance to offend China and an information blackout has meant the persecution of the ethnic minority has gone under the radar. But pressure for change is building

On Wednesday, Sadam Abdusalam went to Australia’s federal Parliament House for the first time and spent almost 12 hours meeting politicians – meetings he has spent almost two years hoping for – in which he pleaded for their help to bring his wife and nearly two-year-old son home.

Last week Abdusalam’s story was broadcast on Four Corners, detailing how his wife and son are trapped in China because they are Uighurs – ethnic minority Muslims.

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‘Unprecedented’: more than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst ever season

Huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska are producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space

The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space.

The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have burned in the Arctic circle. In Russia, 11 of 49 regions are experiencing wildfires.

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