Asia Argento leaves Italy to escape ‘victim-blaming’

Asia Argento wants to leave Italy “until women can fight together,” the Italian actor-director has said, after she faced criticism at home for speaking out about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry.

Imprisonment of Catalan independence leaders gives movement new momentum

Predictable by any who really thought out what might happen if…

The imprisonment of two prominent separatist leaders has emboldened the Catalan secessionist movement, which was feeling frustrated and divided over the symbolic declaration of independence made last week by regional premier Carles Puigdemont.

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Foreign Minister takes up #metoo campaign

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Foreign Minister Margot Wallström.

Lyssna: Foreign Minister takes up #metoo campaign

As the campaign against sexual harassment and assault spreads around the world, Swedish politicians are taking notice. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström praises women for standing up for themselves, and says their appeals need to be followed up by review of legislation.

The campaign has gained a lot of attention in Sweden, with several well-known women taking a stand and speaking out in public about their experiences of sexual harassment. The foreign minister has also talked about an unwanted experience of her own, during an EU-dinner.

“I can confirm that this happens also at the highest political level and I too have experienced this,” she told the news agency TT.

In a book by the Swedish journalist Jan Scherman, Wallström mentioned an incident that took place when she was working with the EU and was at a dinner with several EU-leaders.

“Suddenly I felt a hand on my lap. The man next to me at the table started to fondle me. It was surreal,”

Margot Wallström in the book Räkna med känslorna

Wallström left the dinner and later brought it up with the then Chairman of the EU-commission, José Manuel Barroso.

“Barroso thought it was completely unacceptable. But I do not know if he said anything to the person. I was shocked about what happened,” Wallström said in the book.

When asked today about her own experiences with sexual harassment, she told TT that she did “not want to speak about it too much from a personal point of view, but I can confirm that this happens also at the highest political level”.

Talking about the campaign she said:

“Brave women and girls around the world are stepping forward, but I am also thinking like a politician: What do we do about it? These kinds of appeals are not enough, they have to lead to measures being taken. We have to think about what our laws look like, and how do we change people’s mindsets, and how can we use all our channels to deal with this?”

The Minister for Equality Åsa Regnér, who used to be the general secretary of the national organisation for sexual education RFSU, also took note. She told Swedish Radio that these types of campaigns can make a difference.

“When women speak out about harassment and come up with proposals for improvement this puts it on the agenda. History has been driven forward by campaigns and testimonies from witnesses and lobbying from women and women’s movements,” she said.

Thousands march in Somalia after attack that killed more than 300

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Demonstrators defy police to protest against people responsible for devastating truck bomb in Mogadishu

Thousands of Somalis have demonstrated against those behind the bombing that killed more than 300 people at the weekend, defying police who opened fire to keep them away from the site of the attack.

Wearing red headbands, the crowd of mostly young men and women marched through Mogadishu amid tight security. They answered a call to unity by the mayor, Thabit Abdi, who said: “We must liberate this city, which is awash with graves.”

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Saudi scholars to vet teaching of prophet Muhammad to curb extremism

A bit late considering they spent 100s of millions supporting schools all over the globe over the last 20 years – many which became hotbeds for fundamentalist terror teaching. But hope it does some good, even if late.

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Royal order decrees King Salman Complex be set up in holy city of Medina to root out ‘fake and extremist texts’

Saudi authorities have taken an “unprecedented” step to tackle Islamic extremism by setting up a council of scholars to vet religious teachings around the world.

A royal order issued this week by King Salman established a global body of elite scholars based in the holy city of Medina to root out and “eliminate fake and extremist texts”.

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Jeff Sessions shifts ground on Russia contacts under Senate questioning | US news | The Guardian

“The attorney general got himself into deeper water in his answers to Senator Leahy,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and co-editor of the Just Security website. “Sessions’ response to Leahy effectively amounts to an admission that he was either not truthful in his written replies during his confirmation hearing when he said emphatically that he did not have certain conversations with the Russians or else he was not truthful in his later testimony when he said he could not recall the content of these conversations.”“Also Sessions now admits he may have discussed candidate Trump’s positions with the Russians during the elections, which directly contradicts what Sessions said in his statement in March,” Goodman added. “Sessions’ testimony appears to be an admission that the Washington Post report got it right, that he had indeed discussed campaign matters with the Russian ambassador.”

Source: Jeff Sessions shifts ground on Russia contacts under Senate questioning | US news | The Guardian

Making a military widow cry: that is a classic Trump move | Richard Wolffe | Opinion | The Guardian

Like all bad habits, it follows a pattern. Trump was remarkably silent about the deaths in Niger, even though he and his fellow Republicans couldn’t stop talking about the US lives lost in the ambush in Benghazi in 2012. When he came under fire for not calling the relatives of the fallen soldiers, Trump said he had written letters which had not yet been mailed. The US Postal Service is obviously not what it used to be.When that bumbling excuse fell flat, he claimed Obama failed to call gold star families, including his own chief of staff, John Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan. This claim has been forcefully rejected by Obama’s aides, while Kelly’s associates can recall no such thing.This kind of behavior might be normal among middle school students whose hormones interfere with their ability to finish their homework on time. Explaining Trump’s actions is altogether more unsettling.You can’t say there were no warning signs of this kind of weirdness. Trump lashed out at the gold star family of Humayun Khan who died in Iraq in 2004, when they attacked his Muslim travel ban. Naturally Trump went after Khan’s mother for no good reason, claiming she was forbidden from talking.Launching a personal attack on an emotionally vulnerable citizen without any foundation in fact: the signature Trump move.Then again, he recently mocked the Spanish accent of the long-suffering US citizens in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels into a San Juan crowd like he was shooting hoops, and threatened to pull out his own government support from the US territory.

Source: Making a military widow cry: that is a classic Trump move | Richard Wolffe | Opinion | The Guardian

Sgt La David Johnson: soldier at the center of dispute over Trump remarks | US news | The Guardian

Shortly before Johnson’s body arrived at Miami airport on Tuesday, his wife Myeshia Johnson received the condolence call during which Trump reportedly told the grieving widow her husband “knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway”.The comments, vigorously denied by Trump, were made public by Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson who had been in the car with Johnson’s widow. Wilson’s description of the call was later backed up by the slain soldier’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who also heard the call on speaker phone.“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Jones-Johnson told the Washington Post.According to Wilson, Trump was unable to to recall the name of the fallen soldier during his conversation with Johnson’s widow.“She was crying the whole time, and when she hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’ That’s the hurting part,” Wilson told MSNBC.“It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy, unnecessary. I was livid.”

Source: Sgt La David Johnson: soldier at the center of dispute over Trump remarks | US news | The Guardian

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