Tag Archives: WorldNews

Louis CK and Aziz Ansari are back doing stand-up. Should they be?

They can do as they wish but what are the morals and ethics of those paying to see them or writing about them?

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The news prompts discussion about what justice looks like for the victims of this behaviour, particularly in comedy, a world long familiar with sexism and gender inequality.

World leaders who deny climate change should go to mental hospital – Samoan PM

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Tuilaepa Sailele berates leaders who fail to take issue seriously, singling out Australia, India, China and the US

The prime minister of Samoa has called climate change an “existential threat … for all our Pacific family” and said that any world leader who denied climate change’s existence should be taken to a mental hospital.

In a searing speech delivered on Thursday night during a visit to Sydney, Tuilaepa Sailele berated leaders who fail to take climate change seriously, singling out Australia, as well as India, China and the US, which he said were the “three countries that are responsible for all this disaster”.

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Police in El Salvador round up hundreds of alleged MS-13 members

Salvadoran police and prosecutors moved against the gang MS-13 this week in an operation across the nation.   Authorities indicated they were arresting more than 400 gang members in another attempted blow at the finances of the gang.   Authorities seized weapons, property, drugs and vehicles associated with the gang.

Some notes to help you understand this news:

1.   Salvadoran authorities have a tendency to arrest many more subjects than they actually have proof against.

2.   Prior mass raids have not had any measurable effect on levels of crime and violence in the country so far as I can tell.

3.   A question being raised is why authorities have only staged these large scale raids aimed at finances of the gang MS-13.   To date, there has not been a similar attack on the two “18” gangs — 18-revolucionarios and 18-sureños.   Authorities say only that they combat all criminal groups andonly make such raids when they are prepared to do so.

4.   Although proof might not exist, those caught up in sweeps will be incarcerated for years in hellish conditions in prisons for gang members because pre-trial release is highly unusual in El Salvador and gang members are kept in high security prisons subject to the now normal, “exceptional measures.”

Hilary Swank on grit, love, trans rights – and her three-year screen break

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As she returns to acting, the double Oscar-winner talks about her love of ‘people who persevere’, the legacy of her role in Boys Don’t Cry, and why she grew up feeling like an outsider

Hilary Swank has already raced through a full day’s schedule before the LA restaurant where we meet has had time to switch its menu from breakfast to lunch. She has taken her father to a doctor’s appointment, held a conference call for her new clothing line, Mission Statement, and run to a meeting about one of the three TV shows she is currently producing, along with three films. “Constant everything!” she grins, looking casual and efficient in a sundress. She has arrived just in time to order a piece of salmon – to go. The two-time Oscar winner still has a lot left to accomplish.

Swank, 44, has been having a busy summer. If you haven’t seen her for a while, that is due to her making a necessary choice. Just before Christmas 2014, her father Stephen, a former chief master sergeant in the Oregon air national guard, underwent a life-saving lung transplant. For three years, Swank was his sole live-in carer, which meant saying no to Hollywood – or, as she phrases it: “I was saying yes to something else that I wanted to be a part of.”

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