Blog about human rights, environmental rights, animal rights, veganism, justice, LGBT, politics, the news, IR, current affairs, society, philosophy, well-being and spirituality in general.
I am also the author of Nix, Freya and Durga deserts... available on the same website.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Most
rape victims in conflict zones are children - report
Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:04 GMT
Source: reuters // Reuters
Children carry their family's belongings as
they go to Yida refugee camp in South Sudan outside Tess village in the
rebel-held territory of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, Sudan, May 2,
2012. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
By Li-mei Hoang
VULNERABLE PEOPLE IN CONFLICT:
Most victims of sexual violence
in conflict zones are children who are suffering rape and abuse at an
appalling rate, say campaigners who describe the attacks as the "hidden
horrors of war".
The Government
want to remove climate
change from the geography curriculum for under 14s. We think
this will threaten the wellbeing of future generations and the environment. Find out more and sign the petition.
Reading University cancels "kill gays" Islamist preacher
Feeble excuse: fictitious threat of violent protests?
Cleric’s incitement to murder ignored in cancellation decision
Muslim Society not rebuked for hosting a murder-approving speaker
London - 28 February 2013
Reading University has cancelled today’s scheduled speech by "kill the gays" Islamist preacher Abu Usamah at-Thahabi, which was to be hosted by the university’s Muslim Society.
“Thahabi endorses the murder of gay people and of Muslims who give up their faith. He says women are deficient and encourages the beating of little girls who refuse to wear the hijab,” said Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights lobby, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
“While this cancellation is welcome, the university’s reasons for the cancellation appear to be bogus, feeble and unprincipled.
“The university authorities claim the Thahabi meeting was cancelled because of serious threats of violent protest by extremist groups. I challenge the university to name these groups and reveal the threats.
“The idea that Islamist extremists would threaten a fellow Islamist extremist is absurd. The planned student protest against Thahabi was always going to be peaceful and never made any threats, as far as I know.
“Unless the university has evidence they have not disclosed, its professed reason for cancellation looks like a vile, disgraceful smear against legitimate, non-violent protesters.
“To its shame, the university appears to have used a phoney excuse to cancel a speaker who never should have been invited to speak in the first place. Inviting Thahabi clearly violated the equal opportunities and non-discrimination policies of the university and the student’s union.
“Women, Muslim and LGBT students have a right to go to university without being menaced and threatened by hate preachers.
“Disgracefully, the Vice Chancellor has failed to condemn the Muslim Society for inviting Thahabi.
“Thahabi’s hateful, violent views are not shared by most Muslims in Britain,” said Mr Tatchell.
See below the briefing about Abu Usamah at-Thahabi’s history of murderous incitements, sexism and threats against fellow Muslims.
See this online local Reading press report of the meeting’s cancellation, posted at 19.30 last night: http://bit.ly/VaxxXY
A letter had been sent by the Peter Tatchell Foundation to the Vice Chancellor of Reading University, David Bell, protesting at the university's decision to host Abu Usamah at-Thahabi, on the grounds that Thahabi had been filmed by Channel Four’s Dispatches programme justifying the murder of gay people. Incitement to murder is a serious criminal offence.
Below is a copy of this letter.
Other protests were made against Thahabi by the anti-extremist organisation, Students Rights, and by Reading University students.
Vice-Chancellor, Reading University
Dear David Bell,
I understand that Mr. Abu Usamah at-Thahabi is giving a talk at the University of Reading on Thursday, 28th February 2013.
This individual has incited hatred and murder of homosexuals. He has abused his right to free speech and infringed the right of LGBT people to go about their lives without threats or fear.
Please click on this link for more evidence of Mr at-Thahabi's history of preaching hate and violence against LGBT people: http://bit.ly/QxFCVz
It is not good enough to monitor his presence on Thursday. His conduct before attending the University of Reading needs to weigh heavily upon any decision to permit him onto university property.
Allowing him to speak at your university would be a de facto reward for incitement to homophobic violence.
I would urge you to deny him a platform or hospitality, as it would be an insult to past/present/future LGBT individuals attending your university.
If Mr Abu Usamah at-Thahabi's previous remarks had called for the murder of Jewish or black people I am sure he would not be permitted to speak at your university.
I urge you to not collude with a man who incites murder, and to not adopt double standards on incitements to racist and homophobic violence.
Equality for all. Hatred against none.
Yours with best wishes,
Peter Tatchell Director Peter Tatchell Foundation
Background Briefing on Abu Usamah at-Thahabi
Abu Usamah at-Thahabi has previously urged that gay people should be punished with death.
“Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain,” Thahabi was recorded as saying by Channel Four’s Dispatches programme.
“If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that’s my freedom of speech, isn’t it?”
On Muslims who leave the faith he said: “Kill him in the Islamic state...If the Imam wants to crucify him, he should crucify him. The person is put up on the wood and he’s left there to bleed to death for three days.”
He was filmed by Channel Four deriding women as “deficient”, inferior to men and religiously and intellectually “incomplete.”
He advocates violence against little girls who refuse to wear the hijab: “She should start hijab from the age of seven, by the age of ten it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her.”
Thahabi was caught on camera making these incitements while addressing worshippers at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham.
When he was later interviewed by Channel 4 News, he refused to withdraw or apologise for his comments.
The
Latest Health Breakthroughs From The Doctors You Can Trust
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Why This Potato Is Better for You Than That Potato by Victor Marchione, MD
Here's some health
news out of Washington, DC: organic potatoes may contain more
nutrients than conventional potatoes. There's been a debate going on for
years now about whether organic vegetables and fruits are any healthier for
you than conventional produce. Results from clinical trials have generally shown
that organic, natural foods do seem to offer more in the way of nutrition.
The Healing Food That's a Tasty Snack by Richard Foxx, MD
Not much is written
about health benefits of pistachios -- although many people eat these
delicious nuts. More attention seems to be paid to other nuts such as almonds
or peanuts. Pistachios, however, are quite nutritious, it turns out. A recent
study has found this healing food to be a nutrient-dense nut with a
heart-healthy fatty-acid profile, as well as protein, dietary fiber,
potassium, magnesium, vitamin K, tocopherols, and a number of phytochemicals.
That's quite a list!
For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently
attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting
passwords for its reporters and other employees.
After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their
movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and
computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from
breaking back in.
The timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a
Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the
relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune
worth several billion dollars through business dealings.
Tax dodging is a global
scandal. Tax raises money to fund public services, to fight poverty and to
redistribute wealth in society. Yet for many multinational companies like
Amazon, Google and Starbucks, paying tax is now often simply a matter of
choice. Despite hitting the
headlines by talking tough on tax, this government is planning new changes to
the UK’s tax laws to be introduced in the Budget in March which would give a
green light to big business to avoid billions in tax. Take action now and demand George Osborne scrap his plans to
give a green light to big business to avoid billions in tax Every year the UK government
loses £25 billion in revenue to tax avoidance by big business and rich
individuals. In response to growing public anger, George Osborne has called
tax avoidance “morally repugnant” and claimed the government is now leading a
tough clampdown on corporate tax avoiders. Yet our research has
exposed a very different story. Rather than tackling tax avoidance, the
centrepiece of the government’s plans would have had little or no impact on
some of the biggest recent tax scandals, from Amazon, Google, Starbucks all
the way through to Jimmy Carr. Instead it defines tax avoidance so narrowly
that it would send a clear signal to big business to keep on avoiding
billions in tax. Instead, the government
could introduce tough rules, aimed at eliminating tax avoidance in the UK. According
to our estimates this alone could recover as much as £5.5 billion every year. Take
action now and demand tough new rules to stop tax avoidance This year we will be
campaigning for changes in the UK,
to change our tax rules and abolish our tax havens, so that the UK no longer
fuels tax dodging around the world. If the money hidden from
tax authorities by rich individuals in tax havens was taxed instead it could
generate £180 billion a year in tax revenue. This sum is more than twice the
amount all rich countries give in aid every year. The UK is at the
heart of the offshore system that allows multinational companies to act as
corporate parasites, sucking profits out of countries around the world. Join our
campaign for tax justice now Thank you. Murray Worthy
Tax justice campaigner
The forcible expropriation of land from people by states and corporations –
‘land grabbing’ – is occurring on a phenomenal scale and affects every
continent and most countries of the ‘South’. Land grabs and the forced
displacement of populations, including through state and corporate violence,
have been justified through economic development, human development, the
extraction of natural resources, the use of land for economic growth, among
many other factors. Yet deforestation and land grabs in Indonesia, slum clearances and land grabs
throughout India,
environmental destruction and population displacements in the Amazon and in
various countries of southern America,
and massive land grabs, including through natural resource mining across the
African continent, have created misery and havoc on a large scale for many
populations. In some places, land grabs have gone hand in hand with
environmental destruction, conflict and war, forced labour, child labour,
illegal expropriation of natural resources, widespread poverty and serious
violations and abuses of human rights.
This event explores land grabbing as a global phenomenon that some writers have
described as a new form of ‘primitive accumulation’ and ‘accumulation by
dispossession’. The origins of land grabbing and its consequences for human
rights, including indirect causes related to environmental destruction and
climate change, are discussed.
Home, Garden & Food
40 handy lemon tips
4 March 2011
Cleaning solutions and beauty tips for natural (and cheap) recipes you
can try at home.
These tips have been contributed by volunteers from Sparked.com
Friends of the Earth can't claim to have tried all of the
tips ourselves, but they're based on commonly accepted wisdom. You
might want to exercise caution with tips involving ingesting lemon juice or
applying it to the skin, especially if you have persistent medical conditions.
Health & Beauty
1. Hair - For extra shine, dilute 1 tsp lemon juice in
a cup of water, and use to rinse your hair after shampooing.
2. Hands - Remove smells and stains with a rub
of lemon juice.
3. Nails - Whiten fingernails with a rub from a wedge
of lemon.
4. Rough elbows - Hold your elbow in half a lemon for
a few mins, then rinse.
5. Spots - Wet a paper towel with lemon juice and
apply to help treat spots and blackheads.
26. Dishes - Instead of washing up liquid, try soaking a
cloth / sponge in lemon juice, give them a scrub, then rinse in warm
water.
Laundry
27. Mildew - Rub stained clothes with a lemon and
leave in the sun for 12 hours or more.
28. Rust - Remove stains from clothes by applying
lemon juice and dry under a hot sun.
29. Whiter whites - Mix lemon juice with water to
whiten whites.
30. Fresh smell - A tsp of lemon juice added
to your wash will make clothes smell fresher.
Aromas
31. Firelighters - After cooking, use residual oven heat to
bake discarded orange or lemon peels until they darken. These create natural,
fragrant firelighters.
32. Pot pourri - Dry peels to add to your pot pourri.
33. Fridge - Cut lemon in half and let it absorb fridge
smells.
34. Bins - Throw lemon peel in the bin from time to time to
keep it smelling fresh.
35. Odour - Neutralise the smell of vinegar-based
cleaning products with a small amount of juice.
Food and drink
36. Cut waste #1 - Waste less of your lemon by cutting into
quarters / slices, and freeze until you need them.
37. Cut waste #2 - 'Massage' your lemon or
roll it in your hands before you squeeze it to get more juice out.
38. Make food last longer - Add a squeeze of
lemon to cut fruit, home made juice and salads to help them stay fresh
longer.
39. Salad - For a simple, cheap and healthy dressing,
blend lemon juice and olive oil.
40. Lemonade - Put juice from 3 lemons and
water in blender and liquidise. Add sugar to taste. Strain, add ice and
serve.
Over the last few weeks, I've been telling you about some of our
life-saving work that PETA members' support has helped make possible.
Every single victory during the past year – from exposing
horrific abuse of ducks and geese on a French foie gras farm to helping to
convince the UK government to reject an appeal to build a facility in Yorkshire
that would have bred hundreds of dogs for use in deadly laboratory experiments
– was achieved through the generosity of our compassionate members.
But despite so many recent successes, animals are still being confined to tiny, filthy cages
on factory farms; electrocuted,
strangled and even skinned alive for "fashion"; cut open, poisoned and mutilated
in horrific experiments; and beaten
and kept in chains in order to force them to perform for human
"entertainment".
By becoming a PETA member today, you will not only help us win
even more impressive victories for animals in 2013 but also receive a free
subscription to our wonderful Animal
Times magazine
With so many animals in desperate need of our help, the support
of every person who cares about animals the way you do is critical to our
efforts.
Cause to celebrate: the Commission has told PETA that a ban on
the sale of all animal-tested cosmetics in the EU will come into force in
March. Read more.
Lacey Banghard might have only just been voted out of the
Celebrity Big Brother house, but she's already teamed up with PETA to stand up
for what she believes in – safe sex for cats and dogs! Read more.
Badgers across England are currently being threatened: a planned
cull will begin soon unless we can convince the government to stop the
slaughter. Read more.
Kevin McHale, who plays Artie on Glee, understands what it's like to be the
underdog. So it isn't hard to understand why he's rooting for all underdogs in
his new PETA ad. Read more.
Experiments at Cardiff University have been revealed in which
kittens were raised in darkness or had their eyelids sewn shut and then
subjected to brain experiments and killed. Read more.
For her efforts in reaching out to other young people around the
world to win justice for animals, Isle of Wight resident Jazzy Heath has won a
Compassionate Teen Award. Read more.
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going
to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the
animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: why
should animals have rights? Learn more.
Security Council
is studying climate change's link to security
The
United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet today about the effects
of climate change on global security. Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research will brief members on a "reality
that cannot be washed away" that is likely to spawn "all kinds of
unrest and revolutions, with the export of angry and hungry people to the
industrialized countries." Bloomberg (2/14)
C: alleluia, as most of us, see only environmental issues in
terms of what might bring upon humans directly. To be as stupid to think that
consequences of producing posion, even if producing remedy, will have as
ultimately impossibly diverted effect.
One cannot ‘wash away’one’s intentional destruction, gross,
gratuitous or not.
It is almost the main current, that say what suit to human,
as human a little pests ready to eat everything like if mother earth and
brothers others were a cake for them to be prepared, his dining oooye.
thouth i a ready to activate it by the net but my system say
error that i don't have the right key
Death threats to UK's
top Muslim MP who voted for gay marriage
Police have told
Sadiq Khan he should review the security around him and his family
following the Commons vote
Officers in his
Tooting constituency in London have been put on high alert
Khan was among 400
MPs, five Muslim, who voted in favour of the bill
Sadiq
Khan, Labour's Shadow Justice Secretary, has received death threats after
voting in favour of gay marriage
Britain's most senior Muslim MP has received death threats after voting in
favour of gay marriage.
Police have told Sadiq Khan, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, that the
threats are credible enough that he should review the security around him and
his family following the Commons vote.
Officers in his Tooting constituency in London have been put on high alert,
and will respond ‘extra-quick’ should an incident be reported at his home.
The Metropolitan Police has also advised Mr Khan, 42, that they may put
more officers around him if further threats are made.
He told one friend he was especially concerned about those close to him,
saying: ‘My family do not need to suffer for what I have to do for my job.
'I’ve not had threats like this before.’
Mr Khan was among 400 MPs, five of them Muslim, who voted in favour of the
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill at the beginning of this month.
It is believed Mr Khan, who was campaign manager for Ed Miliband’s
successful leadership bid, has been singled out as he is the most prominent
Muslim MP.
Mr Khan – who became Britain’s first Muslim Minister to attend Cabinet in
the last Government – has been condemned by British-based hardline clerics, who
have accused him of ‘selling out’ his religion.
Mufti Muhammed Aslam Naqshbandi Bandhalevi, who is the head imam of the
Jamia Islamia Rizvia mosque in Bradford, has issued a fatwa, or ruling,
declaring Mr Khan an ‘apostate’ from Islam and said he should ‘repent before
Allah’.
Some veiled threats against all the Muslim MPs who backed gay marriage are
visible online.
C: thank you brother, even if that it shows that depending
on the vote for a just decision striking tyrants is as it is undemocratic.
I d like to be the one striking them with punishment over that
kinda fatwa issuing.
thank you brother.
I d like to be one part of your escorts, or secret army.
I chose my word, hypocrisy make us forget how people ruin
other people life, hip, hope and everything just through the issuance of law,
policies, practises and theories. Without forgetting stud pinned tradition and
its demonization, by the ones who pretend prudery pursuing whereas it is
torture for living- parasites imitation ammunition.
