Category: International

Bizarre, International, Politics

Kim Jong Un Wins Reelection Unanimously With 100% Of North Koreans Voting

260px-The_statues_of_Kim_Il_Sung_and_Kim_Jong_Il_on_Mansu_Hill_in_Pyongyang_(april_2012)While millions are dying of starvation and North Korea remains an isolated, despised power, it appears that supreme leader Kim Jong Un still has that magic of his old man, Kim Jong Il. Kim was reelected unanimously in his first election after taking over the country after his father’s death and then killing off his rivals, including family members. The North Korean press reported 100% of the country voted, though they found a ballot with a single name on it. In other words, you can have any leader as long as it is Kim Jong Il.

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Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Censors Censor Censor’s Speech On Censorship

130px-Mao_Zedong_portraitCan you say that five times? Well, not if you are online in China you can’t.

There was a delicious irony to the coverage of a speech by Zhang Chunxian, the party chief of Xinjiang, to journalists. In the authoritarian, one-party state, Chinese leaders speak matter-of-factly about censoring reporters and blocking free speech. In this case, Zhang spoke about the vulnerability of the system of censorship maintained by him and other party bosses. His remarks were then censored by his own censors. Just another day in the worker’s paradise.

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Congress, Courts, International, Justice, Military, Politics, Science, Society, Uncategorized

Time to Clean House at J-PAC?

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Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor

As the son of a fallen Air Force pilot whose remains were never found, I am sensitive to the plight of family members of servicemen and women whose remains may be recoverable, but yet are still not identified.  There are multiple military and defense department agencies who are responsible for locating and identifying the remains of veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam and Cold War missions.

The purpose of this article is to examine the efforts of just one of those agencies.  The Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, or J-PAC, is an example of an agency that is crucial to both locating and identifying remains, but because of bureaucratic constraints, outdated methods and the possible stubbornness of its scientific head, has produced very little results at a very expensive cost to the taxpayers. Continue reading “Time to Clean House at J-PAC?” →

Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion

Film Fatwah: Noah Banned In Middle Eastern Countries As Anti-Islamic

220px-Noah2014PosterCensor boards in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have sunk Darren Aronofsky’s new Biblical epic, Noah. The Paramount movie is now banned because it allegedly contradicts Islam by portraying a prophet and no one in these countries can see an alternative account of religion other than Islam.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, International, Politics, Society

Nigeria Flogs Four Homosexuals . . . Crowd Demands Death

300px-Fomfr_whipThe persecution of homosexuals continues in Nigeria with four young men convicted of homosexual relations and flogged on in open court. The judges and lawyers watched as the men (aged 20 to 22) were laid prostrate on the floor, stripped, and whipped on their buttocks in a demonstration of Sharia justice. The sadomasochistic nature of the punishment appears to have escaped the onlookers. While a crowd outside tried to grab the men to kill them, the court explained that stoning was not needed since the men admitted to homosexual acts previously but said that they were no longer engaging in such relations.

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Environment, International, Politics

Australian Prime Minister Pledges Moratorium On New National Parks, Expanded Logging, And A Crusade Against “The Green Ideology”

300px-Biogradska_suma200px-Tony_Abbott_-_2010We recently discussed the disturbing allegations directed against an Australian MP who dumped pollutants into the Great Barrier Reef with impunity. The case raised questions over how powerful mining interests are overwhelming environmental concerns, even in the iconic Great Barrier Reef. Now, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has shocked many around the world with a speech to the lumber industry that not only promises to stop the establishment of any new national parks but commits his government to advancing the interests of the industry.

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International, Military

Authoritarian Nationalist Invades To Protect Common Language Speakers While Poland Mobilizes Troops . . . Sound Familiar?

225px-Vladimir_Putin_official_portrait230px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-S33882,_Adolf_Hitler_retouchedWe have long discussed the authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin whose history of beating protesters and striping away press freedom was put aside briefly for the Olympic ceremonies. However, Putin appeared to be eager to stop the love fest and turn on Ukraine. For history buffs, however, there is something a bit unnerving in Putin invading a neighboring country to protect Russian-speakers who are welcoming the troops as protectors. In case the Sudetenland does not come to mind, Poland is now mobilizing troops along the border to bring the historical analogy home for the rest of the world. While I believe that this crisis will be contained and Putin is not ready for a wider war, it is no accident that the blind nationalism and authoritarianism would lead to expansionism. Ukraine is not the Sudetenland and Poland is no longer using horses to repel tanks. Putin’s desire for control of this port and Lebensraum may not be as easy to hold as it was to take.

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International, Military, Politics, Religion

Islamic Militants Massacre Health Workers and Security Personnel Trying To Vaccinate Children Against Polio In Pakistan

417px-Vaccination-polio-indiaIslamic fundamentalists in Pakistan are again expressing their moral outrage over the effort of the international community to vaccinate their children against polio. In the latest case, at least 12 security officials were killed and nine others injured in an ambush on a clearly marked medical convoy in the Jamrud area of the Khyber tribal region. It appears that both murder and denying children polio vaccines are viewed by these men as a pure expression of faith and morality.

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International, Politics, Religion, Society

Syrian Rebels Post Video Of “Voluntary” Amputation

tweet The Syrian rebels have continued their crusade to bring Islamic law to rural areas of that country. In the latest atrocity, a Syrian spokesman narrated an amputation of a hand by a man that the rebels said asked to punished for theft “in order to cleanse his sins.” In the twisted mind of these extremists, the video was supposed to show the purity and righteousness of Islam as a sword is used to sever the hand of the man.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, International, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Military, Politics, Supreme Court, Uncategorized

Abdullah al-Shami vs. The Fifth Amendment

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Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor

The Fifth Amendment protects all United States citizens by guaranteeing us all the right of due process of law. The Fifth Amendment is meant to ensure that the government has to at least prove to a court that a citizen is guilty of any crime that he or she is charged with.

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Cornell Law

Without the Fifth Amendment, the government could grab any citizen off the street and proceed to jail them or execute them without a trial of any kind where the accused could mount a defense to the government’s charges.  It seems that the Obama Administration is once again in the process of deciding whether it will unilaterally execute an American citizen believed to living in Pakistan.  Or at least, preparing us for a kill decision that they have already made. Continue reading “Abdullah al-Shami vs. The Fifth Amendment” →

Courts, Criminal law, International, Justice, Lawyering, Science, Testimony

Phylogenetics: Finding The Smoking Genome

By Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor

maeso-hepatitis-valencia_thumbBespectacled Juan Maeso led a fairly mundane life as an anesthetist in the Spanish coastal town of Valencia. All that changed in 2007 when Maeso was convicted of serial murder. A morphine addict, Maeso had been skimming the painkiller meant for his patients and then using the same compromised needle to inject them. Over a decade, 275 patients contracted hepatitis-c (HCV)  and four of them died from complications from the disease. A Spanish court sentenced Maeso to 1,933 years in prison but the sentence pales in interest to how the murderous soporifist was finally caught.

A fascinating article in the journal Nature details the laboratory hunt for the killer with all the twists and turns of an Arthur Conan Doyle story. Led by researchers at the University of Valencia, the work involved analyzing and categorizing 4200 viral sequences to backtrack to Maeso’s particular strain of hepatitis-c. The process known as phylogenetic forensics has been successfully used to track down the origins of such infamous cases as the 2009 anthrax-laced heroine scare in Europe and the case of Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the US Army Medical Research Institute, strongly suspected of sending anthrax tainted letters to Senators in 2001. Ivins committed suicide before charges were placed.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Blasphegrams: Bahrain Arrests Four Citizens Accused Of Blasphemous Messages On Istagram

225px-Instagram_logo125px-Flag_of_Bahrain.svgThe crackdown on free speech continues among our Arab allies. This week, Dubai arrested four people for posting insults about companions of Prophet Mohammed on Instagram. Since the companions of Prophet Mohammed are revered by Sunni Muslims, the insults are particularly sensitive in the country with tensions between a majority of Shiites and a Sunni monarchy.

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Animals, International, Society, Torts

Shoot and Switch: Hunter Sues After Loss of Horns From A Threatened Marco Polo Sheep

Big Game Hunter Fraud660There is an interesting lawsuit in Nevada in which Rick Vukasin, a 65-year-old electrician and big-game hunter, is a Canadian outfitter and a hunting guide in Tajikistan for a type of “shoot and switch” ploy. Vukasin says that he paid $50,000 to kill a rare, threatened argali sheep known as “Marco Polo” but received a lesser trophy rack in the mail.

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Criminal law, International, Lawyering

Samuel Sheinbein Dead in Israel In Shootout With Prison Guards

100px-Coat_of_arms_of_Israel.svgOne of the lowest points in U.S. and Israeli relations came in 1997 when Samuel Sheinbein, an American teenager, savagely murdered another teenager as practice for a later planned murder. He then fled to Israel and as a Jew claimed the right to become a citizen (and thus avoid extradition). He is now dead after grabbing a gun and shooting several guards before being gunned down himself in Haron Prison. The irony is that he was close to the point where he would ask for release from prison.

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