The Saudi legal system is back in the news today with another report of an abomination from the Sharia-based courts in the Kingdom. It appears that Saudi judges do not want to be outdone by the punishment against woman videotaped dancing in the rain. According to this report, a Saudi court has sentenced four men to up to 10 years in prison and 2000 lashes for the crime of dancing “naked” in public. Like the women in Pakistan, the men were left exposed due to a posting on YouTube. The medieval Sharia legal system took it from there.
Category: International
We have followed controversies over fake pictures in Chinese newspapers, fake eggs in Chinese stores, fake meat in Chinese markets (here and here) and fake lions in Chinese zoos, but that does not appear to the end of it. Recently, cash rained down from an apartment building after a raid by policemen. The occupants tossed out $50,000 to try to destroy evidence of their fraud: fake scholarly articles being sold to academics.
London police believe they have a colorable claim against Yafet Askale, 28, for breaking into the vehicle. Askale insisted that he was not guilty and then the police brought in an ultraviolet light.
Al Arabiya is reporting a bizarre warning issue by a leading Muslim cleric that women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and pelvises and birth defects. The announcement from Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Luhaydan comes as women continue to demand to be able to drive in the Kingdom and international pressure is growing for Saudi to make fundamental reforms. Judging from today’s other Saudi story, I thought the greatest danger was the religious police on the roads.
We have long covered the abuses of the Saudi Arabian religious police known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. These are the religious fanatics who reportedly forced girls back into a burning school in Mecca because they were not sufficiently covered in public — 15 died as a result. When they are not apparently burning girls, they are forcing women to cover up “attractive eyes” or shutting down dinosaur exhibits or shutting down lingerie stores or arresting women having coffee. When it comes to their own crimes, however, they appear less committed to harsh Sharia punishment. A young Saudi was killed in a car chase last week trying to flee the religious police. After he crashed, the police fled the scene.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
You may be wondering who is this person named Rouhani and why would it be hard to call him/her on the phone? Would you think differently if you knew that Rouhani is Hassan Rouhani and he is the current President of Iran? As reported this past week, after President Obama and President Rouhani had both spoken at the United Nations in New York City, it was rumored that the two might actually meet in person.
While that meeting did not take place, it was reported that President Obama actually called President Rouhani on the telephone. As you can imagine, it was considered a big deal in the media that the Presidents of the United States and Iran had actually spoken on the telephone. On one level, I can understand the importance of the first direct contact between the heads of these two countries since 1979. Additionally, in light of the level of sabre rattling over Syria recently and Iran constantly, I guess it is a big deal..sort of. Continue reading “Was It Really So Hard To Pick Up The Phone And Call Rouhani?”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Know much about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? If you don’t, it’s not your fault. According to Zoë Carpenter (The Nation), Congress hasn’t heard much about TPP either. That’s because this so-called “free trade” agreement is being negotiated in “extreme” secrecy by representatives of twelve different countries—the United States, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Carpenter says that the Obama administration has ignored “repeated calls from legislators to make the process more transparent, while pressing to finalize the agreement this year.”
In his article titled Multinationals Are Plotting to Steamroll What’s Left of Our Democracy to Make Huge Profits, Dave Johnson says that the TPP negotiating process “has been rigged from the start.” While hundreds of representatives of corporate-interest groups have been providing their input— “representatives of labor, human rights, civil justice, consumer, environmental and other stakeholder groups have been kept away from the negotiating table.” Members of Congress have not seen the agreement yet. United States Senators “have been barred from seeing negotiation points or drafts.” The public has been denied any access to TPP negotiating texts. We the people—as well as our elected representatives—are being “kept in the dark” as to what is going on behind closed doors. Yet, “600 corporate advisers” have been involved in the negotiation process. Multi-national corporations like Monsanto and Walmart are helping to craft the agreement.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
When 1965 dawned I was about to be twenty one years old and in my Junior Year in college. My parents were dead years past and I lived in a furnished room off campus, supporting myself by working 35 hours per week in a liquor store. The Viet Nam War was heating up and the civil rights of Black people, then called “negroes”, was the big issue of the day thanks to the inspired leadership of Martin Luther King. My parents had been Leftists in both words and deeds, which of course influenced my political leanings, because I loved and admired them greatly. JFK had been the great hope for a country recovering from the conformity of the 50’s, but he was murdered. Yet working and going to school full time, dating and hanging out with friends, gave me little time for political activity. The year before I had attended the organizing meeting for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on my college campus, but while I found the ideas stimulating, the organizer from national SDS seemed to be quite full of himself and an ass to boot. My economics professor had discussed Viet Nam disparagingly and predicted a costly war being pursued because of mineral rights off the coast of that country. His foreboding about the War proved to be correct. People peacefully demonstrating for an end to “Jim Crow” were being beaten and being murdered. The seamy underpinnings of our “exceptional” society were being exposed and the hypocrisy of it all was running rampant
Musically, the Beatles had pushed Folk Music somewhat to the side, yet there was still great popularity for it among the “intelligentsia”, or those who thought themselves “intellectuals”. The “enfant terrible” of folk music was of course young Bob Dylan, who scandalized the “folkies” when he moved to electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in Forest Hills Stadium. He released a song that year becoming his first single record to hit the “Top Forty” charts. I think this song ranks among his most prescient works and that I’ve used part of it to title this piece. The song was listed by Rolling Stone Magazine as the 332nd “Greatest Song of All Time”, but in my life it has had much greater influence. I was a young adult orphan, without the guidance and love of my parents, living in a world of ever-increasing complexity. Many of my generation, myself included, turned to popular music for guidance. The Bob Dylan song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” not only offered guidance for navigating this ever stranger land that America was becoming, but also predicted many of the “changes” to this country that we discuss here on this blog and to my mind achieves greatness because of Dylan’s foresight. Let me explain. Continue reading ““You don’t need a weatherman, To know which way the wind blows””
The appearance of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani before the United Nations created an outpouring of rare positive coverage for the country when he gave an interview with CNN where he was quoted as condemning the Holocaust. The world celebrated the possibility that the extremism of the Iranian government might be subsiding. It seemed like a fresh start after the vehemently anti-Semitic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, the Iranian government has now moved to deny the comments — God forbid that its president would acknowledge (let alone condemn) the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis.
EasyJet has long been notorious for the level of service and comfort of a cattle car. However, the cattle were at least allowed to get on the plane and occasionally “moo”. Mark Leiser, who lectures at Strathclyde University, says that he was pulled out of line on his delayed flight and told that he could not board the plane. The reason? Lesier had tweeted criticism of the airline, which one would think the no-frills company would be rather used to. Apparently not. He says that he was only allowed on the plane after the airline employees discovered that he is a lawyer.
Millions of Americans struggle on a daily basis to afford medicine in the United States which is the highest in the world. Many seek affordable drugs by driving to Canada or seeking medicine (as well as medical care) in India. Yet, one of the first things that President Obama did in the new health care law was to cave to a demand by the powerful pharmaceutical lobby to drop provisions guaranteeing cheaper medicine. The lobby then got Congress to block two measures to guarantee affordable medicine. With billions at stake, Congress and the White House again yielded to the demands of this industry, which is sapping the life savings away of millions of families. Given this history, many are concerned about a meeting planned between Obama and the Prime Minister of India. Public interest groups object that Obama is threatening retaliation against India in the hopes of blocking one of the major alternatives for families in acquiring affordable medicine. Congress has also again responded to industry demands for pressure in India to change its laws and, as a result, raise the cost of medicine. Doctors Without Borders, a highly respected medical group, has denounced the effort of the Obama Administration as threatening basic health care for its own citizens and those around the world.
Continue reading “Obama To India: Block Production Of Low-Cost Generic Drugs . . . Or Else”
It has been a bloody week for elephants in the news. Yesterday, we discussed how NBC has aired a program showing a NRA lobbyist shooting an elephant in the face for ratings while in Cameroon serial elephant poachers are facing just three years for killing more than 100 elephants. Over in Zimbabwe, three poachers have been sentenced to roughly 15 years in prison for killing another 81 elephants by poisoning their water holes. This sentence is more substantial and welcomed, though it is hard to imagine what you would have to do against the environment to merit a life sentence.
There is an increasing danger posed by new technology to privacy and civil liberties. New technology is being brought online at what seems an increasing rate with little consideration of their implications — or even their efficacy. This includes a license plate recognition (LPR) system being adopted by cities around the world which tracks and identifies the movements of vehicles — and by extension their owners. Now, a study by the National Institute of Justice has found no evidence that LPR actually reduces crime. It does however clearly reduce privacy.
Continue reading “Study Shows No Reduction In Crime Due To License Plate Recognition Technology”
Given the story today about the poaching of elephants, this video on Reddit caught my eye. It part of a show called Under Wild Skies What is this shit? For some reason, NBC Sports Network has been airing an NRA-sponsored hunting show called Under Wild Skies, which apparently airs on NBC. This video shows a lobbyist named Tony Makris shooting an elephant in the face. I am surprised to see NBC airing the scene. It shows that, while one cannot swear on television or show certain types of intimate scenes, you can still shoot a elephant in the face. [WARNING The video contains graphic and disturbing images]
The reason why elephants are going extinct may have something to do with a trial in Cameroon against twin brothers accused of killing more than 100 elephants in Central Africa. What is most striking about this story is that these brothers — Symphorien Sangha and Rene Sangha — have been arrested before and never served a day in jail. Now, with over 100 dead elephants to their credit, they are only looking at a maximum of three years in jail. Indeed, Symphorien Sangha was found guilty of killing elephants and wounding a forest ranger. He will receive 10 years for wounding the ranger but no more than three years for killing a huge number of elephants and a long record of poaching. With a deterrent level of that kind, it is astonishing that any elephants remain alive.