Muslim clerics declared victory last week in Niger after the government agreed to withdraw a course on sexual and reproductive health from the school syllabus. Islamic organizations and leaders denounced the classes as against Muslim values. Niger has the world’s highest fertility rate and 30 percent of girls are married by the age of 15. The country reports that average of around eight children per woman.
Category: International
We previously discussed the case of Ghoncheh Ghavami, 25, who was arrested for trying to attend a men’s volleyball game. Iran imposes a Sharia legal system that punishes those who do not comply with medieval religious rules and practices. Ghavami has now been found guilty of “propagating against the ruling system” and sentenced to one year in jail.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
We have written on multiple occasions about the illegal activities of Big Banks and Wall Street financial firms as well as their penchant to repeat their offenses. It now seems that a State regulator and two Federal prosecutors may have finally come to the conclusion that many Big Banks are not only continuing their illegal practices, but that they may have hid information during prior investigations into their allegedly shady dealings.
While I am glad that at least two Federal prosecutors may be putting the heat on some of the repeat offenders by extending their deferred prosecution agreements and opening new investigations and taking a second look at past investigations, my first response is what took them so long?
Continue reading “Prosecuters Seem Surprised that Banksters May Still Be Breaking the Law”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Founded in 2010, a non-profit organization in India has garnered much success—it claims thirty thousand persons—who are sheltered or provided opportunities to pursue their right to marry the person of their own choosing despite pressure and even threats of violence against them.
Love Commandos offers a help line service where verified callers can receive immediate assistance to relocate and receive social benefits on building a future of their own choosing.
We previously reported the arrest of seven men arrested for their alleged participation in a gay wedding ceremony in Egypt, now a Cairo court found the seven defendants guilty of the crime of “Inciting Debauchery” for what was alleged to be their participation a gay wedding on a Nile riverboat.
The video in question, which went viral on YouTube, shows two men kissing and exchanging wedding rings along with onlookers.
The Saudi morality police are back in the news with another attack on free speech and the free exercise of religion. The Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) police arrested a man who believed that he could see Muhammad and believed that he was walking among us. It is an expression of faith but in Saudi Arabia you must believe what the government believes or face arrest or even death.
There is a bizarre and disturbing case out of India where an Indian man has been criminally charged after his wife filmed homosexual liaisons in their home and took the evidence to the police. It is a crime punishable by life in prison to engage in homosexual relations in India. The case is an insight not only into the abusive Indian criminal code but the traditions of such arranged marriages. What is interesting is that the wife, a dentist, has also charged her in-laws with a crime after alleging that they had to know that their son was gay before the marriage.
Bus driver Andrew Holland said last year has been a nightmare. He has spent six months on bail, hired an attorney, and stood accused of a heinous crime. People ridiculed him and shunned him for allegedly possessing a film that showed a woman having sex with a tiger. The police charged him with possession of an extreme pornographic image. No one however appeared to actually watch or analyze the film. The film turned out to be a man in a tiger costume who kept saying ‘That’s grrrrrreat’ – the catchphrase of Frosted Flakes cereal mascot Tony the Tiger. All charges have now been dropped, but one has to wonder how the police or prosecutor could have missed this small detail. Putting aside the fact that a man in a tiger outfit hardly looks like the real thing, a talking tiger might have been a clue.
I have previously discussed my admiration for Pope Francis, who strikes me as a truly holy man in every true sense of that term. Francis has pulled the Church into the Twenty-First Century with massive reforms and new approaches. This week saw one of the most remarkable such changes: Pope Francis announced that it is perfectly consistent to be a Catholic and an evolutionist. For many Catholics who cannot deny the evidence that the Earth is billions rather than thousands of years old, the announcement shows that it is possible to believe in both God and evolution.
Continue reading “Pope Francis: Evolution Is Consistent With Being Catholic”
I have been organizing my pictures from my recent trip to Italy and was struck by the many people that we met on our wanderings. The led to the column below.
The viral video below shows one of the closest calls that any of us have seen. This little girl in Ukraine barely avoid being killed by a collapsing segment of a building.
Continue reading “Ukrainian Girl Avoids Certain Death By Inches In Collapsing Facade”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
It never ceases to amaze me that the heads of major corporations and officers of those companies just never seem to go to jail when the corporation’s fingers are caught in the cookie jar. We saw two separate examples of that concept this week. One example is simply a case of corporate greed at employees expense and the other is a brutal and deadly tragedy that caught up the corporate employees, but not their bosses.
In the past, I have written about banks getting away with fines and financial penalties for committing crimes, but today the focus is on two corporations in two different areas of endeavor. I am referring to the corporation formerly known as Blackwater and Electronics for Imaging (EFI). Blackwater as you may recall was in the private security and intelligence gathering business with many government clients, while EFI is a Silicon Valley tech firm with earnings of over $100 million in 2013. They both have one thing in common. They broke the law and one got a slap on the wrist and the CEO and founder of the other and his fellow corporate officers avoided any culpability in a brutal murder case. Continue reading “Two Corporate Crimes and No Accountability for the Suits”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Fascinating book out by NPR media reporter, David Folkenflik, entitled Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires that explores the strange world of publisher Rupert Murdoch. Gobbler of such English-speaking newspapers as The News of The World, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times, Murdoch is mostly known for his media collaboration with Roger Ailes in the development and promotion of Fox News, the Right’s mouthpiece of choice. Until his inglorious dismount from credibility in the London Phone Hacking scandal where a Murdoch newspaper employee was convicted of hacking the telephone voice mails of murdered British teenager, Milly Dowler, Murdoch had personified all that is unseemly about tabloid journalism. The personification of Charles Foster Kane, Murdoch fed the Right the red meat of dissention blending news with opinion and relying on practices that were criticized by honest journalists (even conservative ones) around the world calling it right-leaning tabloidism (here).
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A second reporter for the Russia backed television network RT (Formerly known as Russia Today) has resigned her position due to what she considered to be being required to obscure the truth and whitewash the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. She made the announcement via a RT News Broadcast she anchored.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Members of the Kurd Community residing in the United States will host a demonstration to draw attention to the plight of Yezidi and Christian women in Iraq and Syria suffering and persecuted at the hands of ISIS.
Reportedly beginning at 10:00am on Monday, October 27, members of the Kurdish Diaspora will begin a five-day hunger strike at Lafayette Park across from the White House, culminating with a march to the White House and a demonstration on Friday, October 31 from 12:00-3:00pm. The procession will include a mock Islamic State (IS) slave market, exhibiting the humanitarian disaster being faced by thousands of Yezidi and Christian women and girls currently being held captive by IS in Iraq and Syria.
Continue reading “U.S. Kurds To Stage Mock Sex Slave Auction and Begin Hunger Strike At White House”