Jul 10 2019

Six in The Morning Wednesday 10 July 2019

 

Hong Kong families are feuding as China extradition bill exposes generational fall in living standards

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

Updated 0352 GMT (1152 HKT) July 10, 2019

In the now widely-shared Facebook video, a young man in a Hong Kong restaurant stands up at his table and glares down at his family members.

“You’re criticizing my friends, saying we’re all radicals, saying we’re criminal triads,” he says, voice raised, as an older relative gestures for him to sit down. “You dare to call us triads?”
It’s an inter-generational spat that has played out in many families across Hong Kong over the past month, as violence and unrest rocked the city. Family WhatsApp chat groups have descended into political shouting matches. Friends and relatives have publicly clashed in Facebook posts.

Descendants of Jews who fled Nazis unite to fight for German citizenship

Hundreds of applicants turned down by the government are now looking for answers

 in Berlin

A group of more than 100 descendants of Jewish refugees who fled the Nazi regime are challenging the German government’s rejection of their applications to restore their citizenship.

Anyone who was deprived of their German citizenship during the 12 years of Nazi dictatorship on political, racial or religious grounds – as well as their descendants – is potentially eligible for its restoration, according to a clause enshrined in the country’s constitution.

But several hundred applicants, some of whom submitted claims from the UK after the EU referendum, have been turned down, most commonly on the basis that applications are only valid if citizenship has been passed through the father.

AOC to be sued after court rules Trump can’t block people on Twitter

New York congresswoman has been accused of blocking members of the conservative media

After a federal court ruled Donald Trump could not constitutionally block people on Twitter, Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was threatened with a lawsuit for allegedly doing the same.

The court found Mr Trump’s blocking infringed on first amendment rights to free speech and that people had a right to see his posts, reply to his tweets, and send him messages.

The 2nd circuit court of appeals stated that because Mr Trump uses a non-private Twitter account to communicate with the public about his administration and its policies, blocking violated a constitutional free speech protection as it was deemed government discrimination against specific viewpoints.

Manila says first Filipino ‘suicide bomber’ behind last month’s attack

Philippine security forces confirmed Wednesday that at least one Filipino “suicide bomber” was behind a deadly attack last month, in a first for the Asian country.

Norman Lasuca and one other yet to be identified suspect blew themselves up outside a military camp on the remote southern island of Jolo on June 28 in an attack that also killed three soldiers and two civilians, the police and military said.

“We can now confirm… the incidence of the first suicide bombing in the Philippines, perpetrated by a Filipino in the person of Norman Lasuca,” military spokesman Brigadier General Edgard Arevalo told a news conference.

UN rapporteur urges US action over Khashoggi report

Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz also calls on UN member states to take report ‘more seriously’.

UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard and Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, have warned that democratic values worldwide would be at risk should Saudi Arabia escape accountability for his murder.

At an event in London on Tuesday evening, they called on the international community to act upon a report published by Callamard on June 19. Her six-month investigation concluded the disappearance of the Saudi journalist was a state killing, carried out by agents of Saudi Arabia using state resources.

High court nixes call to halt nuclear reactors in southwestern Japan

The Fukuoka High Court upheld Wednesday a lower court decision to reject a call by local residents to suspend operation of nuclear reactors in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Saga.

Some 170 residents had appealed the Saga District Court decision in 2017, seeking an injunction to halt the operation of the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at the Genkai nuclear power plant run by Kyushu Electric Power Co, citing safety concerns.

The plaintiffs argued that the utility underestimates potential effects of seismic ground motion, a key factor in a reactor’s quake-resistance design, while degradation in piping could lead to serious accidents.

 

Jul 09 2019

Tired Of Waiting For Nancy

After crushing the Republicans in 2018 and beating them on the Government Shutdown over Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s Giant Penis Wall of Hate, why has she turned into such a lying coward?

Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, and It’s With Her Own Party’s Future
by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept
July 7 2019

In the wake of November’s midterms, Pelosi mocked calls from AOC and her allies for a Green New Deal: “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”

To be clear: None of these freshmen Democrats have personally attacked Pelosi, and all four of them backed her bid for the speakership. As CNN’s Nathan McDermott tweeted, “It is pretty notable that the most vocally anti-Pelosi Democrats (ala the moderates in swing districts who opposed her leadership) don’t get as much criticism from her as the left-wing of the party.”

How about Donald Trump? Pelosi is willing to criticize Trump — “I’ve never encountered, thought about, seen within the realm of my experiences as a child or an adult, anybody like this” — but only criticize. Nothing more. Not impeachment, that’s for sure. The top Democrat in the House told Dowd that the president has engaged in criminal behavior but — wait for it — “you can’t impeach everybody.”

The New York Times interview is yet another reminder for liberals and leftists that if they want to oppose Trump, they have to oppose Pelosi too.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider three recent — and shameful — episodes.

First, the rape allegations against the president. On June 21, New York magazine published a cover story from the famed advice columnist and writer E. Jean Carroll, in which she documented in excruciating detail how Trump, back in the mid-1990s, forced “his penis halfway” inside of her in the midst of a “colossal struggle” in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.

Pelosi’s response to a reporter who asked her for comment a whole six days later? “I don’t know the person making the accusation … I haven’t paid that much attention to it.”
…
Now, she tells Dowd: “I respect the case she has but I don’t see any role for Congress.”

The sitting Republican president has been credibly accused of having committed a sexual assault and yet Congress, says the Democratic speaker of the House, has no “role” in holding him to account for it. Oh, and the speaker herself hasn’t been paying “attention to it.”

This, my dear liberals, is your (feminist) champion.

Second, the crisis at the border. One of the reasons Pelosi cited for not being familiar with the E. Jean Carroll story was that she was “busy worrying about children not being in their mothers’ arms.” Yet on that same day, as the New York Times reported, Pelosi “capitulated to Republicans and Democratic moderates and dropped her insistence on stronger protections for migrant children in overcrowded border shelters” by signing onto a bill from the Republican-led Senate, giving the Trump administration $4.6 billion to tackle the situation on the southern border.

Last time I checked, though, this administration’s horrific decision to separate migrant children from their parents had nothing to do with a lack of funds. “The cruelty is the point,” as the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer so memorably put it. Plus, 18 so-called “centrist” Democrats pushed Pelosi into dropping her objections to the Senate bill and yet in her New York Times interview, the speaker decided to level her attack on — you guessed it — the Squad. They made themselves irrelevant and shouldn’t have voted against “our bill,” she told Dowd, adding: “They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Yet they were far from alone in opposing Pelosi’s decision. “The final vote, 305 to 102,” reported the Times on June 27, “included far more Republicans in favor, 176, than Democrats, 129.”

Meanwhile, over at the border, children continue to be starved, women continue to drink out of toilet bowls, and men continue to be held in standing-room-only conditions. The Trump administration is now contemplating mass video proceedings for immigrants seeking asylum.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.
…
Third, Trump’s tax returns. Last Tuesday, almost exactly six months after Democrats won control of the House, they finally took the president of the United States to court to try to force disclosure of his financial records. Trump administration officials and Trump’s army of personal lawyers have offered a range of excuses for refusing to release these records — and for defying congressional subpoenas in the process. But as Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern has noted, one in particular stands out from the rest.

On June 10, in an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Trump’s lawyers contested the claim that the House’s impeachment power could justify subpoenaing the president’s financial records while gleefully pointing out to the judge that impeachment is not even on the table.
…
Is it not a source of shame for rank-and-file Democrats, whether on the left or in the “center,” that Trump lawyers are citing Pelosi’s refusal to impeach him as their defense in court? As their justification for ignoring congressional subpoenas?

Meanwhile, Pelosi herself continues to duck and dodge the arguments in favor of impeachment — even when she happens to be the one making them. “The thing is that, he every day practically self-impeaches by obstructing justice and ignoring the subpoenas,” she told the Times.

Sorry, what is she on about? I may not be a U.S. citizen yet, or speaker of the House of Representatives for that matter, but I have read the U.S. Constitution from beginning to end, and I have yet to come across the clause that refers to “self-impeachment.”

So forget the “you-go-girl memes for literally clapping back at Trump” that Dowd fawns over in her interview with the speaker. It is time for liberals and leftists who lambast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to admit to themselves that the hippie-punching Pelosi has become a Trump enabler too.

In not unrelated news, Tom Steyer announced his candidacy today. His Net Worth is estimated at $1.6 Billion but he’s not just self financing, I’ll bet he never spends a penny and does it with donations.

Institutional Democrats better WAKE UP! Upwards of 80% of Party members are in favor of Impeachment and if you think you won’t get a Primary on the Left you are sadly mistaken.

Unlike you we are not cowards and sell-outs.

Jul 09 2019

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Trump and the Merchants of Detention

Every betrayal seems to profit the president and his friends.

Is it cruelty, or is it corruption? That’s a question that comes up whenever we learn about some new, extraordinary abuse by the Trump administration — something that seems to happen just about every week. And the answer, usually, is “both.”

For example, why is the administration providing cover for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, who almost surely ordered the murder of The Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi? Part of the answer, probably, is that Donald Trump basically approves of the idea of killing critical journalists. But the money the Saudi monarchy spends at Trump properties is relevant, too.

And the same goes for the atrocities the U.S. is committing against migrants from Central America. Oh, and save the fake outrage. Yes, they are atrocities, and yes, the detention centers meet the historical definition of concentration camps.

One reason for these atrocities is that the Trump administration sees cruelty both as a policy tool and as a political strategy: Vicious treatment of refugees might deter future asylum-seekers, and in any case it helps rev up the racist base. But there’s also money to be made, because a majority of detained migrants are being held in camps run by corporations with close ties to the Republican Party.

James P. Donhue: The Federalist Society just became a no-go zone for federal judges

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement issued in November, countering a reference by President Trump to an “Obama judge.”

In my experience, federal judges work diligently to keep their personal views out of the judicial process. They would be appalled by the thought that simply noting the president who appointed them is all the public needs to know about what went into a decision. Yet, as much as Roberts and others on the federal bench bemoan attempts to reduce the judiciary to just another political institution, some judges have themselves contributed to the problem.

They have done so as members of the Federalist Society, a network of conservative and libertarian lawyers and legal scholars — it claims 60,000 members — that calls itself a nonpartisan educational organization but increasingly appears to be a political operation in all but name.

Continue reading

Jul 09 2019

Why does any of this surprise you?

The man cheats at Golf.

Donald Trump’s origin story suffers another severe blow
By Aaron Blake, Washington Post
July 8, 2019

The Washington Post’s Michael Kranish reported that Trump’s admission to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance — one of Trump’s go-to brags to play up his credentials — was hardly the feat he has claimed. In fact, Trump leaned on his older brother’s friendship with an admissions officer to get into the school. And even then, he was clearing a much lower bar than exists for acceptance to the prestigious school today.
…
Trump has said he went to “the hardest school to get into, the best school in the world,” calling it “super genius stuff.” Nolan counters that “it was not very difficult” to get into Wharton in 1966 and added of his interview with Trump: “I certainly was not struck by any sense that I’m sitting before a genius. Certainly not a super genius.”

It’s hardly a surprise that Trump’s academic record isn’t as stellar as he has made it out to be. We have already seen reporting establish that he wasn’t nearly as successful at Wharton as he has occasionally suggested or led reporters to believe.

But this new report feeds into a fast-emerging trend when it comes to President Trump’s telling of his biography. While he often plays up the singularity of his intellect and achievements, reporting shows he routinely relied on family or other connections at key junctures and has inflated the early successes that resulted.

The most direct parallel seems to be Trump’s medical deferment from the Vietnam War. After getting four educational deferments, he got a fifth thanks to a diagnosis of bone spurs. The New York Times reported last year that the children of the doctor who provided that diagnosis told them it was done as a favor to Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr. — the successful real estate businessman who also accompanied his son to the Penn interview. (The elder Trump was the podiatrist’s landlord.)

The new report by Kranish also recalls perhaps the biggest revelation undercutting Trump’s self-published origin story: how he became wealthy in the first place. While Trump has claimed he got only a $1 million loan to start out with, the Times detailed how the younger Trump “received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.” The paper said these tax dodges included “instances of outright fraud.”

And when it comes to Trump’s education, he has apparently gone to great lengths to obscure the record and seems to have tapped powerful connections in the process, as The Post’s Marc Fisher detailed in March. The New York Military Academy, which Trump attended before college, moved its Trump files to a more secure location amid pressure from wealthy Trump allies. Around the same time that was revealed, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who flipped on Trump and pleaded guilty to several crimes, released a 2015 letter he wrote threatening Fordham University with legal action if Trump’s records were released.

The combined picture is one of a president who may not have been able to attend Penn or assemble anywhere close to such a fortune without familial connections. Without those, he also may have instead been serving in Vietnam around this same time.

That’s hardly the story of a self-made, brilliant budding real estate tycoon. It’s a story that apparently could have gone much differently if its protagonist were not born a Trump.

People make a big deal about the “hidden mysteries of Masonry.” There’s really not much that is “secret”. I’d be happy to tell you anything I know that you want to (and I was Master of my Lodge so I was supposed to know everything) except the Grips and Words.

Now the words are nonsense, gibberish, and the Grips are silly.

But the point to a Mason is this- If you can’t be trusted to keep a few random syllables and a stupid pre-Dapping handshake variation in confidence…

Well, what exactly can you be trusted with?

Just so with Golf. A good walk spoiled is probably the most charitable definition, none of the people I play with take it seriously at all, even the scratch Golfers who simply ignore the rest of us. We score using the Murray Method- Fairway, Into the Trap, Into the Trap, Over the Green, 3 Putts… That’s a 5 (What? Eight is not 5? You need some more time in Room 101 to think about it.).

I hope the metaphor is clear. Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio lies about everything, big or small, important or not.

Jul 09 2019

Cartnoon

Not as funny as you think.

Jul 09 2019

The Breakfast Club (Moonless Midnight)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo stress free zone_zps7hlsflkj.jpg

This Day in History

William Jennings Bryan gives his ‘Cross of Gold’ speech; Britain’s Princess Elizabeth engaged; Boxer Mike Tyson punished for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear; Actor Tom Hanks born; Actor Rod Steiger dies.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind.

Dean Koontz

Continue reading

Jul 09 2019

Six In The Morning Tuesday 9 July 2019

 

Hong Kong extradition bill ‘is dead’ says Carrie Lam

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has said the controversial bill that would have allowed extradition to the Chinese mainland “is dead”.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Ms Lam said the government’s work on the bill had been a “total failure”.

But she stopped short of saying it had been withdrawn completely, as protesters have been demanding.

The bill sparked weeks of unrest in the city and the government had already suspended it indefinitely.

“But there are still lingering doubts about the government’s sincerity or worries whether the government will restart the process in the Legislative Council,” Ms Lam told reporters.

South Korean TV star resigns after spycam scandal

Kim Sung-joon was allegedly caught photographing a woman in a subway station, the latest in a string of ‘molka’ incidents

 in Tokyo

A well-known South Korean broadcaster has resigned after allegedly taking photographs of a woman’s “lower body” without her knowledge, in the latest molka voyeurism scandal to hit the country.

Kim Sung-joon submitted his resignation to Seoul Broadcasting System [SBS] on Monday after he was reportedly caught taking the photographs with his mobile phone at a subway station in the South Korean capital last week, Yonhap news agency said.

He was apprehended shortly after the alleged incident after a witness warned the women she was being photographed and called police, it added.

Free trade or environment

by Serge Halimi
Europe’s Greens revived the old debate on the political positioning of their movement when they won 10% of seats in the new European Parliament. Is it leftwing, as most of its alliances to date suggest? Or is it neoliberal, given that several of its former leaders, including Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Pascal Canfin and Pascal Durand, have since joined forces with Emmanuel Macron, and that some coalitions in Germany include rightwing parties as well as the Greens?
At first glance, neoliberalism and ecology seem like an odd match. In 2003 Milton Friedman, the father of neoliberalism, said, ‘The environment is a greatly overstated problem … We cause pollution just by breathing. We can’t close all the factories on the grounds that it will stop CO2 emissions. We might as well go and hang ourselves right away’ (1). A decade earlier, Gary Becker, another winner of the Nobel for economics and outspoken critic of what is now called ‘punitive ecology’, wrote that labour legislation and environmental protection were now excessive in most developed countries. He hoped that free trade would curb some of the excesses by forcing everyone to stay competitive with imports from developing countries (2).

Illegal Japanese manga site manager arrested in the Philippines

A man who ran an illegal online manga comic library read by around 100 million people each month has been arrested in Manila, Philippine authorities said Tuesday.

Romi Hoshino, 28, managed “Manga Mura” (Manga village), which shut down on its own in April last year as Japan launched a manhunt for the website’s founder for massive violation of copyright.

About 100 million people each month used the popular pirate website, which made around 60,000 manga — Japanese graphic novels or comics — available to the public for free immediately after publication.

Manga publishers lost about 320 billion yen ($2.94 billion) in potential revenues over a six-month period to February 2018 alone, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association said.

‘Americanized’ anti-abortion protests are on the rise in the UK. But a fight back has begun

By Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Updated 0522 GMT (1322 HKT) July 9, 2019

Monika Neall was standing outside an abortion clinic in Manchester when she saw a woman in her mid-20s dart out the doors. The woman moved towards a parked car, then suddenly froze.

On the ground nearby lay plastic fetus models, candles and images of mothers gazing adoringly at babies. Panicking, she caught Neall’s eye. “That’s my car,” she said, her voice starting to crack.
Most Saturday mornings, Neall puts on a pink vest and joins a small group of women from the volunteer organization Sister Supporter. They stand outside the Marie Stopes clinic in the northern English city to oppose the anti-abortion protests that are held there weekly.

23 US governors join Calif. in opposing Trump mileage freeze

 ELLEN KNICKMEYER,Associated Press

Citing climate-damaging tailpipe emissions, 23 U.S. governors signed a pledge backing California leaders in their showdown with the Trump administration over its plans to relax vehicle mileage standards.

The stand by leaders of states and Puerto Rico — nearly all Democrats — comes as the Trump administration moves to freeze tougher mileage standards laid out by former President Barack Obama, in one of the previous administration’s key efforts against climate change.

The Trump administration says American consumers increasingly want bigger, gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks. It also argues that demanding ever-more fuel-efficient vehicles will drive up automobile costs and keep less-safe, older vehicles on the road longer. Many engineers have challenged that claim.

 

 

 

Jul 08 2019

Ain’t No Rest For Wicked, Until We Close Our Eyes For Good

 

By The Sea required much more effort than I expected and the time I didn’t spend being busy I spent recovering from being busy so- no posting.

Told you it would be a crap shoot.

I have to go back in 2 weeks to finish anyway and I have other agendas to pursue which I am doing as I write actually so expect things to be some better, but not much.

Things got so hectic that I have no idea if John Oliver was new yesterday or not and I didn’t get to see a minute of the World Cup Final (congratulations USWNT). I’ll attempt to catch up a bit tonight.

Jul 08 2019

The Breakfast Club (Failures)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo stress free zone_zps7hlsflkj.jpg

This Day in History

Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Tokyo Bay; Industrialist John D. Rockefeller born; Word of what becomes known as ‘The Roswell Incident’; North Korea’s Kim Il Sung dies; Ziegfeld stages first ‘Follies.’

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

War is failure of diplomacy.

John Dingell

Continue reading

Jul 08 2019

Six In The Morning Monday 7 July 2019

 

Trump warns Iran ‘better be careful’ on nuclear enrichment

US warning comes after Iran announces it will begin enriching uranium beyond a cap set in the 2015 nuclear deal.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has warned Iran it “better be careful” after Tehran announced it would begin enriching uranium beyond a limit set in an international nuclear accord.

Trump last year unilaterally abandoned the 2015 deal and reinstated punishing sanctions on Iran, prompting it to announce in May a phased reduction of compliance with the landmark pact.

On Sunday, Iran said it was hours away from passing the 3.67 percent uranium enrichment cap set in the deal, and threatened to keep reducing its commitments every 60 days unless the remaining signatories to the accord  – United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China – protected it from US sanctions.

Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war is ‘large-scale murdering enterprise’ says Amnesty

New report details systematic killing of poor and calls for UN investigation into crimes against humanity

, south-east Asia correspondent

The president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is carrying out a “large-scale murdering enterprise” and should be investigated by the UN for crimes against humanity, according to a new Amnesty report into his so-called war on drugs.

It has been three years since Duterte pledged to wipe out drug abuse in the Philippines by giving police unprecedented powers and near total impunity to kill any suspected drug addicts or dealers. Amnesty’s new report detailed how the systematic killing of the urban poor has continued on such a scale it now amounts to crimes against humanity.

The report told of nightly incidents where police would shoot defenceless suspects, or abduct them and take them to other locations where they would be shot. It found crime scenes were tampered with, evidence fabricated or planted and there was no accountability for the killing of suspects.

Greek conservatives score ‘clear victory’ in snap election

The opposition New Democracy party has won the highest share of the country’s vote, beating out the ruling Syriza party, according to official projections. The party’s leader said he “will not fail to honor your hopes.”

With more than 90% of the votes counted, Greece’s conservative New Democracy (ND) is set to win the country’s parliamentary elections, beating Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party.

Greek Interior Ministry projections showed ND with 39.8% of the vote, ahead of Syriza’s 31.5%.

Outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras conceded defeat to his opponent on Sunday evening, saying “we accept the verdict of the people.”

Venezuela opposition says it will meet Maduro envoys in Barbados for next round of talks

Venezuela’s opposition will meet with representatives of President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Barbados for talks mediated by Norway, the parties involved said on Sunday, as part of efforts to resolve an ongoing political crisis.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognised as Venezuela‘s rightful leader by more than 50 governments, has said any talks must lead to a sustained solution to the crisis and cannot be used by the Socialist Party to buy time.

“The Venezuelan people, our allies and the world’s democracies recognise the need for a truly free and transparent electoral process that will allow us to surpass the crisis and build a productive future,” Guaido’s office said in a statement.

She She Wrote a poem about a vagina. It landed her in jail

By Alice McCool, for CNN

How do women get men who are standing in the way of gender equality to listen to them? Grab them by their genitalia.
That’s the radical suggestion offered by jailed Ugandan feminist Stella Nyanzi.
“Unless you grab and squeeze hard, they’re not listening,” she said, wearing traditional African kitenge, red lipstick and a wry smile before a recent court hearing.
The academic, who has been in Luzira Women’s Prison for eight months, is on trial after the government accused her of “cyber harassment and offensive communication” for penning and posting a poem on Facebook.

Journalist Ito says she was ‘desperate to protect’ herself from rape

Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, who has accused a prominent former television reporter of rape, said in a damages lawsuit Monday that she tried to stop him and was “desperate to protect” herself.

The 30-year-old Ito is seeking 11 million yen in compensation from Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former reporter at Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc, known as TBS. Yamaguchi has denied any unlawful act, saying his act was based on consent.

“I felt dizzy when I was dining together (with Yamaguchi), and when I woke up at a hotel I was being raped,” Ito said in a hearing at the Tokyo District Court. “I was desperate to protect my body, telling him to ‘stop.'”

 

 

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