Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, January 27, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Feel Right by Mark Ronson ft. Mystikal
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Netanyahu to American Jews: Get Lost
By David Corn
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For the past six years, one big question has largely defined US politics: Are you for or against Obama? The ongoing narrative in Washington has been a simple one: The president has tried to enact a progressive agenda—health care, gun safety, a minimum-wage hike, climate change action, immigration reform, Wall Street reform, gender pay equity, expanded education programs, diminishing tax cuts for the rich—and Boehner and the Republicans have consistently plotted to thwart him. The GOP has used the filibuster in the Senate to block Obama initiatives and routine presidential appointments. The House Republicans have resorted to extraordinary means—shutting down the government, holding the debt ceiling hostage, ginning up controversies (Benghazi!)—to block the president. All this has happened as conservative allies of the Republican Party have challenged Obama's legitimacy as president (the birth certificate) and peddled vicious conspiracy theories (he's a Muslim socialist who will destroy the nation). Throughout the Obama Wars, one demographic group that has steadfastly stood with the president is American Jews.
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The clear conclusion is that despite Republican efforts to target Jewish voters and to paint the president as somehow anti-Israel, the Jewish vote is not up for grabs. In fact, there has been a remarkable consistency in the Jewish vote for Congress over the past three elections as measured by GBA surveys, including 66 percent for Democrats in 2010, 69 percent in 2012, and 69 percent in 2014.
And there's this. The poll asked American Jews to cite two issues of importance to them. Only 8 percent mentioned Israel, which put this subject in 10th place, far behind the economy and health care. Another survey conducted earlier in 2014 showed American Jewish voters overwhelmingly supporting Obama and listing the economy and the growing gap between the rich and poor as their top issues. As the New York Times reported, "Concern about Israel or Iran ranked very low, even when respondents were asked for the second most important issue that would determine their vote for president." The paper quoted Robert Jones, head of the Public Religious Research Institute: "We show no slippage in Jewish support for President Obama."
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The leader of a foreign country ought to place his own assessment of national security imperatives first. But the relationship between the Israeli government and American Jews is an important and sensitive matter for both sides—and perhaps more so for Tel Aviv. After all, Israel, which receives about $3 billion in US aid annually, needs the United States more than vice versa. Yet Netanyahu has decided to snub American Jews and to insult the leader they strongly back. This speech might help Netanyahu in the Israeli elections; it could also backfire if Israeli voters decide to punish him for further weakening Israel's special relationship with Washington. But Netanyahu's scheming with Boehner against Obama could also end up alienating many American Jews from the Israeli government. By enlisting with Boehner, Netanyahu is conveying a brazen sign of disrespect for a community he and his country depend upon. What chutzpah.
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China coal production falls for first time this century
By (BusinessGreen)
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The China National Coal Association (CNCA) predicted that full year production will fall 2.5% year-on-year. Meanwhile, Jiang Zhimin vice president at the CNCA, told news agency Xinhua that the sector expected production to decline by a further 2.5% this year.
The industry maintains that it has been hit by a number of one-off factors, such as high rainfall leading to high levels of hydro-electric production that has in turn impacted demand for coal. Similarly, government restrictions on the export of low-quality coal hit a market that was already suffering as coal prices fell by around 20%.
However, Xinhua acknowledged that much of the pressure on the coal industry is the result of demanding new environmental regulations from the Chinese government and increased investment in renewable energy, that has made China the world’s largest investor in clean technologies.
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Twitter launches video uploads and group DMs
By Alex Hern
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The new video functionality will let users upload 30-second non-looping videos, which can be played directly in their timelines. The company describes it as existing “alongside”, rather than instead of, Twitter-owned six-second video service Vine.
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Alongside the video uploads comes group DMs. Twitter users will be able to add multiple followers into the group chats, who can then add their own followers in turn. The company sees the feature as enabling deeper private conversations about public content on the site, rather than as a move to challenge messaging behemoths like Facebook’s WhatsApp or Google’s Hangouts.
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The decision to add new features to DMs is a major reversal from just a few months ago, when the functionality was neglected almost to the point of death. For almost all of 2014, an over-fierce anti-spam feature in the service prevented any links being sent in DM except to a select few whitelisted sites; the service has also been beset with bugs related to unread messages, and mysteriously deletes old messages at will.
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Not everyone will be happy about the announcements. Third-party app developers, already feeling the squeeze from limitations on the number of users they can have, will be locked out of the new features at launch, and may never receive full access to them.
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Auschwitz survivor has her 'revenge', 70 years on from liberation
By Clare Rawlinson
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When the Soviets freed Auschwitz prisoners on January 27, 1945, Eva Slonim was 12 years old.
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"I promised those who, with their last breath when they were dying, said 'tell the world so this will never happen again'," she said.
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When asked what gave her strength in Auschwitz, Eva Slonim said she and her sister were stronger together than they would have been alone.
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Ms Slonim was eventually reunited with her parents after the Holocaust, but they never spoke about what any of them endured.
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Ms Slonim takes comfort in the knowledge she kept a promise she made to herself after the Holocaust: to have a big family, and to fill her life with love.
"That's my revenge. I wouldn't touch anybody, I wouldn't hurt anybody but I would reproduce what was so terribly lost," she said.
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Why the Time Seems Right for a Space-Based Internet Service
By Dave Majumdar
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Providing Internet access from orbiting satellites—a concept that seemed to have died with the excesses of the dot-com boom—has returned thanks to SpaceX founder (and dot-com billionaire) Elon Musk. And while such a service would be expensive and risky to deploy, recent technological trends mean it’s no longer so out-of-this-world.
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But some things have changed since the late 1990s. For one thing, satellite technology has advanced, bringing the cost of deployment down significantly. Toaster-sized micro-satellites can be launched dozens at a time, and don’t have to operate at very high orbits, reducing launch costs, but they can deliver performance comparable to larger, older satellites at higher altitudes.
SpaceX and Virgin Galactic also hope to ride a different boom by targeting parts of the world where there is little infrastructure and a huge opportunity for Internet growth. Satellite services remain less economical in areas where fiber-optic networks are in place, but Musk has stated that his Internet service would be aimed primarily at providing service to remote areas of the globe.
Musk and Branson are not alone in recognizing the market potential. Besides investing in Musk’s project, Google is working on a high-altitude balloon-based Internet delivery system called Loon. And Facebook is developing high-altitude, high-endurance drones to deliver Internet capability to remote areas. The Google and Facebook projects would be similar in concept to the space-based systems, while operating within the Earth’s atmosphere.
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International |
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Greece's new government halts sale of Piraeus port
By (Al Jazeera)
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Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has named a cabinet of anti-austerity veterans and halted privatisation of the country's biggest port, indicating he aims to stick to election pledges despite warnings from the euro zone and financial markets.
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One of the first decisions announced by the new government was stopping the planned sale of a 67 percent stake in the Piraeus Port Authority (OLPr.AT), agreed under its international bailout deal for which China's Cosco Group COSCO.UL and four other suitors had been shortlisted.
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Tsipras has also promised that he will scrap unpopular crisis-era taxes, prompting critics to question how he will be able to afford his lavish social spending while battling depleting cash coffers and exasperated foreign lenders.
Syriza is also expected to freeze public sector layoffs as demanded under the bailout, and stop an unpopular evaluation process for civil servants.
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South Sudan militia frees first group of child soldiers - UN
By (BBC)
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A South Sudanese militia has freed 280 child soldiers as part of a wider deal to release about 3,000 underage fighters, the UN's children agency Unicef has said.
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Fighting began after President Salva Kiir accused his deputy of trying to foment a coup, triggering a descent into nationwide violence and forcing about 1.5 million people from their homes.
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"These children have been forced to do and see things no child should ever experience," said Unicef's South Sudan representative, Jonathan Veitch.
Unicef said it was trying to reunite the demobilised child soldiers with their families.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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It looks like Americans might be stuck eating Hershey's from now on
By Sara Yasin
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Cadbury’s products made overseas will no longer be available in the US, after Hershey’s Company struck a deal recently with Let’s Buy British Imports. The deal also means the end of British-made KitKat bars and Rolos, as well as a long list of wonderful British chocolate bars — like Toffee Crisps, Yorkie, and Maltesers — for being competitors to American products.
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Cadbury still makes candy bars in the United States, mind you. But they're not the same as the ones coming from Britain.
British chocolate bars tend to have higher fat content, and creamier texture. That’s because the UK requires that their chocolate have a minimum of 25 percent fat, and 20 percent cocoa and milk solids.
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Social media users are now calling for a boycott of Hershey products . . .
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Comcast ghost-wrote politicians' letters in support of Time Warner Cable merge
By Cory Doctorow
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Letters sent to the FCC in favor of Comcast's proposed Time Warner Cable merger came from Mayor Jere Wood of Roswell, GA; Councilor Todd Wodraska of Jupiter, FL; Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown and many other politicians -- all written in whole or part by Comcast's staffers and lobbyists.
. . . Many of the politicians who wrote in support of the merger are also recipients of campaign funds from Comcast. . .
Records obtained by The Verge show that Secretary of State Brown's letter to the agency was almost wholly written by a Comcast Government Affairs specialist. After a conversation with Brown’s staff, the Comcast official sent Brown a letter he had prewritten for her that even included her typed sign-off, name, and title. Brown’s office sent the Comcast document — containing just three sentences with new or altered language — to the FCC emblazoned with the official seal of the State of Oregon.
Since 2008, Comcast has contributed nearly $10,000 to Brown's two campaigns for secretary of state. . .
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
Is Mark Ronson the hardest-working producer in the music business? In pursuit of the perfect groove, the British/American DJ and guitarist helped launch the careers of Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and Wale. A star-studded fourth solo album, Uptown Special, is due in January through RCA. To complete the record, Ronson, 39, ping-ponged between London and Brooklyn, and road-tripped up the Mississippi auditioning unknown church singers, and hit up legendary studios from coast to coast.
. . . it’s the American South that looms largest over the album. “The music that we love somehow has its roots in the South,” Ronson says. “Whether it became rock 'n' roll or gospel, that is where all our shit comes from.” Ronson recorded much of Uptown Special at Memphis’ storied Royal Studios, which has hosted giants like Al Green and Chuck Berry. A chance encounter with Mystikal at the studio led to the rapper throwing down on “Feel Right,” which, with its sweaty horn section and call-and-response parts, is James Brown for the post-crunk era.
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Filming the journey as they went along, Ronson and Bhasker drove up the Mississippi River over the course of nine days, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Jackson, St. Louis, Little Rock, and up to Chicago. They scouted choir singers at churches, local community centers, and side rooms of sports bars, where “Lil Wayne would be blasting through the glass doors,” Ronson says. “People were trying to sing as loud as they could over the music that was coming through. We saw so many great singers.”
In Jackson, at Mississippi State University, they found Starr, a preacher’s daughter with a big spiky earring. She'd been shunned from her church after getting pregnant. “She just looked so badass. I remember thinking: it would be awesome if this one could sing really great,” Ronson says. “She just opened her mouth and she had it instantly. I’m so drawn to singers with rasp and something broken in their voice, where you really hear the rawness.”
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Fish catch break on world stage at global conference
By (ScienceDaily)
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Inland fishing -- the powerful yet quieter sister to the large, salty marine aquaculture powerhouse -- has gained what experts say is a much-needed visibility boost this as the first partnership between Michigan State University (MSU) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations goes on in Rome.
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Inland fisheries and the freshwater lakes and streams that sustain them, meanwhile, support many local economies in Michigan and elsewhere through agriculture, tourism, industry, and energy generation. Many communities continue to directly tap the Great Lakes for their municipal water supplies.
"The world's poor, hungry, and disenfranchised -- often the people most dependent on inland fisheries -- are the very people whose voices most need to heard and represented by us to those who will make decisions affecting them," said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, who delivered the conference's opening address Monday. "Inland fisheries have long been a quiet but important component in food and economic security around the world. Yet the voices of those most dependent on these resources often are at risk of being drowned out by louder, more powerful interests."
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One of the largest issues is the dearth of hard numbers on inland fisheries. Taylor, who has established an international reputation in inland fisheries, says that his research group recently reported that globally, just 156 of more than 230 countries and territories reported their inland capture fisheries production to the FAO in 2010. Moreover, even those reporting have inaccurate and grossly underestimated data.
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This Map Shows Why The Midwest Is Screwed
By Tim McDonnell
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The ongoing drought in California has been, among other things, a powerful lesson in how vulnerable America's agricultural sector is to climate change. Even if that drought wasn't specifically caused by man-made global warming, scientists have little doubt that droughts and heat waves are going to get more frequent and severe in important crop-growing regions. . .
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The report is all about climate impacts expected in the Midwest, and the big takeaway is that future generations have lots of very sweaty summers in store. . .
But some of the most troublesome findings are about agriculture. Some places will fare better than others; northern Minnesota, for example, could very well find itself benefiting from global warming. But overall, the report says, extreme heat, scarcer water resources, and weed and insect invasions will drive down corn and soybean yields by 11 to 69 percent by the century's end. Note that these predictions assume no "significant adaptation," so there's an opportunity to soften the blow with solutions like better water management, switching to more heat-tolerant crops like sorghum, or the combination of genetic engineering and data technology now being pursued by Monsanto.
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We are literally breaking polar bear penises now
By Ted Alvarez
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. . . In case you weren’t convinced that humans are just the worst, new research shows we’re not content to merely melt polar bear habitat by rollin’ coal — we are literally giving the beleaguered species a kick in the dick. The Arctic’s high concentration of chemical pollutants known as PCBs makes polar bear baculums — a.k.a. penis bones a.k.a. bear boners a.k.a. bruin bananas a.k.a. ursine upright citizens — go soft. From New Scientist:
Christian Sonne at Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues had previously shown that polar bears with high levels of pollutants called organohalogens in their bodies had both smaller testes and a smaller penis bone.
Sonne and his team have now shown that a particular class of organohalogens, the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), is associated with a less dense baculum. This could prevent successful mating, the team suggest.
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Science and Health |
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Ancient star system reveals Earth-sized planets forming near start of universe
By (ScienceDaily)
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The star, named Kepler-444, hosts five planets smaller than Earth, with sizes varying between those of Mercury and Venus.
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"It is extraordinary that such an ancient system of terrestrial-sized planets formed when the universe was just starting out, at a fifth its current age. Kepler-444 is two and a half times older than our solar system, which is only a youthful 4.5 billion years old.
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"In the case of Kepler-444 the planets orbit their parent star in less than 10 days, at less than one-tenth the Earth's distance from the Sun. Their closeness to their host star means they are uninhabitable because of the lack of liquid water and high levels of radiation. Nevertheless, discoveries like Kepler-444 provide important clues on whether a planet that is more truly comparable to Earth may exist. "We're another step closer towards finding the astronomers' holy grail -- an Earth-sized planet with a one year orbit around a star similar to our Sun."
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Vouchers 'boost quit rates' in pregnant smokers
By Jane Dreaper
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More than 20% of the women offered vouchers stopped smoking, compared with 9% given normal NHS support alone.
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The financial incentive group received that standard support - as well as £50 in their first appointment, £50 if a breath test later suggested they had stopped smoking, and then a further £100 after another 12 weeks.
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One of the lead authors, Prof David Tappin, said: "Many of these mothers have inadequate housing, difficult relationships, low self-esteem and only enough income to subsist.
"The money, albeit in the form of vouchers, often lifts the pressure.
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Scientists have found a way to ‘unboil’ eggs – and it could be a life-saver
By Homa Khaleeli
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It sounds like the breakthrough that no one was asking for: scientists have announced they have managed to “unboil” an egg. In a disgusting-sounding experiment that you probably shouldn’t try at home, an international team of researchers have used urea, one of the main components of urine, and a “vortex fluid device” to uncook a hen’s egg. They believe the findings could dramatically reduce costs in processes as far apart as cheese manufacturing and cancer research.
The researchers boiled an egg for 20 minutes, before focusing on returning one protein in the egg white to its previous state. The idea was to combat the difficulties that arise when proteins “misfold”, forcing scientists to use time-consuming methods to untangle misfolded proteins or expensive methods to ensure the proteins don’t get tangled up in the first place.
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The process is a breakthrough because it only takes minutes. Previous methods of refolding proteins can take days and to avoid this scientists rely on expensive production methods. For instance when making cancer antibodies, scientists use expensive hamster ovary cells because they don’t often misfold proteins. Cancer researchers, the pharmaceutical, agricultural and other industries could also save much of the $160bn they spend on proteins each year.
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Technology |
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FCC Finally Lays Down the Law: Hotels Can't Block Wi-Fi
By Kate Knibbs
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The FCC released a blunt warning to hotels today: Stop blocking guests' personal Wi-Fi connections.
"In the 21st century, Wi-Fi represents an essential on-ramp to the Internet. Personal Wi-Fi networks, or "hot spots," are an important way that consumers connect to the Internet. Willful or malicious interference with Wi-Fi spots is illegal," the FCC said in a statement, calling out Marriott for its slimy blocking practices.
Last year, Marriott got fined $600,000 by the FCC for deauthorizing personal hotspots for people who attended a conference in the hotel. This was about money: Marriott charged up to $1000 per device for people to get on the Internet during the conference, so disabling all other points of access forced its guests to pay.
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Facebook censoring images of Tibetan monks who are self-immolating to protest China
By Xeni Jardin
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The nonprofit group International Campaign for Tibet will today deliver a petition to Facebook headquarters demanding that the company not censor images of Tibetan monks’ self-immolation.
“I welcome that Facebook responded to our petition that has received support from all over the world, and appreciate the fact that since then, videos of self immolations have not been removed,” says Matteo Mecacci, president of ICT. “At the same time, we want to take this opportunity to make sure that “graphic concerns” will not be used again to silence Tibetans or any other voices critical of China’s policies.”
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At the ICT website, there's a list of the self-immolations by Tibetans in the PRC since February, 2009. Of the 136 total, all but one took place in Tibet. A separate list tracks self-immolations by Tibetans in exile. |
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Cultural |
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Anita Sarkeesian launching new video series focused on masculinity in games
By Stuart Dredge
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Sarkeesian revealed the new project in the annual report for her Feminist Frequency organisation, as well as her plans to launch another new series focusing on positive female characters in games, while continuing to point out negative examples with new episodes of her existing show.
The organisation is aiming to build on nearly 5.8m views of its YouTube channel in 2014 – a year in which Sarkeesian became a target for harassment from some elements of the online Gamergate campaign.
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“Every time I post anything online there is a predictable wave of harassing messages in response. However, when I publish an episode of Tropes vs Women in Video Games the vicious wave of harassment can carry on for weeks or even months.
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Now a not-for-profit organisation, Feminist Frequency will continue to raise money in 2015 to tackle this and related issues, having received $230k in December 2014 alone, fuelling a proposed budget of $400k for 2015.
“It means more critical media analysis, more videos, and more efforts to raise awareness and develop solutions around the epidemic of online harassment,” wrote Sarkeesian, who also delivered a message of defiance in the annual report.
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Despite first conviction, female genital mutilation remains common in Egypt
By Deena Adel
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Ninety-one percent of Egyptian women ages 15-49 have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), according to data from Egypt’s 2008 Democratic Health Survey. UNICEF reported that as of 2013, Egypt had more than 27.2 million victims of FGM, more than any other country in the world. In this destructive procedure, the female genitals are partially or entirely removed, with one goal: to inhibit a woman’s sexual feelings.
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After reading about the incident in the local paper, a group of campaigners against FGM, including the lawyer Danbouki, lobbied Egypt’s general prosecutor to pursue the case. It wasn’t easy. The first prosecutor they approached was not receptive to the idea. “He himself believed that female circumcision was a necessity,” said el-Danbouki. “So he sympathized with the doctor.”
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The initial verdict didn’t go as activists had hoped — both the doctor and the father were acquitted. Lawyers and anti-FGM activists pressed the prosecution to file an appeal, a move that finally reaped success.
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“I know how delicate it is to address cultural norms and traditions here,” said Duamelle, who has been UNICEF’s representative in Egypt for more than four years. “But with all due respect to cultural norms and traditions, those which have such dramatic negative impact on people have to be changed and abandoned.”
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There has recently been a significant drop in the procedure. The most recent survey by the DHS in 2008 found that 74 percent of Egyptian girls ages 15-17 have undergone FGM, compared to the overall figure— which includes older women — of 91 percent. The numbers are lower in wealthier families and women who live in urban areas, as well as girls whose mothers have a high school or college level education. The DHS report also indicated that a further decline is expected in the next 15 years.
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India: Hindus turn to internet for 'mail order prayers'
By (BBC)
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Hindus across India are going online to avoid long pilgrimages to the temple, it's been reported.
A number of religious websites now offer online blessings and "prayers by proxy", the Hindustan Times reports. Hindu devotees can order a puja, or prayer ritual, to celebrate a significant life event, or to seek help with issues ranging from infertility to finding a job. Users provide a few personal details, select the temple of their choice and make an online payment. In return they receive a parcel containing everything they need to carry out a puja from the comfort of home, including a prayer DVD, dried flowers and sandalwood.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |