By Will Carless and Alex Leff
From Globalpost
The Vatican has ordered a diocese in eastern Paraguay to dismiss a priest accused of sexually abusing young men in the United States and has restricted the powers of the bishop who hired him, according to local news reports.
The Ciudad del Este diocese’s reported firing of Argentine priest Carlos Urrutigoity followed a recent investigative report by GlobalPost into his rise to a powerful position in the South American city, despite a string of molestation allegations against him.
The reporting, and local media coverage that followed, unleashed a flood of controversy over the priest’s continued work in the church — where he’d been promoted to the No. 2 post of vicar general.
According to legal documents reviewed by GlobalPost, seminarians in Minnesota and Pennsylvania made allegations against Urrutigoity that included his touching one young man’s genitals and asking another to insert anal suppositories in front of him. Clergy members from Switzerland to Scranton have issued warnings that the Argentine priest is “dangerous” and “a serious threat to young people.”
Urrutigoity has denied the allegations and was never criminally charged. But US activists have campaigned for him to be punished. That movement has gained fierce voices in Paraguay — and it appears to have gotten an answer from the pope.
Ciudad del Este Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano said Urrutigoity had been dismissed as vicar general in early July by request of the Vatican’s representative, Apostolic Nuncio Antonio Ariotti, Paraguay’s Vanguardia newspaper reported Saturday.
Last week, in the middle of the Paraguayan storm, Pope Francis sent a delegation there to check up on the Ciudad del Este church, a visit that the city’s bishop said was unrelated to the scandal. Bishop Livieres has publicly defended Urrutigoity from what he claims is slanderous persecution.
But Francis’ delegates took action against that bishop, too. “At the seminary of Ciudad del Este [the bishop] is going to be suspended for a time from ordaining priests or deacons,” Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello told a news conference Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse.
Javier Miranda, a former volunteer at the diocese who has led a campaign against Urrutigoity and Livieres, said he was delighted with the news that Urrutigoity has been removed. “We are still waiting for a final decision from Rome, but we are very positive, very positive,” Miranda said in a phone interview from Ciudad del Este.
Regarding Livieres, Miranda said the bishop has alienated himself from much of Paraguay’s Catholic Church and even from his own flock. “He has to go,” Miranda said. “He has lost his ministry … the church needs to find a way to solve all of these scandals.”
Some activists want to see tougher measures by the Vatican. “Any time a predator is exposed or suspended, it’s positive,” said David Clohessy, director of the St. Louis-based Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. “But, the real issue is always the enablers. We think the pope needs to punish every high-ranking church official who had anything to do with father Carlos’ continued access to kids.”
That goes for the Ciudad del Este bishop, too, Clohessy added. “Bishops who endanger kids should be fired, plain and simple,” he said.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Boko Haram Insurgency Continues
By Olivia Becker
From Vice News
Boko Haram’s bloody uprising in Nigeria shows no sign of abating, as demonstrated by a recent spate of renewed violence throughout the country over the weekend.
A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Monday at a gas station in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city, killing three people. It is the third bombing attack in Kano in recent days, and the second by a female suicide bomber in the last 48 hours.
On Sunday, a 15-year-old female suicide bomber detonated a bomb near a university, reportedly in an attempt to target police. No one else was killed in the attack, although at least five officers were injured.
Also on Sunday, another militant threw explosives at a Catholic church, killing at least five people and wounding eight, and as many as 200 militants carried out a cross-border raid into neighboring Cameroon, killing at least three people and kidnapping the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister.
“I can confirm that the home of Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali in Kolofata came under a savage attack from Boko Haram militants,” government spokesman Issa Tchiroma, told Reuters. “They unfortunately took away his wife.” A local religious leader was also kidnapped in another attack.
Although Boko Haram has not yet taken responsibility, government officials in both Nigeria and Cameroon have blamed the group. Boko Haram militants have recently increased cross-border incursions into Cameroon, prompting the Cameroonian military to deploy troops to the northern border. They have so far been unsuccessful in stemming the tide of violence that has spread from Nigeria. This is the third Boko Haram attack in Cameroon since Friday.
Tchiroma told reporters on Sunday that the Cameroonian army had taken the town of Kolofata back under control from Boko Haram. The Islamist group has been carrying out a violent insurgency in Nigeria since 2009, mostly concentrating violent attacks in the northeast of the country.
In another attack on Sunday, Boko Haram militants killed as many as 32 people in two villages in the northeastern state of Borno, according to eyewitness reports. These types of attacks have become tragically common, especially in Borno, where many villages in the region are now controlled by the group or have been destroyed.
Although the group’s stated goal is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in the northeast of Nigeria, it appears to be in violent opposition to anything and everything it sees as different from itself, and is committed to using brutality in its campaign. This includes fighting the Nigerian government, Christianity, and Western education.
From Vice News
Boko Haram’s bloody uprising in Nigeria shows no sign of abating, as demonstrated by a recent spate of renewed violence throughout the country over the weekend.
A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Monday at a gas station in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city, killing three people. It is the third bombing attack in Kano in recent days, and the second by a female suicide bomber in the last 48 hours.
On Sunday, a 15-year-old female suicide bomber detonated a bomb near a university, reportedly in an attempt to target police. No one else was killed in the attack, although at least five officers were injured.
Also on Sunday, another militant threw explosives at a Catholic church, killing at least five people and wounding eight, and as many as 200 militants carried out a cross-border raid into neighboring Cameroon, killing at least three people and kidnapping the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister.
“I can confirm that the home of Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali in Kolofata came under a savage attack from Boko Haram militants,” government spokesman Issa Tchiroma, told Reuters. “They unfortunately took away his wife.” A local religious leader was also kidnapped in another attack.
Although Boko Haram has not yet taken responsibility, government officials in both Nigeria and Cameroon have blamed the group. Boko Haram militants have recently increased cross-border incursions into Cameroon, prompting the Cameroonian military to deploy troops to the northern border. They have so far been unsuccessful in stemming the tide of violence that has spread from Nigeria. This is the third Boko Haram attack in Cameroon since Friday.
Tchiroma told reporters on Sunday that the Cameroonian army had taken the town of Kolofata back under control from Boko Haram. The Islamist group has been carrying out a violent insurgency in Nigeria since 2009, mostly concentrating violent attacks in the northeast of the country.
In another attack on Sunday, Boko Haram militants killed as many as 32 people in two villages in the northeastern state of Borno, according to eyewitness reports. These types of attacks have become tragically common, especially in Borno, where many villages in the region are now controlled by the group or have been destroyed.
Although the group’s stated goal is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in the northeast of Nigeria, it appears to be in violent opposition to anything and everything it sees as different from itself, and is committed to using brutality in its campaign. This includes fighting the Nigerian government, Christianity, and Western education.
Tripoli Fire Out of Control
From BBC News
A huge blaze engulfing Libya's
biggest fuel storage facility in the capital, Tripoli, has spread to a second
tank.
Libya's National Oil Company (NOC) has described the fire as "out of control".
It comes hours after the authorities appealed for international assistance to try to contain the blaze.
The government blames clashes between rival militias for starting the fire, which it says may cause a humanitarian and environmental disaster.
At least 97 people have been killed in fighting between rival militia groups battling for control of Tripoli's main airport in the past week.
Evacuation
Firefighters almost managed to put out the blaze when it took hold of a first tank but had to withdraw after fighting resumed in the area, Libyan oil company spokesman Mohamed Al-Harrai told the BBC.
He said shrapnel hit the second fuel tank, igniting it, and the fuel compound was still being hit.
 |
Libyan officials have called on local residents to leave the area within a perimeter of 5km
|
But evacuations could be difficult, warns the BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli, due to the precarious security situation.
The fuel storage site, which belongs to the Brega oil and gas company, is the main hub for distribution of petrol in the city.
It is located on the main airport road, where much of the fighting of the past two weeks between rival militias has been taking place.
Officials have called on the militias to cease fire in order to allow firefighters to do their job.
 |
| Fighting between rival militias in Tripoli and Benghazi has intensified in recent weeks |
 |
| Several people have been injured in shelling near Tripoli airport |
 |
| Dozens of planes have been destroyed in fighting around Libya's main airport |
The government has been unable to disarm the numerous armed groups controlling large parts of the country, which are behind Libya's worst violence since the 2011 uprising that toppled Col Muammar Gaddafi.
It has led some Western governments to urge their nationals to leave and withdraw foreign staff from their embassies in Tripoli.
Libyan government officials have warned of the possibility of a break-up of the country if clashes over Tripoli airport continue.
Members of the Islamist Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR) are trying to seize control of the airport, which has been in the hands of the Zintan militia since the overthrow of Col Gaddafi.
In Benghazi, at least 38 people were killed in clashes between between troops loyal to the Libyan government and Islamist fighters on Sunday.
Rational Paranoia: Why We All Need to Be Afraid of This Ebola Pandemic
 |
| American Dr. Kent Brantly treating a patient infected with Ebola. Dr. Bently tested positive for the disease this past Saturday. Picture from Reuters. |
One
story that has gotten little to no attention has been the rapid spread of the
Ebola virus in Western Africa. This latest outbreak began in the southern
region of Guinea and has spread to neighboring Sierra Leone, Senegal and
Liberia. Since the beginning there have been 314 deaths in Guinea, 127 in
Liberia, and 219 fatalities in Sierra Leone.
On its face this pandemic seems like a minor scare. As of July 24th 660 people have died over the course of four months. Compared to the current fighting in Gaza, which has left over a thousand dead in just over two weeks of violence, 660 can seem like an insignificant number. But it’s not the number of people who have died or the period of time they died in that makes this disease so deadly. Instead it’s Ebola’s potential to decimate entire communities that makes it such a public menace.
Ebola has a fatality rate between 50 and 90%. Oh, and there’s no vaccine or cure. In addition it has an R knot of 2-7 and an incubation period of one to two weeks. That means a person infected with Ebola will transmit the disease to two to seven healthy humans. Its slow incubation period means that a subject may be infected and contagious for an estimated ten days before they even become aware that they carry the deadly contagion.
 |
| Electron micrograph of an Ebola Virus. |
So far the human community has been relatively lucky that this fatal disease has been confined to largely rural areas. Prior to the 2014 outbreak in Western Africa, patients who contracted Ebola were mostly limited to agrarian communities. People in agrarian communities have less frequent interaction with each other than their counterparts in urban areas. The less dense areas allow for less contact between the healthy and infected. Additionally, the inhabitants of the more impoverished farming communities of Africa are less likely to travel great distances. These factors slow the rate of transmission down to manageable levels, and isolate the disease to areas where its spread is limited to the surrounding region and community.
 |
| CDC Map of the Current Crisis, darker highlighted areas are regions with confirmed cases, while lighter highlighted areas have reported unconfirmed cases. |
Even in this current crisis it has been the rural communities in the interior regions of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia that were the first to identify confirmed cases. However, the metropolises of Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia have all reported confirmed cases. The impoverished densely populated areas sporting a deficient infrastructure and unsanitary conditions serve as a perfect incubator for the virus. Transmission rates have increased, and the introduction of Ebola into these urban areas have dramatically increased the number of people at risk of contracting the disease. But more importantly these cities serve as centers of domestic and international human traffic.
Global economic integration and technological improvements in regional and intercontinental transportation have increased the range and speed of the transmission and spread of diseases. At one time oceans and other geographical features served as protective boundaries to the spread of contagions from one region of the globe to another. Even after the age of exploration wind powered ships carried virulent diseases at a relatively slow pace. Although the age of exploration opened areas of the world to the introduction of a slew of new diseases, the invention of the seaworthy steam ship and the beginning of global integration through European colonization created the perfect conduit for the worldwide transmission of disease and the creation of the first global pandemic.
Towards the end of World War 1, Spanish Influenza was unleashed upon the world. While the source of Spanish Influenza is still a hotly debated subject, at some point in 1918 it was introduced to the battlefields of Western Europe. The introduction of this virus quickly spread amongst the ranks of soldiers among the Axis and Allied powers, including the soldiers from the British and French empires. As the war wound down and soldiers returned home they carried the virus them to places such as India, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and even Oceania. An estimated 500 million people contracted Spanish Influenza in 1918, and 50 to 100 million people died from the disease around the world. With a mortality rate of 10% to 20%, an estimated 5% of the entire world's population was killed. That was 1918.
 |
| American soldiers from Fort Riley, Kansas suffering from Spanish Influenza being treated in a medical war. |
Spanish Influenza was able to spread so far and so quickly in part due to the large congregation of soldiers from across the globe, onto the battlefields of Europe during World War 1. Such a scenario doesn't currently exist for the Ebola virus to feed off of. However, as was previously stated the introduction of the virus into urban areas in West Africa serves as a gateway for the introduction of Ebola into the rest of the world. Conakry, Freetown and Monrovia are hardly centers of international commerce or travel, but they are centers of business for their respective nations and are linked to a regional hub which serves as a gateway from West Africa to the rest of the world.
Lagos, Nigeria is one of the most populated cities in the world, and the most populated city in Africa's wealthiest and most populated nation. It serves as a global economic and cultural hub of not only Nigeria, but of the entire West African region. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network has ranked Lagos as a Beta city, which is defined as cities that link moderate economic regions into the world economy, along with such globally significant metropolises as Seattle, Shenzhen, Rotterdam, Abu Dhabi and San Diego. Its Murtala Muhammed International Airport serves over 10 million passengers a year and has direct flights to London, Istanbul, Dubai, Atlanta, Houston, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Rome to name a few. If Ebola were to spread to Lagos then the airport would serve as a nexus for the spread of the contagion across the globe. And it already has.
On July 20, a Liberian man was hospitalized in Lagos after he arrived in Nigeria via the Murtala Muhammed Airport. On the 25th, he succumbed to his illness and passed away. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that the man was infected with Ebola. While this individual from Liberia might have been the first person infected with Ebola to make their way to Lagos, he won't be the last.
And did I mention there’s no
vaccine or cure. Ebola was first discovered among the human population in the Sudan and
Congo areas of Africa during the 1970s. Over the last half century there have
been reoccurring epidemics in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and
Uganda. Prior to 2014 Ebola outbreaks had been confined to the central African
area. The confinement of the disease to an impoverished area of the
globe meant that the cost to develop a vaccine outweighed the societal benefit one
would have. Pharmaceuticals lacked the financial incentive to pursue the research necessary to develop a remedy to the danger imposed by Ebola.
Aside from the monetary aspects, the global community has taken a laissez approach to the disease because, well lets face it, it's isolated to Africa. The inherent racism that was prevalent in European attitudes towards Africa in the 18th and 19th century, from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to the 1884 Berlin Conference, still exists today albeit in a subtler form. Further, the world generally just doesn't care about Africa. Since decolonization began after World War 2, the continent has lacked political stability. African nations have had to contend with constant and deadly civil wars, insurgencies and rebellions, not to mention famine and a lack of clean, drinkable water (see the current famine in South Sudan). The result has been thousands, if not millions of attributable deaths. To the developed world a few more deaths, caused by disease, added to the overall mortality rate in Africa is not an eyebrow raising event. But this outbreak needs to be.
The world cannot take a backseat to the events unfolding in West Africa this time. This pandemic has the potential of spreading like wildfire through not only Africa, but the entire human population around the globe. Ebola has the potential to devastate the human population, and unless precautions are taken now to confine and remedy the outbreak to West Africa that potential becomes a likelihood. It is ironic that about 10 million people died on the battlefield in World War I over 5 years compared to the 5 million who died around the globe due to Spanish Influenza in just one year, and yet all we remember is the war.
Aside from the monetary aspects, the global community has taken a laissez approach to the disease because, well lets face it, it's isolated to Africa. The inherent racism that was prevalent in European attitudes towards Africa in the 18th and 19th century, from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to the 1884 Berlin Conference, still exists today albeit in a subtler form. Further, the world generally just doesn't care about Africa. Since decolonization began after World War 2, the continent has lacked political stability. African nations have had to contend with constant and deadly civil wars, insurgencies and rebellions, not to mention famine and a lack of clean, drinkable water (see the current famine in South Sudan). The result has been thousands, if not millions of attributable deaths. To the developed world a few more deaths, caused by disease, added to the overall mortality rate in Africa is not an eyebrow raising event. But this outbreak needs to be.
The world cannot take a backseat to the events unfolding in West Africa this time. This pandemic has the potential of spreading like wildfire through not only Africa, but the entire human population around the globe. Ebola has the potential to devastate the human population, and unless precautions are taken now to confine and remedy the outbreak to West Africa that potential becomes a likelihood. It is ironic that about 10 million people died on the battlefield in World War I over 5 years compared to the 5 million who died around the globe due to Spanish Influenza in just one year, and yet all we remember is the war.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
From CIA Factbook
Compiled by Simran Khosla
Globalpost
This map shows the countries where more than half the population consider themselves practicing members of one particular faith.
Compiled by Simran Khosla
Globalpost
This map shows the countries where more than half the population consider themselves practicing members of one particular faith.
North America
Central America
The Caribbean
South America
Europe
Middle East & Central Asia
Africa
Asia
Pacific Islands
Friday, July 25, 2014
Arab-Israeli Member of the Knesset Probed for Allegedly Inciting Violence
By Lahav Harkov
From The Jerusalem Post
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Friday ordered police to launch a criminal investigation against Balad MK Hanin Zoabi on possible incitement charges.
Zoabi will be investigated after she was heard making insulting remarks to police officers during an anti-war rally in Nazareth.
Police chief Yohanan Danino ordered his investigators in the LAHAV 433 intelligence unit to carry out the probe.
Zoabi is alleged to have yelled epithets in the direction of police officers during a court hearing in the Nazareth Magistrate's Court involving rioters who were being arraigned for their behavior during the demonstration. Now investigators will seek to determine whether Zoabi's behavior meets the threshold for incitement and insulting a public official.
Earlier this month, Asst.-Ch. Mani Yitzhaki, head of the Police Investigations and Intelligence Branch, recommended that the charges be brought against Zoabi.
A police officer in Nazareth complained that after he testified in court in the city, angry protesters met him outside the courthouse.
One of the protesters was Zoabi, who “shouted offensive terms and called out to those present in a way that could be suspected as insulting a public worker and incitement to violence,” according to police.
Zoabi’s office did not respond to inquiries as to what the MK said to the police officer.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) commended the attorney-general, saying that "finally law enforcement is doing its job and is starting dealing with the Arab MKs who aid the enemy."
According to Elkin, "Zoabi is in the MK only because the legal system defended her against a just decision by the Central Election Committee to disqualify her candidacy as a member of Israel's Knesset."
Elkin also called on police to investigate her as soon as possible and for her to be put on trial.
"The time has come to take care of the traitors among Arab MKs. In no other democratic country would such behavior be tolerated," he said.
Similarly, Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum said Weinstein is doing the right thing and that police should have no problem finding proof that Zoabi incited against the State of Israel and supports Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Kirschenbaum added that the removal of Zoabi's parliamentary immunity is supported by several factions in the Knesset.
MK Danny Danon (Likud) said "it's about time this terrorist goes to jail. I hope the investigation will end soon and lead to her being convicted for incitement against the state."
Meanwhile, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) submitted a bill on Thursday meant to remove Zoabi from the Knesset.
The bill would rescind Israeli citizenship of MKs who support terrorist organizations and enemy states in a time of war.
The purpose of the bill, according to its explanatory section, is to prevent the "absurd situation in which MKs express support for terrorist organizations and activities against the State of Israel and its citizens in Israel an abroad during wartime."
"These acts are a clear breach of trust against the State of Israel and, therefore, it must be prevented by taking citizenship away from MKs who act against the country they are supposed to represent," the bill reads.
"MKs who are against the State of Israel should not have their job anymore," Rotem said Friday.
Knesset Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev (Likud) said that on Monday she will hold a meeting on enforcing laws prohibiting incitement.
"The time has come for MK Zoabi's immunity to be removed and for her to be punished for her incitement against the State of Israel and it's security forces," Regev said.
From The Jerusalem Post
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Friday ordered police to launch a criminal investigation against Balad MK Hanin Zoabi on possible incitement charges.
Zoabi will be investigated after she was heard making insulting remarks to police officers during an anti-war rally in Nazareth.
Police chief Yohanan Danino ordered his investigators in the LAHAV 433 intelligence unit to carry out the probe.
Zoabi is alleged to have yelled epithets in the direction of police officers during a court hearing in the Nazareth Magistrate's Court involving rioters who were being arraigned for their behavior during the demonstration. Now investigators will seek to determine whether Zoabi's behavior meets the threshold for incitement and insulting a public official.
Earlier this month, Asst.-Ch. Mani Yitzhaki, head of the Police Investigations and Intelligence Branch, recommended that the charges be brought against Zoabi.
A police officer in Nazareth complained that after he testified in court in the city, angry protesters met him outside the courthouse.
One of the protesters was Zoabi, who “shouted offensive terms and called out to those present in a way that could be suspected as insulting a public worker and incitement to violence,” according to police.
Zoabi’s office did not respond to inquiries as to what the MK said to the police officer.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) commended the attorney-general, saying that "finally law enforcement is doing its job and is starting dealing with the Arab MKs who aid the enemy."
According to Elkin, "Zoabi is in the MK only because the legal system defended her against a just decision by the Central Election Committee to disqualify her candidacy as a member of Israel's Knesset."
Elkin also called on police to investigate her as soon as possible and for her to be put on trial.
"The time has come to take care of the traitors among Arab MKs. In no other democratic country would such behavior be tolerated," he said.
Similarly, Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum said Weinstein is doing the right thing and that police should have no problem finding proof that Zoabi incited against the State of Israel and supports Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Kirschenbaum added that the removal of Zoabi's parliamentary immunity is supported by several factions in the Knesset.
MK Danny Danon (Likud) said "it's about time this terrorist goes to jail. I hope the investigation will end soon and lead to her being convicted for incitement against the state."
Meanwhile, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) submitted a bill on Thursday meant to remove Zoabi from the Knesset.
The bill would rescind Israeli citizenship of MKs who support terrorist organizations and enemy states in a time of war.
The purpose of the bill, according to its explanatory section, is to prevent the "absurd situation in which MKs express support for terrorist organizations and activities against the State of Israel and its citizens in Israel an abroad during wartime."
"These acts are a clear breach of trust against the State of Israel and, therefore, it must be prevented by taking citizenship away from MKs who act against the country they are supposed to represent," the bill reads.
"MKs who are against the State of Israel should not have their job anymore," Rotem said Friday.
Knesset Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev (Likud) said that on Monday she will hold a meeting on enforcing laws prohibiting incitement.
"The time has come for MK Zoabi's immunity to be removed and for her to be punished for her incitement against the State of Israel and it's security forces," Regev said.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
ISIS Orders Female Mutilation
From NBC News
From BBC News
Tens of thousands of men, women and children have fled the violence in Mosul since June
GENEVA - Militants have ordered all girls and women in and around Iraq's northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation, the United Nations said on Thursday. The "fatwa" issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Jacqueline Badcock told reporters by videolink from Erbil, Iraq.
"This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed," she said. "This is not the will of Iraqi people, or the women of Iraq in these vulnerable areas covered by the terrorists." ISIS -- which also calls itself Islamic State -- has declared a caliphate stretching from Syria into Iraq after rampaging through the north and west of the country.
Doubts are growing about the authenticity of an edict attributed to the Sunni Islamist group Isis controlling the Iraqi city of Mosul about female genital mutilation (FGM).
A top UN official quoted from a statement saying that Isis wanted all females aged between 11 and 46 in the northern city to undergo the procedure.
Jacqueline Badcock said the decree was of grave concern.
But media analysts say the decree seen on social media may be a fake.
It has typos and language mistakes and is signed by "The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant", a name the group no longer uses, instead referring to itself as the Islamic State.
Some bloggers suggest that the alleged fatwa, which has been circulated on social media for about two days, may have been aimed at discrediting Isis.
Iraq is facing a radical Isis-led insurgency, with Mosul and other cities in the north-west under militant control.
The ritual cutting of girls' genitals is practised by some African, Middle Eastern and Asian communities in the belief it prepares them for adulthood or marriage.
FGM poses many health risks to women, including severe bleeding, problems urinating, infections, infertility and increased risk of newborn deaths in childbirth.
The UN General Assembly approved a resolution in December 2012 calling for all member states to ban the practice.
Christians fled
Earlier, Ms Badcock warned that the alleged Isis edict could affect nearly four million women and girls in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The UN's resident and humanitarian co-ordinator in Iraq said the practice "is something very new for Iraq... and does need to be addressed".
She was talking to reporters via video link from the Kurdish provincial capital, Irbil.
Tens of thousands of men, women and children have fled the violence in Mosul since June
Jenan Moussa, a correspondent for Dubai-based broadcaster Al AAan TV, said in a tweet that her contacts in Mosul had not heard of the edict.
Isis militants seized Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in June, and have since taken over areas of the north-west and closed in on cities near Baghdad.
The group forced Christians in Mosul out of the city earlier this week and daubed their houses with the Arabic letter N to mark them out as Christians, apparently confiscating their properties, BBC Arab affairs editor Lina Sinjab says.
Continue reading the main storyFGM and child marriage
130m
have undergone FGM
- 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East practise FGM
- 33% less chance a girl will be cut today than 30 years ago
- But rising birth rate means more girls in total are affected
- 250m women worldwide were married before age of 15
Unicef
Ms Badcock said only 20 families from the ancient Christian minority now remain in Mosul, which Isis has taken as the capital of its Islamic state.
Thousands have fled into Kurdish-controlled territory in the north.
Some of the Christians who remained have converted to Islam, while others have opted to stay and pay the "jiyza", the tax imposed by Isis on non-Muslims, the UN official added.
Isis announced last month that it was creating an Islamic caliphate covering the land it holds in Iraq and Syria.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Belfast Burning
From Vice News
“The Twelfth” is a particularly contentious period in the heavily divided Protestant/Catholic city of Belfast. After decades of conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles — a political and sectarian war that claimed more than 3,600 lives — there are still many people on each side who feel oppressed by the other. Riots involving rock throwing, Molotov cocktails, and even gunfire often erupt on or around the Twelfth. Problems are particularly commonplace as marchers head through Ardoyne, a heavily Catholic and nationalist area surrounded by Protestant neighborhoods.
Though the city's youngest adults can barely remember the Troubles themselves, they're increasingly becoming radicalized. Poverty in Belfast is at a 10-year high; unemployment hovers near 8 percent, with about one in four 18- to 24-year-olds out of work in 2013. And so with few jobs and often inadequate education, young men are indoctrinated by paramilitary groups still left over from the fighting of the past.
VICE News went to the biggest bonfire in Northern Ireland, on Belfast's notorious Shankill Road, to watch Unionists celebrate — and drink, and fight, and burn Irish flags.
Bubonic Plague Causes Quarantine of a Chinese City
From BBC News
The man died in Yumen city, Gansu province, on 16 July.
A total of 151 people have been placed under observation, Xinhua news agency says. Authorities have isolated a part of the city centre and three sections of Chijin town which is an hour away.
The man was believed to have caught the infection after contact with a marmot.
Marmots are large, squirrel-type rodents that live in mountainous areas.
The victim is reported to be a 38-year-old man who had fed a dead marmot to his dog.
The deputy head of the hospital where the man died told reporters that the victim had arrived with an increased heart-rate and seemed to be slipping into shock. The hospital has since been quarantined.
The plague
• The plague is one of the oldest identifiable diseases known to man
• Plague is spread from one rodent to another by fleas, and to humans either by the bite of infected fleas or when handling infected hosts
• Recent outbreaks have shown that plague may reappear in areas that have long been free of the disease
• Plague can be treated with antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline
• Madagascar recently recorded 60 deaths from plague
Source: World Health Organization
It is not clear from reports how big the four quarantine zones are. Ten checkpoints have been set up around Yumen and Chijin.
Those in quarantine all had contact with the man, Xinhua said. None was showing signs of infection, it said.
Officials have told reporters that the group could be released after nine days of quarantine if no further cases of plague appeared among them.
Yumen is a small city in western Gansu province, which borders Xinjiang. The last reported case of bubonic plague in the city was in 1977, Xinhua said.
Gansu has seen at least five cases of the plague in the last 10 years, according to the agency.
Bubonic plague, known as the Black Death when it killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages, is now rare.
It is a bacterial disease mainly affecting wild rodents that is spread by fleas. Humans bitten by infected fleas can then develop bubonic plague.
Once bacteria infects the lungs, human-to-human transmission of pneumonic plague can occur through coughing.
If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics, while pneumonic plague has a high mortality rate, the World Health Organization says.
 |
| Marmots are large, squirrel-type rodents that live in mountainous areas |
Part of a city in north-west China
has been sealed off and dozens of people placed in quarantine after a man died
of bubonic plague, state media say.
The man died in Yumen city, Gansu province, on 16 July.
A total of 151 people have been placed under observation, Xinhua news agency says. Authorities have isolated a part of the city centre and three sections of Chijin town which is an hour away.
The man was believed to have caught the infection after contact with a marmot.
Marmots are large, squirrel-type rodents that live in mountainous areas.
The victim is reported to be a 38-year-old man who had fed a dead marmot to his dog.
The deputy head of the hospital where the man died told reporters that the victim had arrived with an increased heart-rate and seemed to be slipping into shock. The hospital has since been quarantined.
The plague
• The plague is one of the oldest identifiable diseases known to man
• Plague is spread from one rodent to another by fleas, and to humans either by the bite of infected fleas or when handling infected hosts
• Recent outbreaks have shown that plague may reappear in areas that have long been free of the disease
• Plague can be treated with antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline
• Madagascar recently recorded 60 deaths from plague
Source: World Health Organization
It is not clear from reports how big the four quarantine zones are. Ten checkpoints have been set up around Yumen and Chijin.
Those in quarantine all had contact with the man, Xinhua said. None was showing signs of infection, it said.
Officials have told reporters that the group could be released after nine days of quarantine if no further cases of plague appeared among them.
Yumen is a small city in western Gansu province, which borders Xinjiang. The last reported case of bubonic plague in the city was in 1977, Xinhua said.
Gansu has seen at least five cases of the plague in the last 10 years, according to the agency.
Bubonic plague, known as the Black Death when it killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages, is now rare.
It is a bacterial disease mainly affecting wild rodents that is spread by fleas. Humans bitten by infected fleas can then develop bubonic plague.
Once bacteria infects the lungs, human-to-human transmission of pneumonic plague can occur through coughing.
If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics, while pneumonic plague has a high mortality rate, the World Health Organization says.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Six Year Old Allegedly Raped in India
By Liz Fields
From VICE News
Thousands turned out to public protests in Bangalore, India, demonstrating the inaction of police and state authorities in investigating the alleged rape of a six-year-old girl in a public school.
The protests, which entered their fourth day on Sunday, demanded police immediately find and arrest those responsible for the rape, which took place on July 2, and investigate the school's apparent failure to take action.
Circumstances surrounding the incident at Bangalore's Vibgyor School were only brought to light on July 15.
No arrests have been made on the eight suspects detained in the case, local media reported.
Among the protestors, the alleged victim's parents and relatives joined in a march from the school to Bangalore's HAL police station.
On Saturday, police commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar addressed protestors at the site of the demonstrations and later spoke to reporters about setbacks to the investigation.
"The CCTV cameras on campus are old and that's hampering our investigation," Auradkar said. "There was also a lot of delay... nearly 12 days. We request the public to give us two more days. A hurried investigation will only spoil the case."
The issue highlights ongoing furor at the government and police inertia in handling rape crimes in a country where victims are routinely threatened or shamed into silence and their rapists remain unpunished.
The increasing pressure of recent protests has led the state government to write to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations Board to declassify Vibgyor as an ICSE school, India Today reported.
Activists have scheduled similar protests around the city and country for the coming days. A woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to government figures.
From VICE News
Thousands turned out to public protests in Bangalore, India, demonstrating the inaction of police and state authorities in investigating the alleged rape of a six-year-old girl in a public school.
The protests, which entered their fourth day on Sunday, demanded police immediately find and arrest those responsible for the rape, which took place on July 2, and investigate the school's apparent failure to take action.
Circumstances surrounding the incident at Bangalore's Vibgyor School were only brought to light on July 15.
No arrests have been made on the eight suspects detained in the case, local media reported.
Among the protestors, the alleged victim's parents and relatives joined in a march from the school to Bangalore's HAL police station.
On Saturday, police commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar addressed protestors at the site of the demonstrations and later spoke to reporters about setbacks to the investigation.
"The CCTV cameras on campus are old and that's hampering our investigation," Auradkar said. "There was also a lot of delay... nearly 12 days. We request the public to give us two more days. A hurried investigation will only spoil the case."
The issue highlights ongoing furor at the government and police inertia in handling rape crimes in a country where victims are routinely threatened or shamed into silence and their rapists remain unpunished.
The increasing pressure of recent protests has led the state government to write to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations Board to declassify Vibgyor as an ICSE school, India Today reported.
Activists have scheduled similar protests around the city and country for the coming days. A woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to government figures.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Want Some Klandy: The KKK's Image Remake
By Maxwell Barna
From Vice News
From Vice News
 |
| KKK Rally |
Residents in cities across the country woke up Sunday morning to bags of candy on their front lawns accompanied by fliers telling them to “SAVE OUR LAND, JOIN THE KLAN” and “SEAL THE BORDER — PROTECT OUR NATION.”
Robert Jones, the Imperial Klaliff of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told VICE News that the candy and propaganda was distributed as part of a nationwide campaign to recruit new members to the organization, which in the 20th Century became notorious for hatred and violence against minorities, particularly African-Americans.
Called a “National Knight Ride,” the organization is distributing candy with its literature in an effort to soften its image and represent itself as non-threatening. Jones explained that the effort is not a new tactic, noting that his group carries out Knight Rides once or twice a year.
“It’s one of our recruitment techniques, and it’s also to let everyone know that the Klan is still out there and still active,” he said.
A flier found in North Carolina asked readers if they were tired of “integration,” “race-mixing,” “black welfare,” “black crime,” and “minority tyranny.” It directed residents to a website where they could learn more about the KKK, become a member, and groove out to “We Will Never Give In” by British white supremacist Ian Stuart. (“The message to our enemies, with their treacherous beliefs / Our ideals are stronger, and your deaths will be your release.”)
The Klan hopes that anti-immigration sentiment and concern over the recent border crisis will help swell its ranks. The flier included a hotline number that greets callers with a message that tells them, “Be a man, join the Klan.” It goes on to say that illegal immigrants cost the American taxpayer $113 billion per year and bring with them “third world diseases” like leprosy and tuberculosis, and insists that the US government should institute a shoot-to-kill policy against “spics” entering its borders illegally.
“This message has been brought to you by the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” it concludes. “Always remember: if it ain’t white, it ain’t right. White Power!”
Another of the group’s fliers that was distributed in Atlanta said, “Blacks are seven times more likely to go to prison, Hispanics three times, and the reason is clear, because from 1980 to 2003 the US incarceration rate has tripled, and so proves that Justice is not only hard won, but well served.”
'When your name is the Ku Klux Klan, it’s a little bit difficult to convince the world that you’re not a hate group.'
A different flier distributed by a group called the Original Knight Riders was found earlier this month in Houston neighborhoods and elsewhere encouraging recipients to “fight for your Heritage and fight for America’s future before it is too late.” An online amplificationof this sentiment assailed officials who “reward Illegals with Citizenship while our White Homelands turn into third world cesspools.” It also referred to threats to Second Amendment gun rights and “your rights as Christians.”
Barcroft TV, a British news channel on YouTube, published a report in June showing members of the Loyal White Knights distributing propaganda on a Knight Ride and announcing an alarming plan to train Klansmen in military combat in anticipation of a looming race war.
Despite the race-baiting rhetoric in the group’s material, Jones claims that the Klan of the new millennium is not the same black-lynching hate group that is known as America’s oldest terrorist organization, although its website shows that the group’s enthusiasm for cross-burning and hood-wearing is still strong. The Klan is focusing more on issues like opposing immigration and less on the racial supremacy of whites over minorities, he maintained.
“We think our government should step in and do a whole lot more to secure our borders,” he said. “All our jobs are being outsourced right now, and what jobs are left here, black and white Americans are being forced to have a competition with the Mexicans coming across the border, because they’ll do the job cheaper.”
Jones added that the Ku Klux Klan is finding new avenues to help reach common ground within communities. In April, residents of a neighborhood in Fairview Township, Pennsylvania, woke up to learn that a local Klan chapter had set up a neighborhood watch. Fliers on their doorstops exclaimed, “You can sleep tonight knowing that the Klan is awake!”
'We could be your neighbor, we could be your doctor, we could be the local policeman that you’re talking to at the gas station.'
Jones professed that his group’s outreach includes, improbably, partnering up with blacks.
“We’re starting to see the whites and African-Americans waking up to this illegal immigration problem,” he explained. “We’re starting to reach out more to the African-American community and talk to them about the same issues, and they’re agreeing with the Klan that illegal immigration needs to stop.”
But Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told VICE News that the Ku Klux Klan is the same violent hate group it has always been.
“Over the last several months, two particular Klan groups in the United States have been doing a lot of pamphleteering in about half a dozen states,” he said.
Potok noted that the group’s aggressive pamphleteering should not be misinterpreted as reflecting a resurgence in KKK membership or activity in the US. He said that there were only roughly 163 Klan chapters — or “klaverns” — in the US in 2013, down from 221 in 2010. The SPLC estimates that there are between 5,000 and 8,000 KKK members nationwide.
“The comparisons to that number are some 40,000 Klansmen who were active at the peak of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and four million Klansmen in the 1920s, when the Klan was at its numerical peak,” Potok said.
Potok recently published a report that discussed a sharp rise in right-wing American political groups over the last several years, coinciding with the election of the country’s first black president. But Potok doesn’t think the Klan should be confused with these other groups.
“There are massive social changes occurring, and this has provoked a real reaction, sometimes a violent one, in very large swaths of the population,” he said. “Consequently, the radical right has been growing.”
The Klan’s recruitment drive is trying to take advantage of this growth in right-wing political sentiment.
“It’s essentially a method of getting publicity,” Potok said. “Their hope is that publicity brings members, and members bring dues. Many of these Klan leaders, in fact, live off the dues that come from their members, so that’s very important to them.”
As far as Jones’s claim that the Klan is focusing its energy elsewhere and dialoguing with black communities, Potok said nothing could be farther from the truth.
“That’s a completely ludicrous assertion that is utterly false,” he said. “The idea that black people are somehow flocking to the Klan or the Klan’s message because the Klan is critical of undocumented immigration is simply false. It’s a claim that is made as part of the Klan’s general claim that they’re more of a friendly neighborhood watch group that hates no one and is merely proud of white heritage.”
The KKK did meet with members of the NAACP last September, but the conference was awkward to say the least. Klan organizer John Abarr afterward expressed doubt about what the meeting had accomplished.
Despite the Klan’s efforts, Potok said the organization is going to be hard-pressed to convince anyone that it is not a hate group or that it has turned over a new leaf.
“Look, when your name is the Ku Klux Klan, it’s a little bit difficult to convince the world that you’re not a hate group,” he said. “Let’s remember that it was Klan groups that, for instance, killed four little girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church by bombing it on a Sunday morning. It was the Klan that threw people off bridges, that hung them from trees, that castrated black men. The list of terror emanating from the Klan over its very long history is long and very, very ugly.”
Though he could not confirm an exact number, Jones said that his group’s hotline receives anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 calls a day. Contradicting the SPLC’s estimates, he claimed that there are thousands upon thousands of Klansmen all over the country, and that membership is in fact on the rise — due largely to outreach like the National Knight Ride.
“You’ll never know where we live,” he said. “We could be your neighbor, we could be your doctor, we could be the local policeman that you’re talking to at the gas station while you’re buying your coffee in the morning before work. That’s why we’ve always been called the invisible empire — because you will never know a Klansmen when you see one.”
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