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Photo of tired Jeremy Corbyn resurfaces and sparks debate on his leadership qualities


RT
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 23:27 UTC
A picture of a tired-looking Jeremy Corbyn standing on a London bus has resurfaced, sparking a passionate online debate about the Labour leader's future.

The photograph was taken in August last year, long before the Labour leader faced a motion of no confidence and two thirds of his party launched a coup against him.

It was uploaded to Facebook again on Saturday evening by Amar Alam and has since gone viral for a second time.

"This is Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, not in a Rolls Royce or another fancy car, but rather on a public bus home after a long day of campaigning," Alam wrote.

"He has the lowest expenses of any Parliamentarian and lives by the very principles he talks about, unlike most politicians, including the 172 MPs that stabbed him in the back," he added.
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Eye 2

Homeless targeted in San Diego attacks - 2 dead, one in critical condition

Artemis Moshtaghian
CNN
Tue, 05 Jul 2016 13:57 UTC
homeless attacks Sandiego
© KFMBHomeless attacks in San Diego
Police: 3 attacks may be linked

Authorities in San Diego say there may be an assailant burning and attacking homeless people in their sleep. Two men are dead and one is lying in a hospital bed with life-threatening injuries after a string of deadly attacks during a 25 hour period in San Diego County, authorities said.

On Sunday morning, police received several 911 calls from witnesses saying they saw a man on fire, running down the train tracks alongside Interstate 5, according to CNN affiliate KSWB. The charred body of a male was later found so badly burned that authorities couldn't tell whether he had suffered any trauma prior to being set ablaze, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Lee Swanson said. At about the same time, witnesses reported seeing another man in his late 40s to early 50s darting across the freeway away from the train tracks carrying a gas can, said Lt. Manny Del Toro with the San Diego Police.

Two similarly brutal attacks took place early Monday morning, police say.

Authorities found two victims in different locations with severe trauma injuries to the torso, according to a San Diego Police Department statement. One of the two died before authorities arrived on scene.
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Bomb

Fake bomb detector seller James McCormick to forfeit £8m


BBC
Wed, 15 Jun 2016 13:49 UTC
james mccormick
© ReutersConman James McCormick was jailed in 2013 for selling fake bomb detectors
A British businessman serving a 10-year jail term for making bogus bomb detectors has been ordered to forfeit cash and assets worth nearly £8m.

James McCormick, from Langport, Somerset, made a fortune selling his detectors to Iraq and other countries.

At his Old Bailey trial in 2013, Judge Richard Hone QC said that McCormick's fraud had undoubtedly cost lives.

Now the same judge has ordered that his cash, properties and a luxury motor cruiser should be taken from him.

In total the proceeds of crime order amounted to £7,944,834.

Comment: According to The Guardian, Iraq has still been using McCormick's fake detectors, however the country's prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, has now demanded their withdrawal.

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Hearts

Flashback A rebuke of Elie Wiesel's dehumanizing stance on Palestinians

Sara Roy
CounterPunch
Tue, 09 Sep 2014 13:12 UTC
Elie Wiesel
© Sergey Bermeniev/NPR
Mr. Wiesel,

I read your statement about Palestinians, which appeared in The New York Times on August 4th. I cannot help feeling that your attack against Hamas and stunning accusations of child sacrifice are really an attack, carefully veiled but unmistakable, against all Palestinians, their children included. As a child of Holocaust survivors—both my parents survived Auschwitz—I am appalled by your anti-Palestinian position, one I know you have long held. I have always wanted to ask you, why? What crime have Palestinians committed in your eyes? Exposing Israel as an occupier and themselves as its nearly defenseless victims? Resisting a near half century of oppression imposed by Jews and through such resistance forcing us as a people to confront our lost innocence (to which you so tenaciously cling)?

Unlike you, Mr. Wiesel, I have spent a great deal of time in Gaza among Palestinians. In that time, I have seen many terrible things and I must confess I try not to remember them because of the agony they continue to inflict. I have seen Israeli soldiers shoot into crowds of young children who were doing nothing more than taunting them, some with stones, some with just words. I have witnessed too many horrors, more than I want to describe. But I must tell you that the worst things I have seen, those memories that continue to haunt me, insisting never to be forgotten, are not acts of violence but acts of dehumanization.

Comment: Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel dies at 87

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Roses

Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel dies at 87


The Irish Times
Sat, 02 Jul 2016 12:57 UTC
Elie Wiesel
© Reuters
Elie Wiesel, the Auschwitz survivor who became an eloquent witness for the six million Jews slaughtered in the Second World War and who, more than anyone, seared the memory of the Holocaust on the world's conscience, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

Menachem Rosensaft, a longtime friend and the founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Survivors, confirmed the death in a phone call.

Wiesel was the author of several dozen books and was a charismatic lecturer and humanities professor. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he was defined not so much by the work he did as by the gaping void he filled.

Comment: A rebuke of Elie Wiesel's dehumanizing stance on Palestinians

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Fish

Discarded shrimp and fish from city's sewers served to unwary customers in China

Karen Graham
Digital Journal
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 23:59 UTC
Sewer Fish and Shrimps
© TwitterAfter rinsing the rescued shrimp and fish, vendors prepare their shrimp balls on the grimy floor of the public bathroom.
Internet users were horrified to find photographic evidence that showed seafood vendors in Wuhan, China scavenging discarded shrimp and fish from the city's sewers to serve to unsuspecting customers.

According to Shanghai List, it is not uncommon for shrimp and fish waste to show up in the City's sewers. Seafood brought into the markets of Baishazhou in Wuhan frequently end up falling in the sewers during the packaging process.

It can be assumed that once the fish and shrimp fall into the sewers, that should be the last anyone sees of them, but not in Wuhan. Apparently some vendors "rescue" the seafood and after rinsing it off in the public bathrooms, sell the seafood to unwary customers.

The vendors mix the "rescued" seafood with other fish and shrimp to be made into "shrimp balls." This way, the unhygienic origins of the rescued seafood won't be noticed. It makes one wonder what the shrimp and fish had on them before they were rinsed off in the toilets.
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Hearts

Greek activists turn a deserted hotel into a home for refugees

Patrick Strickland
Al Jazeera
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
refugee hotel
© Nick Paleologos/SOOC/Al JazeeraDecisions are made through general discussions sculpted on ideals of self-organising
'It was a gesture to reclaim the right of the visibility of refugees.'

The roar of children's laughter erupts as they play tag and chase one another through the corridors, while several adults prepare the tables in the City Plaza hotel's dining hall in preparation to break the fast for Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims.

Tucked away down a side street in the Greek capital, the previously deserted hotel was occupied by left-wing Greek activists and turned into a squat for nearly 400 refugees and migrants - half of them children - in late April.

Sitting in the hotel's cafe, Lina Theodorou, a 27-year-old Athens-based lawyer and member of the Solidarity Initiative for Political and Economic Refugees, explains that the activist group was inspired to take action shortly after neighbouring Macedonia sealed its borders in late March.

The closure was in response to the agreement between the European Union and Turkey to halt the flow of refugees and migrants seeking to reach Western Europe by crossing through Greece, the Balkans and central Europe.

The hotel is now home to Syrian and Afghan refugees and, to a lesser extent, families who fled Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territories and several countries across Africa. The squat is administered by the refugees themselves, as well as between 30 and 40 solidarity activists who volunteer informally on a daily basis.

Comment: A shining example of how people are helping people outside of the official structures of government and "humanitarian" organizations - by necessity.

Another example: Illegal humanity: Activists compelled to arm themselves and openly defy Texas law - in order to feed the homeless

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People

The US Government says Americans have stopped hanging out

Henry Grabar
Slate
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 16:37 UTC
Average American
© UnknownMore time doing this.
The annual American Time Use Survey was released last week, and provoked the same question it does every year: How the hell do you people get so much sleep?

The average American, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics project, is getting eight hours and 50 minutes of sleep—an entire Lord of the Rings trilogy of shut-eye!—every night.

The report has good news for television (including Netflix), which retains its dominant role in American life, occupying two hours and 50 minutes of the average day. And bad news for reading, which takes up just 8 minutes in the average weekend day of a 15-to-24-year-old. In short, younger millennials are basically reading the back of the cereal box and nothing else.
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Pistol

Serbian cafe shooting: Man kills wife and four others motivated by jealousy

Jamie Grierson
The Guardian
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 16:44 UTC
Gunman arrested after 20 left injured in what interior minister says was attack motivated by jealousy
Sebian cafe in Žitište
© Reuters Tv/ReutersPeople stand outside the cafe in Žitište after the shooting.
A man has shot dead five people, including his wife, and injured another 20 at a Serbian cafe.

The man entered the cafe in the town of Žitište, about 50 miles (80km) north of Belgrade, and opened fire with an automatic rifle, a police statement said.

Named only as ZS by police, the man was seen arguing with his wife in the cafe before leaving the building and returning with a Kalashnikov-style gun.
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Bomb

Saudi Arabia: Bomber strikes near Prophet's Mosque in holy city of Medina


RT
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 20:22 UTC
Prophet Mohammed Mosque in Medina
© Mahmud Hams / AFPA general view of the Prophet Mohammed Mosque in the Saudi holy city of Medina.
A bomb exploded outside the Prophet's Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina - one of the holiest sites in Islam - on Monday night. The bomber himself, and at least three security officers were killed in the blast.

Comment: See also:Blast outside US consulate service in Saudi Arabia as police stop bomber

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