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Senior UN judge resigns from The Hague citing 'shocking' interference from 'above the law' US

Daniel Boffey
The Guardian
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 21:59 UTC
International Criminal Court building
© Reuters / Piroschka Van De Wouw
The International Criminal Court building in The Hague, The Netherlands
A senior judge has resigned from one of the UN's international courts in The Hague citing "shocking" political interference from the White House and Turkey.

Christoph Flügge, a German judge, claimed the US had threatened judges after moves were made to examine the conduct of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Turkey's government had earlier made "baseless" allegations to end the tenure of a Turkish judge sitting on a United Nations court known as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals with the connivance of the UN, he claimed.

Aydın Sefa Akay was removed following his arrest and subsequent release over alleged links to Fethullah Gülen, the US-based cleric blamed by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for a failed coup attempt.
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Pills

Insys executive gave doctor lap dance while promoting drug, witness says

Nate Raymond
Reuters
Tue, 29 Jan 2019 20:36 UTC
Sunrise Lee
© REUTERS/Nate Raymond
Sunrise Lee, a former Insys Therapeutics Inc regional sales director, exits the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., January 29, 2019.
An ex-stripper who became a regional sales director at Insys Therapeutics Inc gave a doctor a lap dance at a Chicago club as the drugmaker pushed the doctor to prescribe its addictive fentanyl spray, a former Insys employee testified on Tuesday.

The testimony in federal court in Boston came in the first criminal trial of painkiller manufacturer executives over conduct that authorities say contributed to a U.S. opioid abuse epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of people a year.

Former Insys sales representative Holly Brown told jurors the incident with her boss, Sunrise Lee, took place after Insys began rewarding the doctor for prescribing its opioid product by paying him to speak at educational events about the drug.
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Umbrella

The Gray Lady's losin' it: NYT flirts with irrelevancy after arguing 'Mary Poppins' chimney sweep 'blackface' is 'racist'


RT
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 20:23 UTC
Mary poppins scene
© Reuters / John Sibley
Dancers perform ahead of the European premiere of 'Mary Poppins Returns' in London
Does the new Mary Poppins film feature blackface? No, but the NYT has nonetheless argued that the movie somehow borrows from racist 1930s minstrel jokes, the latest outrage-laden interpretation of a children's classic.

Mary Poppins Returns is an "enjoyably derivative film," but the story of the vivacious flying governess has a dark, racist side, the New York Times opined. The Gray Lady - known throughout the world for reporting "all the news that's fit to print"- explained itself thusly: In the 1964 film, Poppins accompanies her young charges, Michael and Jane Banks, up their chimney, resulting in her face getting covered in soot. Instead of cleaning her face, however, the magical nanny powders her nose and cheeks to make them even blacker, then launches into a song and dance routine with Dick Van Dyke.
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Telephone

The ramifications of 'new' ear to skull sound projection technology

Truthstream Media
Sott.net
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
voices in my head
Like so many other technologies that are being developed and thrust upon an unsuspecting society for the sake of "convenience", MIT's new laser-transmitted sound machines (dynamic photoacoustic spectroscopy (DPAS)) comes with a whole set of concerns that most have yet to consider - except for those who know how this this type of technology has been used before - and by whom.

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Arrow Down

'You should have died in Auschwitz': Australian rabbi target of anti-Semitic road rage incident

Ilanit Chernick
The Jerusalem Post
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 18:09 UTC
jews
© REUTERS / Fabrizio Bensch
A Melbourne rabbi was verbally abused with antisemitic slurs while driving to his local synagogue late on Monday night.

The rabbi, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of further attack, began to film the incident. As he did so, the man in the car next to him continued to shout at him, "Would you like me to get out and show you what Hitler did? ...You should have died in the Auschwitz."

The rabbi added that the man had also called him a "dirty Jew" and had said that "Hitler should have killed you all."

The video also shows the middle-aged man calling the rabbi a "f***** selfish cu** of a Jew" while they remained stationary at a red traffic light.

He said that he'd picked up his mobile phone to make a call while stopped at the red light when the middle-aged man began yelling.

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Snakes in Suits

'Reputational assault': Mystery Wikipedia editor Philip Cross targets journalist Rania Khalek


RT
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 17:25 UTC
Rania Khalek
© Facebook / Rania Khalek @RaniaKhalek1
Notorious Wikipedia editor Philip Cross, known for his campaign against anti-war and left-leaning journalists on the platform, appears to be at it again - this time taking part in a smear effort against journalist Rania Khalek.

Khalek, who produces content for RT's online video platform In The Now and has been critical of US foreign policy, seems to have caught the attention of Cross and another editor with the username 'Flickotown' - and the pair have repeatedly edited the information on her page.

The opening line of the page at one point described Khalek as "pro-Assad,""pro-Kremlin" and even suggested she is "anti-Semitic." Tweeting about the edits, Khalek said the smears on the page, which is the first thing people see when they Google her name, amount to "reputational assault" and suggested that she was targeted for her support of Palestinian rights and criticisms of US foreign policy.

When Khalek's page was restored to display the original description of her work, another editor appeared and changed it back.
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Eye 2

Grenade attack on mosque in southern Philippines kills 2, comes on heels of cathedral bombing

Raul Dancel
The Straits Times
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:52 UTC
attack mosque phiippines
© Westmincom
The aftermath of a grenade attack on a mosque in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, January 30, 2019.
Two people were killed and at least four wounded in a grenade attack on a mosque early on Wednesday (Jan 30) morning in Zamboanga city, a key gateway in the Philippines' restive south.

This occurred just three days after twin blasts rocked a Roman Catholic cathedral on Jolo island, southwest of Zamboanga, and left at least 21 dead and more than 100 injured.

Chief Inspector Shellamae Chang, Zamboanga police spokesman, identified those killed as Mr Habil Rex, 46, and Mr Haj Sattal Bato, 47. Both were said to be Muslim missionaries, known as "tablighs".

Comment: It's notable that Islamic terrorism has risen in the last few years, just as Duterte has been working to free his country from the Empire.

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Doberman

Critics howl over Tehran's ban on dogs in public spaces

Mohammad Zarghami
Radio Free Europe
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:29 UTC
Iranian dog walker

A woman walks her dog past a wall of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
A leading Iranian veterinarian has questioned a new ban on the walking and transporting of dogs in the Iranian capital, Tehran, as illogical.

"How are veterinarians supposed to treat dogs if their owners are not allowed to take them out in public or drive them in their cars?" said Payam Mohebi, a senior member of Iran's Society of Veterinarians. "How are sick dogs supposed to get to us?"

The ban on the walking of dogs in parks and other public places and of transporting them in cars is the latest move by the Islamic republic against dog ownership, which has reportedly been on the rise despite being regularly denounced by hard-liners as an imitation of decadent Western culture.

The ban was announced on January 29 by Tehran's chief of police, Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi, who said the decision was made in a meeting with representatives from Tehran's prosecutor's office.
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Clipboard

Texas officials have difficulty determining citizenship status on county voter lists

Alexa Ura
The Texas Tribune
Tue, 29 Jan 2019 16:17 UTC
voting display
© Bob Daemmrich
According to election officials, some counties are being instructed to consider certain voters on the list as citizens.
After flagging tens of thousands of registered voters for citizenship reviews, the Texas secretary of state's office is now telling counties that some of those voters don't belong on the lists it sent out.

Officials in five large counties - Harris, Travis, Fort Bend, Collin and Williamson - told The Texas Tribune they had received calls Tuesday from the secretary of state's office indicating that some of the voters whose citizenship status the state said counties should consider checking should not actually be on those lists.

The secretary of state's office incorrectly included some voters who had submitted their voting registration applications at Texas Department of Public Safety offices, according to county officials. Now, the secretary of state is instructing counties to remove them from the list of flagged voters.

"We're going to proceed very carefully," said Douglas Ray, a special assistant county attorney in Harris County, where 29,822 voters were initially flagged by the state. A "substantial number" of them are now being marked as citizens, Ray said.
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Cow

EAT-Lancet's tentacles stretch to New Zealand as health officials ponder a red meat tax

Cate Broughton
Stuff
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 15:09 UTC
steaks

An international expert panel says a red meat tax would help tackle global pandemics of obesity, under-nutrition and climate change.
First it was sugary drinks - now experts are calling for red meat to be taxed.

A report by The Lancet Commission on Obesity, released on Monday, said a tax on red meat was an example of the urgent action needed to address the greatest threats "to human and planetary health" - obesity, under-nutrition and climate change.

University of Auckland population health professor and commission co-chair professor Boyd Swinburn said national and international responses to all three problems had been "unacceptably slow".

Agriculture production accounted for about 50 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand and foods high in saturated fats, sugar and salt, including red meat, were the biggest cause of ill health and premature death, he said.


Comment: The dogged adherence to the myth that meat, saturated fat and salt are unhealthy will be the death of us all. Excessive amounts of sugar and of carbohydrates, processed foods, trans fats and seed oils do more harm than meat ever could.


"We need to consider these together so we have food systems that continue to give us wealth, but don't promote ill health and death, and inequalities and drive up climate change."

Comment: See also:

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