© File Photo: Francoise Gulliot / AFP
Describing themselves as the Migrant Support Committee, the students issued a statement calling for "papers for all" and an end to the distinction between "economic migrants" and "political refugees."
Society's Child
Describing themselves as the Migrant Support Committee, the students issued a statement calling for "papers for all" and an end to the distinction between "economic migrants" and "political refugees."
© Reuters/Dylan Martinez
New Zealand singer Lorde announced on December 24 she will not be performing in Tel Aviv in 2018.
New Zealand singer Lorde announced on December 24 she will not be performing in Tel Aviv in 2018.
An Israeli legal rights group, Shurat HaDin, has announced that it is suing the two New Zealanders for allegedly convincing pop singer Lorde to cancel her show in the Jewish state on behalf of three would-be concertgoers for about $13,000 in damages.
According to the group, two New Zealanders, one of Jewish and one of Palestinian origin, knew that their letter to Lorde could trigger a boycott, making them open to a suit under the 2011 Israeli law. The legislation paves the way for legal action against anyone calling for a boycott against Israel, including of lands it has occupied, if that call could knowingly lead to a boycott.
Comment: More from RT:
Israelis sue Kiwis over Lorde's cancelled Tel Aviv gig in 1st case under anti-boycott lawIsrael sees that its attempts to derail the BDS movement are no longer working to silence criticism, and is now trying to sabotage the movement in any way possible:
Published time: 31 Jan, 2018 19:22
...© Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images / AFP
Singer Lorde
Two New Zealand citizens face legal action in Israel after Shurat HaDin, a Tel Aviv-based group protecting Jewish rights worldwide, filed a lawsuit against them on Tuesday, claiming they convinced Lorde to cancel her show, scheduled for June 2018.
Justine Sachs, a Jew, and Nadia Abu-Shanab, a Palestinian, urged the singer to scrap her Israeli tour dates in an open letter published last December. The women cited the occupation of Palestinian land, as well as violations of basic human rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories. "An economic, intellectual and artistic boycott is an effective way of speaking out against these crimes," they wrote, adding such tactics were effective against apartheid in South Africa.
Responding to the letter, the 21-year-old singer tweeted: "Noted! Been speaking (with) many people about this and considering all options. Thank u for educating me i am learning all the time too."
She later canceled her shows, saying she was "sorry" and hoped that "one day we can all dance."
...
Launched in 2005, the Palestinian-led BDS campaign was designed to pressure Israel to comply with international law and to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories. The campaign urges international companies and investors to leave Israel, as well as calling on artists, writers, and cultural institutions to oppose the Israeli government.
To fight back, the Israeli government has taken several measures, including restricting entrance to the country to BDS activists from 20 organizations. The government has even reportedly set up a secretive group to counteract the anti-Israeli campaigns through "mass awareness activities."
Shurat HaDin lodged a complaint on behalf of three ticket-holders for Lorde's concerts, seeking $13,000 in compensation "for moral and emotional injury and the indignity," the group's head and a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said.
- Israeli nut-job minister labels BDS activists enemy soldiers, compares them to Nazis
- Israeli official calls for new strategy to fight the BDS movement
- Hasbara 2018: Israel using secretive group to create online propaganda to challenge its negative image and boycott campaign
- Israel smears critics as anti-Semites when faced with serious damage to its image
© thefreethoughtproject.com
CP24 reported that the officers consumed marijuana edibles while on duty, and then "called for help after one of the officers ended up in a tree." The female officer who responded to the call "slipped and sustained a serious head injury."
In response to the incident, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack refused to name the individuals, but said that there was an ongoing investigation and the suspects "could be charged or they could just be cleared through the investigation."
© The Free Thought Project
Disturbing body camera footage was just released showing the moment police killed a grandmother in her home over a raid for marijuana.
Bartlesville, OK - Michael Anthony Livingston, 50, was suspected of selling a plant that is legal in some form in well over half the country. Because the other half of the country still violently and callously kidnaps, cages, and kills people for this plant, however, Livingston is in jail and his mother is now dead. The entire incident was captured on video and paints a disturbing picture of America's war on drugs.
Geraldine Townsend, 72, was shot and killed earlier this month as a Bartlesville SWAT team executed a search warrant to bust Livingston for the alleged sale of marijuana. Body camera footage of the raid was released today.
When the heavily armed and militarized men kicked in the door to their home, Townsend, likely not knowing who her home invaders were, picked up a pellet gun and fired off two pellets. A Bartlesville officer then shot and killed her.
© Jan Haas / Global Look Press
Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Germany's Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV), spoke to Reuters about the possibility of children who were raised around Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Syria and Iraq could return to Germany and potentially carry out violent attacks.
"We see that children who grew up with Islamic State were brainwashed in the schools and the kindergartens of IS," he said. "They were confronted early with the IS ideology... learned to fight, and were in some cases forced to participate in the abuse of prisoners, or even the killing of prisoners."
The owner of the dog, Joe Nathan Goodwin filmed the incident. The video shows that simply because Goodwin refused to cut off his dog's head that he was assaulted by a police officer and thrown down on the hood of his truck.
Imagine for a moment, police officers coming on to your property, killing your dog in front of your children, and as you were grieving, they force you to remove its head.
It is important to note that removing the head of an animal is standard procedure for health departments when testing an animal for rabies. However, this is supposed to be done by professionals who know what they are doing-not a dad who just watched his dog get killed.
Comment: This is a new low in police officers seeming insatiable need to exert unjust authority on innocent citizens. It seems that police officers aren't satisfied with simply killing family dogs in front of their kids. Now they're upping the game by forcing them to desecrate the beloved pet's body. "Sick" doesn't even begin to cover the level of depravity. See also:
- 'Shame I had to waste a bullet': Psycho cop kills family's tiny dog in front of children
- One cop has a friendly encounter with family dog. Soon after, another cop kills it
- Cop shoots man's dog; lies about it attacking him
- Cop arrested for 'bestiality' video of himself raping small dog posting it online using police PC
- Cop illegally enters family's yard, executes their dog for no reason leaving seven orphaned puppies
- Cop enters wrong house and shoots family dog in the middle of 5-year-old's birthday party
On Thursday, the family filed a lawsuit for damages sustained when police shot and killed their dog and then forced the father to cut off its head to bring it to the health department.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Joe Goodwin and Tosha Dacon are suing the county, Sheriff Lewis Walker and deputies James Hollis and Wesley Andrew Neesmith for $75,000 in connection with the Dec. 1, according to the lawsuit.
"Under extreme emotional duress and distress, and under threat of incarceration and physical harm, Plaintiff Goodwin was forced to decapitate the dog with a knife," the lawsuit states.
As the AJC notes, in addition to the "great physical and mental pain and suffering," which has required counseling, Goodwin lost his job as a result of the actions, the lawsuit states.
© Danny Westneat/The Seattle Times
The Bartell Drugs store, in White Center just steps outside Seattle city limits, tries to lure in customers turned off by Seattle’s pricey new soda tax.
The Bartell Drugs store, in White Center just steps outside Seattle city limits, tries to lure in customers turned off by Seattle’s pricey new soda tax.
Ahmed Mohamed's shop in the farthest reaches of West Seattle is so small you can easily miss it. But he's nevertheless Ground Zero for Seattle's latest economic experiment.
Mohamed runs West Seattle Halal Market, a two-aisle store specializing in meats and poultry butchered according to Islamic rules. A few shelves in the middle of the store, though, are given over to a popular side product that now has his neighborhood, White Center, literally divided.
"Here is the precious fluid," Mohamed laughs, showing me around the store.
He holds up a two-liter plastic bottle of Coke.
Comment: Trying to change behaviour through taxation is a devious nanny-state tactic for enforcing "right-think". It rarely actually changes the "deviant" behaviour, only serving to fatten the pockets of the governments collecting the taxes and, in the current case, hurts businesses.
See also:
- Seattle's soda tax hurts businesses and they're not happy about it
- Seattle experiences melt down after city officials roll out new soda tax
- Anti-Smoking Facism at Work! Governments Collect Nearly $133 Billion in Tobacco Excise Tax Revenue
- Nanny State: Five good reasons to end government smoking bans
- The tyranny of the nanny state, where the government knows what's best for you
Ear to the Ground Listening Project, a collaboration of academics, market researchers and policy experts conducted the panel survey of 6,883 Trump supporters between January 12, 2018, and January 25, 2018. The survey reveals numerous insights about how President Trump's strongest supporters feel right now.
The survey indicates President Trump has tremendous support and confidence from his base, but congressional Republicans are in the doghouse with a pathetic 16% approval from the president's supporters.
Scene inside Stephen Paddock's Mandalay Bay suite
Douglas Haig told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he had been contacted earlier by investigators in the case.
Speaking at his suburban home in Mesa, Nevada, Haig said he planned to hold a news conference later this week to answer questions about his name surfacing in the investigation.
"I am the guy who sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock," Haig said without disclosing any details. Police say Paddock was the gunman and killed himself as officers converged on him.
A law enforcement official told the AP in October that Paddock bought 1,000 rounds of tracer ammunition from a private seller he met at a Phoenix gun show. The official spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to disclose case information. It was not immediately clear if that person was Haig.
The militants of the Taliban radical movement are active on 70 percent of the Afghan territory, fully controlling 4 percent of the nation and demonstrating presence in another 66 percent, a BBC study has found.
The Taliban are in full control of 14 districts of the crisis-torn state and have "an active and open physical" presence in a further 263, the results of the study published on Tuesday showed.
About 15 million of the Afghan citizens live in the areas either controlled by the radical movement or in the districts that are often targeted by Taliban's attacks, according to the broadcaster's research.
The BBC investigation has revealed that the number of districts with Taliban's presence has increased since the mission carried out by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan ended in 2014 and the foreign troops were formally withdrawn from the country.
The Taliban are in full control of 14 districts of the crisis-torn state and have "an active and open physical" presence in a further 263, the results of the study published on Tuesday showed.
About 15 million of the Afghan citizens live in the areas either controlled by the radical movement or in the districts that are often targeted by Taliban's attacks, according to the broadcaster's research.
The BBC investigation has revealed that the number of districts with Taliban's presence has increased since the mission carried out by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan ended in 2014 and the foreign troops were formally withdrawn from the country.
Comment: The first question is whether this data can be trusted since it comes from the Fake News BBC. But if true, the presence of the US military in Afghanistan for over a decade to "eradicate the Taliban" has clearly been an unmitigated failure. The Americans should take all their soldiers home and leave the country to be taken care of by the Afghani people.
Comment: Nothing wrong with expressing solidarity for people who found themselves in circumstances that forced them to leave their home countries. However, one day these students will grow up to realize that the issue is far too complicated to solve by 'giving papers to everyone' and may in fact create more problems - some in Europe are actually resenting this already. How about understanding first the causes of mass migration and demanding from their government foreign political and economic policies that help to mitigate it?