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Male circumcision ban proposed in Iceland, MP confronted with anger by Jewish and Muslim groups

Judith Vonberg
Independent
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 13:11 UTC
baby hand
© Getty Images/iStockphotoThe bill proposes a six-year prison term for anyone carrying out male circumcision in Iceland.
'I don't see it as a religious matter,' insists Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir

Religious leaders have reacted with outrage to a bill proposed by MPs in Iceland that would criminalise male circumcision.

The bill proposes a six-year prison term for anyone found guilty of "removing sexual organs in whole or in part".

Salmann Tamimi, president of the Muslim Association of Iceland, described the proposal as an "attack on religion".

Circumcising girls has been illegal in Iceland since 2005, but there are currently no laws to regulate the practice against boys.

Describing circumcision as a "violation" of young boys' rights, the bill states the only time it should be considered is for "health reasons".

Young men would be given the opportunity to decide for themselves once they reached the age of consent.

Male circumcision is one of the most common surgical procedures in the world, with one recent study estimating that around 38 per cent of men globally have undergone the procedure.

According to the same study, around half of circumcisions are carried out for religious or cultural reasons.

Comment: See: Why the benefits of circumcision are based on false assumptions, erroneous conclusions and misleading medical information

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Star of David

Israel scraps plan to forcefully deport African asylum seekers while still seeking ways to 'voluntarily' relocate migrants


Sputnik
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 22:02 UTC
african asylum seekers israel
© AP / Oded Baililty
In a state statement, Israel said it will stop holding pre-deportation hearings for the asylum seekers and all previous decisions to forcefully deport the Africans living in the country have now been nullified.

Israeli authorities on Tuesday admitted that their plan to relocate African asylum seekers has collapsed, adding that there is no opportunity to deport Africans from the country.

The forced removal of the asylum seekers - mostly men from Eritrea and Sudan - "is no longer on the agenda," the Israeli government said in a written statement but added that it will keep looking for options to deport people voluntarily.

"Israel's immigration officials will continue to refer to infiltrators to the 'voluntary departure' office allowing them to move to a third country, but without conditioning the renewal of their legal status of their willingness to leave to a third country," the authorities stated.

Comment: Previously:

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Light Sabers

British consultant psychiatrist takes on trans activists despite violence, warns of the dangers of sex change drugs in children

Jonathon Van Maren
The Bridgehead
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 21:58 UTC
Dr. Lucy Griffin
A British consultant psychiatrist at Bristol Royal Infirmary has just placed herself on the trans activists' enemy list for an interview with The Mail on Sunday where she warned that the health of "hundreds of children is being put at risk by sex-change drugs doled out on the National Health Service," something she is "extremely worried" about considering the fact that these drugs have long-term effects, some of which are already turning up in adolescents. Dr. Lucy Griffin spoke to The Mail on Sunday:

She is the first NHS doctor to publicly voice fears about the damage being done by the huge increase in young people receiving irreversible medical treatments after declaring themselves transgender.

Comment:

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Jet2

Europe needs military independence, Germany shouldn't buy the F-35 says Airbus Defense CEO


RT
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:55 UTC
f-35
© Yuri Gripas / Reuters
The CEO of Airbus Defense urged Europe to keep its military independence and warned Germany not to procure F-35s from the US, arguing it would kill the Franco-German effort to build their own fifth-generation jet.

"As soon as Germany becomes an F-35 nation, cooperation on all combat aircraft issues with France is dead," Dirk Hoke, the CEO of Airbus Defense and Space at Airbus Group, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"Europe needs to define its sovereignty more clearly and state that we need to remain independent in defense and space," Hoke said, referring to the joint Franco-German project to develop a fifth-generation fighter, according to the newspaper.

Comment: Judging by their performance, Germany would probably prefer jets that work:

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Document

Denmark: New report shows Muslim women have more abortions than ethnic Danes


RT
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 19:55 UTC
muslim women
© Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
A report from Denmark's National Board of Health has found that women with backgrounds in Muslim countries get almost twice as many abortions as women with ethnic Danish roots.

Statistics reveal that women with family backgrounds in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan are among those who receive the most terminations. Only women from the former Yugoslavia, some of whom come from areas with predominantly Muslim populations, received more, Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad report.

Kassem Rachid, imam and president of the Arab Association in the city of Aabenraa, told the newspaper that he was surprised that that such a large proportion of women from countries with predominantly Muslim populations choose to have abortions.
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Star of David

Deaf teenager is latest Palestinian victim of Israeli aggression during 'Great March of Return' protests


Ma'an News Agency
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 19:47 UTC
Tahrir Mahmoud Wahba
18-year-old Tahrir Mahmoud Wahba
Two Palestinians, including a deaf teenager, succumbed to wounds sustained during the ongoing "Great March of Return" protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 18-year-old Tahrir Mahmoud Wahba, who was deaf, died on Monday morning.

The teenager was shot with live ammunition by Israeli forces during protests on Friday April 13th in the southern Gaza Strip district of Khan Younis, near the al-Awdeh refugee camp.

Late Sunday night, the ministry reported that a Palestinian "youth," identified as Abdullah Muhammad al-Shamali, succumbed to wounds he sustained last Friday.

Al-Shamali was a resident of the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. According to the Ministry of Health, the deaths of Wahba and al-Shamali brought the total death toll in Gaza since the "Great March of Return" began on March 30, to 41 Palestinians, including at least three minors and a journalist.

Comment: See also:

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Laptop

MSNBC Russiagater host says Wayback Machine 'hackers' made her blog look homophobic


RT
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 19:28 UTC
Joy Reid
© Brian Cahn / Global Look PressMSNBC's Joy Reid interacts with the students surrounding the stage at Washington University, site of the second presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid claims her old blog has been hacked and updated to include anti-gay content to make her look bad.

The weekend host apologized last year for a number of homophobic blog posts she wrote from 2007 to 2009 about Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who was married to a woman at the time. Among other homophobic comments, Reid called Crist "Miss Charlie" and suggested he was "ogling male waiters" on his honeymoon.

But this week the story became more sinister. The Twitter user who initially discovered Reid's homophobic postings has now unearthed some articles which also appear to have come from her old blog, and sound far worse.

Jamie Maz found the old articles through the Wayback Machine - an online archive that stores old content even after it has been deleted - of Reid's blog as it had been.

Mediaite has reported some of the highlights, including comments about how "most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing" and about how finding gay sex "gross" is just "intrinsic" to being straight.
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Stop

Silence of the shams: Western media puts Syrian boy's witness account on hold


Sputnik
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 19:55 UTC
Syrianboy
© SputnikHassan Diab
If it doesn't fit the narrative, there's no harm in shelving it. It appears that evidence proving the purported chemical weapons attack in Douma was staged has been largely disregarded by the mainstream newsmakers in the West.

The alleged attack and the subsequent airstrikes by the US, UK and France have been dominating the Western news agenda for several weeks now.

On April 7, several media outlets reported that the Syrian army had used chlorine in Douma, killing up to 70 people and injuring hundreds. Footage showing the aftermath of the "attack" appeared on social media, showing men and women shouting, rushing and hosing down adults and children inside a hospital building.

The video has been acquired and shown by most Western news media under the tagline "Children are treated after a suspected chemical attack in rebel-held Douma, Syria" or similar headlines.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Brooklyn, NY: Warnings of increased 'bias attacks' against Jews, who are 'very, very nervous'

Janelle Burrell
CBS New York
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 05:00 UTC
JewsNYC
© Times of Israel
Some leaders in Brooklyn's Jewish community say bias attacks are happening more frequently.

The most recent incident left a man badly bruised. It was captured on camera and now police are searching for the attacker. Police are keeping watch at the scene of the latest attack on Rutland Road near Schenectady Avenue. Many Jewish leaders say this is happening too frequently to be a coincidence, CBS2's Janelle Burrell reported.

"People are very, very nervous about what is going on," said Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

Jewish leaders including Hikind told Burrell they believe the recent attacks in Brooklyn aren't isolated. "They're not anomalies?" Burrell asked. "No, not at all. In between these two incidents, there are so many others. Many of them don't get reported," Hikind said.
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Stock Down

What's the next big financial crisis? Bankrupt public-employee pensions


Investor's Business Daily
Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
$50bill on map
© Thomas White/Reuters
Pension Crisis: As the media relentlessly focus on the federal government's burgeoning debt, a new report says that states face their own ticking debt bomb: the exploding liabilities for lavish state and local public-employee pensions. Reform won't be easy, but there is no choice.

A new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the problem is getting out of hand. In 2016, the most recent full year for which data are available, states were more than $1.4 trillion in the red. Pension debt has increased for 15 straight years, and shows no signs of abating.

Indeed, as Reason blogger Eric Boehm notes, "The really scary part is that pension debt keeps increasing despite the fact that taxpayers' contributions to state-level pension plans have doubled as a share of state revenue in the past decade."

Worse still, as performance lags expectations, desperate pension fund managers have gone in for increasingly risky investments - meaning that workers' pensions might not be as safe as they think.

The Pew report is blunt:
"Many state retirement systems are on an unsustainable course, coming up short on their investment targets and having failed to set aside enough money to fund the pension promises made to public employees."
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