Society's Child

Council of Europe calls on UK to ensure Muslim couples wed under civil law to protect women from Sharia

RT
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 14:35 UTC

© Reuters / Olivia Harris
A woman wears a Pakistani wedding veil ahead of her traditional Islamic wedding blessing, London

The UK should make it a legal requirement for Muslim couples to register their unions as civil marriages, before or during their Islamic ceremony, according to the body that oversees the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Council of Europe, an organisation made up of 47 nations, passed a resolution on Tuesday, warning about the role of sharia councils on family, inheritance and commercial law, stating that they "clearly discriminate against women in divorce and inheritance cases."

They named the UK, along with Albania, Azerbaijan and Turkey, in a resolution highlighting conflicts between sharia law and universal human rights. It called on the UK government to ensure the protection of those in vulnerable positions, and said it should run awareness campaigns to teach Muslim women about their rights.

Comment: Also see: Sharia law recognized in landmark British divorce ruling

Gideon Levy vs Benny Morris: The fight for the soul of the one-state solution

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 14:35 UTC

For nearly a week now, a fierce ideological fight has been taking place on the pages of the Israeli daily Haaretz, between Israeli historian Benny Morris and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy.

It started with Morris giving a long interview to Ofer Aderet in which he issued dire predictions for the future of the state of Israel. This has become a back-and-forth (Morris-Levy-Morris-Levy) that is a fight for the soul of the one-state. Both essentially agree, that the two-state solution is no longer an actual possibility. Thus, the discussion becomes, "What kind of a state this is, and what it will become."

Let's look first at Morris' predictions in the first interview:

This place will decline like a Middle Eastern state with an Arab majority. The violence between the different populations, within the state, will increase. The Arabs will demand the return of the refugees. The Jews will remain a small minority within a large Arab sea of Palestinians, a persecuted or slaughtered minority, as they were when they lived in Arab countries. Those among the Jews who can, will flee to America and the West.

Act 9 of Regime Change in France: Yellow Vests Protesters Remain Determined - Vincent Lapierre Reports

Le Média Pour Tous
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 14:33 UTC

With the French establishment media under-reporting or misreporting the Yellow Vest protests in France - and with Western media of course following suit - accurate, unfiltered on-the-scene coverage is sparse.

Independent reporter Vincent Lapierre has been 'embedded' with Yellow Vest protesters since the movement began back in November, publishing video reports on his channel Le Média Pour Tous of each of the major Saturday protests in Paris.

The following is his video report from 'Acte IX' in Paris, which took place on Saturday 12th of January. Click on the captions icon (cc) for English subtitles.

Meet the Yellow Vests: working men and women, unemployed people, pensioners, parents, patriots, of foreign descent, Antifa, hoods from the banlieues, country-folk, and privileged students...

Yellow Vests group gears up for European elections, comes under fire from comrades

RT
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 01:43 UTC

A group of French Yellow Vests has announced it would put forth a list of candidates for the upcoming European Parliament elections. Yet the move has attracted a wave of criticism from their fellow protesters.

The Citizens' Initiative Rally (RIC) announced its decision to field a group of candidates for the upcoming May elections on Wednesday, unveiling first 10 names. The list is to be expanded, as the group plans to get 69 more candidates on it.

"The citizen movement... has shown the need to transform the anger into a political project capable of giving answers to the French people who have supported it," the group said in a statement.

Comment: How the Yellow Vests were going to organize themselves was always going to be tricky, but, for now, rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel they could tweak the system already in place; one idea put forward was the ability to vote to remove a politician at any point in time if they show they're not fulfilling their campaign promises:

And check out SOTT radio's:

France's Yellow Vests protests: Why it's different this time

Claudio Grass
Mises Institute
Thu, 24 Jan 2019 11:00 UTC

When the first demonstrations on the streets of Paris were reported nine weeks ago, nobody could have foreseen the endurance, the tenacity and the viral effect of the Yellow Vests movement. After all, the French are known to protest and to strike, it's part and parcel of their culture. However, by the time this article is being written, protests, marches and demonstrations have broken out in a multitude of European cities.

Comment: The Yellow Vest movement spreading, now going global

Why Was it Different this Time?

To begin with, it is worth taking a closer look at the situation in France, the point of origin of this "contagion." There are a few very important elements that set the Yellow Vests apart from past protests. For one thing, unlike previous demonstrations, this one wasn't led by the unions, nor was it organized by any identifiable political body. The protesters had no unified or homogenous political beliefs, party affiliations or ideological motivations. In fact, through interviews and public statements of individuals taking part in the demonstrations, it would appear that any organized elements, or members of the far-left or the far-right were a slim minority among the protesters. And while those few were the ones largely involved in the violent clashes with the police and the destruction of private and public property, the crushing majority of the Yellow Vests were peaceful, non-violent and largely unaffiliated with any particular political direction.

Comment: See also: 'The gilets jaunes are unstoppable' - French Author

Record numbers of children identifying as transgender in UK and abroad

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 10:08 UTC

Kids as young as ten are switching gender by deed poll as record numbers of UK youngsters identify as transgender.

The Sun reports that the UK's Deed Poll Service has seen a sharp rise in the number of parents forking out £35 to change their child's title from Miss to Master, or Master to Miss, in the past five years.

A quite shocking stat is that the service says one child under the age of 16 makes the change every day, often with a new first name. Louise Bowers, a senior deed poll officer, said:

"We used to issue a couple every couple of months - but now it's seven to ten a week.

"The majority are teenagers, 14 or 15, but they go down to aged ten."

Comment: See also:

Antiwar hero Medea Benjamin disrupts Venezuela coup circle jerk

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:33 UTC

Before they launch missiles, they launch narratives. Before they drop bombs, they drop talking points. Before they implement crushing starvation sanctions, they demonize and condemn. Before they invade, they propagandize. Before the killing starts, manipulation paves the way.

For this reason, the front line of any antiwar movement is a fight against the establishment narratives about disobedient nations that are aggressively promulgated by the political/media class. And right now one of the very most adept Americans at doing that is an activist named Medea Benjamin.

Benjamin once again displayed her knack for getting her message seen in high-profile spaces in a way that grabs attention and punches through cleanly and concisely as she crashed the warmongering bloviations of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a meeting of the Organization for American States (OAS) in Washington, DC.

Following a speech in which Pompeo regurgitated already established Trump talking points referring to Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro as the "former president", accusing him of being "economically incompetent", "profoundly corrupt" and "undemocratic to the core," Benjamin cut off his applause by standing at the end of the council room with a sign reading "OAS: DON'T SUPPORT A COUP IN VENEZUELA" and decrying the Trump administration's attempts to topple the Venezuelan government.

Comment: See also:

Latin America's first school for transgender kids looks to expand

Associated Press
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 02:08 UTC

Growing up as a transgender child in Chile, Angela was so desperate to escape the physical and verbal abuse from other students at her elementary school that she thought about taking her own life.

"I just wanted to die," said the now 16-year-old. "I didn't want to exist, because what they did to me made me feel awful."

After suffering years of discrimination, Angela and some 20 other transgender minors aged 6 to 17 have found hope at Latin America's first school for trans children . The institution, founded by the Chile-based Selenna Foundation that protects their rights, is a milestone in a country that was so socially conservative that it only legalized divorce in 2004.

In recent years, the families of trans children have demanded greater acceptance - a call that recently led to the approval of a law that allows people over the age of 14 to change their name and gender in official records with the consent of their parents or legal guardians.

'The gilets jaunes are unstoppable' - French Author

Spiked
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC

Christophe Guilluy on the cultural divide driving the yellow vests.

The gilets jaunes (yellow vest) movement has rattled the French establishment. For several months, crowds ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands have been taking to the streets every weekend across the whole of France. They have had enormous success, extracting major concessions from the government. They continue to march.

Back in 2014, geographer Christopher Guilluy's study of la France périphérique (peripheral France) caused a media sensation. It drew attention to the economic, cultural and political exclusion of the working classes, most of whom now live outside the major cities. It highlighted the conditions that would later give rise to the yellow-vest phenomenon. Guilluy has developed on these themes in his recent books, No Society and The Twilight of the Elite: Prosperity, the Periphery and the Future of France. spiked caught up with Guilluy to get his view on the causes and consequences of the yellow-vest movement.

Comment: See also:

Niall Bradley to PressTV: 'Yellow Vests Movement a Result of Sclerotic, Totalitarian Politics in Western Europe'

Italian police investigating case of kidnapped Belgian woman held for months as sex slave by Tunisian migrants

RT
Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:53 UTC

belgian woman kidnapped tunisian migrants

Italian police are investigating a nightmarish case of a Belgian woman, who was kidnapped by a group of Tunisian migrants, Italian and Belgian media report. The captors had allegedly been raping her for two months.

The horror story unfolded back in early 2017 when a Belgian woman, 32, was abducted by six Tunisians in the north-western Italian sea resort of Sanremo, not far from the French border. The victim, residing in the French Riviera, allegedly approached one of her future captors in the street seeking to buy drugs, according to media reports.

The Tunisians forcibly took her to a house, where one of the migrants lived, where she said she had been tied to a bed with ropes and repeatedly raped. One of her captors also always stood guard in the house to prevent her escape.

Has everyone seen the documentary Century of the Self? It's about Bernays, PR BS, etc. and is REALLY well done. (I found it at an AA article.)...

Rowan Cocoan

Their were saints in Catholic history who most have heard about and others not so much. Now you have Saint Francis of Assisi, but you also have...

Buffalo_Ken

I have a different definition for the "global commons". It is in the definition of "the commons" definition in the link provided below. Here is a...

Buffalo_Ken

Biden the child-killer. Think of the children, vaxxers, think of the children.

hobnyeba

Thanks, all, for great comments and links. Lots to think about.

ReRan

Society's Child

Council of Europe calls on UK to ensure Muslim couples wed under civil law to protect women from Sharia

Gideon Levy vs Benny Morris: The fight for the soul of the one-state solution

Act 9 of Regime Change in France: Yellow Vests Protesters Remain Determined - Vincent Lapierre Reports

Yellow Vests group gears up for European elections, comes under fire from comrades

France's Yellow Vests protests: Why it's different this time

Record numbers of children identifying as transgender in UK and abroad

Antiwar hero Medea Benjamin disrupts Venezuela coup circle jerk

Latin America's first school for transgender kids looks to expand

'The gilets jaunes are unstoppable' - French Author

Italian police investigating case of kidnapped Belgian woman held for months as sex slave by Tunisian migrants

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