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Tue, 02 Nov 2021
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London artist recycles bodily fluids for fashion

Ballet shoes adorned with urine crystals
© Reuters/Stuart McDill
Urine crystals grow on a pair of ballet shoes, as part of a collection by Alice Potts.
Struggling to make your fashion more personal? No sweat. A London fashion student can help you decorate your attire with crystal accessories formed from your bodily excretions.

Royal College of Art graduate Alice Potts showcased her quirky design methods with a pair of ballet shoes adorned with crystals formed from sweat and a fake fur featuring urine-crystals at the RCA's annual fashion show.

Potts, who has also experimented with blood, believed the odorless but stomach-turning materials, donated to her by fellow students, had environmental and health benefits beyond the limitations of traditional plastic or cotton.

"Instead of using plastic accessories to maybe embellish garments ... we can start like growing onto our garments these new materials and more natural materials," she told Reuters.

Gold Coins

Kyrgyzstan dumps yuan and dollar for gold in reaction to US/China trade war

gold smelting
© Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
China's neighbor Kyrgyzstan has been piling up gold reserves as a hedge against a possible trade war between Beijing and Washington.

The country is seeking to boost the share of gold in its $2-billion international reserves to 50 percent from its current 16 percent.

"The rules of the game are changing," Kyrgyz Central Bank Governor Tolkunbek Abdygulov told Bloomberg in an interview. "It doesn't matter what currencies we have in our reserves; dollars, yuan or rubles all make us vulnerable."

Bulb

Anti-arms group calls for UK gov't to halt arms sales to 'tyrannical' Thai regime

Prayuth Chan-ocha
© Vichan Poti/ Global Look Press
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha
The UK government is "promoting" the use of "deadly" weaponry in Thailand by continuing to sell arms to the military regime despite its track record of human rights abuses, anti-arms campaigners have argued.

Ahead of the UK visit of Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on June 20, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has called on Prime Minister Theresa May to halt all arms sales to the country. To maintain this trade will show that "the UK government believes the political rights of Thai people to be less important than arms company profits and cozy relations with a dictatorship."

The south-east Asian country is on the UK's 'core market' list for arms sales. According to CAAT, the UK has licensed £48 million worth of arms to the Thai dictatorship since the military coup in 2014.

Andrew Smith of CAAT said: "Human rights must be on top of the agenda at the meeting. This cannot become yet another photo-op for human rights abusers on the steps of Downing Street. The government isn't just overseeing the sale of deadly equipment, it is actively promoting it. It's time for Theresa May to end the arms sales and call for democratic change."

Bad Guys

The big immigration charade offers no solutions

USflagimmigrants
© Hindustan Times
If you sought to preserve the violent, reactionary and undemocratic regimes of countries like El Salvador and Honduras -- and, to a great extent, Mexico -- into perpetuity, how would you do it?

One way would be by providing a permanent U.S. safety valve for all their poor and downtrodden, the victims.

Just as with Europe and the Middle East, open borders can salve the soul and make us all feel good about ourselves, but they come with a price. And that price is not just for the richer host countries in supplying costly services. It is even greater for the countries of origin whose benighted citizens, the stay behinds, are left to suffer under governments that are incompetent, corrupt and often murderous.

Comment: Simon is correct in that a solution to this issue is likely not on the horizon. The left refuses to engage in reasonable dialog and uses distortions and outright lies to further their political agenda, while the right refuses to look at horrific activity the United States has played in destabilizing countries all over the world.


Vader

Charges against ex-CIA engineer intended to send message to potential whistleblowers

cia emblem
© Brooks Kraft / Getty Images
Charges against an ex-CIA employee are intended to send a message to potential whistleblowers, warning them that they will have no defense when pursued by the government, the executive editor of 21st Century Wire told RT.

Former CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte is facing charges over what has been described as the largest information leak in the agency's history.

Prosecutors claim that he unlawfully obtained information on the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the CIA during his time at the agency. He is alleged to have provided the information to an organization for it to be disseminated.

While the indictment does not mention the organization by name, the whistleblower's lawyers have identified it as none other than WikiLeaks.

If he is convicted on multiple charges, Schulte faces over 100 years in jail.

Cross

"You have a soul, be careful with it": Actor Chris Pratt gives teens his "9 rules for life" to MTV-watching millennials

chris pratt
Something happened at the MTV Movie and TV Awards on Monday that MTV surely was not expecting, and not hoping for.

In a move that is sadly rare for Hollywood, Chris Pratt, the night's winner of the Generation Award, used his platform on the MTV stage to speak about his faith and to encourage the young generation to believe in God.
God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do,
Pratt said, with some oomph.

While it's not uncommon for award winners to throw in a thank you to God, Pratt, known for his work on Parks and Recreation, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers, and more, took it to another, refreshing, level. The actor got spiritual in his award speech when he delivered what he dubbed "9 Rules From Chris Pratt."

Of course, his rules were peppered with Pratt-style comedy - offering advice on how to effectively take a poop at a party, for instance - but the actor also made sure to remind the millions watching that they have a soul, and that they need to take care of it.

Comment: Looks like Pratt might be reading some Jordan Peterson.


Sheriff

Nearly 80% of Russians want death penalty to combat corruption, Twitter poll shows

Federal Penitentiary Service's Moscow Directorate
© Sergey Pyatakov / Sputnik
Staff at Pre-trial Detention Center No.2 of the Federal Penitentiary Service's Moscow Directorate
Some 79 percent of Russians want their country to use Chinese means to fight corruption, with the death penalty for large-scale bribery, according to a Twitter poll conducted by the head of the Defense Ministry's public council.

Earlier this week renowned Russian journalist and military expert Yuri Korotchenko asked his Twitter following to answer the question: "Does the Russian Federation need death penalty as punishment for corruption and bribery among high-placed officials, military and security officers and civil servants?" When Korotchenko decided to wrap up the research he had 1775 answers with almost 80 percent of respondents positive about the idea.

"In other words, my followers want our country to use the same anti-corruption measures that are being used in China," the journalist concluded.

Family

Postmodern polygamy? Israel bans NY math professor from donating sperm in Israel

Ari Nagel
© Facebook
The Health Ministry in Jerusalem is banning the sperm of famed donor Ari Nagel from use in Israel, the New York Post reported on Saturday. Six women who received samples from Nagel can no longer access them, despite paying annual storage fees.

Nagel, 42, a married father of three, is a prodigious purveyor of sperm, having sired 33 children in the last 10 years all over the U.S., including in Maryland, Orlando and New York City. He has also fathered babies in Israel, with 10 more on the way this year.

Coming from a six-sibling Jewish Orthodox home in New York, Nagel says he donates his seed for free to woman who can't afford a sperm bank because "I just love seeing how happy the moms and kids are."

But his resume seems to have made a negative impression on the Israeli Health Ministry. Last December, a 43-year-old woman who flew Nagel in to donate his sperm at a private clinic. After Nagel filed his contribution, the employee at the clinic destroyed the sample and told him he was not allowed to keep his sperm at the clinic. The woman later received a letter from the Health Ministry, saying it had alerted all sperm banks in the country not to store Nagel's sperm in their freezers.

Israeli law requires donors to be anonymous, unless they sign a document stating his intention to co-parent the child with the mother. Nagel signed such a document with the woman, as well as with six other hopeful future mothers, who also had his seed frozen in Israel.

Dominoes

Turkey's general election takes a turn after brutal abuse of puppy appears online, shifting political agendas

puppy
The torturing and killing of a puppy has shifted the political agenda in Turkey ahead of its general election.

Turkish police arrested a man after shocking images emerged online of the maimed animal, which had its four paws and tail cut off, sparking outrage in the country.

The dog was found in a forest in the Sapanca district in the northwestern province of Sakarya and taken to a vet for treatment, but later died during surgery on Friday after fighting for its life for two days.

The issue has been taken up by rival politicians in the close run contest, in which the country's strongman president is standing on a platform that would see his powers enhanced.

Star of David

Israeli court fails to determine whether brutal Shin Bet using 'enhanced interrogation' techniques is torture

Don't torture me
© Baz Ratner / Reuters
An Israeli ultranationalist protester wears blindfolds and holds a placard that reads "Don't torture me."
An Israeli court has failed to decide if so-called 'enhanced interrogation' used by Israeli security services constitutes torture, but threw out a confession by a Jewish minor, made under duress, in a Palestinian firebombing case.

The two young Jewish Israeli suspects are charged with launching Molotov cocktails at the home of the Palestinian Dawabsha family in 2015.

The attack in the West Bank town of Duma killed a toddler and his parents.For months the police and the security agency Shin Bet made no apparent progress in resolving the case but later arrested Amiram Ben-Uliel, who is alleged to have prepared and thrown the bombs, and an unnamed minor who allegedly assisted him in planning the arson.

The Central District Court in Lod in Central Israel rejected a confession made by the minor but abstained from condemning Shin Bet of physically abusing him.