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Catcallers beware: Bill to fine 'harassment' of women on streets with up to €750 gets the OK by French parliament


RT
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 09:55 UTC
lady walking
© Getty Images
Catcallers, wolf-whistlers or those who follow a woman asking for her number 20 times will soon face punishment. French MPs have approved a bill which would allow fines of up to €750 for the 'harassment' of women on the street.

"Harassment in the street has previously not been punished. From now on, it will be," France's Secretary of State for Equality Marlene Schiappa, who has been advocating the legislation, told Europe 1 radio on Thursday. On Wednesday evening the French National Assembly, the lower house of the bicameral French parliament, approved the legislation which was earlier given the backing of the Senate.

"What's key is ... that the laws of the French republic forbid insulting, intimidating, threatening and following women in public spaces," Schiappa insisted. The fines for such behavior would range from €90 up to €750.

After the legislation was approved by parliament, Twitter users started wondering if simply telling a woman that she is beautiful or glancing at her would be considered a punishable offence.

Comment: See also: France moving forward with on-the-spot fines of €90-750 for "sexual harassment" in public

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X

News media works to manufacture consent - don't give it to them

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 08:37 UTC
mainstream news media
Plutocrat-owned news media outlets lie constantly. When I say this I don't mean that everything they say is false; many of the events reported by mass media are for the most part factual. Whenever it's convenient for the loose alliance of western plutocrats, the political establishment those plutocrats own and operate, and the secretive government agencies with which they are allied, the plutocratic media tell the truth to the extent that it advances plutocratic agendas. But only telling the truth when it suits one's agendas is the same as lying constantly.

A good liar doesn't simply say the opposite of what's true all the time; nobody does that. A good liar tells the truth enough of the time to gain a reputation as an honest and trustworthy source of information, and then, when the truth poses an obstacle to their agendas, they put the slightest spin possible on it to nullify that obstacle. They tell half-truths, they omit key pieces of information, and, with really important maneuvers like manufacturing consent for a strategic military destabilization in the Middle East or new cold war escalations against a nuclear superpower, they shift accountability for factual reporting from themselves onto secretive military and intelligence agencies. In this way they keep full control of the narrative and still ensure that the public supports agendas which do not serve the public interest.

This is evidenced by the fact that the public has continued collaborating with a system which kills the ecosystem we depend on for survival and allows people to die of poverty while spending trillions of dollars in needless wars overseas and an ever-expanding Orwellian surveillance network. Everyone besides the most powerful and their lackeys is aware on some level that the current system is not working for them, and yet the overwhelming majority of people keep playing into it by supporting mainstream parties that are fully owned and operated by wealthy oligarchs, and then shrugging and sighing when things keep getting worse.

Comment: See also:

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Bug

Mom and son contract 'rat lungworm' after eating raw centipedes at market

Madeline Farber
Fox News
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 08:40 UTC
centipede
© iStock
A centipede was likely the cause of the rat lungworm parasite found in the mother and son.
A woman and her grown son contracted "rat lungworm" after eating raw centipedes they bought at a market in China, researchers said.

Scientists with the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China recently wrote in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that the A. cantonensis parasite - often known as "rat lungworm" - was "transmitted through an intermediate centipede host," MedPage Today reported.

Rat lungworm is a parasite that's found in rodents. The infected rodents then pass the parasite's larvae through their feces, later infecting snails and slugs, among other creatures, when they ingest the larvae. Humans who eat raw or undercooked snails or slugs that contain the parasite can be infected, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.

The parasite is typically found in China and Southeast Asia, though it has also been reported in the U.S.


Comment: Hawaii confirms nine cases of rat lungworm infections; researchers call it 'epidemic'


The newly reported research is significant because it suggests the parasite can be found in centipedes as well.
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MIB

Russian employee at US embassy in Moscow targeted in propaganda war


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 23:58 UTC
U.S. embassy Moscow
© Tatyana Makeyeva / Reuters
A general view shows the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Russia.
The Secret Service has dismissed the report that a Russian employee at the US Moscow embassy, who was reportedly fired after her contacts with the Russian intelligence came to light, had access to secret data.

The woman was reportedly dismissed from her job last summer over the allegations of her ties to the Russian intelligence, according to the Guardian citing an unnamed US intelligence source.

The newspaper has not revealed the capacity in which the woman was working at the embassy, nor the responsibilities she had, noting only that the supposed Russian spy was working "at the heart of the American embassy for more than a decade."

The woman did not come on the radar of the US Department of State's Regional Security Office (RSO) until 2016, the year of the US presidential elections that spawned a wide-ranging hunt for "Russian interference" by the media and intelligence circles amid claims Moscow attempted to "sow discord" in the American society and sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump.

Comment: The initial response was lackluster because there was nothing to it, as the Secret Service has confirmed. This is just another 'nothing burger' presented to the public to maintain the anti-Russian hysteria.

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Sheriff

Sharia law recognized in landmark British divorce ruling


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 23:58 UTC
Central London Mosque
© Stephen Chung / Global Look Press
Central London Mosque near Regent's Park.
A British court recognized Sharia law for the first time after a judge made a landmark ruling on a divorce case, which could have far reaching effects on Islamic marriage in the UK.

In the case of the estranged couple Nasreen Akhtar and Mohammed Shabaz Khan, the High Court ruled that their Islamic faith marriage, nikah, is recognised by British matrimonial law despite their being no legal precedent for it to recognised as such.

Akhtar will subsequently be able to bring her case before the divorce court, where she can claim a share of assets from her marriage to Khan. She would have been unable to do so without the High Court ruling.
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Network

Russia builds railroad to bypass Ukraine with the aid of Canada


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:32 UTC
railroad
© Aleksandr Kryazhev / Sputnik
Canada's aerospace and transportation giant Bombardier was one of the contractors building a Russian railroad link that bypasses the war-torn territories of Ukraine, reports Globe and Mail.

The railroad stretch links the Voronezh and Rostov regions near the Ukrainian border and bypasses Ukraine's Lugansk region. The construction of the rail link between the towns of Zhuravka and Millerovo began in 2014, after the deterioration of relations between Russia and Ukraine, and was completed last year. The railroad that was used before has 26 kilometers which pass through the war-torn Lugansk region in Ukraine. The new stretch is 137 kilometers.

Bombardier, which is heavily reliant on Canadian taxpayers' money and the government projects, has confirmed it was among the contractors involved in the Russian project. The company had won an $8-million contract to install its rail-control systems along the route.
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Bullseye

Chechen leader Kadyrov wants media to stop blaming Islam for attacks on Russian journalists in CAR


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:24 UTC
Ramzan Kadyrov
© Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik
Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has blasted reports linking Islam to the fatal attacks on Russian journalists in the Central African Republic (CAR), saying that criminals remain criminals regardless of religion.

"Certain mass media write that the attack was allegedly perpetrated by the Seleka rebel group and attach the adjective 'Muslim' to this name. But the Russian reporters were shot dead not by Muslims and not by Christians, but by criminals and bandits regardless of the organization of agency that they represent," Kadyrov wrote on Wednesday in his blog on Russia's leading social network Vkontakte.

"When in the USA some young guy organizes a shooting in a school no one in mass media would specify this man's religion," Kadyrov added.
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Heart - Black

Bodycam footage released by LAPD shows officers shooting and killing a hostage as they attempt to neutralize her captor


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:51 UTC
lapd bodycam
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has released a video that shows officers killing a hostage as they attempt to neutralize her knife-wielding captor.

Footage from body cameras worn by LAPD officers involved in the incident shows them approaching Guillermo Perez, 32, a known gang member who had just been released from prison for a domestic abuse sentence. Police were responding to a call that he had just stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The date is June 16.

The officers repeatedly demand Perez drop his knife, and fire non-lethal beanbag rounds at the gangbanger, who shields his body with a steel chair.

Perez then corners Elizabeth Tollison, a 49-year-old homeless woman standing by on the sidewalk, and holds his knife to her throat. Officers open fire on Perez, discharging 18 shots and killing Tollison by accident.
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Boat

Interview on Israeli's brutal seizure of Gaza-bound boat: 'No wish that their criminal acts be seen'

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Zohar Regev, Jonathan Ofir
© Unknown
Crew member Zohar Regev interviewed by Jonathan Ofir two months ago.
Three days ago, the Freedom Flotilla boat Al Awda, a Norwegian boat, was stopped by the Israeli navy in international waters some 46 miles off the coast of Gaza, three months after it had set sail from Norway.

The crew was arrested, and the boat was diverted towards the Israeli Ashdod port. Of the 20 crew members, the two Israeli citizens (Zohar Chamberlain Regev and Yonatan Shapira) were released shortly after on bail, but the 18 other members have already spent two nights in prison detention. The two international journalists were released.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

Father of 18yo snowboarder who committed suicide laments pressure high-level athletes face and lack of mental health support


RT
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:39 UTC
snowboarder
© Andy Clark / Reuters
The father of British snowboarder Ellie Soutter, who committed suicide on her 18th birthday, has said the pressure of competing in high-level sport could have been a factor in her tragic death.

Soutter was found dead in woodland near her home in Les Gets in the French Alps on July 25, having taken her own life.

She had moved to the area from Surrey to live with her father in 2010, and went on to compete for Team GB as a junior.

The young snowboarder claimed bronze at the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Turkey last year - Britain's only medal at the event - and had been chose to represent Team GB at the Junior World Championships in New Zealand in August. She was also seen as a bright prospect for the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
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