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Thailand's first female tourism minister seeks crackdown on rampant sex industry

Jon Lockett
The Sun
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 01:56 UTC
Thailand crackdown sex industry
© AFP
Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul wants rich holiday-makers to flock to Thailand for its beauty and luxury and not its seedy red light districts
Thailand's sex industry is under fire after the country's first female tourism minister vowed to shut down the country's many brothels and go-go bars. Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul wants future holidaymakers to flock to Thailand for its beauty and beaches and not its seedy red light districts and world-famous ladyboys.

But those working in the industry say any clampdown would devastate the local economy and leave thousands out of work. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist country and with traditional values, but it is also home to one of the world's most infamous sex industries. Every year, hordes of tourists flock to the bright lights of go-go bars and massage parlours in Bangkok and other tourist towns.

But Tourism Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul had tried to play down the role of the sex industry in drawing visitors. "Tourists don't come to Thailand for such a thing," Kobkarn said. "They come here for our beautiful culture. We want Thailand to be about quality tourism. We want the sex industry gone."

Prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand but the law is almost invariably ignored - mainly because of police corruption. Those trying to promote the welfare of sex workers say Kobkarn's goal is unrealistic. The military government is in denial about the proliferation of prostitution and its contribution to the economy and tourism, said Panomporn Utaisri of NightLight, a Christian non-profit group that helps women in the sex trade to find alternative work.
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Quenelle

Wave of unrest in Armenia: A non-color revolution?

Rafael Babikian
The Duran
Sun, 31 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
armenia unrest
The stand-off in Yerevan is not a failed attempt at a 'color revolution' and is not directed against Russia. Nor does it threaten Armenia's links to Russia. It is the result of widespread dissatisfaction with the government and with the internal situation in Armenia.

On the dawn of July 17, an armed group calling itself "The Daredevils of Sassoun" stormed a major police base in Erebuni, outside the capital Yerevan. The group's name comes from an Armenian heroic poem where a group of men fight for the Armenian cause of independence somewhere in the middle ages.

Shortly after the operation, the group posted a video on Facebook in which one of the gunman was heard saying "We are doing this for you, come out to the streets, we have taken this path for you". The gunmen seemed determined, wearing blue and white bullet vests, armed with different variants of AK rifles. During the initial assault, one police officer was killed, and 8 were taken as hostage including the Deputy Police Chief of Yerevan, Valery Osipyan, who arrived at the scene to negotiate with the gunmen. The hostages were released gradually in the coming days, signaling that the situation was not a typical hostage crisis.

Under fresh impressions of the coup attempt in Turkey, some media outlets rushed to report that something similar was going on in Armenia. Some went as far as saying that members of the Armenian Air Force had toppled the president. As the ambiguity surrounding the situation gradually faded, it was clear that no coup had taken place and anything of that sort was implausible.
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Question

More millennials are avoiding sex, feeling 'There isn't really anything magical about it'

Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post
Wed, 03 Aug 2016 00:38 UTC
millenials avoid sex
© Courtesy of Sam Wei
Sam Wei, 26, finds "intellectual conversation more stimulating and more pleasurable than having sex sometimes."
Sam Wei, a 26-year-old financial analyst in Chicago, has not had sex since her last relationship ended 18 months ago. She makes out with guys sometimes, and she likes to cuddle.

"To me, there's more intimacy with having someone there next to you that you can rely on without having to have sex," she said. "I don't want to do anything that would harm the relationship and be something that we can't come back from."

It's a less sexy time to be young than it used to be, despite millennials' reputation as bed-hoppers frolicking like the characters on Girls. A study published Tuesday in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior finds that younger millennials — born in the 1990s — are more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive in their early 20s as the previous generation was. Even older millennials are more sexually active than this younger group is.

Recent research also shows that overall, millennials — people born between the early 1980s and 2000 — have fewer sexual partners than the baby boomers and those in Generation X, the group immediately preceding them.

Granted, the vast majority of young adults are still having sex, but an increasing number of them appear to be standing on the sidelines.
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Target

Independent media goes to New York to confront NBC over their numerous damaging lies

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
nbc lies
During the chaos of breaking news events like the failed coup in Turkey last month, reliable, factual accounts of what is happening on the ground are especially important. If the MSM had reported that President Erdogan had been killed or captured by the coup faction, for instance, or that he had fled the country, that information could demoralize the public and deter them from the types of protests that ultimately stopped the coup in its tracks.

Well, as it turns out, that's exactly what the MSM was reporting during the key hours when the coup was unfolding and the 24/7 news channels were scrambling to cover the story. Specifically, MSNBC reported that "a senior US military source tells NBC News that US officials are hearing that Turkish President Erdogan, refused landing rights in Istanbul, is reported to be seeking asylum in Germany." The on-air anchor then editorialized that this "can't be good for Erdogan."

To be fair, it wouldn't have been good for Erdogan...if it were true. Which of course it wasn't. But that didn't stop the MSM from propagating the secondhand, vaguely worded, anonymously sourced rumor everywhere. A Google search for "Erdogan asylum Germany" produces over 900,000 hits, showing that the story spread all over the online (and presumably on-air) media world within hours. Turkish sources confirm that the story was also picked up and heavily circulated within Turkey on social media platforms by the coup faction itself.

Comment: GO SIBEL!!! Tune in here as we continue to follow this story.

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Info

Will the purge change anything? Senior DNC staff resigns after email revelations


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:33 UTC
DNC convention
© Mike Segar / Reuters
Three senior officials at the Democratic National Committee - frequently mentioned in leaked emails revealing collusion with the media, bias against the Bernie Sanders campaign, and favoritism for Hillary Clinton - have resigned.

More than 20,000 messages obtained from DNC servers were released by Wikileaks on the eve of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - leading to the resignation by party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Chief executive officer Amy Dacey, Chief financial officer Brad Marshall, and communications director Luis Miranda are now also leaving the DNC, interim chairwoman Donna Brazile announced Tuesday.
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USA

GEMS: A fractional vote-counting system used throughout the US that can rig elections without detection

Jon Rappoport
Jon Rappoport's Blog
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 22:19 UTC
US voting machines
© Jewel Samad / AFP
As we know, there are a number of ways to rig an election. Bev Harris, at blackboxvoting.org, is exploring a specific "cheat sheet" that has vast implications for the Trump vs. Hillary contest.

It's a vote-counting system called GEMS.

I urge you to dive into her multi-part series, Fraction Magic (Part-1 here). Here are key Harris quotes. They're all shockers:

"Our testing [of GEMS] shows that one vote can be counted 25 times, another only one one-thousandth of a time, effectively converting some votes to zero."

"This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds."

"GEMS vote-counting systems are and have been operated under five trade names: Global Election Systems, Diebold Election Systems, Premier Election Systems, Dominion Voting Systems, and Election Systems & Software, in addition to a number of private regional subcontractors. At the time of this writing, this system is used statewide in Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah and Vermont, and for counties in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. It is also used in Canada."
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Sheeple

Bernie Sanders, leader of the 1 percent's useful idiots

Chris Hedges
Truth Dig
Tue, 26 Jul 2016 21:45 UTC
voting poster
© schroepfer / Flickr
The parade of useful idiots, the bankrupt liberal class that long ago sold its soul to corporate power, is now led by Sen. Bernie Sanders. His final capitulation, symbolized by his pathetic motion to suspend the roll call, giving Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination by acclamation, is an abject betrayal of millions of his supporters and his call for a political revolution.

No doubt the Democrats will continue to let Sanders be a member of the Democratic Caucus. No doubt the Democrats will continue to agree not to run a serious candidate against him in Vermont. No doubt Sanders will be given an ample platform and media opportunities to shill for Clinton and the corporate machine. No doubt he will remain a member of the political establishment.

Sanders squandered his most important historical moment. He had a chance, one chance, to take the energy, anger and momentum, walk out the doors of the Wells Fargo Center and into the streets to help build a third-party movement. His call to his delegates to face "reality" and support Clinton was an insulting repudiation of the reality his supporters, mostly young men and young women, had overcome by lifting him from an obscure candidate polling at 12 percent into a serious contender for the nomination. Sanders not only sold out his base, he mocked it. This was a spiritual wound, not a political one. For this he must ask forgiveness.

Whatever resistance happens will happen without him. Whatever political revolution happens will happen without him. Whatever hope we have for a sustainable future will happen without him. Sanders, who once lifted up the yearnings of millions, has become an impediment to change. He took his 30 pieces of silver and joined with a bankrupt liberal establishment on behalf of a candidate who is a tool of Wall Street, a proponent of endless war and an enemy of the working class.
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Roses

9-11 and Clinton researcher Victor Thorn found dead of a gunshot wound


American Free Press
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:30 UTC
victor thorn
© AFP
Prolific author, American Free Press writer and seasoned Clinton researcher Victor Thorn was found at the top of a mountain near his home, the apparent victim of a gunshot wound. Family and some close friends contend Thorn took his own life on his birthday, August 1. Thorn would have been 54.

At the peak of his writing career, the author of some 20 books and 30 chapbooks, Thorn had reported for this newspaper for over a decade, writing thousands of articles on myriad subjects from conspiracy to health-related topics. Best known for his investigate research on the Clintons, Thorn wrote the Clinton trilogy—three definitive works that delved into the history of the power couple including their sordid scandals, Bill Clinton's sexual assaults of multiple women, and the drug running out of Mena, Arkansas while Clinton was governor of the state.

Besides writing for AFP, Thorn published the works of numerous writers in the alternative media such as Michael Collins Piper, Adam Gorightly, Mark Glenn, John Kaminski and Joan d'Arc, while also producing five CD-ROMs and DVDs, one of which is a five-disc collection that covers the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Thorn also served as the editor of five anthologies, and his political articles have appeared in various newspapers around the country.

Comment: We didn't always agree with Thorn's take on things; nevertheless, we'd like to express our respect for his efforts and our shock at his sudden death.

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Control Panel

Violence against refugee camps boom in Germany despite influx slowdown


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:40 UTC
Syrian refugees
© Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Syrian refugees arrive at the camp for refugees and migrants in Friedland, Germany.
German Criminal Police report 665 criminal offences against refugee centers since the start of 2016, with the majority committed by far-right activists. A German rights group says the numbers are worsening, despite the influx of refugees abating.

Asylum centers in Germany have been the target of 665 criminal offences of various types since the start of this year, the Criminal Police Office (BKA) said. In its official Twitter post the body stated that of that number "613 are clearly far-right inspired."

That number included dozens of arson cases, Der Spiegel reports, citing BKA. It adds that four attempted "bomb attacks" were also investigated. Police also looked into dozens of "politically-motivated" attacks among the criminal offences against refugees, Tagesspiegel reports. "Regarding 52 offences we cannot exclude a political motivation," the outlet quotes the law enforcers.

In late June, BKA chief Holger Munch said that Germany is witnessing "an alarming level of far-right violence" against refugees, adding that over a third of attackers were "not registered by police."

This as the number of migrants reported by the Germany's migration office is in decline. While in January this year the body reported over 90,000 newcomers, that number fell significantly to 16,335 in June.

Comment: People in Germany are being conditioned to hate these 'refugees' based on their ethnicity and their religion. Coincidentally, the same widespread fear-mongering and hatred gave rise to what happened in Nazi Germany and just serves the agenda of the elite.

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Propaganda

Look in the mirror: Russian embassy responds angrily to Times' criticism of RT


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 20:45 UTC
Russia Today newsroom
© Evgeny Biyatov / Sputnik
The Russian embassy in Britain has responded to recent criticism of RT in the Times newspaper, calling the allegations "puzzling" and "misleading."

Across the weekend, the newspaper ran at least six separate articles on RT, claiming the network is part of a Russian government "misinformation campaign" based on "rumour and conspiracy theories."

The newspaper also said people who watch RT are more likely to hold anti-Western views, and that the network uses unqualified and "obscure" experts, fails to remain impartial, and seems to be "turning viewers against the West."


Comment: These accusations sounds just like what the Times newspaper does.

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