Tip 1: Don’t tell him anything that you wouldn’t want shared with the entire world. Either due to ever increasing legal fees or because he’s such a great conversationalist — and we’re plumping for the former — WikiLeaks has announced that they’re to auction off no fewer than eight seats at “one of London’s finest
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A new book explores western involvement in what has become a scourge of the developing world: sex selection of babies In 1979 China signed a $50m four-year deal with a UN body designed to help it control its spiralling population through family planning. It was the largest foreign aid package Beijing had accepted in almost 20 years. But the funds became entwined in China’s one-child policy that was just taking hold, and instead of sponsoring an education drive for small families, the money was used to pay for posters in Chinese villages proclaiming “You can abort it! But you cannot give birth to it.” The story of the complicity of the UNFPA, the UN’s main population agency, in the tyranny of China’s forced abortion policy is just one of the examples given in a book that explores western involvement in what has become a modern scourge: sex selection. Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl charts how the trend towards choosing boys over girls, largely through sex-selective abortions, is rapidly spreading across the developing world. While the natural sex ratio at birth is 105 boys born for every 100 girls, in India the figure has risen to 112 boys and in China 121. The Chinese city of Lianyungang recorded an astonishing 163 boys per 100 girls in 2007. The bias towards boys has been estimated to have caused the “disappearance” of 160 million women and girls in Asia alone over the past few decades. The pattern has now spilled over to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, the Balkans and Albania, where the sex ratio is 115/100. The unnatural skewing towards male populations has become so pronounced in recent decades that Hvistendahl, a writer for Science magazine, says it has given rise to a new “Generation XY”. She raises the possibility that with so many surplus men – up to a fifth of men will be single in northwestern India by 2020 – large parts of the world could become like America’s wild west, with excess testosterone leading to raised levels of crime and violence. “Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live,” Hvistendahl writes. Already, the relative shortage of women in countries like China and Taiwan has helped create new markets in women. They include arranged wedding agencies that set up marriages between South Korean men and foreigners, often women from poorer nearby countries like Vietnam, that now account for 11% of all marriages in South Korea. There is also a booming trade in trafficking of women for prostitution out of Vietnam and a growing practice of child marriage in China, where wealthier families secure wives for their sons early by effectively buying young girls for their sons. Much of the literature on sex selection has suggested that cultural patterns explain the phenomenon. But Hvisten dahl lays the blame squarely on western governments and businesses that have exported technology and pro-abortion practices without considering the consequences. Amniocentesis and ultrasound scans have had largely positive applications in the west, where they have been used to detect foetal abnormalities. But exported to Asia and eastern Europe they have been intricately linked to an explosion of sex selection and a mushrooming of female abortions. Hvistendahl claims western governments actively promoted abortion and sex selection in the developing world, encouraging the liberalisation of abortion laws and subsidising sales of ultrasounds as a form of population control. “It took millions of dollars in funding from US organisations for sex determination and abortion to catch on in the developing world,” she writes. Even now, when the pattern of sex selection has been well documented and the prospect exists of the developing world accommodating tens of millions more men than women, the UNFPA is refusing to face up to its mistakes and confront the problem, she says. “The effects of the major UN agency tasked with population advocacy distancing itself from the issue of sex selective abortion are immense,” she writes, noting that the agency’s foot-dragging has discouraged other global funds from engaging with the crisis. Population China India United Nations Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A group of kids got a bitter lesson in American justice when they were hit with a $500 fine for operating a lemonade stand without a license. The real rub? The profits were earmarked for a charity to fight pediatric cancer. Officials said they cracked down on the stand, set…
Continue reading …Rep. Luis Gutierrez at Netroots: Latinos want to vote for President Obama, but being taken for granted will kill their turnout
June 17, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I took part in a small-group discussion at Netroots Nation this morning with Rep. Luis Gutierrez organized by the fine folks at America’s Voice , and afterward I managed to squeeze in a brief interview kind of summing up the discussion. The upshot: President Obama’s political team may well be endangering his ability to gain re-election by deferring action on immigration — not merely in passing comprehensive immigration, but in providing administrative relief for DREAM Act-eligible students , and laying off its draconian “Secure Communities” initiative — because it wants to tackle these issues in its his second term. As the congressman said: GUTIERREZ: That’s what he doesn’t understand, I think, is that people just won’t show up. And you know what? There’s nothing more, I believe, that the Republicans want, than to see us just kind of sit on our hands. ‘Cause guess what — they’re voting. They’re not staying home. You can say in the polls they’re 10 points behind, but they’re still going to show up the next day. Our folks? We need to be fed. C&L: Well, if you’re being taken for granted … GUTIERREZ: And we have been. And unfortunately, we have an administration who made us a promise about bringing about comprehensive immigration reform. Now, are there challenges this president — are there challenges the president of the United States could have been defeated on? Yeah. But you see, what they want is someone who goes down fighting. I would say that the congressman is talking about a lot of progressives from across a wide spectrum. But this is a significant case of short-sightedness. Latinos delivered the vote for Obama and Democrats in 2008 . They saved the Senate for Democrats in 2010 . And now the administration’s inaction threatens to wash all that down the drain — along with their own re-election chances. That’s plain stupid.
Continue reading …NBC Laments Weiner Resignation as ‘Sad Ending’ to ‘Bright, Promising Political Career’
June 17, 2011 No Comment
As news broke Thursday morning of Congressman Anthony Weiner's upcoming resignation, congressional correspondent Luke Russert appeared on NBC's Today and sympathetically declared: “…this is really a sad ending, a lot would say, to what was once a bright, promising political career.” Moments later, NBC political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd similarly touted Weiner's role in Democratic politics: “…he was serving as sort of the bombastic angry progressive, you know, trying to almost be the anti-Tea Party liberal in Congress taking on these folks. He'd become sort of a hero to the more progressive left, who were always upset that Democrats don't stand up for themselves. So here was the guy that had all this potential to become a huge political figure…” On Friday's Today, Russert again reported on Weiner's resignation and asserted that Republicans had “no chance” of winning a special election to fill the seat, a fate which they were “willing to accept.” Later on Thursday , fellow congressional correspondent Kelly O'Donnell remarked that Weiner's resignation announcement had “showed much of his strength as a congressman.” Here is a full transcript of the June 16 segment: 10:00AM ET MATT LAUER: And good morning, everyone. I'm Matt Lauer along with Ann Curry, a Democratic source with knowledge of the situation tells NBC News that Anthony Weiner, the Democratic Congressman from New York, has decided to resign his seat in Congress. This following a week of daily revelations, drip, drip, drip, none of those revelations good for Congressman Weiner. A series of text messages and photos between the Congressman and a series of young women across the country. NBC's Luke Russert's on Capitol Hill. He's got more on this. Luke, good morning. LUKE RUSSERT: Matt, after a nearly two-week saga that engulfed the Democratic Party, Anthony Weiner informed Nancy Pelosi last night while she was at the White House congressional picnic that he would, in fact, step down and resign as a member of Congress. This comes after nearly one week of his fellow colleagues calling on him to step down because they said he was a distraction to the party, prohibiting them – prohibited them from talking about issues they deemed to be important, such as the economy and health care. What can we tell you that happened this morning, Matt? Well, around 9:30 a.m. we saw staffers leaving Anthony Weiner's D.C. office up here on Capitol Hill. They left with their belongings, they would not say where they were going. The door was then locked and the office lights were turned out and then all phone calls made to Anthony Weiner's office would go directly to voice mail. So we can now report Anthony Weiner has stepped down and this is really a sad ending, a lot would say, to what was once a bright, promising political career. The youngest person ever elected to the New York City council back in the early '90s, elected to Congress in 1998. Somebody who had a $4 million war chest saved up for a possible run for Mayor of New York in 2013 has now resigned as a member of Congress and his political future is certainly unclear this morning. LAUER: Hey, Luke, I'm asking you to speculate a little bit here, but obviously this comes just about a day after his wife Huma returned from an overseas trip with her boss, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and it came as Congress ramped up the pressure on Congressman Weiner. Do we know whether this was the result of pressure from his wife, pressure from his colleagues, or a little of both? RUSSERT: It's certainly a combination, Matt. And what we've heard from sources throughout this whole ordeal is that Anthony Weiner would not make any final decision about his political future until he had a face-to-face consultation with his wife. She arrived back here in Washington about 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning. We presume that that consultation did occur. Also, Matt, the timing on this is interesting. At 10:45 a.m. today Nancy Pelosi was slated to give a press conference, the first one that she was going to give since this scandal started. Well, we can now know that the announcement she would give this press conference went out last night, she obviously knew he was going to step down, which would make her more inclined to go before the cameras. Because if she had to go before the cameras and answer questions as to why he was still a member of Congress it would have proved somewhat politically difficult. So the writing was certainly on the wall these last few days and now it has occurred, Anthony Weiner no longer representing New York's Ninth Congressional District, Matt. LAUER: Alright, Luke Russert on Capitol Hill. He's been covering the story from the very beginning. Luke, thank you very much. ANN CURRY: Alright, let's bring in NBC's Chuck Todd. NBC's political director and chief White House correspondent. Chuck, good morning to you. TODD: Good morning, Ann. CURRY: Given that the already intense pressure on Anthony Weiner was about to intensify, did he really have any other choice? TODD: He didn't appear to, and he appeared to make this decision yesterday because it was last night, you know, the White House – President Obama, who by the way, was the most recent person in that interview with you, Ann, to call on Weiner to resign – it was at a White House congressional picnic last night Anthony Weiner called Nancy Pelosi and Steve Israel – he is chairman of the Democratic Campaign Committee, but also a member of the New York delegation, sort of one of the persons that's been a go-between between Pelosi and Anthony Weiner in this – and it was last night, yesterday evening, that Weiner called the two of them and said that he would be resigning this morning. CURRY: And given his ambitions and also his – the prospects that he once had, give us some sense about how steep this fall is. TODD: It's a pretty big fall. This is a guy who was a protege of Chuck Schumer. He's the senior senator from New York, very famous for being unafraid of going before any TV camera, having Sunday news conferences. He learned sort of at the foot of Chuck Schumer, this idea of being a little blunt, a little in your face, always knowing how to get media attention. And for Anthony Weiner, his eyes were on the mayoralship of New York City. He almost ran four years ago and thought he could beat – decided he couldn't beat Bloomberg when Bloomberg decided to run for a third term. He was getting this together to try to run again and he was serving as sort of the bombastic angry progressive, you know, trying to almost be the anti-Tea Party liberal in Congress taking on these folks. He'd become sort of a hero to the more progressive left, who were always upset that Democrats don't stand up for themselves. So here was the guy that had all this potential to become a huge political figure had he become mayor of New York City and now it's going to be tough for him where he goes next. Huma, his wife, very close to the Clintons, maybe they can help him out. But it's not clear where he goes next. Being a politician was what he thought he was going do for the rest of his life. CURRY: Meantime, I'm sure today you're going to hear a lot of relief from the Democratic Party members, but I wonder how you think this is all going to play out. Specifically, he's – now they need to have an election to fill his spot. How's – what is the timing? What is the – what is the thing that you would expect to happen over the course of the next couple of days. TODD: Well, it's a little bit awkward with what's going to happen in New York State because New York is supposed to lose two congressional districts and lawmakers in Albany have to figure out which ones they're going to get rid of. Now it probably means they will get rid of this one, but there will be, for – until now – between now and January of 2013, they'll have to have a special election and you'll see that and perhaps some familiar names to New York City folks may decide to run for that seat. But the seat's probably going to be gone and so that makes for an awkward waste of money, frankly, for the State of New York to do this. And, you know, the rest of this week is gone for the Democrats in trying to talk about Medicare, talk about the economy, but I think at this point they finally get to turn the page and go back to trying to beat the Republicans up over the Paul Ryan Medicare plan, which they believe they were getting traction on until this Weiner mess exploded. CURRY: Alright, well, Chuck Todd, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for your perspective. LAUER: So the headline once again. New York Congressman, a Democrat, Anthony Weiner has decided to resign his seat in Congress after this scandal, this sexting scandal kind of developed around him and because of him over the last couple of weeks. We're going have much more on this story throughout the morning on MSNBC and MSNBC.com and of course, a complete wrap-up tonight on NBC Nightly News.
Continue reading …Just how much ash has Chile’s Puyehue volcano spewed into the air? This much: The 210 square miles of Lake Nahuel Haupi in neighboring Argentina have been filled with ash, the Telegraph reports. In this video, a diver shows you just how thick the ash is. And yes, all that…
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ABC News’s Sarah Kunin (@Sarah_Kunin) reports: Jon Huntsman’s motorcycle ride down the information superhighway continues today, now with a new fun fact: “Has seven children, one from India, one from China.” Today’s video is the second in a series of… Broadcasting platform : Vimeo Source : The Note Discovery Date : 17/06/2011 17:49 Number of articles : 5
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Richard O’Dwyer may face jail for copyright infringement in case echoing that of Gary McKinnon The mother of a British student who is facing extradition to the United States over alleged copyright offences online has spoken of her anguish that he could face a possible jail sentence. In a case carrying echoes of that of Gary McKinnon , the computer hacker who has spent years fighting US extradition, 23-year-old undergraduate Richard O’Dwyer was arrested late last month at the request of the US immigration and customs enforcement department. Until last year, when police and US officials first visited him at his student accommodation in Sheffield, O’Dwyer ran a website called TVShack which provided links to other sites where users could download pirated versions of films and television shows. He appeared before magistrates in the capital this week for a preliminary hearing into the planned extradition, which he is fighting. The case seemed “beyond belief”, said O’Dwyer’s mother, Julia, from Chesterfield. “The first he knew about it was this visit from the police and the American officials in November,” she said. “He shut the website down the very next day and I don’t think he expected it to go this far. But then in May he even had to spend a night in Wandsworth prison as the court was too slow for us to sort out his passport and bail. “Richard’s still studying in Sheffield. He’s doing his best not to think about it. But it’s a real strain for the family. I wake up every morning and think about it. What we can do? I’m no expert but I’ve read the extradition treaty from cover to cover.” It is the UK’s 2003 extradition agreement with the US, campaigners say, which is at the centre of the problem. Much criticised in the case of McKinnon, it currently contains no provision for what is known legally as forum, which would allow a UK judge to consider whether a case is best heard in the UK or abroad. O’Dwyer’s mother says she is baffled why a case with no direct links to the US – her son last went there aged five – should be heard in the US. Her lawyers agree. “The (computer) server was not based in the US at all,” O’Dwyer’s barrister, Ben Cooper, who has also been heavily involved in the McKinnon case, told Tuesday’s hearing at Westminster magistrates court. “Mr O’Dwyer did not have copyrighted material on his website; he simply provided a link. The essential contention is that the correct forum for this trial is in fact here in Britain, where he was at all times.” Some experts on digital law question whether providing links to illegal downloads rather than directly hosting them would even constitute an offence in the UK. In February last year charges involving fraud and copyright against a similar site, TV-Links, were dismissed after a judge ruled that linking alone was not illegal. “If it’s an offence under UK law, then it has to be prosecuted and tested under UK law,” said James Firth of the Open Digital Policy Organisation thinktank. “If there is no offence under UK law, then there is no ‘victim’ to copyright infringement and no case for extradition.” Civil liberties groups have also questioned why the government has not swiftly amended the extradition law by enacting a pre-existing but dormant forum clause, given that both coalition parties were heavily critical of it while in opposition. In September last year the home secretary, Theresa May, instead ordered a wider, year-long review of all extradition laws. “The government hasn’t acted in time. This is exactly what we warned against,” said Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty. “Enacting the forum amendment would have been quite simple. It’s not that we’re arguing that in every case where activity has taken place here we shouldn’t allow people to be extradited. But we should at least be leaving our judges some discretion to look at the circumstances.” Extradition Filesharing UK criminal justice UK civil liberties Internet United States Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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The biggest showdown at this summer’s E3 video game expo was between two first-person shooters: ‘Battlefield 3′ and ‘Modern Warfare 3.’ (June 17)
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Rory McIlroy shot a 5-under-par 66 in his second round Friday to head into the weekend at 11-under 131, setting the record for the best 36-hole score in the 111-year history of the US Open. (June 17)
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