A furious mom has been busted at an airport for blocking a “crotch-grabbing” patdown of her young daughter. Andrea Fornella, 41, was arrested in Nashville en route to Baltimore when she shouted and swore at guards that she wasn’t about to allow her baby’s “crotch grabbed” as they prepared to…
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Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu defends controversial measure but legal experts, including some rightwingers, say it damages freedom of expression Israel’s new law effectively banning political boycotts is unconstitutional and does grievous harm to freedom of expression and protest, three dozen eminent Israeli law professors have said in a petition. The move followed prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s robust defence of the law in the Knesset (parliament) on Wednesday in which he said he was “against boycotts aimed at the Jewish state”. The petition, sent to attorney-general Yehuda Weinstein, was signed by the deans of many of Israel’s law schools, including some associated with the political right. “This law is a classic case of the tyranny of the majority,” said Alon Harel of Hebrew University, one of the instigators of the petition. “The majority aims at silencing, persecuting and threatening the minority. It conflicts directly with the principles established in Israel in the 1990s that entrench the right to freedom of speech in the legal system. It is the most cherished right in the Israeli legal system.” Under the Law for Prevention of Damage to the State of Israel through Boycott , an individual or organisation proposing a boycott may be sued for compensation by any individual or institution facing possible damage as a result. Evidence of actual damage will not be required. It bans consumer boycotts of goods and services produced in West Bank settlements and the blacklisting of cultural and academic institutions in settlements. It also bars the government from doing business with companies that comply with boycotts. Boycotts were a standard form of protest in Israel, Harel said. But the new law was a “non-neutral restriction”. “Speech or action which promotes one viewpoint is protected and sanctioned, yet speech which promotes another viewpoint is prohibited,” he said. Boycotts by ultra-orthodox Jews against the Israeli national airline El Al over flying on the sabbath or by Israeli tourists against Turkey following last year’s flotilla had not been targeted, he said. Harel said the new law had to be seen within a wider context: “Basically, Israel is still a lively democracy. But this is part of a campaign to win the political struggle not through free elections and political discourse but through silencing certain sections of society.” Several civil rights groups have launched a challenge to the new law in Israel’s supreme court and high court of justice. Another bill is to be brought before the Knesset next week which allows the investigation of the funding of human and civil rights groups in Israel. Many groups say this is unnecessary as their funding is totally transparent and they claim it is part of a wider campaign of harassment and an attempt to restrict their actions. Two rightwing members of the Knesset announced on Wednesday they would present a further bill allowing the Knesset to veto supreme court appointments. The right has criticised its judges for decisions it considers to be against Israel’s interests. The bill, which is not widely supported, is unlikely to succeed. The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, said: “The threat to the supreme court is a danger to democracy.” Despite being absent for Monday night’s vote in favour of the law, Netanyahu told the Knesset: “I don’t want anyone to be confused. I approved the law. If I hadn’t backed it, it wouldn’t have passed. I am against boycotts aimed at the Jewish state.” He denied the new law damaged Israel’s image. “What mars its image are the reckless, irresponsible attacks against the legitimate attempt by a democracy on the defensive to draw a line between what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable,” he said. Matthew Gould, the British ambassador to Israel, came under fire for saying in an interview with Israeli newspaper Maariv that the UK was concerned about the law. “For a foreign diplomat to take such a public stance is highly unusual,” a foreign ministry official said. “It is not customary for an ambassador to speak out against a legislative process.” In a separate development, nursery schools in Israel are to be required to raise the Israeli flag and sing the national anthem at least once a week to strengthen children’s Zionist values. Kindergartens in Arab areas will be exempt from the requirement, issued by the education ministry. Israel Middle East Binyamin Netanyahu Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A major scientific breakthrough will help researchers get around one of the major obstacles to testing conditions like Alzheimer’s: A lack of brain donors. The team has found an efficient way to turn skin cells into neurons by adding a few short strands of genetic material, the Independent reports. “A…
Continue reading …Move over Paul the Octopus (OK, so maybe he can’t move because he’s dead ). The latest amazing oracle of World Cup winners is Nelly the adorable baby elephant. The 18-month-old predicting pachyderm has so far picked the winner of every German match and semifinal victors in the Women’s World…
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Vitorino Hilton and Lucho González among Marseille players to suffer armed robberies at their homes Marseille’s efforts to shed its reputation as a crime capital have been dealt a blow with a warning from the city’s football team that a spate of violent robberies of star players is making it difficult to attract top talent to the club. The homes of players for Olympic Marseille, the Ligue 1 team and former French champions, have become a regular target for armed robberies, known as “home-jackings”. This week the Brazilian defender Vitorino Hilton was at his gated Marseille home with 10 family members when an armed gang of six broke in just before midnight. They held the footballer’s relatives hostage before hitting Hilton on the head with the butt of a gun several times and escaping with cash, jewellery, computers and designer bags. Hilton told French radio station RMC: “As I’d been hit on the head, I was bleeding a lot, [my children] panicked.” He said his children were scared and wanted to go back to Brazil. The Argentinian Lucho González, one of the highest paid footballers in France, was said to have been left traumatised after an armed gang attacked him and his family at home in Aix-en-Provence in March. After 10 attacks on players in 18 months Olympic Marseille announced it had set up private security patrols around players’ homes in the city and surrounding area, and called on local authorities to crack down on crime. Marseille will be European capital of culture in 2013 and is undergoing major architectural and cultural renovations. But Olympic Marseille’s sporting director, José Anigo, said he was struggling to attract new star players because of the city’s reputation. “Every time I signed a player this year the first questions they asked were ‘can you guarantee security?’ and ‘are my family at risk?’” he told a press conference. “Bringing players to Marseille in those conditions is complicated. You have to be a magician.” The club said it would be nonsensical to tell players not to wear designer watches and drive expensive cars. “Everyone has the right to profit from their earnings,” said Anigo. But the club admitted it may begin advising players to move to secure apartment blocks rather than isolated houses. Marseille France Europe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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With each passing day the Euro crisis deepens, spreading to more countries with ever more dramatic consequences. But are you still struggling to understand how we got here? To help you out, we present The Euro Crisis Song
Continue reading …Front-runner Mitt Romney has been playing nice with the other GOP contenders so far and that’s unlikely to change even as Michele Bachmann solidifies her place as a major contender in polls , sources close to the Romney campaign tell the Daily Beast . Team Romney definitely sees Bachmann as a threat,…
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Provincial minister with the ruling Pakistan People’s party sparks protests after diatribe against opposition party The centre of Karachi has been left deserted after 12 people were killed in a night of violence sparked by a government minister’s blazing verbal assault on “wretched” opposition supporters. Zulfikar Mirza, a senior provincial minister with the ruling Pakistan People’s party (PPP), unleashed such an uncontrolled barrage on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) – a political force most people are afraid to criticise even mildly – that members of his own party had to physically take him away from the microphones at an impromptu press conference. The city of 18 million people, Pakistan’s economic powerhouse, has shut for business, with the city centre deserted and factory workers unable to get to work because public transport was suspended. Markets, banks and shops were shuttered. Dozens of cars were set on fire and shops burnt in the violence. The streets of many poorer residential areas, where MQM supporters live, thronged with angry protesters who burned effigies of Mirza. The two other big cities in southern Sindh province, Hyderabad and Sukkur, were similarly shut down, with MQM supporters out in force. The MQM represents “mohajirs”, speakers of the Urdu language who fled India after partition in 1947, with many settling in Karachi, where they vastly outnumber the indigenous population. The party has a thuggish reputation for its alleged involvement in extortion and other rackets, though it denies connection to any criminality. “For your own sake, for Pakistan’s sake, for Karachi’s sake, stand up and rid us of these wretched people,” Mirza said in his diatribe. “They came to this province when they were hungry and naked and we took them in.” Mirza, who is close to president Asif Zardari, said that if the Urdu speakers wanted to carve their own province out from Sindh, “they will have to step over our dead bodies first”. He also lacerated the party’s leader, Altaf Hussain, who has lived in exile in London for decades, calling him “the biggest criminal”. Separately, the PPP’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, bizarrely claimed that 70 of 100 people killed last week in Karachi, in apparent targeted assassinations of supporters of different political parties, were in fact killed by their “wives and girlfriends”. While the MQM is the biggest political force in Karachi, it faces two rivals with their own violent followings. As well as the PPP, which has a stranglehold on the Lyari district of the city, there is also the Awami National party, which represents the huge ethnic Pashtun population of Karachi, who have moved from the north-west of the country. According to the MQM, the growth of the Pashtun population has led to the “Talibanisation” of Karachi, with extremists creating no-go areas. Clashes between the armed supporters of the three parties periodically sets off tit-for-tat killings that go on for days. At stake are political and criminal fiefdoms. Last year over 1,000 people died in the gang-related violence, the highest figure in 15 years. Even before Mirza’s outburst, poorer parts of Karachi had last week seen running gun battles on the streets, requiring the paramilitary Rangers force to be deployed. In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Mirza apologized, saying that “Urdu-speaking people are my brothers and sisters”. Most supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan pass through Karachi’s port, where they are loaded on to trucks and sent by road across Pakistan to the border crossings. Pakistan Saeed Shah guardian.co.uk
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Groundbreaking studies suggest tablets could help partners of people with HIV protect themselves – secretly, if necessary The partners of people who have HIV can protect themselves from infection by taking a once-daily pill, two groundbreaking studies in Botswana, Kenya and Uganda have shown. The discovery could bring work to combat Aids close to a “tipping point”, experts say. Attempts to promote condom use to protect against HIV in the hardest-hit parts of the world, and particularly Africa, have hit cultural barriers and had limited success. But now it appears that men or women who know – or suspect – their partner has HIV could protect themselves, secretly if necessary. The larger study, involving 4,758 “discordant” couples (where one has HIV but the other has not) in Kenya and Uganda, led by the University of Washington’s International Clinical Research Centre, shows that those taking a single daily tablet of the Aids drug tenofovir had 62% fewer infections and those who took a pill combining tenofovir and emtricitabine had 73% fewer infections than those who took a placebo pill. The drugs have few side-effects, which is important if they are to be given to healthy individuals. Both are made by Gilead, which has licensed their manufacture to generic companies in the developing world, allowing them to produce cheap copies – so this is a relatively inexpensive intervention. “This study demonstrates that antiretrovirals are a highly potent and fundamental cornerstone for HIV prevention and should become an integral part of global efforts for HIV prevention,” said Dr Connie Celum, professor of global health and medicine at the university and principal investigator of the study, known as the Partners PrEP Study, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The second study in Botswana was conducted by the United States Centres for Disease Control. It followed 1,200 heterosexual men and women without HIV who received either a once-daily tenofovir/emtricitabine tablet or a placebo pill. The antiretroviral tablet reduced the risk of acquiring HIV infection by roughly 63% overall. “This is a major scientific breakthrough which re-confirms the essential role that antiretroviral medicine has to play in the Aids response,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids). “These studies could help us to reach the tipping point in the HIV epidemic.” The news follows hard on the heels of another very significant finding – that people with HIV who are taking combinations of antiretroviral drugs not only stay healthy themselves but are unlikely to infect their partner. The two pieces of research give a massive boost to the cause of rolling out more Aids drugs and treating people at the earliest stage of their illness. “Effective new HIV prevention tools are urgently needed, and these studies could have enormous impact in preventing heterosexual transmission,” said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO’s director general. “WHO will be working with countries to use the new findings to protect more men and women from HIV infection.” Aids and HIV Health HIV infection Sexual health Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …There have been over 25,000 known security breaches at American airports since the Transportation Security Administration was created in 2001, the agency has told a House committee probing security shortcomings. The breaches include 14,000 people who have found their way into sensitive areas and 6,000 travelers who…
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