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Church Bombing Kills 15 in Nigeria
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Africa North
Defibrillator used on Egypt's Mubarak as health worsens
[USA Today] Doctors used a defibrillator twice on Hosni Mubarak when they could not find a pulse Monday, the latest health crisis for the ousted Egyptian president since he was sentenced to life and moved to a prison hospital nine days ago, security officials said. The officials said the 84-year-old Mubarak was slipping in and out of consciousness and was being fed liquids intravenously. Mubarak also lost consciousness several times Sunday and officials have said he is suffering from high blood pressure, depression and breathing difficulties.

Mubarak's health scare adds one more layer to Egypt's turbulent political scene with a runoff vote to choose his successor a few days away. His death would bring down the curtain on a chapter of Egypt's modern history that has divided this mainly Muslim nation of 85 million people.
Posted by: Fred || 06/11/2012 13:27 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mahmoud! Turn it up to "11"!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/11/2012 15:46 Comments || Top||


Salafi Egyptian MP accused of indecent act
Egyptian prosecutors plan to investigate a Salafi MP whom police say was caught in his car "violating public decency" with a woman. He denies the allegation and Islamists say the case is aimed at defaming them ahead of upcoming presidential runoff elections.

The incident, much discussed in the local media, comes at a crucial time for supporters of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi, who is set to face former regime figure and ex-military man Ahmed Shafiq in a June 16-17 vote.

The accused politician and sheikh, Ali Wanees, ran for parliament on a coalition led by the Salafi-led Nour Party, which controls a quarter of the seats in parliament. Salafi leaders back Wanees, and call the police report "fraudulent."

According to officials with access to the police report, four policemen say a vehicle was parked in a dark area along an agricultural road on Thursday evening.

The officers say they approached the car and saw a woman in a full face veil sitting on top of a man who was touching and caressing her. They say that when they tapped on the car window and told the man to show his national ID and car registration, he yelled back, "I am Ali Wanees, member of parliament, you sons of dogs."

Wanees was briefly detained before police realized he was an MP and has parliamentary immunity. The police officers filed a report against Wanees, saying that he was caught "violating public decency."

In a video posted on his website, Wanees says the 23-year old woman is his niece and that the two had been running errands when she became ill, forcing him to pull the car over. He said, "I was surprised to find someone knocking on the car window. I opened the door and was surprised to be asked for my ID and I unfortunately had really forgotten my ID, the car registration and my parliamentary ID."

He says there was a dispute at the scene and that after around 30 minutes the police allowed him to leave.
Posted by: ryuge || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


12 Killed in Egypt Tribal Fighting
[An Nahar] A gunfight during the night between two feuding tribes in Egypt's south has killed 12 people, a police official said on Sunday.

The official said the battle in the southern Aswan province, in which automatic weapons were used, left three wounded. The gunfight erupted as a dispute over land, he said.

Police and soldiers moved in with armored vehicles to end the fighting, he said.

Family feuds in the impoverished south may go on for months or even years, and often end in government sponsored reconciliations.
Posted by: Fred || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Africa Subsaharan
Thousands flee after deadly Ivory Coast clashes
ABIDJAN: Thousands of civilians in Ivory Coast have fled their homes after seven UN peacekeepers and eight civilians were killed in raids near the Liberian border, a UN official and residents said.

The wave of unrest prompted Liberia to announce it was shutting its border with its neighbour, although it said the move would not affect humanitarian work in the area.

The peacekeepers were killed Friday while they were patrolling an area between two villages after hearing rumours of an imminent attack on communities there. At least one Ivorian soldier was also killed in the ambush.

A series of simultaneous raids on several villages near the southwestern town of Tai sparked an "immediate" exodus, UN spokeswoman Anouk Desgroseilliers told AFP.

The raids came just days after a Human Rights Watch report blamed recent attacks in southwest Ivory Coast on fighters loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo, who is currently awaiting trial on war crimes charges.

The authorities in Abidjan have said those behind Friday's attacks came from Liberia. Desgroseilliers, of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said at least eight civilians, including a woman, had been killed in Friday's attack, along with the seven peacekeepers from Niger.

"Hundreds of people have arrived in Tai, and one can imagine that thousands of others are on the road," he said, adding that 35 families had crossed the border into Liberia to seek safety there.

"It's real panic here," mayor Desire Gnonkonte told AFP by phone from Tai. "People are taking little bundles and fleeing on foot."
Posted by: Steve White || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Training Underway For Operators of New UAE Nuclear Power Plants


Training is currently underway for operators of a new fleet of nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates.

A Korean consortium is building four reactors at Braka, near the Saudi border. The operator, Enec, expects to employ more than 2000 workers by 2020 and it is hoped that 60% of those will be Emiratis.
One can only hope the reactors are both tightly sealed and insh'allah-proof.
Posted by: crosspatch || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They'll use the electricity for desal.
Posted by: phil_b || 06/11/2012 2:18 Comments || Top||

#2  And after 'the event', the softly-glowing countryside for nighttime illumination.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/11/2012 9:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Training on recycled Playstation IIs
Posted by: Ho Chi B. Hayes7277 || 06/11/2012 17:37 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Castro Endorses Obama
Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal

President Obama has received yet another endorsement, this time from the daughter of Cuban military dictator Raúl Castro. Mariela Castro proclaimed her support for the sitting president 10 days ago, during a visit to the United States. "I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart," she said in a CNN interview in New York.
I'll bet Mitt Romney is shocked, shocked and disappointed.
The dictator's daughter, who is a vociferous proponent of the Cuban status quo,
Surprise again!
was ostensibly in the U.S. to discuss matters pertaining to her field of expertise, which has something to do with advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
She'll fit right in at the Democratic National Convention.
As the Cuban-born writer Carlos Alberto Montaner put it in a syndicated column last week, "Mariela is tolerant of sexual preferences and intolerant of all the rest." He added: "For her, freedom and emotional coherence are something very specifically situated south of the navel."...
Posted by: Mike || 06/11/2012 05:49 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course she would endorse Obama. Communists always endorse other Communists.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 06/11/2012 7:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Reason #478,652 not to vote for the bastard.
Posted by: DarthVader || 06/11/2012 9:45 Comments || Top||

#3  "I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart,"

I was thinking more along the lines of the bottom of the barrel.
Posted by: gorb || 06/11/2012 12:11 Comments || Top||

#4  If she really wanted to help Barry, she'd have endorsed Romney.
Stupid commies...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/11/2012 17:32 Comments || Top||


2nd Mexican presidential debate ends

For a map, click here

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

The second Mexican presidential debate concluded late Sunday evening with Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota the overall winner, but with the polls showing very little movement away from the front runner.

Unlike the first debate, very few surprises distracted from the discussion, which were somehow more muted than the first, given how steadily frontrunner Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) Enrique Pena Nieto has held such a large lead over all his rivals since the very start of the campaign.

Not that Pena Nieto's rivals haven't tried to close the gap: In a published report report by the Guardian UK news daily last Thursday, documents reportedly emerged which alleged that the Latin American media giant Televisa had received money and contracts, presumably from PRI and PAN politicians including Pena Nieto for favorable coverage and to fund smear campaigns against their political rivals.

This latest foreign press report comes on the heels of another report last week which alleges Pena Nieto carried on an illicit homosexual affair while governor of Mexico state. That report appeared last week in a Los Angeles Spanish language newspaper.

The Guardian report said the publication obtained computer files downloaded and sent to them by Yessica de Lamadrid, another purported former lover of Pena Nieto, then an employee of Televisa subsidiary Radar Servicios Especializados, which purports to show transfers of funds between PRI and PAN politicians and Televisa dating back to the start of Pena Nieto's term as Mexico state governor in 2005.

The report also shows that not only did Pena Nieto pay Televisa for its services, but Televisa was also paid to sabotage the Mexican presidential candidacy of Andres Lopez Obrador in 2006 in a smear campaign.

Despite the scandalous tone of the report, the principal source obtaining the computer files downloaded and sent to the Guardian, Yessica de Lamadrid, disclaimed the documents as forged, adding yet another strange layer to the story.

Televisa has denied the story, pointing out numerous inconsistencies in the narrative by the writer, Jo Tuckman, and the fact that no wrongdoing had been uncovered.

The documents were originally obtained by leftist journalist Jenaro Villamil and published in 2005 in Proceso news weekly, so it is hard to see how the Guardian report is more than a rehash of old news, other than another clumsy information operation by the Mexican independent left gone awry.

The fact is the Mexican politicians usually maintain public relations budgets, and lavish ones at that. Pena Nieto did, as did the leftist candidate Andres Lopez Obrador while governor of Distrito Federal. Each of their public relations budgets became, albeit briefly, issues in the first debate and for a very short time afterwards.

That is probably why Vazquez Mota was first out of the gate with a proposal to "eliminate the political class", as she put it, first by eliminating the at-large slates in both houses of the Mexican national legislature. The irony is not lost on either her supporters or her detractors that Vazquez Mota herself was an at-large federal deputy, and may well have never reached her high status in PAN without that position, as well as the gratitude for some of the help as a political fixer she rendered to Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.

Pena Nieto also came out in favor of eliminating the at-large slates, prompting PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz to wag on Twitter (paraphrasing), "Hallelujah! [PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto] read the PAN proposal presented in 2009 by [President Felipe Calderon] to reduce the at-large 100 deputies and 32 senators."

Not to be outdone, Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) candidate Lopez Obrador weighed in also approving the reform, adding later he would take money saved from austerity and transfer it to food and income aid for the poor.

Lopez Obrador continued with a familiar theme in the debate by insisting that were he elected president, he would eliminate Mexico's flat tax known as Impuesto Empresarial a Tasa Unica (IETU). Lamenting Mexico's growth has been half of other countries,he also proposed an annual growth rate of six percent, warning, darkly that without jobs there is no growth and without welfare there can be no social peace.

Throughout the evening, given the format of the debate, Pena Nieto dodged barbs from his rivals. The worst barb came from Vazquez Mota when she accused Pena Nieto of hiding from students, a reference to the Universidad de Iberoamericana fiasco a few weeks ago in which unruly university students raucously reminded Pena Nieto of his first year as governor of Mexico, when the San Salvador Atenco protest took place, during which two lives were taken at the hands of Pena Nieto's state police. Numerous complaints were also registered concerning sexual abuse by Pena Nieto security forces in the aftermath.

Pena Nieto calmly protested he faced the students and did not run. The charge was rather odd, because in no reports this writer read did Pena Nieto do anything but face up to the protesters. PRI president Pedro Caldwell had made demands for an investigation into the protest, but those calls were later and quickly muted.

The second Mexican debate resolved little in the political arena except for the status quo with Pena Nieto holding a near insurmountable lead with less than three weeks to go.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

© Copyright 2012 by Chris Covert
You must obtain permission to reprint this article.
Posted by: badanov || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Lib Handwringing: Undoing Obamacare could have messy ripple effects that don't matter
Caution: Either this "article" was written by a junior high student or a liberal. Or a junior high school student with liberal parents. Whatever the case, I couldn't resist.
It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers.

But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up.
Not an issue. It could only be a small amount. If it's so bad, they can decline to cover their kid. Or the kid can get a paper route for a week out of every year and pay for their own costs. Or work it off around the house or by mowing a few lawns each week. It might be easier to open a lemonade stand, but the Lemonade Stand Nazis out to save us from all the broken health regulations would shut them down and fine them.
Surely the Ay Pee journalist and his highly paid editors mean fees rather than taxes. Fees are paid to an insurance company to purchase an extra service, whereas taxes are paid to the government to provide services to others.
That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act this month. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people.
Oh my goodness. And how messy that last example was in your own mind! I can hardly stand it! But carry on, I have to see what other weak excuses you can come up with as to why we need to put up with this obvious trial balloon of federal government overreach in our lives rather than risk putting something together that works some afternoon after everyone comes back to their senses.
It seems to me the first example is simply a return to the status quo ante, the way things were before that travesty of a bill was forced through Congress. That is the point, isn't it?
Because the legislation is so complicated, an orderly unwinding would prove difficult if it were overturned entirely or in part.
We don't even know what's in the stupid bill yet. Worst case: Either way will be painful. At least if it's overturned, the pain will represent the gain of getting rid of this socialist monstrosity which, by the way, also has provisions to create a "civilian" army under POTUS's control. The last thing anything with a brain wants, including my goldfish.
Better Medicare prescription benefits, currently saving hundreds of dollars for older people with high drug costs, would be suspended. Ditto for preventive care with no co-payments, now available to retirees and working families alike.
If it's so great, redo the best parts of the bill and throw out the stuff that nobody likes. It's not like it's the end of the world.
Partially overturning the law could leave hospitals, insurers and other service providers on the hook for tax increases and spending cuts without the law's promise of more paying customers to offset losses.
Partial? My money's on the whole thing being thrown out. How are nine justices going to be able to decide what should be kept or trashed? Would that not be legislating from the bench? The best they can do would be to indicate a few of the unconstitutional power grabs that the bill contains and hope for something that is less than 2800 pages in length and without all the anonymous "amendments" sneaked in at the last second the second time around. In either case, the concept of severability is crap IMNSHO. It can be used for bait-and-switch tactics.
If the law is upheld, other kinds of complications could result.
Not really, but do blather on.
The world could come to an end next Tuesday, too, but that's not how the smart money is betting. Anything is possible -- it behooves us to spend our time thinking about things that are probable.
The nation is so divided that states led by Republicans are largely unprepared to carry out critical requirements such as creating insurance markets. Things may not settle down.
Some impressive unfounded handwringing there.
Given reports that the computer programs do not yet exist to run the insurance markets -- a major dropped ball on the part of the Democrats -- it is not the unpreparedness of the Republicans that is the limiting factor, dear Ay Pee journalist.
"At the end of the day, I don't think any of the major players in the health insurance industry or the provider community really wants to see the whole thing overturned," said Christine Ferguson, a health policy expert who was commissioner of public health in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor.
Who cares. If it's so wonderful, they'll redo the legislation.
Ms Ferguson needs to work on her thinking skills...
"Even though this is not the most ideal solution, at least it is moving us forward, and it does infuse some money into the system for coverage," said Ferguson, now at George Washington University. As the GOP presidential candidate, Romney has pledged to wipe Obama's law off the books. But he defends his Massachusetts law that served as a prototype for Obama's.
That's because it's a state's right to do so, not the fed's. The states are like 50 separate laboratories. When one of them comes up with a winner, the rest will follow. The fed can't force losing "solutions" on everyone. The feds should only get rid of unfair practices like dumping chemicals in rivers, etc..
While it's unclear how the justices will rule, oral arguments did not go well for the Obama administration. The central issue is whether the government can require individuals to have health insurance and fine them if they don't.
So what could they not push through in the name of the nation's "best interests"?
That mandate takes effect in 2014, at the same time that the law would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing health problems. Most experts say the coverage guarantee would balloon costs unless virtually all people joined the insurance pool.
Simple: If they choose not to buy health insurance when they are able to afford it, then they die in the street. If they go on government insurance while out of work or have too-low an income, they have to work where the state needs them to work enough to pay their premiums or until they get a good job again. Heck, maybe even make some kind of training program out of this mechanism too. Win-win.
Opponents say Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by issuing the insurance mandate. The administration says the requirement is permissible because it serves to regulate interstate commerce. Most people already are insured. The law provides subsidies to help uninsured middle-class households pay premiums and expands Medicaid to pick up more low-income people.
Another one of the liberal triumphs is to redefine the meaning of the word "regulate". The word does not mean "control". It means to "make regular". There is quite a difference between the two.
The Supreme Court will soon render all those other opinions moot, one way or another, and then professional blithers like our esteemed Ay Pee journalist will move on to other topics
.The coverage for young adults up to age 26 on a parent's health insurance is a popular provision that no one's arguing about. A report last week from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that 6.6 million young adults have taken advantage of the benefit, while a new Gallup survey showed the uninsured rate for people age 18-25 continues to decline, down to 23 percent from 28 percent when the law took effect.
Bravo! Please raise my rates to compensate for any additional expense resulting from this good idea.
Families will be watching to see if their 20-somethings transitioning to the work world will get to keep that newfound security.
Easily fixed if Healthcare Takeover is overturned. If your politician doesn't vote your will, vote him out next opportunity and let it be known why you did so.
Because the benefit is a winner with consumers, experts say many employers and insurers would look for ways to keep offering it even if there's no legal requirement to do so. On Monday, UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer, is announcing that it will continue to offer coverage to young adults even if the health care law is struck down.

But economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute says many parents would pay higher taxes as a result because they would have to pay for the young adult's coverage with after-tax dollars. Under the health care law, that coverage now comes out of pre-tax dollars.
It will be a small amount. Stop having a cow, man. Way cheaper than trying to jam the square peg of Obamacare into the round hole of a sensible insurance plan all because of one little issue that is easily implemented in any of a thousand other ways.
Fronstin says there's no way to tell exactly how much that tax increase might be, but a couple of hundred dollars a year or more is a reasonable ballpark estimate. Upper-income taxpayers would have a greater liability.

"Adult children aren't necessarily dependents for tax purposes, but an employer can allow anyone to be on a plan, just like they now allow domestic partners," said Fronstin. "If your employer said, 'I'm going to let you keep this,' it would become a taxable benefit for certain people."

Advocates for the elderly are also worried about untoward ripple effects.
Scare tactics, by chance?
If the entire law is overturned, seniors with high prescription costs in Medicare's "donut hole" coverage gap could lose annual discounts averaging about $600. AARP policy director David Certner says he would hope the discounts could remain in place at least through the end of this year.
Another problem that is easily fixed.
Yet that might not be possible. Lacking legal authority, Medicare would have to take away the discounts. Drugmakers, now bearing the cost, could decide they want to keep offering discounts voluntarily. But then they'd risk running afoul of other federal rules that bar medical providers from offering financial inducements to Medicare recipients.

"I don't think anyone has any idea," said Certner.
And neither do you. But that doesn't seem to slow down your handwringing one bit, does it?
A mixed verdict from the high court would be the most confusing outcome. Some parts of the law would be struck down while others lurch ahead.
Won't happen.
That kind of result would seem to call for Congress to step in and smooth any necessary adjustments. Yet partisan divisions on Capitol Hill are so intense that hardly anyone sees a chance that would happen this year.
Partisan divisions put there and nurtured by voting taxpayers. For a reason. Mostly centered around the triad of Obama, Pelosi, and Harry. All who live in some form of bubble or another that were formed by voters suffering from varying degrees of temporary insanity. Go ahead and vote for the idiot in your district who is in a position to pull the nation's strings as a whole and see what happens to your party as a whole. Liberals are lucky that the entire congress wasn't up for reelection in 2010.
Posted by: gorb || 06/11/2012 01:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Keeping children on the insurance til 26 is no big deal for the insurers. These are the healthiest ages, and the least-likely to need care
Posted by: Frank G || 06/11/2012 10:28 Comments || Top||

#2  If I could teach my Rat Terrier to type, she could write a better article than this.

The libs dumbed down education so they could run the country and now their chief water carriers are a bunch of dumb downed airheads working for AP. Tell the Dems to thank their teacher union satraps.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 06/11/2012 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Getting rid of slavery (aka involuntary servitude) the first time around was messy too.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/11/2012 10:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Getting rid of slavery (aka involuntary servitude) the first time around was messy too.

The democrats were pretty much hell bent against that as well. Trend?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/11/2012 11:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Surely the Ay Pee journalist and his highly paid editors mean fees rather than taxes. Fees are paid to an insurance company to purchase an extra service, whereas taxes are paid to the government to provide services to others.

It's both. I believe the parents have to pay an additional $200 premium each year, but that fee comes from after-tax money, so it might be an additional $50 or so taxes. The fee is nothing to worry about, and the taxes even less so. I have no idea why the writer is worried about this, but I'm sure someone makes a pill for this kind of worry.
Posted by: gorb || 06/11/2012 12:17 Comments || Top||


Europe
Spread of 'baby boxes' in Europe alarms United Nations
The United Nations is increasingly concerned at the spread in Europe of "baby boxes" where infants can be secretly abandoned by parents, warning that the practice "contravenes the right of the child to be known and cared for by his or her parents", the Guardian has learned.
It probably also contravenes their right to go on vacation with their parents, too.
It does save them from being tossed into a convenient river...
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reports on how well governments respect and protect children's human rights, is alarmed at the prevalence of the hatches -- usually outside a hospital -- which allow unwanted newborns to be left in boxes with an alarm or bell to summon a carer.
I guess they'd rather the kids showed up dead somewhere for whatever reasons.
The committee, a group of 18 international human rights experts based in Geneva, says that while "foundling wheels" and baby hatches had disappeared from Europe in the last century, almost 200 have been installed across the continent in the past decade in nations as diverse as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic and Latvia. Since 2000, more than 400 children have been abandoned in the hatches, with faith groups and right-wing politicians spearheading the revival in the controversial practice.
I saw my first one here in the good ol' U.S. of A. here a couple of weeks ago.
Their proponents draw on the language of the pro-life lobby and claim the baby boxes "protect a child's right to life" and have saved "hundreds of newborns". There are differing opinions on this key social issue across Europe. In France and Holland women have the right to remain anonymous to their babies after giving birth, while in the UK it remains a crime to secretly abandon a child.
I guess some folks think that by making baby boxes go away that whatever the problem that is resulting in their existance will magically go away, too.
However UN officials argue that baby hatches violate key parts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which says children must be able to identify their parents and even if separated from them the state has a "duty to respect the child's right to maintain personal relations with his or her parent".
In other words, socialist governments cannot afford this, and have therefore failed on their most basic responsibility.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maria Herczog, a member of the UNCRC committee, said that the arguments from critics were a throwback to the past. "Just like medieval times in many countries we see people claiming that baby boxes prevent infanticide ... there is no evidence for this."
And there never will be, either. But if not infanticide, then the kid will grow up in a bad environment, whereas those who would take these children into their lives would more likely offer a much better environment. Your choice.
Herczog, a prominent child psychologist from Hungary, says baby boxes should be replaced by better state provision of family planning, counselling for women and support for unplanned pregnancies.

She likened the pro-baby box movements in Europe to the religious right in the US. "Very similar to the United States where we have the spread of the Safe Haven programme with baby boxes in 50 states since 1999. Now we have MEPs arguing for baby boxes and they just reject the convention."
It's a denial thing. Sort of like death panels look bad for socialist governments, too. Except with baby boxes the kids stand a much better chance of living.
The committee wrote last year to the government in the Czech republic, which has seen 44 baby boxes set up since 2005, asking it "undertake all measures necessary to end the programme as soon as possible" because it looks bad.

The ensuing row spilt over borders with two dozen right-wing MEPs, including the current president of Hungary, writing to complain that baby boxes "offer(ed) a solution for women who unfortunately keep their pregnancy a secret and fear to approach official instructions".

In an email to the Guardian, Manfred Weber, German MEP and vice-chairman of the European People's Party -- the largest grouping on the centre right -- who signed the anti-UNCRC letter, said the issue was one of competing "rights". "Although I am convinced that a child is best raised within an intact family, the safety of children is of higher priority than their desire to know their biological parents," he said.

There is evidence that the baby box idea is popular. A Swiss poll in 2011 found 87% saying baby boxes were "very useful or useful" and more than a quarter of respondents thought every hospital should have one.
And a loudmouthed minority think they shouldn't. Gee, who should we listen to?
Herczog said that the committee is undeterred. "We review countries' adherence to the convention. We did Czech Republic. Austria is coming up. I cannot say for sure but I can imagine we will do the same for Austria (as the Czech Republic)".

Her stance was backed by experts. Kevin Browne of the Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology at The University of Nottingham has just completed a two-year study into the phenomenon. He said of the 27 EU member countries, 11 still have "baby hatches" operating -- Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia.

"There is growing evidence that it is frequently men or relatives abandoning the child, raising questions about the mother's whereabouts and whether she has consented to giving up her baby," he said. "You also have to ask whether an anonymous drop allows the authorities to check whether there's a chance for the baby to remain with its family in the care of other relatives."
Take DNA from each baby. Problem solved. And if someone doesn't want their relatives taking care of the baby, there's probably a reason.
Browne's research found that the Czech Republic and Lithuania both have an average of seven infants left in baby hatches per year, followed by Poland with six and Hungary and Slovakia with four -- and highlighted that baby boxes had flowered in post-Communist eastern Europe.
And is therefore bad somehow?
Politicians in the former Communist bloc dispute this analysis. Miroslav Mikolašik, a Christian Democrat MEP from Slovakia, said that the "communist idea" was "to take away violently a child from a family that they considered as an enemy of regime and place him or her in a state orphanage ... If UN convention on the rights of the child's article 8 that guarantees children's right to know their own identity means the death of only one unwanted baby, it is a very wrong article and very wrong convention."

In western Europe the issue is complicated by religious practice and the law. Sari Essayah, Finnish MEP from the centre-right Christian Democrats, pointed out that in Scandinavia "two lesbians can get sperm anonymously and have children. They don't know the name of the donor. So what about the rights of the child? The UN have got it wrong here about baby boxes."
Shh, you're harshing their mellow, man.
Perhaps the most taxing problem will be Germany, the powerhouse of Europe, which has about 80 baby boxes operating across the nation. The German constitution says all citizens have a right to "know of their origins" and fathers have a right to be part of a child's upbringing. Both are breached when a mother gives birth anonymously. Hatches are tolerated -- but earlier this year German ministers floated the possibility of a new "legal framework for confidential births".

In February the German Youth Institute found that the anonymous service had lost trace of a fifth of all abandoned babies -- giving ammunition to those who want to end the practice.
It would be easier to just fix the paperwork problem. Unless you have other motives.
However Bernd Posselt, Christian Social Union MEP for Munich who signed the letter to the UNCRC last year, told the Guardian that "our experiences with baby-boxes here in Munich, for example organised by a monastery, have been positive. I know also the problems, but for me it is essential to protect and to safeguard the life of children in extreme situations. All other problems can be solved with good will as long as the child is alive. It is not the decision of an United Nations committee what we are doing to help born or unborn children".
And the UN needs to stop intruding into matters that are not part of their charter. And to start properly taking care of matters that are part of their charter. But hey, if you can't do your job, might as well distract.
Posted by: gorb || 06/11/2012 12:22 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anything the UN don't have a committee on?
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/11/2012 16:02 Comments || Top||

#2  That would be Practical Solutions to Real-world Problems.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/11/2012 16:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Ethics?

Ok - stop laughing. I mean real Ethics!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/11/2012 16:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Survival rates of babies left in a baby box: 100%
Survival rates of babies abandoned elsewhere: ?

Next question
Posted by: European Conservative || 06/11/2012 17:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Easy, after the requisite study, a committee should recommend posession of a baby sized box as a crime against Humanity punishable by not less than 6 years.
Posted by: Ho Chi B. Hayes7277 || 06/11/2012 17:31 Comments || Top||

#6  Survival rates of babies in an abortion clinic: very close to 0%

(just to put things in perspective)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/11/2012 18:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Most (all?) states here have passed "no harm, no foul" laws that say you can leave a baby at a hospital, fire station, church(?), etc., and not get into trouble. And I'm fine with that, since it beats neglecting or killing the baby.

My question is, if they didn't want the baby, why did they carry it to full term and give birth when an abortion is so easy to get? Why go through all that trouble and pain if you're planning on throwing it away? It just doesn't make any sense.

As for the Useless Nitwits, they need to engage in retroactive self-abortion. It's for the children planet!
Posted by: Barbara || 06/11/2012 19:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Barbara
The most powerful emotion. Procrastination.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/11/2012 19:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Where's lunch?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 06/11/2012 20:13 Comments || Top||


Jealous man slices off wife's lips and eats them
A man from Iran who is an associate professor in an institute in Stockholm actually cut off his wife's lips with a knife and then proceeded to consume them.

The incident occurred in Stockholm when the 52-year-old man got furious with his much-younger wife. He was suspicious of his wife's activities and was convinced that she was involved in an extra-marital affair.

The husband does not regret his actions and feels he was honour bound to attack his 'cheating' wife.

Given the extent of injury to the woman, the prosectuion was gunning for a murder attempt but toned it down to grievous injury.

The woman is suffering and is in a lot of pain, a Swedish newspaper revealed. It is still not clear if her injuries can heal or not.
Posted by: tipper || 06/11/2012 09:50 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Crazy ass people, this world is going crazy
Posted by: Rant || 06/11/2012 11:20 Comments || Top||

#2  It's a learned insanity.
Posted by: gorb || 06/11/2012 12:09 Comments || Top||

#3  There's no hope for those infected with these values.

Quarantine.
Wait.
Re-Seed with civilisation.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/11/2012 12:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Must be uneducated.
Poor?
Too young?
Living in the backwoods?

None of those? What exactly does much-younger mean?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 06/11/2012 12:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Convict, jail, at the end of his sentence repatriate him alone to his home country after giving all his assets to the injured wife. The principle here is that those who demonstrate inability to assimilate to the Western culture need to be required to live where they are more suited.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/11/2012 13:17 Comments || Top||

#6  He can get out of jail when her lips regrow.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/11/2012 13:39 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Controversial Muslim preacher to speak in Calgary
The controversial Muslim preacher who calls homosexuals evil and advocates their death is scheduled to speak at an upcoming event in Calgary. Dr. Bilal Philips, a Canadian-born Muslim preacher reputed to have links to terrorism and has been ousted from several countries, is to be a speaker at the Power of Unity Conference.

The event, being held by the Muslim Council of Calgary June 29 to July 1, aims to celebrate multiculturalism and more than a half-century of Islam in Canada.
Aren't those mutually exclusive?
Pride Calgary spokesman Doug Hass is disappointed Philips has been invited to spread his "hatred". He said, "It is a disappointment. We respect freedom of speech and religion. But I believe religion is about peace, love and tolerance, not wishing death against any community."

Saying the organization isn't planning any protests,
Why the hell not, Doug?
Hass wouldn't be surprised if some people show up to voice their opinion at the event.
It seems to me that advocating death and the treatment of homosexuals in some Muslim countries might be a more urgent cause for advocates than the focus on gay marriage in Western countries. I guess, for some, privleges for first world gays take precedence.
Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart said Philips' track record raises concerns, but he will be monitored during his visit to ensure he doesn't cross the line from freedom of speech to pushing hatred. She said, "I absolutely believe in freedom of speech. We have a police service that takes hate crimes extremely seriously and a police chief that is very committed to tolerance. On the other hand, the chief also respects freedom of speech ... You can march, you can be free to say whatever you want to say -- your views and beliefs end where my rights begin."

Colley-Urquhart says it is "somewhat ironic" Philips is invited to speak at a conference designed to unite people. She said, "I guess every time one of these characters comes to town and espouses extreme divisive views there is always a chance to stand up and say it doesn't define our city."
And nothing stops evildoers like telling them "You don't define me."
Philips was kicked out of Kenya earlier this year amid security concerns. Britain and Australia have barred him and Germany kicked him out last year.
So he's well travelled...
Posted by: ryuge || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good that they announce when and where this fellow is going to be.
Posted by: Ho Chi B. Hayes7277 || 06/11/2012 17:36 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Occupy "Occupy!"
The obituary for "Occupy," posted at the website of the geniuses who thought it up in the first place.
Our movement is living through a painful rebirth… “There has been a unfortunate consolidation of power in #OWS,” writes one founding Zuccotti. “This translates into ideological dominance and recurring lines of thought. We are facing a nauseating poverty of ideas.” Burned out, out of money, out of ideas… seduced by salaries, comfy offices, book deals, old lefty cash and minor celebrity status, some of the most prominent early heroes of our leaderless uprising are losing the edge that catalyzed last year’s one thousand encampments. Bit by bit, Occupy’s first generation is succumbing to an insidious institutionalization and ossification that could be fatal to our young spiritual insurrection unless we leap over it right now. Putting our movement back on track will take nothing short of a revolution within Occupy.
Meet the new mob, the same as the old mob....
Posted by: Mike || 06/11/2012 07:46 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gosh, we sure missed out on them siezing control of the US government. Just imagine the great job they would have done!
Posted by: gromky || 06/11/2012 9:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Oh, be sure to click through and read the comments for some good old leftist infighting.
Posted by: gromky || 06/11/2012 9:25 Comments || Top||

#3  As gromky says, rest of the article has some mention on tactics..the comment fire war is interesting.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 06/11/2012 10:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Gotta love this comment my anonymous on June 07 2012, @08:09 am:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/10/BA7A1OGFRK.DTL

From the article:

George Chuck, a U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher whose work is literally grounded on those same 2 acres, sees it much differently.

Chuck, whose work is affiliated with UC Berkeley, said protesters have claimed the site might be used for a new Whole Foods Market but plans for that development are adjacent to the farm, on land that's already been developed.

Some protesters, Chuck said, claim research at the Gill Tract is funded by large oil and other corporate concerns. But it just ain't so.

Chuck's research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy - and it's far more important to society than anything the protesters are trying to do.

For the past decade, he's worked on mapping corn genes to identify which ones produce energy. His work adding corn genes to switchgrass has more than doubled the yield of biofuels produced by the hybrid crop. His findings were published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That research, which has the potential to increase alternative fuel sources sounds more important than the desires of two dozen or so people growing 2 acres worth of anything.

"What's worse is that when I tried talking to (some of) these guys, they just started spouting slogans someone else told them," Chuck said.

I've written programs that do that - probably more intelligently too!

And as far as the group's efforts to grow crops on land Chuck said is not yet ready for planting, "They have no idea what they're doing," he said.

Since protesters arrived, they've managed to destroy a fruit tree that was the subject of a research project, created a waste pile, built a rickety chicken coop and left the gate open allowing wild turkeys to escape or be killed by predators that entered the unlocked facility, he added.

------------------------------

Do I really have to say it? What a bunch of maroons!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/11/2012 11:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Ahh, CF writes the perfect example of leftist liberal gov't mentality in action.

Posted by: AlanC || 06/11/2012 13:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Re Crazy Fool's post:

I sounds like the only constructive thing they've done is create a waste pile. Kind of like Obama.

Posted by: Frozen Al || 06/11/2012 14:29 Comments || Top||

#7  Burned out, out of money, out of ideas... seduced by salaries, comfy offices, book deals, old lefty cash and minor celebrity status, some of the most prominent early heroes of our leaderless uprising are losing the edge that catalyzed last year's one thousand encampments.

Well, I don't see that this actually happened, but it sounds like they sold out to THE MAN!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/11/2012 17:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Well, I don't see that this actually happened, but it sounds like they sold out to THE MAN!!!

"We have met the enemy, and they is us"?
Posted by: Pappy || 06/11/2012 18:21 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Maliki's rivals lack votes to oust him
BAGHDAD: Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki called for a national dialogue yesterday after President Jalal Talabani said his rivals lacked the votes to oust him, but a protracted political row looked set to drag on.

Opponents of the prime minister have for months accused him of monopolizing decision-making and a political crisis that began in December has worsened in recent weeks, with open calls from a raft of political parties to pull the plug on Maliki's national unity government.

But late Saturday, Talabani said groups opposed to the premier lacked the 163 parliamentary votes required to sack him, after which Maliki issued a call on political leaders to unite to rebuild the conflict-racked country.

"I take this opportunity to renew a call for all political partners to sit at the table for negotiations, and to be open to discuss all disagreements," the prime minister said in a statement.

"I am sure we will be able to overcome all challenges and difficulties that are in our way," he added, while also thanking Talabani for his "constructive" role.

On Saturday, Talabani's office issued a statement saying there was insufficient backing to pass a vote of no confidence against Maliki.

"Due to a lack of (support), the letter of his excellency the president of the republic, although its text was prepared, was not given to the parliament," the statement said.

It said more than 160 lawmakers had originally supported the motion to unseat Maliki and, by extension, his government. They included members of the secular Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, the main Kurdish faction, and the movement loyal to powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. All three of those parties are members of Maliki's national unity government.

It added, however, "Later, 11 of the signed lawmakers informed the office of the presidency of the withdrawal of their signatures, while two others requested to suspend their signatures."
Posted by: Steve White || 06/11/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq


Sri Lanka
Iran Bars Women from Public Live Screening of Euro's Soccor
Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said women are highly respected, has barred women from watching public live screenings of Euro 2012 games because men might become rowdy.
Rowdy men? Who would have thought? Sports and rowdy men......
In western societies men are under the obligation to control themselves...
"It is an inappropriate situation when men and women watch football in (movie) theatres together," said Bahman Kargar, Iran's deputy police commander in charge of social affairs, according to the Iran Student News Agency.
"Commander in charge of social affairs." Wonder if he has read Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette?
He explained that the "inappropriate" environment could cause men to become rowdy because "men, while watching football, get excited and sometimes utter vulgar curses or tell dirty jokes." He added, "It is not within the dignity of women to watch football with men" and said "women should thank the police" for the ban.
I thank you, my sir, for never letting the word F**k pass these sensitive ears. I have to admit, I never did like that word, even as an expressions of a moment in time, so thanks for providing protection for me from that word. Now a good "dirty joke?" You will deprive me of them?
Iran state television is airing the Euro games being held in Poland and Ukraine, and the games also are being shown in movie theaters.
Being shown for "date night?" I guess not.
Women are strictly segregated in Iran's Islamic society, and the country's laws demands that women dress according to the religious code.
This is news.... in a news report? Iranian reporters are much like our own MSM. That little "aside" that must be added in the article.. "demands that women dress according to the religious code."
Iran has a seat on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad previously has argued that Iranian women are "highly respected" while claiming that 70 percent of European women are physically abused.
And this is to persuade me of what???
A senior Iranian cleric has declared women whose clothes are too revealing are to blame for earthquakes, which are common in the country.
Hummmmm --- all pictures I see, women are covered from head to tail. And yet, Iran continues to have earthquakes? Seems a hypothesis that is hard to prove. But what do I know? I'm just a women, one with senior years.
Posted by: Sherry || 06/11/2012 00:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yokay, I'll bite, whats the Betting Pool on Iran trying to stop a Socccer Riot, versies Iran trying to start a Soccer Riot???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 06/11/2012 1:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Lucky women...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/11/2012 19:52 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
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Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2012-06-11
  Church Bombing Kills 15 in Nigeria
Sun 2012-06-10
  Syria Army Kills 70 Civilians in Protest Cities
Sat 2012-06-09
  Tuareg Rebels, Islamists, Clash in Northern Mali
Fri 2012-06-08
  UN monitors shot at trying to get to Syria massacre
Thu 2012-06-07
  47 Die in Hama Countryside 'Massacre' as Clashes Rock Damascus
Wed 2012-06-06
  Armed groups kill 15 Syrian soldiers in Latakia
Tue 2012-06-05
  U.S. Official: Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Killed In Drone Strike
Mon 2012-06-04
  US drone strike kills 10 in NW Pakistan
Sun 2012-06-03
  At least 12 dead in Nigerian church bombing
Sat 2012-06-02
  US drone strike kills three militants in Pakistan: officials
Fri 2012-06-01
  SCAF says it is going to end Egypt's state of emergency after 31 years
Thu 2012-05-31
  Somalia forces capture key al-Shabab town of Afmadow
Wed 2012-05-30
  19 Killed in Syria Violence
Tue 2012-05-29
  Western Nations Expel Syrian Diplomats
Mon 2012-05-28
  MNLA, Ansar al-Din declare Islamic state

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