Social Cause 01 (Jul 08 - Jul 15)

[winston]

The above was just featured on Bloomberg.

Absolutely disgusting and shame on the organisers.

The prize money of US$10,000 could have been put to better use and the food used to properly feed some people.

[winston]

On Al-Jazeera:-

Some Russian girls racing on high heels. Winner will get US$3000.

Cant you see that some of the girls will sprain or maybe break their ankles ?

How irresponsible and stupid of the organisers !

Such people should be charged by the police. And they are not too different from those above who organized the stupid hot-dog eating contest .

Where's your common-sense ?

[winston]

China

Forced-abortion family accept compensation

A woman who was forced to have a late-term abortion last month, in a case that sparked a nationwide outcry, has reached a settlement with the local government.

Source: SCMP

[winston]

Probe repeats suicide verdict on Li

A month-long probe by Hunan's provincial authorities into the mysterious death of June 4 dissident Li Wangyang has upheld the previous official verdict.


Source: SCMP

[winston]

Kenyans Sue Britain Over Mau Mau Abuses

Three elderly Kenyans began a court battle Monday, to win damages from the British government over brutality, they claim they suffered at the hands of British troops during the 1950s Mau Mau uprising....

The two-week hearing at London's High Court opens a year after a judge ruled that Jane Muthoni Mara, Paulo Muoka Nzili and Wambugu Wa Nyingi could sue the government over allegations including castration and torture.

The trio's lawyers say Nzili was castrated, Nyingi severely beaten and Mara subjected to appalling sexual abuse in detention camps during the bloody Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule.

"The British government has thrown everything at these claims in an effort to derail them on technicalities.

A fourth claimant, Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, has died since the High Court ruling in July last year that the test case could go ahead.

The British government is set to argue that the claims cannot proceed because they have been brought outside the legal time limit.

But the Kenyans' lawyers, who are bringing the claims with the support of the Kenyan government and Kenya Human Rights Commission, will argue that it is an exceptional case.

Day says the claimants, who are in their 70s and 80s, want an apology and a welfare fund to ensure that around 1,000 surviving former detainees can have some dignity in their old age.

More than 10,000 people died during the 1952-1960 Mau Mau uprising, with some giving much higher estimates of the number killed.

Tens of thousands were detained, including US President Barack Obama's grandfather.

But when judge Richard McCombe ruled last year that the Kenyans could sue the government, he stressed that he had not found evidence of systematic torture in the Kenyan camps.

South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu has written to Prime Minister David Cameron accusing Britain of neglecting its human rights duties over the case.

The retired archbishop said Britain's unwillingness to make amends is "strongly out of step with many other modern democracies that have been faced with historic allegations of abusive conduct".


Source:AFP European Edition

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281



http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

China's Ai Weiwei loses appeal against tax fine: lawyer

Chinese artist and fierce government critic Ai Weiwei, Friday lost his appeal against a multi-million-dollar tax fine on a company he founded, his lawyer said.

Pu Zhiqiang said the Beijing Chaoyang court had rejected the appeal against a tax fine levied on Fake Cultural Development Ltd, a firm Ai founded but which is legally registered to his wife.

Ai, who spent 81 days in secret detention last year as police rounded up dissidents amid online calls for Arab Spring-style protests in China and is still not allowed to leave the country, was barred from attending the hearing.

Speaking at his studio in Beijing, he told reporters he was "very disappointed" by Friday's ruling.

"China keeps telling other countries they are a rule of law country... But we only hope they implement the laws they themselves drew up," he added.

Fake argued at its appeal hearing last month that the Beijing tax bureau had acted illegally in fining the company. But Pu, speaking by telephone, said the court had ruled that "their behaviour was legal, their procedures were legal".


Source: AFP Global Edition

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

Drug decriminalization in Portugal decreases number of addicts

After 11 years, the effectiveness of the policy has been measured.

Samuel Blackstone, Business Insider


On July 1, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.

Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong.

Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labeling drug users as criminals to labeling them as people affected by a disease.

This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... al-addicts

[winston]

Another blind activist gives Beijing the slip

A second blind Chinese activist has escaped state custody, a Hong Kong human rights group said, three months after dissident Chen Guangcheng embarrassed Beijing's vast security network, by breaking out of detention and obtaining US protection, Reuters reports.

Chinese Citizens' Rights Protection Alliance said 57-year-old Li Guizhi, detained at the border in southern Shenzhen for trying to enter Hong Kong, to join a large pro-democracy protest on July 1, had escaped custody this week with the help of her relatives.

Li had been petitioning authorities for years to investigate the death of her son, who died suddenly in 2006 and was quickly cremated, Liu said. She never saw her son's dead body.

She had wanted to enter Hong Kong to petition her cause at a march held to mark the anniversary of Britain's 1997 handover of the territory back to China, Liu added.

Li was subsequently held in a hotel room in Hebei province in northeast China weeks later and, when her guards were dozing, the relatives sneaked her out of the building, Liu Weiping, a spokesman for the alliance, said late yesterday.

“On July 17, at around 5:00 a.m., she managed to escape her hotel room with help from her relatives. They [police] are now pressuring her family to hand her over,'' Liu said. Chinese police were not immediately available to comment .

Source: The Standard HK

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_ ... r=20120723

[winston]

Two mainland activists who were detained by police after taking part in the July 1 rally in Hong Kong and petitioning in Beijing, were sentenced to one-year terms in a labour camp, in Jiangxi, on Monday.

Source: SCMP

[winston]

Thousands in HK protest China patriotism classes

Thousands of people march on a downtown street in Hong Kong Sunday, July 29, 2012 to protest the upcoming introduction in schools of Chinese patriotism classes, that they fear will lead to brainwashing.

Teachers, parents, students and pro-democracy activists marched Sunday to the government headquarters of the semiautonomous territory to protest against the new curriculum, which authorities are encouraging schools to begin using, when classes resume in September.


http://www.chron.com/news/article/Thous ... 744091.php