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Monica Levin and other People's Party (PP) and Vox assemblymembers #transphobia reuters.com

Madrid's regional assembly on Friday passed a proposal by the Spanish capital's ruling conservative People's Party (PP) to strip back protections for transgender people, sparking outcry from the opposition and LGBTQ activists

The bill, which amended a regional trans rights law and an LGBTQ rights law - both passed in 2016 with the PP's backing - makes Madrid the first Spanish region to roll back such legislation

It was approved with 80 votes in favour and 53 against thanks to the absolute majority the PP holds in the chamber. It was also supported by the far-right Vox party, which governs in coalition with the PP in some Spanish cities and regions but not in Madrid

Under the reform, discriminating against workers on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity is no longer a punishable offence. It is also no longer a punishable offence to beat a person without causing injury on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity

Amid jeers from the opposition, the PP's Monica Levin defended the reform as a way to stop what she described as "social engineering" and "getting into people's privacy and manipulating them in order to pit them against each other and then come to their rescue"

Carla Antonelli, an assemblymember for the left-wing Mas Madrid party who is trans, wore red gloves symbolising bloodied hands during the raucous debate preceding the vote[…]
Under the reform lawmakers also replaced the terms "trans people" and "gender identity" with "transsexuals" and "transsexuality", terms which activists say are archaic and demeaning. The option of changing names on regional documents before adapting the national ID was also eliminated

Mas Madrid said it would ask Spain's human rights ombudsman to challenge the law before the Constitutional Court. The party's lawmakers unfurled Trans Pride flags and activists displayed red gloves while shouting slogans before being expelled from the gallery

Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill #god-complex #wingnut #conspiracy reuters.com

President Vladimir Putin, whose picture was shown between two giant images of an ancient Orthodox icon on Tuesday, warned the West ahead of elections in March 2024 that any foreign meddling in Russia would be considered an act of aggression[…]
Speaking to the World Russian People's Council, led by the head of Russia's Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, Putin's picture was shown on a giant screen beside two copies of an ancient Orthodox icon[…]
The Kremlin chief said that the West was gripped by racist Russophobia which casts Russians as a people of backward "slaves" and warned that the United States allegedly wanted to dismember and plunder Russia's vast resources

Putin, 71, cautioned that Russians themselves should remember the lessons of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the civil war and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, which he said had allowed the division of the Russian people

"I want to underscore: We consider any interference from outside, provocations aimed at causing inter-ethnic or inter-religious conflicts as aggressive acts against our country," Putin said

"I want to emphasise again that any attempt to sow inter-ethnic and inter-religious discord, to split our society is a betrayal, a crime against the whole of Russia. We will not allow anyone to divide Russia"[…]
Putin thanked Russian businessmen for evading the West's sanctions

"It was by combining the efforts of the state and business that we thwarted the unprecedented economic aggression of the West: its sanctions blitzkrieg failed"[…]
Patriarch Kirill said he would pray for Putin to continue his work for the "benefit" of Russia and its people

Tayyip Erdogan #fundie reuters.com

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting on women's rights on Monday that gender equality was contrary to nature and said feminists did not recognize the value of motherhood.

Erdogan, whose conservative, Islamist ideology frequently raises hackles in more liberal segments of Turkish society, said women's "delicate" nature meant it was impossible to place them on an equal footing with men.

"You can't get a woman to work in every job that a man does, like they did in communist regimes in the past," he told the meeting of Turkey's Women and Democracy Association.

"You can't put a pickaxe and a shovel in their hand and get them to work. That's not the way."

He said women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, but their different role in society had to be recognized.

Erdogan's critics in mostly Muslim but constitutionally secular Turkey have regularly accused him of puritanical intrusiveness into private life, from his advice to women on the number of children they should have to his views on abortion.

But his divisive rhetoric has won him the support of the country's pious Anatolian heartlands, helping secure his victory in the first popular election for head of state in August after more than a decade as prime minister.

"Our religion gave woman a station. What station is this? The station of motherhood ... Motherhood is something different and is the most unobtainable, the highest station," he said.

"There are those who understand this, those who don't. You can't tell this to feminists, because they do not accept motherhood. They have no such concerns."

Economists cite the low numbers of women in the workforce as an obstacle to Turkey's development, while the European Union -- which Turkey has been negotiating to join for over a decade -- has urged the country to do more to improve gender equality.

"We know women are not physiologically equal. But equality is about having equal rights, equal status and equal opportunities," said Gonul Karahanoglu, president of women's rights group KA.DER.

"He defines women only as mothers. It is discriminating against all the women who don't have children. He always says the same things," she said.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, Parti Islam-se Malaysia, Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man and Malaysian demonstrators #fundie reuters.com

Tens of thousands of Malaysians rallied in the capital on Saturday to support the adoption of a strict Islamic penal code, a proposal religious minorities fear could infringe their rights.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has thrown his weight behind the contentious bill, which seeks to incorporate parts of the Islamic penal code, or "hudud", into Malaysia's existing Islamic legal system.

Najib, who is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal, is hoping to burnish his Islamic credentials in order to boost his chances in national elections that must be held by August 2018.

Critics of the bill warn that it could pave the way for full implementation of hudud, which prescribes punishments such as amputations and stoning, and disrupt the fabric of Malaysia's multi-cultural and multi-religious society.

"The so-called 'empowerment' of the Shariah Court will only exacerbate the unequal treatment of Muslims and non-Muslims before the law," said Bebas, an NGO that organized a smaller counter-rally.

No official figures were available on how many people attended Saturday's peaceful support rally in Kuala Lumpur, but estimates were in the tens of thousands.

Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, deputy president of the hardline Islamist opposition Parti Islam-se Malaysia (PAS), one of its organizers, said 100,000 people were expected to attend.

The PAS presented the bill in parliament last year but later withdrew it in order to fine tune the legislation. It is now expected to be reintroduced in the next parliamentary session, in March.

Najib, who has resisted calls to resign over a scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), where he was an adviser, backed the bill despite the anger of members of his own United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) ruling coalition.

Lawsuits filed by the U.S. Justice Department in July last year said nearly $700 million of the misappropriated funds from 1MDB flowed into the accounts of "Malaysian Official 1", who U.S. and Malaysian officials have identified as Najib.

Various Muslim clerics #fundie #homophobia reuters.com

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two gay men were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a local official said on Saturday, and police said they had found the bodies of four more after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is prohibited almost everywhere in the Middle East, but conditions have become especially dangerous for gays and lesbians in Iraq since the rise of religious militias after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein six years ago.

"Two young men were killed on Thursday. They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honor," a Sadr City official who declined to be named said.

The police source who declined to be named said the bodies of four gay men were unearthed in Sadr City on March 25, each bearing a sign reading "pervert" in Arabic on their chests.

Sermons condemning homosexuality were read at the last two Friday prayer gatherings in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum of some 2 million people. The slum is a bastion of support for fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia.

The Mehdi Army has frozen its activities over the last year and government forces have wrested control of the slum.

Many young men who might have cut their hair short and grown beards when religious gangs controlled much of Iraq now dress in a more Western style as government forces take back control.

Some are now accused of being gay, and residents of Sadr City say at least one coffee shop has become a gay hangout.

A member of the slum's Sadrist office said the Mehdi Army was not involved in the killings, but said homosexuality was now more widespread since the Mehdi Army lost control of the slum.

"This (homosexuality) has spread because of the absence of the Mehdi Army, the spread of sexual films and satellite television and a lack of government surveillance," said the office's Sheikh Ibrahim al-Gharawi, a Shi'ite cleric.

Homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq. A gay Iraqi man said any alleged crimes should be left to the law to deal with.

"If they've committed a crime, then there is the law. Killing is a big sin," he said, giving his name as Laith.

Greg Abbott & Texas Republicans #wingnut #transphobia reuters.com

Texas becomes largest state to ban transgender care for minors

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday signed a bill that bans transgender healthcare including puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, making Texas the largest of the 20 states to have outlawed gender-affirming care.

Republican lawmakers across the country have promoted similar bills, saying they mistrust the consensus among major medical associations that endorse gender-affirming care as needed and even life-saving for trans youth after extensive evaluation.

Texas, the second most-populous U.S. state, has an estimated 29,800 transgender youth aged 13 to 17, according to the Williams Institute of UCLA.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have pledged to fight the law in court, as they have similar legislation in other states.

"They (Texas lawmakers) are hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth, in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence," the ACLU said in a statement when the bill passed the legislature.

The Texas law creates exceptions for minors who began treatment before June 1 or for those who attended 12 or more sessions of mental health counseling or psychotherapy for at least six months.

But those patients "shall wean off the prescription drug over a period of time," the law says.

Backers of such laws say government must intervene against the wishes of parents and doctors because they fear it will cause irreparable harm and say children are incapable of acceding to such decisions.

Groups including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose the legislation.

Republicans introduced more than 500 bills affecting LGBTQ people in 2023, with more than 50 passing, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights group. Those numbers are up from 315 bills introduced and 29 passed in 2022.

texas Republicans #wingnut #homophobia #transphobia #conspiracy reuters.com

Texas Republicans declare Biden election illegitimate, despite evidence

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - Republicans in Texas formally rejected President Joe Biden's election in 2020 as illegitimate and voted in a state-wide convention that wrapped up this weekend on a party platform that calls homosexuality an "abnormal lifestyle choice."

The party's embrace of unfounded electoral fraud allegations in a bedrock Republican state came as a bipartisan congressional committee seeks to definitively and publicly debunk the false idea that Biden did not win the election.

Biden received 7 million more votes than rival Donald Trump. Biden also received 306 votes from the Electoral College, more than the 270 needed to win.

The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is building a case that Trump's efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election -- including by denying he lost -- amounted to conspiracy to illegally hold onto power. read more

Trump, the 45th U.S. president, has denied any wrongdoing.

"We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States," the Texas party said in a resolution, passed in a voice vote at its convention.

Texas is a major player in U.S. national politics, with 38 electoral votes, the second highest after California. Voters there have backed Republican presidents for the past four decades.

The White House had no comment.

According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, about two-thirds of Republicans believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. State and federal judges dismissed more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies challenging the election while reviews and audits found no evidence of widespread fraud.

[…]

U.S. Supreme Court #sexist #wingnut reuters.com

U.S. Supreme Court set to overturn Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, Politico reports

Leaked report says Roe v Wade ruling was wrong
Says constitution not specifically mention abortion rights
Clinton says reported court decision an assault on women
Republicans call for court to protect unborn

WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court looks set to vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a leaked initial draft majority opinion published by Politico on Monday.

The unprecedented leak from the conservative-majority Supreme Court sent shock waves through the United States, not least because the court prides itself on keeping its internal deliberations secret and leaks are extremely uncommon.

Reuters was not able to confirm the authenticity of the draft. The Supreme Court and the White House declined to comment.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the draft opinion which is dated Feb. 10, according to Politico, which posted a copy online.

Based on Alito's opinion, the court would find that the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb - between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy - was wrongly decided because the U.S. Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.

"Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion," Alito said, according to the leaked document.

The news broke a little more than six months before the mid-term elections that will determine if Democrats hold their razor-thin majorities in the U.S. Congress for the next two years of President Joe Biden's term in office.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics and has been for nearly a half century.

"This decision is a direct assault on the dignity, rights, & lives of women, not to mention decades of settled law," said former U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. read more

"It will kill and subjugate women even as a vast majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. What an utter disgrace."

[...]

Nigerian vigilantes #magick reuters.com

(This happened in 2009)

Goat detained over armed robbery

LAGOS (Reuters) - Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.

Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

“The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat,” Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

“We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat,” he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

Yves de Mbella #sexist reuters.com

A television presenter in Ivory Coast was convicted on Wednesday of glorifying rape and given a one-year suspended prison sentence for asking a convicted rapist he invited onto his prime-time show to simulate a sexual assault using a mannequin

The court also fined the presenter, Yves de Mbella, 2 million CFA francs ($3,619.91) and banned him from leaving Abidjan, the country's commercial capital, for one year, a spokesperson for Ivory Coast's justice system told Reuters

The man who appeared on the show was sentenced to two years in prison, the spokesperson said

De Mbella has apologised for the segment in which he asked his guest to demonstrate how he raped women, helped him adjust the female mannequin and asked whether the victims "enjoyed it". read more

De Mbella said on Tuesday he had been trying to "raise awareness" in the segment, which aired on the Nouvelle Chaine Ivoirienne (NCI) private television station on Monday, but said he had "made an error"

NCI also apologised and cancelled the final episode of de Mbella's show

Donald Trump #crackpot #wingnut reuters.com

Trump sues Facebook, Twitter and Google, claiming censorship

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday filed lawsuits against Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), Facebook Inc (FB.O), and Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O), as well as their chief executives, alleging they unlawfully silence conservative viewpoints.

The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Miami, allege the California-based social media platforms violated the right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is seeking class action status for the lawsuits, meaning he would represent the interests of other users of Twitter, Facebook, and Google's YouTube who allege they have been unfairly silenced.

He filed three lawsuits making similar allegations …

"We will achieve a historic victory for American freedom and at the same time, freedom of speech," Trump said at a news conference at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Trump lost his social media megaphone this year after the companies said he violated their policies against glorifying violence. Hundreds of his supporters launched a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 …

The lawsuits ask a judge to invalidate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that has been called the backbone of the internet because it provides websites with protections from liability over content posted by users. Trump and others who have attacked Section 230 say it has given big internet companies too much legal protection and allowed them to escape responsibility for their actions.

"This complaint is hard to even make sense of," said Paul Gowder, a professor of law at Northwestern University.

Trump sought to portray the social media companies as subject to the same First Amendment requirements as government entities when it comes to censorship, but Gowder said nothing in the lawsuits "even comes close to turning social media companies into government actors."

Benjamin Netanyahu #wingnut #conspiracy reuters.com

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday a newly formed Israeli coalition that is poised to unseat him was the result of “the greatest election fraud” in the history of democracy
[…]
Netanyahu made his sweeping accusation at a time when Israel's domestic security chief has warned publicly about the prospect of political violence

"We are witnessing the greatest election fraud in the history of the country, in my opinion in the history of any democracy," Netanyahu said in comments to legislators from his right-wing Likud party

He focused his allegations on a broken campaign promise from Bennett, who had pledged not to partner with left-wing, centrist and Arab parties
[…]
"We, my friends and I in Likud, we will vehemently oppose the establishment of this dangerous government of fraud and surrender," Netanyahu said. "And if, God forbid, it is established, we will bring it down very quickly"

Various CPC Officials #psycho #racist #sexist #wingnut reuters.com

China counters Uighur criticism with explicit attacks on women witnesses

“To rebuke some media’s disgusting acts, we have taken a series of measures,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy head of Xinjiang’s publicity department, told a December news conference that was part of China’s pushback campaign. It includes hours-long briefings, with footage of Xinjiang residents and family members reading monologues.

“One reason that the Communist Party is so concerned about these testimonies from women is because it undermines their initial premise for what they’re doing there, which is anti-terrorism,” said James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University and expert in Xinjiang policy. “The fact that there are so many women in the camps ... who don’t have the faintest appearance of being violent people, this just shows how this has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin held up images of witnesses who had described sexual abuse in Xinjiang. The account of one of them, he said, was “lies and rumours” because she had not recounted the experience in previous interviews. He gave medical details about the woman’s fertility.

Xinjiang officials in January said a woman who had spoken to foreign media had syphilis, and they showed images of medical records.

A Xinjiang government official said of another witness last month: “Everyone knows about her inferior character. She’s lazy and likes comfort, her private life is chaotic, her neighbours say that she committed adultery while in China.”

Last week, the top spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, tweeted images of four named witnesses, saying they had “raked their brains for lies”, adding “they will never succeed”.

Dmitry Medvedev #fundie #psycho reuters.com

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna[…]
Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy"[…]
In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he uses - Satan, Lucifer or Iblis"

Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said Russia had different weapons, including the ability to "send all our enemies to fiery Gehenna", using a Hebrew term often translated as Hell[…]
Satan's weapons, Medvedev said, were "intricate lies. And our weapon is the truth. That is why our cause is right. That is why victory will be ours! Happy Holidays!"

Gregoire de Fournas (MP National Rally) #racist reuters.com

France's lower house of parliament suspended its session on Thursday after a far-right MP shouted, "Go back to Africa!" as a Black legislator from the far left asked a question about immigration

The comment created a huge commotion. The centrist government and left-wing alliance said it was an unacceptable racist slur. The far right argued MP Gregoire de Fournas was not aiming the words at the MP who asked the question, Carlos Martens Bilongo, but at migrants stranded on an NGO boat

"There is no room for racism in our democracy. The Bureau of the National Assembly will convene (on Friday) and should decide on necessary sanction," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told reporters after the incident

De Fournas, a member of Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN), and his party argued that he said nothing wrong

He "obviously spoke about the migrants transported in boats by the NGOs," Le Pen tweeted. "The controversy created by our political opponents … will not deceive the French"[…]
Over the past years, Le Pen has made huge progress in detoxifying her party's image and convincing voters that the party founded by her father Jean-Marie, who was convicted several times of incitement to racial hatred, has moved towards the conservative mainstream and is now fit to govern

With 89 lawmakers, the RN is the second-biggest party in the parliament

Various Congolese People #fundie reuters.com

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

“You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We’ve had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten,” Kinshasa’s police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

“I’m tempted to say it’s one huge joke,” Oleko said.

“But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

“It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

Balia Villagers #fundie reuters.com

BALLA, India (Reuters) - Five armed men burst into the small room and courtyard at dawn, just as 21-year-old, 22-week pregnant, Sunita was drying her face on a towel.

They punched and kicked her stomach as she called out for her sleeping boyfriend "Jassa", 22-year-old Jasbir Singh, witnesses said. When he woke, both were dragged into waiting cars, driven away and strangled.

Their bodies, half-stripped, were laid out on the dirt outside Sunita's father's house for all to see, a sign that the family's "honor" had been restored by her cold-blooded murder.

A week later, the village of Balla, just a couple of hours drive from India's capital New Delhi, stands united behind the act, proud, defiant almost to a man.

Guderian500 #conspiracy reuters.com

I think this wave of downgrades done by the American agencies is part of a conspiracy, in which hedge funds (and perhaps Obama’s Administration, too) are involved, to destroy the euro and the European Union. Nevertheless, the euro and Europe will endure and prevail. When the euro was created more than 10 years ago, it started off at 90 cents of one dollar; today it is a $ 1.2265, which means, despite this downgrades charade, the euro is stronger than the dollar

Unnamed Saudi Twitter user #sexist reuters.com

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant on Saturday for a Twitter user who called for anyone who supports women driving to be killed, days after a royal decree ended a long-time ban on women taking the wheel.

The Twitter user, who was not named, was alleged to have referred to men who support women driving as “cuckolds who should be killed,” according to state-linked Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

The prosecutor’s announcement comes two days after a separate arrest warrant was issued for a man who threatened in a video clip posted online to attack women drivers.

Blac0656 #conspiracy reuters.com

Wow, I'm actually surprised to see this story. I'm actually convinced that Castro is dead and that the Cuban government is hiding it from the world. It would explain why he hasn't been seen since he gave up control of Cuba to his brother.

Nigerien mobs and Amadou Abdoul Ouahab #fundie reuters.com

(Reuters) - At least three people were killed on Saturday in protests in Niger against French newspaper Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, police sources said, bringing the death toll from two days of violence in the West African country to eight.

Police fired teargas at crowds of stone-throwing Muslim youths who set fire to churches and looted shops in the capital Niamey after authorities banned a meeting called by local Islamic leaders. A police station was attacked and at least two police cars burned.

The police sources said two charred bodies were found inside a burned church on the outskirts of Niamey on Saturday, while the body of a woman was found in a bar. She was believed to have been suffocated by teargas and smoke, they said.

At least six churches were burned or looted. Calm returned in the afternoon but a demonstration called for on Sunday by opposition groups could revive the tension.

"They offended our Prophet Mohammad, that's what we didn't like," said Amadou Abdoul Ouahab, who took part in the demonstration. "This is the reason why we asked Muslims to come, so that we can explain this to them, but the state refused. That's why we're angry today."

[...]

With the influence of moderate Sufi brotherhoods, Niger has avoided the armed Islamist uprisings that have shaken neighbouring Nigeria and Mali, but there have been growing protests by hardline Muslim associations over social issues.

Oklahoma House of Representatives #fundie reuters.com

An Oklahoma bill that could revoke the license of any doctor who performs an abortion has headed to the governor, with opponents saying the measure in unconstitutional and promising a legal battle against the cash-strapped state if it is approved.

In the Republican-dominated legislature, the state's House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a Senate bill late on Thursday. Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican, has not yet indicated whether she will sign it.

Under the bill, doctors who perform abortions would risk losing their medical licenses. Exemptions would be given for those who perform the procedure for reasons including protecting the mother or removing a miscarried fetus.

"This is our proper function, to protect life,” said Senator Nathan Dahm, the Republican who authored the bill.

A handful of representatives argued against the bill, saying it violated the Constitution by prohibiting a doctor from performing a medical procedure that was legal under law.

"Oklahoma politicians have made it their mission year after year to restrict women’s access vital health care services, yet this total ban on abortion is a new low," said Amanda Allen, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The lobbying group and several other abortion rights organizations have promised court challenges if the bill is enacted.

Supporters of the bill said it will help protect the sanctity of life.

"If we take care of morality,” bill supporter David Brumbaugh, a Republican, said during deliberations, "God will take care of the economy."

Steven Joseph Christopher #racist reuters.com

[And the winner of the "I'm not a racist but..." award goes to -]

Steven Joseph Christopher, in three postings to www.alien-earth.org, said he planned to assassinate Obama in Washington "as a sacrificial lamb," the department said in a statement.

"It's really nothing personal about the man. He speaks well ... . But I know it's for the country's own good that I do this," Christopher reportedly wrote.

"It's not because I'm racist that I will kill Barack, it's because I can no longer allow the Jewish parasites to bully their way into making the American people submit to their evil ways."

Andrew Hallinan #racist reuters.com

A Florida gun store that proclaimed itself a Muslim-free zone was sued on Wednesday in federal court by the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on the grounds that the restriction is discriminatory.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale accuses Florida Gun Supply of Inverness of violating the federal public accommodations law and seeks an injunction to stop the discrimination, according to the complaint.

"We just can’t let segregation rear its ugly head in Florida again. This is part of Islamophobia that we need to challenge," said Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of the civil rights group.

Andrew Hallinan, the gun shop's 28-year-old owner, referred calls for comment to his lawyer, Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center. The law firm aggressively seeks to advance and defend the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, according to its website.

Muise denied that the store had discriminated and called the lawsuit “absolutely bogus.”

Hallinan announced the Muslim-free zone in a video posted on his store’s Facebook page on July 18 in reaction to the deadly shootings at Tennessee military sites by a suspect officials have described as a homegrown extremist.

In a telephone call with Shibly, Hallinan invited him to attend a gun course at his store on July 25 and explain the Koran to him afterward.

Shibly said Hallinan subsequently canceled the meeting.

Abu Mussab #fundie reuters.com

(Reuters) - A fighter of the Islamic State militant group praised Wednesday's attack on a French satirical magazine that killed at least 12 people, telling Reuters the raid was revenge for insults against Islam.

Hooded gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in the worst militant assault on French soil in recent decades. The dead included top editors at Charlie Hebdo, a publication renowned for lampooning Islam, as well as two police officers.

"The lions of Islam have avenged our Prophet," said Abu Mussab, a Syrian who fights with the Islamic State, which has captured broad swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory.

"These are our lions. It's the first drops - more will follow," he said, speaking via an internet connection from Syria. He added that he and his fellow fighters were happy about the incident.

"Let these crusaders be scared because they should be."

[Bolding mine]

Luís Salas #conspiracy reuters.com

Venezuela's new economy czar Luis Salas is tasked with controlling what is believed to be the world's highest rate of inflation, but comes to the job with an unusual perspective: that inflation does not really exist.

President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday tapped the 39-year-old sociologist as vice president for the economy amid soaring consumer prices and chronic product shortages, signaling a move toward orthodox socialism in the OPEC nation struggling under low oil prices.

Essays written by Salas describe scarcity and spiraling prices as the result of exploitation by businesses rather than government policy, offering an academic underpinning to the "economic war" explanation that Maduro uses to describe the current malaise of recession, runaway prices and widespread product shortages.

"Inflation does not exist in real life," he wrote in a 2015 pamphlet called "22 Keys to Understanding the Economic War." "When a person goes to a shop and finds that prices have gone up, they are not in the presence of 'inflation.'"

Salas has argued against the idea that excessive printing of money causes inflation - an almost universally accepted tenet of macroeconomics. He insists prices rise primarily because corporations seek excessive profit margins.

Peking University Third Hospital #fundie reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - A sperm bank in Beijing has set strict criteria for would-be donors, including a requirement that they are loyal to China’s ruling Communist Party.

The state-run Peking University Third Hospital, according to a post on its Wechat account, has been seeking contributions from men with a “good political mindset” and “a love for socialism and the motherland”, who must also be “supportive of the leadership of the Party” and loyal to its work.

The post was edited on Friday, removing references to the Party. But it continued to say men aged 20-45 with “orthodox manners”, “good character” and no political problems or infectious diseases were encouraged to register to donate sperm by May 23.

Donors are entitled to up to 5,500 yuan ($870) in cash for their trouble, the posting said.

Sri Ram Sena #fundie reuters.com

[Throw your undies at the fundies ;)]

By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Thousands of Indians, many fuming over a recent assault on women in a pub, are vowing to fill bars on Valentine's Day and send cartons of pink panties to a radical Hindu group that has branded outgoing females immoral.

A "consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women," founded by four Indian women on social networking website Facebook has, in a matter of days, attracted more than 25,000 members with over 2,000 posts about the self-appointed moral police.

The women said their mission was to go bar-hopping on February 14 and send hundreds of pink knickers to Sri Ram Sena, the militant Hindu group that has said pubs are for men, and that women should stay at home and cook for their husbands.

Residents of Bogolyubovo #fundie reuters.com

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A hundred residents of a Russian village have refused to switch to new passports because they believe the documents' bar codes contain satanic symbols, state television reported Wednesday.

"We believe these new passports are sinful," Valentina Yepifanova, an elderly resident of the village Bogolyubovo, told Rossiya television as she clutched an old, tattered passport she said she wanted to keep.

"They have these bar codes and people say they contain three sixes. We are against that."

Some residents of Bogolyubovo, which means "God-loving" in Russian, have also stopped collecting their pensions at the local post office because the payment slips also have bar codes that might contain the mark of the devil, Rossiya TV reported.

Tim LaHaye #fundie reuters.com

[Author of the Left Behind Books, on moderate Christians who don't believe in the Rapture]

Moderate Christians will never come up with a story that can compare, he said. "They are just liberal, socialists, really, and they don't believe the Bible," LaHaye said.

Catholic Church #fundie reuters.com

MAPUTO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The head of the Catholic church in Mozambique said on Wednesday he believed some European-made condoms were deliberately tainted with the HIV/AIDS virus to kill African people.

"I know of two countries in Europe who are making condoms with (the) virus on purpose, they want to finish with African people as part of their programme to colonise the continent," Archbishop Francisco Chimoio told Reuters.

"If we are not careful we will finish in one century.

"I also know some companies who are manufacturing anti-retroviral drugs already infected with the virus, also in order to finish quickly the African people", Chimoio said.

He declined to name the European countries in question or the source of his allegations.

Catholic Church #fundie reuters.com

MAPUTO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The head of the Catholic church in Mozambique said on Wednesday he believed some European-made condoms were deliberately tainted with the HIV/AIDS virus to kill African people.

"I know of two countries in Europe who are making condoms with (the) virus on purpose, they want to finish with African people as part of their programme to colonise the continent," Archbishop Francisco Chimoio told Reuters.

"If we are not careful we will finish in one century.

"I also know some companies who are manufacturing anti-retroviral drugs already infected with the virus, also in order to finish quickly the African people", Chimoio said.

He declined to name the European countries in question or the source of his allegations.

garc2204 #conspiracy reuters.com

This is serious, Senator McCain has lost because Mr. Obama promised Universal Health care! It was not the issue of the economy, since the economy is causing Americans top go insane. What I am really concerned about is when Obama begins to go abroad! That is when I feel a Communist-Socialist Party mmember is most likely to do his damage by turning his back on America. The socialist agenda has always been an ulterior plan designed by foreign means. Also, everyone of the professional military background knows that Moscow's espionage has increased inside the USA multi-fold since the end of the Cold-War! Over 50 years of their assisting the Communist Party's agenda here in America has caused the betrayal of trust among fellow Americans. We already know from Moscow's open admission that their espionage has assisted the Latin-American Drug Cartels to undermine and usurpt U.S. authority, now those filthy rich drug cartels are funneling money to the Hezbollah(Lebanon) to pay for the construction of Radio Stations and Television Stations, and to the Palestinians(Gaza Strip) to pay for weapons and technology. Are we to expect Obama to invite more of the same, where the Foreign-Espionage continues to increase its presence here in America only to help his self to secure and enforce his secret agenda?

Pope Benedict XVI #fundie reuters.com

"Pope Benedict, in a new encyclical released on Friday, said atheism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history."

"Atheism could be regarded by some as a "type of moralism", particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, to protest against the injustices of the world and world history, he said.

Reciting arguments made by atheists, he said: "A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God."

History has proven wrong ideologies such as Marxism which say humans had to establish social justice because God did not exist, the Pope wrote.

"It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice," the Pope said. Such a concept was grounded in "intrinsic falsity"

Roland Dumas #conspiracy reuters.com

(Reuters) - France's ruling Socialists rushed to condemn an aging former minister from among their ranks on Monday after he suggested Prime Minister Manuel Valls was probably acting under Jewish "influence".

Valls has been vocal in his defense of Jews in France, both before and after the January Islamist attacks that killed 17 people, including four Jews.

Roland Dumas, 92, who twice served as foreign minister under François Mitterrand, criticized Valls, saying the prime minister "has personal alliances that mean he has prejudices."

"Everyone knows he is married to someone really good but who has an influence on him," Dumas told BFM-TV, without mentioning the name of Valls' Jewish wife, a violinist.

Pressed to answer the question "Is he under a Jewish influence?" Dumas responded, "Probably, I would think so."

Indonesian Lawmakers #fundie reuters.com

Millions may risk jail as Indonesia to outlaw sex outside marriage

Indonesia is poised to pass a new penal code that criminalizes consensual sex outside marriage and introduces stiff penalties for insulting the president’s dignity - a move rights groups criticized as an intrusive assault on basic freedoms.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim majority country and has substantial Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities, but has seen a recent trend towards deeper religious piety and conservative Islamic activism.

The new criminal code is due to be adopted in the next week after parliament and the government agreed a final draft on Wednesday, four parliamentarians told Reuters.

Lawmakers told Reuters that the new penal code, which would replace a Dutch colonial-era set of laws, was a long overdue expression of Indonesian independence and religiosity.

“The state must protect citizens from behavior that is contrary to the supreme precepts of God,” said Nasir Djamil, a politician from the Prosperous Justice Party. He said leaders of all religions had been consulted on the changes given that Indonesia’s founding ideology was based on belief in God.

Under the proposed laws, unmarried couples who “live together as a husband and wife” could be jailed for six months or face a maximum fine of 10 million rupiah ($710), which is three months’ salary for many Indonesians.

A prosecution can proceed if a village chief, who heads the lowest tier of government, files a complaint with police, and parents or children of the accused do not object. Parents, children and spouses can also lodge a complaint.

The inclusion of the new power for village chiefs was warranted because “the victim of adultery is also society”, another lawmaker, Teuku Taufiqulhadi, said.

The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, an NGO, said millions of Indonesians could be ensnared by the new laws. It noted a study indicating that 40 per cent of Indonesian adolescents engaged in pre-marital sexual activity.

“Across the board, this is a ratcheting up of conservatism. It’s extremely regressive,” said Tim Lindsey, director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society.

A maximum one-year prison term also can be applied to a person who has sex with someone who is not their spouse and a close family member lodges a complaint. The law also impacts homosexuals as gay marriage is not recognized in Indonesia.

The code also establishes prison terms for those found to commit “obscene acts”, defined as violating norms of decency and politeness through “lust or sexuality”, whether by heterosexuals or gay people.

The new laws will also apply to foreigners. However, asked whether tourists in Indonesia could face jail for extramarital sex, Taufiqulhadi said: “No problem, as long as people don’t know.”

There would also be a maximum four-year prison term for women who have an abortion, applicable if there was no medical emergency or rape involved. The code further introduces fines for some people who promote contraception, and a six-month prison term for unauthorized discussion of “tools of abortion”.

In addition, local authorities would get greater freedom to introduce punishments for breaches of customary laws not covered in the penal code. There are more than 400 local regulations that activists say impinge civil rights, such as the mandatory wearing of a hijab, an Islamic headscarf for women.

Meanwhile, parliament has reintroduced the offence of “attacking the honor or dignity” of Indonesia’s president and vice president. A similar law was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2006, and the new version is likely to be challenged by rights activists as well.

Insulting the government and state institutions also carries a prison term.

Bussa Krishna #fundie reuters.com

KONNEY/NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - Bussa Krishna first began worshipping Donald Trump four years ago when the U.S. president appeared to him a dream.

Since then, after a run of good fortune, the Indian real estate broker has transformed his modest home into a shrine to the U.S. leader, who is due in India on Monday for a two-day visit.

“My love for him has transformed into reverence. That has given me immense happiness. Hence instead of praying to other gods, I started praying to him,” Krishna told Reuters.

Krishna, who lives alone in a village in the southern state of Telangana, has erected a life-size statue to Trump in his yard, while his walls are scrawled with the leader’s name - to the annoyance of his extended family.

“I am facing difficulties because of my relatives,” Krishna said. “They tell me that I am disgracing them in society. I told them that just like you believe and worship Shiva, I believe and worship Trump. Neither of us can stop the other from doing so.”

Andrzej Duda #fundie #homophobia #transphobia reuters.com

BRZEG, Poland (Reuters) - Poland’s president compared LGBT “ideology” to communist doctrine in a campaign speech on Saturday, as LGBT rights become a hotly debated issue ahead of a June 28 presidential election in the staunchly Catholic country.

President Andrzej Duda is an ally of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), which dismisses the promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights as a foreign influence undermining Poland’s traditional values.

On Wednesday, Duda introduced a “Family Card” of election proposals, including a vow to not allow gay couples to marry or adopt children and to ban teaching about LGBT issues in schools.

“My parents’ generation for forty years fought to eliminate communist ideology from schools, so it couldn’t be forced on children. So youth, children, soldiers and youth organizations couldn’t be indoctrinated,” Duda told a rally in the southwestern town of Brzeg.

“They didn’t fight for this so that a new ideology would appear that is even more destructive.”

Opposition candidates and LGBT rights groups condemned Duda’s speech.

Love Does Not Exclude, a Polish rights group, told Reuters Duda’s proposals were similar to the Russian government’s decision to ban “homosexual propaganda”.

The Left’s presidential candidate, Robert Biedron, the first Polish politician to openly identify as gay, called on Duda to “be done with this hatred” in a tweet posted after the speech.

Poland is a former satellite state of the Soviet Union and was the first country to shed communism in the region in 1989. This year the country was voted the worst in the European Union for LGBT rights in a poll by Brussels-based NGO ILGA-Europe.