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POPSIran to hang 30 for murder, other crimes: report At least 10 people were hanged in the country in July. In September last year, 21 people were executed in one day, in two different locations. Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's Sharia law, enforced since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Amnesty International in April listed Iran as the world's second most prolific executioner last year, with at least 317 people put to death, trailing only China which carried out 470 death sentences.
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POPSFalun Gong Targeted Ahead Of Beijing Olympics authorities have instead been using the Olympics as a pretext to escalate persecutions of religious and political dissidents. Chinese authorities fear that Falun Gong, along with Tibetans, Uighurs, and other dissidents, may use the international media presence during the games to draw attention to their causes. "It is now imperative that the international community leverage real pressure and stop these deplorable actions, lest the legacy of the 2008 Olympics be hundreds of Beijing residents languishing in labor camps," Zhang said. The apparent animosity towards Falun Gong on the part of the Beijing Olympics organizer is hardly new. In 2004, the head of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, Liu Qi, was found liable in a U.S. federal court for his role in the torture of Falun Gong practitioners while he was serving as mayor of Beijing.
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POPSIsraeli Military Under The Magnifying Glass As all military personal with a leadership bent on violence and suppression, Israels defense forces, IDF, is not immune to escalating and provoking. This and all the forms of systematic state induced violence of that Apartheid Regime must stop.
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POPSUK House of Commons: U.S. Goverment Lied to us. Cont... "Britain's denials that its territories have been used for "extraordinary rendition" were dramatically undermined last night after the United Nations claimed that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects. . . . The revelations raise fresh questions about the island's role in the process of extraordinary rendition -- moving suspects to interrogation centres in third-party countries where they are held outside the law -- and why the UK government was apparently unaware that its ally was operating a prison on Diego Garcia to house so-called "high-value detainees"."
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POPSThree Orphaned Lion Cubs Being Bottle-Fed By Zookeepers
White lions are regarded as a rarity in the wild. In captivity, however, it seems a different story. In fact three white cubs were born to another lioness at the zoo in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, south-west of Hamburg, at exactly the same time. She however, was happy to raise her litter herself. Fortunately these two-week-old white lion cubs are in good hands with the zoo keepers adopting the maternal role. In captivity, both male and female lions, who are unusually social compared to other cats, can live for over 20 years. The German public has a soft spot for orphaned animals. Knut, the first polar bear born in Berlin Zoo for 30 years, became a national celebrity after his mother rejected him. Life, however, hasn't been easy for the bear who attracts at least 200 visitors a day. He is said to have become addicted to human attention. 'Knut is a problem bear who has become addicted to human beings,' German animal rights activist Frank Albrecht said.
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POPSReview: HBO's "China's Stolen Children" After having one child, Chinese parents may be unable to get a birth certificate for subsequent children, who then, as "non-persons" often become victims of kidnap and human trafficking.
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POPSSentient Beings Protected I'd say it's high time that we got off our high horse and recognized other sentient beings that we share the earth with and grant them limited rights such as freedom from torture. Ethically, it is the right thing to do. In part, we can blame religion for this ethical blunder.
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POPSGTMO Trials= Kangeroo Trials- Rapidly, Irratic Moving Target This is not happening in China, Zimbabwe or the former Soviet Union; Our government wants to put on a show of democracy at work. Circus would be more like it. A circus of caged, tortured and worse.This government, if one can call it that, must be very afraid. I am afraid of this kind of " institution ". Sooner, rather than later, we who oppose this sham, might also get into the " show ". Patriotism is what they call that! No wonder the Arabs, and many others, have trouble believing in American Democracy. Are you having trouble yet? Or do you need more?
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POPSWhen Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated. Meanwhile, even in democracies, the law accords diminished rights to many humans: children, prisoners, the insane, the senile. Teenagers may not vote, philosophers who slip into dementia may be lashed to their beds, courts can order surgery or force-feeding. Spain’s Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals. One said such thinking led to abortion, euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
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POPS'Worse than apartheid' Nablus is closed off by six checkpoints. Until 2005, one of them was open. "The checkpoints are supposedly for security purposes, but anyone who wants to perpetrate an attack can pay NIS 10 for a taxi and travel by bypass roads, or walk through the hills. The real purpose is to make life hard for the inhabitants. The civilian population suffers," says Said Abu Hijla, a lecturer at Al-Najah University in the city. In the bus I get acquainted with my two neighbours: Andrew Feinstein, a son of Holocaust survivors who is married to a Muslim woman from Bangladesh and served six years as an MP for the ANC ; and Nathan Gefen, who has a male Muslim partner and was a member of the right-wing Betar movement in his youth. Gefen is active on the Committee against AIDS in his AIDS-ravaged country.
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POPSCorporate Personhood he courts destroyed the semblance of equal protection under law because there is no way even an individual billionaire can approximate the raw power of these large corporations with their privileged immunities, and their control over technology, capital and labor. Right now it is the reverse. The sovereignty of the people is subordinated to the sovereignty of the giant multinational corporations. Corporations were chartered in the early nineteenth century by state governments to be our servants, not our masters.
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