Month: February 2017

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Tokyo assembly to summon Ishihara to testify over Tsukiji market relocation

TOKYO —

The Tokyo metropolitan assembly decided Wednesday to summon former Gov Shintaro Ishihara and his close aide to appear as sworn witnesses before a powerful committee looking into the controversial relocation plan for the Tsukiji fish market.

The assembly passed a proposal submitted by four major parties to establish the committee, which can compel individuals to testify and submit relevant records. Witnesses who give false testimony could face prosecution for perjury.

It is the first time for the assembly to set up such a committee since 2005.

Ishihara was governor when the metropolitan government decided to buy land in the Toyosu area to relocate the famous but aging fish market. A hearing with Ishihara and Takeo Hamauzu, a former deputy governor, is likely to be held in late March.

Gov Yuriko Koike has put the move on hold due to contamination at the new location, the site of a former gas production plant, and has publicly called for Ishihara to clarify his role in the purchase.

Koike emphasized in her policy speech Wednesday that her administration will investigate the decision-making process for the relocation of the market and clarify who was responsible for the land purchase.

Ishihara and Hamauzu were previously scheduled to appear between March 18 and 20 before a separate special assembly committee on the relocation issue. But the assembly decided to hold a hearing with the more powerful committee empowered to investigate the issue under the local autonomy law.

© KYODO

https://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/tokyo-assembly-to-summon-ishihara-to-testify-over-tsukiji-market-relocation

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S. Korea begins loudspeaker broadcasts to inform N. Koreans of Kim Jong-nam’s murder

South Korea’s military began loudspeaker broadcasts over the weekend to inform ordinary North Koreans of the murder of the communist state’s leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother, military officials said Wednesday.

The move aims to underscore the brutality of the dictatorial ruler in Pyongyang, whom Seoul believes masterminded the assassination of Kim Jong-nam at an airport in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13.

 

“We have made broadcasts through 34 loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border to inform North Korean soldiers and civilians that their leader Kim Jong-un was behind the killing of his elder half brother Kim Jong-nam,” a military official told Yonhap News Agency.

Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was allegedly assassinated by two women under directions from North Korean agents. He had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the reclusive North.

The propaganda broadcasts using loudspeakers installed near the heavily fortified border have been Seoul’s crucial means of psychological warfare.

Past broadcasts highlighted the South’s economic achievements and the benefits of liberal democracy, and brought attention to the importance of human rights — a reason why Pyongyang called them a “threat” to its communist system. (Yonhap)

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170222000279

 

 

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3 Ways Corporations Profit Off Harvesting Baby Foreskin

3 Ways Corporations Profit Off Harvesting Baby Foreskin

 

Presently in the US, a baby is circumcised every 25 seconds. The surgery involves cutting the foreskin off a part of a penis, generally without anesthesia, for absolutely no medical benefit in the hopes that a baby will look like their dad. Is this over exaggeration? Not exactly.

The foreskin is the most sensitive part of a male’s body – other than the head of the penis itself – with more nerve endings per square inch than any other body part. Surgical removal of the foreskin  involves immobilizing the baby by strapping him face-up onto a molded plastic board. In one common method, the doctor then inserts a metal instrument under the foreskin to forcibly separate it from the glans, slits the foreskin, and inserts a circumcision device. The foreskin is crushed and then cut off. The amount of skin removed in a typical infant circumcision is the equivalent of 15 square inches in an adult male.

As journalist Sara Burrows puts it, “Circumcision has been likened to having a sharp metal instrument jammed under one’s finger nail, down to the base, and shoved around, back and forth, until the entire nail is separated from the nail bed, and then sliced off.”

So what does removing one of the most sensitive organs from a man due to his sexual ability?

Circumcising men takes away 75 percent of their capacity for sexual sensation and. They are 4.5 times (450%) more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction, according to the British Journal of Urology International.

But, there’s a medical benefit to robbing men of sexual sensation, right? No. There are no professional medical associations in the United States or anywhere else in the world which recommend routine circumcision as medically necessary. In fact, leaving boys intact is becoming the norm in the U.S., as parents realize the risks and harms of circumcision.

Still, circumcision is readily done within the United States, and just as corporations make money off war, they also make money off the suffering of babies.

There exists a Holy Grail in the cosmetic industry to create a cream that sheds years off your skin. Scientists have discovered such a ingredient, fibroblast cells. Fibroblasts cause the skin to regrow the elasticity and elegance of youth for whoever uses a fibroblast-based cream. What is the best source for these wonder cells? Baby foreskins.

Infant’s foreskin has special cell properties , similar to those found in stem cells. Their versatility means that they can be used to cultivate skin cells.

Because of this, they’re not tossed out with the rest of the medical waste after a birth. Instead, hospitals sell them to companies and institutions for a wide variety of uses. Companies will pay thousands of dollars for a single foreskin.

Some of the strangest purposes they’re put to:

  • Cosmetics: Foreskins are used to make high-end skin creams. The skin products contain fibroblasts grown on the foreskin and harvested from it. One foreskin can be used for decades to produce fancy face cream like the SkinMedica products hawked on Oprah.
  • Skin grafts: In addition to making products for skin, a baby’s foreskin can be turned into a skin graft for a burn victim. Because the cells are extremely flexible, they’re less likely to be rejected. Currently, this technology can be lifesaving in providing a real skin “band aid” to cover an open wound while a burn victim heals. Researchers at Harvard and Tufts are working on advanced skin replacements that use human foreskins.
  • Cosmetic testing: All those cruelty-free cosmetics you buy? Some of them are tested on foreskins. This yields better results, since they’re human skin. And it saves the lives of the rodents your shampoo would otherwise be tested on.


It is estimated that a single male foreskin can retail for around $100,000, which means that companies like SkinMedica  – who use baby foreskin to create their skin care product – sell their foreskin facial creams for $150 an ounce.

Now, you also have companies like Pfizer—the creator of Viagra— making money off of Erectile Dysfunction that is directly linked to circumcision. So if you’re wondering why various institutions are backing such a barbaric practice, think about the amount of money being made. Is it really ethical to rob a male of their sexual pleasure in the name of religion or profit?

Now that we live in the age of information—and we have the evidence that conclusively shows that routine circumcision is heinous— there is no reason to continue this horrendous practice. We must remove the idea that babies need to be primed like domesticated dogs as soon as they come out of a woman. We must remove the blade from the birthing process, and stop mutilating children for no justifiable reason.

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Political parties divided over emperor abdication legislation

https://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/political-parties-divided-over-emperor-abdication-legislation

TOKYO —

Japan’s political parties showed differing positions Monday over possible legislation to enable Emperor Akihito to abdicate in separate hearings with the heads of both chambers of parliament, participants said.

Although the sessions were held as part of the parliamentary leaders’ efforts to iron out differing opinions among ruling and opposition parties, the results suggest more discussions are needed before a bill is submitted for legislation.

Representatives from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party said the party supports a one-off legal mechanism enabling the 83-year-old emperor to abdicate and make way for Crown Prince Naruhito, 56.

The LDP’s junior coalition partner Komeito party, along with two other conservative parties, said during their hearings that they hold a similar view.

Abe’s government is seeking to materialize the aging emperor’s wish to abdicate, which was hinted at in a video message released last August, by means of enacting one-off legislation.

In contrast, the main opposition Democratic Party has advocated a permanent system through a revision to the Imperial House Law, which lacks an abdication provision.

Yoshihiko Noda, the party’s secretary general, said he called for the parliament heads to create an opportunity for all the parties to discuss the issue, instead of separate hearings.

In response, House of Representatives Speaker Tadamori Oshima indicated a willingness to do so after taking part in sessions with a total of 10 parties and groups.

The Japanese Communist Party, together with two other small parties and two groups, also demanded that the imperial law be amended.

Some legal experts and the Democratic Party argue that the planned LDP-led special legislation may violate the Constitution as the supreme law stipulates the imperial throne shall be “succeeded to in accordance with the Imperial House Law.”

In light of that, Masahiko Komura, vice president of the LDP, said after the party’s hearing he believes it is necessary to take measures to clarify the relationship between the envisioned special law and the imperial law.

Komeito deputy chief Kazuo Kitagawa said Oshima asked the party about the idea of adding a supplementary clause to the imperial law and putting the special law’s legal base in it. The ruling coalition has been studying the idea to bridge the gap with opposition parties as it could pave the way for future emperors to step down.

Kitagawa told reporters that he replied, “There is room to study.”

The Diet heads are hoping for early enactment of legislation and are making a rare attempt to reconcile parties’ opinions before the bill’s formulation, lawmakers said.

Taking into consideration each party’s opinion, Oshima and others will compile the Diet’s opinion possibly by mid-March.

Oshima said at a press conference that the Diet heads will meet later this week to discuss how to proceed with debate in the Diet afterward.

In January, a government advisory panel studying the abdication issue released an interim report emphasizing the merits of legislation applying only to Emperor Akihito but not to future emperors.

Considering the Diet’s view and the upcoming advisory council’s final proposal, the government plans to submit the bill to the Diet sometime between late April and early May, political sources said.

© KYODO

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Montreal imam calls to ‘destroy the accursed Jews’ in viral video

MONTREAL (JTA) — Montreal police are investigating a three-year-old video that shows an imam at a local mosque calling on Allah to “destroy the accursed Jews” and to kill them “one by one.”

The video, which went viral after being released Feb. 8 onto social media, appeared less than three weeks after six Muslim worshippers were gunned down in a Quebec City mosque and Jews across Canada rallied behind Muslims in a gesture of support and solidarity.

“We condemn these explicit calls for the death of Jews in the strongest possible terms,” Rabbi Reuben Poupko, co-chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told The Canadian Jewish News.

“We believe these declarations may be a violation of the criminal code,” he said.

The mosque that hosted the imam was the Al-Andalous Islamic Centre in the Montreal borough of St. Laurent, according to reports.

A spokesman for the center said the person speaking in the video was a “volunteer” imam.

The center also issued a “clarification” that the imam’s comments were made during Israel’s 2014 military incursion into Gaza.

But, if anything, “the attack on the Quebec City mosque should serve as a reminder to all that there can be no ‘context’ in our democracy that legitimizes calls for violence against any identifiable community,” Poupko said.

Montreal imam calls to ‘destroy the accursed Jews’ in viral video

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Social Justice vs. Heterosexuality (and the Problem With ‘Male Feminists’)

 

 

“We must recognize that heterosexuality is also part of the structure of the oppression of women. Sexual repression is one of the ways in which women are oppressed and one of the ways in which patriarchy is maintained.”
— Jane Flax, “Women Do Theory,” 1979, in Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations Between Women and Men, edited by Alison M. Jaggar and Paula S. Rothenberg (Third Edition, 1993)

“It is a curious fact that feminists who live heterosexual lifestyles — who are happily married to, living with or having sex with men — often find it difficult or impossible to accept the identity ‘heterosexual.’ . . .
“For some heterosexual feminists . . . the contradictions between political ideology and lived experience are acute and painful, and involve constant compromise. . . . No wonder, then, that the identity ‘heterosexual’ is hard to sustain.”
— Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson, “The Precariousness of Heterosexual Feminist Identities,” in Making Connections: Women’s Studies, Women’s Movements, Women’s Lives, edited by Mary Kennedy, Cathy Lubelska and Val Walsh (1993)

Oppression, repression, patriarchy — guys, if you ever encounter a woman who talks like this, just walk away. She’s deranged, and nothing you say to her is likely to cure her paranoid anti-male delusions.

Feminism Is a Totalitarian Movement to Destroy Civilization as We Know It, and the only way anyone can hope to escape this destruction is to avoid being anywhere in the vicinity of a feminist. Why do feminists hate men so much? Perhaps because the only men with whom feminists ever interact are men too stupid to avoid hanging around feminists. Or even worse, they get mixed up with a “male feminist”:

I thought dating someone who called himself a feminist — who considered himself a “social justice warrior,” who was accepted in these communities, who was introduced to me at a feminist event by a trusted friend, and was sensitive — would be the safest choice I could make for a boyfriend. Instead, he was emotionally and psychologically abusive and manipulative. . . .
He bemoaned how predatory men can be. He was “concerned for me” — not jealous. . . .
He cried when I described my past rape. He hurt for me. He told me about how he hurts for all the women he knows who have been assaulted. I slowly found out that the women he has recently pursued are all assault survivors. . . .

You can read the rest of that, but you get the drift: Left-wing guys are sexual scavengers, always looking for easy prey, and their ostentatious concern for “social justice” issues is a three-card monte hustle that could only deceive a complete fool. However, complete fools are a dime a dozen in the kind of “communities” where feminists gather like wildebeests grazing on the Katanga Plateau, stalked by packs of “male feminists.”

 

Here’s a clue: Social justice is a mirage, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek said. Anyone foolish enough to pursue the progressive fantasy of an egalitarian utopia is a chump, and getting involved with a political movement of chumps is always a bad idea, because bad causes attract bad people, and the worst get on top:

From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, deception and spying, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual are essential and unavoidable consequences . . .
To be a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state it is not enough that a man should be prepared to accept specious justification of vile deeds, he must himself be prepared actively to break every moral rule he has ever known if this seems necessary to achieve the end set for him. . . .
Yet while there is little that is likely to induce men who are good by our standards to aspire to leading positions in the totalitarian machine, and much to deter them, there will be special opportunities for the ruthless and unscrupulous.

The anarchist mobs of thugs who engage in vandalism and violence to protest the election results and to silence dissent on university campuses are symptomatic of this problem, and what kind of woman would get involved in such a movement? A fool or a feminist, but I repeat myself.

A woman who denounces heterosexuality as “the structure of the oppression of women,” to quote the Women’s Studies textbook, is free to avoid this oppression. If the feminist is not a lesbian, however, she must wonder if her politics can be reconciled with heterosexuality. In this, I agree with radical feminists, including Professor Kitzinger, who declare that feminism and heterosexuality are ultimately incompatible.

What does a normal woman want? The American Dream — a nice house in the suburbs, two or three kids running around in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon while her husband grills some burgers. Getting to that American Dream scenario in the 21st century may require different domestic arrangements than it did during the Eisenhower era, but a woman won’t get there through “social justice,” unless her husband happens to be a Democrat politician or a bigwig in some tax-exempt “progressive” foundation. No, ma’am, the way to the American Dream is capitalism. Smashing windows at Starbucks or marching around in pink “pussy hats” waving signs denouncing patriarchy isn’t likely to get you that nice house in suburbia. Reality does not conform to feminist theory.

Social Justice vs. Heterosexuality (and the Problem With ‘Male Feminists’)

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Will Mayor John Tory denounce the hatred coming from the Masjid Toronto mosque?

http://en.cijnews.com/?p=207226

On February 17, 2017 Mayor of Toronto, John Tory tweeted following the demonstration outside Masjid Toronto Mosque on Friday (February 17, 2017).

Islamophobia has NO place in our city. I’ve visited Masjid Toronto many times & denounce all acts of hatred towards our Muslim citizens.

Islamophobia has no place in his city. I can’t imagine anyone believing that we should incite hate for others. CBC reported that the Police investigate anti-Muslim rally outside Toronto mosque as possible hate crime.

So, will the Mayor of the City of Toronto denounce also the calls of hate and the incitement to kill Jews and Christians that come from the leaders of this same Mosque?

In 2016, imams (religious leaders who lead the prayers) at the mosque recited supplications to Allah in support of the “mujahideen (those of engage in jihad) everywhere”, the total destruction of the enemies of Islam and the purification of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the “filth of the Jews.”

Here are the names of some of the leaders at the Mosque. Dr. Wael Shihab was appointed in April 2014 to a full-time resident Imam of the mosque Masjid Toronto. Shihab has a PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University and he was the head of the Fatwa (Islamic opinion) Unit of IslamOnline.net (English website) and the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) consultant of the Shari’ah department of Onislam.net. Other leaders at the mosque invoking prayers include Aymen Elkasrawy and Shaykh Abdool Hamid.

The following are excerpts from these supplications (originally in Arabic) recited by Aymen Elkasrawy and Shaykh Abdool Hamid:

O Allah! We ask you… [to give us] victory over the enemies

O Allah! Raise the standing of Islam and the Muslims

O Allah! Give victory (help) to your oppressed slaves all over the world, east to west

O Allah! Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah, O the Lord of the Worlds!

O Allah! Destroy the criminals

O Allah! Destroy anyone who inflicts injustice on your slaves, O the Lord of the Worlds!

O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them.

O Allah! Do not defer [it] on them

O Allah! Seize them with the seizure of One Mighty, Omnipotent [referring to a Quranic verse that deals with the punishment Allah inflicted on Pharaoh and his people]

 

[O Allah!] Give us victory over the disbelieving people…

O Allah! Give victory to Islam and raise the standing the Muslims

And humiliate the polytheism and polytheists

O Allah! Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah, O the Lord of the Worlds!

O Allah! Give them victory over the criminal people

O Allah! Destroy anyone who killed Muslims

O Allah! Destroy anyone who displaced the sons of the Muslims

O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them

O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!

O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!

O Allah! Raise the standing of Islam and the Muslims

And humiliate the polytheism, the polytheists, the infidels and the atheists

And Give victory (help) to your slaves who believe in the oneness of Allah

O Allah! Give victory to our oppressed and deprived Muslim brothers and the mujahideen (those who engage in jihad) everywhere

O Allah! Pour on them patience and steadfast their feet

And give them victory over the disbelieving people

And give them victory over the evildoers

And give them victory over the criminals

Will there be demonstrations against this hatred toward those of us who live in the west who do not bow down to Allah?

Will Estelle Amaron, who left a message at the mosque that she “was very sorry for what happened today and that this was not the Canada that I live in and that we all live together and we’re all together and I just signed it as a neighbour and a friend,” call for the end of the hate coming from the Mosque?

And what about Mohamed Abdi, a member of the mosque, who said he was disappointed after hearing of the demonstration “It’s pretty sad and a little bit surprising since I’ve been seeing so much positive responses lately so it’s a little bit sad to hear that that happened.”

Will he condemn the hateful statements made in his Mosque?

Will the police arrest these people for incitement to kill? Will the main stream media show up and question what is going on in this Mosque? Or will all of these people just pretend that all is well-after all hasn’t our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau informed us over and over that Islam is compatible with the West?