28 Mar
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
English Online International Newspapers
For a change from the same old news stories from the same old news networks, here are links to English-edition online newspapers from other parts of the world. Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers, with an emphasis on the Middle East and Asia. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.
Some of the available newspapers:
Asia & CIS |
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www.newscentralasia.com/ |
China |
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english.peopledaily.com.cn/home.html |
China & Hong Kong |
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www.scmp.com/news |
France |
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www.france24.com/en/france/ |
Israel |
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www.haaretz.com/ |
Norway |
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www.newsinenglish.no/category/news/ |
Palestine |
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english.pnn.ps/ |
Russia |
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english.pravda.ru/ |
Ukraine |
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www.ukrainianjournal.com/ |
Uganda News
Researchers confirm HIV in Uganda most aggressive worldwide
Disease is easily transmittable and affects big population quick .
Classified pictures showing CIA captives bruised, blindfolded and bound raise new questions about US’s willingness to use ‘sexual humiliation’ on suspects
Some human rights campaigners described the act of naked photography on unwilling detainees as a potential war crime by the CIA. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Spencer Ackerman
The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture, the Guardian can reveal.
A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as “very gruesome”.
The naked imagery of CIA captives raises new questions about the seeming willingness of the US to use what one medical and human rights expert called “sexual humiliation” in its post-9/11 captivity of terrorism suspects. Some human rights campaigners described the act of naked photography on unwilling detainees as a potential war crime.
Unlike video evidence of CIA torture at its undocumented “black site” prisons that were destroyed in 2005 by a senior official, the CIA is said to retain the photographs.
In some of the photos, which remain classified, CIA captives are blindfolded, bound and show visible bruises. Some photographs also show people believed to be CIA officials or contractors alongside the naked detainees.
It is not publicly known how many people, overwhelmingly but not exclusively men, were caught in the CIA’s web of so-called “extraordinary renditions”, extra-judicial transfers of detainees to foreign countries, many of which practiced even more brutal forms of torture than the US came to adopt. Human rights groups over the years have identified at least 50 people the CIA rendered, going back to Bill Clinton’s presidency…………..
The visits to Ahsan Samad’s home by NYPD officers and then FBI agents have left him traumatized – but advocates say his story echoes that of many others
‘In the beginning it felt like urban legends, but then everyone had stories or had heard stories. We knew about informants and undercovers well before the reports came out.’ Illustration: Emma Ahlqvist
Ahsan Samad sits on the sofa in the living room of his small family home in Brooklyn, New York. The 30-year-old plumber leans forward and carefully pours the coffee his mother has just brought in from the kitchen. His young niece and nephew are playing in a nearby room.
“I know I have done nothing wrong. I am constantly thinking about it. Their visits made me terrified.”
Samad looks up, bewildered and confused. He is trying to lay out the complexity of the mental hell the past four and a half years have been for him.
Samad is an American citizen with no criminal record – no arrests, no felonies. But in the shifting eyes of the American law, he is something worthy of seeming extra attention. Samad is not just American – he is also Muslim.
Over the course of more than four years between September 2011 and 2015, he received at least five visits to his home by NYPD and then FBI officers. He says the visiting officers came with no warrant and used threatening and provocative language. During a visit in September 2011, they even forced themselves inside his home.
He and his petrified family members repeatedly told law enforcement agents presenting themselves at his residence to arrange for interviews in the presence of lawyers (who later followed up with agencies) – something law enforcement officials repeatedly declined to do…………
96% of AMS members realize climate change is happening, and most understand humans are responsible
Cars drive through flooded streets behind a High Water sign in Hammond, Louisiana, USA, 11 March 2016. As climate change leads to more extreme weather, more meteorologists will likely take notice. Photograph: Dan Anderson/EPA
John Abraham
There have been multiple scientific studies that all concur: scientists know that climate change is happening and it is largely caused by humans. I recently wrote about this here, where I reviewed the studies. It turns out that the more scientists know about climate change, the more they are convinced that humans are warming the planet. In fact, the consensus is extraordinarily strong. But it isn’t just that the vast majority of scientists agree; it’s that the best scientist agree. We find that the contrarian scientists tend to be less accomplished, have had their research found to be incorrect time after time, and they produce less science.
But very recently, a study from the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication was completed that adds to our knowledge on the consensus. Lead author Ed Maibach and his colleagues are very well-respected surveyors and scientists who study this topic. The study didn’t focus on what we think of as climate scientists – rather they polled meteorologists.
There were actually two surveys that were merged. In one, the authors identified 1038 professionals currently working in broadcast meteorology from the American Meteorological Society (AMS). In a concurrent study, the authors obtained a list of members from the AMS who were not broadcast meteorologists. The two groups were asked a series of questions on whether climate change is occurring, the degree to which respondents felt humans were responsible, what could be done to minimize climate change, among others. The authors also asked about the educational background of the respondents……….
US politics
Election 2016
Bernie Sanders sets sights on Hillary Clinton’s home turf after wins in west
Live Sanders tries to keep momentum going after big weekend wins
Trump and Cruz trade barbs over National Enquirer story and their wives
Petition to allow guns at Republican convention earns 24,000 signatures
Donald Trump gets a Ted in the family Ivanka names newborn son Theodore
‘Stripping suspects, taking humiliating photographs of them, sending them around the world into the hands of torturers: these sound like the actions of a crazed dictatorship.’ Photograph: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images