Nun forced to leave India after 29 years of helping leprosy patients

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25 July 2011
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A Catholic nun from Britain who has spent 29 years caring for leprosy patients in Bengaluru, India, is being forced to give up her work and leave the country after Delhi refused to renew her residency permit.

London-born Jacqueline Jean McEwan, now known as Sister Jean, or the Mother Teresa of Sumanahalli, runs a mobile clinic for leprosy patients. She has been ordered to leave without explanation by the union home ministry and if her appeal for permission to stay goes unanswered by 2pm on Monday she will have to board an evening flight bound for London — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Female genital mutilation laws to be toughened against families

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24 July 2011
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New guidelines to target families that take young girls abroad to undergo female genital mutilation are being sent to prosecutors by the government.

Ministers want to encourage more action against those who inflict the brutal procedure on their children and relatives amid concerns that the current approach serves as little deterrent.

Female genital mutilation is an illegal procedure in the UK with those convicted risking 14 years’ imprisonment. The Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2003 also allows for the prosecution of British citizens who breach the provisions of the act and perform the procedure abroad.

But while the law seems strict on paper, it seems to have limited effect in practice. Campaigners say 22,000 girls are at risk each year. However, MPs were this week told that there has yet to be a single conviction, despite 100 investigations being carried out over two years by the Met. By contrast the French authorities have successfully prosecuted in 100 cases — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Freed from facts, Abbott goes ballooning

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23 July 2011
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The Opposition Leader’s discomfiture in the face of certain large repositories of expertise is a matter of record.

He disapproves of climate scientists, of Australian economists on the whole, and he has no time at all for the work of Treasury officials, which should make things fairly interesting should the public distaste for Julia Gillard bear its probable fruit two years hence, and install Mr Abbott as their lord and master. Awkward — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Monckton threatens to sue ABC, calls chairman a shrimp

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22 July 2011
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Climate change denier Lord Christopher Monckton has threatened to sue the ABC and described its chairman Maurice Newman as a shrimp-like wet little individual.

Lord Monckton, who is towards the end of a near month-long tour of Australia, told a Melbourne audience he had met with Newman at a breakfast and requested he intervene in the broadcast of the Radio National documentary Background Briefing.

Experienced ABC journalist Wendy Carlisle interviewed Lord Monckton and several of his supporters for the documentary, which first aired on Sunday. The documentary also highlighted links between Lord Monckton and mining magnate and supporter Gina Rinehart, chairman of Hancock Prospecting — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The cynical exploitation of child abuse

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22 July 2011
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Stephen Conroy was in the news again, and as usual, the topic was internet censorship.

It seems that three of our biggest ISPs — Telstra, Optus and Primus — have decided to voluntarily filter material related to child sexual abuse. In a bit of black eye to Conroy, they’re using a list of sites provided by Interpol rather than by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, specifically citing legal issues regarding the authority of the ACMA.

Everyone involved was quick to say that this is not censorship, despite it meeting every part of the definition of the term, and Conroy tried hard to spin this as a victory for his policy, calling it an interim measure while certain issues regarding the jurisdiction of the ACMA were worked out, i.e. the fact that it doesn’t have the legal authority to do what Conroy wants it to, and that the government doesn’t want to try changing the laws when they can’t do it without the cross-benchers’ support.

The lies can be this blatant, because after all, who’s going to stand up and argue against measures aimed at preventing child abuse? — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Turnbull takes shot at climate change deniers

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22 July 2011
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Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has urged his party to stop listening to climate change deniers, calling on members to defend the science of climate change and pledge to reduce Australia’s emissions.

Mr Turnbull lost the leadership to current Opposition Leader Tony Abbott over the issue of climate change.

Delivering the Virginia Chadwick memorial lecture in Sydney last night, he said a war was being waged on scientists by those opposed to taking action to cut emissions, many because it does not suit their own financial interests — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A close look at Abbott’s Direct Action plan

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21 July 2011
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The next election will not be until 2013, barring misfortune or worse. But let’s give these polls their due for a second. What if Kevin Rudd’s aortic valve gave out this weekend, and the Government of Julia Gillard fell?

What exactly are the policies of the Coalition, and would they work? After all, there’s been plenty of media scrutiny of the Government’s carbon tax. There’s been precious little on the Opposition’s own carbon policy, which it calls “Direct Action”, or the many sweeping statements on climate change and the carbon tax by Tony Abbott.

On Monday night on the ABC’s PM program, Stephen Long finally examined some of Tony Abbott’s claims. In a stunning piece of forensic investigation, Long single-handedly dismantled the distortions, misrepresentations and bald-faced lies that Tony Abbott continues to advance — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Egypt’s Indiana Jones steps down

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18 July 2011
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Egypt’s antiquities minister has been fired after months of pressure from critics who attacked his credibility and accused him of having been too close to the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Zahi Hawass, known for his trademark Indiana Jones hat, lost his job along with about a dozen other ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle meant to ease pressure from protesters seeking to purge remnants of Mr Mubarak’s regime — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Australiar and the fucking idiot dilemma

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18 July 2011
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There are definitely times when you wonder if light-fingered alien doctors have been handing out mass lobotomies while we sleep. Or there really is something in the water. Or the Brits were right and there’s a dash of ovine DNA in the cocktail shake. Wondering whether we were always just this fucking dumb, or we’re somehow getting dumber.

Like times when a mass of Australians latch onto a head-pulsingly inane slogan and start riding it like the seductive sheep of yore. Little has exemplified our current slump into mouth-breathing idiocy better than the recent Juliar gag. Ho! disgruntled letter-writers say to celebrate their annual flicker of brain activity. We took a word, and then we… changed it a bit… and it means another thing! That’s commentary. Political observation in this country is like watching a guy slumped on a couch trying to eat pre-chewed food out of his chest hair — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Great Deniers of History

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15 July 2011
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Trade Union CFMEU has joined the carbon tax debate with a campaign celebrating great moments of denial in history.

The ad -– created by former Chaser Charles Firth -– include Roman soldiers insisting nothing more would be heard of Jesus, priests refusing to accept the world is flat and aborigines convinced that the First Fleet will be passing through. These positions are then contrasted with Liberal leader Tony Abbott expressing doubt about climate change science — via Mumbrella

ACL backs gay Nazi claim

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15 July 2011
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The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has joined Loree Rudd, the sister of former PM Kevin Rudd, in accusing supporters of marriage equality of using Nazi tactics in campaigning for equal rights.

The ACL came to the defence of Rudd after she accused same-sex marriage advocates of being a Gestapo — the Nazis’ secret police — in an interview with The Australian newspaper last week.

Rudd claimed there was a worldwide gay network that fed propaganda for marriage equality to politicians.

I call them the global gay Gestapo — it is the lobbying movement that is brainwashing people, particularly the young in the community that this [homosexuality] is an optional extra in life, she said — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Ninth arrest in hacking scandal and Gillard has some media advice

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15 July 2011
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A ninth person has been arrested over phone hacking at the News of the World in London.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said Neil Wallis, 60, was taken in for questioning — after an early-morning raid on a house in west London — on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

Mr Wallis is a former deputy editor and executive editor of the News of the World.

…

The contagion from the scandal engulfing News International has spread to Australia, being raised while the Prime Minister was answering questions about the scandal and the vitriolic carbon tax debate.

Julia Gillard, addressing the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, had a simple lesson on media ethics.

Don’t write crap … Can’t be that hard, she said.

And when you have written complete crap, then I think you should correct it — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Tweet revenge: Turnbull publishes climate critic’s number

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14 July 2011
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Federal opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull has out-trolled a troll by publishing on Twitter the name and phone number of a man he says has been sending him abusive text messages.

I don’t mind abusive emails or tweets but why does Thomas Lynch [mobile phone number omitted] think its ok to send me abusive smses about climate change, the former Liberal leader tweeted today.

The tweet, which has since been removed, also included a mobile phone number — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Brown’s shock that his family medical records were hacked

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12 July 2011
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The crisis engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire dramatically worsened last night when it was claimed that private investigators working for The Sun and The Sunday Times targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown.

In another extraordinary day in the phone-hacking scandal, News International’s denials that illicit news-gathering techniques stretched beyond the News of the World came under strain in the face of well-sourced claims that two of its other best-selling titles were also involved in serious wrongdoing — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Pray Away the Gay at Candidate’s Clinic?

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12 July 2011
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A former patient who sought help from the Christian counseling clinic owned by GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, told ABC News he was advised that prayer could rid him of his homosexual urges and he could eventually be re-oriented.

[One counselor’s] path for my therapy would be to read the Bible, pray to God that I would no longer be gay, said Andrew Ramirez, who was 17-years-old at the time he sought help from Bachmann & Associates in suburban Minneapolis in 2004. And God would forgive me if I were straight

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