Japan Must Halt Whaling Program In Antarctic, Court Says

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Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

The country’s government had argued that hunting whales was part of a research program, but the International Court of Justice ruled Monday that Japan hasn’t generated enough scientific research to justify killing hundreds of whales. Critics said the hunts were instead a way to justify commercial hunting.

Under the whaling program, Japan had set annual “lethal sample size” limits of 50 per species for fin whales and humpback whales, in addition to approximately 850 Antarctic minke whales. But the court said the research program had generated only two peer-reviewed papers that together refer to nine whales.

“In light of the fact that [Japan’s program] has been going on since 2005 and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited,” the court wrote in its judgment.

By a 12-4 vote, the court based in The Hague decided Japan must “revoke any extant authorization, permit or license granted in relation to” its whaling program, “and refrain from granting any further permits” related to it.

The court’s ruling stems from a complaint filed by Australia in May 2010, when it accused Japan of being in breach of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling by operating a system that produced whale meat for sale in Japan, rather than creating scientific data.

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China Plans to Take Over the World with Global Network of Surveillance Satellites

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

If it went ahead the plan could see more than 50 observation satellites in orbit within two years, The South China Morning Post reported. This would put the country’s satellite surveillance capabilities on a par, or greater than, the US.

The paper said support for the massive upscale was fuelled by China’s frustration over the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

After a three-week search satellites have been unable to locate for certain debris from the disappeared plane, which was carrying mainly Chinese passengers on a scheduled flight to Beijing.

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Women in Revealing Clothes Deserve to Be Raped, Say Brazilians in New Poll

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Photo Credit: Douglas / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Douglas / Creative Commons

You want to talk about the real war on women? Look no further than Brazil, where a recent government-sanctioned poll revealed that Brazilian men — and women — believe that if a woman shows off her body she deserves to be raped.

Brazil’s Institute of Applied Economic Research asked 3,810 men and women the question, with 65 percent of respondents saying women who wear “clothing that shows off the body” deserve to be raped.

Keep in mind, 66.5 percent of the respondents were women.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff took to twitter to say the poll results show that “Brazilian society still has a long way to go to fight violence against women.”

“The results make clear the burden on law and public policy to fight violence against women,” she added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Talked to Saudi King For More Than Two Hours – But Not About Human Rights

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Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais

President Obama did not raise human rights concerns during his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah, an administration official confirmed after the two leaders talked for more than two hours.

“The focus of the meeting was strategic and regional topics,” said the official, briefing reporters on background about Friday’s talks at the king’s desert encampment north-west of Riyadh. Asked again specifically whether human rights had come up, the official replied, “No.”

Asked further whether Obama had raised the Saudis’ decision to deny a visa to a Jewish member of the White House press corps wanting to cover the visit, the official, said “I don’t believe it came up in the meeting.”

The official pointed out that national security advisor Susan Rice had brought up the visa denial issue with Saudi officials earlier, and “they certainly know our views and our objection to the way in which that situation was handled.”

Obama’s meeting with Abdullah came a day after the president said he told Pope Francis that “it is central to U.S. foreign policy that we protect the interests of religious minorities around the world.”

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Dig at Nazi Camp Reveals Gas Chamber, Mass Graves

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Photo Credit: AP / ALIK KEPLICZ

Photo Credit: AP / ALIK KEPLICZ

The Nazis tore down their notorious Treblinka death camp in 1943 and did their best to hide any physical evidence it ever existed. The strategy mostly worked, but some high-tech archeology is finally revealing the camp’s secrets, reports LiveScience.

British archeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls led a team that conducted the first digs at the site in Poland—Treblinka was actually two separate camps—discovering three previously unidentified mass graves and the apparent location of one of the camp’s two gas chambers.

They found the latter by scanning the ground with lasers to reveal a brick wall and foundation, and Colls says the gas chambers were the camp’s only brick buildings.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Sends Troops, Obama Administration Sends A Selfie

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Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Photo Credit: Getty (left) and Twitter (right)

Russian leader Vladmir Putin sent in troops and tanks to invade neighboring Ukraine and the Obama administration is coming to the rescue with . . . selfies!

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was mocked Thursday after posting a photo of herself on Twitter holding a sign that read #United­For­Ukraine @State­Dept­Spox.”

Psaki, who has worked closely with President Obama since his 2008 campaign and is the chief communications adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, is smiling and giving a thumbs-up in the photo.

But the cheerleading for beleaguered Ukraine wasn’t trending or scaring off bully Putin, said critics in the blogosphere.

“Presenting The Latest US Strategy to Counter ‘Russian Aggression,’ ” a snarky blogger posted on zerohedge.com. “#Selfies!”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

At Obama-Putin Phone Call, A Whole Lot Of Talking And Very Little Listening

By Soopermexican / IJ Review.

While we’ll never know exactly how the phone call went, if you read how the Obama administration described the conversation between Putin and Obama, and how the Russians described it, you’d think they were two completely different phone calls. Here’s the readout from the Obama admin:

President Obama underscored to President Putin that the United States continues to support a diplomatic path in close consultation with the Government of Ukraine and in support of the Ukrainian people with the aim of de-escalation of the crisis. President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. President Obama reiterated that the United States has strongly opposed the actions that Russia has already taken to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Every sentence begins with words making it appear that he was in charge, “underscoring,” “making clear,” and “reiterating” his demands to Putin. Now here’s Russia’s version:

Vladimir Putin drew Barack Obama’s attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents, government authorities and law enforcement agencies in various regions and in Kiev with impunity.

Read more from this story HERE.

UN: No Obamacare for Illegal Aliens a Human Rights Concern

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The UN Human Rights Committee at its March 2014 session in Geneva adopted a list of “observations” for its fourth report on human rights in the United States, citing the denial of coverage through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, to illegal aliens as a human rights concern.

Under the heading “Immigrants,” in the “concluding observations” portion of the report, the committee questions the “mandatory nature of the deportation of foreigners” and then addresses health care for those in the United States illegally.

“Finally, the Committee expresses concerns about the exclusion of millions of undocumented immigrants and their children from coverage under the Affordable Care Act and the limited coverage of undocumented immigrants and immigrants residing lawfully in the U.S. for less than five years by Medicare and Children Health Insurance, all resulting in difficulties in access of immigrants to adequate health care,” the report states.

The Human Rights Committee, which comprises 18 independent legal experts who serve for four years, is a separate entity to the Human Rights Council (HRC), also based in Geneva, which the Obama administration joined in 2009.

“We’re committed to advancing a strong human rights agenda, working with multiple partners from all regions of the world,” then-Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said in September 2009, the day the U.S. took up its seat on the HRC for the first time.

Read more from this story HERE.

Warfare Three Ways

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

China is waging political warfare against the United States as part of a strategy to drive the U.S. military out of Asia and control seas near its coasts, according to a Pentagon-sponsored study.

A defense contractor report produced for the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s think tank on future warfare, describes in detail China’s “Three Warfares” as psychological, media, and legal operations. They represent an asymmetric “military technology” that is a surrogate for conflict involving nuclear and conventional weapons.

The unclassified 566-page report warns that the U.S. government and the military lack effective tools for countering the non-kinetic warfare methods, and notes that U.S. military academies do not teach future military leaders about the Chinese use of unconventional warfare. It urges greater efforts to understand the threat and adopt steps to counter it.

The report highlights China’s use of the Three Warfares in various disputes, including dangerous encounters between U.S. and Chinese warships; the crisis over the 2001 mid-air collision between a U.S. EP-3E surveillance plane and a Chinese jet; and China’s growing aggressiveness in various maritime disputes in the South China and East China Seas.

“The Three Warfares is a dynamic three dimensional war-fighting process that constitutes war by other means,” said Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, who directed the study. “It is China’s weapon of choice in the South China Sea.”

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Obama Tells Europe that Conservatism is Coupled to Putin

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

By Neil Munro.

President Barack Obama used his set-piece speech in Europe on Wednesday to couple Vladimir Putin’s crudely nationalist takeover of Crimea with the increasingly popular opposition to his big-government, progressive agenda.

“Casual indifference [to President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Crimea]… would allow the old way of doing things to regain a foothold in this young century,” he declared.

Progressive “ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power… Often this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others and that individual identity must be defined by us versus them,” he claimed.

Throughout his speech, Obama contrasted progressives’ supposedly universalist ideals with conservatives’ ideal of smaller governments that are tailored to the preferences of their unique populations.

The progressive ideals include the “United Nations and a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international law and the means to enforce those laws,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Lindsey Graham: Russia’s a Gas Station Acting Like a Country

By Todd Beamon.

Russia is merely “an oil and gas company masquerading as a country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an attack Wednesday on both Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

“The value system of Mr. Putin is that of a KGB colonel,” the South Carolina Republican said on the Senate floor, Politico reports. “I understand where he is coming from because of his value system. I just don’t agree with it.”

Graham was joined by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire in accusing Putin of manipulating Moscow’s vast oil resources to expand its power throughout the world.

Read more from this story HERE.

North Korean Men Ordered to Get Kim Jong Un’s Haircut

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Photo Credit: Reuters; Getty Images

Photo Credit: Reuters; Getty Images

By Bob Fredericks.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — and in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, that’s now an order!

All North Korean men are now required to get the same haircut as their nutjob leader — shaved close on the back and sides, with longer hair on top brushed back off the forehead.

The state-ordered guidelines were introduced in the capital, Pyongyang, roughly two weeks ago, according to South Korean media.

And the rule is now being enforced nationwide.

But not all of the dictator’s subjects are impressed with the strongman’s inverted bowl-style ’do.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Putin reinstitutes a Soviet-era fitness program while Kim Jong Un forces everyone to get his haircut

By Erika Johnsen.

I happened across both of these stories today out of Everybody’s Favorite Saber-Rattling Gulag State and America’s Bestest Frenemy, and I don’t even… obviously, “palate cleanser” is not the right term here. Whatever the antonym of “palate cleanser” is, this is that.

Until now, everyone in North Korea had to choose their haircuts from a list of state-approved styles. But now, all men in the hermit kingdom will be required to sport the same hairstyle as supreme leader Kim Jong Un, the BBC reports.

Pyongyang introduced the new law two weeks ago but is now rolling it out across the country. Unfortunately, some North Koreans may not be thrilled about the new look. According to a former Pyongyang resident now living in China, the Kim Jong Un cut is unpopular because it apparently resembles the style of Chinese smugglers. “Until the mid-2000s, we called it the ‘Chinese smuggler haircut,” the source told the Korea Times.

Women, however, will still be able to choose from a small variety of state-sanctioned hairstyles. So, there’s that. You’re welcome?

And over in Russia, via Charles Recknagel:

If you could turn back the hands of time, what would you wish for? For Russian President Vladimir Putin, it seems to be to return to the days of mass physical fitness. Not just of physical-education training in schools—which already exists in Russia—but of mass calisthenics in stadiums, mass parades of athletes through Moscow’s Red Square, and fluttering banners with slogans urging ‘Everyone to the Starting Line!’

Read more from this story HERE.