Iran News ( European Union sanctions Iranian judges - For Cyber police abuse )

CYBER POLICE FOR RIGHTS ABUSE

EU SANCTIONS IRAN JUDGES, CYBER POLICE FOR RIGHTS ABUSE

Posted on: 17th March, 2013

 

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(AFP) – Iranian judges, media officials and a special police Internet monitoring unit linked to the death of a dissident in custody were added Tuesday to the EU’s sanctions list against Tehran for grave human rights violations.
The Iranian Cyber Police unit was set up in 2011, taking on anti-revolutionary and dissident groups who organised protests in 2009 against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the European Union’s Official Journal said.
It said it was this Cyber Police unit which arrested blogger Sattar Beheshti who was found dead in his Tehran prison cell in November shortly after his arrest for criticising the government online.
Beheshti was “believed to have been tortured to death by the Cyber Police authorities,” the Official Journal said.
Among the nine individuals added to the EU’s blacklist were the new head of the notorious Evin Prison, three judges, two prosecutors and the head of a special commission, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, in charge of Internet censorship.
In state media, the EU named Mohammad Sarafraz and Hamid Reza Emadi, senior officials linked to the security forces and held responsible for “violating the right to due process and fair trial.”
EU foreign ministers agreed Monday to renew European Union rights sanctions for another 12 months, with the nine new names bringing the blacklist to 87 Iranians subject to an EU travel ban and asset freeze.
The sanctions for rights abuse are separate from those linked to concerns over Iran’s contested nuclear drive.
A total of 490 companies and 105 people are currently targeted by an asset freeze and travel ban under those sanctions, which also include tough restrictions on trade and financial dealings, as well as an oil embargo.

U.S Navy SEAL ( Transgender Navy SEAL 'Warrior Princess' Comes Out )

A former member of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs has come out to say she's now a woman.

Kristin Beck, formerly Chris, served 20 years as a SEAL and fought on some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world, but after she left the service she realized she wasn't living the life she wanted.

"Chris really wanted to be a girl and felt that she was a girl and consolidated that identity very early on in childhood," said Anne Speckhard, co-author of Beck's biography "Warrior Princess," which was published over the weekend. Speckhard told ABC News Beck suppressed that secret for decades, however, through the trials of SEAL training and the harrowing missions that followed, growing a burly beard as she fought on the front lines of American special operations.

Brandon Webb, a former SEAL who served on a different SEAL team than Beck, said that Beck's reputation in the SEALs was a good one and said she was, by all appearances, the "consummate guy's guy."
But the book says that Chris "had considered living as the woman he felt himself to be for a very long time, but while he was serving as a SEAL he couldn't do it."
"For years Chris had turned off his sexuality like a light switch and lived as a warrior, consumed with the battle -- living basically asexual. For Chris the other SEALs were brothers and in the man's man warrior lifestyle, even if he had wanted to entertain sexual thoughts, there really was never any time to be thinking too much about sexuality," the book says.
After her retirement in 2011, however, "Now seemed the right time to go for it -- to make his body match his identity -- or at least start by dressing like a woman in his regular life."
Speckhard said Beck first announced her decision to friends online with the declaration "No more disguises" and the book describes her going out to gay bars in Florida as a woman.
Beck is currently on hormone therapy in preparation for sexual reassignment surgery and generally wears long hair, make-up and women's clothes, Speckhard said.
In the book's Preface, Beck said she wrote the book "to reach out to all of the younger generation and encourage you to live your life fully and to treat each other with compassion, be good to each other, especially in your own backyard (where it be high school or your community)."

ISTANBUL ( Protest - New meaning to the song " Lady in Red " by Chris DeBurgh )

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - In her red cotton summer dress, necklace and white bag slung over her shoulder she might have been floating across the lawn at a garden party; but before her crouches a masked policeman firing teargas spray that sends her long hair billowing upwards.
Endlessly shared on social media and replicated as a cartoon on posters and stickers, the image of the woman in red has become the leitmotif for female protesters during days of violent anti-government demonstrations in Istanbul.


"That photo encapsulates the essence of this protest," says math student Esra at Besiktas, near the Bosphorus strait and one of the centres of this week's protests. "The violence of the police against peaceful protesters, people just trying to protect themselves and what they value."
 

Mexico ( Honduran migrant women filed an extortion complaint - Two days later they were killed by the men )

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – The two Honduran migrants whose bodies were found last week in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas were killed because they reported being targeted by extortionists, San Cristobal de Las Casas Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel said.

Iris Suleida Raudales Flores, 24, and Cynthia Carolina Cruz Bonilla, 19, were murdered last Thursday.

The women “had filed a complaint two days earlier about the extortion they were being subjected to,” the bishop said.

“It is an international embarrassment” that Mexico “does not provide greater protection to those crossing” its territory, Arizmendi said.

Nine illegal Honduran immigrants who allegedly belong to Central American gangs dedicated to extortion and robberies of migrants have been arrested in connection with the murders, officials said.

The suspects confessed to the killings, the Government Secretariat and the National Migration Institute, or INM, said in a joint statement.

“In their countries of origin, especially El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, they cannot find ways of improving their economic situation, they suffer from the violence of the street gangs and in their desperation, despite knowing the dangers they are exposing themselves to,” try to cross Mexico, Arizmendi said.

The bodies of Raudales Flores and Cruz Bonilla were found outside Palenque, a city in Chiapas where “gangs of criminals rob, extort money from, abuse and murder” migrants, the bishop said.

The women’s bodies were taken to the Honduran Consulate in Tapachula for repatriation and release to their families, the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office said.

An estimated 300,000 Central Americans undertake the hazardous journey across Mexico each year on their way to the United States.

The trek is a dangerous one, with criminals and corrupt Mexican officials preying on the migrants.

Gangs kidnap, exploit and murder migrants, who are often targeted in extortion schemes, Mexican officials say. EFE

Venezuela ( U.S Filmmaker moved to prison with killers - alleged Spy Venezuela Government said )

U.S. Filmmaker Jailed in Venezuela Moved to Notorious Prison
“El Rodeo is an overcrowded jungle where hundreds of inmates have been killed and injured over the years in riots, violence and attacks,” said Russell Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital Markets and publisher of the Latin American Herald Tribune. “Sending him to this fifth circle of hell – and away from the headquarters of the (government’s) intelligence service – clearly is an acknowledgment that he was not a spy. Where are Sean Penn and Oliver Stone now?”

By Anna Marie de la Fuente

CARACAS – U.S. documentary filmmaker Tim Tracy, arrested in Venezuela for alleged espionage last April, was transferred on May 29 to the notorious El Rodeo II prison outside Caracas.

Tracy and 20 others were transferred from their cells within the government intelligence service building because of a severe bacterial outbreak. Tracy is slated to attend a hearing on June 11, which will determine whether his case will proceed to trial or he will be released.

Human rights director Patricia Andrade of Miami-based Venezuela Awareness Foundation said the El Rodeo II prison is virtually a death sentence for him.

“He’s a political prisoner and I don’t understand why the Venezuelan government is committing the horror, not error, of sending him there,” said Andrade. “El Rodeo is for convicted prisoners and Tracy hasn’t even been tried yet, and he can’t even speak Spanish well.”

El Rodeo II was the site of a riot in 2011 where 25 people, including visitors, were killed during a shootout between two gangs within the prison complex.

“El Rodeo is an overcrowded jungle where hundreds of inmates have been killed over the years in riots, violence and attacks,” said Russell Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital Markets and publisher of Latin American Herald Tribune. “Sending him to this fifth circle of hell – and away from the headquarters of the (government’s) intelligence service – clearly is an acknowledgment that he was not a spy. Where are Sean Penn and Oliver Stone now?”

Tracy was arrested on April 24 for allegedly funneling funds to student groups opposing the new government of President-elect Nicolas Maduro, who won the post-Chavez elections on April 14 by a tiny margin. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles led accusations of electoral fraud as thousands took to the streets in protest, with seven reported killed amid the civil unrest. Tracy was picked up soon after, along with the videos he had been filming for a documentary he was making about the political situation in Venezuela.

India NEWS ( Actor Jiah Khan commits suicide at her Mumbai residence ) Beautiful woman

Actor Jiah Khan commits suicide at her Mumbai residence

Press Trust of India | Updated: June 04, 2013 04:49 IST

 

 

Mumbai: Bollywood actor Jiah Khan has committed suicide, police in Mumbai said. The 25-year old actor reportedly hanged herself at her Juhu residence late Monday night.

According to the police, her domestic help, watchman and neighbours are being questioned to find out about her last visitors.

Jiah made her acting debut in Ram Gopal Varma's 'Nishabd' where she acted opposite Amitabh Bachchan. The film released in March 2007 and received mixed reviews, but Jiah was noted for her confidence, attitude, and sex appeal. She also got a Filmfare Best Debutant Nomination.
She then appeared alongside Aamir Khan in AR Murugadoss's 'Ghajini', the Hindi remake of the director's own Tamil film of the same name.

Her last film was Sajid Khan's 'Housefull' in 2010 with Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Riteish Deshmukh and Lara Dutta.

OMG News ( Taco Bell investigation - Employee caught licking shells ) See photo

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Taco Bell is saying it believes a photo posted to its Facebook page of an apparent employee licking a stack of taco shells is a prank but it is "conducting a full-scale investigation."
A photo of a man in uniform in a Taco Bell restaurant is seen licking a stack of about 30 taco shells.
A spokesman for Taco Bell, owned by Yum! Brands, said the company is investigating in which store the photo was taken and will issue a full statement.
Here's more about the Taco Bell photo and seven other examples of fast food mayhem that were posted to the Internet.