Japanese Government to Keep ‘Hooligans’ Away from Summit

Japanese Government to Keep ‘Hooligans’ Away from Summit

TOKYO - The Justice Ministry has begun preparations to put into force a hooligan provision of the immigration law to prevent anti-globalization activists from entering the country to protest the Group of Eight summit meeting to be held in Hokkaido in July.

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Voices of Youth in Denmark

As Danes view the drab rubble of what was once a vibrant youth centre few applaud the decision to demolish a hotbed of creative youth culture.

But even fewer condone the organised outrage of youths that left parts of Copenhagen resembling a war zone.

From the BBC


There's a dark side to everything, even youth culture. They're a far cry from the fresh faced enthused young "delegates" that pop up at every generic Youth Conference, determined to Change the World and Make Youth Voices Heard.

They're prepared to fight for what they believe in, and for them, it doesn't mean talking about it.

Judging from the well-organised battle plans and the cases of prepared projectiles and petrol bombs found in Ungdomshuset, Europe would do well not to underestimate the anti-establishment resolve of some of its more politicised youths.

In a way I admire them. Not for their ability to accomplish goals - because I think that compromise is a virtue, but because they're willing to go beyond talk.

That said, don't do drugs and petrol bombs. They're bad for you and the environment.

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Sorry about that, Mr Chia

Prisoners subjected only to psychological torture report as much mental anguish as those who are beaten, according to new research.

The study of nearly 300 survivors of torture from the former Yugoslavia found that those who experienced no physical torment later developed equally high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as those who did. The survivors also rated the distress caused at the time by the two types of torture equally highly. Researchers say the findings provide a strong argument against the use of psychological maltreatment of prisoners - referred to by some as "torture lite".

The UN convention against torture came into force in 1987, prohibiting acts that cause severe pain or suffering in order to gain information from prisoners. Nevertheless, torture still appears widespread around the world: a 2005 report by Amnesty International found that systematic torture occurred in 104 out of 150 countries surveyed.

Since the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, the nation received severe criticism for torturing suspected terrorists abroad, such as in the Abu Ghraib prison and at the Guantanamo Bay naval station. Officials claimed that the psychological torture used against detainees there - such as sleep deprivation - were legal as these did not cause direct physical harm.

"These techniques were designed to break down prisoners to get information without leaving a physical mark on them," explains Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights.

Sham executions
To investigate the impact of purely psychological torture, Metin Basoglu of King’s College London, UK, and colleagues surveyed 279 survivors of torture from the former Yugoslavia, including both soldiers and civilians from the previously war-torn region.

Between 2000 and 2002 the survivors answered questions about the nature of the torture they endured. The majority of them had endured beating and other forms of physical torture, including electric shocks, tooth extractions and suffocation. But about 20 of the survivors experienced purely psychological manipulations, such as sham executions or the torturing of family members and threats of rape.

The researchers collected medical assessments of whether the torture survivors showed signs of PTSD - a form of lasting anxiety. They found no difference in the prevalence of this disorder between the two groups.

Mind and body
They also asked the participants to rate their distress during torture on a scale of zero (no distress) to four (maximum distress). Both those who suffered physical torture and those who experienced physiological torment alone rated their overall level of stress as 3.5.

Basoglu says the findings challenge the common perception that psychological torture is less distressing than physical torture. "Implicit in this distinction is a difference in the distressing nature of the events. The evidence takes issue with that," he says. "And since psychological torture is as bad as physical torture, we shouldn’t use it."

The findings chime with previous work, say others. "The conclusions are completely consistent with what those subjected to these draconian practices have reported," Rubenstein says. He points out that US Senator John McCain, who experienced torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, has said that if he were forced to make a decision between enduring psychological or physical torture, he would not hesitate to pick the latter.

Bad intelligence
McCain and fellow lawmakers pushed for an explicit ban on the US using any form of torture. In 2005, US president George W Bush signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees. And officials later revised the Army Field Manual to explicitly ban certain treatments of detainees, such as forced nudity and sex acts, hoods or duct tape on the eyes, and electric shock. "We don’t know what the CIA is doing, though," Rubenstein notes.

Beyond question of human rights violations, recent reports have also raised doubt over whether any form of torture produces reliable information, he adds.

"Torture generates extremely bad intelligence data" and is "enormously counterproductive", according to bioethicist Steven Miles at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, US. He gives the example that some of the information linking Iraq to Al-Qaeda, which later proved wrong, came from a man named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi during CIA interrogations in Egypt that involved torture.

From New Scientist.

Good thing we outsourced it to Kuala Lumpar in the '60s.

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Law! Huh! What is it good for! | absolutely everything

A little kerfuffle - or lack thereof over the MHA Women's Focus Group Discussion session. The topic was about article 375 (marital immunity) and article 377 (homosexuality).

Sayoni have done a great job of covering the event, so there's not much to say (especially since I wasn't there.)

There's just thing I want to bring up. During the session, Ms Indranee Rajah had this to say:

Indranee: Logic has little to do with whether the law stands or not… It is more about maintaining the status quo. [follows up with point about religious groups being upset]

Indranee: You are right, it does not have a physical impact on them. But it is more of an emotional impact, and what kind of message we are sending by removing the law. We have to look at parents. They might be afraid that their children will turn gay, if they see other people being gay, and they think it is okay to be gay

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for Indranee Rajah - and maybe even a hard spot somewhere else. She has an awesome car, fills out a T-shirt really well, and generally comes across as quite sensible. I don't agree with what she says, but I can appreciate that she's damn good at spinning the party line.

And smart chicks = hot. Chicks that spend their careers with their heads up the patriarchy's backside = so not hot, and yes, I'm looking at you, beyotch.

So anyway - I am willing to believe that Indranee doesn't believe everything she says. That being said, I don't have her personal LJ account (screw the p65 rubbish, indraneerajah.blogspot is where it's at!) , so all I can crit is what she says publically.

No, the law isn't about maintaining the status quo. It's about protecting rights, rights that were laid out in the constitution. In fact, the law should never be used to maintain the status quo, because more often than not, the status quo is stupid.

From Pandogan.net

The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh? Reading those above pullquotes back to back confirms why civil rights for gays and lesbians should never be decided at the ballot box. Bigots of all stripes, indeed the public at large, are never comfortable — and more often than not are hostile — when it comes to granting rights to an oppressed group.

Time eventually reduces the hostility over time, but in the end, it is the courts that end up protecting and establishing rights when people cannot do the right thing because of fear and prejudice.

The sad difference today in the struggle for gay civil equality is that both political parties at the national level have accepted and promoted the proposition that it’s fine and dandy that our rights should be determined by the American public.

That’s shameful

I am not a political activist, or if you chose to call me one, I'd be a pretty poor one. I don't "get" politics in the sense that I don't know how to get things done. So that's my caveat and disclaimer - I may be wrong about what's happening in Singapore.

However the problem I have with some of the arguments put forth by both sides of the gay rights discussion in Singapore is that it sometimes seems to be centred around the idea that people must be made comfortable, that people might complain. Govt says "People will hate it/religiousblahblah", Gay rights activists reply, "No they won't/who cares?"

You can't win with that sort of framework based around the idea that hypothetically someone might be offended. You can't win, because you can't prove that "No one will complain" or "no one will get hurt" or "society will stay intact".

Surely the argument should be based on demanding that the law protect your civil rights, rather than the non-existent rights of potentially non-existent groups to infringe on your rights? Why should the law care if the status quo isn't maintained? That's not what it's there for. For heaven's sake, the status quo also believes (or used to believe) that people shouldn't date interracially/inter-religiously. (remember the scholar who did not get his scholarship revoked despite writing disgusting racist comments in his blog? I swear, Singaporeans should grasp that there are scholars, and there are no-one-applied-to-that-organisation scholars.)

The law is there to protect the rights of the individual, not the prejudices of the majority.

I'm sure Indranee is aware of that. I just wish she could say so.

-----

In a more light-hearted mood, there's the kerfuffle US-side over Mary Cheney (right wing VP Dick Cheney's daughter)and her long-time partner Heather Poe's decision to have a baby. Some of the more hilarious nuggets that it inspired from the apoplectic religious right:

You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It’s destroying us. Can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female. The Hebrew word Negade, which means complimentary nature - there is something unique to man and unique to woman and it takes those two things to compliment each other. You can’t make a connection with two screws. It takes a screw and a nut! (shouting)…”
–D.C. pastor Rev. Willie Wilson during a sermon.

And the responses on the internet:

look, God was a carpenter, so he’d understand this a hell of alot more than some pastor. a screw doesn’t go on a nut. it goes into wood. and you need at least two of them to make a connection, otherwise it’s just a pivot point which pries out. so two screws are good to go. two nuts also work fine, provided you have a medium for them to act through (generally a threaded shaft of some sort, but for people, hands, tongue, or gizmos would be fine.) so gays are good, and lesbians are fine, so long as they don’t exist in a vacuum. but I think other problems would introduce themselves there. like explosive decompressi.

and you can’t switch over to bolts and nuts (which do require one another) because they you gotta ask what the hell is the washer is. a condom? foreplay? your patriarchial metaphor would fall apart with either of those.

From Pandagon.

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China and Africa | someone's getting screwed

Everytime someone talks about how China is our motherland and we should do business in China because a)it's a booming market b)we share the same culture, I just want to sigh. Or cry.

We don't share the same culture as China. And even if we did, so what? China's a nation now, and it thinks along national lines. Don't get sentimental about China. China'll bend you over the Great wall and fuck you blind.

The reason I mention this - another news report about how China's screwing over poor African nations through dumping practices.

China's ambitions in Africa

China has stepped up its business presence in Africa, but is being criticised for not pushing for improvements in human rights and governance in some countries.

...
All but a few varieties of Africa's flip flops now come from China and local companies cannot compete.

Mr Ghaddar claims end of line stock from Chinese factories is "dumped" here, sold for less than the cost of materials, dodging customs and import duties.

...

Some Tanzanians object that Chinese imports are shipped to the Chinese embassy in diplomatic containers from Beijing - but no-one can prove it.


Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere visited Beijing 13 times

Outside, Chinese digger trucks are at work in the street - a Chinese company has won a government tender to renovate the sewage system.

And foundations have been laid for the new Julius Nyerere National Stadium, named after Tanzania's founding president.

The raw materials, machines, the pipe work and the scaffolding, come from Beijing.

Then there's the other way to colonise a country - through immigration. The part about language is the one that troubles.

Mr Yang is the 31st member of his family to settle in East Africa.

His uncle opened the first of their seven shops in Nairobi, a decade ago.

But after three years here, Mr Yang - who wears a sweatshirt with a picture of an American footballer and the logo "Top Class" - has learned neither English nor Swahili.

His showroom is draped with silks, curtains and upholstery fabrics and is crammed with furniture such as dining suites, reclining chairs and an emperor-sized bed with adjustable headrest.

Mr Yang, his wife and his teenage son sit at the back of the shop munching snacks - Chinese snacks - from a jumbo-sized packet on his desk.

Yes, Mr Yang admits, through his translator, he has heard about local businesses swamped by Chinese imports.

Then he shrugs and says: "Africans love my shop."

It's not that unusual for a first - or even second generation immigrant to fail to pick up the lingua franca of a country. But it doesn't bode well either.

And of course, China's disregard for international copyright law is strangling another African nation that is barely managing to climb out of the morass of international aid debt.

China's going to be the next superpower, just like the United States. And rather like the US, China knows damn well that it can do what it damn well wants.

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