Saturday, May 25, 2013

Video: El Yunque Rainforest - Puerto Rico



Published on May 25, 2013
Scenes from El Yunque Rainforest in Puerto Rico. Observation tower, waterfalls, creeks and streams.

El Yunque Rainforest - Puerto Rico

Vía Deportes El Nuevo Día: Culson defiende su corona en Nueva York


Vía Deportes El Nuevo Día: Culson defiende su corona en Nueva York | Se enfrentará a lo mejor en el Adidas Grand Prix hoy a la 1:00 de la tarde- http://end.pr/11lBKvd
Vía @[231391006876089:274:Deportes El Nuevo Día]: Culson defiende su corona en Nueva York | Se enfrentará a lo mejor en el Adidas Grand Prix hoy a la 1:00 de la tarde- http://end.pr/11lBKvd

Tigre mata a empleada de zoológico británico


Tigre mata a empleada de zoológico británico http://ow.ly/lomAc
Tigre mata a empleada de zoológico británico http://ow.ly/lomAc

The Puerto Rico House of Representatives on Friday approved a bill which seeks to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity


VIDEO: KITESURFING PUERTO RICO



Published on May 25, 2013
Some sunset clips at Vega Baja beach...

KITESURFING PUERTO RICO

Puerto Rico Legislature Passes Sweeping LGBT Nondiscrimination ... - 5/24/2013 - Michael-in-Norfolk


Friday, May 24, 2013

Puerto Rico Legislature Passes Sweeping LGBT Nondiscrimination Bill


Virginia, which at the time of the founding of the United States was the home of some of the most enlightened thinkers in the country, now finds itself falling further and further behind the modern world and now upstaged by Puerto Rico in terms of protecting the rights of all its citizens.  Of course, if the GOP triumvirate of insanity gets elected in November, things will be even more reactionary and opposed to religious freedom.   Once again, who would have believed 20 or 30 years ago that Latin America and now Puerto Rico would have more respect for freedom that one of the cradles of the American Revolution.    Huffington Post looks at events in Puerto Rico.  Here are highlights:

International lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates are praising Puerto Rico's decision to advance "sweeping" nondiscrimination measures.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's blog reports that the Puerto Rican House of Representatives approved the bills May 24, which protect LGBT people in employment, housing, governmental services and public accommodations, as well as add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the island’s domestic violence laws, respectively. 

Anti-discrimination bill SB 238 and HB 488, the domestic violence measure, now move to Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, who has vowed to sign them into law,according to the Washington Blade.

Among those to support the bill beforehand was Ricky Martin.   "The same rights for each and every citizen of Puerto Rico, that's what we are asking and that's what we hope to achieve, the country's justice and peace that we want to achieve," the singer said in a statement cited by E! Online. "Puerto Rico has to join all the countries in the world that are at the forefront of the issue of human rights and equality."
In Virginia in contrast, LGBT citizens have ZERO - that's right, ZERO - nondiscrimination protections.  It's a travesty, not to mention an embarrassment.  Yet, The Family Foundation and it's knuckle dragging, moronic followers pat themselves on the back for their piety and religiosity.  These people are horrible!!

PR House OKs anti-discrimination bill - AP - CB

PR House OKs anti-discrimination bill


By : DANICA COTO


Legislators in Puerto Rico on Friday approved a heavily debated bill that outlaws employment discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.
Opponents of the bill prayed on the steps of the seaside Capitol building as lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted on a simplified version of the Senate measure, which was widely rejected by religious organizations in the conservative U.S. territory.
The original version was broader and would have also banned such discrimination when it comes to commercial transactions, property rentals and public transportation, as well as in other circumstances. About half of U.S. states have approved similar bills.
The measure’s author, Sen. Ramón Luis Nieves, told reporters he is not bothered that the original version was not approved.
“This is not insignificant,” he said. “This is a great victory in the fight for human rights in Puerto Rico.”
The House on Friday also approved a separate bill that extends a domestic violence law to gay couples.
Both bills are to go back to the Senate, which is expected to approve them. Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has said he would sign both measures.
Supporters of the bill waved rainbow flags and loudly chanted “Equality!” as they crowded around legislators who approved the bills.
“A decade ago, (we) were criminals under a sodomy law. Today, we’re second-class citizens,” said Pedro Julio Serrano, spokesman for the U.S.-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “When this measure becomes law, we will be closer to obtaining the first-class citizenship we deserve.”
The new measures come as the U.S. territory begins to debate gay rights more seriously in the Caribbean region, where sodomy laws and harassment of gays is common.
Earlier this year, García Padilla signed an order extending health insurance coverage to the domestic partners of workers in his executive branch of government, regardless of gender. The island’s Justice Department also is prosecuting its first hate crime case for the killing of a hairstylist who was set on fire.
But the push toward more gay rights in Puerto Rico remains widely debated.
The island’s House of Representatives approved the anti-discrimination bill 29-22 after a 10-hour debate that ended overnight Thursday without a consensus.
The proposal did not have full support from the governor’s Popular Democratic Party, which controls the island’s House and Senate. The governor had met with members of his party late Thursday and urged them to vote for the bill.
“The country has a social obligation, a historic obligation and also a Christian obligation to fight all types of discrimination,” he said.
The island’s Senate approved the original measure 15-11 last week, but the House of Representatives sought changes in the bill.
Rep. Javier Aponte Dalmau was among those who opposed the measure. He said all types of discrimination are wrong, but considered the original bill’s wording to be too far reaching, and there are other judicial means to address potential discrimination.
Other legislators voted against the measure saying they believe the island’s Constitution already addresses discrimination.
A local Christian organization, Puerto Rico for Family, said the bill was unnecessary because the gay and lesbian community has not proved it faces greater employment discrimination than other groups.
“This law creates a base to promote homosexuality and other conducts in schools,” the organization said in a statement.
Most government agencies in Puerto Rico already have their own anti-discriminatory policies, but human rights activists say they are often not enforced.

Obama Calls on Americans to Remember Military Families - by VOA News | World News Review

Obama Calls on Americans to Remember Military Families

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As Americans observe Memorial Day weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama is calling on his fellow citizens to remember the men and women who have given their lives in service to the country, and to remember the military families who make sacrifices of their own.   In his weekly address Saturday, Obama noted that members of the U.S. military often risk their lives without seeking the limelight or any special reward.   He said the Memorial Day holiday, officially taking place Monday, ...

Soldiers Place US Flags in Arlington Cemetery for Memorial Day

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On Memorial Day - Monday, May 27 this year - Americans remember those in the military who died while serving their country. Ahead of that day, soldiers place American flags in front of the more than 360,000 gravestones in Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington. Army Colonel James Markert places a flag at the tombstone of Christopher Henderson, who was killed in Iraq almost six years ago.  Henderson’s widow, Jennifer, and their daughter have come to the cemetery as they have ...

Pakistan school bus explosion and blaze kill 17 children: media

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Seventeen Pakistani children burnt to death on Saturday when a gas cylinder on the bus taking them to school exploded, media said.
  

Kerry criticizes Nigeria on human rights 

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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Nigeria has the right to defend itself against an Islamic terrorist group threatening the country’s north, but must not condone human rights violations committed by its own forces fighting the Boko Haram, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Saturday.
Read full article >>
    


Terrifying footage: Huge tornado tears through Russian town

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Terrifying video captures the moment a tornado tears through the small central Russia town of Obninsk. . Report by Sophie Foster.
From: ITN
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Sex Slave Row: Mayor's Japan Brothel Gaffe

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Japanese mayor apologises for saying US soldiers on Okinawa should visit brothels but does not retract wartime sex slave comments.

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British police arrest man after spy claim in soldier case

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LONDON (Reuters) - British counter-terrorism police arrested a man at the BBC's headquarters after an interviewee said that security services tried to recruit one of the two suspects in the murder of a soldier in London.

  

Sick turtle is released off the Florida Keys after treatment - video

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A rescued loggerhead sea turtle is released off the Florida Keys on Friday, after being treated for swallowing a small piece of plastic

Tornado rips through central Russia - video

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Amateur footage captures a tornado ripping through residential areas 110km southwest of Moscow on Thursday

Suicide car bombing in Russia's Dagestan injures 11

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew herself up in car near a police building in Russia's Dagestan region on Saturday, injuring 11 policemen and passers-by, Russian media reported.
  

Tornado rips through central Russia - video - The Guardian

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The Guardian

Tornado rips through central Russia - video
The Guardian
Amateur footage captures a tornado ripping through residential areas 110km southwest of Moscow on Thursday. This is the second twister to hit Russia in a week, destroying vehicles and leaving houses and business properties damaged. Trees and ...

and more »

Interpol rejects Russia's 'political' case against fund manager Browder

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MOSCOW - Interpol has refused to include UK-based fund manager William Browder on its international search list after deciding that Russia's tax evasion case against him is "of a predominantly political nature".
  
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Female Suicide Bomber Injures 12 in Russia

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A female suicide bomber identified as a widow of two killed Islamists blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday injuring at least 12.

Ukraine's first gay march held under police protection

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KIEV (Reuters) - About 100 Ukrainian gay rights activists held the country's first gay rally on Saturday, helped by police who arrested 13 people for trying to break up the march.
  

As border tightens, some U.S.-Mexico neighbors reach across the fence

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NACO, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican activist Maria Elena Borquez takes up a paintbrush and daubs a bright splotch of color on the rusted steel fence separating the small Mexican town of Naco from a neighboring town in the United States.
  

40 days after Boston bombing: we must stop radical jihad | Karima Bennoune 

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We must stop trying to make excuses for the Tsarnaev brothers or jihad. It is wrong. Let's support peaceful Muslims around world
In many Muslim societies, the 40th day after a death is a time to gather and grieve again with loved ones. So, in honor of this the 40th day after the atrocities in Boston, I find myself thinking again about the 264 injured people, some of whom are learning to live without their legs, and about the dead victims: 23-year-old Chinese graduate student Lingzi Lu, who had just passed her exams, friendly 29-year-old waitress Krystle Campbell, and eight year-old Martin Richard who famously carried a sign that said "No more hurting people. Peace."

Bearing such losses in mind, I would ask anyone who wants to support the rights of people of Muslim heritage in the United States in the wake of the Boston bombings, please do not so by explaining that jihadist terrorism is simply a response to US foreign policy, or a consequence of the alleged difficulties faced by Muslim youth in integrating into American culture, or the result of Russian bombing of Chechnya.
Many of us have criticisms of US foreign policy and that of other countries; integrating may indeed be challenging for those from immigrant backgrounds in many contexts; and Chechens did suffer through the intolerable flattening of their country by the Russian military between 1992 and 2009. (As far as I know the United States never bombed the province.) However, most Muslims, immigrants and Chechens have not become terrorists as a result. These things are no excuse for – or even explanation of – the choice to deliberately murder children and young people at a sporting event. Such a grave international crime has nothing to do with legitimate grievances and everything to do with extremist ideology and movements that indoctrinate and instrumentalize young people. We must defeat those movements which have killed so many civilians, especially in Muslim majority countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq and Pakistan.
I have just wrapped up three years of interviewing hundreds of people of Muslim heritage working against fundamentalism and terrorism around the world, and I learned many lessons from them that are helpful today. For example, Cherifa Kheddar, president of Algeria's Association of Victims of Islamist Terrorism, or Djazairouna, who wrote right after 15 April to say how terrible the Boston bombings were. He told me that
"We cannot defeat terrorism by an anti-terrorist battle without doing the anti-fundamentalist battle."
In other words, it is not just the violence of radical jihadis, but the underlying ideology of Islamism that we must confront. That ideology discriminates between Muslims and non-Muslims (as evidenced by Tamerlan Tsarnaev's reported indignation that his Imam mentioned Martin Luther King, a non-Muslim, during a sermon), and between "good" and "bad" Muslims. It justifies egregious violence against women and civilians, or at least creates an environment conducive to them.
Of course, being an Islamist or a jihadist is not same thing as being a devout Muslim, and it is unhelpful when the US media simply describes radicalization as becoming "more religious". This process is rather the adoption of a dangerous political stance that deploys religion in the service of an extreme agenda. The best way then to take a pro-human rights stance in the face of recent events is to support those people of Muslim heritage who are risking their lives to denounce and defy these movements. Many have raised their voices around the world in places like Afghanistan, but have rarely been heard in the west.
Discrimination against Muslims in the wake of an atrocity like the Boston bombings is wrong and unhelpful, but so too is a politically correct response, which fosters justification and denial. A young Iranian-American scholar reported that at a recent conference at UC Berkeley on Islamophobia, she was bullied by older US academics for daring to raise the issue of Muslim fundamentalism, along with anti-racism, and, in the same week as the Boston bombings, was told that there was no such thing as what she called "the Muslim right". We must face the reality of extremism.
Many people in Muslim contexts have spoken out against terror even while facing it themselves. I think of Diep Saeeda, a peace activist I met who organized rallies against Taliban violence in Pakistan, or against the blasphemy laws despite the threat that suicide bombers would take down the protestors. Or the Women's Action Forum in Pakistan that regularly denounces terrorism in print. After a March 2013 attack on Shia residents of Karachi, they wrote:
"[o]nce again we share unspeakable horror at the carnage … Once again we express our condemnation and outrage. Once again we wonder how many more times we will do this before there is resolve to deal with religious militancy."
I think of the Libyans who took to the streets of Benghazi in 2012 after the murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens. Or of Somali American activist Abdirizak Bihi who campaigned against Al Shabaab recruitment in the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, after his own teenage nephew's recuitment and death at the hands of the militants. We have to support these people and listen to their voices.
In light of the national origin of the alleged Boston bombers, I have been thinking a lot about a wonderful Chechen journalist I interviewed in Moscow in December 2010. A devout Muslim, Said Bitsoev, then-deputy editor of Novye Izvestia – an independent newspaper – was terribly concerned about what such movements were doing to his home province. "There [a]re a lot of radical people who are really bad for Chechnya. They want to put the country back in the dark ages."
Before the Chechen wars, most followed a spiritual Sufi Islam, in contrast to the harsh dogma of the extremists. Said himself loathed the radicals, their new restrictions on women, and new forms of violence. He especially hated the thousands of foreign jihadis who came to Chechnya during the second war. "They brought a lot of fear. I was not able to sleep without a gun under my pillow." These foreign fighters left behind a new breed of Chechen "radical-thinking Islamists" in Bitsoev's view. "The worst thing," Said tells me, is that they were "hunting for those Muslims who were representatives of tolerant Islam, and killed these people". He gives the example of Umar Idrissov, 80, a mufti from Urus-Martan, southwest of Grozny, who was assassinated in 2000 by the Wahhabi group "Wolves of Islam". In fact, across the Caucasus liberal Muslim clergy have been regularly targeted in recent years by extremists.
Said Bitsoev was all too aware that Chechens like those murdered clerics, or like him, are relatively inconspicuous internationally. "Radicals are interesting for the public because they are loud. We normal people are boring," he said. We must support the daily struggles of people like Said, who are too often invisible, against those who twist the religion of their birth into a totalitarian terror manifesto.

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Kerry Presses Nigeria on Human Rights

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A visit to Africa by Secretary of State John Kerry comes amid several developments on the continent, but Syria was still on his agenda.

Ukraine Gays Hold First March, Protected by Police 

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About 100 Ukrainian gay rights activists held the country's first gay rally Saturday, helped by police who arrested 13 people for trying to break up the march.   The activists walked for about 250 meters along Prospekt Peremohy (Victory Avenue) in the capital, Kyiv, while Orthodox Christian activists nearby chanted slogans denouncing them.   “Ukraine is not America. Kyiv is not Sodom,” shouted one anti-gay demonstrator over a loudspeaker.   A church activist broke through ...