political nonsense

China and Russia have denied claims by Amnesty International that they are supplying arms to Sudan for use in Darfur, in breach of a UN arms embargo.
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18,000 people got naked together to get their picture taken.

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In a massive campaign that recalls the socialist engineering of an earlier era, the Chinese government has relocated some 250,000 Tibetans - nearly one-tenth of the population - from scattered rural hamlets to new “socialist villages,” ordering them to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent. The government calls the year-old project the “comfortable housing program.”
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A U.S. Army recruiter’s email exchange with a gay man was published in a New Jersey newspaper.

“YOU GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE,”

wrote the recruiter,

“AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED.”

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The Walt Disney Company announced that it will begin offering “Fairy Tale” weddings to homosexuals. Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding packages start at $8,000 and include a wedding planner, the ceremony, food and beverages, flowers and table decorations.
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Researchers were developing a computer program to help make end-of-life medical decisions.
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Israeli President Moshe Katsav has been suspended as he faces an expected indictment for allegedly committing rape. On Thursday, dozens of Israeli women gathered outside Katsav’s residence in Jerusalem calling on him to resign.
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The defense department outlined new rules that could allow terror suspects to be imprisoned on the basis of hearsay or coerced testimony.
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Captives at Guantánamo Bay were chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, urinating and defecating on themselves, an new FBI report has revealed in which over two dozen cases of mistreatment were documented.
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In Israel and the Occupied Territories, new figures released by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem show Israeli forces killed six-hundred and sixty Palestinians this year. B’Tselem says that’s three times more than in 2005. The figure includes one hundred and forty-one children. Nearly half of the total dead were not involved in hostile acts.
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The number of journalists jailed around the world has reached an all-time high.
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President Bush and Tony Blair rejected changing their approach on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The US and Britain have led an international aid freeze on the Palestinian government. Meanwhile, the United Nations launched a record $450 million appeal for emergency aid for Palestinians.
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House Republican leaders did not break any rules in handling the case of former Representative Mark Foley, but they were negligent and in some instances “willfully ignorant” of his improper advances toward male pages, the House ethics committee said today.
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A German citizen who suffered torture after being kidnapped by the CIA is in the United States to appeal the dismissal of his lawsuit against the US government. Three years ago, Khaled el-Masri was seized along the Serbian-Macedonian border and then flown to Afghanistan where he was tortured inside a secret prison. He was released without charge after five months.
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The U.S. government agreed to pay two million dollars and apologize to Brandon Mayfield. Mayfield is the Muslim attorney in Oregon jailed two years ago after the FBI mistakenly tied him to the Madrid train bombings.
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Human Rights Watch is calling the recent trial of Saddam Hussein “fundamentally unfair.” In a new report released today, Human Rights Watch says the trial was undermined by interference from the Iraqi government and failure to allow an open hearing of evidence and witnesses.
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The Dutch decided that you can’t cover your face, especially with a burqa.
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The nation’s highest court ruled last December that South Africa’s marriage statute violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. The court gave the government a year to alter the legal definition of marriage.
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A British humanitarian group is claiming as many as ninety-eight percent of cluster bomb victims over the last three decades have been civilian. In a new report, Handicap International says nearly one-third of those have been children. Hundreds of thousands cluster bomblets are on the ground in Lebanon following this summer’s Israeli invasion.
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A top United Nations expert on human rights says the new U.S. Military Commissions Act violates international treaties protecting detainees.
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