Posts Tagged ‘banned’
Iran Civil Aviation Organization bans flights during calls to prayer
Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization announced aircraft will be prohibited from flying across the country during the call to prayer five times a day.
The new directive…will also prevent aircraft from taking off until at least 30 minutes after the day’s first call to prayer, al-Fajr, at 5:38 a.m., local time, The New York Times reported…
Hamid Reza Pahlevani, the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency the move is meant to give air travelers time “to carry out their religious duties.” The directive is apparently part of an effort to improve obedience to orthodox Islamic codes of conduct…
The announcement by the aviation organization did not explain how the new rules will affect flight schedules, or whether flights would be forced to land or be rerouted during times of prayer.
A delightful example of how some humans think their gods must be appeased. The affairs of ordinary people trying to get from place-to-place in the Islamic Nation are meaningless compared to edicts from the all-powerful representatives of that mythical guy in the sky.
Absurd.
Russia set to halt imports of U.S. beef, pork
U.S. pork and beef exports to Russia could come to a halt on Saturday following Moscow’s requirement that the meat be tested and certified free of the feed additive ractopamine…
The move could jeopardize the more than $500 million a year in exports of U.S. beef and pork to Russia…
The United States asked Russia, the sixth-largest market for U.S. beef and pork, to suspend the requirement even as it warned domestic meat companies that Moscow might reject their pork shipments that contained ractopamine and stop buying pork from processing plants that produced pork with the drug.
Ractopamine is used as a feed additive to make meat leaner, but countries such as China have banned its use despite scientific evidence that it is safe…
The U.S. Meat Export Federation told its members by email that since the U.S. Department of Agriculture had no testing and certification program in place for ractopamine, the Russian requirement could effectively halt U.S. pork and beef exports to the country by Saturday…
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, in a note posted on its website on Friday afternoon, said: “Exporters are cautioned that Russia may reject U.S. pork shipments and delist producing establishments if ractopamine residues are detected in exported product.”
FSIS also said at the moment it was not requiring meat companies for documentation attesting their pork was free of ractopamine before issuing its export certification.
Are there requirements for measuring ractopamine sold for consumption to Americans, eh?
Analysts said the Russian move was linked to the Senate’s passage of the trade bill and blah, blah, blah…
Tyson Foods…a leading U.S. meat company, and agriculture powerhouse Cargill…declined to comment on how a halt in exports would impact them, but both noted the U.S. and Russian governments were in discussions.
Yes, there are 100 countries including the European Union rejecting pork with ractopamine residues. Mother Jones wrote a delightful article in February when Taiwan rejected US shipments – entitled “US Pushes the World to Import Our Dodgy Meat” – and if you’d like some delightful midnight snack reading matter, try this report from the USDA describing the symptoms of some pigs tested with the stuff.
School bans parents at school sports without criminal record check
A school has banned parents from watching their children take part in sports events – unless they pass a criminal records check. Parents have been banned from watching their children compete at sports unless they have been vetted by police.
The Isambard Community School in Swindon, Wilts., insists all parents must clear a Criminal Records Bureau check to weed out potential paedophiles.
Neil Park, 54, was furious when he was turned away from watching his son George, 12, play rugby.
The father-of-five said: “I was turned away from the school because I had not been CRB checked.
“I couldn’t believe it. Government guidelines state that parents are allowed to watch games…But any strangers can be questioned and requested to show the appropriate paperwork, which is fair enough…
The school introduced the new measure at the start of the term to prevent strangers from accessing other parts of the school from the playing fields.
A spokesman said: “It is with regret that from now on we will be unable to accommodate parents wishing to spectate at our sports fixtures unless they are in possession of an up-to-date Swindon Council CRB check.
You can always count on the Brits to lead the way in Nanny State political correctness.
This is a logical next step for right-wing nutballs in places as backwards as Arizona and, apparently, Swindon. The “show your papers” syndrome. They are prepared to “protect” children until everyone in the land is required to show an appropriate license for every step they take.
Tennessee legislates ignorance of sex into a requirement
In a Nashville, Tennessee, high- school classroom, about a dozen students watched as a woman from an AIDS prevention group demonstrated how to apply a condom using only her mouth.
The scene in an elective class two years ago angered opponents of sex education, and so Tennessee in May adopted the nation’s first state law defining activities that legislators said lead to intercourse –mutual masturbation, fondling and oral and anal sex — and banning their “promotion” in public schools.
The law targets groups such as Planned Parenthood, which discusses those behaviors on its website and provides sex education in Tennessee schools. The National Abstinence Education Association says it’s encouraging lawmakers to adopt a similar restrictions to ensure that teenagers all across the U.S. keep their hands to themselves.
“We’ve never seen anything like this become law,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which describes its mission as advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights. “It’s so weird, it’s more of a spoof than anything else.”
The Tennessee law bans teachers and outside speakers from promoting or demonstrating “gateway” activities. The term is defined as activity that involves the groin, upper thighs, buttocks, breasts and genitalia…
I suppose this could be the spot for one more discussion of politicians, priests and pundits who believe that ignorance is bliss. I hope anyone who wanders through this site is well beyond such arrogant stupidity.
The film director who’s not allowed to go to the movies
Haifaa Al Mansour has just directed one of the first feature films ever to be made in Saudi Arabia. But she won’t be able to watch it at her local theater, because cinemas are banned in the kingdom.
The film, called “Wadjda,” after its protagonist, is billed as the first to be filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia with an all-Saudi cast. It is currently in post-production and being touted for worldwide sales at the Cannes Film Festival.
Al Mansour, 39, worked for an oil company until the age of 30, when she decided to give up her job to pursue her passion.
“When I turned 30, I really wanted to have a voice,” said Al Mansour. “People don’t listen to women in Saudi, they just jump to the next man to speak. I loved films and just decided to become a filmmaker.”
She studied film in Sydney, Australia, and has previously made three short films and a documentary. She is Saudi Arabia’s first female film director…
The film, written and directed by Al Mansour, tells the story of an 11-year-old girl growing up in traditional society in the suburbs of Riyadh and desperate for a bicycle, which she’s not allowed…
Al Mansour hopes that Wadjda will help to change attitudes to both women and films in Saudi Arabia. “I hope it will inspire many girls in Saudi to become filmmakers,” she said. “That makes me very proud.
“People have contacted me with death threats, but that doesn’t matter to me. Everyone in the media business in Saudi receives death threats…”
She added: “There are a lot of kids who want to make films. There’s a whole generation using cameras and mobile phones and they are not cut off from the world around them.
“Once films become a reality, movie theaters will become a reality.”
No one is ever surprised about learning of the restrictions on freedom, freedom denied women, freedom denied for reasons of ethnicity of belief, birth or culture – in theocracies. Yet, we have no shortage of True Believers in the United States who spend their whole lives fighting to reduce the freedoms our Constitution protects, diminish the freedom of women, the freedom of choice in ways that wouldn’t seem out of place in Saudi Arabia or Sudan.
I hope – as in Saudi Arabia according to Al Mansour – the children of many American fundamentalists realize how misshapen life in their special sect has been in comparison to what they might create and enjoy in the real world. And change their world.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish rally against dangers of the Internet — women and press banned!
Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attended a rally Sunday at the New York Mets’ Citi stadium on the dangers of the Internet and how to use modern technology in a religiously responsible way.
Women were not permitted to attend the meeting at Citi Field in Queens. However, it was broadcast live to audiences of women in schools and event halls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods…
Eytan Kobre…spokesman for the event’s organizers…cited online pornography and gambling as well as the risk of social media undermining “our ability to pray uninterruptedly, to focus and to concentrate…”
Shlomo Cohen of Toronto told The New York Times that he uses the Internet for shopping, business and staying in touch with friends, but that “desires are out there…we have to learn how to control ourselves…”
The rally was organized by a rabbinical group called Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, which means Union of Communities for the Purity of the Camp. Published reports have put the cost at $1.5 million…
A group urging more support for the victims of child sexual abuse inside the close-knit community held a counter-protest outside the stadium.
Abuse of children, women, non-Orthodox Jews, non-whites are all persistent problems within this community. Anyone recall anytime they held a rally to deal with bigotry?
Inside Citi Field, two billboards for Cholula hot sauce were censored, with the female in the company’s ad campaigns covered up. Telling the press reporters would not be permitted inside because of Homeland Security was another Cloud Cuckooland touch.
The mass dementia of minds closed to science, reality, modern knowledge is an affront to all. I have to wonder if the owners of Mets’ Citi stadium would have rented the venue out for a non-Othordox rally with the purpose of relegating women to servility. If it’s religious I guess that’s sufficient excuse to profit from bigotry.
Banned antibiotics still found in poultry products
In a joint study, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and Arizona State University found evidence suggesting that a class of antibiotics previously banned by the U.S. government for poultry production is still in use…
The study, conducted by the CLF and Arizona State’s Biodesign Institute, looked for drugs and other residues in feather meal, a common additive to chicken, swine, cattle and fish feed. The most important drugs found in the study were fluoroquinolones—broad spectrum antibiotics used to treat serious bacterial infections in people, particularly those infections that have become resistant to older antibiotic classes. The banned drugs were found in 8 of 12 samples of feather meal in a multi-state study. The findings were a surprise to scientists because fluoroquinolone use in U.S. poultry production was banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005…
The rendering industry, which converts animal byproducts into a wide range of materials, processes poultry feathers into feather meal, which is often added as a supplement to poultry, pig, ruminant, and fish feeds or sold as an “organic” fertilizer. In a companion study, researchers found inorganic arsenic in feather meal used in retail fertilizers. If you need something else to worry about.
“The discovery of certain antibiotics in feather meal strongly suggests the continued use of these drugs, despite the ban put in place in 2005 by the FDA,” said David Love, PhD, CLF Project Director and lead author of the report. “The public health community has long been frustrated with the unwillingness of FDA to effectively address what antibiotics are fed to food animals…”
In the U.S., antibiotics are introduced into the feed and water of industrially raised poultry, primarily to make them grow faster, rather than to treat disease. An estimated 13.2 million kilograms of antibiotics were sold in 2009 to the U.S. poultry and livestock industries, which represented nearly 80 percent of all antibiotic sales for use in humans and animals in the U.S. that year…
Researchers also found caffeine in 10 of 12 feather meal samples. “This study reveals yet another pathway of unwanted human exposure to a surprisingly broad spectrum of prescription and over-the-counter drugs,” noted study co-author Rolf Halden…
The FDA continues to rely on fox-based testing to see if henhouses are safe. FDA reliance on industry self-policing obviously is inept, incompetent or based on lies – with this discovery of antibiotic use that was banned six years ago.
Uzbekistan joins the heartless banning Valentine’s Day
Authorities in the country have virtually canceled Valentine’s Day by nixing planned concerts and other events, according to the Associated Press, citing a report by Russian news agency RIA-Novosti.
Instead, Uzbeki lovers will have to content themselves with a government-organized reading of poems by medieval Mughal emperor Babur, who wrote about monuments, flora and fauna, wine parties and battle strategy…
Uzbekistan’s unofficial ban on romantic celebrations isn’t new. Last year, news agency Turkiston described Valentine’s Day as the work of “forces with evil goals bent on putting an end to national values.”
Other Muslim countries feel equally as frigid toward the amorous holiday, which is a nominally Christian one.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have both banned celebration of the day, Voice of America reports. Iranian officials last year said they would take action against amorous citizens who ignored the ban. Saudi Arabia prohibits the gifting of red on V-day — including chocolates, bears, or roses, according to the Saudi Gazette.
In India, right-wing group Sri Rama Sena warned in 2010 that it would take action against educational institutions, restaurants and theaters if they encouraged Valentine’s day celebrations. Some adherents of the group even burned Valentine’s Day cards…
Malaysia joined in the spoil-sporting last year when it announced it would crack down on “immoral acts” during the holiday as part of a wider campaign for its citizens’ lifestyles to be “sin-free.”
The head of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department told state media: “In reality, as well as historically, the celebration of Valentine’s Day is synonymous with vice activities.”
Is there no end to bureaucrats on this planet with no heart for love?
Import OJ samples passing tests for fungicide — so far!
Testing of imported orange juice for a banned fungicide has not turned up any product with dangerous levels of the chemical since Jan. 4, U.S. regulators said today.
The Food and Drug Administration has collected 45 samples of imported orange juice, the agency reported. 19 have proven to be safe, and 26 are awaiting analysis, according to a weekly update from the FDA posted online. Regulators have released 12 of the 19 samples back to companies.
The safe samples came from Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Belize, the FDA said. The agency began temporarily holding and testing orange juice samples after trace levels of the fungicide carbendazim were detected in products from Brazil.
“If the FDA collects and analyzes three shipments of orange juice products from the same manufacturer and all samples are found to be in compliance, products from that manufacturer will no longer be sampled under the current assignment,” the agency said in its report.
Carbendazim is banned in use in U.S. oranges and has been linked to liver tumors in animals. U.S. regulators were alerted to use of the chemical in December by Atlanta-based Coca Cola Co., which owns the Minute Maid brand…
The U.S. is the biggest single importer of orange juice…
The serious part of the problem is that most of the time you don’t know whether or not some imported OJ has been mixed in with domestic product. And Carbendazim not only isn’t banned in most of Central and South America – its use is pretty common.
Italian railway blasted for racist commercial
The idea was never going to be an easy one to sell. Italy’s state-owned railway corporation, Trenitalia, decided to replace the traditional first and second classes on its high-speed trains with four categories.
And since the occupants of fourth-class will not be allowed to use the on-board cafeteria, or even set foot in carriages reserved for better-off passengers, it was already facing accusations of introducing a form of segregation. By Wednesday, however, the company was preparing to defend itself against claims of outright racism.
Its problems arose after the release of a web commercial designed to get travellers used to the new reality. The top tier, executive class, was illustrated by businesspeople at work in a special conference room. The next best, business class, was depicted temptingly empty. Premium had a couple taking drinks from a trolley pushed by a uniformed hostess. And standard, the most basic class, was illustrated with a picture of a black family.
Attention was first drawn to Trenitalia’s video by a blogger, Alessandro Gilioli, on the website of the weekly L’Espresso, and it soon triggered a torrent of complaints…
The video was hastily withdrawn on Tuesday evening and replaced with a new version in which the occupants of standard class are depicted as, first, a smiling, chattering white couple and then a family – also white – playing a game together on an internet-connected tablet. The businesspeople in executive class now include two non-white women.
Har. The idiots are running a business dealing with public accommodation and all they can think of to portray life is the lilywhite country club life they live.
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