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Month: March 2018

Easter eggs were once a rare luxury – so how did they become so commonplace?

Bridge Agents

United Kingdom (Conversation) – For weeks (and weeks) in the run up to Easter, brightly packaged chocolate eggs fill the shelves of British supermarkets. Piled high and sold cheap, they are easy to get hold of – even hard to avoid. But this wasn’t always the case. For almost a century after the first ones were produced in the 1870s by Fry’s and Cadbury’s, chocolate eggs were a luxury product. They were expensive, and difficult to find, with specialist confectioners often requiring orders to be made several months in advance….

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Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia

Bridge Agents

My video is about sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. In these areas, young women and girls are forced to sell their bodies either for food, money, and/or to pay off their family debts. For them, this is the only way to survive, yet, it is at the expense of their own humanity and freedom. I am passionate about this because I feel that it’s unfair that people are forced to go through this because others are unwilling. The serious injustice done is that the government knows about the issue, however,…

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Why the beauty industry will never fully embrace spots, scars and pimples

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(Conversation) – L’Oreal recently fired beauty vlogger Kadeeja Khan from a hair advert. An agency working for the company approached Kadeeja through her Instagram account, arranged her travel and sent her details of the shoot. But on the day of the shoot, L’Oreal’s agency emailed Kadeeja saying it was sorry but “L’Oreal can’t be involved with people with skin issues”. Kadeeja has acne. L’Oreal claims this was just a mix up, that their agency had made a mistake “where the wrong profile had been cast” and that they actually “work with…

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Get Ready for Bush 2.0

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(FPIF) – Political reporters have a saying: There’s always a tweet. That is, for nearly every political moment or presidential decree, there’s an uncannily on-point comment buried somewhere in the presidential Twitter feed. Often it features the president expressing a past view that’s diametrically opposed to whatever he’s doing now. Here’s an example from 2013: “All former Bush administration officials should have zero standing on Syria,” Donald J. Trump tweeted. “Iraq was a waste of blood & treasure.” I agree. According to Brown University and the Institute for Policy Studies, Americans spend $32…

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Congress left a little something for waiters and dishwashers in its $1.3 trillion budget

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Washinfton DC, United States (Conversation) – While federal workers were breathing a sigh of relief that Congress managed to avoid a government shutdown, another group of workers also had reason to cheer. That’s because hidden deep in the US$1.3 trillion budget deal that President Donald Trump signed on March 23 was a measure preventing his administration from changing the law to allow employers to take workers’ tips. As an expert in workers’ rights, I believe the measure also has the potential to reduce an inequality that has long existed in…

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Ugandans Call for the Resignation of Parliamentarian Who Made Pro-Domestic Violence Comments

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Uganda (GV) – Onesmus Twinamasiko, a member of Uganda’s parliament, sparked national outrage by stating in a television interview that men should beat their wives. Twinamasiko was being interviewed on local television network NTV in response to the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni admonition in a speech marking the International Women’s Day observances on March 8. Museveni said in his speech that “a man who batters a woman is foolish and a coward.” “As a man, you need to discipline your wife…touch her a bit, tackle her and beat her to streamline her”-…

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US Senate: Reject Haspel for CIA Director

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  (HRW) – The US Senate should oppose the nomination of Gina Haspel to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the Senate leadership and Select Committee on Intelligence. She was closely involved in the torture of detainees under the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) program, and the destruction of related evidence. The government should disclose more information about Haspel’s role in the RDI program, but what is already known should disqualify her from serving as CIA director and other…

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Hey Kellyanne, Federal Employees Work for Both Democrats and Republicans – Even You

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United States (Conversation) – Federal ethics lawyers determined earlier this month that White House adviser Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits a variety of political activities by federal employees. During two television appearances last year, Conway, a Republican, had encouraged Alabama voters to vote against the Democratic senate candidate in a special election. Conway made her comments on television. That’s not the only arena where federal employees have crossed the line into prohibited political advocacy. They do it in their offices, at meetings and in memos. And in…

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Don’t Make the Border a Wasteland

Bridge Agents

US (OW) – Some Americans think of the U.S.-Mexico border as a wasteland. In fact, the mountains and deserts of our borderlands are teeming with wildlife. Here you’ll find large cats like the jaguar, the subject of my research. Jaguar sightings have been reported in New Mexico and Arizona for over a century, even as far north as the Grand Canyon. Their presence is a stamp of approval — they mean healthy habitats, prey populations, and the connection of critical wildlife corridors across the border. Humans, after all, aren’t the only animals…

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PKK Denies Reports About Launch of Turkish Operation in Iraqi Sinjar

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(Sputnik) – Earlier on Sunday, Turkish media cited President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying that that the operation against the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara, had started in Iraq’s Sinjar. “At the moment, there is no movement of Turkish [forces] in the town of Sinjar, Nineveh Governorate. If this happens, we will respond with force to protect the Yazidis [a Kurdish religious minority],” the party’s member said, noting that Erdogan frequently makes wrongful statements. Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 when a ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK collapsed over a series of terror attacks allegedly…

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