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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2024

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  • Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

    The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.

    Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.

    On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.

    […]

    He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation’s economic crisis in 2022.

    During Rajapaksa’s presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.

    After Rajapaksa’s ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country’s Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.

    In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country’s president at the time.

    Yeah, this is definitely much more than just “insulting” a religion.


  • He writes: “It is not for the west, let alone the UK, to determine who rules Iran. That is for the Iranian people. But we can make clear that the right choice will bring benefits just as the wrong one will bring more of the same.”

    This is some Mafia level bullshit wording. Just say that you want to force a regime change from the outside. Looking at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and many other examples this has always failed and mostly ended in the Western allies directly or indirectly massacring millions of people, but maybe this time it will work. Just keep trying USA and UK…







  • Israel runs the population registry for Gaza. I am sure they have been looking very closely, given the extensive surveillance they have employed. Also people had it hard enough getting anything administrative done, if all the papers are in order. So not getting the papers by not registering the births would also be outside peoples interests.

    Finally the “Hamas run health ministry” has provided reliable data about people killed in previous assaults, so before the collapse of the health system since October 2023, the data in Gaza was also solid.



  • The combination of historical eastward looking links and the aspiration to join the EU have led to a complex, some might say almost schizophrenic, defense and foreign policy.

    Serbia has provided around $800 million worth of military aid to Ukraine channeled through third countries, a level that exceeds the contributions of some NATO members, which further highlights Belgrade’s increasingly problematic position in relation to the ongoing conflict between Russia and the West, as it looks to modernize its defense forces.

    The article paints a much more nuanced picture than the headline suggests.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics_and_human_health


    The potential health impacts of microplastics vary based on factors, such as their particle sizes, shape, exposure time, chemical composition (enriched with heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), etc.), surface properties, and associated contaminants.[76][77]

    Experimental and observational studies in mammals have shown that microplastics and nanoplastics exposure have the following adverse effects:

    On the cellular level

    Inflammation[78][79]  
    Oxidative stress[80][78][81][82][77]  
    Genotoxicity[83][82]  
    Cytotoxicity[81][77]  
    

    By systems

    Cardiovascular[84][62]  
    Respiratory[59]  
        Inflammation in the lungs from inhalation[75]  
    Disruption of hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA), including the Hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid, Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, Hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular and Hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis[85]  
    Reproductive toxicity,[85] decreased reproductive health, decreased sperm quality[85]  
    Developmental abnormalities[85]  
    Immunotoxicity[85][86][81][79]  
    Endocrine disruption[85][87]  
    Neurotoxicity[85]  
    Metabolic disturbances[78]  
        Disrupted gut-liver axis resulting in increased risk of insulin resistance[88]  
        disrupted hormone function, potentially contributing to weight gain.[89][90]  
    

    Epidemiological studies

    Despite growing concern and evidence, most epidemiologic studies have focused on characterizing exposures. Epidemiological studies directly linking microplastics to adverse health effects in humans remain yet limited and research is ongoing to determine the full extent of potential harm caused by microplastics and their long-term impact on human health.[91][92]


    There is plenty of reason to consider microplastics a major adverse health factor. The problem is that it is a relatively new field of research and making an epidemiological assessment is difficult as we are exposed to thousands of harmful substances, so knowing which effect comes from what is not a trivial thing to figure out.







  • Zionist media reports that he fled to Argentinia with an unspecified assistance.

    https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/01/05/idf-soldier-who-survived-oct-7-escapes-brazil-after-court-issues-arrest/

    They enjoyed parties and peaceful life for two weeks until yesterday when a call came from the consul, saying there was an arrest warrant against the soldier and that he had to fly out of there quickly. The friends unanimously decided not to leave him alone. That night they received assistance and crossed the border into Argentina."

    Abutbul added that the last conversation with his son was at five in the morning. “They said they were in Argentina and everything was fine. When I spoke to my son, I suggested he continue the trip in Argentina and not come home. Coming home is a prize for the Palestinians, and they would also ruin their trip. I’m not worried now. At first, I was worried and told them to cross the border. When I understood that they were helped to cross the border, I calmed down.”

    Note how him partying and taking trips abroad is seen as more important, than the lifes and livelihoods of humans they annihilated.

    The entitlement and total dehumanization should be a warning to everyone that still allies with Israel. These soldiers and their supporters are ticking timebombs.

    Also it is quite ironic, that they are fleeing to Argentina, where many German Nazi War Crimimals fled after WW2.




  • Effective and efficient can be different. Some sanctions could be very effective, as in they ultimately achieve the intended goal, but very inefficient as they use a lot of resources. Other sanctions might not be effective on their own, but could be very efficient, as they us very little resources on your own side.

    For the latter iirc. when Trump started a trade war with the EU, the EU mostly sanctioned agricultural products from areas where Trump was particularly popular. It didn’t cause that much damage to the US economy, but it was very cheap for the EU to substitute these products and caused disproportionate political damage.