'hello, dolly' should have been a great movie. instead it's mediocre. you could even call it trash.
it has barbra streisand and a lot has been made about her shifting characterization. but there's no character for her to play so i really think her part mae west, part this, part that performance works. it at least keeps things moving.
walter matthau is all wrong. he's too old. he's too ugly. he has no charm and no magnetic appeal. that they took so much trouble to find the right leading man for 'funny girl' and none at all for 'hello dolly' goes to how and why the film flopped. they should have aged the character down at least ten years or else gotten some 1 like frank sinatra who had charisma.
louis armstrong shows up and brings great life to his 1 scene.
otherwise,? the song should be 'so long dreary.'
and despite what the woman says above, michael crawford was awful in the film. he was part of a cast of incompetents.
the woman babbling above about irene? the costume designer was an idiot. this is a musical and she kept putting trains on barbra and the women. she had a fit when she was overruled. in 'hello dolly,' that song, you'll notice barbra's dress has a train at the beginning and once she starts dancing it's gone.
the woman babbling along really doesn't seem to know much about the movie - or about quality.
'hello dolly' is the worst film barbra ever made - and, believe it or not, that's not her fault. she is consistently entertaining.
Dona; Okay, related, there are a lot of songs that were
hits that we know. What about songs that you think should have been
hits?
Rebecca: Barbra Streisand's "Niagara." From
WET. One of the most beautiful songs she ever recorded. It should have
been a single, it should have been a hit.
Kat: Steve Grand's "All American Boy" if Cher had recorded it -- or would record it to this day. It's a natural hit for Cher.
Marcia: Janis Joplin's "A Woman Left Lonely."
Ruth:
For me, there are just too many songs to note. I could probably make a
whole list. I remember thinking, for example, that Diana Ross and the
Supremes' "Young Folks" was going to be huge. It ended up just being a
top forty hit. But I would sing that to one of my sons as I rocked him
to sleep when he was a baby. I saw Barbi Benton perform "In The
Winter," that great song Janis Ian wrote, on some TV show and I thought,
"That's going to be huge." But it wasn't. I was surprised because
Barbi could really sing and I did not expect that from her. Does
everyone know who Ms. Benton is?
Wednesday, December 9, 2020. Will the world survive the stupid
(stupid because they were born that way and the stupid who are paid to
be stupid)? Who knows. Oil fields on fire in Iraq and more protesters
killed, Medea Benjamin runs for Miss Army Recruiting 2021, and much
more.
The new day starts with Alex Longley (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reporting, "Oil held near $49 a barrel after two tiny Iraqi oil wells were
attacked and markets globally rose on the prospect of additional U.S.
stimulus. Brent futures rose 0.2%, flipping between gains and
losses. Civil defense teams are trying to put out a blaze at the wells
in the Khabbaz field, local police said, though the nation’s oil
ministry said the fields were only pumping 2,000 barrels a day at the
time of the attack." This attack takes place, S&P GLOBAL notes,
"a week after an attack on one of the tanks in the small northern
Siniyeh refinery temporarily set it ablaze." The Islamic State claimed
credit for the bombing last week but Pakistan's THE NATION notes, "At the moment, no organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack." Elena Pavlovska (NEW EUROPE) adds, "Deputy oil minister Karim Hattab said in a statement that efforts to
contain the fire are underway. The field produces about 25,000 barrels
per day, officials said. Technical teams isolated the two burning oil wells and there was no
impact on output, sources from the state-run North Oil Company said." NEWS EUROPE Tweets:
On top of the near-term demand uncertainty, the market is also facing
some supply risks. Libya is continuing to increase output and Iran is
preparing to raise production in the hopes that a Joe Biden presidency
will ease some sanctions.
U.S. gasoline stockpiles jumped by 6.44
million barrels, while distillates inventories climbed by 2.32 million
barrels, the API reported. Crude supplies are forecast to have dropped
by 1.04 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey
before the Energy Information Administration figures.
Iraq is poised to sign a multibillion-dollar contract with China ZhenHua Oil Co.,
a bailout from Beijing for the cash-strapped government which will
receive money upfront in exchange for long-term oil supplies.
The
deal is the latest example of China, via state-controlled trading
companies and banks, lending to struggling oil producers such as Angola,
Venezuela and Ecuador, with repayment in the form of oil barrels rather
than cash. This year’s crash in oil prices has hammered Iraq’s budget
and the government has failed to pay teachers and civil servants on
time.
The Iraqi agency in charge of petroleum exports, SOMO, picked
ZhenHua after asking oil traders for bids, according to people familiar
with the matter. Cabinet spokesman Hassan Nadhim said on Tuesday there
had been “several offers” and they were being studied before Prime
Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi makes the final decision.
Meanwhile protests continue in Iraq which means attacks on protesters continue. In the KRG? ARAB NEWS reports:
After
a first protester was shot dead in the town of Chamchamal, in
Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Kurdistan Region, on Monday afternoon. Another
two demonstrators died overnight in deadly rallies in two other
districts, according to a local official and the Baghdad-based Iraqi
Human Rights Commission.
On Tuesday afternoon, at least
three more protesters died in two other locations, local officials,
medics and the Commission told AFP.
Protests over unpaid
salaries spread on Tuesday to at least six towns near Sulaimaniya, with
angry crowds setting ablaze political parties’ headquarters and local
government buildings.
Protests over unpaid salaries spread on Tuesday to at least six towns
near Sulaimaniya, with angry crowds setting ablaze political parties'
headquarters and local government buildings.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets in and around Sulaimaniya for
several days, demanding their salaries be paid and criticising the KDP
and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the
Sulaimaniya area.
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq has been hit by a
nationwide economic crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which
Iraq's oil revenues have sunk.
Changing topics, it's been announced Pope Francis will visit Iraq this coming March.
Qaraqosh is near Mosul. Residents there express hope over the Pope's planned visit.
Ben Johnson (UNION OF CATHOLIC ASIA NEWS) notes Pope Francis would be the first pope to visit Iraq. AFP quotes
Nineveh's Adiba Henna stating, "We're all so happy. We have been
waiting for this for so long. . . . Every time he visits a country, we
think, why doesn't he come to Iraq? Aren't there Christians in Iraq?
This is the greatest, most beautiful thing he could do."
UK's EXPRESS floats the visit as heralding the end of times and monkeys around with some bits from Revelations to justify their hypothesis.
Let's
leave Iraq for a moment to go over to COMMON DREAMS -- which raised
money off the Iraq War and then ran from it. At COMMON DREAMS, the
stupidity is always flowing. That's how you get Norman Solomon -- the
crusty, old whore -- claiming Michele Flournoy's diminishing shot at
Secretary of Defense is a sign that progressives moved mountains.
Stupid Norman. What hurting Michele's chances, first noted here but
whispered about for years in DC, was Joe Biden's flirting with Michele.
I know of no affair between the two and did not state that they had an
affair. (I do know of affairs Joe's had since he married Jill.) But
they flirted and their relationship was always questionable. We noted
it here many times but did so last month and a Senator (Democrat) called
and asked if that was the woman at the hearing when . . .? Yes, it
was. Senate Democrats and Republicans have had questions about the
nomination ever since. Many witnessed the flirtation themselves. Do we
want a Secretary of Defense whose relationship with the president
raises flags? That's what's hurting her chances currently.
But keep pretending, if only for one moment, Norman, that you aren't impotent.
Speaking
of the erectile dysfunctional, Robert Reich contributes "Biden Says
Hell Take On Inequality. Good! You Need to Hold Him to It." Why?
Because we all know sad Robert won't. He kisses the anus of power.
Don't you love the lazy who try to tell you what to do with your time?
Is
there anything worse? Possibly. Possibly Medea Benjamin and her
penile roll dog Nicolas J.S. Davies (CODEPINK gave him an honorary
vagina, I understand) who want to float Jeh Johnson for Secretary of
Defense -- instead of Michele Flournoy. I have many friends in the
State Dept -- friends who serve through each administration. At one
point, in 2004, when there was yet another propaganda operation aimed at
the Iraqi people that was going to fail because these people pimping
propaganda are so stupid, I said that, that they were stupid and they
were trying to push something that they could do at a much slower pace
and much easier and then I stopped. What? How? Nope. It's not my job
to sell your war for you. Medea and Nicolas want to be part of the war
machine and are advocating for who should be Secretary of Defense.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Reuters on Tuesday that he will not join the administration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Johnson
was in the running for several Cabinet positions, including secretary
of defense and attorney general, people close to the Biden transition
team said. While he hasn't announced his pick yet for attorney general,
Biden has tapped retired Gen. Lloyd Austin for the top role at the Pentagon.
In an email to Reuters,
Johnson confirmed that he will "not be in the Biden administration,"
and referred to the "news over the last 24 hours," likely referring to
Austin's selection. Prior to running the Department of Homeland Security
from late 2013 to early 2017, Johnson was general counsel of the Air
Force and later the Department of Defense.
So it
was a stupid suggestion -- like so many of Medea's 'brilliant' ideas --
she is the Blair Warner of the revolution. Does that mean Jodie is
Boots St. Clair? At any rate, Medea's an idiot. She's wasted time
writing a column (with a man, she always needs to have a man at her side
except when she's on a program insisting she's a feminist) that is
pointless for numerous reasons. One, it's not her job to help select
the enforcer of empire. Two, it was a stupid idea that the person in
question immediately rejected. Third, did she forget she's supposed to
be anti-war?
A year long plus of protests have taken
place in Iraq. Iraqis are standing up to their corrupt government that
the US government installed. US troops are still stationed in Iraq.
The CIA's largest outpost is Iraq. But Medea can't be bothered with
Iraq.
Are we not supposed to notice that? Do we just
stop protesting something because TV news doesn't cover it? Is that
what we do? Do we act as though it's a matter of life and death in 2005
and then yawn and look the other way as the war continues years later?
President-elect Joe Biden Tuesday announced his nomination as
secretary of defense of General Lloyd Austin, a former Iraq war
commander who retired as the chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM)
which oversees all US military operations in the Middle East and
Afghanistan.
This choice is being hailed by Democrats and the
corporate media as historic in that Austin would be the first African
American to lead the Pentagon.
Behind the attempt to make Austin’s
race a symbol of socially progressive change, the nomination represents
a definite continuity with the Trump administration, which also chose a
recently retired general for the top civilian post at the Department of
Defense. In Trump’s case it was Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis
(ret.), who preceded Austin as CENTCOM commander.
Austin’s nomination, like that of Mattis, breaches the National
Security Act of 1947, which stipulated that an ex-officer would have to
wait 10 years (changed by Congress in 2008 to seven years) after leaving
the military before taking the position of secretary of defense.
Overriding this provision, which was meant to defend civilian control of
the military, requires the approval of a waiver by both houses of the
US Congress.
In the case of Mattis, 17 Democratic senators voted
against granting a waiver, while Senator Jack Reed, then the ranking
Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, voted in favor, while
insisting, “I will not support a waiver for future nominees.” Reed and
his fellow Senate Democrats have thus far failed to raise the same
objections to Austin that they did in 2017 with the Mattis nomination.
The Atlantic magazine published an article by Biden on
Tuesday in which he defends his appointment of Austin as “part of our
diverse national-security leadership team that reflects the lived
experiences of all Americans.”
He wrote: “He was the first African
American general officer to lead an Army corps in combat and the first
African American to command an entire theater of war; if confirmed, he
will be the first African American to helm the Defense
Department—another milestone in a barrier-breaking career dedicated to
keeping the American people secure.”
That the commander of the
Army corps that destroyed Iraqi towns and villages, leaving untold
casualties in its wake, was African American was hardly a comfort to the
Iraqi victims of Washington’s criminal invasion, nor to those elsewhere
in the “entire theater of war” commanded by Austin.
A
huge number of 'leftists' on their podcasts in recent weeks have been
slamming -- often as 'identity politics' -- any efforts to raise issues
regarding the pandemic. They insist that everyone is impacted equally.
They do that because they're isolated and stupid. No, everyone is not
impacted equally.
Well, one of the first issues connecting the pandemic to violence is
the stay at home orders. We know in any times when holidays or
vacations, whenever families are spending more time together that those
are usually times when you see an uptick in the amount of domestic
violence that gets experienced. So, whether it’s due to a quarantine or
working from home, families are basically essentially stuck at home
together in a relatively small area, and this can create sort of a
perfect storm or petri dish for increased violence. Globally, we’ve seen an uptick in reporting.
It used to be that one in three women would report some incidents of
physical abuse or some harassment and now globally it seems like it’s
one in two worldwide.
Interestingly, the amount of reported intimate partner violence has
actually decreased. But we suspect that that may be due to the
inability, some of the barriers to actually reporting it, because if
you’re stuck together in a house in a relatively small area then there’s
not enough privacy to be able to make that kind of phone call. So we’re
concerned about that. Some of the reasons we’re concerned about that is
because the number of murder/suicides where the person, the receiver of
violence usually has been killed along with the person who perpetrates
it. So we see a steep increase in the murder/suicide rate.
We know that travel restrictions can impose or impact escape or
safety plans and reasonably so, there’s a fear of entering a shelter
because of the potential exposure to COVID.
00:05:34 Michele Goodwin:
So these are some significant challenges then that women are facing
during COVID who are at home. To be clear, this crosses the
socioeconomic spectrum, isn’t that right?
00:05:46 Dr. Patricia Jones Blessman:
Correct. We know that domestic violence impacts women or hits women
of all socioeconomic statuses, so rich, poor, doesn’t matter. We know
that women across the board are impacted by that.
00:06:01 Michele Goodwin:
And isn’t it true then that the abusive situations that you speak to,
they affect women in the household but they also affect children, too,
and I know that you are and have been an incredibly significant
psychologist in relation to matters that affect families and that also
affect children. What are some of the concerns there that mothers,
women, aunts, grandmothers have to be concerned about?
00:06:28 Dr. Patricia Jones Blessman:
Well, first of all, children I’ve spent a large part of my career
working with children who have been sexually abused or physically abused
in their homes, and so the pandemic creates a situation where children
are not…because they’re not able to go to school and not able to go
visit, perhaps the auntie or the grandmother or the play mom or a safe
person that they might talk to, to let them know what’s going on with
them or even just to go to school that they are more at risk and this is
a much more dangerous time for them.
There was a case here, I mean it has gotten extreme. There was a case here in Chicago
where a child was in a Zoom class and the abuser wanted her…had her
engage in oral sex in…it was recorded on a Zoom class. Presumably, the
abuser didn’t know that that was what was happening. But those are the
kinds of things that children can be exposed to or that can be happening
to children, unbeknownst to us.
00:07:51 Michele Goodwin:
And in that case, there are other kids then who also then saw that and traumatized by that as well.
00:07:57 Dr. Patricia Jones Blessman:
Exactly. Because they watched. They saw it and knowing that their
classmate went through that experience. And of course whether that was a
godsend or a lucky thing that it happened to be caught, that it was on
tape, that we were able to catch the perpetrator and bring some justice
for that child but not every child is going to be in that kind of
situation. Not every child is going to have the ability to be able to
report what’s going on and to document what’s happening to them.
00:08:36 Michele Goodwin:
And in situations like that, what’s the recommendation? So as a
psychologist, are there places that children can turn to that you
recommend and that women can turn to that you recommend just for our
listeners?
00:08:50 Dr. Patricia Jones Blessman:
But we also know that abusers will try to keep them socially isolated
and so I know that this is going to be challenging but finding creative
ways to find some privacy and some space to be able to reach out to
either a hotline or someone
that’s trusted in their community, someone that they feel comfortable
talking to, that it becomes even vitally important to have check-ins or
wellness checks with your village, with the people around you that
you’re close to. I know there’s a Facebook post that was going around
where it’s if you say certain keywords that your girlfriends knew
something was going on and to check in on you and to come by or to stop
by. So people have had to get very creative about how we want to keep
our sisters and our children safe during this time.
00:09:53 Michele Goodwin:
I’m so glad that you raise that because the reality is that a lot of
women put the mask on every day, right along with their makeup and
domestic violence is a real issue. Economic violence happens to be a
real issue and sometimes there are women that are encountering both and
it’s across the socioeconomic spectrum. Sometimes it’s even women who
are in college, who are in medical school or who are in law school. So
just know that we hear you and that we see you.
we did a really good roundtable for 3rd - it should be up wednesday night. i loved it. it was on music. at 1 point, i surprised myself when the question was to name a song that should have been a hit but wasn't. i went with a barbra streisand song. but it just blurted out. i wasn't thinking about it. but i'll share it here when the roundtable goes up.
we also addressed racism and appearance and many other topics so i think it's a solid roundtable. this is really just a teaser for that.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020. More evidence that Team Biden isn't up to
the job of creating a new administration comes as more protests rock
Iraq.
Tara Reade is an American woman who came forward
to explain that she was harassed and assaulted while working for Joe
Biden's senate office in the 90s. Among those she sought out in the
last year and a half? Then-Senator Kamala Harris. Kamala and Dianne
Feinstein were Tara's two US senators. Were. Kamala will be sworn in
next month as vice president -- barring some unforeseen upset. (The
electoral college votes December 14th. Once they vote, it's over.)
Tara
reached out to Kamala. Kamala did nothing. Is that really a
surprise? It may have been to Tara because there's a moment in Kamala's
story that's not really known. It'll be more widely known now.
Cedric's "Kamala Harris part of the work place harassment system" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! KAMALA HARRIS BUILDING THE #ME TOO MOVEMENT ONE VICTIM AT A TIME!"
notes that Joe Biden plans to nominate Xavier Becerra to be Secretary
of Health and Human Services. Xavier has a Kamala connection. He
settled a lawsuit -- paying the survivor $400,000 -- against Larry
Wallace. Wallace has harassed a woman working for Kamala. Wallace
worked for Kamala. It gets worse.
A longtime top staff member of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris resigned
Wednesday after The Sacramento Bee inquired about a $400,000 harassment
and retaliation settlement resulting from his time working for Harris at
the California Department of Justice.
Larry Wallace, who served
as the director of the Division of Law Enforcement under then-Attorney
General Harris, was accused by his former executive assistant in
December 2016 of “gender harassment” and other demeaning behavior,
including frequently asking her to crawl under his desk to change the
paper in his printer.
The lawsuit was filed on Dec. 30, 2016,
when Harris was still attorney general but preparing to be sworn in as
California’s newly elected Democratic senator. It was settled less than
five months later, in May 2017, by Xavier Becerra, who was appointed to
replace her as attorney general.
By that time, Wallace had transitioned to work for Harris as a senior advisor in her Sacramento office.
“We
were unaware of this issue and take accusations of harassment extremely
seriously. This evening, Mr. Wallace offered his resignation to the
senator and she accepted it,” Harris spokeswoman Lily Adams wrote in an
email.
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article222688740.html#storylink=cpy
That's
a lie. There's no way that a $400,000 settlement was reached over
someone working under Kamala and she was not (a) aware of the complaint
and (b) aware of the settlement. She knew who he was and she elected to
bring him with her as a senate staffer. Furthermore, she only got ride
of him the day the press came sniffing around.
The survivor was Wallace's executive assistant.
Kamala
supervised Wallace. She should have known what was going on. She
should have been paying attention to ensure that no retaliation took
place after the woman came forward. She certainly shouldn't have
brought Wallace along to the Senate (and she shouldn't have recommended
him for his next government job -- which, for the record, she did).
When she reported the behavior to a supervisor, the lawsuit says, she
was “subjected to retaliation including being set up to fail” as well as
being “micro-managed” by a supervisor, and was “placed under an
Internal Affairs investigation for a fabricated charge and told she
should quit her job and seek employment elsewhere.” She was later
involuntarily assigned to a different department.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra settled out of court for $400,000 in
May 2017. In 2016, Wallace was the director of the Division of Law
Enforcement under then-Attorney General Harris. He has been with Harris
for 14 years, stretching back to her time as San Francisco district
attorney. Most recently he worked out of Sacramento on her Senate staff.
Wallace resigned last Wednesday. Harris on Thursday said she wasn’t aware of the allegations against him.
There
are only a few possible interpretations here, and they are unpleasant.
Wallace wasn’t out on the periphery of Harris’ staff; he was a senior
aide she knew for 14 years — hardly a stranger. For Harris to flatly
deny any knowledge of this settlement seems, shall we say, far-fetched.
For the moment, let’s take her at her word.
A second and equally
troubling interpretation is that Harris isn’t a terribly good manager,
and that her staff was insulating her from information critical to the
performance of her duties. This is hardly a propitious beginning to a
presidential candidacy.
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article222813470.html#storylink=cpy
Harris’ handling of this matter is eerily reminiscent of a 2010 case
during her tenure as district attorney, where a judge rebuked her office
for hiding problems in the drug analysis section of the San Francisco
police crime lab.
Part of being an elected official is not only
taking strong political positions and executing them fairly, it’s also
being able to manage the people you entrust with responsibility. In this
case, Harris has fallen short.
Harris owes the voters more than
just a four-word denial on the steps of the U.S. Senate. She should
fully explain her relationship with Wallace, and, by extension, her
staff and why it insulated her from an issue upon which she has taken a
leading national role.
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article222813470.html#storylink=cpy
Making it even more obvious that Kamala is lying is the fact that her timeline is fiction. Emily Kopp (ROLL CALL) noted:
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., expressed surprise and frustration when reports first surfaced last week
that a longtime aide had settled allegations of gender discrimination
last year — attributing her lack of awareness to a “breakdown” in
communication.
But the California Department of Justice received
notification of the suit three months before Harris left her position as
state attorney general, according to a new report.
Kamala blew off Tara Reade? It appears Kamala's been blowing off the harassed for some time.
This
goes to the stupidity of Team Biden, by the way. Joe's accused of
rape, he's accused of harassment. He should be doing everything he can
to ensure that his administration sends a strong anti-harassment
message. But he's trying to put Neera Tanden in charge of the OMB.
Neera who was in charge at CAP when women were complaining of being
harassed. She would eventually out one of the women in a company wide
meeting. And, yes, that is awful and it's wrong. But let's not ignore
the fact that she was the manager there and multiple women had
complaints and multiple women were ignored. How can she manage anything
when her record demonstrates that she can't even fix a toxic work
environment and make it respect the laws of the land?
Now
they're nominating Becerra who just raises the issue of how Kamala
looked the other way to protect her friend Larry Wallace.
These
are not smart decisions being made. Joe's attacking the press -- just
like Donald Trump -- and he seems to think he's above it all. He wasn't
voted into office because people liked him. He was voted into office
because people were scared of a second term of Donald Trump.
These
are the mistakes rookies make. And Biden's team is experienced so why
are they making all these mistakes? Arrogance. They don't realize how
quickly America can (and will if serious measures are not taken) turn on
Joe Biden.
Serious measures? People are out of work.
Where's the money for the American people? The US Congress has failed
the American people. They have fake assed their way through this
pandemic and done nothing for the American people. $1,200 payment?
That's nothing. They gave corporations billions and the American people
-- who they are supposed to serve -- was tossed a trinket of a single
$1,200 payment. Shame on them all.
The entire Biden campaign and presidency boil down to "I'm not Trump."
For millions of people that's enough. But sooner or later, it will become abundantly clear that nothing has fundamentally changed.
At that point, people will realize what the left is saying.
Iraqi President Barham Salih has called for an end
to “corruption, looting, plundering and smuggling” following a sixth day
of protests in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah
province.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the
political leadership, high unemployment rate and lack of public
services.
They also demanded that their salaries be paid in full.
Local media reported that at least six protesters have been killed in the clashes with security forces.
“Violence is not a solution to confront the legitimate demands of citizens,” President Salih said in his statement on Tuesday.
Mr
Salih, who is originally from Sulaymaniyah, urged security forces to
act according to the law and to refrain from using violence while not
putting any restraints on the media.
Young
people have lost hope in the Kurdistan Regional Government's leadership
and want to take matters into their own hands, Sarkwat Shamis, an Iraqi
MP, told The National.
"This
is a result of outstanding issues, crisis and the corruption of the
ruling clans, the Barzanis and Talabanis," he said, in reference to the
two ruling Kurdish political parties.
#Iraq
At least 4 protesters were killed and dozens were injured by the #KDP armed forces during mass protests against the economic crisis, corruption & high unemployment in the autonomous Kurdish region of #Sulaymaniyah.
The offices of all political parties were set on fire.
We've
been covering the issues in Sulaymaniyah since Sunday -- that's when
the government shut down NRT for covering the protest. MIDDLE EAST MONITOR notes:
Iraqi Kurdish Asayish security forces yesterday stormed the headquarters of Nalia Radio and Television (NRT) and suspended it for covering anti-government protests in the autonomous region, Anadolu news agency reported.
NRT said
in a statement on its website that "the Asayish [regional security
forces] have stormed the channel's headquarters in the city of
Sulaymaniyah, cut off broadcasting, confiscated equipment and closed the
building's doors."
According to the statement, the suspension came after the channel's extensive coverage of the recent protests in the region.
The channel published two photos showing a number of security cars parked in front of its headquarters in the city.
The
Ministry of Culture and Youth in the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG) said in a statement that it had decided to suspend the channel's
broadcasts for one week because of its "lack of adherence to the rules
regulating broadcast media and especially its current irresponsible
behaviour, describing the security forces as militias and bandits."
In
addition to shutting down NRT, there are rumors that the internet is
about to be shut down in that area. Actually, the shut down of the
internet has started. Dr Nemam Ghafouri Tweets:
Bullets and killing did not silenced people, now they have shut down the internet in Suli region and I can’t communicate with doctors on important issues regarding saving children’s lives who need operation.
A 13 year child was wounded in the neck from a bullet fired by security forces during the Kalar protest in south of Sulaymaniyah last night as tens of thousands of Kurds turn out across the province to protest the delay in paying salaries and widespread corruption #Kurdistan
At least four people are said to be dead and multiple others injured
as clashes continued between protesters and security forces in Sulaimani
on Monday night.
Locals reported at least three dead in Darbandikhan, Kalar, and Kifri
late on Monday, allegedly shot by security forces and guards.
A 26-year-old was confirmed dead on Monday evening after being shot in Chamchamal.
The violence comes after a number of political party offices were targeted in Saidsadiq, southeast of Sulaimani city.
According to NetBlocks,
an international non-partisan group monitoring internet access across
the globe, internet usage fell to 48 percent of its usual levels in
Sulaimani early Tuesday, indicating disruptions to internet access
across the province.
Allegations of Turkish security forces member involvement in the gang
rape of a 15-year-old girl in the Kurdish-majority province of Batman
has angered many social media users and politicians in Turkey, with the
government denying the claims.
Jin news agency, a feminist media outlet, reported on
Saturday that a group of 27 people, including police officers,
specialized sergeants and village guards were involved in the rape of a
15-year-old girl in Gercus district in Batman.
It added that the rape was brought to light after the girl went to the
hospital for abdominal pain and was found to be pregnant.
Hours later, Batman Public Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that a
child visited their office on November 12, and reported that “she had
been raped and impregnated.”
Police say they were able to detain a suspect on November 13, according
to the office, which denied claims that any police officers or state
employees were involved in the incident. The statement also noted that a confidentiality order had been placed on the case, prohibiting media from reporting on it.
On Sunday, the Batman governor’s office slammed media agencies and
social media accounts reporting that security force members were
involved, accusing them of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK). The statement added that investigations will be launched against anyone “who publishes fake news.”
