Translation

.يولد جميع الناس أحرارا متساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلا وضميرا وعليهم أن يعامل بعضهم بعضا بروح الإخاء‎
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Saturday, December 13, 2008

Metrosexual versus Homosexual

How far can metrosexuality go without mistakenly crossing the path of homosexuality?

Trying to pin down the exact point of departure between a fashion savvy metrosexual and his man-loving homosexual counterpart can be like splitting hairs. It is like questioning which one is more brutal, Alien or Predator? Or who is more psycho, Freddy or Jason?
Metrosexual is the popular word used to describe the modern man with a high disposable income who pays great attention to his appearance.
They’re no longer only found between the covers of fashion magazines, on television or in gay bars, metrosexual men are everywhere now—and they’re always so busy grooming.
Out of the way, women! If you think you have achieved equality with men in professional or social spheres, you’re forgetting something. Men today are rapidly catching up in the vanity race and might soon be as pretty as you are! Forget that wet and sticky pomade from the past, today men’s lifestyle nourishment centres around malls, clubs, spas, gyms, beauty clinics and hairdressers.
"It’s the world’s modernisation trend that demands men make themselves their own object of desire and pride."
Some women find that the metrosexual man is more tender hearted than his ‘ordinary’ counterpart. I am not surprised though, whose heart wouldn’t go to putty after constant pampering with lulur, or a traditional lightening body scrub, a wax here and there; oh, and don’t forget the cucumber patches to help maintain the shine of the window to his soul. Surely they’ll understand women’s feelings and how to treat them better after being treated like one. But how far can this metrosexuality go without mistakenly crossing to the other side...homosexuality?
With careful observation and a bit of extra common sense, you can spot the difference between these two types of vain men.
Ladies, you may want to take some notes if you think your boyfriends’ or husbands’ metrosexual-o-meter might have gone just a bit too far. Let’s explore how to tell when his dedicated urbaneness has taken a turn down bent street.
Is he really just a metrosexual? Or is he a bit metrosexual and a bit homosexual? Bare in mind, not all facts stated below are 100% guaranteed, but it helps to know if your guy prefers James Bond or Elton John.
If he’s often overly fussy, like a cockatoo, about aesthetics and behaviours (such as neatness, decoration or public services) or he gets hysterically happy receiving gifts related to body treatment products (such as body lotion, exclusive shaving cream and after shave, perfume, etc), there’s an 88% chance he’s homosexual.
Pay attention to the way he arrange his tops. Size wise, if it’s semi-fitted, that’s acceptably metrosexual, but if it’s so tight you can see the curves of his gym-toned body, he’s most likely pitching his tent for the gay camp.
Also watch if he pops the collar of his polo shirt, or ‘tries’ to look preppy by wrapping a sweater around his neck just for the heck of having a ‘focal point’, then he’s 99.5% gay. Flat front trousers serve both categories, they are the most commonly seen, but it’s just indicating a modern silhouette and should be considered standard for this matter.
Watch out for his selection of accessories. A metrosexual man will choose fashionable items that are rather functional and most importantly practical. If you see him carrying the ‘it’ tote bag (no matter if it’s made from canvas or crocodile leather), wearing shoes that are too pointy or too shiny, has reshaped eyebrows and flaunts coloured contact lens, I’m sorry ladies, you can say “buh-bye gay!” to him now.
Too much perfume can increase gayness 45%, but if you see any evidence of whitening cream or concealer in his toiletries, beware of the 80% possibility he prefers the company of gentlemen. A ‘Dragon Ball’ hairstyle indicates over the top funkiness, which is simply a style gone passe, but when it comes with bits of fringe and Liza Minelli sideburns, and especially if it has been highlighted here and there, then you’re looking at 92% chance he’s not just ‘with it’.
Shaved armpits sometime present cleanliness, but don’t you think it’s a bit girlie for guys? Don’t worry too much if he’s bulky on the top but has a pair of tooth picks for legs. It’s quite common for the metrosexual gym bunny to concentrate too much on the upper-body and forget to exercise the legs. Elements of pop culture can be expressed through a dashing of girlie colours on his shirt, tie or underwear and the appearance of dear cartoon character on his belongings can raise the queer factor 60%.
Last but not least, observe his so-called art collection, be it sculpture, painting or photography. If you find pieces inspired by the male body, then I rest my case right now. It’s the world’s modernisation trend that demands men make themselves their own object of desire and pride. But its their lifestyle orientation that causes us confusion in recognising which of them is straight, bisexual, or gay.
No matter if you have a low opinion of metrosexuals, who can hate them when everyone can enjoy the benefits? There’s less problems with men’s style, they smell good and neatness is not such an issue anymore. Not to mention the esthetics that delight our eyes. These are ‘bonus’ elements from just being plain macho.
Instead of sticking to the stereotypical old fashion man that can be dominating sometimes, perhaps you want to opt for metrosexual man who will probably just dominate your shelf space in your bathroom?
I know you wouldn’t mind sharing your feminine essentials with your metrosexual partner, so do the math, if his average percentage of H&M-esque is still below 50%, then you have nothing to worry about.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Ex-Brazilian cop questioned in death of 13 gays

SAO PAULO, Brazil A retired police officer has been detained in connection with the murders of 13 gay men in a low-income suburb of Sao Paulo, police said Thursday.

Retired state police Sgt. Jairo Francisco Franco was taken into custody Wednesday night after a witness identified him as the killer of a homosexual man on Aug. 19, said police inspector Paulo Fortunato.

Franco is suspected of acting alone in all of 13 killings between February 2007 and August 2008 at Paturis Park, a favorite meeting point for gay men, Fortunato said.

The suspect, who worked as a private security guard in a supermarket, has denied the charges, Fortunato said. He added that Franco did not yet have a lawyer.

"We have a credible witness who says he saw Franco pump 12 bullets into a black gay man inside the park," Fortunato said in a telephone interview.

A second witness said Franco visited the park frequently, "apparently cruising for gay men and victims," Fortunato said.

Police have dubbed the killer of the 13 men as the "rainbow maniac," a reference to the gay-pride symbol.

"We are convinced he is the rainbow maniac we have been looking for," Fortunato said.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

THE STATE MURDERS!

On Saturday December 6, 2008, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year old comrade, was murdered in cold blood, with a bullet in the chest by a cop in the area of Exarchia.

Contrary to the statements of politicians and journalists who are accomplices to the murder, this was not an “isolated incident”, but an explosion of the state repression which systematically and in an organised manner targets those who resist, those who revolt, the anarchists and antiauthoritarians.

It is the peak of state terrorism which is expressed with the upgrading of the role of repressive mechanisms, their continuous armament, the increasing levels of violence they use, with the doctrine of “zero tolerance”, with the slandering media propaganda that criminalises those who are fighting against authority.

It is these conditions that prepare the ground for the intensification of repression, attempting to extract social consent beforehand, and arming the weapons of state murderers in uniform!

Lethal violence against the people in the social and class struggle is aiming at everybody’s submission, serving as exemplary punishment, meant to spread fear.

It is part of the wider attack of the state and the bosses against the entire society, in order to impose more rigid conditions of exploitation and oppression, to consolidate control and repression. From school and universities to the dungeons of waged slavery with the hundreds of dead workers in the so-called “working accidents” and the poverty embracing large numbers of the population… From the minefields in the borders, the pogroms and the murders of immigrants and refugees to the numerous “suicides” in prisons and police stations… from the “accindental shootings” in police blockades to violent repression of local resistances, Democracy is showing its teeth!

From the first moment after the murder of Alexandros, spontaneous demonstrations and riots burst in the center of Athens, the Polytechnic, the Economic and the Law Schools are being occupied and attacks against state and capitalist targets take place in many different neighborhoods and in the city centre. Demonstrations, attacks and clashes erupt in Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos, Chania and Heraklion in Crete, in Giannena, Komotini and many more cities. In Athens, in Patission street –outside the Polytechnic and the Economic School- clashes last all night. Outside the Polytechnic the riot police make use of plastic bullets.

On Sunday the 7th December, thousands of people demonstrate towards the police headquarters in Athens, attacking the riot police. Clashes of unprecedented tension spread in the streets of the city centre, lasting until late at night. Many demonstrators are injured and a number of them are arrested.


We continue the occupation of the Polytechnic School which started on Saturday night, creating a space for all people who fighting to gather, and one more permanent focus of resistance in the city.

In the barricades, the university occupations, the demonstrations and the assemblies we keep alive the memory of Alexandros, but also the memory of Michalis Kaltezas and of all the comrades who were murdered by the state, strengthening the struggle for a world without masters and slaves, without police, armies, prisons and borders.

The bullets of the murderers in uniform, the arrests and beatings of demonstrators, the chemical gas war launched by the police forces, not only cannot manage to impose fear and silence, but they become for the people the reason to raise against state terrorism the cries of the struggle for freedom, to abandon fear and to meet –more and more every day- in the streets of revolt. To let the rage overflow and drown them!

STATE TERRORISM SHALL NOT PASS!

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ALL THE ARRESTED IN THE EVENTS OF SATURDAY AND SUNDAY (7-8 DECEMBER).

We are sending our solidarity to everyone occupying universities, demonstrating and clashing with the state murderers all over the country.

The Occupation of the Polytechnic University in Athens

Monday, December 8, 2008

Climate Change Conference -- Poznan

More than 190 countries meet in Poznan, Poland, for U.N.-sponsored climate change conference. Far-reaching plans to slash carbon-dioxide emissions may be put on the back-burner as countries try to face up to the financial meltdown.
What will the outcome be?

CHILE: Govt Plan Falls Short, Say Activists
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO - The Chilean government's 2008-2012 National Climate Change Action Plan presented by President Michelle Bachelet failed to satisfy local environmental and citizen groups.

COLOMBIA: Deforestation and Deluge, a Recipe for Disaster
Helda Martínez
BOGOTA - The lack of policies against indiscriminate deforestation in river basins, in synergy with the rainy season, which is heavier than usual this year because of the La Niña climate phenomenon, has had devastating effects in Colombia.

Q&A with Walden Bello: With Bush, "Nothing Good Is Going to Happen in Poznan"
Antonio Marafioti
VITERBO, Italy - With the United States represented by outgoing President George W. Bush, not much can be expected of the Dec. 1-12 international conference on climate change in the Polish city of Poznan, activist Walden Bello, winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize 2003, told IPS.

Native Peoples Out in Cold at Warming Meet
Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - Global efforts to combat climate change will lead nowhere as long as the indigenous peoples' representatives have no say in discussions to lay out future plans, say activists who are attending the
international conference on climate change being held in the Polish city of Poznan this week.

Read more reporting on Climate Change: http://www.ipsnews.net/climate_change/
Read reporting on storms: http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/eyestorm/index.asp

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

UN envoy hits Israel 'apartheid'

Alan Johnston, BBC News, Gaza

The envoy criticised Israeli controls on the movement of people
A UN human rights envoy has compared Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to elements of apartheid.

The UN's Special Rapporteur, John Dugard, describes the regime as being designed to dominate and systematically oppress the occupied population.

Mr Dugard is a South African professor of international law assigned to monitor Israeli human rights abuses.

He has extensively studied apartheid in South Africa and has compared it to what he saw under Israeli rule.

Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN secretary general to present reports on human rights to the organisation.

Throughout the West Bank ... settlers are given preferential treatment over Palestinians in terms of movement
John Dugard
UN human rights envoy

Their findings do not represent UN policy.

In a new report, Mr Dugard says: "Israel's laws and practices certainly resemble aspects of apartheid".

He points to what he describes as "unashamed discrimination" against Palestinians in favour of Israeli settlers.

"It is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination," says the report.

"House demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are carried out in a manner that discriminates against Palestinians.

"Throughout the West Bank, and particularly in Hebron, settlers are given preferential treatment over Palestinians in terms of movement (major roads are reserved exclusively for settlers), building rights and army protection and laws governing family re-unification".

A Palestinian man is arrested in Ramallah, West Bank
The report says Israeli practices are discriminatory against Palestinians
The report ranges widely over the events of the past year and focuses on the Israeli military assault on Gaza during the summer.

This came after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, who they are still holding.

The army also described its campaign as an effort to stop the firing of crudely-made rockets from Gaza into nearby Israeli towns and villages.

Militant groups like Islamic Jihad often describe these attacks as retaliation for army raids and killings.

During the reporting period, two Israelis died and 30 others were injured in these random Palestinian attacks on civilian targets, and Mr Dugard says that they clearly constitute war crimes.

'Controlled strangulation'

But his report also condemns the two Israeli offensives launched to counter the missile threat from Gaza.

Four hundred Palestinians died, and some 1,500 were injured - many of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers were killed.

Mr Dugard says that this was a "grossly disproportionate and indiscriminate" response that led to the army committing "multiple war crimes".

He also criticises the very tight controls that Israel maintains over the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza.

These add to the poverty-stricken territory's chronic economic problems - contributing to mounting levels of unemployment and desperation.

Mr Dugard says that Israel is imposing a policy of "controlled strangulation" that is helping to give rise to a failed state on its doorstep.

The Israelis argue that their border controls around Gaza are necessary for security reasons.

Militants have attacked crossing points in the past, and a suicide bomber recently emerged from Gaza and killed three civilians in the Israeli resort city of Eilat.

And more broadly, Israel has dismissed Mr Dugard's report as being one-sided.

A foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said that it was a product of what he called "rank politicisation" of the UN's human rights apparatus.

"This is the promoting of partisan, one-sided political attitudes which frankly don't serve the interests of anyone who is seriously interested in human rights," Mr Regev said.

BBC News, Gaza

A Palestinian man passes Israeli security near the al-Aqsa mosque
The envoy criticised Israeli controls on the movement of people
A UN human rights envoy has compared Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to elements of apartheid.

The UN's Special Rapporteur, John Dugard, describes the regime as being designed to dominate and systematically oppress the occupied population.

Mr Dugard is a South African professor of international law assigned to monitor Israeli human rights abuses.

He has extensively studied apartheid in South Africa and has compared it to what he saw under Israeli rule.

Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN secretary general to present reports on human rights to the organisation.

Throughout the West Bank ... settlers are given preferential treatment over Palestinians in terms of movement
John Dugard
UN human rights envoy

Their findings do not represent UN policy.

In a new report, Mr Dugard says: "Israel's laws and practices certainly resemble aspects of apartheid".

He points to what he describes as "unashamed discrimination" against Palestinians in favour of Israeli settlers.

"It is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination," says the report.

"House demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are carried out in a manner that discriminates against Palestinians.

"Throughout the West Bank, and particularly in Hebron, settlers are given preferential treatment over Palestinians in terms of movement (major roads are reserved exclusively for settlers), building rights and army protection and laws governing family re-unification".

A Palestinian man is arrested in Ramallah, West Bank
The report says Israeli practices are discriminatory against Palestinians
The report ranges widely over the events of the past year and focuses on the Israeli military assault on Gaza during the summer.

This came after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, who they are still holding.

The army also described its campaign as an effort to stop the firing of crudely-made rockets from Gaza into nearby Israeli towns and villages.

Militant groups like Islamic Jihad often describe these attacks as retaliation for army raids and killings.

During the reporting period, two Israelis died and 30 others were injured in these random Palestinian attacks on civilian targets, and Mr Dugard says that they clearly constitute war crimes.

'Controlled strangulation'

But his report also condemns the two Israeli offensives launched to counter the missile threat from Gaza.

Four hundred Palestinians died, and some 1,500 were injured - many of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers were killed.

Mr Dugard says that this was a "grossly disproportionate and indiscriminate" response that led to the army committing "multiple war crimes".

He also criticises the very tight controls that Israel maintains over the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza.

These add to the poverty-stricken territory's chronic economic problems - contributing to mounting levels of unemployment and desperation.

Mr Dugard says that Israel is imposing a policy of "controlled strangulation" that is helping to give rise to a failed state on its doorstep.

The Israelis argue that their border controls around Gaza are necessary for security reasons.

Militants have attacked crossing points in the past, and a suicide bomber recently emerged from Gaza and killed three civilians in the Israeli resort city of Eilat.

And more broadly, Israel has dismissed Mr Dugard's report as being one-sided.

A foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said that it was a product of what he called "rank politicisation" of the UN's human rights apparatus.

"This is the promoting of partisan, one-sided political attitudes which frankly don't serve the interests of anyone who is seriously interested in human rights," Mr Regev said.