Trainers accused of Racism
Sportswear giant Adidas is facing complaints over a new trainer that some say features a racist cartoon image.
The offending footwear includes a yellow picture of an Asian youth with bowl-cut hair, pig nose and buck teeth.
Asian-American groups have complained that the picture on the shoe’s tongue portrays an anti-Asian stereotype.
Adidas said it had intended no offence. The image was designed by US graffiti artist Barry McGee who has previously used it in an anti-racist commentary.
More Blacks needed for ski resorts
[Will they do the same for white basketball players-ed]
Skiers cut through a fresh dusting of snow, their skis hissing softly against the powder as they crisscross down the slopes, then grinding to halt at the icy base of the Sierra Summit resort where Richard Shimizu is taking a break.
Although the ski resort is in Fresno County, where almost half the population is made up of minorities, most people crunching past Shimizu in their ski boots are white. It’s a scene repeated in ski resorts across the country, where only three out of 20 skiers or snowboarders is a minority, according to marketing researchers.
“You see some Asian people sometimes, but few blacks and few Hispanics,” said Shimizu, who is Japanese-American. “It’s changing, but still there’s a big difference. We used to never think about things like ethnicity. Now people pay more attention.”
After years of stagnation in the 1990s, when the number of days skiers and ‘boarders spent on the slopes stayed the same even as the population grew, some resorts are trying to attract ethnic groups not traditionally tied to the sport, hoping to tap into a growing market segment.
As the nation’s demographic profile changes, the industry’s future lies in part in its ability to reach kids whose parents don’t ski — and who may have never seen snow before, said Bill Jensen, an executive with Vail Resorts Inc. and incoming chairman of the National Ski Areas Association, which represents 332 alpine resorts.
Father mutilates little daughter’s genitals with pair of scissors
A seven-year-old girl whose father is on trial for circumcising her when she was two years old has testified that she remembers when her father cut her.
The girl took the stand Wednesday in Gwinnett County Superior Court and told prosecutors her father “cut me on my private part” while she was in her bedroom. The girl clutched a teddy bear as she testified.
Khalid Adem is on trial on charges that he circumcised the girl.
20% S African Women Raped At Least Once
This is not surprising at all. Its a sick country. I wonder what percentage of rapes are committed by BLACK MALES, because my bet is, you’ll see they commit about 90% or more of the rapes in this country
Almost a fifth of South African men have raped a woman at least once in their lives, the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) has disclosed in releasing its annual report.
The MRC’s Gender and Health Research Unit interviewed 1 370 men between the ages of 15 and 26 about sexual violence towards women.
About eight percent of respondents reported having been sexually violent towards their intimate partner, while 16.3 percent reported raping a non-partner or participating in some form of gang-rape.
‘We have to teach boys and men to respect women’
Also noted was an overlap of 44 percent of men raping non-partners and intimate partners. The mean age at which respondents first raped a woman was 17.
UK: Outrage as police spend £450m on ‘equality and diversity’
Scotland Yard has spent almost £450 million on promoting ‘equality and diversity’ in the past three years. In the past year alone £187 million – six per cent of the Met budget – went on ‘equalities-related expenditure’.
This included recruitment, training and research within minority communities, as well as crime fighting and prevention.
It covered not just race issues, but those of gender, faith, disability, age and sexuality. Since 2003, more than £21million has been spent on interpreters’ fees.
However, new figures show the number of race-discrimination claims against officers made by colleagues or the public rose by 24 per cent from 259 in 2003/4 to 320 in 2005/6.
This week, in the latest case, Pc Wayne Bell was ordered to resign for making monkey noises at a suspect in custody at Plumstead police.
‘I prefer white men’s country’
Saint Louis – “If they had left me in the white men’s country, I was going to grow up, play with my friends, study, work and return to Senegal with lots of money to help my family”, regrets young Ismaila, timidly looking at his illegal migrant father.
Nine-year-old Ismaila Diop, repatriated from Spain last week, was the youngest of several thousands of Senegalese illegal migrants flown back over the past month from the Spanish Canary islands under a provisional deal between Madrid and Dakar.
Accompanied by his father, Alioune Diop, 31, Ismaila came awkwardly down the steps of the Spanish-chartered plane. His appearance caused a stir among the airport workers, medical staff and security forces awaiting the returnees.
Racist gang attacker of lifesavers gets community service!
[Note how he is smiling!-ed]
A man involved in a fight with Cronulla lifesavers that sparked last year’s ethnic riots in Sydney’s south has been found guilty of assault and sentenced to 300 hours of community service.
Ali Osman, 18, of Bankstown, was reprimanded by Sutherland Local Court magistrate Jacqueline Trad, herself of Lebanese heritage, for not respecting the sacrifices made by people who migrated to Australia over the years to flee intolerance.
“By your conduct you have turned your back on your family, your culture and your real country – all for the sake of some juvenile, impulsive and misplaced allegiance,” she said.
She said the non-custodial sentence would help him re-engage with the community.
Osman had pleaded not guilty to charges of affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Cronulla protester given 12 months
A CRONULLA rioter who wore an inflammatory singlet while attacking Lebanese Muslims has been jailed for 12 months.
Marcus Kapitza, 28, had been on bail while appealing the sentence given to him by a Sutherland Local Court magistrate – and NSW District Court judge Peter Berman upheld the decision today.
“The appellant was a willing and indeed keen participant in these disgraceful events,” Judge Berman told the court.
France Prepares 50,000 Riot Police for Muslim Attacks
As America prepares for Halloween, France is girding for a wave of attacks from Muslim youths—a reprise of the deadly French riots of last year.
A leaked French intelligence report warns that during the first week of November, a school holiday (Nov. 1 or All Saint’s Day), Muslim riots could convulse the country.
On Monday, Le Figaro, the leading center-right newspaper in the country, quoted a confidential report written by the Renseignements Généraux (RG), the French equivalent of the FBI. The 17-page RG report, dated 11 October, states that the root causes of last year’s riots are still in place. The authorities are especially concerned with All Saints Day when “many urban youths are left to their own and have more time to cause unrest.”
Not that France has been a peace since last year’s riots. In the past few weeks alone, several policemen were ambushed by youths who seemed intent on killing them. In response, the French Interior Ministry asked the police to keep a low profile and not to show themselves in the Muslim suburbs in order to avoid tension.
Since appeasement alone is not a strategy. French authorities are keeping a force of some 50,000 riot police in permanent stand-by. A ministry spokesman said it is important to find “the good balance: not overreact to the situation, but at the same time, not underestimate it either.”
A local prefect (a provincial governor) added: “In case of trouble, we will have to be able to control events for a prolonged period without running out of forces.”
Last year’s intifada lasted three weeks. It petered out when the authorities asked the media to stop devoting attention to the riots.
The situation, however, never returned to normal. Unless one considers (as some French officials seem to do) the current situation as “normal.” In the first six months of this year there were 50,000 acts of urban violence by Muslims. On average 15 police officers, fire fighters or other public officials are attacked per day and 100 cars are set alight per night.
Gangs of immigrant vandals operate in a paramilitary fashion. A spokesman for the French police officers union, himself a policeman, has that France is in the midst of a “civil war.”