June 22, 2020

Iran's 'Ancient Sport' Not A Man's World Anymore

Iran's "ancient sport" -- or "varzesh bastani" -- a traditional form of athletics that combines elements of Islam and ancient Persian beliefs, has long been a male-only domain.

But not so much anymore. In recent years, an increasing number of women have taken on the discipline.

The sport is also referred to as "varzesh pahlavani," meaning the sport of heroes. It includes strength exercises, wrestling, and Sufi-like whirling to the sound of drumbeats and epic poems recited by the so-called "morshed" -- a master who leads the rituals inside a traditional gym known as "zurkhaneh," or "house of strength."

Now women are facing opposition from those who claim that varzesh bastani and zurkhaneh belong to men and that the presence of women violates its sanctity.

Those critics say only men should be allowed to perform the ancient rituals believed to have been originally aimed at training warriors and instilling them with a code of ethics.

https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-ancient-sport-not-a-mans-world-anymore/30677598.html

June 22, 2020

Armenian Court Denies Request To Arrest Opposition Leader

An Armenian court has rejected a petition by investigators to arrest the leader of the country’s main opposition party, who faces charges of making election bribes and vote buying.

The court's June 21 decision came five days after parliament stripped Gagik Tsarukian of his immunity, opening the door for his prosecution and arrest.

A wealthy businessman, Tsarukian heads the Prosperous Armenia Party, the largest opposition faction in the National Assembly, holding 25 of the chamber's 132 seats.

The case stems from allegations of vote buying in the 2017 general elections, allegations that Tsarukian and members of his political team have called politically motivated.

https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-court-denies-request-to-arrest-oppostion-leader/30682878.html

June 22, 2020

Kids With No Name: Kazakh Lawyer Describes Horrific Plight Of Children With Special Needs

Kazakhstan's state-run centers for children with special needs are being described by activists as "the place no one would have stayed" if they had a choice.

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Kazakh activist and attorney Aigul Shakibaeva told RFE/RL after visiting several of the state-run facilities that children are being dehumanized by horrific living conditions.

"Instead of their own names, children have numbers on their beds and clothes," said Shakibaeva, a lawyer for the nonprofit Commission To Defend the Rights of People With Special Needs.

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"The moment you enter the wards for children with mental disabilities in any Kazakh province, you see a scary situation," she says. "Children are medicated with psychotropic drugs. Their tongues are sticking out and their eyes are out of focus."

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Parents often decide to abandon babies with disabilities before leaving hospital maternity wards, signing away their parental rights when they discover their newborn is disabled.

https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-special-needs-children-lawyer-shakibaeva-horrific-plight-human-rights-watch/30682716.html

June 20, 2020

5 Stories from Europe You May Have Missed

1. More Than 100 Opposition Supporters Detained In Belarus After Lukashenka Says He Stopped 'Revolution'

MINSK -- Police in Belarus have detained more than 100 people at opposition rallies in the capital, Minsk, and elsewhere after President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced his government had thwarted a "revolution" amid a widening crackdown on opposition leaders and activists, including the arrest of a potential presidential challenger.

People were urged to turn out on June 19, the last day to sign ballot petitions for those seeking to run in the Belarusian presidential election on August 9, when Lukashenka, 65, will be seeking a sixth term in office.

Lukashenka, in power since 1994, is facing what experts say is his biggest challenge yet as the country struggles to contain the coronavirus after the president ignored calls to institute any social distancing measures or restrictions.

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Elsewhere, police threatened protesters in the city of Mahilau with force, while in Homel demonstrators were told their gathering was illegal, according to local media.

https://www.rferl.org/a/more-than-100-oppositionists-detained-in-belarus-after-lukashenka-says-he-stopped-revolution-/30681302.html


2. Coronavirus: Applications for Hungarian army soar as youngsters seek stable job amid economic crisis

Young Hungarians are turning to the army to make a living amid the economic downturn caused by COVID-19.

Applications have "doubled" since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Major Tamas Durgo, in charge for the national recruitment, and the Defence Ministry said some 2,500 requests were submitted last week only.

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As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, it could now contract by 8% this year - or even 10%, in case of a second wave, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

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So far, Hungary, a country of nearly 10 million people, has recorded over 4,000 cases and more than 570 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/06/20/coronavirus-applications-for-hungarian-army-soar-as-youngsters-seek-stable-job-amid-econom

3. Rogue Russian Priest Seizes Convent With Cossack Brigade, Sparking Public Showdown With Church

MOSCOW -- The Russian Orthodox Church is struggling to wrest back control of a convent in the Urals after a cleric it suspended for disobeying its coronavirus-prevention policies occupied the compound with help from Cossack guards.

Father Sergiy Romanov, the abbot of a nearby men’s monastery who has praised Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and called the coronavirus a Western plot, commenced the standoff with church authorities on June 16 after he took over the Sredneuralsk Women’s Monastery and called on his followers to join him.

Local media reported that a group of Cossacks, members of a paramilitary group with deep historical roots in Russia, surrounded the convent until its abbess and nuns decided to vacate it.

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Romanov is a prominent figure among the faithful in and around Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, where some consider him a spiritual leader of the Tsarebozhniki, a breakaway sect of the Orthodox Church whose adherents worship Nicholas II, the last tsar, as a saint who suffered a martyr's death for them, and advocate a return to monarchy. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized the last tsar and his family in 2000, but not as martyrs killed for their faith.

https://www.rferl.org/a/rogue-russian-priest-seizes-convent-with-cossack-brigade-sparking-public-showdown-with-church/30678343.html

4. No breakthrough as EU divisions remain over €750bn COVID-19 recovery plan

European leaders are no closer to agreeing on a COVID-19 recovery package.

On the table is an ambitious plan of shared debt totalling €750bn, mostly through loans to help out those hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

But Europe is divided on the issue.

On one side, the EU's four biggest economies — Germany, France, Italy and Spain — who back the European Commission's plan and four nations who don’t, the so-called "frugal four": Austria, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/06/18/will-european-leaders-agree-a-covid-19-recovery-plan-on-friday

5. European Lawmakers Call For Eastern Partners' Greater Integration

European lawmakers are calling for the creation of a "common economic space" between the EU and the six former Soviet republics of its Eastern Partnership program as part of a process of "gradual integration" into the bloc.

The European Parliament made the call in a report supported on June 19 by 507 MEPs, with 119 voting against and 37 abstaining.

The document is supposed to serve as the chamber’s wish list about the future of the Eastern Partnership program, which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The program, launched in 2009, is meant to bring the six former Soviet republics closer to the EU without clearly offering future membership.

https://www.rferl.org/a/european-lawmakers-eastern-partners-greater-integration/30680511.html

June 19, 2020

Why Credit Cards Are A Scam - Honest Ads

June 18, 2020

In Photos: What Was Life Really Like In The U.S.S.R.? (8 pics)

https://www.rferl.org/a/photographs-shot-by-soviet-engineer-show-the-harsh-reality-of-life-in-the-ussr/30675553.html

Valeriy Reshetnyak led a double life during the Soviet era. Officially, he was an engineer in Kyiv. But in his spare time, he photographed ordinary people in the Soviet Union.

"None of my coworkers knew what I was doing. It was a kind of dissent,” says Reshetnyak.

He knew that his photos would not be printed or exhibited anywhere while the Soviet system was firmly in place.

“I naively thought that one day people would look at my photos and reflect on their lives, but I was wrong," Reshetnyak says.


A village teacher returning home from school in the Sumy Oblast.


On the left is the 'elite' passenger transport. Only the head of the collective farm or local Communist Party 'princes' could ride in such sledges. Ordinary people were only allowed to use the sleds at critical moments like carrying a patient to the hospital.


Children were constantly prepared for war -- this was the basis of Soviet ideological education.


All of the people in this photo apparently survived the famine of 1932-33. During the Soviet era, the Holodomor was spoken about only among one’s closest companions. My father and a colleague told me how they were almost killed and eaten by a local cannibal.


A father with his two sons and wife. The lives of village women were harsher than that of men. Both the responsibilities of the household, and for the work in the fields, lay on the women’s shoulders.


The last inhabitants of a ‘liquidated’ village in Belarus.


Most of the workers came from villages and didn’t have their own housing. Soviet organizations built cheap housing for them


Locals waiting outside a government office in Lviv for a ‘reception’ with local officials.

June 18, 2020

Meet the 1-45-2 Battle Creek Rumble Bees, the worst team in professional hockey

More than 120 teams played professional hockey in North America during the 2019-20 season. List them in order of total games won and scroll down, all the way to the bottom, and you'll find a team called the Battle Creek Rumble Bees.

Their 1-45-2 record looks like a mistake in the standings for the Federal Prospects Hockey League (FPHL), which represents the lowest rung of professional hockey in the U.S. But it's real. And the club based in Battle Creek, Michigan, didn't just forfeit a bunch of games. The first-year team really played 48 times, and it really did lose 47 of them (45 in regulation, two in overtime).

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You have to dig pretty deep into the record books to find a hockey team with fewer wins. That distinction belongs to the 1948-49 Windsor (Ontario) Ryancretes, who went 0-25-6 in the now-defunct International Hockey League. But the Ryancretes at least collected six points in the standings, one for each tie. The Rumble Bees finished this season with just five points, thanks to a three-point regulation win and one point in each of their two overtime losses, despite playing 17 more games than the Ryancretes did during their winless season. That pretty much solidifies Battle Creek as the worst team in the history of modern professional hockey.

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Those who did show up, however, were passionate. That included, and was perhaps epitomized by, Jeff and Tracey Harinck. All too excited to have a professional team they both could support, the Harincks were among the Rumble Bees' most dedicated fans. So much so that they occasionally cooked dinners for players, one night going through six pot roasts with nary a scrap left. Jeff called the Battle Creek players "very outgoing" and said they "would talk to anyone and were happy with what they were doing."

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29317816/meet-1-45-2-battle-creek-rumble-bees-worst-team-professional-hockey

I do feel badly for people like the Harinicks who got behind the team 100%.
But some games only about 400 people showed up for the game
So, the team has folded

June 16, 2020

Ted Cruz: Let you and him fight

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) challenged actor Ron Perlman to a wrestling match against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday, with Cruz predicting the "Sons of Anarchy" and "Hellboy" star couldn't last five minutes with the former collegiate athlete and coach.

The challenge came after Perlman and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got into a Twitter spat over U.S. Soccer removing a requirement to stand during the national anthem before matches, which included Perlman calling Jordan "the ugliest politician walking.”

"Listen Hellboy. You talk good game when you’ve got Hollywood makeup & stuntmen," Cruz tweeted. "But I’ll bet $10k—to the nonpolitical charity of your choice—that you couldn’t last 5 min in the wrestling ring w/ @Jim_Jordan w/o getting pinned. You up for it? Or does your publicist say too risky?"

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Tweet back at cruz from Perlman
I tell you what teddy boy, since mentioning jim jordan and wrestling is... problematic, why don’t we say fuck him and just make it you & me. I’ll give 50k to Black Lives Matter and you can keep all the tax payer money you were thinking of spending.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/502747-ted-cruz-challenges-actor-ron-perlman-to-wrestle-jim-jordan-after-attack-on

Manly there Ted. I challenge you and another guy to fight each other

June 10, 2020

Faces Of The Balkans, 100 Years Ago (9 photos)

https://www.rferl.org/a/large-format-portraits-from-the-balkans-made-after-world-war-1/30661345.html




American photographer Lewis Hine (left) with other members of a U.S. Red Cross expedition in November 1918 before they set off on a years long assignment to make “a survey of actual needs existing in the various countries where the American Red Cross is engaged.”





Serbian Boy Scout



Albanians In Their Own Land



A Little Blonde-Haired Montenegrin Waif Picked Up On The Road: The little girl lost her parents during the war and had been begging by day and living with 31 other waifs in a cave near Podgorica.



Balkan Travel



Princess Ileana Of Romania



A Typical Gypsy Girl In The Balkans



War Veteran At The Age Of 12: This boy was [five years old] when he lost his arm in the Balkan War of 1912. That year he appeared in the town of Tirana with one arm a stump; a refugee from a fighting area in the hills some miles away. The Balkan villagers took pity on him when they found him fighting with the street dogs for scraps of food. When the Junior Red Cross came to Tirana they found a home for the youngster, who is now 12 years of age and a veteran of two wars.

June 10, 2020

Panthers cut ties with CPI Security after CEO's comments on police brutality

The Carolina Panthers have terminated their partnership with Charlotte-based CPI Security, the team announced Saturday night, in the wake of comments by the company's founder and CEO downplaying police brutality against people of color.

Ken Gill's comments came in response to an open letter sent by Jorge Millares, the executive director of local community group Queen City Unity, to city leaders calling for police reform.

"Please spend your time in a more productive way. I challenge your statistics," Gill wrote in his emailed reply to Millares, a screenshot of which was posted to the organization's website. "A better use of time, would be to focus on the black on black crime and senseless killing of our young men by other young men."

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Gill later apologized for his comments in a statement, noting that they "did not directly address the public's outcry for racial justice and equality in the wake of George Floyd's senseless killing."

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29276795/panthers-cut-ties-cpi-security-ceo-comments-police-brutality

Lest you think Gill maybe serious in his contriteness
It came after all of these teams and schools cut ties:
The Carolina Panthers
The Charlotte Hornets
The Charlotte Knights (Minor League Baseball)
The Durham Bulls (Minor League Baseball)
The Columbia Fireflies (Minor League Baseball)
North Carolina State University
South Carolina State

I am guessing, it came when he watched his bottom line take a shelling.

I cannot find whether they are partnered with either the Hurricanes, Duke University or the Univ of North Carolina