The decision permits Niakan to study the embryos for 14 days for research purposes only. It does not permit them to be implanted into women. Niakan’s research is aimed at finding the genes at play in the early days of human fertilisation.
The decision was greeted positively by the Francis Crick Institute and British scientists but was met with anger and disqmay by those concerned that rapid advances in the field of genome editing is precluding proper consideration of the ethical implications.
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016
Ian Millhiser, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Editor of ThinkProgress Justice - Think Progress
Stephan: You can't say we weren't warned.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Lochner v. New York is one of the Supreme Court’s great anti-precedents. Typically taught in law schools as an example of how judges should not behave, Lochner rested on a fabricated “right to contract” that, in effect, gave employers broad license to exploit their workers. The so-called right invented in Lochner and similar cases later formed the basis for decisions striking down the minimum wage and laws protecting workers’ right to organize.
Speaking at Brandeis University last Thursday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a warning that Lochner may not be as much of a relic of the past as it is often presented in legal textbooks.
I was reminded of Lochner reading some decisions of the Court concerning workers, consumers, credit card holders who signed agreements saying “if you have a dispute with us, you can bring it only in arbitration — not in court — and you cannot use the class action device. You must sue for your individual claim, which […]
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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016
Kit O'Connell, - Mint Press News
Stephan: After you have read this story when you next use your iPhone, or computer pause a moment and consider the children described in this report. This will not change without citizen outcry in the consumer countries.
KINSHASA, CONGO — In recent years, activists and independent media have brought attention to “conflict minerals,” key components in technology that are often sourced from war-torn countries. And a recent report from a major human rights group sounds the alarm on a largely overlooked metal that’s being mined by thousands of children and underpaid adults in Africa.
Amnesty International issued the results of its detailed investigation into the sourcing of cobalt, a rare metal that forms a crucial ingredient of lithium-based rechargeable batteries, in a Jan. 19 report. According to the authors, more than half the world’s cobalt comes from Congo, including at least 20 percent which comes from so-called “artisanal miners” in the southern part of the country.
“These artisanal miners, referred to as ‘creuseurs’ in the DRC, mine by hand using the most basic tools to dig out rocks from tunnels deep underground,” according to the report, “This Is What We Die For.” “Artisanal miners include children as young as seven who scavenge for rocks containing cobalt in the discarded by-products of industrial mines, and who wash and sort the ore before it is sold.”
Most of the cobalt is resold to corporations by Congo Dongfang Mining International, a […]
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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016
Maajid Nawaz, Co-Founder and Chairman of Quilliam – a globally active think tank focusing on matters of Integration, Citizenship & Identity, Religious Freedom, Extremism and Immigration - The Daily Beast
Stephan: This horrible report is the story of a country in the grip of religious fundamentalism. It is another example of why I believe religious fundamentalism of whatever stripe -- Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, whatever -- is the most dangerous toxic social force in the world today; a mental illness manifesting in a religious context and using religious language.
Do I need to mention that Pakistan is a nuclear power?
LONDON — Somewhere in the world there is a Muslim-majority country in which a 15-year-old boy accidentally raised his hand to answer the wrong question at a religious sermon. The boy said yes, when he meant to say no.
His religious instructor, his mullah, had been asking, “Who among you loves their prophet?” All present raised their hands. The mullah then followed with another question: “Who among you doesn’t believe in the teachings of the Holy Prophet? Raise your hands!”
The boy thought he was answering the first question again. He stuck his right hand up in pride. Yes. Yes, I love my prophet, he thought. But to the poor boy’s horror, the mullah had asked the question in the negative. Upon realizing his mistake, which I remind you was raising his hand too quickly, the boy was told before 100 worshippers that he had committed blasphemy. He was mortified.
The boy promptly departed that day and walked home. All along the way he must have been thinking about his mistake. Had his hand exposed him as an apostate by bearing false witness against […]
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Britain’s first genetically modified human embryos could be created within months, after scientists were granted permission by the fertility regulator to carry out the procedure.
