More carmakers caught in headlights of VW engine-rigging scandal

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Volkswagen has admitted it installed illegal software into 11 million 2.0 liter and 3.0 liter diesel engines worldwide (AFP Photo/Josh Edelson)

Volkswagen emissions scandal

Iran's 'catastrophic mistake': Speculation, pressure, then admission

Iran's 'catastrophic mistake': Speculation, pressure, then admission
Analsyts say it is irresponsible to link the crash of a Ukraine International Airline Boeing 737-800 to the 737 MAX accidents (AFP Photo/INA FASSBENDER)

Missing MH370 likely to have disintegrated mid-flight: experts

Missing MH370 likely to have disintegrated mid-flight: experts
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 commercial jet.

QZ8501 (AirAsia)

Leaders see horror of French Alps crash as probe gathers pace

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Friday, October 25, 2013

Saudi women inching closer ever to the wheel

Google – AFP, Acil Tabbara (AFP), 23 October 2013

Saudi activist Manal Al Sharif, who now lives in Dubai, drives her car in the Gulf 
Emirate city on October 22, 2013, as she campagins in solidarity with Saudi women
 preparing to take to the wheel on October 26, defying the Saudi authorities (AFP/File,
Marwan Naamani)

Dubai — Saudi female activists are gearing up to test a long-standing driving ban, with more defiant women already getting behind the wheel as the authorities seem to be taking a more lenient approach.

Under the slogan "women's driving is a choice," they have called on social networks for a turn-out on Saturday in a campaign in the world's only country that bans women from driving.

"October 26 is a day on which women in Saudi Arabia will say they are serious about driving and that this matter must be resolved," said Manal al-Sharif, who was arrested and held for nine days in May 2011 for posting online a video of herself behind the wheel.

In a protest she led the following month, a number of women were stopped by police and forced to sign a pledge not to drive again.

The 34-year-old computer engineer who now lives in Dubai told AFP women have already begun responding to the call, and "more than 50 videos showing women currently driving" have been posted online during the past two weeks.

Saudi activist Manal Al Sharif, who now lives in Dubai, drives
her car in the Gulf Emirate city on October 22, 2013, as she
campagins in solidarity with Saudi women preparing to take
to the wheel on October 26 (AFP, Marwan Naamani)
With the exception of two women who were briefly stopped by police, authorities have so far not intervened to halt any of the female motorists.

This, combined with what seems to be more social acceptance to the new phenomenon is encouraging more women to get behind the wheel along major roads across the kingdom.

A video posted on social networks this month shows a fully veiled woman driving in Riyadh as male motorists and families give her the "thumbs up" in support.

"There will be a November 26, December 26, a January 26, until authorities issue the first driving permit to a Saudi woman," said Sharif.

To reduce the risk of accidents, only women who have driving licences issued abroad are being invited to participate in the campaign. Obviously, none are issued in Saudi Arabia.

Dangerous for the ovaries?

But conservative religious figures are still opposed to women driving.

A Saudi cleric's warning last month that driving was dangerous to the health of women and of their children sparked an online wave of mockery.

"Physiological science" has found that driving "automatically affects the ovaries and pushes up the pelvis," Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaydan warned in remarks to news website Sabq.org.

"This is why we find that children born to most women who continuously drive suffer from clinical disorders of varying degrees," he said.

One female tweeter retorted: "When idiocy marries dogma in the chapel of medieval traditions, this is their prodigal child."

"What a mentality we have. People went to space and you still ban women from driving. Idiots," said another comment.

Women who have been calling for three decades for the right to drive in the ultra-conservative kingdom have learned that public gatherings can get them in trouble in the absolute monarchy where any protests are officially banned.

In 1990, 47 women were arrested and punished after demonstrating in cars. The minister of interior subsequently banned women from driving but no law was ever promulgated.

This time, "there will be no demonstrations or rallying points," activist Aziza al-Youssef told AFP.

Youssef spoke of "positive indications" from authorities. In particular, she cited the chief of the notorious religious police, Sheikh Abdullatif al-Sheikh, and Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa affirming this year that no religious text bans women from driving.

Even so, Saudi Arabia's appointed advisory Shura Consultative Council rejected on October 10 a move by three female members to put the ban up for discussion.

Activists argue that driving does not violate Islamic law (sharia) as claimed by conservatives who support the ban.

"Just as wives of the (Muslim) Prophet (Mohammed's) companions travelled on camel and horseback, it is our right to drive using the transportation means available during our modern era," activists said in an online petition linked to Saturday's campaign.

The petition has amassed more than 16,000 signatures since September, despite being blocked only two weeks after its launch.

In another argument, activists point to the kingdom's underdeveloped public transport system and say many families cannot afford to hire drivers.

"My salary is 3,500 riyals (around $941/682 euros) and a driver costs me 1,200 riyals," a divorced mother wrote on the campaign website.

Women's rights have always sparked controversy in the kingdom.

King Abdullah's appointment of 30 women to the 150-member Shura Council in January drew protests from radical clerics in the kingdom.

His predecessor, king Saud, had to dispatch troops to protect the first girls' school in the 1960s.

For Sharif the campaign aims to push women in the kingdom to demand "rights which are even more significant than the right to drive."

Diplomats at a UN review of Saudi Arabia's human rights record on Monday condemned the kingdom's failure to abolish a system requiring women to seek permission from male relatives to do basic things such as leave the country, and criticised the ban on driving.

Saudi women, forced to cover from head to toe, still need permission from a male guardian to travel, work and marry.



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