April 14, 2016

Same Sex Marriage In China And A Russian Flyby

THE WORLD IN A NUTSHELL

APRIL 14, 2016 / SUBSCRIBE

PNUT GALLERY

Nobody is having a better week than I nky, the octopus who slipped out of his aquarium tank, slid across the floor and escaped down a drain pipe into the ocean.

IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ
China Court Refuses To Allow Gay Marriage In Landmark Case Although hundreds of LGBT campaigners gathered outside a courthouse during the country’s first ever same-sex marriage case, yesterday marked a major defeat when a Chinese judge rejected a gay couple the right to marry. Sun Wenlin and his partner Hu Mingliang had sued the civil affairs bureau in the city of Changsha for marriage rights after authorities refused to officially recognize their wedding last June. Although China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, a recent study shows that 67% of Chinese doctors still believe homosexuality is a trait that can be reversed, with many continuing to prescribe electric shock treatments to “cure” homosexuals. Russian Pilots Channel Their Inner Tom Cruise In ‘Top Gun’ Maneuver Two unarmed Russian warplanes conducted a series of low-altitude aggressive flybys over a US destroyer in the Baltic Sea. US-Russian relations have been increasingly tense ever since Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in early 2014. Since then, Russian jets violated Baltic airspace and sent a sub in a “Hunt for Red October” style mission into Swedish waters (no joke, while looking for it they found another 99-year old Russian sub).

The US has responded by upping military aid to Eastern European allies and introducing sanctions against key Russian regime members. Nothing like celebrating a #throwbackthursday with reliving the Cold War. PNUT READ: Everything You Need To Know About Vladimir Putin

NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ

French PM Calls For Ban On Islamic Headscarves At Universities French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stirred up controversy when he suggested Islamic headscarves be banned from universities. Valls lamented that “there are constitutional rules that make this prohibition difficult,” no doubt saddened that democracy doesn’t let him enforce a dress code on women. France hasn’t had much issue with banning religious expression in the past. But now university students are voicing their outrage on Twitter, arguing that France has #RealUniversityProblems, such as overcrowding and underfunding, that are more important than what women are wearing.

Verizon’s Employees: We Never Stop Striking For You After failing to reach a new labor agreement, over 36,000 Verizon workers walked off the job in what the US Bureau of Labor Statistics believes is the largest strike in the United States since the last time Verizon workers had to strike in 2011. The laundry list of complaints against Verizon includes their outsourcing of thousands of jobs, as well as their hiring of low-wage, non-union workers. It might be a good time to change their tagline, “We Never Stop Working For You,” as it has now become an ominous description of their long-hour, low-wage strategy for hiring. UK Companies Are Accused Of Terrifying Labor Abuses In Qatar Balfour Beatty and Interserve, two of the UK’s largest construction companies, have been accused of major labor abuses against migrant workers in Qatar. The abuses include everything from passport confiscation to debt bondage. Both companies are denying that they retained passports as a way of restricting workers’ movements. Instead, they claim they were just holding the passports for them, as if that were a common thing for employers to do. It’s worth noting that earlier this month, a clause in the UK’s Modern Slavery Act came into effect that would require these two companies to outline their supply chain actions in the Gulf. Keeping Our Eye On…

Myanmar: A 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar at a depth of 135 kilometers (83 miles). While many panicked in the nearby city of Yangon, authorities there said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
Lebanon: An Australian “60 Minutes” television crew has been charged with kidnapping two children, ages four and six, who were living in Beirut. The charges carry possible jail sentences up to 20 years.
San Francisco: Peter Berkowitz, the man who was living in a wooden box for $400 a month, has been forced to vacate. Turns out the sad but believable solution to SF’s housing crisis was illegal.

LOOSE NUTS: FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT

Ted Cruz Hates Dildos So Much He Tried To Ban ThemThere was a time when Ted Cruz fought to keep sex toys illegal in Texas. We’re not kidding. He defended an anti-dildo campaign in 2003, where his legal team stated that there was no right “to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.” Always focused on the issues that matter, a brief from Cruz’s office went so far as to compare the use of sex toys to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy.” Luckily for us, Cruz’s anti-masturbation policies have compelled his former college roommate to accuse him of hypocrisy in a tweet that was major TMI. Let’s just say that in college, Cruz was known as a chronic wanker, in both the literal and figurative sense.