Free Republic

Genetically screening our offspring to make them better people is just 'responsible parenting', claims an eminent Oxford academic. Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a "moral obligation" as it makes them grow up into "ethically better children". The expert in practical ethics said that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to "harm themselves and others". The academic, who is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, made his comments in an article in the latest edition...

The election of a Sudanese warlord accused of genocide to the United Nations Human Rights Council is now virtually guaranteed, since he has the full backing of the world body's African delegation. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Omar Al-Bashir -- its first ever for a sitting head of state -- for crimes against humanity he allegedly committed in Darfur. Yet, his regime is set to take its place on the panel, in the latest bizarre appointment to make a mockery of the UN's human rights credibility, according to critics. It's like putting “Jack the Ripper in...

Beijing - A Chinese provincial government has sacked officials of an orphanage after reports that two mentally challenged children were found shackled there. Volunteers have rushed to help out at an orphanage in Cangnan county, in East China's Zhejiang province, after a child abuse scandal was exposed at the site, days after photos showed children constrained with chains and ties, the state-run Xinhua news agency has reported. A group of doctors have also offered health check-ups for youngsters in the orphanage where two boys were shackled with chains on June 29, Xinhua reported. The orphanage's director has been removed from...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold part of the state's illegal immigration law is a victory for all Americans. Despite the court striking down key provisions of the statute Monday, Brewer says the heart of the law can now be enacted. The court ruled that one part of the law requiring police to check the status of someone they suspect is not in the U.S. legally could go forward. However, the court ruled against provisions, including arresting people on minor immigration charges. Brewer says law enforcement that use the law to violate a person's...

A report issued by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations, Law Enforcement Examiner Jim Kouri reported yesterday. "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" was published last Friday on the PRC’s Consulate General in New York website. “The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent...

Six leaders from South Korea's biggest Buddhist order have quit after secret video footage showed some supposedly serene monks raising hell, playing high-stakes poker, drinking and smoking.The scandal erupted just days before Koreans observe a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Buddha, the holiest day of the religion's calendar. The head of the Jogye order, which has some 10 million followers, or about a fifth of the population, made a public apology on Friday, vowing "self-repentance". South Korean TV networks aired shots of monks playing poker, some smoking and drinking, after gathering at a luxury lakeside hotel in late...

The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED's, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient? A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series...

You have to love Hamas. They're just so subtle. Hamas has sent some of its goons to attack Mahmoud Abu Rahma after Abu Rahma exposed Hamas' use of Gaza citizens as human shields. The stabbing in Gaza of a Palestinian rights activist after he exposed Hamas' contempt for its own people by using them as human shields, and after he criticized the radical Islamic group for torture, abuse and trampling free speech, should be strongly condemned by the United Nations—both as an attack on the victim’s human rights, and on the idea of freedom of expression. Masked attackers on Friday...

14 Syrians dead on Human Rights DayAFP – 7 hrs ago World powers piled pressure on Syria to let in observers as activists on Saturday reported at least 14 another civilians killed by security forces on the anniversary of International Human Rights Day. "The world celebrates human rights as human rights are being violated in Syria," the opposition Syrian Revolution 2011 said in a message posted on its Facebook page. In Oslo, the Nobel Committee head said at the 2011 Peace Prize awards ceremony that this year's award to Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman served as a warning to dictators in...

GOTHENBURG, Sweden — An unidentified man burst into flames while waiting outside a train station in Sweden, leaving police flummoxed, the Göteborgs-Posten reported. Witnesses said the man was standing outside a music shop at the Gothenberg central train station around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, when he suddenly caught on fire. "He just stood there burning outside the shop," a witness told the paper. "After a while he started screaming. There were a few people about but they just watched him. I ran up to him, tore my coat off and managed to put the fire out together with another guy." The...

By facing the issue and joking about it, Perry frames his gaffe as a funny moment rather than a serious, and seriously stupid, one. He takes control of the discussion. Every minute he's on the air being interviewed about it is one more minute his moment isn't being replayed, one more minute some panel of pundits isn't fretfully analyzing its stupendous terribleness. By allowing his memory glitch to be the topic of discussion and owning up to it, he helps exhaust the subject. Most of all, Perry is being humanized, albeit not in the way any politician would wish. For...

Since the Occupy protests began, reports of demonstrators placing themselves and even their small children in harm’s way have surfaced near-daily. This instance is no exception. MRCTV reporters happened to be at a D.C. Metro station and witnessed a group of Occupiers fight with convention center security guards while trying to block its entrance…with small children. Watch as protesters place the children right in the middle of the altercation while one Occupier says that since the children are hers, the action is justifiable. Meanwhile, other demonstrators seem to think that using children as human shields is permissible simply because they...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released new guidelines for employees dealing with reporters, and some journalists are none too pleased about it. The new media policy requires all HHS employees to notify the agency’s office of public affairs about contact with the media and coordinate any interview requests with the office. It also discourages off-the-record conversations without prior approval. Jim Dickinson, editor of FDA Webview and FDA Review, issued a scathing critique of the new guidelines.

SIERRA VISTA — When the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left the nation reeling in sorrow and sadness, the ideas of how best to remember the fallen were plentiful. Flags, ribbons, flowers and other mementos adorned makeshift memorials across the nation, and locally, a giant American flag, created by Americans, for Americans, and expressing the true pride that comes with being an American, was created four days after the attack at Tucson Electric Park as thousands gathered to work on mending the wounded heart of the nation. And with such success in drawing people together back in 2001, what better...

This is bullet-proof human skin - made from spider silk and goat milk. Yes, really. Jalila Essaidi is testing the limits of human endurance, and it starts by having to milk spider-goats. Spider goats are otherwise innocent-looking goats that have been genetically engineered to produce milk packed with the protein made in spider's silk. (There is no definitive proof that this also gives them a propensity to skitter up walls or hide out in your sock drawer, but I think it does.) Once the goats are milked, Essaidi spins the protein into fiber that is ten times stronger than steel,...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Britain told Iran on Thursday it was happy to discuss its handling of street unrest after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused its police of "savage" aggression against demonstrators. Britain helped lead Western condemnation of Iran's crackdown on protests against Ahmadinejad's re-election in June 2009. He was quick on Wednesday to criticise the British police's "crushing attack" on unarmed citizens. In a letter to Iran's Foreign Ministry, Britain's top diplomat in Tehran said she hoped such openness would encourage Tehran to allow a U.N.-appointed investigator looking into alleged human rights violations in Iran to enter the country.

Is there a little Fred Flintstone in you? According to a new genetic analysis, some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals -- but it's found exclusively in people outside Africa. The ancestors of Neanderthals left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago. They evolved over the millennia mostly in what are now France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and went extinct (or were simply absorbed into the modern human population) about 30,000 years ago. The ancestors of early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago, according to DiscoveryNews.com. Despite that wide spread in time, genetic material...

This new interview with American author Alice Walker gives a brilliant insight into what motivates trendy pro-Palestinian sentiment in the West today. Notice how effortlessly she flits between talking about Palestinians in Gaza and chickens in factory farms. In one breath she talks about the “cruel and inhuman” treatment meted out to Palestinians, who are “frazzled and suffering everyday”. And in the next she talks about chickens that are “raised under horrible, torturous conditions”, and the fact that people who tuck into chicken dinners don’t realise that they are eating “something precious, beautiful, rare”. Palestinians and chickens – these seem...

China released human rights lawyer Teng Biao after ten weeks in custody but a second lawyer has disappeared, rights groups told AFP Saturday, amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent. Advocacy group China Aid said Teng returned home at 3:30 pm (0730 GMT) on Friday but also stated that Li Fangping disappeared around 5:00 pm after leaving the office building of an AIDS victims group in Beijing. Teng Biao's wife confirmed to AFP that her husband had returned home but said "it is not convenient to speak now". "It's a relief that Teng Biao has been released after almost 70 days...

Another 62 shot dead in cold blood in the streets today, just the latest in a series of Friday post-mosque slaughters. Good enough for a unanimous vote by the UN Human Rights Council? Why … no: At an Special Session in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, members of the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning Syria’s human rights abuses and calling for a UN Mission to investigate the violence… The resolution expresses “grave concern with respect to alleged deliberate killings, arrests, and instances of torture of peaceful protestors by the Syrian authorities,” and “unequivocally condemns the use of lethal...