What the power handshake really suggests

Much attention has focused on Donald Trump’s use of the handshake as a means of assering dominance over the other person by putting people off balance and the way that foreign leaders have responded. Way back in 1998, in one of his stand up performances, Eddie Izzard explained what the person using that handshake wants to suggest and what it really signifies.
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More Saudi atrocities on the way

While we should be relieved that the model ‘Khulood’ was spared punishment by the ruthless and barbaric Saudi Arabian ‘justice’ system, that should not delude us into thinking that the system is getting better. That welcome result was likely due to the international outcry. We still face atrocities like the 14 young men who are to be beheaded, yes, beheaded, because they attended pro-democracy protests. The group includes one man Mujtaba’a al-Sweikat who was arrested in 2012 at the airport on his way to begin graduate studies in the US, and has been in prison ever since.
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The prospects for the ‘repeal and replace’ Obamacre plans

I wrote a month ago that I expected that after all the posturing ends and the dust settles, all 52 Republicans in the US Senate would do what they always do, and that is dutifully fall in line and vote as demanded by the party leadership and president Donald Trump to gut the health insurance of tens of millions of people while giving the wealthy a tax cut.
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The Israel lobby seeks to criminalize criticisms

That Israel is on the road to becoming a rightwing theocracy should be no surprise to anyone following developments in that country. As part of that effort, Israel keeps making the plight of Palestinians worse by denying them the basic necessities of life. This atrocious inhumane treatment of Palestinians and other minority groups in Israel, Gaza and the Occupied West Bank has led to increased support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
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Woman defies the Saudi dress code

Women in Saudi Arabia have to endure what is probably the most strict dress code in the world, requiring them to wear loose-fitting, full-length robes in public plus, if they are Muslim, a headscarf. But a young model who goes by the name ‘Khulood’ decided to defy that code and had herself filmed as she walked around a historic fort in Ushayqir wearing a short skirt and a crop top. The video has been circulating on Twitter and needlessly to say has all the religious conservatives all of a doo-dah at the sacrilegious sight of women’s skin.
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The re-emerging neoconservative-Democratic party alliance

The neoconservatives in the US have been responsible for the most disastrous turn of events in modern history, wreaking havoc in the Middle East and creating the basis for the blowback the west has experienced as a result. They got the foothold in power they had long wanted during the Bush-Cheney era but then guessed wrong during the last election when they harshly turned against Donald Trump because (at that time at least) he did not seem to want to pursue their goal of imposing US military might around the globe.
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Easy access to water is essential to free women

It is easy for those who live in the developed world or the unban centers of the developing world to not appreciate what a tremendous boon it is to have easy access to clean water. For many poor rural communities, getting water takes up much of the time and energy of people who have to make a trek to the source of relatively clean water, and then carry it back to their homes.
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