May 19, 2015 by Marcello Leonard Mazza

Job Vacancy – Perpetrator of Retribution – 5 Figure Salary and Benefits

Looking for a career move?

We like to keep our global readers informed of the employment opportunities that are openening up around the world.

If you are struggling to find a decent, well paid job in your own country, or you belong to the Lost Generation of Greeks and Spaniards who suffer from 50% youth unemployment, you might consider joining Saudi Arabia’s Ministry Of Civil Service as a Perpetrator Of Retribution.

The New York Times reports today that the Government of Saudi Arabia is hiring 8 executioners to behead sentenced drug offenders and thieves.

Candidates should be:

…particularly adept at wielding a sword and believe strongly that stiff penalties for crime play an important role in deterring future misdeeds…

Should you consider that your professional experience and academic background fit the requirements of the advertised position, you can apply online by following this link.

A Booming Sector

The Capital Punishment sector is well placed to benefit from a sustained boom over the next 10 years: executioner’s skills are in high demand.

As The Economist reports, China is by far the most prolific executioner and, although numbers are shrouded in secrecy, around 8% of judicial killings in 2014 were for drug crimes.

In Iran, almost half of the 278 people executed in 2014 were for drug offences. But this year alone, 241 traffickers have been put to death.

April 9, 2015 by Marcello Leonard Mazza

US Police Kill More Civilians In March Than UK Police Killed In 100 Years

A new report by ThinkProgress.com unearthed disturbing figures when it came to the number of police-related deaths that occurred in America in the month of March alone.

Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.

According to the report by ThinkProgess, in March alone, 111 people died during police encounters — 36 more than the previous month.

This high number in March increased the average for police killings from every 8.5 hours, to nearly 1 police killing every 6.5 hours in the US.

China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.

On average, US police kill people at a rate 70 times higher than any of the other first world countries as they “protect and serve” the American citizens.

This is not what freedom looks like.

At Least 5600 Deaths since 2000

For those of you who are interested in more specific information, Vox’s Blog has created an interactive map with data from Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit trying to build a national database of police killings. It shows some of the deaths by law enforcement since 2000:

A huge majority of the more than 5,600 deaths on the map are from gunshots, which is hardly surprising given that guns are so deadly compared to other tools used by police. There are also a lot of noticeable fatalities from vehicle crashes, stun guns, and asphyxiations. In some cases, people died from stab wounds, medical emergencies, and what’s called “suicide by cop,” when someone commits suicide by baiting a police officer into using deadly force.

The data is far from perfect. Some of it is incomplete, with details about a victim’s race, age, and other factors sometimes missing. D. Brian Burghart, head of Fatal Encounters, estimates that his organization’s collection of reports from the public, media, and FBI only captures about 35 percent of total police killings.

Unarmed and Shot 8 Times in the Back

And here you can find the shocking recent video that went viral where you can appreciate a policemen shooting 8 times in the back an unarmed civilian trying to escape. The event that originated this deadly incident was a search resulting fron a car traffic violation.

April 5, 2015 by Marcello Leonard Mazza

Spain Leads the World in Organ Donations and Transplants

At any one time, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are waiting for an organ transplant.

Several things conspire to make supply of organs fall far short of demand. Organs deteriorate rapidly after death; transplants generally require the consent of the individuals involved (or that of their families); and in almost every country organs cannot be legally bought or sold.

In China, where each year around 300,000 people are put on a transplant waiting-list, one way of relieving this pressure has been to “harvest” organs from executed prisoners. Once the main source of transplanted organs, the share from prisoners is reported by the government to have halved in recent years (mirroring what is believed to be a large decline in executions). From January 1st, the government is expected to put an end to such organ harvesting altogether, and all transplanted organs will need to come from volunteered sources. The new system would still be vunerable to abuse: prisoners could be pressured into donation, for example. But if forced harvesting stops, the public’s willingness to donate must increase from relatively low levels to make up the difference.

China is not alone in having low transplant rates in Asia—even richer countries such as Japan and Singapore fall far short of Western countries. Most transplants in these countries (China is an exception in this regard) also tend to come from live donors, compared with under a third in the West. That suggests there is a lot of room to increase the deceased-donor supply, whether through public-information campaigns or “opt-out” donor-consent regimes (which presume everyone’s consent unless they express otherwise). China is considering a legal standard for brain death, enabling exploitation of intact organs while a patient’s heart is still functioning but recovery is deemed impossible.

Such efforts run into local obstacles, however. Religious and cultural beliefs about the ‘integrity’ of the body are often blamed for low organ-donation rates in China. Another problem is more down-to-earth: although four-fifths of respondents to a 2012 poll in Guangzhou thought donating organs was “noble”, a slightly higher number feared their body parts would end up for sale. After years of taking prisoners’ organs without permission, the government must now convince the public that their donated organs will be used in accordance with their wishes. government must now convince the public that their donated organs will be used in accordance with their wishes.

Spain leads the world with 80 organ donations and transplant per million people.

Via The Economist