Issues news

I’m a bit partial to Tony Blair’s charms myself, so this video — in which a 4-year-old girl responds rather emotionally to Blair’s resignation — gave me the “awww shucks.� A future member of Young Labour if ever there was one!

Ever since Orwell penned his dystopic masterwork, 1984, there has been a fear of society 'sleepwalking' into a state where 'Big Brother is watching you'. Britons are already among the most watched citizens in the world, there are over 4.2 million CCTV cameras nationwide - one for every 14 people. But now, a new trend in the Big Brother society threatens to emerge, as the British police seek powers to take DNA samples from people caught littering, speeding and fare dodging - along with other non-imprisonable offences. It seems,  in the UK, we're not so much 'sleepwalking'
 into a Big Brother society as bulldozing straight towards it.

Police in Tehran are cracking down on dress rules, in a move that would see most YEN readers arrested.

According to Agence France-Presse, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, all post-pubescent females have been required to wear a veil and a long coat that covers all bodily contours, but in recent years some young women have started to flout the laws, wearing shorter, fitted coats and skimpier headscarves. Now young people in Westernised clothing are being arrested and even beaten.

The crackdown has been reported as a colour story  in the Australian press, but it has a very serious side: how would you like it if you didn’t have the freedom to choose what you put on your own body?

This Friday, 27 July, is the 40th anniversary of the legalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. But in many countries and cultures around the world, the gay community continues to suffer prejudice and discrimination. In Jamaica, attacks on gay people are common, gay sex is illegal and the country's dancehall and reggae artists often preserve such homophobic attitudes in their lyrics. So it's great news that Buju Banton has followed in the footsteps of Beenie Man and Sizzla in signing the reggae compassionate act, which states 'There's no space in the music community for hatred and prejudice, including no place for racism, violence, sexism or homophobia.

No, unfortunately it's not tomato ketchup, but remnants from the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world. Shock encouragement to sign a petition that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific will send to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who along with the Canadian government has permitted the annual slaughter of as many as 335,000 baby harp seals. All so that some very rich folks can wear some shiny seal coats. PETA have enlisted the support of Oz muso's in its campaign against Canada's annual seal massacre. John Butler and members of Jet, The Vines, Something For Kate and Red Riders have all put their autograph down to help stop the brutal seal hunt. Do it.
Find out more and show your support here.

Say goodbye to ‘water cooler’ conversation —
with San Francisco leading the charge, a
growing number of US cities are calling for a
ban on the use of public money to purchase
bottled water. Restaurants are following suit,
deleting the bottled water option from their
menus in the name of environmental responsibility.

Bottled water consumes huge amounts of oil in
its production and transportation — with most discarded bottles ending up as landfill.
When one in six people worldwide has no dependable, safe drinking water, dropping $2 whenever you want a drink is an indulgence we
can’t afford.

The US Presidential election isn’t for another 16 months, but the nomination campaigns are in high gear, especially online – and candidates aren’t the only ones getting in on the act. Our fav faux clips so far are the ones spoofing the stiff competition between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – check out BarelyPolitical.com’s ‘I got a crush on Obama’ and Taryn Southern’s ‘Hot4Hill.’ Somehow we can’t see anyone doing the same for John Howard.