Author: Mourad Hadji

Multi Media & journalism student

Why do we love to dance with each other?

Dancing has a way of taking your cares away. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Electric Slide, the Macarena or your own crazy moves. Who hasn’t gotten lost in an upbeat song as they jumped around?As well as being fun, dancing might have helped us to survive as a species. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoAjE1aioHE

As much as we all love to dance when there’s nobody watching, there’s something irresistible about dancing with other people, whether it’s with a partner or a class-full of fellow booty shakers.
Friends dancing outside convertible at beach

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that getting footloose on a regular basis is linked with a 76 percent reduction in dementia risk — about as much as playing board games or a musical instrument. Other physical activities, such as bicycling, walking and doing housework, weren’t associated with any decreased risk.

For all humans, dancing is intimately connected to our love of music and is likely to be one of our oldest cultural practices. But why would our ancestors have wasted energy on what superficially seems to serve no survival benefits? Evolutionary anthropologist Bronwyn Tarr tells us that one clue lies in the brain. When we dance with others our brains reward us with a cocktail of feel-good hormones and this likely leads to profound social effects.

People who dance together

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by Mourad Hadji

FBI agent accidentally shoots man while dancing at bar in Denver

At Mile High Spirits an off-duty FBI agent was impressing a crowd with his killer dance moves at around 00:35.

At American Distillery bar in downtown Denver, US officer with dance moves and an improvised backflip until his handgun tumbled out of his waistband holster and a round went off as he picked it up, injuring another clubgoer.

But his backflip could have proved fatal.

The victim was hit in the lower leg and taken to a local hospital but is expected to be OK, according to Denver Police.

It is unclear if the agent, who has not been named, will face charges or disciplinary action.

by Mourad Hadji

Iran nuclear deal:Trump’s European allies nervously await his decision on whether US will pull out

European allies are on tenterhooks awaiting Donald Trump’s decision on whether he will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, having spent a week lobbying him to stay The US president tweeted that he would announce the decision at 2pm Washington time on Tuesday.

He has long threatened to withdraw from the agreement, signed during Barack Obama’s presidency, and has called it the “worst ever deal negotiated” because it does not address Iran’s ballistic missile programme or its role in the wars in Syria And Yemen, nor permanently block Tehran from developing atomic weapon.

European leaders have warned that a US withdrawal would undo years of work that led to and sustained a landmark deal that has kept nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands.

On Tuesday morning France’s defense minister said weakening the agreement would aggravate tensions in the Middle East.

Boris Johnson also visited Washington on Monday, conducting talks with Vice President Mike Pence and the new secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

A senior US official who is close to the decision-making process said France, Germany and the UK had shifted significantly to address Mr Trump’s concerns about ballistic missiles, the terms governing international inspectors’ visits to Iranian sites, and “sunset” clauses under which some terms of the deal expire.

In the past few weeks, Mr Trump has consulted either in person or by telephone with leaders of all three countries.

And Iran has said it will not renegotiate, threatening to retaliate if Mr Trump pulls the US out and re-imposes sanctions, but has not said how.

Diplomats and military experts said Tehran could seek to resume its nuclear arms programme or step up its military involvement in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/993562242124865536

by Mourad Hadji

Russia has been left isolated by the west

More than 100 Russian diplomats have been ejected from the UK and United States and 22 nations (as pictured above).

The US has announced the expulsion of 60 Russians, including 12 intelligence officers from Russia’s mission to UN headquarters in New York (pictured alongside Russia’s French, Polish and German embassies).

The Kremlin reacted threatening to ‘respond to every country’.

Russia’s ambassador to the US said the move had ‘ruined what is left of Russian-US ties,’ threatening Washington by saying they will bear responsibility for the consequences.

Canada and Malta followed suit by expelling three Kremlin staffers and in a flurry of Action yesterday evening, both Hungary and Norway announced the expulsion of one Diplomat respectively, soon after Spain announced the expulsion of two.

Australia also stood in solidarity with the UK ,expelling two Russian diplomats this morning. This decision reflects the shocking nature of the attack in the UK the first offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since the Second World War, involving a highly lethal substance in a populated area, endangering countless other members of the community.

The former Russian intelligence officer, who came to Britain in 2010 as part of a spy swap, regretted being a double agent and wanted to visit his family, his friend Vladimir Timoshkov told the BBC.

Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in a critical condition after they were poisoned with the highly lethal nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury on March 4.

Moscow has stepped up its campaign to discredit Theresa May’s assertion that it is ‘highly likely’ Russia was responsible for the attack.

The diplomatic crisis has plunged relations between Russia and the UK into the deep freeze and could trigger further action by European Union members in support of the Prime Minister’s Teresa May .

Relations between Ukraine and Russia are extremely tense after Moscow annexed Crimea and sparked a civil war in Ukraine which is still raging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Mourad Hadji

800,000 Crowd March For Our lives in Washington D.C.

Survivors of the deadly shooting rampage at a Parkland, Florida High School led hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday’s #March for Our Lives protest events across the country, delivering a resounding message that Washington’s inaction on the scourge of gun violence is no longer acceptable.

People took to the street across the US during the weekend in support of gun control legislation.

Celebrities who showed their support included Kanye West, Kim Kardashian ,George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney alongside many other celebrities.

In New York, Former Beatle Paul McCartney told CNN  he marched because his friend and bandmate John Lennon was lost to gun violence in 1980 not far from where the crowd had assembled.

As 800,000 strong crowds thronged Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, after giving a moving speech student Emma Gonzalez stood in a respectable silence for six minutes to remember those lost and was joined by the gathered crowd.

On February 14th 2018 mass shooting was committed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Seventeen people were killed and seventeen more were wounded, making it one of the World’s deadliest school massacres.

The suspected perpetrator 19 year old Nickolas Cruz, was identified by witnesses and arrested shortly afterward.

Some students who began campaigning for gun control legislation also founded the advocacy group never again MSD.

The suspected shooter former student Nicholas Cruz ,was dropped off at the school by uber driver at 2:19 pm carrying a duffel bag and backpack, he was spotted and recognized by a staff member. At about 2:21 members of staff heard gun fire and activated a code “lock down”.

A school resource officer of the Broward county Sheriffs Office rushed to the scene, and The shooting lasted 6 minute.

The Parkland survivors and others students thanked the crowd at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Mourad Hadji

Preventing Hate Crime

 

Hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by hostility on the grounds of race (including colour, nationality, ethnicity and national origin), religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity

 

It is possible for a crime to have more than one motivating factor (for example an offence may be Motivated by hostility towards the victim’s race and religion). Thus, as well as recording the overall Number of hate crimes.

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Around five per cent of hate crime offences in 2016/17 are estimated to have involved more than One motivating factor, the majority of these were hate crimes related to both race and religion in London.

Peter whittle elected member of UKIP rise the issue to the mayor of London Sadiq khan at London Assembly “Mayor’s Question Time “

Will the mayor re –examine the Mets priorities to tackle crime?

2016/17 are estimated to have involved more than one motivating factor, the majority of these were hate crimes related to both race and religion.

A new smartphone app was launched to make it easier for Londoners to report hate crime and access support services. The app ,which is free to download and available on both Apple and Android platforms ,enables victims to immediately report an incident with the information going directly to the police via a secure server .

 

A Hate crime Reduction strategy   has been developed by the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) in close consultation with key partners including the Metropolitan Police Service, the Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of Justice, as well as voluntary and community organisations across the capital.

According to recent statistics, since 2017, hate crime relating to faith has increased by 23.4%, transgender hate crime has grown by 86.2% and homophobic crime has gone up by 26.8%. This compares to the slightly lower increases in disability hate crime (12.5%), and racist and religious crime (19.7%).

The Mayor working to raise awareness of the ways of reporting hate crime to the police, so that they can take action to bring the perpetrators to justice and so that victims can get the support they need:

  • By phone: call 999 in an emergency, or 101 in a non-emergency.
  • In person: At any police station with a front counter
  • Through an app: the MOPAC Hate Crime reporting app can be downloaded for Android or Apple
  • Online: at  www.report-it.org.uk/your_police_force
  • Community monitoring groups: you should report all hate crimes to the police, but you can also use community reporting methods such as Tell MAMA for Islamophobic incidents or the Community Security Trust for anti-semitic offences.

By working together we can encourage and support victims of hate crime to come forward. I would therefore welcome your help in spreading this message to raise awareness of the importance of reporting hate crime and the ways to do so amongst your friends, colleagues and communities.

by Mourad Hadji