News Round-up November 30/13

• A hunger strike in Washington, in support of a comprehensive immigration bill, already passed by the Senate, yet stone-walled by the House of Representatives;
• A U.S. government directive to commercial airlines to "inform" China of flight paths over disputed islands in the South China Sea, islands also claimed by Japan
• A London court hears and watches video of the hacking of the body of a British military drummer, father of a young girl, nearly decapitating him, by two radical Islamic terrorists, claiming "an eye for an eye" in revenge for British soldiers who are fighting Islamic terrorism in various parts of the world
• A conference is meeting in Asia to discuss potential options in the face of an impending conflict between China and Japan, in which the U.S. is treaty-bound to support Japan;
• Another conference of "experts" is meeting to discuss the impact of military conflict on the environment
• Reports from the United Nations points to a lost generation of Syrian children, many of whom have become bread-winners for their families, now residing in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon as refugees from the civil war that has left more than 100,000 dead
• A thanksgiving holiday merged into a stampede of obsessive, addicted and narcissistic shoppers into box stores for "deals" especially on electronics like flat-screen televisions, resulting in shootings, robberies and a display of human desperation that begs its own conference of experts
• A spike in military veteran suicides in Canada, following tours of duty in Afghanistan sparks observations of increasing needs of military veterans from the psychiatric community, and cries for additional government support, likely to fall on deaf ears
• A public statement from Iran's supreme leader aggressively drawing a 'red line' around the proposition that Iran will never dismantle her nuclear program, in spite of the interim treaty worked out by the Group of 5+1 with Iran
• An elderly U.S. veteran of the Korean War, while visiting North Korea as a tourist, is detained by the North Korean government on "war crimes" and utters what amounts to a forced "confession"
• The issue of "ethnic cleansing" rears its head in several locations, including The Dominican Republic, as the world continues to struggle with "difference" and "ignorance" and "fear"
• A former tech exec. creates the non-profit "Worldreader" to put reading devices in the hands of children, especially those among the 700 million illiterates, in order to stamp out illiteracy ...find them at Worldreader.org
• Support Typhoon Haiyan victims digital ads appear on screens in Tim Horton's shops across Canada, directing potential donors to the Red Cross, while government commits to double private donations, for a limited time...while reports of public opinion in the U.S. say there is little interest in supporting those victims
• Rogers, one of the giant tech communications companies in Canada, already the principal shareholder of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Blue Jays, pays $5.2 BILLION for exclusive rights to all  NHL games in Canada, for twelve years, in the biggest sports and entertainment coup in Canadian history