World Nutter News

The animal campaign group Peta has taken issue with a North American retailer Canada Goose which sells down filled jackets. Peta writes:

To kick off our robust anti-Canada Goose campaign across the U.S. and Canada, an enormous billboard has been erected near the retailer's flagship store in Chicago. A goose, pleading for his life, now towers over one of Chi-Town's busiest streets, reminding drivers and pedestrians alike that geese don't want to die.

Meanwhile, in Short Hills, New Jersey, geese are making their own bus-side plea that's sure to grab folks' attention.

However not everyone is happy with the adverts leading to the advertising space company Astral, quickly taking down some of the adverts.

Peta wasn't impressed and responded:

Citing numerous complaints, the ad agency Astral Media Outdoor removed PETA's ads from several bus shelters in Toronto after they were up for just one day last month--so our legal counsel sent a letter to the agency pointing out that the censorship violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of expression, and demanding an explanation for the removal of the ads.

Ten LGBT-themed children's books have been banished to the closed sections of Hong Kong's public libraries after heavy campaigning by an anti-gay rights group.

For months, the Family School Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance Concern Group complained to the Home Affairs Bureau about books that promote gay and transgender awareness.

In a Facebook post on 17 June, the group shared an email from the Bureau confirming 10 books would be removed from library shelves after consideration by the Collection Development Meeting that is made up of library professionals.

Library users must now ask staff to see the books. The email says the Collection Development Meeting decided seven of the 10 books were neutral and do not promote homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Yet they were still moved to the closed shelves so parents can decide what their children read.

THE 10 BOOKS:

• Daddy, Papa, and Me
• Mommy, Mama, and Me
• And Tango Makes Three
• Molly's Family
• The Family Book
• Introducing Teddy
• The Boy in the Dress
• Milly, Molly and Different Dads
• Annie on My Mind
• Good Moon Rising

Few women outside the genre of pornography have bared their breasts as often and for such good reason as 31-year-old Ukrainian activist Oksana Shachko. As one of the original three founders of the activist group Femen, she has bared her bosom to popes and princes, to Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel to protest policies and ideologies.

Shachko's body was discovered in her apartment in Paris on Monday, and activist friends and family say they believe she committed suicide. Friends who knew Shachko well told The Daily Beast that she lived in a labyrinth of painful situations--personal issues, pressure from from her home country and from the reality she found herself in in France--and that she was suffering.

Shachko founded Femen with Anna Hutsol and Sacha Shevchenko in April 2008, when they were just 17 and looking for an outlet for their anger. Rather than joining those in the streets with Molotov cocktails and glass bottles, they used their sexuality in what has since been defined as sextremism protests aiming for a complete victory over the patriarchy. She was the first to pull off her shirt and show her bare breasts to a crowd during a political action on Ukraine's Independence Day, Aug. 24, 2009.

The women inspired a global movement of bare-breasted women to write slogans across their chests and put a ring of flowers in their hair to make a point

Family First NZ says that advertisers are lining up to withdraw their advertising from and association with Naked Attraction which is currently being screened on TV2, a dating show with full front nudity and adult sexually-charged discussions throughout the episodes.

Within a few hours of launching the #BoycottNakedAttraction campaign, seven businesses had removed their advertising, including Lighting Direct, Carpet Court, Warehouse Stationery, Foodstuffs (Pak'n Save & New World), Electrolux and Kitchen Things. We are still waiting on a few others including Panasonic and KFC, says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

New Zealand TV censors at the BSA have okayed the programme but admitted that the programme went a step further than where broadcasters have trodden before... and that Each programme was visually explicit to a level not in our experience seen on New Zealand free-to-air television before. Verbal discussions and descriptions were also explicit... They admitted that Some viewers may have found the more detailed descriptions of sexual preferences and activity by the participants unduly confronting.

But Family First NZ thought otherwise saying:

Naked Attraction is saturated with full-frontal nudity. The show degrades human relationships to animalistic instinct, and promotes voyeurism and a porn culture which is harming our society. It is shocking that the state broadcaster is trying to outdo sites like PornHub and porn magazines.

Esplanade in Singapore has censored a drawing by artist Vincent Leow after concerns about bestiality'

A moralist group named Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family flagged the painting in a Facebook post, accusing the Esplanade of promoting bestiality and expressing concerns that the artwork could likely be seen by children during the school holidays.

Ms Yvonne Tham, Esplanade chief executive-designate, said that after discussing with Mr Leow:

We have agreed to not continue displaying the drawing, given that the public space at Esplanade's Community Wall does not allow opportunity for an advisory and is visited by a wide range of visitors, including families.

We wish to assure the public that in presenting the exhibition, we had no intent to promote or advocate for any stance. As is often the case with art, viewers are free to draw their own interpretations of a drawing that is not a realistic rendering.

In this case, in view of the strong feedback we have received from some members of the public, the Community Wall may not be the most appropriate space to present this drawing, as it is a public thoroughfare with no opportunity for an advisory. This is solely Esplanade's error of judgement.

An Australian campaign group, The National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, writes:

This Playstation game involves the player acting as a housemaid to stop a single violent father beating his daughter. In some scenes the father is seen choking the housekeeper by the neck and hitting her with a fist, and going upstairs to beat his daughter with a belt. At one point you can see him place his dead daughters body on the bed whist saying it's all over now, daddy isn't angry anymore.

The National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect has called on Australian stores not to stock it. However there are Australian retailers already taking pre-orders for this violent and disturbing game.

Family violence is a big issue in this country and is not something that should ever be considered entertainment. Retired psychologist Dr Glenn Cupit said that "games like this are worse than films as they are immersive and involve young people in the act of violence".

When we have one woman a week being killed by family violence in Australia we do not need this fantasy violence adding to an already violent society.

Shame on SONY for allowing the release of such filth, and I call on Australia to take a stand against it and ban it from sales on our shores.

A Melbourne cinema's operators have cancelled a screening of the iconic 1970s film Deep Throat amid complaints from a women's campaign group, the Coalition Against Trafficking Women in Australia (CATWA).

Gerard Damiano's pornographic film was scheduled for a rare public screening at The Astor in St Kilda on March 19. The screening was to have been followed by a panel discussion.

In a message responding to the complaints, Palace programming director Kim Petalas said the film was booked for cultural purposes as a reflection on the changing political, censorship and cinema exhibition landscape in the USA in the early 1970s.

After receiving the complaints The Astor's leaseholders, Palace Cinemas, quickly made the decision to cancel the screening.

Feminist concerns about Deep Throat stem not just from its sexually explicit nature but from the personal testimony of its star Linda Lovelace who later accused her former husband Chuck Trainor of forcing her into pornography at gunpoint.