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The Hangover News

George Zimmerman was acquitted this weekend, but you were probably too outraged to believe it.

American Freedoms
GEORGE ZIMMERMAN WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF MURDERING TRAYVON MARTIN
Another fine day for the US justice system

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George Zimmerman – the man who shot dead an unarmed 17-year-old, Trayvon Martin, in Florida last year – has been found not guilty of murder.

Florida is one of 17 states that uses the "stand your ground" law, giving people the right to use lethal force on an attacker if they believe they are acting in self defence.

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Citing that law, Zimmerman's lawyers convinced the six woman jury that their client had been attacked by Martin, therefore making his use of deadly force justifiable.

Weirdly, that line of defence was used by a black woman in Florida in an attempted murder case where she fired warning shots at her abusive husband, but she – unlike Zimmerman – was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Spontaneous protest marches against the verdict staged in a number of US cities were mostly peaceful, apart from pockets of violence in Oakland, California, where bins were set on fire and police cars and shop windows smashed in with rocks.

The prosecution's argument – and one shared by many following the case – is that Zimmerman attacked Martin after assuming he was "up to no good" because he was black and wearing a hoody.

Obviously the majority of people don't like the idea of an armed adult shooting an unarmed teenager dead because of the colour of his skin and getting away with it, which has prompted his lawyer to say that Zimmerman will likely have to remain in hiding to avoid being attacked himself.

The case has sparked the debate about racial profiling in America back into action, with Reverend Al Sharpton calling the verdict "an atrocity" and a spokesperson for National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), saying, "This case has re-energised the movement to end racial profiling in the United States."

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Bizarre Self Promotion
BOKO HARAM'S LEADER SAID THEY'RE GOING TO CARRY ON ATTACKING SCHOOLS
And then said they don't kill children, which was confusing

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The leader of Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram has called for more attacks against schools just days after his fighters burned 29 students alive in a boarding school dormitory.

He went on to claim that his group doesn't kill women or children, which seemed an odd and kind of confusing thing to say after advocating attacks on schools.

"Teachers who teach Western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students and tell the students to henceforth study the Qur'an," he said in a video while holding a Kalashnikov rifle.

In April, two attacks on a university left 16 dead and, last month, 16 more students were gunned down in northern Nigeria.

The Future of Egypt
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ADMIT THEY'VE BEEN NEGOTIATING WITH THE EGYPTIAN ARMY
But, unsurprisingly, it doesn't sound like negotiations are going that well

Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo. (Photo by Tom Dale)

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Despite the Egyptian army's crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood leadership after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, the group claim to be in negotiations with the country's interim regime.

However, it's unlikely there are going to be any more negotiations because the Brotherhood has demanded Morsi's reinstatement as a prerequisite for further dialogue. Which doesn't really seem like something the military will be into.

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The news comes after the Brotherhood's announcement that they will be staging pro-Morsi demonstrations in spaces like Tahrir Square, where the anti-Muslim Brotherhood protests were held in recent weeks.

Liberal Mohamed ElBaradei has been sworn in as the country's new vice-president, and the new Prime Minister Hazem Beblawy has appointed several new ministers to his cabinet.

Reliable Explanations
ERDOGAN'S NEW ADVSIOR SAID THAT TURKEY'S UPRISING WAS CAUSED BY TELEKINESIS
A fantastic start to a legitimate political career

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Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has appointed a new chief adviser called Yiğit Bulut.

Until Erdoğan hired him last week, Bulut was a TV presenter. On actual television to real human viewers, Bulut explained the country's recent uprising by saying, "There is work going on in many centres in the world to kill Erdoğan from afar through methods like telekinesis."

This comes after the Turkish government cited a number of other conspiracy theories to explain the uprising – for example, Europeans jealous of their economic success, Twitter and – as if they could forget – the international Jewish conspiracy.

As Erdoğan hires TV personalities who believe in psychic warfare and continues to tighten his grip on Turkey, his people arguably have even more to worry about now than they did before the uprising.

National Security
THE KREMLIN SECURTY AGENCY JUST SPENT £10,000 ON TYPEWRITERS
Apparently because all this Edward Snowden business has got them worried about leaks

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The agency responsible for security at the Kremlin has just placed a £9,860 order for electric typewriters on the state procurement website.

The move was apparently prompted by recent security leaks by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, with a source saying, "After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being bugged during his visit to the G20 London summit (in 2009), it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents."

It might seem kind of funny, but it probably makes more sense than however many millions of dollars America are undoubtedly spending to crush any chance of more security leaks escaping into the public realm.