2018/05/30

Inuit culture struggles with warming world

a climatologist based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, said the region is a volatile place climatically, with extreme swings in the weather that can amplify – and sometimes mask – the changes that are happening. Compared to historical terms, winter is about six weeks shorter, while the region’s sea ice coverage is about third smaller than it was a decade ago.

2018/05/28

The shutdown of the Nobel

The accusations against Arnault and Engdahl range from accepting financial benefits -- through a joint cultural forum they once ran together with funding from the academy -- to using insider information to bet on Nobel prize winners. But the most profound and disturbing accusations are those from the women, some of whom remain clearly traumatized by what they say Arnault did to them. Arnault could not be reached for comment by the time this story went to print.
  • we talk on corruption and on systematic rapes and abuses (which lasted for decades), perpetrated by a French and cleared by the Swedish Academy, in the very same country that stalked Julian Assange for alleged "sex by surprise". It's like when US' "special pressecutor" grilled Bill Clinton at greatest epoch of Weinstein and the monsters paedophile gays of the church.

2018/05/27

Hurricanes set to become wetter

On average, the rainfall rate from the simulated future storms increased by 24%. As a group, these storms had 6% stronger average hourly maximum wind speeds and moved 9% slower

2018/05/24

MH17 downed by Russian military missile system

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. All 298 people onboard were killed.

2018/05/16

Chloe Chua: Self in Mind (Jaehyuck Choi) / Winter (Vivaldi)

Save net neutrality

When the FCC repeal goes into effect on June 11th, “the Internet as we know it” will not suddenly die. Nothing will happen right away. Shills for big telecom companies will immediately start saying “See? The sky didn’t fall, guess we never needed net neutrality in the first place.”
The big ISPs aren’t going to immediately start blocking websites or rolling out harmful paid prioritization scams. Not while Congress and the courts are still deliberating. Not while major states like California and New York are considering legislation. Not while they know the whole Internet is poised to attack as soon as they break the rules.
Even if the ISPs get their way in the end, the Internet’s death will be slow. You probably won’t even notice it happening at first. That’s what makes it so sinister. But over time, there will be less innovative startups, less choice and diversity of opinion online, less creativity, more centralization, less awesome. We’ll also lose one of the most important tools we have for exposing corruption, challenging tyranny, and holding the powerful accountable.
But we’re not going to let that happen. We’ve turned net neutrality into a mainstream issue for the first time ever. And now we’re building a movement to make sure that we protect it for generations to come.
The fight ahead is not going to be easy, but victory is within reach.

2018/05/12

EU blocking cities' efforts to curb Airbnb

The explosive rise of short-stay Airbnb holiday rentals may be shutting locals out of housing and changing neighbourhoods across Europe, but cities’ efforts to halt it are being stymied by EU policies to promote the “sharing economy

Facebook's increasing PR job in Brussels

Facebook is a regular subject of controversies connected to the use of data shared by its users - in 2013, for example, after the revelations of Edward Snowden, or more recently with the Cambridge Analytica affair. As a consequence, the company has been trying its best to polish its image and reassure both the public and institutions. To this end, it has formed a network to amplify its influence in Washington as well as in Brussels.

“You picked this format for a reason,” one parliamentarian hissed at Zuckerberg as the proceedings ended.

Facebook CEO exploited ability to access data from any user’s friend network, US case claims

Don't execute Noura for self defense against the man who raped her!

At 16, Noura was forcibly married off by her father. She refused, and in protest left her family home on the outskirts of Khartoum to stay with her aunt in Sinnar, a city almost 250 kilometers away. Noura lived with her relative for three years before her father called to say that the wedding was cancelled, and that she should come home.
Upon her arrival, Noura found that she had been tricked, that the wedding to which she had never agreed was still happening, and shortly after was given away to her unchosen husband.

2018/05/11

Slovak Police Investigate Journalists, not Murderers

Slovak police had invited investigative journalist Pavla Holcova to what she thought would be a friendly conversation to help their investigation into the murder of her friend and colleague, Jan Kuciak.

She was asked about cases that other investigative reporters were digging into, as well as Kuciak’s investigation into a man who now is a suspect in the murder - an investigation Kuciak was pursuing independently of his work with OCCRP

2018/05/09

Hillary Clinton: Need to take reports of Chinese meddling seriously

“Experts are sounding the alarm about Chinese efforts to gain political power and influence policy decisions,” she said during a speech in Auckland Monday night.
“(Academic) Anne-Marie Brady of the University of Canterbury has rightly called this a new global battle, and it’s just getting started,” added Clinton.
China vehemently denies allegations that it tries to influence the domestic politics of other countries for its own benefit.
Clinton’s comments follow a report by Brady published last month in the Journal of Democracy, accusing Beijing of carrying out a “concerted foreign-influence campaign” in New Zealand.
“The campaign aims to further the political and economic agendas of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by co-opting local elites, securing access to strategic information and resources, and manipulating public discourse,” said the report.

Prof Anne-Marie Brady from the University of Canterbury has frequently warned of growing Chinese influence in New Zealand, a message echoed by Hillary Clinton on a recent trip to the country, saying New Zealand needed to take the threat “seriously”.

US Senate Unanimously Passes Resolution on Tibetan Reincarnation

Marking the first time ever that a national legislature has supported the Tibetan Buddhist community’s right to identify and install their religious leaders, the United States Senate unanimously passed S.Res.429, which calls any interference by the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the religious process “invalid”. The resolution also commemorated the 59th anniversary of Tibet’s 1959 uprising as “Tibetan Rights Day”.

Three-member European Parliamentary Delegation led by MEP Thomas Mann, MEP Csaba Sogor and MEP Ramon Tremosa received a private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Wednesday morning. The delegation is on a six-day visit to Dharamshala, the seat of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration.
In an exclusive interview with Tibet.net, MEP Thomas Mann said that the meeting entailed important discussion and marked a special occasion as it coincided with Europe Day.
“In whole Europe, people are celebrating the way of European Union, our values, progress and also our problems. So on this special day, we had the opportunity of meeting His Holiness. He underlined how important the European Union is. Although he knows that we have some conflicts and differences but he said, ‘the most important is what you have done in all the last years… So its most important and your fight for freedom is very important,” MEP Mann said.

2018/05/06

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BlackRock steps up lobbying of the European Commission

BlackRock met EU officials to discuss financial market matters more times than any other company in the seven months to July, in a sign of the growing influence of the world’s largest asset manager. The US giant, which has $4.5tn in assets under management, had more meetings with European Commission officials ... than Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Deutsche Bank.

India: teenage girl raped and burned to death

A 16-year-old girl has been kidnapped and gang raped, then burned to death when her family tried to seek justice, in the latest case of horrific sexual violence to emerge in India.