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Light Sabers

Seattle police declare RIOT amid arson, vandalism & clashes with protesters


RT
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 16:33 UTC
riot seattle arson fire youth center
© David Ryder / Getty Images via AFPA construction site for a youth detention center torched by protesters in Seattle on July 25, 2020
Protesters in Seattle have clashed with officers, vandalized several buildings, and set fire to a construction site for a county juvenile detention facility, forcing local police to declare a riot due to "public safety risks."

After a group of protesters set fire to the King County facility construction site, police issued "dispersal orders" and were forced to deploy "less-lethal munitions" to clear the area and secure access to the blaze for the city's fire department.

The officers were pelted with stones, bottles, liquid-filled balloons and other projectiles, as well as "some sort of explosives," Seattle Police Department said on Twitter.
Due to the ongoing damage and public safety risks associated with this incident, SPD is declaring it a riot.

Comment: How matters should be handled:

"This is not Seattle - We're not putting up with lawlessness here" - Oklahoma DA charges protesters with terrorism, rioting and assault

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Handcuffs

Criminals: 'Agitators' set fire to Oakland, California courthouse, attack police station as hundreds protest in 'solidarity' with Portland


RT
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 16:31 UTC
Protesters damage in Oakland, CA
© Via Twitter/oaklandpoliceca
A courthouse was torched and a police station vandalized during a large protest in Oakland, California. The violence comes as several other cities across the US were hit by rioting and chaotic demonstrations.

Oakland Police said that "agitators" had started a blaze inside the Alameda County Superior Courthouse on Saturday night. A video shows a fire raging inside the building.


Earlier in the evening, protesters attacked a police station, with reports saying they broke windows and painted graffiti on the building. Others shot fireworks and pointed lasers at officers and helicopters monitoring the situation. Oakland police later shared photographs of the aftermath.
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Attention

Widow of Chechen killed near Vienna confirms he was police informant

Angelika Kaimova
RFE/RL
Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:14 UTC
Mamikhan Umarov
The widow of a Chechen man who was gunned down earlier this month in a Vienna suburb says her husband was an informant for Austrian security agencies and that police were examining his cell phone, which she said had recordings and other possible evidence.

Zarema Umarova spoke to RFE/RL on July 24, a day after relatives of her slain husband, Mamikhan Umarov, issued an unusual video appeal in which they claimed responsibility for his killing and appeared to absolve Chechnya's notorious strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, of blame.

Umarova's comments add further details about the circumstances of the killing -- the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted Chechen refugees who fled Russia for various European countries.

The killings have spooked Chechnya's diaspora and renewed focus on Kadyrov, who has run the Russian region for more than a decade and been accused of human rights abuses and ordering hit squads to target expatriate Chechens.


Comment: Extremist Chechens tied to al-Qaeda and the Caucasus Emirate - who led a separatist jihad against Russia in the '90s - do tend to wind up dead in foreign countries, especially Turkey. These could very well be assassinations carried out by elements of Russian/Chechen intelligence. Outlets like RFE/RL leave out that the apparent victims of these operations have histories of terrorism. For such mainstream sources, it's okay when the CIA or Mossad kills terrorists on foreign soil. It's not okay when Russians do so.


Austrian police have arrested two Chechen asylum seekers as part of their investigation into the July 4 killing in the Vienna suburb of Gerasdorf. Austrian officials have said a political motive or a personal argument could be behind the killing.

Umarov, who went by the name Anzor as well as the alias Martin Beck, was a former Chechen separatist and critic of Kadyrov. He settled in Austria in 2005 and received asylum two years later.


Comment: There you go. Naturally RFE/RL doesn't explain what that means. The Chechen separatists weren't just "moderate rebels". Like their brothers in Syria - where many Chechens went to wage jihad - they were Salafi-jihadists, i.e. al-Qaeda.

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Roses

Political murder? Wisconsin Republicans seek federal probe into 'senseless' killing of black Trump supporter in Milwaukee


RT
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 16:16 UTC
Bernell Trammell
© Facebook/Bernell Trammell
The murder in broad daylight of Milwaukee's Bernell Trammell is prompting calls for a federal prosecutor to investigate whether the 60-year-old black man was killed because of his passionate support for President Donald Trump.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt asked that US Attorney Matthew Krueger investigate whether the "senseless" killing was politically motivated. Trammel was gunned down around midday Thursday in front of his small publishing business, eXpressions Journal. Police are still looking for the shooter.

"No American should fear for their personal safety because of where they live or their political affiliation," Hitt said Friday.


Trammell was well known for standing outside his shop or Milwaukee City Hall with handmade signs urging passersby to re-elect Trump in November. He also displayed other signs with religious or anti-violence messages, as well as messages in support of Black Lives Matter.
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Laptop

Alibaba, Jack Ma summoned by Indian court on former employee's complaint of censorship, fake news

Aditya Kalra
Reuters
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 16:01 UTC
Jack Ma
© Getty
An Indian court has summoned Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma in a case in which a former employee in India says he was wrongfully fired after objecting to what he saw as censorship and fake news on company apps, documents seen by Reuters showed.

The case comes weeks after India cited security concerns in banning Alibaba's UC News, UC Browser and 57 other Chinese apps after a clash between the two countries' forces on their border.

Following the ban, which China has criticized, India sought written answers from all affected companies, including whether they censored content or acted for any foreign government.

In court filings dated July 20 and previously not reported, the former employee of Alibaba's UC Web, Pushpandra Singh Parmar, alleges the company used to censor content seen as unfavourable to China and its apps UC Browser and UC News showcased false news "to cause social and political turmoil".

Civil Judge Sonia Sheokand of a district court in Gurugram, a satellite city of India's capital, New Delhi, has issued summons for Alibaba, Jack Ma and about a dozen individuals or company units, asking them to appear in court or through a lawyer on July 29, court documents showed.
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Oil Well

Chevron prompts eye-rolls after reportedly framing layoffs as good news for anyone who isn't a white male


RT
Sat, 25 Jul 2020 15:01 UTC
chevron hard hat
© REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel
Firing employees is usually nothing to brag about, but Chevron has reportedly branded its belt-tightening layoffs as a way to increase the number of senior-level positions held by women and ethnic minorities.

The oil major has been forced to cut spending due to the recent economic downturn. In an internal email seen by Reuters, Chevron reportedly explained to employees that the company's decision to sack management had a very woke silver lining: Less white males, more women and minorities in senior jobs.

Chevron is said to be reducing the "dominance of white males" in company management by increasing the percentage of top jobs held by women and minorities to 44%, up from 38% last year.

Comment: This whole 'woke' business is getting out of hand. It's amazing that in 2020, we as a society have regressed back to judging people based on race. And to spin widespread layoffs as something progressive is so tone deaf it's amazing the PR department let it go through.

See also:

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Eye 1

A pandemic of surveillance

J.D. Tuccille
reason
Fri, 17 Jul 2020 09:50 UTC
surveillance
© Gado Images/Smith Collection/Gado/Sipa USA/Newscom
Americans are increasingly monitored, and COVID-19 health concerns aren't improving the situation.

Pandemic maps are all the rage, these days, but the latest one from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a little different; instead of viral hotspots, it displays a plague of official snoopiness, arranged by location and sortable by technology. While it documents intrusions that predate the current crisis, the Atlas of Surveillance is all too relevant to the age of coronavirus. Concerns about curtailing contagion help to normalize detailed scrutiny of people's lives and drive us toward a pervasive surveillance state.

"The Atlas of Surveillance database, containing several thousand data points on over 3,000 city and local police departments and sheriffs' offices nationwide, allows citizens, journalists, and academics to review details about the technologies police are deploying, and provides a resource to check what devices and systems have been purchased locally," EFF announced on July 13.

Users can click on the map to see what surveillance technologies are used in specified localities. If you want to see what's going on in your area, the map is searchable by the name of a city, county, or state. The map can also be filtered according to technologies such as body-worn cameras, drones, and automated license plate readers.

Comment: Forget the NSA. Now we have a whole host of companies, local governments and agencies who are also getting in to the act of monitoring everywhere we go, and everything we do.

See also:

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Eye 1

SOTT Focus: Facemasks Turn us Into Voiceless Submissives - And It's Not Science Forcing us to Wear Them, It's POLITICS

Peter Hitchens
Daily Mail
Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:09 UTC
coronavirus tube
The Government began its wild, disproportionate shutdown of the country by spreading fear of a devastating plague that would destroy the NHS and kill untold thousands. Now, as many people find that Covid-19 is, in fact, nothing of the kind, new ways have to be found to keep up the alarm levels. Commuters are pictured above on the London Underground
In the name of Covid, the State has already thrust itself into every corner of our existence.

It has come between husbands and wives at the ends of their lives. It has forbidden the old to embrace their grandchildren.

It has denied us funerals and weddings, locked the churches, silenced the ancient monastic music of cathedral choirs and prevented the free worship of God for the first time in 800 years, and banned us (unless we are Left-wing) from holding or attending public meetings.

It has ordered us to stay at home, scolded or fined us for sunbathing, going on country rambles or even entering our front gardens.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: Objective:Health - The Ultimate Insanity of the Covid Lockdown - Interview with Sott.net Editor Joe Quinn

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Magnify

Thousands rally in Khabarovsk, Russian Far East, for 3rd consecutive Saturday over arrested ex-governor

Jonny Tickle
RT
Sat, 25 Jul 2020 13:10 UTC
Khabarovsk
© RuptlyScreenshot
Residents of Russia's Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk have continued to show their support for imprisoned former governor Sergey Furgal, with the city's streets seeing mass protests for the 15th day in a row.

Furgal, a highly popular politician in the Far East, was arrested on July 9 on suspicion of ordering two successful murders, and a third failed murder, dating back to the 2000s. Following his detainment, the former governor was flown immediately to Moscow, where he currently awaits his day in court. Many Khabarovsk locals, over 6,000km from the capital, are infuriated that Furgal has been removed by federal powers and will stand trial so far away. Furgal maintains his innocence.

According to local news portal DVhab.ru, an estimated 15,000-20,000 people took to the streets in the main city of the Khabarovsk Region, with the mayor's office counting only 6,500. Though the protest was unsanctioned, the mass gathering appeared to go off without a hitch.
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Bizarro Earth

Greek protesters burn Turkish flag, Ankara & Athens trade insults after Hagia Sophia's first Muslim prayer in decades


RT
Sat, 25 Jul 2020 12:11 UTC
Hagia Sophia
© REUTERS/Umit BektasWorshippers attend afternoon prayers and visit Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, for the first time after it was once again declared a mosque after 86 years, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 24, 2020
Turkey and Greece have locked horns once more, this time over Ankara's decision to turn the famed Hagia Sophia landmark back into a mosque. Some hot-headed Greeks even burned a Turkish flag to oppose the move.

Though joyous for those Turks who supported changing Hagia Sophia's status, the milestone decision by Ankara was met with outrage in neighboring Greece, which saw it as an affront to its Christian legacy.

The Foreign Ministry called it "a blow to the cultural heritage of humanity" and even warned of a risk that the mosaics and other works of art in Hagia Sophia's interior would be damaged, "beyond the symbolism of such a move."

Comment: See also:

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