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Yellow Vest

"I am France": No one is calling this a revolution, but it is

David Studdert
Off Guardian
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 12:00 UTC
France Strikes
Five days ago, the 2nd of January, French strikers set a new record for consecutive days on strike: 29. This beats the 28 days registered in 1968.

No one is calling this a revolution, but it is.

Since November the revolt against Macron and the French state has entered a higher, more intense phase. Along with the vast union strikes go freeway and rail closure, petrol shortages, the selected allocation of electricity supplies to poor areas; the denial of power to Amazon, the marches of the Gilet Jaune, the intensifying battles with the police, the involvement of more and more of the French citizenry and institutions, including, last week, the National Ballet; all of it is evidence of how the struggle to remove Macron is intensifying.

After a year of weekend battles in every major French city and the official entry of the trade unions into the fight, big changes are in the wind and the yearlong power struggle in France is moving inexorably towards a climax.

Comment: For an idea of how the striking workers and the Gilet Jaune's rung in the New Year, see: France's pension reform strike breaks record, fresh clashes in Paris, calls for renewed action following Macron's refusal to back down

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #26: Globalization vs Nationalism - The Hidden Causes of The Yellow Vest Protests in France

And from today:



Translation: AT #Nimes , lawyers in #grève make a human chain around the arenas. Facing the banners of #Macron , the liberal professions are also in the arena against the reform of #retraites ... #FiersDeLaGrève#greve6Janvier#GreveGenerale#GiletsJaunes


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Question

Siberian man found decapitated after claiming local police framed him on drug charges

Robert Coalson
RFE/RL
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 13:55 UTC
Dmitry Fyodorov protest death siberia

Protesters in Omsk rally to call for an investigation into the death of Dmitry Fyodorov.
Locals in this Siberian city are calling for an impartial investigation into the death of Dmitry Fyodorov, a 25-year-old man whose decapitated body was found on a railway late last month.

About 80 people braved frigid temperatures on January 4 to attend a demonstration at which participants signed a petition urging federal prosecutors to investigate the police handling of the case.

Fyodorov, an information-technology specialist and musician, was arrested on December 15 and charged with the large-scale distribution of narcotics. On December 18, after he was released on his own recognizance pending trial, Fyodorov recorded a video in which he claimed that the drugs had been planted on him by the police.
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Snakes in Suits

"National shame": Top FTSE bosses paid typical worker's annual salary in just 33 hours

Kalyeena Makortoff
The Guardian
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:01 UTC
Union
© Andrew Matthews/PA
Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress: 'This tells you everything about how unfair our economy is'.
Senior executives in the UK's top 100 companies took just 33 hours to be paid more than the typical worker's annual salary, according to data that unions say should be a "source of national shame".

Figures released by the High Pay Centre thinktank showed that the typical FTSE 100 chief executive is paid 117 times more than the median worker, at £901.30 an hour or £3.46m a year.

It means that by 5pm on 6 January 2020, the chief executives of Britain's largest listed businesses will have pocketed more than the £29,559 annual salary earned by the median full-time employee, who is taking home about £14.37 an hour.


Comment: And a significant proportion of the population are earning much less than that.


Comment: If the contribution to society in one hour was equal to that of a year of the average worker then perhaps their salary would be justified, as it is, a worrying number of these CEOs - as reflected in the Persimmon example above - are primarily being rewarded for corrupt business practices: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Yellow Vest Protests, Brexit Farce - Revolutionary Climate in Western Europe?

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Star of David

New Book to Reveal How Mossad Used Jeffrey Epstein to Blackmail Politicians


Sputnik
Tue, 07 Jan 2020 12:24 UTC
mossad emblem
There's much mystery surrounding the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, but this is most certainly the first time the pervasive Israeli spy agency has entered the scene.

The late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, were on Mossad's payroll, a new book claims.

The soon-to-be-released Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales is an investigative work by journalists Dylan Howard and Melissa Cronin and novelist James Robertson.

Comment: See also:

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Mr. Potato

Jessica Yaniv sues more women salon owners for wax job refusal

Anna Slatz
The Post Millennial
Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:25 UTC
jessica yaniv
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has announced it is representing another esthetic salon against Jessica Yaniv at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

The She Point Beauty Salon, owned and operated by women of the Sikh religion, has become the newest target for Yaniv's litigation after declining Yaniv a leg wax. In their Tuesday morning Press Release, the Justice Centre notes that leg waxes are performed in private with the client undressed or nude from the waist down. Citing religious and safety reasons, the salon refused Yaniv service.

The interaction occurred in August 2019, with the claim being filed at the BCHRT in October — the same month Yaniv lost a number of other identical complaints at the Tribunals. The complaints, made against mostly immigrant-owned aesthetic salons, were advanced due to some of the salon's refusal to provide waxing services to Yaniv's male scrotum. Other salons were asked to provide services to other parts of Yaniv's body, but declined. All did so on grounds related to safety and/or religious restrictions on intimate-area touching between unrelated, unmarried males and females.

Comment: Any chance of Yaniv being prevented from wasting more of the court's time with these frivolous and vindictive lawsuits? Yaniv should be institutionalized, not humored.

See also:

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Attention

Iran TV: 35 killed in stampede at funeral for slain General Soleimani

Nasser Karimi, Amir Vahdat and Jon Gambrell
AP
Tue, 07 Jan 2020 10:21 UTC
soleimani funeral
© Erfan Kouchari/Tasnim News Agency via AP
Coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and others who were killed in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike, are carried on a truck surrounded by mourners during a funeral procession, in the city of Kerman, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. The leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened on Tuesday to "set ablaze" places supported by the United States over the killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. airstrike last week, sparking cries from the crowd of supporters of "Death to Israel!"
A stampede erupted on Tuesday at a funeral procession for a top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike last week, killing 35 people and injuring 48 others, state television reported.

According to the report, the stampede took place in Kerman, the hometown of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as the procession got underway. Initial videos posted online showed people lying lifeless on a road, others shouting and trying to help them.

Iranian state TV gave the casualty toll in its online report, without saying where it obtained the information. Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran's emergency medical services, earlier spoke by telephone to state TV and confirmed the stampede took place.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

'Innocent mistake'? CNBC replaces Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard with generic Asian man, white senator


RT
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 22:19 UTC
Yang Gabbard
© Reuters / Brendan McDermid / Gretchen Ertl
CNBC has poured gasoline on the theory MSM is deliberately marginalizing certain 2020 Democratic candidates, swapping photos of businessman Andrew Yang and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard with bizarre substitutes.

The candidates got an unwitting makeover during the network's Squawk Box program on Monday, as the show was covering fourth-quarter fundraising totals. Yang's face was replaced with a similarly-named Asian businessman, founding partner of Redpoint Ventures Geoff Yang. Gabbard was replaced, even more confusingly, by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - once a primary candidate herself, until she dropped out of the race in August.

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People 2

High court to decide if children can consent to gender reassignment

Jamie Doward
The Guardian
Sun, 05 Jan 2020 10:28 UTC
young student
© Alamy
Young people who wish to change gender can currently be given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
A landmark test case to establish whether children can give informed consent to medical treatment for gender reassignment begins in the high court this week.

Lawyers acting for Susan Evans, a former psychiatric nurse at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, which runs the UK's only NHS gender identity development service (Gids), and "Mrs A", the mother of an autistic 15-year-old girl who is on the Gids waiting list, will file papers to commence proceedings in a judicial review brought against the trust and NHS England.

At the heart of the case is the provision of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to young people who wish to transition or are considering doing so.

"We are essentially seeking to say that the provision at the Tavistock for young people up to the age of 18 is illegal because there isn't valid consent," said Paul Conrathe, a solicitor with Sinclairslaw, which is representing Evans and the mother.

Providing this treatment - puberty blocking and cross-sex hormones - to any young person who wants them requires, he argues, "a specific order of the court on a case-by-case basis. [The treatment] cannot be delivered as a matter of general approach". Conrathe suggested the legal action would be "pressing the case of Gillick to its breaking point".

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

Comedian Ricky Gervais, man of the people

Bridget Phetasy
Quillette
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 01:50 UTC
Ricky Gervaise golden globes

Ricky Gervaise hosts the Golden Globes of 2020
In a room filled with self-absorbed narcissists, one brave, slightly less self-absorbed narcissist had the balls to speak truth to power — and his name is Ricky Gervais.

If courage had a face, it would be a slightly overweight, pasty British multi-millionaire drinking a pint. Taking the stage to host his fifth and final (allegedly) Golden Globe Awards, Ricky spoke for us, the oppressed, six-figure earning, working middle-class, little guy.

I may not have ever flown on a private jet to a private island with a temple, but I got an upgrade to First Class once, and those warm nuts have a way of seducing you into believing anyone cares about your shitty takes. In fact it was on that flight I was inspired to become an opinion writer. I appreciate your hypocrisy, Hollywood, it makes me feel better about my own.

Comment: Ricky Gervais divides social media after he eviscerates 'woke' Hollywood hypocrites in scorching opening monologue at the Golden Globes

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Bad Guys

Tide of people, anti-US chants, & sorrow - Tehran in mourning over the death of General Soleimani & Iraqi militia commander


RT
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 22:18 UTC
Soleimani funeral crowd
© Official Khamenei website/Handout via Reuters
A funeral procession for General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis
A massive funeral procession occupied the streets of Iran's capital as huge crowds of people - including the military's top brass - came to pay tribute to the deceased Quds Force commander and deputy chief of Iraq's Shia militia.

The remains of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force who was killed in a US air strike, was flown to Tehran after a day of funeral processions in Ahvaz and Mashhad. Bodies of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy chief of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and other "martyrs" who died alongside Soleimani in an American drone strike, also arrived in the city.

Comment: Iran marked its mourning of General Soleimani with threats of various sorts to Israel, the U.S., and the West in general, beginning with his daughter:
The daughter of the slain Iranian general Qasem Soleimani addressed a funeral ceremony in Iran, where she said that her father's "martyrdom" will bring a "dark day" to the US and Israel, according to Iranian state TV.

"Crazy Trump, don't think that everything is over with my father's martyrdom," Zeinab Soleimani added.

Earlier, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council and former chief of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has warned of far-reaching repercussions from a possible US strike on the Islamic Republic.
In particular, Iran had harsh words for Israel which it sees as the true instigator of Soleimani's assassination as well as reconfirming that the U.S. would ultimately have to leave the Middle East:
"In response to Trump, who had said that Washington will attack Iran if it takes revenge, Rezaei said "be sure that in such a case we will completely level [Israel's port city of] Haifa and key Israeli targets", on Sunday.

Rezaei touted a "massive movement" that had taken shape in Iran in response to Soleimani's murder, pledging that Iran will be "firmly fighting the Americans" until it achieves "complete US withdrawal from the region".

"The whole world should know that that the Americans will be removed from the region soon," he pointed out. Trump Pledges 'Disproportionate' Response to Iran

His remarks come after President Donald Trump warned that the US would launch a "disproportionate" military response to Iran if it conducts a retaliatory strike against Washington.


According to POTUS, the US is "targeting" 52 Iranian military and cultural sites and will strike "very fast and very hard" if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets. Trump explained that the targets represented 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran in 1979.


An unidentified eulogist purportedly offered an $80M bounty for Trump's head, Iran repudiates the last of its JPCOA nuclear commitments:
According to Al Arabiya, the prize was announced by an unnamed eulogist at the funeral procession for Gen. Qassem Soleimani, broadcast live on Iran's Channel One from the Iranian city of Mashhad on Sunday.

He told the crowd that if every Iranian chips in $1, the total sum would equal $80 million.

"And we would give this $80 million, on our own behalf, as a gift to anyone who brings [us] the head of the person who ordered the murder of the grand figure of our revolution," the eulogist said, referring to Soleimani.

"Anyone who brings us the head of this yellow-haired lunatic, we would give him $80million on behalf of the great Iranian nation. Chant if you agree," he added, as the crowd cheered on.

Although the proposal was aired on state television, the government stopped short of floating a similar one - which would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
[...]
The Islamic Republic on Sunday upped the ante by announcing a rollback of its remaining obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal. The country started curbing its commitments in May 2019, precisely a year after Donald Trump withdrew from the pact claiming it wasn't tough enough on Iran.

The Soleimani gambit has also backfired in Iraq, where the parliament adopted a resolution requiring the government to force the withdrawal of more than 5,000 US troops from the country.


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