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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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European driving report: French don't signal, Spanish honk, Germans speed, Swedes tailgate

driving car road
How would you rate driving standards in France? A new report on European driving behaviour has found that the French are least likely to indicate, the Germans most likely to speed, and the Spanish most likely to honk.

The online poll, from motorway management company La Fondations Vinci Autoroutes and survey agency Ipsos, found that the vast majority of drivers from across 11 European countries admitted to regularly breaking the rules of the road.

It asked 11,038 people aged 15 and over - depending on driving age - including at least 1,000 people in each of the 11 countries polled.

Drivers in Mediterranean countries - such as Greece, Spain, Italy and France - were widely considered to be the most "disrespectful", while the Swedish were deemed the most "courteous", followed by the Slovakians and the British.

The French were found to be the least likely to indicate (63% admitted to not doing this), while the Germans were most likely to speed on the motorway (93% admitted to this).

Over two thirds of the Swedish (78%) admitted to not respecting safe distances between themselves and the car in front when driving, while the Spanish were most likely to hoot their car horn (66%) at anyone who annoyed them on the road.

Comment: You can tell a lot about a culture by their drivers.




Stop

Russia says Canada's weed legalization 'tramples international law'

Canadian embassy in Moscow
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
A general view shows the embassy of Canada in Moscow, Russia March 29, 2018.
Moscow says Ottawa is trampling on international law by legalizing recreational use of cannabis. Canada is set to become world's second nation to fully decriminalize production and consumption of pot.

The rebuke comes after Canadian lawmakers approved a law regulating production and circulation of cannabis for recreational purposes. Moscow believes that the law, which is to come into force come autumn, directly violates Ottawa's international commitments, Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The ministry referred to three key treaties dealing with narcotics - the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention of Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 UN Convention against illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances - all of which Canada endorsed. The documents as well international bodies tackling illegal drug trade, do not condone using "exceptions" or "flexible interpretation" to turn scheduled substances into entertainment. Moscow sees the change of policy in Canada as a "serious obstacle" on the way to a drug-free society.

Comment: Further reading: Canada legalises recreational cannabis use in a 52-29 senate vote


Blackbox

Bankrupt Boris Becker insists diplomatic immunity granted by Central African Republic is genuine

boris becker
© NurPhoto/Getty Images
Boris Becker says he underwent an official inauguration.
Former world No 1 tennis player Boris Becker has insisted he has a genuine diplomatic passport from the Central African Republic after officials dismissed it as a fake.

The retired German tennis star, who claims his role as an attache to the EU gives him diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings in the UK, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I have received this passport from the ambassador. I have spoken to the president on many occasions. It was an official inauguration. I believe the documents they are giving me must be right."

The three-times Wimbledon champion has faced a series of denials from CAR officials about the issue, including from the foreign minister, Charles Armel Doubane. The presidential spokesman, Albert Yaloke Mokpeme, said the head of state never appointed Becker to the post. The presidency said: "We are not custodians of the physical and moral integrity of this gentleman."

Comment: See also:


Eye 2

5 female NGO workers kidnapped & gang-raped while trying to bring awareness of human trafficking in India

protest against rape
© Amit Dave / Reuters
People hold placards at a protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl in India on April 22, 2018.
Five women were gang-raped by at least half a dozen men in India while performing a street play to bring awareness to human trafficking. The women, who work for an NGO, were approached by the men at gunpoint.

The women were performing in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand on Tuesday when the men approached the group, which also included four male colleagues and two nuns.

"The survivors said their male colleagues were beaten and made to drink their own urine before being locked up in the car," Deputy Inspector General Amol V Homkar told the Times of India.

Quenelle

'Free countries don't disarm their citizens': Czechs respond to EU crackdown on legal gun-owners

gun confiscation
Czech president Miloš Zeman has put his name to a petition opposing an EU diktat which would clamp down on legal gun-owners and backed a constitutional amendment which would guarantee citizens' right to keep arms for self-defence and protection of the homeland.

The directive on tightening control of firearms under the guise of counter-terrorism was approved by the European Parliament in mid-March, and would see the Czech Republic - which combines comparatively liberal gun rights with low levels of crime and extremely low levels of terrorism - forced to impose new restrictions or face sanctions from Brussels.

Center for Civic Freedoms founder Václav Klaus Jr., son of former president Václav Klaus Sr., complained that the governments of non-democratic and fascist countries disarm their citizens, not free countries.

Comment: An incredible media and politically driven effort to disarm Americans - and now in Europe by the European Parliament?! Is the PTB on both continents expecting something to happen in both places that make them fear an armed citizenry?


Bizarro Earth

'Art' imitates life: Sex robots will soon be able to reject raunchy romps with humans (video)

Dr Sergi Santos and the sex doll Samantha
© Reuters
Dr Sergi Santos and the sex doll Samantha
Created to satisfy the sexual desires of their owners, sex robots could soon be able to turn down unwanted advances, according to a trailblazing inventor designing the lovemaking machines.

Spanish engineer Sergi Santos is behind one of latest sex doll models to capitalize on the niche market. Earlier this year he told RT.com about how future iterations of his love robot, Samantha, could allow people to "have sex whenever [they] like" and then enable users to order their shopping.

Newspaper

English football fan gets ban after giving Nazi salute in city of Stalingrad battle

English football fan
One of the English fans that was filmed giving Nazi salutes and singing a Hitler song in a bar in the Russian city of Volgograd, the site of a major WWII battle, has been banned from attending games for five years by a UK court.

British police and the Football Association launched a joint investigation after footage emerged online showing English fans performing Nazi salutes, shouting "Sieg Heil" and singing songs glorifying the Third Reich. The video was shot on Monday at a bar in Volgograd, the city known as Stalingrad during World War Two, where more than 2 million people died.

Binoculars

A look inside a lavish retreat where lobbyists donate for access to state attorneys general

State attorneys general, who are the top law enforcement officials in each state, have the final say on which cases to pursue or not. That power has not gone unnoticed by lobbyists. CBS News got an inside look at one lavish retreat at
Kiawah Island, South Carolina

Kiawah Island, South Carolina
Kiawah Island, South Carolina, where businesses and trade groups paid for access. Some of the companies are under investigation by state attorneys general, but still give large donations so they can get one-on-one access to AGs to state their case.

It's perfectly legal for a company under investigation by a state attorney general to give money to the political associations for attorneys general that fund AG campaigns. In return, it's legal for those associations to give access to company lobbyists.

2 + 2 = 4

What nihilism has wrought

ocean
People today have become so ignorant of their own history, purposely so, that they do not realize that the very things their great grandfathers/mothers and grandfathers/mothers fought against on the left, are now the very things the neo-left fights for. In the late 60's the Rubicon was crossed and the new left that arose readily accepted the ideological stances of its once hated enemies.

Malthusian ideas were the first incoherent ideology adopted by the new left, in its wake anti-humanism became switched out for humanism. Where once the left championed the poor, now Malthusian overpopulation concerns turned the poor themselves into liabilities. People now pollute not unfair political and economic systems which alienate the poor from their humanity.

Monkey Wrench

Escalating the trade war: Trump threatens to impose tariffs on European cars after Brussels sets up €2.8B of levies on US

Bourbon whiskey, Levi's and Harley-Davidson on list as EU measures comes into force

Long Beach shipment of Mercedes, trade war
© Bloomberg/Getty Images
Trump’s new threat comes after the EU imposed tariffs on a range of US consumer goods in response to steel and aluminium tariffs from the White House, which could increase the cost of consumer goods by £200m per year in the UK alone.
Donald Trump has threatened to widen the mounting trade dispute between US and the EU by imposing tariffs on European cars, after Brussels made good on its threat of retaliatory levies on American products including bourbon whiskey, Levi's jeans and Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

Raising the stakes in the tit-for-tat exchange of import tariffs threatening to spark a global trade war, the US president tweeted in response to the EU tariffs which came into effect late on Thursday: "If these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!"


Trump's new threat comes after the EU imposed tariffs on a range of US consumer goods in response to steel and aluminium tariffs from the White House, which could increase the cost of consumer goods by £200m per year in the UK alone.

Comment: Further reading: