The Philippines started returning dozens of shipping containers full of garbage to Canada on Friday. The move could possibly end a six-year dispute between the two countries.

Sixty-nine containers holding some 2,500 tons of household waste (including plastic bottles, bags, newspapers and diapers) were loaded overnight onto a vessel at the port of Subic, northwest of Manila. The containers left on Friday for a month-long journey to the Canadian city of Vancouver.

"Baaaaaaaaa bye, as we say it... The garbage is gone, good riddance," Philippines Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin wrote on Twitter, posting images of the leaving vessel.

Three years ago a Philippines court declared the import of 2,400 tons of Canadian waste illegal. It had been mislabeled as plastics for recycling. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte then ordered that the waste be shipped back, threatening to dump it in front of Canada's embassy in Manila, or personally sail with the waste and leave it in Canadian waters. "Let's fight Canada. I will declare war against them," he said.

At present, the number of illegal migrants defying Finnish rejections to their asylum application and even deportation rulings is estimated to hover at several thousand.

Finland may put electronic footwear on immigrants who have had their asylum applications rejected, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported.

If passed, the law will generally apply to immigrants, but especially to those who have received negative decisions on their asylum applications. The idea of electronic footwear, in Scandinavia known as "electronic fetters", is to serve as an alternative to putting all illegal immigrants in physical custody, an option reserved for individuals deemed dangerous to the public. The Aliens Act lists several conditions for detention, including risk of escape, suspicion of crime or a threat to national security. With footwear in place, the authorities will still be able to keep track of them.

The question of whether the "fetters" requirement would also apply to children and minors, remains unresolved.

A caravan-sized group of more than 1,000 people was taken into federal custody in western Texas Wednesday after illegally crossing from Mexico into the United States, marking the largest single group Border Patrol has ever taken into custody at once.

Agents encountered 1,036 people, primarily from Central America, near El Paso, Texas, early Wednesday morning, a senior Border Patrol official told the Washington Examiner. The group included 63 children travelling without a parent or guardian. Another 39 people were single adults, and the remaining 934 claimed to be travelling with a family member.

A series of explosions have rocked the oil-rich northern Iraq city of Kirkuk, which lies 150 miles north of Baghdad in a disputed region which Iraqi Kurdistan leaders have jostled with the national government for control over.

On Thursday evening half a dozen or more explosions ripped across a central avenue, leaving at least five people dead and a dozen or more wounded, according to unconfirmed early conflicting reports. Some reports have cited as many as six or more among the dead what may have numbered eight total explosions.

Dramatic footage captured the moment of one of the bombs being detonated on a busy street during the heart of the evening in an area known as a popular commercial hub filled with cafes and malls.

Part 2:

War is not a foregone conclusion or a national necessity. Each successive occupant of the White House only needs you to believe that in order to centralize the power of an increasingly imperial presidency, stifle dissent, and chip away at what remains of civil liberties.

- Danny Sjursen, retired US Army officer, The Pence Prophecy: VP Predicts Perpetual War at the West Point Graduation

Whenever I mention direct democracy, a certain segment of the population always comes back with a very negative knee-jerk reaction. Since this response tends to center around several concerns, today's post will dig into them and explain how such pitfalls can be structurally addressed.

Minority Protection

The first thing that worries people is a fear there will be no protections for minority populations within such a system. Take the U.S. for example, where approximately 80% of the population lives in urban areas and only 20% in rural. If we moved to a system where direct popular vote played a meaningful role in deciding the majority of issues, rural populations would lose out every single time. It would end up being an oppressive system for people who live in less populated areas and would tear up the U.S. even faster than is happening now.

I definitely think this sort of thing is a problem, but people misunderstand what I mean when I discuss direct democracy. Fundamentally, I'm a firm believer that governance should be radically decentralized compared to what it is today. America is a great example of a good idea gone completely off the tracks.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means.

- Lord Acton

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

- Buckminster Fuller

If you've read anything I've written over the past several years, you'll be acutely aware of my belief that human civilization is currently in a major transition period between two great paradigms of world history. The old world we all grew up in no longer works for most people, yet is being relentlessly propped up by the powerful and their minions who benefit from its parasitic and destructive nature. Despite their best efforts, a system so poisonous, decrepit and corrupt cannot and will not last. At this stage, it's little more than a Potemkin village fraud barely kept standing courtesy of increasingly intense deception, manipulation and the sheer will of those who profit handsomely from it.

By stating we're in the transition period, I want to make it clear I believe things are very much already being disrupted and altered beneath the hood of a world which appears indistinguishable from what it was a decade ago on a superficial level. Specifically, I think there are two core aspects of human existence that will be completely transformed in the years to come. First, within the monetary and financial systems that define how commerce, savings and entrepreneurship function. The emergence and continued momentum of Bitcoin offers evidence that disruption in this realm is already very much underway, albeit still in its infancy. The second realm I expect will experience massive transformational change relates to forms of human governance. We've barely scratched the surface on this one, but nascent signs have started to appear, and I suspect a push towards political systems more defined by direct democracy will become increasingly common in the years ahead. I've spent many hours writing about the financial and monetary system, so today's piece will focus on what appears to be coming with regard to human political evolution.

Authorities removed 136 dogs from a house in a gated community in Southern California on Thursday. The owners of the mansion have been cited for animal cruelty.

The Orange Police Department received an anonymous tip about animal cruelty at the home, according to Sgt. Phil McMullen, the department's public information officer.

Police arrived at the home at about 2:30 p.m. local time and were let inside the home by the owners.

Orange police said they found "approximately 100 animals, ranging anywhere from puppies to elder dogs in various stages of medical issues."

Orange County Animal Care was called and they began removing the animals from the home wearing hazmat suits and masks.

For an increasing number of Danes camping is the only accommodation they can afford due to factors such as mortgage default, divorce, or other circumstances.

Denmark is seeing a growing trend in campsites becoming places of permanent residence, TV2 reported.

Of approximately 100 campsites in Denmark that are open all year, almost half, 47, have people living in them all year round, which means a doubling in the last decade.

According to Danish camping regulations, it is not permitted to have a permanent residence at a campsite all year round. During the winter period, which formally lasts from 1 November to 28 February, you are allowed to spend a maximum of 20 days at a time in your caravan.

Hearing is latest stage in possible extradition of WikiLeaks founder to US

Julian Assange was too ill to appear by video link for the latest hearing in relation to his possible extradition to the US, lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder told a court.

The hearing was the first since 2 May, when lawyers for the US government began pressing its case to extradite him to face trial for what they described as one the largest compromises of classified information in history.

However, his solicitor Gareth Peirce told a judge at Westminster magistrates court in London on Thursday that Assange was too ill to appear by video link from prison. The date for the next hearing was confirmed as 12 June.

The lack of pollinating insects in some areas of fruit production in China has forced producers to pollinate their fruit trees by hand.

In these areas, the excessive use of pesticides and the lack of a natural habitat put an end to all the pollinators that inhabited the ecosystem.

There is increasing awareness of insects and other pollinating animals for agriculture worldwide; In fact, in the long term, they are basically the only ones responsible when it comes to growing food and without them agriculture could collapse.

There are simple solutions to avoid their collapse. Studies in Europe and North America have found that it is possible to increase the population of pollinating insects by planting strips of wild flowers near crops and leaving patches of natural vegetation, such as trees and forests. These practices can also increase the population of natural predators, decreasing the need to use pesticides.