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Over 260 detained in Moscow after extremist group calls for rallies, plans arson attacks


RT
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 20:46 UTC
Police officers detain a man
© Tatyana Makeyeva / Reuters
Police officers detain a man in the centre of Moscow, Russia November 5, 2017
More than 260 people were detained in Moscow for breach of public order. A banned extremist group earlier called for anti-government rallies on November 5. The group's members were arrested on Friday for planning arson attacks.

"263 people were detained for violating public order in the center of Moscow. All of them were delivered to local police departments," police said in a statement. Some of the detainees were members of nationalist groups and were in possession of weapons, including knives, brass knuckles, and non-lethal guns, TASS and Interfax news agencies reported, citing police sources.

The arrests were made at the Manezhnaya Square outside the Kremlin. Earlier, the leader of Artpodgotovka movement, Vyacheslav Maltsev, called on his supporters to take to the streets and protest the government on November 5.
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Arrow Down

With Roundup on the rocks, Monsanto hatches plan for replacement with drift-prone crop destroying dicamba

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News
Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
dicamba
© Kade McBroom via EcoWatch
An aerial photo showing drift damage on a non-dicamba resistant soybean field next to a dicamba resistant soybean field.
So far, this year has not been very kind to Monsanto. First, collusion between Monsanto and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was revealed, whereby the company worked in tandem with the federal agency to discredit independent research conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The IARC, in 2015, found that glyphosate - the key ingredient in Monsanto's best-known product, Roundup - most likely causes cancer, a reality that Monsanto had secretly known for decades. Furthermore, Monsanto's own head toxicologist, Donna Farmer, admitted that she "cannot say that Roundup does not cause cancer" as "we [Monsanto] have not done the carcinogenicity studies with Roundup."

With their lobbyists now banned from the EU parliament amid the body's deliberations over whether to ban glyphosate entirely, Monsanto seems to be betting on the chemical it hopes will solve its glyphosate troubles - a herbicide known as dicamba. While dicamba has existed for decades, Monsanto has been busy retooling the herbicide, hoping to use it to replace glyphosate - not in response to concerns about glyphosate's dangerous effects on human health but in order to tackle the development of widespread resistance to glyphosate among weeds in the United States and elsewhere.

Comment: Dicamba is not a benign pesticide - in addition to posing posing serious threats to non-target crops, the herbicide can be highly mobile in soil and easily contaminate water. While only tentative links to cancer have so far been found - there are other health risks as well. From a report by the Center for Food Safety:
Potential health impacts from dicamba

Epidemiology studies have tentatively linked exposure to dicamba to increased incidence of colon, lung and immune system cancers in pesticide applicators. Other pesticide applicators exposed to dicamba exhibited a 20% inhibition of an enzyme critical to brain function. Children who ingest residues of other pesticides that have this effect exhibit higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Pregnant mice that ingested water spiked with low doses of a commercial herbicide mix that includes dicamba had smaller litters, suggesting developmental toxicity. Dicamba has been found to damage DNA at high rates, and to be transformed by sprayed plants into forms that are mutagenic in standard assays. Vastly increased use of dicamba in the context of MON 87708 can only exacerbate any adverse impacts it may have on human health.
More on Dicamba:

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Arrow Up

Trend reversed: Russian bulldozers poised to tread across foreign market


Sputnik
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 14:36 UTC
Bulldozers
© Sputnik/ Aleksandr Kondratuk
Despite the setbacks it suffered after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of Russia's top heavy machinery manufacturer is now making moves to reclaim its standing on foreign markets.

The Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, also known as ChTZ-Uraltrak, is one of the largest industrial vehicle manufacturers in Russia. During the Soviet period the plant exported its products, including bulldozers, tracked tractors, cranes and excavators to countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

After the fall of the Soviet Union the company suffered a number of setbacks in export sales as it lost much of its presence in foreign markets, but now it appears that this trend is about to be reversed.

Comment: See also: Russian LNG energy unfazed by US sanctions

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Bomb

More than 3,500 evacuated from Moscow's Bolshoi Theater after a bomb threat


TASS
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 17:16 UTC
A bomb alert was also announced at the five-star Metropol Hotel

Bolshoi Theater
© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS
More than 3,500 people have been evacuated from Moscow's Bolshoi Theater over a bomb threat, a source with the emergency services told TASS on Sunday.

"Evacuation is underway from 1, Teatralnaya Square due to a bomb alert," he said. The building is being emptied and police officers with sniff dogs are to search the theater's premises.
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Clipboard

Vox media fires two staffers as more members of elite media are accused of sexual misconduct

John Nolte
Breitbart
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 17:12 UTC
shame
© John Sullivan/Getty Images
With the news that Vox Media has dismissed two employees, including a high-ranking editorial director, it is becoming increasingly obvious that throughout our elite media - the very same media that told us "binders full of women" disqualified Mitt Romney from becoming president - there is a culture that enables the systemic sexual harassment and abuse of female staffers.

After a former employee accused the company of ignoring and even tolerating sexual misconduct, Vox Media fired editorial director Lockhart Steele late last month. The timing of Vox Media's inaction and eventual action suggests that the company had no intention of doing anything ... until this employee went public.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that, on Friday, another Vox Media staffer was forced to resign. This person remains unnamed, but a now-concluded investigation into the scandal forced this person to exit the powerful media company.

Vox claims an investigation into these allegations was done in 2016 but that Vox Media chief legal officer Lauren Fisher now wishes she could have investigated the claims "more vigorously."
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Attention

Blasphemy! Libyan Comic Con raided by paramilitary group; participants beaten


RT
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 16:49 UTC
tripoli comic con
© Libya Comic Con / Facebook
A comic convention was deemed blasphemous in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where an Islamist paramilitary group shut down a gathering of superhero fans for "inciting violence," detaining and reportedly beating some 20 participants.

The second Libyan Comic Con opened in Tripoli on Thursday, bringing together local comic book lovers and cosplayers who dressed up as their favorite heroes. The party, however, was crashed on Friday by the so-called RADA Special Deterrence Forces (SDF) paramilitary group, which raided the event, detained some 20 people and seized computers and other equipment.

"They arrested over 20 people. Organizers, participants and visitors. Anyone who was wearing a badge, including visitors, were arrested - thinking they were organizers because they wore a badge," an organizer told the Libya Herald online daily, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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V

Anonymous activists hold Million Mask March worldwide, protesting against government corruption (VIDEOS)


RT
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 16:36 UTC
Million Mask March
© Global Look Press
Anonymous activists are rallying across the globe on Guy Fawkes night for the annual Million Mask March, protesting against government corruption and calling for self-governance.

The Anonymous movement has gathered every November 5 since 2012 to coincide with Bonfire Night, a commemoration of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Protesters usually wear masks depicting Guy Fawkes - the infamous English Catholic who was caught and tortured for planning an assassination attempt on Britain's King James I.

Marches are planned for 800 cities worldwide on Sunday, according to Anonymous, and will begin in most cities at 5pm local time to coincide with rush hours. Meeting points will be at city halls and State Capitol buildings.

New York City, Washington DC, London, and Berlin are among the cities where major marches are expected.
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Better Earth

'No Trump, no war': Thousands of South Koreans demanding peace ahead of US president's visit


RT
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 14:37 UTC
South Korea protest
© Ruptly
Thousands of South Koreans flocked to streets of Seoul to demand peace with North Korea and protest the upcoming visit by US President Donald Trump, on his first Asian tour.

"We oppose war!" around 5,000 protesters chanted in central Seoul, waving banners and balloons that read "Peace, not war" and "We want peace," Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.

Some held placards that said "No Trump! No war!" and "Trump, get out!" Donald Trump is "a misogynist, and he doesn't care about life and peace of the South Korean people," one person told Ruptly news agency.

Others slammed both the US leader and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un for the rising tensions. "Trump and Kim... are using the current military standoff for their own political gain, while we South Koreans are trembling with fear of war!" one activist said on stage, as cited by AFP. The demonstration was peaceful, though it coincided with a separate protest by a right-wing group called Seoul Regional Forum, which welcomed Trump's scheduled visit to South Korea, Yonhap reports.

Comment: See also: China's message for Trump on the eve of his Asia tour: Leave Cold War thinking at the door

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Rainbow

The future is bright, the future is... multi-colored? By 2067, third of Italians forecast to be of foreign descent


Sputnik
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 12:29 UTC
migrants italy
© AP Photo/ Emilio Morenatti
The Italian National Institute of Statistics warns in a report that by 2067, a third of the country's population will have foreign ancestry. In an interview with Sputnik Italy, Professor Maurizio Ambrosini of the University of Milan called for a pragmatic approach to the problem.

Ambrosini recalled that only 250,000 people are applying for asylum in Italy, which is less than 5 percent of 5.5 million migrants who currently reside in the country.

According to him, Italy has never succeeded in integrating migrants, who perceive it as a bridge to Europe.

"Before the 2007 crisis, Italy, like the rest of southern Europe, coped well with integration because the labor market was stable and there was a great demand for domestic helpers, nurses and nannies. We need to distance ourselves from politics and return to this pragmatism," Ambrosini said.

He added that although, in the past ten years, hostile attitudes towards migrants have increased, "it can hardly be called the cause of our crisis."

Comment: You reap what you sow:

Gaddafi to EU one year before they destroyed his country: 'Libya needs help preventing African migrants from flooding Europe'

Gaddafi's cousin: Everything Muammar predicted is coming to pass

Gaddafi prophesied Europe's refugee crisis: 'The Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos'

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V

Crowd says "Burn him!": Giant Weinstein effigy goes up in flames in Guy Fawkes celebrations (VIDEO)


RT
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 03:41 UTC
Weinstein effigy
© Ben Stansall / AFP
Thousands of revellers have flocked to the burning of an effigy of Harvey Weinstein after a sleepy Kent village found an unusual way to mark its annual Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.

Friends of the Hollywood producer have seen their impressions of him go up in smoke in recent weeks, after a wave of harassment allegations, including accusations of rape and other sexual misconduct against actresses and other women. Now, Edenbridge Bonfire Society have found a way to give that a more literal representation.

In a video of the event posted to the group's Facebook page, the master of ceremonies assures the crowd that the event was not designed to point fun at Weinstein's alleged crimes, but then goes on to ask what they wanted to do with his 36ft effigy. The crowd then respond with a shout, saying in unison: "Burn him!"

Comment: See also: Remember Remember... why we don't need them!

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