RTTue, 05 Jun 2018 12:23 UTC
Akbar Al Baker says only a man could rise to the challenges of his job.
In a not so subtle comment Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker suggested that a woman would not be good for his "very challenging" job, instantly prompting a heated reaction on social media.
Asked about what steps have been taken to eliminate gender discrimination in the Middle East aviation industry, Al Baker emphasized that, although his company was moving in the direction of gender equity, no woman could sit in the CEO chair."Of course it has to be led by a man, because it is a very challenging position," Al Baker
said at a press conference in Sydney.
On further reflection as to why being a woman was incompatible with the position of Qatar Airways CEO, Al Baker said that he was "only referring to one individual" and "not to the staff in general."
Wednesday, May 30
th, was Memorial Day in the United States. The commemoration began in 1868 shortly after the American Civil War, when townsmen in several communities came together to decorate the graves of the fallen on the last Monday in May. The practice began in the northern states but soon spread to the south and the annual remembrance ceremony soon took on the name Decoration Day. As wars proliferated in the twentieth century the commemoration eventually lost its association with the Civil War and was increasingly referred to nationally as Memorial Day, eventually becoming a federal holiday.
The American Civil war killed 655,000 soldiers, more than all other U.S. wars before or since combined. It was the first modern war in that it relied on railroads and steamships. The North also destroyed the livelihoods of and deliberately starved civilian populations to reduce the South's will to resist. It was a war fought on U.S. soil and experienced first hand by the American people.
Today Memorial Day has largely lost its connection with dead soldiers and is instead best noted for being regarded as the first day of summer for recreational purposes. Beaches open up, the lifeguards come out and the smell of barbecued meat fills the air. The declining number of veterans of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam work hard to remember the dead but there is
little interest from a public that has become increasingly detached from its non-conscripted professional army.
RTSun, 03 Jun 2018 19:08 UTC
© Thomas White / Reuters
China is ramping up efforts to promote yuan as a global currency. After the crackdown on outflows and devaluation in 2015, the renminbi is once again gaining momentum.
The record share of yuan in global trade was at 2.8 percent three years ago, according to Bloomberg. Its share shrank to 1.7 percent in April, but is on the rise again.
One of the reasons for that is China's foreign reserves, the world's biggest, have been boosted this year. Yuan also saw its biggest rally in 10 years in the first quarter."There will surely be more utilization of the currency in cross-border transfers this year. The exchange rate will be influenced by global financial markets more. Offshore investors will also become a more important driver for onshore bonds," Ji Tianhe, a China rates and foreign-exchange strategist at BNP Paribas SA, told Bloomberg.
RTMon, 04 Jun 2018 10:23 UTC
© Luke MacGregor/ReutersGreater powers to intervene in terror plots.
The Home Office has announced an overhauled counter-terrorism strategy that includes the closer monitoring of British jihadists and a new approach to targeting the growing threat of far-right extremism.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced the
new measures as part of efforts to revamp the security service's Contest strategy, which will utilize a multi-agency approach in order to tackle terrorist threats that are becoming "increasingly diverse."
As part of the renewed strategy,
technology companies will have greater responsibility in tackling cases of extremism online, while Javid has called for greater cooperation with businesses when they spot worrying buying-patterns, or suspicious behavior while hiring a vehicle, purchasing chemicals, or components that could be combined to make explosives.An additional 1,000 security services staff will also be recruited to collect and analyze data as well as keep suspects under better surveillance, and powers will be granted with the intention to disrupt terrorist plots and jail suspects before an attack could take place.
MI5 and counter terrorism police are currently running more than 500 live operations involving roughly 3,000 'subjects of interest'.
Comment: UK continues to push its boundaries towards authoritarian control.
RTTue, 05 Jun 2018 08:51 UTC
© www.americanairlines.comAmerican Airlines
Mother Nature's wrath came down on an American Airlines plane after
a hail storm shattered its windshield and damaged its nose cone, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing.American Airlines flight AA1897, which departed from San Antonio just after midnight on Sunday, was only in the air for one hour before the pilots declared an emergency. That emergency was the hail storm wreaking serious damage to the aircraft's windshield and nose cone.
Comment: Some lucky people!
More from
weather.com:
An airline spokesman said Monday that the plane was awaiting repairs for damage to the nose, windshield panels and a cockpit side window.
Passenger Jesus Esparza told KENS-TV in San Antonio he saw lightning and hail and the plane dropped "like a rollercoaster." He gave a sickness bag to another passenger who had already used one.
From
Fox 10:
RTMon, 04 Jun 2018 16:55 UTC
© Rex FeaturesPart of the 'massive effort'.
The police response to the alleged nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, has so far cost the taxpayer £7.5 million, according to the region's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC). Revealing the stats, PCC Angus Macpherson described the police's operation as a
"massive effort," adding that the cost quoted could rise.
Wiltshire Police also revealed that
Det Sgt Nick Bailey, one of the first responding officers to find the Skripals, was contaminated at Skripal's home in the city, rather than the park bench where he found the Skripals slumped over. It was reported that at the time of their discovery on March 4, Bailey had been wearing a body camera and gloves.
At the height of the investigation, as many as 140 officers from Wiltshire Police were involved in the case, which has also seen support provided by 40 other police forces across Britain.
Comment: A costly stunt like this is only 'a bargain' if it unequivocally frames the target. And it didn't.
Neil Clark
SputnikSat, 02 Jun 2018 22:18 UTC
© Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko
Killed on Tuesday. Attending a Press Conference on Wednesday. When it comes to Lazarus-style recoveries, the 'anti-Kremlin' journalist Arkady Babchenko, makes even the Skripals look like also-rans. The fake murder stunt pulled by the Ukrainian authorities, has also made quite a few 'superior' people back home look rather stupid.
When 'news' of Babchenko's 'assassination' came out, the west's political and media elite couldn't wait to point the finger of blame at the Russian government. The same people who screech 'conspiracy theorist' at those who claim the British government scientist David Kelly, who was found in a field in Oxfordshire with his left wrist slashed, was murdered, assured us that the FSB, acting on the orders of the Evil Putin, had struck again. Not only that, they ridiculed those who wouldn't share their surety.
'But, but Porton Down, the Russians don't do this. Western conspiracy blah, blah blah. Wake. Up. fgs just wake up' tweeted Giles Dilnot, formerly of the Daily Politics.
RTThu, 31 May 2018 14:31 UTC
© Joel Goodman/ Global Look Press
Feminist Germaine Greer has come under fire after she called for rape sentences to be lowered, claiming non-consensual intercourse is merely "bad sex." She was speaking at a prominent literary festival in Wales.
Criticism is pouring through Twitter after Greer said
200 hours of community service and an 'r' tattooed on the rapist would be enough to compensate a woman for being sexually abused.
"Most rapes don't involve any injury whatsoever," Greer said while speaking at the Hay Festival.
"We are told that it is a sexually violent crime, an expert like Quentin Tarantino will tell us that when you use the word rape you're talking about violence, a throwing them down... it is one of the most violent crimes in the world. Bullshit Tarantino.
"Most rape is just lazy, just careless, insensitive. Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights he is raping her.
It will never end up in a court of law."Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime,
and some rapes are, think about it as non consensual... that is bad sex. Sex where there is
no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love."
Comment: The irony is that Germaine Greer is merely following feminist logic to its logical conclusion. "Free" sex entails non-consensual sex. It wouldn't be free otherwise. And that's exactly what we've seen over the past 50 years: increasingly "free" sex, and increasingly draconic anti-sex laws to crack down on the unwanted aspects of said "free" sex.
But it's not even clear exactly what Greer was saying. She seems both to write off "most rape" as simply non-consensual sex,
and to make a distinction between violent, coerced sex and simply sex that one regrets having, or which is engaged in with no explicit consent or real thought. And the thing is, according to the feminist definition of rape, even consensual sex that is later regretted by one party can be deemed rape. So in that sense, yes, many cases of "rape" should have lesser sentences,
because they are not rape. Actually, they shouldn't have any sentence, because consensual-but-regrettable sex is not a crime. Certainly not a branding and community service. All this controversy and confusion would be cleared up if we simply stuck with a sane definition of rape.
Update (June 5): The reaction from the Feminazi Left has been swift. One feminist
wrote that Greer "can no longer be called a feminist" (lucky her!).
Also of interest is Greer's previous statements which go against radical Leftist ideology. In 2015
she made waves by saying that she did not accept that post-operative men were women. She sensibly pointed out there are distinct experiences for women that a simple surgery can't create:
"Being a woman is a bit tricky. If you didn't find your pants full of blood when you were 13 there's something important about being a woman you don't know. It's not all cake and jam."
There was a
petition to cancel the Cardiff speech by her because of her "transphobic comments." Also in 2017 she denounced the all-female school Murray Edwards Collge for allowing transgender women to attend. She again made very good points regarding her stance:
"If [Murray Edwards] really don't believe that gender is binary, then they really shouldn't be a single sex college. Their position is ridiculous. The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind."
As we have seen, anyone who begins making sensible comments on the hysterical insanity surrounding the radical feminist ideology will immediately be shunned from the group and denounced as sexist, transphobic, etc. The PC thought police do not tolerate anyone swerving away from the accepted groupthink, so a sane intelligent thinker like Greer now is no longer allowed to be a feminist. She should feel lucky.
RTTue, 05 Jun 2018 12:04 UTC
© Francois Lenoir / ReutersOn Tuesday the court ruled that the term “spouse” in EU law includes partners of the same sex and instructed other EU countries to recognise the residency rights of all spouses regardless of whether they allow same sex marriage.
In a landmark case for marriage equality, the EU's top court, the European Court of Justice, ruled that same-sex spouses have the same residence rights as straight couples
despite the individual marriage laws of EU countries.The highly publicized case began in 2012 when Romanian LGBT activist, Adrian Coman, and his US partner, Robert Clabourn Hamilton, who were legally married in Belgium in 2010, attempted to relocate to Coman's home country.
Romania doesn't allow same-sex marriage so immigration authorities refused to legally recognize their marriage certificate, and therefore would not give Hamilton permission to live in the country for more than three months as he could not be classified as Coman's spouse.
RTTue, 05 Jun 2018 15:29 UTC
© Aly Song / ReutersSteve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple
Tech legend Steve Wozniak says he is attracted to the "purity" of the idea that people around the world could one day share a single currency, despite being separated by national borders.
He echoed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently said that he believes bitcoin will become the single currency worldwide.
"I buy into what Jack Dorsey says, not that I necessarily believe it's going to happen, but because I want it to be that way, that is so pure thinking," Wozniak told CNBC on the sidelines of the Money 20/20 conference in Amsterdam.
Comment: See also: Memorial Day: The Pawn of War