Society's Child
Since Huawei was placed on the U.S. entity list -- a trade blacklist-- in May 2019, American companies have been required to obtain a special license from the Commerce Department to have any business dealings with Huawei and its affiliates. This rule change allows companies to disclose U.S. technologies to the Chinese telecom giant without a license if it is for the purpose of 5G standards development.
The amendment is meant to ensure Huawei's placement on the entity list "does not prevent American companies from contributing to important standards-developing activities despite Huawei's pervasive participation in standards-development organizations," according to the Commerce Department announcement.
The latest is China's biggest online classified firm 58.com, which on Monday agreed to a buyout deal led by private equity firms Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic. An investor group backed by Chinese tech tycoon Pony Ma's Tencent Holdings said last week it will take Bitauto Holdings private in a deal valuing the car-listing website at $1.1 billion.
So far this year, U.S.-listed Chinese companies have announced four go-private deals with a combined value of $8.1 billion including debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's up from zero during the same period last year. It's also the highest value for any full year since 2015, when $29.8 billion of such buyouts were announced.
The uptick comes as President Donald Trump weighs tighter scrutiny on Chinese companies after a string of accounting scandals including Luckin Coffee that have burned some of Wall Street's biggest names. Nasdaq is planning new rules that would make initial public offerings more difficult for some Chinese firms, potentially curtailing their access to the world's biggest capital market.
The 2020 Integration Barometer, commissioned by the Norwegian Integration and Diversity Directorate (IMDI), recently published the results from its ninth survey since 2005 and they make for unsettling reading for immigration advocates.
Only one fifth of respondents said that immigration worked 'very' or 'quite' well, while 79 percent of Norwegians argued any shortcomings of integration are due to lack of effort from immigrants themselves.
Some 52 percent believe the values of Islam are incompatible with Norwegian society, with 56 percent are skeptical of having a Muslim son-in-law or daughter-in-law, 45 percent are skeptical of Muslims overall, while 70 percent were skeptical of those with a "strong Muslim faith."
However, many also expressed wariness towards those with strong Christian beliefs (54 percent) which was a higher degree of reticence than towards those of a "moderate Muslim faith" (34 percent). "We thus see that skepticism about religious beliefs is not just about specific religions, but also about how strong the beliefs are perceived," the report said.
Airlines including Easyjet and KLM in Europe, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines in the United States, and Asia's Virgin Australia, are suspending all or part of their alcoholic drinks service in response to COVID-19.
It's part of a widespread revision of the industry's food and drink service to minimize interaction between crew and passengers and to ensure a safer journey for all.
With face masks already mandatory on pretty much all flights around the world, and new legislation introduced in January 2020 to curb anti-social behavior on flights, it's another in a line of barriers — literal and legal — to getting high in the sky.
Many airlines are limiting drink options to water only. As face masks must be kept on other than when passengers are eating and drinking, it's a way of ensuring passengers are lingering over their refreshments for no longer than necessary.
I don't know much about ZeroHedge, but the contention that the Federalist (where I worked as a senior editor from 2013 to 2019) is "far-right," as reporter Adele-Momoko Fraser claims twice in her piece, is utter nonsense. The Federalist publishes a wide variety of opinions. Some pieces are more provocative than others. Some are very provocative. So what? NBC News is trying to make the site sound like the Daily Stormer, when in fact it has contributions from well-known mainstream libertarians, social conservatives, and moderate Republicans. All of the content falls well within normal parameters of contemporary political discourse — which is exactly what outlets such as NBC News are trying to shut down.
Led by activist Heshy Tischler and a number of state assemblymen, the group was seen in videos shared to social media on Monday breaking the lock off a gate barring the entrance to a park in Williamsburg, allowing a crowd gathered outside to enter, to cheers of "Heshy!"
Comment: Update:
Protests good, playgrounds bad? NYC mayor chews out locals reopening kids' parks after cheering on George Floyd marchers
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had harsh words for parents and neighborhood groups "taking the law into their own hands" by cutting locks on city playgrounds, but has continued to defend the protesters who crowd city streets.
The mayor scolded New Yorkers for busting open padlocked playgrounds, during a press conference on Tuesday at which he reminded reporters that the sites are set to remain closed until "Phase 2" of post-coronavirus reopening.
We're not going to allow people to take the law into their own hands. It just doesn't work.Insisting the continued closure of children's play-spaces is "for a reason," de Blasio insisted he'd been "very sympathetic" and tried to "make it work," but blamed parents for not following the rules. He also threatened to postpone Phase 2 or even return to full lockdown if city residents refused to cooperate, hinting that any suggestion the virus was spreading would push any hoped-for playground reopening into the distant future.
De Blasio's recriminations were playground-specific for a reason, however. The mayor was photographed marching with protesters in East Harlem on Sunday, and has repeatedly defended the George Floyd protesters' flouting of the Covid-19 social distancing measures he insists on applying elsewhere with an iron fist, proclaiming that "an extraordinary crisis seated in 400 years of American racism" trumps "the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person."
A Hasidic Jewish group was filmed cutting the lock on Williamsburg's Middleton Playground on Monday, presumably reasoning that with the massive protests that have thronged the streets over the past three weeks, the logic that children must be barred from climbing on play equipment for the sake of "social distancing" has been utterly shredded.
Eager to commit an act of vandalism but have little experience and want to make sure you don't accidentally hurt your co-conspirators in the process? Rest reassured, Popular Mechanics is here to lend a helping hand and a piece of expert advice.
In its article published on Monday, the science magazine provided elaborate step-by-step guidelines on how to "bring that sucker down without anyone getting hurt." Rallying behind the rampant destruction of historical monuments across the US amid allegations that they celebrate a legacy of racism, the magazine said that it asked "scientists for the best, safest ways to bring it to the ground without anyone getting hurt - except, of course, for the inanimate racist who's been dead for a century anyway."
The Middle East is easily the most conflict-prone region in the world, and there's no sign the violence is going to end any time soon, says Seth J. Frantzman, a Middle East affairs analyst at the Jerusalem Post.
In an article for the newspaper on Monday, the observer asked why the region has so many more wars than any other place on Earth. The answer, he believes, is the region's complexity, its home to great power competition, and the sense of "impunity" that some regional powers have "to traffic weapons and send their armies across borders."
Comment: None so blind as those who will not see.
- History of the June 1967 "Six Day War": Some Israeli leaders do sometimes tell the truth
- Demystifying the myths of Israel's Six-Day War
- What Really Happened in the "Yom Kippur" War?
- Israel admits to torpedoing Lebanese refugee ship, killing 25 people, in 1982 war against Lebanon
- Israel admits using phosphorus bombs during war in Lebanon
- Lebanon, Iraq, Iran call out Israel's 'declaration of war' after it bombs 3 COUNTRIES in one weekend
- Israeli attacks on Syria: How Israel backs terrorists against Syria
- Israeli pathological war in photos: Israel relentlessly bombs Gaza, West Bank protests repressed
- Psychopathic Israel: Relentlessly brutalizing millions of Palestinians for decades
- What Zionists really mean when they say "there was no Palestine" - and why they're "not even wrong"
The 130-year-old brand features a Black woman named Aunt Jemima, who was originally dressed as a minstrel character.
The picture has changed over time, and in recent years Quaker removed the "mammy" kerchief from the character to blunt growing criticism that the brand perpetuated a racist stereotype that dated to the days of slavery. But Quaker, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, said removing the image and name is part of an effort by the company "to make progress toward racial equality."
"We recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype," Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, said in a press release. "As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers' expectations."
Comment: The absurdity of the outrage mob continues.
New York Police Department (NYPD) data reported by NBC New York's Melissa Russo reveals that since Cuomo issued a statewide order demanding jails and prisons release inmates to abide by social distancing measures in late March, at least 250 inmates from Rikers Island have been rearrested.
Comment: Just one example of Cuomo's mishandling of the "pandemic". One would wonder if such ineptness isn't deliberate.
- Sent to die: 4,300 Covid-19 patients sent to New York's vulnerable nursing homes under Cuomo directive
- Cuomo offers up New Yorkers as GUINEA PIGS for coronavirus vaccine, mandates face masks in public
- Cuomo appoints billionaires to lead post-pandemic 'reforms', never mind pesky conflicts of interest
- Holding healthcare hostage? Cuomo demands federal bailout or he'll 'have to' cut hospital funding
- 'European virus': Cuomo goes all-in on Covid-19 language gymnastics in standoff with Trump
- Cuomo announces partnership with Bill Gates to "revolutionize" NY schools in wake of coronavirus















Comment: Senior Federalist journalist Mollie Hemingway fires back:
Wider commentary reported by RT: