Society's Child

Bitter spat between Palestinian Authority and Hamas deprives Gazans of passports—and the opportunity to travel

Khuloud Rabah Sulaiman
Mondoweiss
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC

This report is by a writer from WeAreNotNumbers.org in Gaza.

© Ashraf Amra/APA Image
Palestinians hold their passports as they wait for travel permits to cross into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing after it was opened by Egyptian authorities for humanitarian cases, in the southern Gaza Strip December 17, 2017.

For over a decade Israel and Egypt prevented Palestinians from exiting Gaza by tightly controlling crossings that lead outside of the besieged strip. Palestinians now say that another block they face in traveling abroad is from the Palestinian Authority who have used a quiet policy to deny travel documents over the last decade.

In the past, Hamas's ministry of interior had oversight on passport requests and used that authority to purge passport requests from political opponents. Presently the Palestinian Authority, or PA, is the only authority that can issue this vital document for Palestinians-including those in Gaza.

According to human rights monitors and sources who spoke to Mondoweiss, when passport requests are denied, Palestinians are told it is for "security reasons." This block was traced back to interference by the Palestinian Intelligence Service in the West Bank.

Bakr al-Turkmani from the Gaza office of the International Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), a quasi-governmental human rights monitor, said his group has monitored passport denials since 2007.

Comment: As if the constant onslaught from Israel wasn't causing enough grief, Gazans also have to contend with the PA:

Cargo vessel crashes into bollard on Istanbul's Bosphorus

Hurriyet Daily News
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 12:44 UTC

A cargo vessel crossing through the Bosphorus in Istanbul crashed into a bollard next to Aşiyan Cemetery on Dec. 27.

Songa Iridium, a Liberian-flagged cargo vessel departing from Odessa port of Ukraine, ran ashore at the Rumeli Hisarı 25 minutes after entering the Bosphorus Strait.

Rescue boats from the General Directorate of Coastal Safety were dispatched to the scene.

No loss of life due to the accident was reported.

The cargo vessel was 191-meters (626-feet) long and weighted over 23,500 gross ton.

Comment: Footage of the crash collated by RT and Sputnik:

How do you know woke 'Star Wars' is a failure? When social justice warriors start blaming 'Russian bots'

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 17:23 UTC

Partisan hacks in both media and entertainment have forced even the Force to become political. But after the new and woke 'Star Wars' films underperformed with American moviegoers, the activists blamed - who else - Russia!

The latest - and perhaps the last - installment in the saga, 'The Rise of Skywalker,' premiered the weekend before Christmas. While the box office receipts have reportedly been anemic, Rotten Tomatoes review averages show that the audience liked it as much as 2015's 'The Force Awakens.' By contrast, critics hated it - almost as much as moviegoers hated 2017's 'The Last Jedi,' which was beloved by critics and activists alike.

That clearly cannot stand, according to one Annalee Newitz, whose tirade about 'Star Wars' was published in the New York Times on Christmas eve. The best she can say about 'Skywalker' is that it's the Joe Biden of 'Star Wars' movies, managing to "deliver a few liberal-sounding messages," while the previous two movies were like Barack Obama, and "gave fans truly diverse casts and grappled in a relatively nuanced way with the class and race conflicts that have hovered at the margins of every 'Star Wars' story."

Hiker killed by toppled giant redwood tree in Northern California's Muir Woods National Monument Park

Bill Hutchinson
ABC News
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 04:50 UTC

© Eric Risberg/AP, FILE
Visitors walk along a pathway near the entrance to the Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County, Calif., March 25, 2008.Visitors walk along a pathway near the entrance to the Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County, Calif., March 25, 2008.

A 28-year-old tourist from Minnesota was killed on Christmas Eve when a giant redwood tree toppled over on him while he was hiking in Northern California's Muir Woods National Monument Park, authorities said on Thursday.

Subhradeep Dutta of Edina, Minnesota, was hiking on the marked Hillside trail with other people when the 200-foot tall tree, measuring 4-foot in diameter, came crashing down, according to the Marin County Corner's Office.

The freak incident occurred about 4:30 p.m. in the national park about 16 miles north of San Francisco, the coroner's office said in a statement.

"Upon the arrival of first responders to the scene, a male subject was discovered unconscious and lifeless beneath a large redwood tree, which had unexpectedly fallen to the ground," the statement reads.

Another executive departs as Boeing tries to correct course

ABC News
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 08:28 UTC

A close adviser to Boeing's ousted CEO will also leave the company.

Mike Luttig was Boeing's general counsel from 2006 until this spring.

Shortly after the crash of a second Boeing 737 Max, the companies premiere aircraft, he was assigned to head the company's legal strategy and to advise the board.

Luttig, who will retire next week, is the latest executive to leave the beleaguered company. In addition to CEO Dennis Muilenburg who was pushed out this week, Kevin McAllister, the head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, was forced out in October. Anne Toulouse, senior vice president of communications, will leave at the end of the year.

Comment: See also:

India: PM Modi reminds the "Rights and Responsibilities" of the Protesters and Citizens

NDTV
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 04:50 UTC

PM Modi's comments came amid protests in several parts of the country against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which many have termed as "unconstitutional".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday condemned the destruction of public property during violent agitations against the Citizenship Amendment Act over the last few weeks, asking protesters to introspect if their actions have been "good or not".

"I want to ask people who resorted to violence in Uttar Pradesh to sit at home and ask themselves whether what they did is good or not. They destroyed buses and public property that belongs to the future generation," he said at the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University in Lucknow.

How 'Woke' tore through 2019 to become word of the year

Martyn Andrews
RT
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 14:03 UTC

2019 will be memorable for many reasons: Boris Johnson got elected, Green Book won best picture Oscar, Trump got impeached and Global Language Monitor announced 'Woke' as Word of the Year.

According to Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst at the Global Language Monitor, the word 'Woke' and society's new identitarian outlook on life has been gathering steam for a decade and "sins of the past are now viewed in the context of the present as subjects to be rectified, awakened to the call of social justice."

The electrifying buzzword has set cultural, social and political platforms alight in 2019, and it's been an eventful year in the land of Woke, as passionate social justice warriors battled it out against anti-PC crusaders. To prove the literary zeitgeist of the word, British comedian Andrew Doyle (aka Titania McGrath) even fooled a UK publication by pretending to be a horrified author appalled at revolting jokes purely because it pushes the "woke" media agenda. The fake author called for "hate speech" investigations into popular comedians who are "offensive" and just "not funny." Doyle, 1 - The brainwashing mainstream media, 0.

Comment: See also,

City tells church it will lose religious designation because it shelters homeless people

John Vibes
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 16:53 UTC

The order from the city of Cleveland was posted on the door of the church on Christmas Eve.

Earlier this week, on Christmas Eve, an order from the city of Cleveland was posted on the door of the Denison Avenue United Church of Christ, demanding that they kick out the homeless people that they had been allowing to sleep on their property or face losing their status with the city as a religious organization.

The order came from the Cleveland Division of Fire, citing code violations that they claim are dangerous for the inhabitants. The city is following the letter of the law, in this case, suggesting that it is illegal to change the official use of the building without first filling out the required paperwork and making significant changes to the property.

According to the city's building department, for the church to give shelter to homeless people, they would need to go through a costly process of not only updating the building but also getting the required permits and licenses that would designate the building as a homeless shelter.

Comment: You'd think the city's administration would at least attempt to materially help the church so that homeless people could continue to have a roof over their heads, and the church can continue being a church.

Boy, 10, is forced to take his shirt off before boarding a flight because it had a picture of a snake on it

Nic White
Daily Mail
Wed, 25 Dec 2019 23:47 UTC

Stevie Lucas was on a family trip from New Zealand to South Africa to visit his grandparents when security officers said he couldn't board with this t-shirt on

A family claims their 10-year-old son was forced to change his t-shirt before boarding a flight because it had a snake on it.

Stevie Lucas was on a family trip from New Zealand to South Africa to visit his grandparents on December 17.

His parents Steve and Marga said security officers at Johannesburg airport told them snake toys and printed clothing was not allowed on board.

The stated reason was that it could, in their determination, harm passengers or crew by causing anxiety, according to local media.

Ms Lucas told her son to turn his black t-shirt, which has a large green snake coming from over the shoulder, inside out to avoid any further drama.

Airport security footage showed Stevie taking off his shirt at security and putting it back on after turning it inside out.

Comment: See also:

It seemed like a popular chat app. It's secretly a spy tool

Mark Mazzetti, Nicole Perlroth and Ronen Bergman
The New York Times
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 12:58 UTC

© Aldar-Sorough/Reuters
People walk past the headquarters of Aldar Properties at Al Raha Beach in Abu Dhabi, January 28, 2013.

It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype.

But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to U.S. officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones.

ToTok, introduced only months ago, was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, ToTok surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the U.S. last week, according to app rankings and App Annie, a research firm.

ToTok amounts to the latest escalation in a digital arms race among wealthy authoritarian governments, interviews with current and former U.S. foreign officials and a forensic investigation showed. The governments are pursuing more effective and convenient methods to spy on foreign adversaries, criminal and terrorist networks, journalists and critics — efforts that have ensnared people all over the world in their surveillance nets.

Comment: See also:

New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer neighborhoods, safer communities, and our children are going to get a good...

parzival

Bill Gates is going to be the one with the uncertain future,,, * New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer...

parzival

The more we hear about adverse affects the more we will merely shrug. It's a catch 22. Is that an asteroid trail in the photo?

sass

Welcome to the new normal. The more sensory exposure we have about such things, the less it is an issue.

sass

more misbehaving phuqqin' jewzskies starring on the sott; speaks for itself

Jibrish

Society's Child

Bitter spat between Palestinian Authority and Hamas deprives Gazans of passports—and the opportunity to travel

Cargo vessel crashes into bollard on Istanbul's Bosphorus

How do you know woke 'Star Wars' is a failure? When social justice warriors start blaming 'Russian bots'

Hiker killed by toppled giant redwood tree in Northern California's Muir Woods National Monument Park

Another executive departs as Boeing tries to correct course

India: PM Modi reminds the "Rights and Responsibilities" of the Protesters and Citizens

How 'Woke' tore through 2019 to become word of the year

City tells church it will lose religious designation because it shelters homeless people

Boy, 10, is forced to take his shirt off before boarding a flight because it had a picture of a snake on it

It seemed like a popular chat app. It's secretly a spy tool

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