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International aid helps Mozambique fight cholera in the cyclone-hit central city of Beira


ABC News
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 01:16 UTC
Chinese doctors spray chemicals
© AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
Chinese doctors spray chemicals to prevent the spread of cholera at a camp for displaced survivors of Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Cholera cases among cyclone survivors in Mozambique have jumped to 271, authorities said. So far no cholera deaths have been confirmed, the report said. Another Lusa report said the death toll in central Mozambique from the cyclone that hit on March 14 had inched up to 501. Authorities have warned the toll is highly preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies.
As Mozambique battles to control a fast-spreading cholera outbreak in the cyclone-hit central city of Beira, international assistance is arriving.

The number of cholera cases jumped to 271 over the weekend although no deaths from the disease had been reported.

More than 500 people have died in Mozambique from Cyclone Idai , which slammed into Beira more than two weeks ago, according to government officials. Another 259 people died in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi, bring the three-nation total to more than 815. Authorities warn the tolls are preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies.

The Chinese government has sent doctors to fight the cholera outbreak in Beira and on Sunday Chinese aid workers sprayed anti-cholera disinfectant in parts of the port city of 500,000.
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Star of David

Israel has praise for 'exceptionally restrained' Gaza protests after killing 4 Palestinians, three of them teenagers

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 16:26 UTC
palestine flags march of return
© Ashraf Amra/APA
Palestinian protesters join the Great March of Return at the Israel-Gaza border in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 30, 2019.
At least four Palestinians were killed and over 300 were injured on Saturday during massive demonstrations marking the one year anniversary of the Great March of Return in Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that as of 10:40 pm, Israeli forces had shot and killed four Palestinians and injured 316.

Three of the four slain Palestinians were identified by the ministry as 20-year-old Mohammed Jehad Sa'ad, who was killed on Saturday morning before the protests kicked off, and 17-year-olds Adham Nedal Amara and Tamer Hashim Abu al-Khair, who were both killed during demonstrations.

Comment: Sputnik reports death toll for the day has risen to five:
elederly palestinian wounded march of return gaza
© Associated Press/Adel Hana
An elderly Palestinian man falls on the ground after being shot by Israeli troops during a deadly protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 14 May, 2018
Five Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers on the Gaza Strip border on March 30, which marked a year since the start of mass protests dubbed the Great March of Return, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry Ashraf Qidra told Sputnik on Sunday.

"Since yesterday, a total of five people died, including four teenagers," Qidra said, adding that the latest victim was only 13 years old.

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Internal Affairs said it had sent 8,000 employees to prevent clashes between the protesters and Israeli troops.

Despite the fact that about 40,000 people gathered near the border on Saturday, which is a significant increase in the number of activists compared to previous protests, the scale of clashes and casualties were relatively small, including due to the fact that Hamas movement ruling in the enclave joined the de-escalation efforts.

The Israeli military noted that the overwhelming majority of the protesters rallied in the camps, located at a safe distance from the border fence, adding that only a small number of protesters clashed with the IDF throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and explosive devices at the soldiers.


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Bandaid

Manhattan tolls, plastic bag ban poised for approval in NY


ABC News
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 06:14 UTC
Manhattan to Brooklyn, NY
© AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
In this March 28, 2019 photo, traffic makes its way into Manhattan from Brooklyn over the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. Long ringed by some of the most expensive toll roads in the U.S., New York City is poised to take things even further with a plan to use automated license plate readers to charge drivers who motor into the most congested parts of Manhattan during times when crosstown traffic is at its worst.
New tolls to drive into parts of Manhattan and a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags are two of the biggest proposals poised for approval as New York state lawmakers work to pass a new state budget before a Monday deadline.

Other measures expected to be included in the $175 billion spending plan include a tax on the sale of luxury second homes in Manhattan, increased funding for schools and the repeal of a state law making it illegal to compensate a woman for carrying the child of another person.

"We're at the finish line. We are working hard to get an on-time budget with New York's priorities," said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat from Yonkers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, released a statement Saturday evening saying the final remaining issue under debate was the public financing of campaigns. The governor has insisted that some type of public financing program be included in the budget as a way to reduce the role of money in politics. But he said lawmakers have yet to agree.
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Star of David

The one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return

Haidar Eid
Mondoweiss
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Gaza protests March 2019
© Ramez Haboub/APA Images
A Palestinian youth protesting as part of the Great March of Return in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on March 30, 2019.
Today I participated in the Great March of Return with tens of thousands of Gazans. We marched on the fence of the Gaza concentration camp marking Land Day and the one-year anniversary of the March. We had the mother of all marches, sending a loud message to apartheid Israel, that we have not forgotten any of our rights. In there process we lost three young men and 316 protesters were injured, according to Gaza's ministry of health.

For us, it is very clear that there is no hope in changing the indifference and apathy of the official international community, but we count on civil society. Israeli soldiers hiding in ditches behind the razor wire have so far killed 266 protesters, and injured 30,000 more. The UN's Commission of Inquiry found that Israel's attacks on the protesters "may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity."

This is why we have renewed our call for a military embargo against Israel and amplifying BDS campaigns to end Israel's impunity and hold it accountable for its crimes. This was summed up in Razan Najjar's mother's words:
"it's the obligation of the international community to act and stop supplying Israel with the weapons that it used to kill Razan and so many others like her. I call on organizations and states to implement our Palestinian call for a military embargo against Israel so that we can live in freedom and peace."

Comment: UN report on Israel's massacre of Gaza protesters makes horrific reading

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Arrow Down

Father of 4 critically injured in fight outside Dodger Stadium

Mark Osborne
ABC News
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 06:56 UTC
Hospital
A woman is pleading for justice after her husband, a father of four, was critically injured in a fight outside Dodger Stadium Friday night.

The man, identified by his wife as Rafael Reyna, was at the game against the Diamondbacks -- just the second of the season -- when he left as it went into extra innings. Reyna apparently got into an argument with someone in the parking lot and was struck by the fan, according to eyewitnesses who reported the incident to stadium security.

His wife, Christel, was on the phone with her husband at the time and said all she heard was him arguing with someone, a loud crack and then her husband moaning.

"He was hit and his head hit the ground and caused a skull fracture, and now his brain is swelling. He's bleeding on the brain," Christel Reyna told Los Angeles ABC station KABC.
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Car Black

Your Tesla knows more about you than you think: Vehicles store deeply personal and unencrypted data about drivers

Kate Fazzini and Lora Kolodny
CNBC
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 17:19 UTC
Data stored Tesla cars

Security researchers bought this wrecked Model 3 to evaluate the data that remains in the car’s computers after a crash.
If you crash your Tesla, when it goes to the junk yard, it could carry a bunch of your history with it.

That's because the computers on Tesla vehicles keep everything that drivers have voluntarily stored on their cars, plus tons of other information generated by the vehicles including video, location and navigational data showing exactly what happened leading up to a crash, according to two security researchers.

One researcher, who calls himself GreenTheOnly, describes himself as a "white hat hacker" and a Tesla enthusiast who drives a Model X. He has extracted this kind of data from the computers in a salvaged Tesla Model S, Model X and two Model 3 vehicles, while also making tens of thousands of dollars cashing in on Tesla bug bounties in recent years. He agreed to speak and share data and video with CNBC on the condition of pseudonymity, citing privacy concerns.

Many other cars download and store data from users, particularly information from paired cellphones, such as contact information. The practice is widespread enough that the US Federal Trade Commission has issued advisories to drivers warning them about pairing devices to rental cars, and urging them to learn how to wipe their cars' systems clean before returning a rental or selling a car they owned.
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Attention

Former clinic manager reveals Planned Parenthood's Business Model: Abortion quotas & selling fetuses

Richard Enos
Collective Evolution
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 16:03 UTC
Tucker
Abby Johnson was a clinic manager at a Planned Parenthood clinic for 8 years. In the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson below, she discusses what her responsibilities were:
Abby: I took care of just the day-to-day operations, hiring and firing personnel, making sure that our budgets were maintained, including our abortion quota that we had to maintain every month, so that was my job.

Tucker: You mean you had to perform a certain number of abortions every month?

Abby: That's right. So, every abortion facility within Planned Parenthood has a monthly abortion quota that they must meet.

Tucker: Why?

Abby: That's how they make their money. About 50% of their income is just cash from abortion services. And so, in order to keep their clinics open, they have to sell so many abortions.

Tucker: But what about all the mammograms and the life-saving work they do?

Abby: Yeah, you know, funny about mammograms, there is not a Planned Parenthood in the country that provides mammogram services, they don't provide pre-natal care, they don't do a lot of the things that they say that they do.

Comment: Former workers speak up about Planned Parenthood's chilling practices

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Star of David

IDF gets trolled by Twitterati over attempts to justify barbaric military response to Gaza protests


RT
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 08:57 UTC
IDF Gaza
© Reuters / Amir Cohen
An Israeli soldier sits in a military vehicle near the border fence between Israel and Gaza on its Israeli side, March 15, 2019.
The IDF took to Twitter to jokingly explain why Palestinian "riots" in Gaza are not "protests" and justify the military response to it. The trolling session didn't go so well, however, and the IDF got a taste of its own medicine.

The bizarre thread was posted on the IDF Twitter account on Friday, describing in tongue-in-cheek fashion why Palestinian protests shouldn't be described as "peaceful" and perceived as "violent riots" instead. Some tweets were tech-savvy.


Comment: UN report on Israel's massacre of Gaza protesters makes horrific reading

A sampling of the UN's conclusions in the above report:
  • The commission found in the killings of 189 demonstrators between 30 March and 31 December 2018, 183 were killed with live ammunition, including 35 children, 3 health workers and 2 members of the Press. Only 29 of those killed were members of Palestinian armed groups.
  • Only 4 Israeli snipers were lightly injured, none were killed by demonstrators.
  • 23,313 Palestinian demonstrators were injured during the 2018 demonstrations, 6106 with live ammunition, "contributing to the highest toll of injuries recorded in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2005.
  • On the killing of child demonstrators, the commission found "reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot them intentionally, knowing that they were children".
  • On the killing of health workers, "the commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers intentionally shot health workers, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such".
  • On the killings of journalists, "the commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such".


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Hammer

"Democracy is dead": Video shows protesters vent fury outside parliament after Brexit deal vote fail


RT
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 20:41 UTC
brexit protest
© YouTube / ICYMI
As both Leavers and Remainers came out in force in London to show how both camps have been pissed off by this endless Brexit, ICYMI's Jonny Fencesitter was there to lend an ear.

After three years of debating, bickering, and party infighting, Brexit Day has finally come, and gone.

Despite Theresa May's promises, March 29 has become nothing more than proof of a Brexit balls-up. Thousands of Leave campaigners and Remainers took to the streets outside parliament on what should have been the UK's last day in the EU to have their voices heard - and, luckily, Jonny Fencesitter was there to report.

Comment: Brexit has done for British democracy what no scandal, whether it be expenses, collusion with foreign powers, or child rape rings in the upper echelons seems to have ever been able to do, which is expose the opportunistic political class in the UK and the bureaucrats in the EU for what they really are: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Video

The Matrix was more about philosophy than science

Richard Colledge
The Conversation
Thu, 28 Mar 2019 05:42 UTC
The Matrix
© HD Wallpapers Desktop/Warner Bros
The Matrix was a box office hit, but it also explored some of western philosophy’s most interesting themes.
Incredible as it may seem, the end of March marks 20 years since the release of the first film in the Matrix franchise directed by The Wachowski siblings. This "cyberpunk" sci-fi movie was a box office hit with its dystopian futuristic vision, distinctive fashion sense, and slick, innovative action sequences. But it was also a catalyst for popular discussion around some very big philosophical themes.

The film centres on a computer hacker, "Neo" (played by Keanu Reeves), who learns that his whole life has been lived within an elaborate, simulated reality. This computer-generated dream world was designed by an artificial intelligence of human creation, which industrially farms human bodies for energy while distracting them via a relatively pleasant parallel reality called the "matrix".

This scenario recalls one of western philosophy's most enduring thought experiments. In a famous passage from Plato's Republic (ca 380 BCE), Plato has us imagine the human condition as being like a group of prisoners who have lived their lives underground and shackled, so that their experience of reality is limited to shadows projected onto their cave wall.

A freed prisoner, Plato suggests, would be startled to discover the truth about reality, and blinded by the brilliance of the sun. Should he return below, his companions would have no means to understand what he has experienced and surely think him mad. Leaving the captivity of ignorance is difficult.

In The Matrix, Neo is freed by rebel leader Morpheus (ironically, the name of the Greek God of sleep) by being awoken to real life for the first time. But unlike Plato's prisoner, who discovers the "higher" reality beyond his cave, the world that awaits Neo is both desolate and horrifying.
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