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Sanctions level 90? US embargoes popular video game in Iran & Syria

gamers
© AFP / Behrouz Mehri / FILE PHOTO
Washington's economic war against Iran took a turn for the petty this weekend, as gamers in Iran and Syria found themselves unable to play popular video game 'League of Legends' due to new "restrictions" by the US government.

First, they came for the politicians, then, the businessmen... and now, they have come for the gamers. While it is not clear what threat civilians playing computer games pose to the United States, League players in Syria and Iran have been totally unable to log in to the game's online server since Saturday, instead being greeted by a message from game developer Riot:

"Due to US laws and regulations, players in your country cannot access League of Legends at this time. Such restrictions are subject to change by the US government, so if and when that happens, we will look forward to having you back on the rift."

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Jet5

Two Eurofighter jets collide in midair over Germany, one pilot killed

eurofighter crash
Plumes of smoke as fighter jets crash over Germany
A pilot has been killed in an air collision involving two German air force Eurofighter jets in the Müritz area of north-eastern Germany.

While both pilots managed to eject from the planes, only one of them survived.

One of the Eurofighters went down in a forest while the other crashed near a village about 10km (6 miles) away, the interior ministry in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said.

The pilot who survived was found dangling from a tree by rescue teams.

Comment: This does not bode well for Merkel and Macron's dreams of an EU army: See also:


Eye 1

Judge condemned for forcing woman with mental disabilities to have abortion

Monitoring fetal heartbeat
© Getty Images / Neil Thomas
The catholic church has condemned a UK court's "sad and distressing" decision to force a woman with mental disabilities to have an abortion at 22-weeks.

The London-based woman in her twenties has the mental capacity of a six to nine-year-old child according to the Catholic News Agency. The woman is under the care of a National Health Service (NHS) trust, which is understood to have launched the case against the woman who reportedly originated from Nigeria.

The woman and her mother both dispute the case and the latter has offered to care for her grandchild, however doctors argued that the birth would be more traumatic for the expectant mother than an abortion.

Justice Nathalie Lieven from the Court of Protection, a legal arm specifically tasked with resolving cases involving people deemed incapable of making their own decisions, handed down the "heartbreaking" ruling on June 21.

Cardboard Box

FedEx, in another error, misses delivery of Huawei package to US

FedEx
FedEx said on Sunday an operational error prevented a Huawei Technologies package from being delivered to the United States, just weeks after the U.S. delivery firm said an error led to the Chinese firm's packages being misdirected.

"The package in question was mistakenly returned to the shipper, and we apologize for this operational error," FedEx told Reuters in an emailed statement. A company spokeswoman confirmed that the package was U.S. bound but declined to say what it contained.

Huawei, the world's biggest telecoms gear maker, is at the center of a bruising trade dispute between Washington and Beijing. China launched an investigation into FedEx earlier this month over Huawei parcels delivered to the wrong address, without giving details about the deliveries in question.

China's state news agency Xinhua had said back then that the investigation into FedEx over misdirected mail should not be regarded as retaliation against the U.S. company, amid the trade spat.

Star of David

Sick Gazan newborns die alone in Jerusalem hospital as Israel denies mom access: 'I went home devastated'

Hiba Swailam gaza babies die israel hospital
© RTHiba Swailam
A Gazan mother told RT that Israel denied her access to her three ill newborn babies because her travel permit expired. Instead, she learned by phone that two of her kids died, and waited months to see her surviving daughter.

Diagnosed with early labor, Hiba Swailam, 24, obtained a permit from Israel to leave Gaza and travel to Jerusalem, where she gave birth to seriously underweight triplets at Makassed Hospital. She could not stay with her children because the permit had expired, so the young mother was forced to return home.

"I told them I at least want to stay to breastfeed the babies, and they said 'No,'" Hiba told RT.

Comment: Hiba was treated atrociously by Israeli bureaucracy, but there is nothing extraordinary about it. It is business as usual for the psychopaths overseeing the Gaza open-air prison.


Arrow Up

ABC launches legal challenge to Australian police for criminal 'Afghan Files' raid

afp abc
© ABC News: Brendan EspositoAFP officers talk with ABC lawyers during the June 5 raid.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers who raided the ABC's head office were searching for evidence - including fingerprints - to prove that an ABC reporter had committed criminal offences, court documents have revealed.

An application by the ABC to the Federal Court of Australia said the AFP obtained a search warrant authorising them to search for evidence to prove a suspicion that investigative journalist Dan Oakes had allegedly committed the offences of receiving stolen goods and unlawfully obtaining military information.

The warrant authorised the AFP to search for and record "fingerprints found at the premises" and to take samples from the ABC for "forensic purposes".

It also authorised the AFP to "add, copy, delete or alter other data ... found in the course of a search".

The AFP raid on June 5 related to a series of stories by Oakes and producer Sam Clark known as the Afghan Files.

The stories detailed the alleged unlawful killings of unarmed men and children by Australian elite special forces in Afghanistan and were based on hundreds of pages of leaked documents.

On Monday, the ABC launched a legal challenge to the warrant used to raid its Sydney headquarters, seeking a declaration from the Federal Court that the warrant was invalid and the search and seizure of more than 80 items relating to the Afghan Files was unlawful.

Megaphone

Clueless Guardian columnist unwittingly gives Jordan Peterson's new platform free advertising

jordan peterson
© Gage Skidmore, Creative CommonsDr. Jordan Peterson
In a rambling column today, Martha Gill, one of The Guardian's authoritarian scribes, attempts to take Dr. Jordan Peterson to task for launching Thinkspot-a new free speech-friendly social media platform.

Gill begins by listing a litany of hypothetical protests by imaginary "free speech" advocates: "Young people today can't cope with reality and if you try to tell them about it you'll get arrested" and other things that no reasonable person would ever say. Spiked! columnist Andrew Doyle was quick to point this out on Twitter.

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Brick Wall

Google claims new Supreme Court ruling hurts PragerU's censorship claim

google laptop
© Aytac Unal/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
As The Daily Wire first reported back in 2017, PragerU filed a lawsuit against YouTube and Google, its parent company, for "unlawfully censoring its educational videos and discriminating against its right to freedom of speech." As James Barrett of The Daily Wire noted at the time:
This week PragerU, a conservative not-for-profit organization founded by Dennis Prager, filed a lawsuit against Google and YouTube for "unlawfully censoring its educational videos and discriminating against its right to freedom of speech." In an interview with The Daily Wire on Friday, PragerU CEO Marissa Streit underscored the far-reaching free speech implications of her organization's legal action against what has become "two of the most important public forums in the world" and explained why their legal team feels "very strongly" that they can win. ...

In a press release issued Tuesday, PragerU's legal team - which includes Harvard's Alan Dershowitz and former California Governor Pete Wilson and Eric George of Browne George Ross, among several others - laid out the rationale for the lawsuit, which was prompted by Google/YouTube restricting or "demonitizing" over 50 PragerU videos for what YouTube claims is "inappropriate" content for younger audiences.

Comment: Rather interesting that Google is going this route. What they are essentially arguing is that they are a publisher, not a utility, meaning they can pick and choose what is published on their platforms (as opposed to a utility, like the phone company, who have no say on how their service is used by the public). However, if they're claiming publisher status, this means that they are putting themselves in the position of being responsible for everything that is put onto their platform by users, in the same way that a newspaper would be held responsible for what they publish. It's a rather precarious position to put themselves in and could only make their job as content police more difficult. It also means that the future of YouTube, Google and other social media platforms will likely be more censorious than it currently is.

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NPC

Coddling the American mind: Maryland school board eliminates class rank to fight a 'competitive environment'

high school class
A school board in Maryland has voted to eliminate high school class rank ... which will allow valedictorians and salutatorians to be chosen on factors other than academics.

The Anne Arundel board vote was close - 5 to 4 - in favor of the abolition. The Capital Gazette notes class rank "has been criticized for fostering a competitive environment in high schools," putting "unnecessary" stress on students. This view was shared by board member Melissa Ellis who related a tale of a student who turned down an internship at Johns Hopkins just so she could take another (advanced) course in order to up her grade point average.

Board Vice President Josie Urrea, a high school senior, has even been seeking out students to testify in favor of the change - those who claim class rankings are "detrimental to their mental health." Some students will take advanced classes just to get the weighted GPA, they say.

Bomb

Kurdish doctor warns of 'ticking time bomb' as Finnish pundits push for return of Jihadi relatives

kurdish isis women
© AFP/ Delil Souleiman
Finland's neighbours, Norway and Sweden, have already started taking back so-called "Daesh* kids" for humanitarian reasons, as officials declared they are powerless to stop their nationals from returning.

A group of 15 legal experts from leading universities in Finland and abroad have joined the ongoing debate on the fate of Finnish "Daesh brides" and "Daesh children" by reminding that it is constitutionally prohibited to prevent Finnish citizens from entering the country.

Citing the Finnish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, the pundits stressed in an opinion piece in the daily Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that no person may be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the state in which he is a national.

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