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Hundreds die of exhaustion after counting millions of Indonesian election ballots

Counting ballots
© Antara Foto / Didik Suhartono / Handout via REUTERS
Counting millions of ballot papers by hand proved to be a life-threatening job for hundreds of election staff in Indonesia, as over 270 died and nearly 2,000 fell ill after working long hours, an official has said.

As many as 272 staff have died just 10 days after Indonesia held presidential and regional elections, mostly of fatigue-related illnesses, Arief Priyo Susanto, spokesman for the General Elections Commission (KPU), said on Sunday. Some 1,878 others had fallen ill after working long hours to count millions of ballots manually.

Eye 1

5 people found killed in 2 homes in Tennessee; suspect captured

Michael Cummins
Police in Sumner County, Tennessee, have taken a suspect into custody after five people were found killed in two separate homes on Saturday night.

Officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) reported to a home on Charles Brown Road where four people were found dead while a fifth victim was found in another residence on Luvy Daniels Road.

The victims have not been identified. A fifth person at the initial scene was injured and transported to the hospital.

Police said hours after a manhunt was launched that 25-year-old Michael Cummins had been taken into custody. He has yet to be charged with a crime, authorities said.

Attention

Pope Francis donates $500K to Mexican charities assisting migrants

Central American migrants US-Mexico border Ixtepec Mexico, April 2019
PHOTO:Central American migrants wait on the top of a parked train during their journey toward the US-Mexico border in Ixtepec, Oaxaca state, Mexico, April 23, 2019.
Pope Francis donated $500,000 to Mexico-based projects to help migrant communities as media attention has faded, the Vatican said Saturday.

The funds will be distributed between 27 projects associated with 16 Mexican dioceses and congregations, all of which asked for help to continue providing food, lodging, and basic necessities to those fleeing their home countries through Mexico.

"In recent months, thousands of migrants have arrived in Mexico, having travelled more than 4,000 kilometers on foot and with makeshift vehicles from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better future in the United States. However, the U.S. border remains closed to them," said a press release from Peter's Pence, the organization handling the funds.

Comment: The Vatican decries the dearth of media coverage of the border emergency. News agencies are reporting on the migrants, but perhaps The Vatican isn't happy that a more realistic assessment of the situation is now being presented:


Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Yellow Vests reject Macron's 'rubbish' tax cuts, protest across France for 24th straight week

yellow vests Strasbourg April 27 2019
© AFP / Patrick HertzogProtesters take part in an anti-government demonstration called by the "Yellow Vest" (gilets jaunes) movement in Strasbourg, eastern France, on April 27, 2019.
Unrelenting Yellow Vest activists have marched in Paris and other French cities for the 24th straight weekend, just days after Emmanuel Macron tried to placate the protest movement with promises of lower taxes.

The demonstrators who assembled in Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg on Saturday appear to signal that despite the French president's recent concessions to the group, the Yellow Vest movement is alive and well.



Oh Thursday, Macron held the first major press conference of his two-year presidency, in which he announced that he wanted to implement "significant" income tax cuts.


Comment: Just think about that; it's the first time in TWO YEARS he has deigned to have a press conference.


Comment: Interesting sidenote about this week's protest in Paris; the police, while still numbering in the thousands, did not violently suppress it (though they did in Strasbourg).

This is likely because the trade unions and Melenchon and his liberal-lefty friends decided to join the Yellow Vest Paris protest this week...

See also: Macron offers Yellow Vests €5bn in tax cuts, asks French to 'work more' in return


Fire

Massive fire strikes Russian missile-producing facility

Russian media sources have confirmed a major fire is ongoing at Krasnoyarsk's Machine-Building Plant (also commonly known as " Krasmash") in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, after stunning images and video began appearing on social media Friday.
Krasmash facility
The Krasmash plant is known for producing some of the most advanced missiles in Russia's ballistic arsenal.

Comment: The blaze has been distinguished, according to TASS:
The fire at the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant (Krasmash), producing ballistic missiles and space rocket components, has been put out, the Russian emergencies ministry said on Saturday.

"The blaze was completely extinguished at 04:17 Moscow time," the ministry's press service said.

According to earlier reports, the fire broke out at a warehouse, rented by a local manufacturer of refrigerators, and engulfed the area of about 24,000 square meters. The roof of the building, where about 50,000 refrigerators were stored, has partially collapsed.

The regional branch of the emergencies ministry said no casualties had been reported. An emergency source told TASS that the fire posed no danger to the workshops where the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and Sineva submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) were made.

The Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant, established in 1932, produces rocket and space equipment, including ballistic missiles and base booster modules for the Zenit and Proton carrier rockets.



Footprints

Massachusetts judge and court officer charged with helping man evade immigration agent

Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph
© Steven Senne, APDistrict Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph departs federal court, Thursday, April 25, 2019, in Boston after facing obstruction of justice charges for allegedly helping a man in the country illegally evade immigration officials as he left her Newton, Mass., courthouse after a hearing in 2018.
A Massachusetts judge was indicted Thursday on charges that she helped a man who was living in the U.S. illegally sneak out a back door of the courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.

Newton District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph and former court officer Wesley MacGregor were charged with obstruction of justice based on accusations that they schemed to let the man escape after a hearing last year on charges that included drug possession.

The charges against Joseph and MacGregor were swiftly condemned in a statement from the state's attorney general, who called the case "a radical and politically-motivated attack" on the courts by federal authorities.

Lawyers, judges and advocates have criticized President Donald Trump's administration for stepping up immigration arrests at courthouses, saying it is disrupting the criminal justice system and scaring people away from halls of justice.

Megaphone

"Vote against parties they oppose the most": 1 in 10 EU voters support populist parties

germany populist
When Europeans head to the polls next month to elect a new Parliament, most will vote based on whom they oppose rather than whom they support, according to a new study. Extremist, populist parties stand to benefit.

Around 10% of voters plan to use their vote in the European Parliament elections to back far-right or right-wing populist parties, according to a study published by the Bertelsmann Foundation on Friday.

Most other EU citizens will use their ballots to thwart parties they oppose rather than support a particular group. The researchers said this type of "negative" voting could benefit political movements on the fringes and make it more difficult to form a majority in Parliament.

Comment: This reflects the indignation the European electorate feel after well over a decade of deteriorating living standards and deceitful politicians: Also check out SOTT radio's:



Newspaper

New York Times pulls 'anti-semitic' cartoon in response to harsh criticism

demonstrator wears a skullcap
© Reuters / Fabrizio BenschA demonstrator wears a skullcap in front of a Berlin synagogue
The New York Times has apologized for printing a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog leading an apparently blind Donald Trump. Israeli media and Twitter observers were outraged.

The cartoon, which ran in the international print edition of Thursday's paper, featured Netanyahu depicted as a guide dog wearing a Star of David on his collar, leading President Trump, wearing the dark glasses and skullcap of a Jewish retiree.

The cartoon was printed on its own with no caption, and was not linked to any of the articles on the same page.


Comment: Once again a strong critique of Trump's seemingly blind allegiance to the belligerent and destructive policies of Israel's government - and Netanyahu's leadership in particular - gets conflated with anti-semitism. Geeze, the NY Times finally gets it right about something important - and they decide to pull it!


Stock Down

In 'stunning decision', Bayer shareholders dump CEO over disastrous Monsanto purchase

Bayer CEO Werner Baumann
Bayer CEO Werner Baumann
Bayer, also known as IG Farben back in the day, survived World War II (which it helped fund for Hitler's war effort while recruiting an army of slave workers), but it may not survive the worst acquisition in its history: the disastrous $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018, which also brought over the infamous carcinogenic weed-killer Roundup, and with it countless lawsuits and legal charges.

old bayer advertisement

Comment: Well, you knew someone's head was gonna roll on Bayer's disastrous Monsanto purchase. There was no way shareholders were going to be cool with the massive lineup of lawsuits in the wings, potentially costing them billions. Quite frankly, it couldn't have happened to a nicer company, and one hopes the damage is going to extend far beyond one fired CEO.

See also:


Pistol

Best of the Web: Sequence complete? Now gunman opens fire at a San Diego synagogue, on Jewish Sabbath - 1 person dead, 3 injured

synagogue mourners
One person died after a 19-year-old man walked into a Chabad synagogue in a San Diego suburb Saturday morning and shot people inside, and the suspect is in custody, the sheriff said.

Three other people were injured in the shooting at Chabad of Poway, which occurred around 11:23 a.m., and those people are hospitalized and stable, San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore said.

"This individual was with an AR-type assault weapon and opened fire on the people inside the synagogue," Gore said.

An off-duty Border Patrol agent in the area fired at the suspect as he fled the Chabad of Poway and struck his car, Gore and San Diego Police Chief David Nislei said at a news conference.

A San Diego police officer en route to the scene saw the suspect's vehicle and "the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up," Nislei said. As the suspect was being placed in custody, police "clearly saw a rifle sitting on the front passenger seat," Nislei said.

Comment: Like in Christchurch, this one's been given a backstory, complete with a manifesto-I-wrote-just-this-morning-and-uploaded-to-social-media-on-my-way-to-the-shooting. The only thing that's different is that they replaced instances of 'Muslims' with 'Jews'.

This is, presumably, the third in their sequence of shoot-em-ups at places of religious worship. First they massacred Muslims during Friday prayers in Christchurch on March 15th; then they massacred Christians on Easter Sunday, and now they've 'rounded out the plot' by targeting Jews on a Saturday.

The two Western attacks, of course, were nothing compared with the Sri Lanka multi-site attacks. Our Dear Leaders, it seems, retain some capacity to 'rein it in' when going on the blitz with 'our own kind'.

In any event, it's full-steam ahead in the Global Manufactured Clash of Civilizations...