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Pakistan sentences hard-line Islamists who violently protested acquittal of Christian woman for blasphemy


RFE/RL
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 13:24 UTC
protests Pakistan 2018 Asia Bibi acquittal
There were protests across Pakistan in 2018 after Asia Bibi's acquittal.
A Pakistani court has sentenced 86 people to 55-year prison terms each for taking part in violent rallies over the acquittal of a Christian woman in a high-profile blasphemy case.

Those convicted were all workers and supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a hard-line Islamist party that had spearheaded violent protests across Pakistan in late 2018 in the wake of Asia Bibi's acquittal.

An anti-terrorism court in the city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, announced the verdicts late on January 16 following a trial that lasted for more than a year.

Senior party leader Pir Ejaz Ashrafi said the sentences -- unusually harsh in Pakistan, where blasphemy is a very sensitive issue -- would be appealed.

Those convicted are not expected to spend more than 25 years in prison -- the equivalent of a life sentence under Pakistani law.

Comment:

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Caesar

Best of the Web: Finding a 'Benedict Option' for the Humanities

Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 17:52 UTC
tourists greek ruins parthenon
© Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis via GettyImages
The University of California Santa Barbara wants to hire a professor of woke alchemy:
politically correct sjw woke university course queer migration
Can you imagine wasting your money, your mind, and your life studying this garbage? As a Twitter follower of mine said:
tweets swj college course woke university
Ross Douthat writes an extremely sobering column about the collapse of the academic humanities (this "queer migrations" position sounds like social science, not humanities, but the general theme is applicable). It begins:

Comment: Further reading:

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Stop

Eva Bartlett: Social media platforms on 'narrative-control' rampage after US assassination of Soleimani

Eva Bartlett
RT
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 18:14 UTC
censorship, narrative control social media, twitter bans, big brother
© Getty Images / Alexander Koerner
Twitter has been on a narrative-control rampage, removing or censoring legitimate accounts that are critical of US-led wars, propaganda and lies. Facebook and Instagram have increased their Big Brother policing, too.

Attempts by American-based social media behemoths to silence or censor voices critical of the establishment-approved narrative is nothing new, but this trend seems to have intensified lately.

Just in the past several days, following the criminal US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Instagram and Facebook have been removing posts supportive of Soleimani, even profile photos honouring the general, allegedly to comply with US sanctions, a truly absurd explanation for the narrative control.

On January 7, it was reported that Twitter had suspended numerous Venezuelan accounts, including those of the central bank, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, public media, political leaders, the Finance & Oil ministries.

Comment: Social media platforms (like mainstream media) are corporate vassals of the US security state and are merely performing ascribed duties:

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Bullseye

Witness to history: Polish veterans recall childhood memories of Warsaw's liberation - 'We wanted to be Red Army soldiers'


RT
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 15:22 UTC
polish soldier WWII memories photos
© RTCzesław Lewandowski in our days
It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war - and, indeed, when the bombs have stopped falling, the blood has been shed and the troops have stood down, another kind of war begins: A war of memories.

This is perhaps no more apparent than in the case of the experiences of Poland, and Eastern Europe at-large, after the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II, and the decisive role played by the Soviet Red Army.

Friday marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Warsaw from the grip of fascism. A momentous date in history, it is still fraught with controversy - and regularly used as a political football so many decades later.

Comment: What a shame that historical memory is so short that what was once a solemn commemoration of an international tragedy, has now become an occasion for petty political posturing. There is shame for the leaders of every country involved, except Russia.

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Attention

Ukrainian PM Honcharuk offers resignation amid controversy over leaked audio recordings


RFE/RL
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 09:24 UTC
Oleksiy Honcharuk
Oleksiy Honcharuk
Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has submitted his resignation amid a scandal surrounding an audio recording where he allegedly disparages the economic knowledge and competence of both himself and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

In a Facebook post on January 17, Honcharuk wrote that "in recent days, you have all witnessed ongoing events around files leaked to social networks that had been mounted from fragments of records from the government's meetings."

Zelenskiy's office acknowledged receiving Honcharuk's resignation letter, but said it will comment later on how it will react to the situation.

"In order to prevent any doubts about our respect and trust to the president, I have submitted my resignation to the president with the right to bring the issue to the parliament," Honcharuk wrote.

Comment: His departure may not be a great loss to Kiev: Nothing to see here: New Ukrainian PM visits neo-Nazi band's gig

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Stock Up

Ruble strong, stocks surge after Russian government reshuffle


RT
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 17:01 UTC
Russian ruble
© Sputnik / Alexey Sukhorukov
The appointment of a new prime minister has boosted the Russian stock market to new record highs on Friday, with the national currency holding on to gains reached over the past 18 months.

The ruble continued gaining against major currencies on Friday, after accelerating growth on the news of the appointment of Mikhail Mishustin as Russia's new prime minister earlier in the week.

It was up 0.2 percent against the US dollar at 61.39 rubles, while gaining slightly on the euro at 68.29 rubles.The stock market posted solid gains at the beginning of the trading session. The dollar-denominated RTS index added more than one percent, reaching 1,635.58 points, while the ruble-based MOEX Russia Index rose to 3,189.24 points.
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2 + 2 = 4

Rooting out Russian-language schools: Ukrainian MPs pass secondary education bill detailing native tongue enforcement


RT
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 16:54 UTC
Ukrainian school
© REUTERS/Vasily FedosenkoFILE PHOTO: Students file in through the entrance to start their classes in a school in the southern coastal town of Mariupol, September 1, 2014.
Ukrainian MPs have dealt a final blow in Kiev's war on Russian-language schools, voting for a bill which effectively closes them. While seemingly going easy on minorities, it would hit a third of the country's population.

Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the bill 'On Secondary Education' on Thursday. The legislation, which envisions an overhaul of Ukraine's public school system, received an almost unanimous nod from deputies, with 327 lawmakers voting in favor and only three against. Some 54 MPs abstained and 16 were not present during the vote.
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Arrow Down

Siri & Alexa might be having a sex change, but why does your phone's voice assistant need to be gender-neutral?

Dr Norman Lewis
RT
Wed, 15 Jan 2020 17:46 UTC
gender neutral
© AFP / Getty Images North America / Sara D. Davis
Projects to develop gender-neutral voice assistants to replace the historically dominant white and Chinese male voices are not solving a real problem - they are creating one.

As products like Alexa and Siri face mounting criticism that the technology behind them disproportionately misunderstands women and ethnic minorities, voice software companies are developing gender neutral voice systems to ensure that the voice tech industry becomes more inclusive - both when it listens and talks.

This might sound positive, but it is absurd in the extreme. What precisely is the problem these companies are trying to solve?
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Fire

British consultancy firm predicts 'global unrest' to spread from 47 to 75 countries this year

David Reid
CNBC
Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:32 UTC
protests global unrest
Almost a quarter of the world's countries witnessed a surge in protest and unrest last year and that figure is set to rise further in 2020, according to a new study.

There are 195 countries in the world, if the Vatican and Palestine are included, and a newly released index of civil unrest has claimed that 47 of those states witnessed a rise in civil unrest in 2019.

The data model, published Thursday by socio-economic and political analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, has also predicted that in 2020, the number will balloon to 75 countries.


Comment: Verisk Maplecroft is a British "data analytics organisation" that "quantifies risk" for financial investors, corporations and govts.


The U.K. consultancy identified Hong Kong and Chile as the two flashpoints suffering the largest increases in unrest since the beginning of 2019. Neither country is expected to find peace for at least two years, according to the research.

Comment: We haven't seen the full report, but based on the firm's summary and media reports about it, they seem to have omitted the unrest in Western countries.

Depending on how far they go to dethrone Trump, civil war conditions could brew in the US. There has been a 15-month-long insurgency in France. A secessionist movement in Catalonia, Spain, has flared up twice in 3 years. Then there's the acute risk of unrest resulting from Brexit (including, but not limited to, the Scottish secessionist movement and the Irish reunification movement).

And what about the unrest in Europe as a whole if another wave of war refugees results from the US economically-strangling/bombing Iran?

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Arrow Down

Man charged with beating driver of school bus full of kids


ABC News
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 08:38 UTC
School bus
A bus driver in North Carolina was transporting kids to school when her ex-boyfriend boarded the vehicle and began beating the woman, who managed to keep her foot on the brake even after being knocked to the floor, police said.

The Scotland County Schools driver had stopped to pick up students along her morning route Tuesday in Laurinburg when 46-year-old Kenneth Latrel Revels boarded unexpectedly, the Laurinburg Police Department said in a statement.

Revels is accused of punching her repeatedly and stomping her head after knocking her to the floor. As many as 20 children were on board, watching while she struggled to keep her foot on the brake to prevent the bus from "moving uncontrollably."
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