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Despite recent split, Bitcoin surges to a record high

bitcoin
© Manuel Romano / Global Look Press
The world's most popular cryptocurrency bitcoin has surged to record high despite initial investor concerns over its recent split, which led to the creation of a new virtual currency called Bitcoin Cash.

The price of bitcoin jumped over 15 percent since Friday and is currently hovering around $3,230 per token, according to Coin Market Cap, a cryptocurrency market cap and price checker with portfolio tracker.

The price surge has also boosted bitcoin's collective market capitalization to over $53 billion.

Last week, bitcoin divided into two currencies. The solution dubbed SegWit2x has been debated for a long while in the bitcoin community, as developers wanted to retain the original blockchain that protects the cryptocurrency from hackers, while miners preferred to double the size of data blocks to make the network faster.


"The miner-orchestrated hard fork has had limited traction and will not impact the price or future development of bitcoin. The activation of SegWit is a significant milestone in bitcoin's technological evolution," said Aurelien Menant, chief executive officer of Gatecoin a cryptocurrency exchange in Hong Kong, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Stop

'ISIS attacked us, then US bombed our village': Afghan refugees lose everything, seek shelter in Jalalabad

Afghan refugees
© Ruptly
Caught between the Taliban, Islamic State and US airstrikes, Afghan civilians have been forced to flee their homes to the outskirts of Jalalabad, where they found refuge inside an unfinished university building.

Around 1,500 internally displaced people (IDPs), including hundreds of women and children, are reportedly seeking refuge in the area, many of them from the Achin and Haska Meyna districts in the Nangarhar Province of southern Afghanistan. They have fled the fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban, as well as the atrocities of other terrorist groups.

"Islamic State militants slaughtered our uncle, saying he was a spy, so we left our homes as they said the next day they will also kill us," a Pashto-speaking man from Haska Meyna told RT's Ruptly film crew.

Eye 1

New law will give Brits the 'right to be forgotten' on social media

Facebook
© Jaap Arriens / Global Look Press
The government will soon give British citizens the ability to see what social media firms like Twitter and Facebook know about them and provide the right to demand that information is deleted.

The Data Protection Bill will make it easier for people to find out how companies are using their personal details, including their browsing history. They will then be able to request that posts or pictures be permanently deleted as their "right to be forgotten."

The powers, introduced by Digital Minister Matt Hancock, will mean individuals can ask social media platforms to delete information they posted when they were children, while allowing parents and guardians to give consent for their child's data to be used.

The measures will also require people to give explicit consent for their personal information to be collected online. Where a company relies on people's consent, instead of people ticking a box to "opt out" of their data being collected, they will now need to "opt in" to give that consent.

The definition of personal data will be expanded to include IP addresses and internet cookies.

Network

Andre Vltchek: On the road in Afghanistan - Lies, legends and myths

Andre Vltchek
Author driving through Afghanistan

Comment: The following essay gives poignant insight into the very life of Afghanistan amidst so much chaos - mainly because Mr. Vltchek, its author, gives voice to those who are rarely given a voice.


It often appears that "true Afghanistan" is not here in Kabul and not in Jalalabad or Heart either; not in the ancient villages, which anxiously cling to the steep mountainsides.

Many foreigners and even Afghans are now convinced that the "true" Afghanistan is only what is being shown on the television screens, depicted in magazines, or what is buried deep in the archives and libraries somewhere in London, New York or Paris.

It is tempting to think that the country could be only understood from a comfortable distance, from the safety of one's living room or from those books and publications decorating dusty bookshelves and coffee tables all over the world.

"Afghanistan is dangerous," they say. "It is too risky to travel there. One needs to be protected, escorted, equipped and insured in order to function in that wild and lawless country even for one single day, or just a few hours."

When it comes to Afghanistan, conditioned Western 'rational brains' of tenure or emeritus professors (or call them the 'regime's intellectual gatekeepers') often get engaged, even intertwined with those pathologically imaginative minds of the upper class 'refugees', the 'elites', and of course their offspring. After all, crème de la crème 'refugees' speak perfect English; they know the rules and nuances of the game. The results of such 'productive interaction' are then imprinted into countless books and reports.

Dig

People power! Donbass locals take up shovels, confront Ukrainian troops building dugout

Ukraine soldier
© Sputnik/ STR
Observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine recently witnessed a conflict between Donbass local residents and Ukrainian forces involved in a military operation in eastern Ukraine.

"In government-controlled Sopyne the SMM observed about 40-50 residents (of various ages, over half of whom were women) angrily confront 10 Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers," the SMM said in a report on August 3.

Residents told the observers that they were angry that soldiers were building a dugout on the territory of their village.

"The SMM saw a fresh 2m-deep dugout about 20m from the nearest house. After the soldiers withdrew from the area the SMM observed some residents filling it in with shovels," the report added.

Pistol

British man sentenced to 10 years in jail for accidentally discharging weapon during sex game gone wrong

David Andrew Jeffers
© Greater Manchester PoliceDavid Andrew Jeffers
A British man has been sentenced to 10 years in jail after inserting a loaded antique shotgun into the vagina of a sexual partner and causing "life changing injuries" after the gun accidentally went off.

David Andrew Jeffers, 47, and the woman, 46, known only as 'J' in the Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court proceedings, were engaged in sexual activity in a room at the Britannia Hotel in Stockport in the early hours of January 31 when the incident occurred.

The weapon used to carry out what Jeffers alleged was the woman's "sexual fantasy" was described as an antique shotgun, roughly the size of a small pistol, used to kill vermin.

Heart - Black

Mass grave found in northern Mexico, authorities say

Mexican military
© AFP Photo/PEDRO PARDOMore than 177,000 people have been murdered and another 30,000 have been gone missing in Mexico since 2006, when the government deployed the military to fight organized crime.
A mass grave with the bodies of 14 people has been uncovered in a mountainous region of the northern Mexican state of Zacatecas, state prosecutors said.

Zacatecas Attorney General Francisco Murillo said authorities have so far found the bodies of 11 men and three women, but there could be more at the site in the municipality of Valparaiso.

"In some cases, the bodies are dismembered, some are bound and others are recent," he said at a news conference late Friday.

Airplane

10 people hospitalized after unexpected severe turbulence on an American Airlines flight

American Airlines flight
© FG/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GC IMAGES
American Airlines Flight 759 headed from Athens, Greece to Philadelphia experienced extreme, unexpected turbulence that left 10 people (passengers and crew) hospitalized, according to reports.

The flight had almost 300 people on board and eventually landed safely in Philadelphia. Jessica Huseman, a reporter on the flight, tweeted her experience after the plane had safely landed in Philadelphia.

Gear

UN study: Foreign fighters who join ISIS in Syria 'lack basic understanding of Islam'

UK recruits to ISIS
More than 850 people have left the UK to join Isis in Iraq and Syria, with half having since returned
Research shows economic factors and 'lack of meaning' in life makes warzone attractive

Young men who leave their homes to fight for terrorist groups in Syria mainly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have low levels of education and "lack any basic understanding of the true meaning of jihad or even the Islamic faith", according to a new report.

A study for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism found that despite claiming to protect Muslims, most of the returned fighters were "novices" in their religion and some did not know how to pray properly.

"Most saw their religion in terms of justice and injustice rather than in terms of piety and spirituality," said the authors of the report, which was based on interviews with 43 people from 12 countries.

They found that a typical fighter "is most likely to be male, young and disadvantaged economically, educationally, and in terms of the labor market".

Question

Confused? Britain's youngest sex-swap patient set to undergo surgery to change gender for the third time

Ria Cooper transgender
© John Gladwin/Sunday MirrorRia Cooper was born a boy, became the UK's youngest sex-swap patient at 15 but transitioned back to being a man at the age of 18
Like many young women, Ria Cooper dreams of one day getting married and having children.

But the 23-year-old knows the odds are stacked against her.

Not only because she was born a boy, but because she has now switched gender an astonishing three times in her short life.

Ria - who was born Brad - became ­Britain's youngest sex-swap patient at 15. Doctors controversially backed her belief she was a girl in a boy's body.

She was given blockers to stop her going through puberty, followed by injections of female hormones to impede face and chest hair and trigger the formation of breasts.


Comment: The Health & Wellness Show: The medical and social implications of gender multiplicity