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The Hunger Games Russian style


The Siberian Times
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 20:41 UTC
Game2: Winter
© The Siberian TimesTheir target: to survive until 1 April - but it will be no joke.
These are the rules to new TV reality show, an ultimate 9-month Siberian survival test stranded in remote taiga with bears and wolves in minus 40C winter.

The online project screened 24/7 around the world will see 30 male and female contestants seek to stay alive in wilderness populated with bears and wolves.

Organisers boast 'everything is allowed' including 'rape' and 'murder', but would-be participants are nevertheless warned: 'You must understand that the police will come and take you away. We are on the territory of Russia, and obey the laws of the Russian Federation.'

Contestants will be permitted knives, but no guns.

They will be given survival training from Russia's elite former GRU Spetznaz operatives, but after that they will be on their own coping with temperatures ranging from 35C in high summer to minus 40C or lower in the depths of the Siberian winter.
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Pistol

Senior Russian diplomat killed in Moscow flat hours before assassination of ambassador in Turkey

Caroline Mortimer
The Independent
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 19:48 UTC
Moscow apartment
© Ren TVThe apartment where the alleged shooting took place in Moscow.
Foreign Affairs ministry confirms the chief adviser to their Latin American affairs department, Petr Polshikov, died at his home.

A high-ranking Russian diplomat has reportedly been found dead from a gunshot wound at his Moscow home.

Local media reported a senior civil servant in the Foreign Ministry was found dead at his home in the Balaklavsky Prospekt apartment block with a bullet wound in the head.

The victim has since been named as Petr Polshikov, 56 - who was the chief adviser to the Latin American department at the ministry.

In a statement the Russian Foreign Affairs ministry expressed their condolences to Mr Polshikov's family but said his death was not related to his work.

The death occurred just hours before an off-duty Ankara policeman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, shot the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, as he gave a speech at an art gallery on Monday.
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Candle

Little Rock police offer $40,000 reward for finding man who killed 3yo boy in road rage shooting


RT
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 19:37 UTC
Acen King
Police in Arkansas are offering a $40,000 reward for finding the man who killed a three-year-old boy when he fired at his grandmother during a road rage incident.

A 911 dispatcher tape released on Monday shares the harrowing screams of an Arkansas grandmother as she realized her grandson, Acen King, had been shot by a motorist in a road rage shooting on Saturday night.

"My [grandson's] been shot," the grandmother wailed over the phone to a 911 dispatcher. "Oh my God!"
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Evil Rays

Facebook found guilty, faces fine for misleading EU in WhatsApp takeover


RT
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:04 UTC
Facebook
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
The European Commission has found Facebook guilty of providing misleading information before winning approval to buy the WhatsApp messenger in 2014.

Before the merger Facebook told the European competition watchdog it would not be able to establish "reliable automated matching between the two companies' user accounts."

According to the Commission, the technical possibility to match ID's existed in 2014 and that the firm "intentionally or negligently" submitted misleading information, breaking European merger rules.

Comment: See also:
  • The real agenda: Facebook's 'anti-fake news' plan looks like effort to bury alternative media
  • Creating a liberal bubble: Snopes to fact-check on Fakebook; writers are almost exclusively progressive liberals


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Briefcase

Orlando shooting: Victims' families are suing Google, Facebook & Twitter for allegedly radicalizing attacker


RT
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:57 UTC
Orlando shooting, Pray for Orlando
© Carlo Allegri / ReutersFILE PHOTO: "Pray for Orlando" is pictured on a pole in chalk at a makeshift memorial outside Pulse night club following last June's shooting at the night club in Orlando, Florida
Google, Facebook and Twitter are being sued by the families of those killed in June's Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando. They allege the three tech giants helped to radicalize gunman Omar Mateen.

Families of three of the victims have filed a civil suit stating that the companies provided "material support" to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) by giving them a platform to disseminate their views, Fox news has reported.

"Without Defendants Twitter, Facebook, and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," the lawsuit states.

The suit was filed in the Eastern District of Michigan by the families of Tevin Crosby, Javier Jorge-Reyes and Juan Ramon Guerrero, who all perished in the deadly assault.

Security guard Mateen, 29, killed 49 people and injured another 53 during the assault on June 12. IS quickly claimed responsibility for the atrocity through their Amaq news agency and Mateen professed allegiance to the terrorist group during a 911 call he made from the nightclub.

However, it was later found that he was not a member of the group but had been radicalized by their ideology.

The families are claiming that the three web platforms "provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts they use to spread extremist propaganda, raise funds, and attract new recruits."

Comment:

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Sheriff

National police union expects Trump to move towards police state

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:21 UTC
trump police state
© AP/Gregory Bull/John Locher/Photo montage by Salon
The FOP is the largest police union in America, boasting more than 330,000 members, across 2,200 departments. This month, they began circulating an internal document meant to define their expectations of the Trump presidency. The expectations are nothing short of pro-police state and anti-freedom.

In the document, the union attempts to distance themselves from the notion that this is an actual list of demands, but their intent is unmistakable as the FOP publicly proclaimed their unwavering support of the Trump presidency prior to the elections.

The list ends with the following 'disclaimer':
This document is a predictive summary of potential actions that the Trump Administration may take in its first 100 days and is based on statements from the campaign and media reports up to the time the document was distributed to FOP members. It is not an advocacy document and does not represent the FOP's agenda for the first 100 days of the incoming Administration. It is an advisory to our members as to what may happen when the new Administration takes over
However, the newly proposed list, titled, THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: The First 100 Days, lays out the police agenda quite clearly with a prediction of executive action to reinstate so many of the tyrannical practices overturned by the last two administrations.

Comment: Trump has not yet done anything to suggest he's going to create the "most massive police state the world has ever known." That idea seems like hyperbole from a liberal SJW who is upset that Clinton lost the election. A Clinton Administration would have been more likely to continue the stripping of civil rights and liberties began by the Bush and Obama Administrations. To bemoan the election of Trump seems to miss that fact. How about we wait and actually see what Trump does before resorting to hysterical cries of creating a police state before he's even been inaugurated?

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Cell Phone

Survey finds adolescents on social media have reduced satisfaction in life

Jeanna Smialek
Bloomberg
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:13 UTC
kids social media
Children who chat on social media suffer the consequences, a British survey finds.

The research digs into why social media-active adolescents report lower satisfaction with their lives, and it's the lead item in this week's research wrap. We've also taken a look at the flattening college wage premium, how Americans die on the job, and how central banks' large-scale asset purchase programs worked out.

Honey, get off the internet.

Kids who spend more time chatting on social websites feel reduced satisfaction about all parts of their lives except for their friendships, research from the Institute of Labor Economics shows. Looking at a national sample of British children between the ages of 10 and 15 collected from 2010 to 2014, the researchers found that spending one hour a day chatting on social networks reduced the probability of a kid being completely satisfied with his or her life overall by about 14 percentage points.
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Heart

Meet the Russian hero doctors saving lives in Aleppo


Sputnik
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:38 UTC
russian doctors
© Emergencies Ministry
In Syria, in addition to its military operations, Russia is also a engaged in a humanitarian campaign, providing food, medicine, and medical services to civilians in need. In the ruins of Aleppo, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) recently deployed an airmobile hospital to help treat those suffering from injury or illness.

The Aleppo deployment was announced last month, when President Vladimir Putin ordered sending a mobile field hospital to the city.

Arriving in the country in early December, doctors from Emercom's Tsentrospas medical team quickly began their work to assist city residents. On Monday, EMERCOM reported on the results of their work thus far, calculating that they have treated over 1,250 people, including 462 women and 375 children. Between Sunday and Monday alone, 63 people appealed to them for help of which 22 patients were taken into surgery, with the other 41 given therapeutic assistance.

Soon after their deployment, Tsentrospas's first order of business was to help treat patients suffering from very basic ailments, including colds and dehydration. Personnel took note of the fact that civilians in the city had been subjected to starvation, and most hadn't had access to any sort of medical assistance for a long period of time. Personnel soon handed out medicines to treat illnesses, and provided prescription drugs to patients following consultations with the help of translators.
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USA

Defending the rural voice in Electoral College, leveling the play field between a republic and a democracy

Bill Barrow
AP
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 12:06 UTC
Electoral college
© maxresdefault
As members of the Electoral College prepare to choose Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, some Republican electors say they are defending rural and small-town America against big-state liberalism and its support for national popular vote leader Hillary Clinton.

But the picture is more complicated. "Our Founding Fathers established the Electoral College because those larger states, those larger areas, don't necessarily need to be the ones that rule," said Mary Sue McClurkin, a Republican elector from Alabama.

In Trump's hometown of New York City, which Clinton won easily, Democratic elector Stuart Appelbaum countered that "we're electing the president of the entire country," so "the will of the entire country should be reflected in the results." It's an expected argument given the unusual circumstances of the 2016 election. Clinton won some 2.6 million more votes than Trump in the nationwide tally. But Trump is [on] line to get 306 of the 538 electoral votes under the state-by-state distribution of electors used to choose presidents since 1789.

Trump won rural areas, small towns and many small cities, including in states Clinton carried. Clinton won in the largest urban areas, including in Trump states.

Former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, a GOP elector, said Democrats' strength on the coasts is enough to justify the Electoral College. "A presidential election decided each time by either California or New York," he said, would leave voters in Alaska and many other places "with no voice" in presidential politics.

Comment: Voters love or hate the Electoral College, depending on perception of its function and bias to individual candidate election numbers. If it should come to pass that citizens wish to eliminate the EC, perhaps knowing what it does and why is important should be a precursor to making that decision.

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Better Earth

Obama: Drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic off limits


RT
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 13:45 UTC
Obama Arctic
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Obama at Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
President Barack Obama is ready to block the sale of new offshore drilling rights in the US Arctic and parts of the Atlantic; Bloomberg cites sources familiar with the matter. The block on sales would restrict American oil production. The move could reportedly come on Tuesday and would limit future oil and gas leasing in US waters.

The president is expected to evoke a provision in a seldom used 1953 law to preserve coral reefs, marine sanctuaries and walrus feeding grounds, the agency reports. The measure aims to respond to an outcry from environmental protesters who have been seeking to lock in protections before President-elect Donald Trump and his administration enter office. Canada may announce similar plans at the same time, the sources said.

Using the provision will draw a legal challenge, though there is scant legal precedent. Once Donald Trump takes office, he may rescind Obama's order, but it could take years of litigation as the statute does not include a provision for reversal.

The Republican-led Congress could also introduce legislation to eliminate the underlying provision empowering Obama's move. "Congress didn't give the president that power to undo a withdrawal. Trump may claim it. And it may even get upheld," said Niel Lawrence, Alaska director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, as quoted by the agency.

Comment: One of Obama's last hurrahs. ("Hurrah!")

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