Society's Child

Taliban car bombing in Kabul's international area kills 5, injures 50

RFE/RL
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 18:52 UTC

Un policía afgano pasea por una de las calles de Kabul, la capital de Afganistán.

File photo: Kabul

A loud explosion has jolted the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing at least five civilians, officials say.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujadid said the militant group was behind the September 2 attack, which he said involved a car bombing and gunmen.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said the car bombing happened at around 9:45 p.m. local time near the Green Village, a large compound to the east of the city that houses aid agencies and international organizations.

"A nearby gas station also caught fire and exploded. Police and special forces have arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area," Rahimi tweeted.

Comment: US-Taliban peace talks fail in Doha, Afghan presidential election up ahead

21 arrested after mob kill 73-year-old doctor at tea estate in Assam

Ratnadip Choudhury
NDTV
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:03 UTC

Two days after the doctor of a tea estate in Assam was beaten to death by a mob of 250, 21 people have been arrested, the police said. The Indian Medical Association has called a strike, including withdrawal of emergency services, on Tuesday. The tea estate in Assam's Jorhat, 300 km from main city Guwahati, has been locked down for now by the management over safety concerns.

Deven Dutta, 73, died of his injuries after he was thrashed on Saturday by the workers of the tea estate because he was not present when a temporary worker died at the estate hospital.

"The garden doctor was assaulted following the death of Somra Majhi, who was being treated at the estate's hospital," Jorhat Deputy Commissioner Roshni Aparanji Korati said.

Comment: See also:

Jeffrey Epstein's 'fixer' Jean-Luc Brunel who ran major modelling agency has vanished 'like a ghost'

Paul Byrne
The Mirror
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 18:16 UTC

Jean Luc Brunel at a fashion competition MC2 Agency organized in Peru in 2017

Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel, 72, denied any wrong-doing in connection to Jeffrey Epstein, but now he has disappeared like a "ghost"

A millionaire model agency boss thought to have vital evidence about the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal has vanished. Investigators who want to interview Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel, 72, say he is a "ghost who has disappeared without trace".

It is understood enquires are being made in Brazil, the US and Europe.

French prosecutors have opened their own inquiry into the crimes of American financier Epstein, 66.

Comment: Minister calls for Epstein's French connections to be probed despite prison death

India's published citizenship list leaves 2M stateless

Anup Sharma
Yahoo News
Sat, 31 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC

© AFP/David Talukdar
Only those who can demonstrate that they or their forebears were in India before 1971 could be included in the list.

Almost two million people in northeast India were left facing statelessness on Saturday after they were excluded from a citizenship list aimed at weeding out "foreign infiltrators", in a process the central government wants to replicate nationwide.

A total of 31.1 million people were included in a National Register of Citizens (NRC), but 1.9 million were deemed ineligible, according to an official statement. A large chunk of those excluded were expected to be Muslims.

Shahibul Haque Shikdar, a Muslim college teacher, was distraught after two of his children made it to the list but he was left out. "Even my father's name is there in the final NRC but I have been left out," the 39-year-old told AFP.

Assam has long seen large influxes from elsewhere, including under British colonial rule and around Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence when millions fled into India. For decades this has made Assam a hotbed of inter-religious and ethnic tensions. Sporadic violence has included the 1983 massacre of around 2,000 people.

Protest in Prague after statue of Soviet 'liberator' Marshal Konev is hidden with tarpaulin

RT
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 16:46 UTC

A Prague municipality has covered the statue of a Soviet marshal whose forces liberated Prague in WWII, claiming it needs protection from vandals. The move angered many Czechs, including the president's spokesman.

Authorities in the northwestern Bubeneč district of the Czech capital announced that they can no longer keep cleaning the monument to Marshal Ivan Konev after continuous acts of vandalism against it, so they decided to cover it with a tarpaulin.

The move, announced by the mayor of Prague 6 municipality, Ondrej Kolar, caused an immediate backlash. Several dozen people protested against the decision on Monday at the statue's location, including the Czech president's spokesman Jiri Ovčaček.

"We have different opinions and we choose different political parties, but one thing connects us, we reject the rewriting of history and we reject people who trample on the values of democracy," Ovčaček said in a speech.

He was one of the multiple Czechs protesting the covering-up as it happened. He posted a photo of him bowing his head before Konev's statue on his Twitter account, calling him "liberator of the Czech Republic and of the Auschwitz death camp."

Police foil 3,000-person hide-and-seek game planned at IKEA store in Scotland

RT
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 10:44 UTC

Potentially thousands of Scottish teenagers have been deprived of a legendary game of hide-and-seek planned at an IKEA store, after police intervened to prevent the momentous sporting event from occurring.

Around 3,000 people signed up on Facebook to participate in a marathon hide-and-seek match at an IKEA store in Glasgow. Scheduled for Saturday, the festivities were tragically sabotaged after staff at the ubiquitous Swedish furniture store caught wind of the unauthorized event.

The humorless furniture dealer mobilized additional security and alerted the Glasgow police department, which dispatched five officers to the scene of the pre-meditated children's game crime.

Europe should ignore 'siren call of treacherous promises' from Facebook's Libra currency - European Central Bank

Balazs Koranyi
Reuters
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 08:16 UTC

Facebook's (FB.O) proposed Libra currency could undermine the European Central Bank's ability to set monetary policy and Europe should ignore its siren call of "treacherous promises" ECB board member Yves Mersch said on Monday.

Facebook announced Libra — a new digital coin backed by four official currencies and available to billions of social network users around the world — earlier this year, saying it hoped to launch next year.

"Depending on Libra's level of acceptance and on the referencing of the euro in its reserve basket, it could reduce the ECB's control over the euro, impair the monetary policy transmission mechanism by affecting the liquidity position of euro area banks, and undermine the single currency's international role," Mersch added.

Like regular currencies, Libra would be highly centralized, an "extremely concerning" setup since it is not backed by a lender of last resort and it is ultimately accountable to shareholders, who are not seen as repositories of public trust, Mersch added.

Comment: News of Facebook's cryptocurrency release has been met with consistent criticism. As Nadim Kobeissi comments, the currency could easily become 'weaponized':

Facebook already controls our information. Don't let it control our commerce

Another problem is that Libra could become weaponized in the campaign of ideological viewpoint discrimination that Big Tech has been waging openly in a recent years. In a world where Libra becomes indispensable, the repercussions for being found guilty of "problematic" statements on Facebook or other platforms would go beyond a ban on posting photos or political opinions: You may face problems paying your rent. While traditional currencies are vulnerable to concerted action by governments, Libra is vulnerable to virtual blockades and blackballing by Silicon Valley.[...]

Facebook isn't just a big social media company that became an enormous social media company. It has mutated into a de facto empire unto itself. Moreover, it is controlled by a single human being, Mark Zuckerberg, who possesses 53 percent of voting rights within the company.

Police: Masked gunman killed in shootout with officers in Brooklyn, NY

ABC News
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 10:46 UTC

A masked gunman was killed in a shootout with police who confronted him on a Brooklyn street and pursued him into a backyard early Monday, police said.

The shootout unleashed dozens of rounds in a yard in the Brownsville neighborhood, police Chief of Department Terence Monahan said. No officers were injured.

The New York Police Department hasn't released the identity of the man, who was shot numerous times in the body, Monahan told reporters at a news conference.

The encounter began when three uniformed officers on patrol in an unmarked car spotted a man in a mask around Howard and Dumont avenues around 2:30 a.m.

30 people missing after boat catches fire near Santa Cruz Island, California

Elizabeth Thomas and Alexandra Svokos
ABC News
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 09:39 UTC

Rescue operations are underway for more than 30 people on a 75-foot boat on fire near Santa Cruz Island, California, Monday morning.

Five people have been rescued and 30 people are currently missing, the Santa Barbara Fire Department confirmed to ABC News.

"The vessel was reported as being on fire. A group of crew members has been rescued (one with minor injuries) and efforts continue to evacuate the remaining passengers," the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Coast Guard tweeted.

Forget the Amazon hype, fires globally have declined 25% since 2003 thanks to economic growth

Michael Shellenberger
Forbes
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 14:56 UTC

The whole world is burning, The New York Times, CNN, and mainstream media outlets around the world have declared in recent days.

The Amazon could soon "self-destruct" reports The Times. It would be "a nightmare scenario that could see much of the world's largest rainforest erased from the earth," writes Max Fisher who notes, "some scientists who study the Amazon ecosystem call it imminent."

"If enough [Amazon] rain forest is lost and can't be restored, the area will become savanna, which doesn't store as much carbon, meaning a reduction in the planet's 'lung capacity,'" reports The New York Times.

Comment: See also:

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Society's Child

Taliban car bombing in Kabul's international area kills 5, injures 50

21 arrested after mob kill 73-year-old doctor at tea estate in Assam

Jeffrey Epstein's 'fixer' Jean-Luc Brunel who ran major modelling agency has vanished 'like a ghost'

India's published citizenship list leaves 2M stateless

Protest in Prague after statue of Soviet 'liberator' Marshal Konev is hidden with tarpaulin

Police foil 3,000-person hide-and-seek game planned at IKEA store in Scotland

Europe should ignore 'siren call of treacherous promises' from Facebook's Libra currency - European Central Bank

Police: Masked gunman killed in shootout with officers in Brooklyn, NY

30 people missing after boat catches fire near Santa Cruz Island, California

Forget the Amazon hype, fires globally have declined 25% since 2003 thanks to economic growth

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