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Moscow city computers ditching Microsoft for Russian-made software

Ivana Kottasova
CNN Money
Wed, 28 Sep 2016 18:25 UTC
putin
Moscow's city government is ditching Microsoft Outlook for Russian-made software, answering President Vladimir Putin's calls for more digital sovereignty.

The city will initially install locally developed MyOffice software on the computers of 6,000 workers, replacing the Microsoft e-mail service they currently use. MyOffice is made by Russian company New Cloud Technology.

The program will eventually be expanded to all of Moscow's 600,000 municipal employees, according to a statement published by the country's ministry of communications on Tuesday.

"Russia-developed software is not inferior to foreign software, but it's much cheaper and, most importantly, provides reliable data protection," said Sergey Kalugin, the head of Moscow's information technology department.
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Calendar

Explosion hits car of Georgian opposition lawmaker ahead of elections


Radio Free Europe
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:20 UTC
Givi Targamadze
© Radio Free Europe
Georgian lawmaker Givi Targamadze
A Georgian opposition lawmaker's car has been hit by an explosion in a suspected bombing in Tbilisi that injured five passersby.

The incident came just three days before Georgia's parliamentary elections.

Reports from the Georgian capital say lawmaker Givi Targamadze from the United National Movement (ENM) was not hurt by the October 4 blast.

Targamadze was seated in the front seat next to his driver when the blast occurred. His driver also escaped injury.

But two people on the street nearby were hospitalized and three other were slightly injured.

The United National Movement is Georgia's largest opposition party.

On October 2, two men were shot and wounded during an open-air campaign speech given by independent candidate and former Defense Minister Irakly Okruashvili in the town of Gori.

Comment: See also: New Great Game Round-up: Afghanistan truce with "butcher" Hekmatyar, another Saakarshvili coup plot, Azerbaijan's Iskander problem

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Camcorder

Charlotte police release bodycam footage of Keith Scott shooting


RT
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 18:16 UTC
keith scott shooting
© WCMH / YouTube
Police in Charlotte, North Carolina have released extended body camera footage showing the aftermath of an officer shooting Keith Scott. The actual moment of the shooting cannot be seen clearly.

Scott was shot and killed on Tuesday, September 20, outside a Charlotte apartment building. Protests over his death turned violent, with multiple stores looted and vehicles set on fire on Interstate 85. One protester was shot and killed, though not by police as initial reports speculated.

After Scott's wife, Rakeyia, made public a video of the confrontation she recorded on her cell phone, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) released partial body camera video and dashboard camera footage. The 16-minute body camera video was released Tuesday evening, after it was shown to Scott's family and its attorneys.

"It's very difficult to watch," Justin Bamberg, an attorney for Scott's family, told WCNC afterward. "There are real life consequences to the decision that an officer makes to pull the trigger."


Comment: See also:

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Robot

Bye-bye humanity: Futurologist predicts that by 2050 more humans will have sex with robots than with each other

Amando Flavio
AnonHq
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 18:05 UTC
Dr Ian Pearson

Dr Ian Pearson
The human race has evolved from a long process. Today, some secular philosophers consider this current human race to be the most advanced. However, many mystic philosophers dispute this assertion.

Of course, we all agree that for what we can see from the natural world, this current human race has made a rapid progress in technology, at least since the start of the third millennia.

We have seen a significant surge in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Soon, humans will be able to sit in cars and other vehicles without even controlling them manually. This is a rapid technological progress. However, it comes with a cost.
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Newspaper

Two police officers stabbed in suspected terror attack in Brussels


RT
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:52 UTC
Brussels knife attack
© Times of India
Two Belgian police officers were attacked by a knife-wielding man in Brussels's Schaerbeek neighborhood in an incident reportedly classified as a suspected terrorist act, according to the Belgian federal prosecutor's office.

"We have reason to believe that it is terror-related," a prosecutor's spokesman, Eric Van Der Sypt said, though he failed to provide any further details, French media reported.

The suspect carried out the attack as the police officers were trying to check his ID in the Schaarbeek municipality located in the northern part of Brussels, local media reported.

One of the policemen was stabbed in the neck at around noon local time, while the other one was hit in the abdominal area. Their injures were described as non-life-threatening.

The assailant, identified as 43-year-old Hicham D., fled the scene and was later stopped by a second unit of police officers. He broke the nose of a third policeman, who shot the man in the leg. A judge specializing in terror cases will decide whether Hicham D., a Belgian citizen, is to remain in detention or be released, AP reported.

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Bad Guys

Bizarre Daesh fatwas that should shock the world


Sputnik
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 17:21 UTC
Islamic State militant
© Flickr/ quapan
Daesh's Central Fatwa Committee issued a fatwa [Islamic legal decree] prohibiting the breeding of cats inside houses in Mosul, Iraq. This is a recent addition to the long list of bizarre fatwas issued by Daesh. Sputnik takes a look at some of the most shocking decrees issued earlier.

The terrorist organization has issued dozens of fatwas in Mosul based on its vision, ideology and twisted beliefs. The group relies on a central committee to issue fatwas which is comprised of influential clerics and figures from the terrorist group.

A few months back, Daesh released "fatwa on female sex slaves" telling militants how and when they can rape captured women and girls. The document was revealed to the media after it was found among a large trove of documents seized by US Special Forces in Syria.
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Heart - Black

More than 200 veterans die waiting for care at backlogged Phoenix VA

Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 17:21 UTC
VA Medical Center in Phoenix
© AP

Comment: A psychopathic war monger like the U.S. has no use for its cannon fodder once they have returned from 'battle'. They are merely slave labor to be discarded when they are no longer useful.


The Phoenix Veterans Affairs office is still improperly canceling veterans' appointments, has built up a new backlog of cases — and at least one veteran is likely dead because of it, the department's inspector general said in a new report Tuesday.

Two years after they first sounded the alarm about secret waiting lists leaving veterans struggling for care at the Phoenix VA, investigators said some services have improved, and they cleared the clinic of allegations that top officials ordered staff to cancel appointments.

But confusion and bureaucratic bungling are still prevalent, some veterans are waiting a half-year or longer for treatment, and staff are still canceling appointments for questionable reasons.

More than 200 veterans died while waiting for appointments in 2015, and investigators said at least one veteran would likely have been saved if the clinic had gone ahead with his consultation. "This patient never received an appointment for a cardiology exam that could have prompted further definitive testing and interventions that could have forestalled his death," the inspector general said.
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Stock Down

Tightening the noose on the global economy

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 17:25 UTC
noose
The investment world has an embarrassingly short attention span. But frankly, it is a necessity. If daytraders, hedge funds and other horses in the carousel actually had to look beyond the next week of market activity or study back on market history in comparison to today, then they would not be able to retain their blind optimism, which is exactly what is necessary for them to continue functioning. If they were all to examine the global financial situation with any honesty, the entire facade would collapse tomorrow.

At bottom, it is not central bank stimulus and intervention alone that drives equities and bond markets; it is the naive faith and willful ignorance of average market participants. There is a problem with this kind of economic model, however. Reality is never kept in check indefinitely. Fiscal truths will be exposed, one way or another.

How does one know when this full spectrum shift in awareness will occur? Well, there's no science that can help us with that. While basic economics is subject to the forces of supply, demand and mathematical inevitability, it is also subject to human psychology, which is another matter entirely.
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TV

Has someone been hacking the Emergency Alert System?

Melissa Dykes
Activist Post
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 17:16 UTC
emergency broadcast system
It seems like the Emergency Alert System has been hacked during September which happens to be FEMA's preparation awareness month. The authorities claim nothing fishy is going on. What do you really think is going on here?

Comment: See also:

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Bulb

California passes law banning police from robbing innocent people using civil forfeiture

Claire Bernish
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:49 UTC
civil forfeiture
In a refreshing and unfortunately rare instance of reasonableness in policy, California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a piece of legislation requiring police to secure an actual conviction before stealing people's stuff in drug-related offenses.

Civil asset forfeiture has been rightly likened to state-sanctioned armed robbery, as it allows police to commandeer cash, vehicles, homes, or any property of value — even if the person is never charged with a crime — and then use or sell the items for profit for their departments.

Police in Oklahoma, for example, recently honed their thievery by rolling out nefarious Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machines, known as ERAD, which can scan your bank account and prepaid cards, and — if an officer believes any balances are tied to a crime — can wipe those accounts dry.

California's new law, formerly Senate Bill 443, quashes this nightmarish policing-for-profit in the exact way advocates of civil asset forfeiture (CAF) reform have been demanding for years.

For police to keep cash stolen from people in amounts under $40,000 under the premise it has something to do with a drug-related crime, there must be an actual guilty verdict in court.
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