Sunday, December 31, 2017

Life without a mobile phone...




The man who can't face the internet...

Earlier this month, Facebook announced it would be using facial recognition to let users know every time a photo of them had been uploaded to the site.

Such a feature would be extremely useful to one man - public-relations professional Jonathan Hirshon, who has managed to stay anonymous on the social network for the past 20 years.

He has more than 3,000 friends on Facebook and regularly updates his profile with personal information - where he is going on holiday, what he has cooked for dinner and the state of his health.

But what he has never shared on the social network, or anywhere else online, is a picture of himself.

It is, he said, his way of "screaming my privacy to the world". Full story...

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Rajinikanth confirms entry into politics, to form party and contest Tamil Nadu assembly elections...

Ending long-drawn suspense, actor Rajinikanth announced his entry into politics on Sunday, promising to launch a party and fight the next assembly elections in Tamil Nadu in all 234 seats.

Quoting a shloka from the Bhagwad Gita which stresses the importance of doing one’s duty and leaving the rest to the Lord, he said, “It is the compulsion of time.”

“I am joining politics for sure,” the 67-year-old said amid thunderous applause from fans at a packed Sri Raghavendra Kalyana Mandapam in Chennai.

In his short speech, the actor said democracy was in a bad shape and some recent incidents had made Tamil Nadu the laughing stock of the nation.

“In the name of democracy, politicians are robbing us of our own money in our own land,” he observed, adding that there was a need to change the system from the base to fight corruption. He called on the people to become his army, not cadre, in the fight. Full story...

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Thursday, December 28, 2017

World's wealthiest became $1 trillion richer in 2017...

The richest people on earth became $1 trillion richer in 2017, more than four times last year’s gain, as stock markets shrugged off economic, social and political divisions to reach record highs.

The 23 percent increase on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, compares with an almost 20 percent increase for both the MSCI World Index and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos added the most in 2017, a $34.2 billion gain that knocked Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates out of his spot as the world’s richest person in October. Gates, 62, had held the spot since May 2013, and has been donating much of his fortune to charity, including a $4.6 billion pledge he made to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in August. Bezos, whose net worth topped $100 billion at the end of November, currently has a net worth of $99.6 billion compared with $91.3 billion for Gates.

George Soros also gave away a substantial part of his fortune, revealing in October that his family office had given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations over the past several years, dropping the billionaire investor to No. 195 on the Bloomberg ranking, with a net worth of $8 billion. Full story...

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George Weah is elected president of Liberia as former Chelsea and Manchester City star celebrates landslide victory

Former AC Milan, Manchester City and Chelsea striker George Weah has been elected president of Liberia.

Weah - the first African to win the Ballon D'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year - won comprehensively, clinching 12 of the 15 counties in the West African country.

His opponent Joseph Boakai, who has been vice-president for the last 12 years, only had two counties vote for him.

Jubilant Weah took to Twitter to confirm the victory. Full story...

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Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Social media justice is awesome, right?


Mainstream news IS fake...

There is one thing Donald Trump has right; our establishment news is unquestionably, indubitably fake. Those reasonable souls who have become understandably fed up with Trump’s WWE/Reality Show antics have to keep this in mind. Just because he’s an immature clown doesn’t mean his enemies are credible.

Most of us know BS artists, people who consistently twist and exaggerate the truth. Many of us know pathological liars, who simply are incapable of telling the truth about anything. In such cases, we don’t give these kinds of individuals any credibility whatsoever. We barely pay attention to anything they say.

I would contend that the mainstream media, as a whole, is the most pathological liar that ever existed. Despite their differing outlets, and the variations of letters in their network abbreviations, these “competing” organs act and report as one living, breathing, lying entity. Like individual pathological liars, they are incapable of telling the truth. I literally don’t believe anything they report, from the most intricate political event to a mundane weather forecast.

To believe in our professional “journalists,” one must accept that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK all by his lonesome, minimum wage earning-sexually inadequate self. One must believe that 19 crazed Arabs hijacked four airliners on 9/11, armed only with box cutters and plastic knives. One must further accept that after one of these planes struck the Pentagon, it not only left no visible wreckage behind, but the multitude of security cameras caught no footage of the impact. Full story...

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Double world chess champion says she won't defend titles in Saudi Arabia because of kingdom's inequality...

It takes years of work, days of staring at a board and hours of agonising over individuals moves en route to becoming a world champion in chess. 
And it takes only a short-sighted decision from its governing body to ensure you lose that crown.
"In a few days I am going to lose two World Champion titles - one by one," Anna Muzychuk says. 
"Just because I decided not to go to Saudi Arabia."
Muyzchuk is the defending world champion in two disciplines of speed chess - rapid and blitz. In rapid, each players gets 15 minutes to complete all of their moves and in blitz it is just 10. Full story...

Passenger claims United booted her from first-class seat — then gave it to Texas congresswoman ...

A passenger on a Washington, D.C.-bound flight accused United Airlines of giving up her first-class seat to a Texas lawmaker.

The airline then threatened to pull her from the plane entirely after she snapped a photo of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the woman told the Houston Chronicle.

“It was just so completely humiliating,” Jean-Marie Simon, 63, told the Chronicle of the flight.

 She was returning to Washington, D.C., on Dec. 18 — the last part of a return trip from Guatemala — when she went to board a connecting flight in Houston. Full story...

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Tuesday, December 26, 2017

One man’s stand against junk food as diabetes climbs across India...

Rahul Verma’s son was born gravely ill with digestive problems, but over years of visits to the boy’s endocrinologist, Mr. Verma saw the doctor grow increasingly alarmed about a different problem, one threatening healthy children. Junk food, the doctor warned, was especially dangerous to Indians, who are far more prone to diabetes than people from other parts of the world.

One day in the doctor’s waiting room, Mr. Verma noticed a girl who had gotten fat by compulsively eating potato chips. He decided he had to do something.

“On one side you have children like my son, who are born with problems,” said Mr. Verma, “and on the other side you have children who are healthy and everything is fine and you are damaging them giving them unhealthy food.”

Mr. Verma, who had no legal training, sat late into the nights with his wife, Tullika, drafting a petition in their tiny apartment, which was bedecked with fairy lights and pictures of the god Ganesh, who is believed to overcome all obstacles. He filed the public interest lawsuit in the Delhi High Court in 2010, seeking a ban on the sale of junk food and soft drinks in and around schools across India. More + photos...

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We got it wrong on Brexit gloom, economists admit: Buoyant British economy is set to power past France by 2020...

Britain's economy is now predicted to overtake France's in 2020 as experts admitted they had been too gloomy over Brexit.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) had claimed the economy would slow down because of a drop in consumer spending and investment.

But last night the think-tank admitted it had got this wrong, saying: 'In practice this has not happened.'

Its economists accepted the fears they expressed last year that Brexit would leave the UK behind the French economy for five years were exaggerated. Full story...

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The Christmas truce of 1914...

The 'hawker interns' selling prawn mee...

They had not yet graduated from university, but like many of their peers, Joanne Heng and Chan Kheng Yee were already out and about looking for a full-time job. A posting on online portal Gumtree caught their attention, and they responded to the call for “interns” the very next day.

Like any job application, the two friends had to go through a job interview filled with questions about their sincerity, motivation and commitment to the position.

But this job required very different skill sets from your typical office job: Anson Loo, the person who made the post on Gumtree, was looking for young interns to help him run his hawker stall.

“I realised that there are young people who want to become hawkers, but face a lot of financial constraints,” said Anson, who sells prawn mee at Ghim Moh food centre. “So I thought, why not target young people with no experience, so I can give them the training from scratch?” More + photos...

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Duterte's son quits as vice mayor over drug smuggling links...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's eldest son has quit as vice mayor of the southern city of Davao, citing his being linked to a drug smuggling case by opponents and personal problems from a failed marriage as reasons for the move.

Paolo Duterte announced his resignation during a special session of the Davao City Council.

Davao is President Duterte's hometown and its mayor is Paolo's younger sister, Sara Duterte-Carpio.

"There are recent unfortunate events in my life that are closely tied to my failed first marriage," the former vice mayor said in a statement made available to media. Full story...

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Monday, December 25, 2017

Arab rulers buy lavish gifts to curry favor with British politicians...

A report has exposed how certain Arab states have continued to shower British politicians with luxury gifts in an attempt to curry favor and buy their support.

Those states include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, and Oman, the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal reported on Saturday, citing newly released UK government data.

Prime Minister Theresa May, whom Saudi Arabia has conferred with the Order of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, has received several gifts from the kingdom, including an ornament, a clock, and a medal, the report said.

Saudi Arabia “has splashed out on 20 luxury Christmas hampers for Conservative Party ministers since 2010,” the MEE further reported.

The United Arab Emirates has also been providing British ministers with various gifts. Full story...

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How Facebook’s secret unit created India’s troll armies for digital propaganda to influence elections...

(...)

India is arguably Facebook’s most important market recently edging out the U.S. as the company’s biggest. The number of users here is growing twice as fast as in the U.S. And that doesn’t even count the 200 million people who use the company’s WhatsApp messaging service in India, more than anywhere else on the globe.

By the time of India’s 2014 elections, Facebook had for months been working with several campaigns. Modi relied heavily on Facebook and WhatsApp to recruit volunteers who in turn spread his message on social media. Since his election, Modi’s Facebook followers have risen to 43 million, almost twice Trump’s count.

Within weeks of Modi’s election, Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg both visited India as it was rolling out a critical free internet service that was later curbed due to massive protests. Harbath and her team have also traveled here, offering a series of workshops and sessions that have trained more than 6,000 government officials.

As Modi’s social media reach grew, his followers increasingly turned to Facebook and WhatsApp to target harassment campaigns against his political rivals. India has become a hotbed for fake news, with one hoax story this year that circulated on WhatsApp leading to mob beatings resulting in several deaths. The nation has also become an increasingly dangerous place for opposition parties and reporters. Full story...

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" We are afraid of Christmas"

uTehmina Yadav is a Muslim woman married to a Hindu man. The other night, she was hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree.

In India, a country that is about 80 percent Hindu, Christmas is becoming big business. Airlines play Christmas music, online vendors sell holiday gift baskets, and one especially enterprising young man, Kabir Mishra, rents out a contingent of Hindus dressed as Santa Claus.

“I can provide as many Santas as you want,” he said.

Sitting next to her Christmas tree at home in Delhi, Ms. Yadav said that in India, there was nothing strange about non-Christians celebrating Christmas. Indians have always observed a dizzying number of festivals regardless of religious affiliation, and even though Christians represent only 2.3 percent of the population, Christmas is recognized as a government holiday.

But as far-right Hindu groups have gained traction, India has changed. Christmas has now found itself caught in the cross hairs. Full story...

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Sunday, December 24, 2017

Simon's cat: DIY

Swiss court convicts woman for reading husband’s emails...

A wife in the canton of Aargau has been convicted of a criminal offence for going into her husband’s email account and reading and downloading information without his knowledge.
The woman became suspicious after her husband set up a second email account on their home computer, according to the Aargauer Zeitung.

The couple had always known each other’s passwords and had even written them down, according to the paper. Since the man used one of these passwords for his new account, his wife was easily able to access it and read his emails.

So she did – and discovered that he had been having affairs with several other women for some time.

She confronted her husband, who moved out of their apartment. He later filed a criminal complaint against his wife for reading his emails. Full story...

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How Facebook’s political unit enables the dark art of digital propaganda...

Under fire for Facebook Inc.’s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship. “We hope to give all people a voice and create a platform for all ideas,” Zuckerberg wrote in September after President Donald Trump accused Facebook of bias.

Zuckerberg’s social network is a politically agnostic tool for its more than 2 billion users, he has said. But Facebook, it turns out, is no bystander in global politics. What he hasn’t said is that his company actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition—sometimes with the aid of “troll armies” that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies.

The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that’s neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power. The unit is led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. Since Facebook hired Harbath three years later, her team has traveled the globe helping political clients use the company’s powerful digital tools.

In some of the world’s biggest democracies—from India and Brazil to Germany and the U.K.—the unit’s employees have become de facto campaign workers. And once a candidate is elected, the company in some instances goes on to train government employees or provide technical assistance for live streams at official state events. Full story...

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Saturday, December 23, 2017

Washington’s humiliation at UN is sign of a washed-up superpower...

The humiliating condemnation of the US this week at the UN General Assembly over its Jerusalem policy revealed both Washington’s contempt for democracy and international law, and just how isolated America has become globally.

The overwhelming rejection of President Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital by 128 member nations at the UN is a signal event of how far US international standing has slumped.

Leader of the free world? More like a miscreant whose overbearing megalomaniacal ego is no longer tolerable to virtually everyone else.

Even close US allies among the NATO military alliance voted against Washington’s position. Britain, France, and Germany joined with other international powers, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Brazil, to repudiate Trump’s decision taken earlier this month to recognize Jerusalem. Full story...

Revealed: The real reason why stewardesses never eat during a flight...

THE key to beating jet lag could be as simple as flying on an empty stomach, apparently.

Melissa Biggs Bradley, who founded luxury travel firm Indagare, recently shared her travel hacks with Bloomberg.

Among her top tips was the “stewardess secret” of never eating while on-board a flight.

According to Ms Biggs Bradley, eating while flying can be a sure-fire way to get hit by the dreaded jet lag.

She said she learnt the simple but effective tip from a hostie a decade ago while on-board a 17-hour Singapore Airlines flight to New York.

“I eat nothing on flights. I’ve talked to a lot of stewardesses about it, and it’s a stewardess secret,” she said. Full story...

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Friday, December 22, 2017

Could Aung San Suu Kyi face Rohingya genocide charges?

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, is determined that the perpetrators of the horrors committed against the Rohingya face justice.

He's the head of the UN's watchdog for human rights across the world, so his opinions carry weight.

It could go right to the top - he doesn't rule out the possibility that civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the armed forces Gen Aung Min Hlaing, could find themselves in the dock on genocide charges some time in the future.

Earlier this month, Mr Zeid told the UN Human Rights Council that the widespread and systematic nature of the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar (also called Burma) meant that genocide could not be ruled out. Full story...

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UN votes resoundingly to reject Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as capital...

The United Nations general assembly has delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump, voting by a huge majority to reject his unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The vote came after a redoubling of threats by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who said that Washington would remember which countries “disrespected” America by voting against it.

Despite the warning, 128 members voted on Thursday in favour of the resolution supporting the longstanding international consensus that the status of Jerusalem – which is claimed as a capital by both Israel and the Palestinians – can only be settled as an agreed final issue in a peace deal. Countries which voted for the resolution included major recipients of US aid such as Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although largely symbolic, the vote in emergency session of the world body had been the focus of days of furious diplomacy by both the Trump administration and Israel, including Trump’s threat to cut US funding to countries that did not back the US recognition. Full story...

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Thursday, December 21, 2017

PSY - DADDY (Dance Practice)

'A hideous milestone in the 21st century': Cholera cases in Yemen pass 1 million...

It has been roughly eight months since cholera first took hold in war-torn Yemen. In that brief span, the waterborne disease has exacted a staggering toll on the country's population — and that toll only continues to rise by the day.

The number of suspected cases of cholera has crossed one million, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced Thursday. Of those who have contracted the disease since April, the World Health Organization believes more than 2,200 people have died of it — almost a third of whom are children.

In its announcement on Twitter, the ICRC was left nearly speechless, elaborating on its confirmation with just three words: "This is devastating."

The centuries-old disease can kill someone within hours — but under most circumstances, it should not. It is both preventable and treatable with adequate medical treatment. "A patient with cholera should never die," Dr. David Sack of Johns Hopkins University told NPR's Jason Beaubien earlier this year. "If they get to a treatment center in time, if they still have a breath, we can save their life." Full story...

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Eat your vegetables: Nutrients in leafy greens may help prevent dementia...

Nutrients found in green leafy vegetables just might make your mind 11 years younger, according to a new study.

Dementia, a decline in memory and cognitive function, is one of the most feared aspects of aging. But those who reported eating their vegetables seem to be more successful in staving it off.

Researchers at Rush University and Tufts University studied 1,000 people and found that those who reported eating one to two daily servings of green leafy vegetables, such as kale, lettuce or spinach, had slower rates of cognitive decline.

The new research was published today in the journal Neurology. Full story...

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Sexual slurs infuriate China’s ‘leftover’ women...

They are shamed on television yet named as a driving force behind China’s consumer boom. Middle class with disposable incomes, single women have played a key role in keeping the world’s second biggest economy ticking over.

But while they are feted for their spending power, they have been compared to “used cars” or portrayed in a sexist way in tasteless television ads aimed at, yes, female consumers.

In October, IKEA caused a social media storm when a Chinese advert for the Swedish furniture chain featured a mother who threatened to disown her unmarried daughter.

The 30-second commercial showed a family scene with a stern-looking Chinese mom telling her daughter: “If you cannot bring back a boyfriend, don’t call me mom.”

At that point, a young man appears at the door with flowers, and the delighted parents roll out their IKEA dining table with branded decorations and cutlery. The scene ends with the tagline: “Celebrate Everyday Life”. Full story...

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Eurocrats celebrate Christmas with huge payrise: Taxpayers fleeced for €100m more annually...

EUROCRATS in Brussels have secured themselves a merry Christmas with pay rises ensuring that commissioners and MEPs now pocket almost £450 a month more.

Bild in Germany, reporting the pay spikes today, said: “A nice Christmas surprise for the nearly 38,000 EU employees!

“Their salaries and pensions increase by 1.5 per cent retroactively on July 1. EU commissioners and MEPs also benefit from this. There are up to almost €500 more per month for them.”

Eurostat, the statistics office of the bloc, base the raises on the cost of living in Belgium and Luxembourg.

The most basic salaries of EU civil servants rise from €2,830 to €2,872 in the lowest grade and from €19,588 to €19,882 per month in the highest. Full story...

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Un-Merry Christmas: The perverse incentives to over-consume and over-spend...

Few topics are off-limits nowadays: the personal and private are now splashed everywhere for all to see.
One topic is still taboo: the holiday's perverse incentives to over-consume and over-spend,lest our economy implode.

This topic is taboo because it strikes at the very heart of our socio-economic system, which is fundamentally based on permanent growth, the faster the better, as if unlimited expansion on a finite planet is not just possible, but desirable.

In the current Mode of Production, the solution to every social and economic ill is to "grow our way out of it."

The solution to unemployment: jump-start growth by expanding consumption, spending and borrowing.

The solution to stagnant wages: jump-start growth.

The solution to declining profits: jump-start growth.

The solution to government deficit spending: jump-start growth.

And so on. Full story...

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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

African sex techniques...

Harvey Weinstein: Ex-assistant criticises gagging orders...

A former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, who accused him of attempting to rape a colleague 19 years ago, has called for a change to UK law on gagging orders.

Zelda Perkins worked for Weinstein's Miramax Films in the UK in the 1990s. She left after a co-worker said he'd tried to rape her, which he denied.

Ms Perkins told BBC Newsnight she tried to expose his behaviour, but was told by lawyers she "didn't have a chance".

She signed a non-disclosure agreement but said the process was "immoral".

Ms Perkins was 24 when she signed the confidentiality agreement in 1998, which prevented her from speaking to anyone about the alleged sexual assault.

She's now broken her 19 years of silence by speaking publicly about the movie mogul's mistreatment of women. More + video...

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Thursday, December 14, 2017

Net neutrality: The internet holds its breath...

Like all great American laws, this one was written almost a century ago by a bunch of men who had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

That's not a criticism. Who could have foreseen, as they put pen to paper in 1934, that one day their words would be used to govern how bits and bytes are streamed and downloaded, through copper, glass and radio-waves, under and overground, across our oceans and even into space?

Sometimes, though, the most effective laws are about establishing a broad principle, and within the Communications Act of 1934 is one such principle that demands companies providing telecommunications do so without discrimination.

Should that rule - known as Title II - apply to the companies that provide Americans with the internet?

It did, but now it won't. Full story...

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US 'deeply concerned' after Reuters reporters arrested in Myanmar...

The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday called for the Myanmar government to explain the arrests of two Reuters journalists after they were invited to meet with police officials in Yangon.

“For a democracy to succeed, journalists need to be able to do their jobs freely. We urge the government to explain these arrests and allow immediate access to the journalists,” the embassy in Naypyidaw said in a statement.

Reuters confirmed that reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested late Tuesday in connection with their work.

“We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom. We call for authorities to release them immediately,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said in a statement.

The Myanmar Ministry of Information said in a Facebook post that the reporters “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media." Full story...

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15 year-old boy in India kills himself hours after being forced to marry widowed sister-in-law

A 15-year-old boy committed suicide two hours after he was forced to marry his widowed sister-in-law, 10 years older than him, in south Bihar’s Gaya district.

The wedding was solemnised on Monday at Vinoba Nagar village under Paraiya police station, about 15km west of Gaya, defying a campaign by the Nitish Kumar government to end the practices of child marriage and dowry in the state.

Police said Mahadev Das, a Class 9 student of the government high school in Paraiya, married 25-year-old Ruby Devi, the widow of his elder brother Santosh Das, under mounting pressure from his relatives and villagers. She is the mother of two children.

A large number of villagers and relatives were present during the wedding rituals at a village temple and 10 people, four from the bridegroom’s side and six from the bride’s, signed on a draft prepared to validate the marriage. Full story...

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The first penis I saw...

New York Public Libraries: the proposal to kill net neutrality is 'appalling'

Since their inception, public libraries have fought to ensure that all people — regardless of their background or beliefs — have access to knowledge, education, and opportunity. That noble mission hasn’t changed, even as technology has. In addition to books and other materials, public libraries in every community in our great country are providing access to the computer and the internet, technology training classes, tablets, laptops, and more, offering everyone the tools they need to improve their lives, strengthen their communities, and succeed. Libraries are at the foundation of the American dream. The recent proposal by the Federal Communications Commission to abandon current net neutrality rules stands in direct opposition to this vital work. The proposal essentially gives broadband providers financial incentive to govern the openness of the internet, paving the way for models in which consumers pay for priority access, and those who can’t pay are limited to a “slow lane.”

Without the current protections, the already yawning digital divide will be widened. We know in New York City, millions of families cannot afford broadband access at home. These families are in our branches, borrowing Wi-Fi hot spots, or using our public computers to do homework, pay bills, apply for jobs, or communicate with relatives. For these New Yorkers, the 216 library branches across the city are their only option for access to technology. For the FCC to place internet access — something that in today’s world is a necessity, not a luxury — even further out of reach is appalling.

As strong advocates for and guardians of the right for people to seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction, New York City libraries cannot possibly support such a measure. Full story...

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Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Somaliland, the country that you have never heard of is a beacon of hope...

(...)

To put it mildly, it’s not a place you’d want to invest in or visit. Yet, this is the Somalia the world recognizes as a sovereign state.

However, the northern region of the country – Somaliland – is very different. Crime is low, terrorism is almost non-existent, and the standard of living is higher. A series of peaceful elections has reinforced democratic rule for more than 25 years. While nearly all the residents of Somaliland are Muslim, disputes are settled under a traditional tribal system called Xeer. Like the common law that America inherited from England, Xeer is based on legal precedent and local customs.

While the world continues to acknowledge the corrupt government of Somalia, Somaliland has quietly prospered, despite lack of international recognition. It has its own currency and issues its own passports, which enjoy (limited) recognition.

That’s not all Somaliland has going for it. It claims a territory of 68,000 square miles and has a population that exceeds 3.5 million people. And crucially, it has the ability to defend its territory, with more than 35,000 soldiers. Full story...

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Tuesday, December 12, 2017

30 year NSA employee shares why they are watching you & it has nothing to do with terrorism...

William Binney is a former high ranking intelligence official with the National Security Agency (NSA). He is one of the highest placed intelligence officials to ever blow the whistle on insider NSA ‘knowings.’ He made headlines when he resigned in 2001 after 9/11, having worked more than thirty years for the agency. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold war, and was repelled by the United States’ massive surveillance programs.

He’s had quite the go, starting in 2002 when he let the public know of a system ( ‘trailblazer’) intended to analyze data carried on communication networks (like the internet). He exposed the agencies eavesdropping program and has faced harassment from the FBI, NSA and more. He has been in and out of the court room ever since he decided to resign and blow the whistle.

These mass surveillance leaks are nothing new, as we’ve seen by the leaks recent NSA whislte-blower Edward Snowden has provided us over the past few years. In an interview that was blacked out by the U.S media, Snowden referred to a Super National Intelligence Organization known as the “Five Eyes” that do whatever they want, and are far beyond the laws of their own country. You can read more about that HERE.

Binney hasn’t stopped, one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever come out of the NSA. He is now saying: Full story...

Condom ads banned from 6 am to 10 pm in India...

The government has prohibited television channels from airing advertisements for condoms any time in the day till 10 pm, since some of the commercials were "indecent and can impact children", evoking strong reactions from companies and advertisers.

The information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry in an advisory issued to all television channels on Monday said advertising for condoms will only be allowed between 10 pm and 6 am. "Some channels carry ads of condoms repeatedly which are alleged to be indecent specially for children," it said.

ET has seen a copy of the advisory.

Citing the Cable Television Network Rules, the ministry said advertisements that endanger the safety of children or create in them any interest in unhealthy practices shall not be carried. The move, it said, was "to avoid exposure of such material to children and to ensure strict adherence to the provisions".

"Any failure will attract action," it said.  Full story...

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Dua Lipa - New Rules...

HP laptops found to have hidden keylogger...

Hidden software that can record every letter typed on a computer keyboard has been discovered pre-installed on hundreds of HP laptop models.

Security researcher Michael Myng found the keylogging code in software drivers preinstalled on HP laptops to make the keyboard work.

HP said more than 460 models of laptop were affected by the "potential security vulnerability".

It has issued a software patch for its customers to remove the keylogger.

The issue affects laptops in the EliteBook, ProBook, Pavilion and Envy ranges, among others. HP has issued a full list of affected devices, dating back to 2012. Full story...

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France to impose total ban on mobile phones in schools...

France is to impose a total ban on pupils using mobile phones in primary and secondary schools starting in September 2018, its education minister has confirmed.

Phones are already forbidden in French classrooms but starting next school year, pupils will be barred from taking them out at breaks, lunch times and between lessons.

Teachers and parents are divided over a total ban, however, with some saying children must be able to "live in their time". In France, some 93 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds own mobile phones.

"These days the children don't play at break time anymore, they are just all in front of their smartphones and from an educational point of view that's a problem," said Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister. Full story...

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Monday, December 11, 2017

Former Facebook exec: 'You don’t realize it but you are being programed'

Last month, Facebook’s first president Sean Parker opened up about his regrets over helping create social media as we know it today. “I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because of the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other,” Parker said. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth, also recently expressed his concerns. During a recent public discussion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Palihapitiya—who worked at Facebook from 2005 to 2011—told the audience, “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

Some of his comments seem to echo Parker’s concern [emphasis ours]. Parker has said that social media creates “a social-validation feedback loop” by giving people “a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever.” Full story...

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