Trump’s boss The Russian leader is not too busy in Ukraine and Syria to ignore growing disaffection with his government.
All posts by nedhamson
Argentina election: Macri out as Cristina Fernández de Kirchner returns to office as VP

Victory of Alberto Fernández’s presidential campaign puts an end to the pro-business economic policies of Macri’s administration
In a dramatic comeback, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, one of Argentina’s most popular presidents during her two terms in 2007-2015, has been voted back into office as vice president.
A large crowd of supporters burst into a roar outside the Frente de Todos (Everybody’s Front) party bunker in the Chacarita neighbourhood of the capital city of Buenos Aires at 9pm when preliminary official results gave the victory to the centre left presidential candidate Alberto Fernández and his running mate Fernández de Kirchner.
Europe is failing to stand up to the bullies who threaten democracy | Luke Cooper

From Brexit to the Balkans to the plight of the Kurds, EU leaders have refused to defend multilateralism
The rise of nationalism and the historic threat to liberalism sweeping the global system poses big strategic questions for European democracies. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin share an ideological belief in the language of race and nation combined with a winner-takes-all view of international diplomacy. By undermining the multilateral system the new authoritarians threaten a return to the assumptions of a previous era: a world of empires, not institutions.
This makes Europe a central crucible for what happens next. As the Yale historian Timothy Snyder argues, the EU is largely made up of states that were forced to give up their empires and so had no choice but to pursue multilateralism. Europe’s nationalists substitute the realities of this history with the national myth. They have become a major part of the EU’s own internal politics as the likes of Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński develop a fierce challenge to liberalism.
Bolsonaro says he’s fighting corruption. So why is he surrounded by scandal? | David Miranda
because he is an ass at heart

Brazil’s president and his family are subsumed by multiple corruption scandals suggesting serious criminality
There is a towering paradox at the heart of Brazilian politics: the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, was elected on an anti-corruption platform – music to the ears of a population that has been victimised for decades by systemic corruption.
Related: Who ordered Marielle Franco’s murder? | David Miranda
Boris Johnson’s betrayal will leave the DUP with one option – to back remain | Alex Kane

For Arlene Foster’s party, Brexit is less important than protecting Northern Ireland’s union with Great Britain
Northern Ireland has long been viewed as a “place apart” within the United Kingdom. Now, unionists fear it is about to become a “place apart” outside the UK: separated from Great Britain by a new border in the Irish Sea, pushed closer to the EU and, eventually, into a united Ireland. That’s why they are unsettled right now, and indeed fearful.
Unionists have been here before. In 1972 their parliament at Stormont was prorogued, and direct rule imposed from Westminster. In 1973 the British and Irish governments, with limited input from unionists, concluded the Sunningdale agreement, which replaced majority rule with mandatory power-sharing and an “Irish dimension”. A little over a decade later the British and Irish governments signed the Anglo-Irish agreement, which unionism regarded as a form of joint sovereignty. And in 1993 the Downing Street declaration stated the British government has no “selfish strategic or economic interest” in Northern Ireland.
Ancestral home of modern humans is in Botswana, study finds

Other scientists raise questions about results, which were based on DNA samples
Scientists claim to have traced the ancestral home region of all living humans to a vast wetland that sprawled over much of modern day Botswana and served as an oasis in an otherwise parched expanse of Africa.
The swathe of land south of the Zambezi River became a thriving home to Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, the researchers suggest, and sustained an isolated, founder population of modern humans for at least 70,000 years.
US deploying more troops around Syria oil fields after killing of Isis leader
just follow the money, not the people who backed up your soldiers.

Trump has said he hopes to secure a US share of Syrian oil revenues, which is potentially a war crime
The US military has started reinforcing its positions around oil fields in eastern Syria, saying the new deployments are part of its continuing counter-terrorist mission after the killing of the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Monday that US forces would remain in Tanf along the Iraqi border, and more were being sent to the oil fields operated by the US energy corporation ConocoPhillips around Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.
Ebola cases continue slow rise in DRC outbreak
doctordisaster: gayrightsactivia: closet-keys: Katie Porter: You’ve got about 15 thousand…
Katie Porter: You’ve got about 15 thousand contractors watching murders, stabbings, suicides, other gruesome disgusting videos for content moderation, correct?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, yes, I believe that that’s correct.
Katie Porter: You pay many of those workers under $30 thousand a year, and you’ve cut them off from mental health care when they leave the company, even if they have PTSD because of their work for your company. Is that correct?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, my understanding is we pay everyone, including the contractors associated with the company, at least a $15 minimum wage, in markets, in cities where there’s a high cost of living, that’s a $20 minimum wage. We go out of our way–
Katie Porter: Thank you, I’ll take your word at the wage. Reclaiming my time. According to one report I have, and this is straight out of an episode of Black Mirror, these workers get nine (*nine*) minutes of supervised wellness time per day. That means nine minutes to cry in the stairwell while somebody watches them. Would you be willing to commit to spending one hour a day, for the next year, watching these videos and acting as a content moderator, and only accessing the same benefits available to your workers?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, we work hard to make sure we give good benefits to all the folks who are doing this–
Katie Porter: Mr. Zuckerberg, reclaiming my time, I would appreciate a yes or a no. Would you be willing to act as a content moderator? To have that life experience?
Mark Zuckerberg: I’m not sure it would best serve our community for me to spend that much time–
Katie Porter: Reclaiming my time. Mr. Zuckerberg, are you saying you’re not qualified to be a content monitor?
Mark Zuckerberg: No, Congresswoman, that’s not what I’m saying.
Katie Porter: Okay, then you’re saying you’re not willing to do it.
Video of the transcript above is here and it’s fantastic.
Where’s my vine compilation of women in congress kicking Mark Zuckerberg’s rhetorical ass
bitter-badfem-harpy: shutyourmoustache: LADY GAGA FUCKING SNAPPED. I was just thinking of this…
LADY GAGA FUCKING SNAPPED.
I was just thinking of this deposition earlier today actually. Honestly seeing Lady Gaga tell off a man publicly and on official court record????????
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me.” I think of how scared she must have been every time I refuse to break eye contact with a man and tell him what I really think. I think of how angry she must have been and how fiercely protective she was in that moment.





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