All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Russian off the shelves: Vladimir Putin calendar sells out in Japan

Fascism grows again in Japan

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Chain with exclusive rights to Russian president’s 2019 offering says it is more popular than those featuring homegrown celebrities

Whether he’s nonchalantly lowering himself into the icy waters of Lake Seliger or making short work of weights in the gym, Vladimir Putin is setting pulses racing in Japan, where his latest calendar is outselling those featuring homegrown celebrities.

The Loft chainstore, which has exclusive rights over sales of the calendar, reported that those featuring Russia’s 66-year-old president were dominating sales at its outlets across Japan.

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Revealed: how Italy’s populists used Facebook to win power

Why is Facebook enabling fascists in Russia and Italy? And racist killings in Sri Lanka?

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Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio eclipsed rivals in online election battle, data shows

The domination of Facebook by Italy’s two populist political leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, is revealed in previously unseen data that shows how they exploited video and live broadcasts to bypass the mainstream media and foment discord during the country’s general election.

The data, reviewed by the Guardian, reveals how the leaders massively expanded their reach with inflammatory and visually arresting posts earlier this year, eclipsing their main rival, the centre-left former prime minister Matteo Renzi, on Facebook.

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Bomb blast rocks Athens TV station in ‘attack on democracy’

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Makeshift explosive device smashed windows on six floors and brought down ceilings

A powerful bomb blast has wrecked the offices at Greece’s SKAI TV in Athens in what officials called an attack on democracy. No one was injured.

SKAI is one of Greece’s biggest TV stations and part of a media group that includes a radio station and is affiliated with the leading daily newspaper, Kathimerini.

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British surfer Tom Butler conquers potential world record ‘100ft tall wave’ – video

Briton Tom Butler believes he may have broken the world record for surfing the biggest ever wave after successfully riding a huge swell at Nazaré in Portugal on 14 December.

The 29-year-old says the wave was estimated to be more than 100ft tall. The current official record is 80ft, which was set last year by Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa also at Nazaré.

Butler said surfing the wave was like ‘running away from a raging bull’. It is likely he will have to wait for the WSL Big Wave Awards in April 2019 for official confirmation on whether he broke the world record.

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Lyudmila Alexeyeva obituary

Veteran campaigner against repression who returned to Russia after a period of exile

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who has died aged 91, was a veteran of Russia’s human rights community who began working for change during the Soviet period, went into exile and then, unlike most other dissident émigrés, returned to Moscow after the Soviet Union collapsed to resume the struggle under Boris Yeltsin’s presidency.

Small of stature but filled with determination, she risked arrest by taking part in street demonstrations until eight years ago. She remained active even after that, writing a text for last week’s annual conference of the human rights monitoring organisation known as the Moscow Helsinki Group, which she had helped to found in 1976.

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