Category Archives: Uncategorized

Why did Edward Snowden choose Hong Kong?: Shanghaiist

Self-delusion is addictive

James Fallows, The Atlantic:

Hong Kong is not a sovereign country. It is part of China — a country that by the libertarian standards Edward Snowden says he cares about is worse, not better, than the United States. It has even more surveillance of its citizens (it has gone very far to ensuring that it knows the real identity of everyone using the internet); its press is thoroughly government-controlled; it has no legal theory of protection for free speech; and it doesn’t even have national elections. Hong Kong lives a time-limited separate existence, under the “one country, two systems” principle, but in a pinch, it is part of China.

I don’t know all the choices Snowden had about his place of refuge. Maybe he thought this was his only real option. But if Snowden thinks, as some of his comments seem to suggest, that he has found a bastion of freer speech, then he is ill-informed; and if he knowingly chose to make his case from China he is playing a more complicated game.

via Why did Edward Snowden choose Hong Kong?: Shanghaiist.

Coca-Cola Here / Rebeca Monzo

Smile

Through the Eye of the Needle

A few years ago, passing by with my friend in her car, I suddenly saw out the window, in the middle of some trash, something red that caught my attention.

“Stop! Stop!” I told her.

She, ignoring my “almost order,” pulled to the curb and stopped.

I quickly got out of the car and went to the place where the neighbors had inappropriately accumulated right on the parking strip a mountain of trash. Standing out from among the rubble I saw an old metal sign printed with the fire of Coca-Cola. I took it out of the trash and put it in the trunk of the car.

When we got home, I washed it off and saw that in one corner it said, “Made in Canada 1950.” With the notice displayed on both sides, I imagined it had belonged to one of the thousands of bodegas throughout the city, hung…

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The Destruction of Achrafieh’s Jesuite Garden

If Lebanon becomes like Easter Island – will the silent stone giants be sculptures of the politicians who cut down all the trees and covered all the parks for parking space and streets?

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

While walking around Rome with a friend yesterday, he said the following: “you know, it’s a beautiful city but I wish it had more trees like Paris.”
I replied: “We’re ones to talk. The only trees I’ve seen in Beirut are in the Jesuite Garden next to my apartment in Achrafieh.”

I guess I jinxed it.

A highway tearing Achrafieh in two, removing countless parking spaces and destroying greenery that is otherwise rare in Beirut was not an enough project for Beirut’s municipality.
They now want to destroy the Jesuite Garden in question, which I wrote about before, in order to build … *drumroll* … a parking space (link).

The municipality is trying to sugar-coat the deal by saying they will replant trees above the parking, which will be underground. But how is that acceptable when the park has been around for decades and has ruins in…

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The UK judge who thinks benefit fraudsters should be jailed but lets rapists go free

Split mind about sex crime not so bad and “evil” poor people harming society and threatening money tells you real values of Tory mindset

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the UK today)

Back in February, senior UK Judge Beverley Lunt gave a convicted rapist a suspended sentence instead of jail time citing the man’s ill health as the reason for her decision.

Here’s an article about the case (warning – link to Daily Mail!):

Rapist walks free from court because of his ill health 

Not everyone may agree with Judge Lunt’s decision in that case but it’s actually not all that unusual for judges to give suspended sentences in cases of ill health.

It’s not unusual that is, until you notice what Judge Lunt had to say back in 2011 about the sentencing of people who have been convicted of benefit fraud.

She was angry that they didn’t automatically receive a custodial sentence (warning – link to Express!):

Anger of judge forced to free benefits cheat

Now I’m fully aware that for some inexplicable reason a…

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Egyptian Aak: Week 23 -The week of Aabath

Tons of competent people in Egypt but none seem to be involved in politics or governing. Those who were are being tossed out by those who are not.

Nervana

Image week 24

(One of the “suggestions” made by Egypt’s political elite to tackle the Ethiopian dam)

Main headlines

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

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Green revolution technologies will benefit a few at the expense of the majority (AfricaFiles)

Corporations from EU and fronts will profit and ship food globally – Africans can work for day wages until robots take over… Bad deal.

DESERTIFICATION

Read at :

AfricaFiles

No. 26656: Corporate takeover of agriculture & land will increase hunger, groups claim  — Food and Land

http://www.acbio.org.za/index.php/media/64-media-releases/432-g8-qhunger-summitq-initiative-rejected-by-african-civil-society-corporate-takeover-of-agriculture-a-land-will-increase-hunger-groups-claim

 G8 “Hunger Summit” initiative rejected by African civil society

At the heart of the leading initiatives to “modernise” African agriculture is a drive to open markets and create space for multinationals to secure profits. Green revolution technologies – and the legal and institutional changes being introduced to support them – will benefit a few at the expense of the majority.

As world leaders gather at the high profile ‘Hunger Summit’ in London this week to endorse the spate of on-going initiatives to ‘modernise’ African agriculture, 57 farmer and civil society organisations from 37 countries across the continent have slammed these efforts as ‘a new wave of colonialism’. Harmonisation, free trade and the creation of institutions and infrastructure to facilitate multinational companies’ penetration into Africa are presented as…

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