Interpol asks China for information on agency’s missing president – CNN
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Category: International Affairs,
Saudi Arabia ‘seeks death penalty for woman activist’
“Any execution is appalling, but seeking the death penalty for activists like Israa al-Ghomgham, who are not even accused of violent behaviour, is monstrous,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, said in a statement.
“Every day, the Saudi monarchy’s unrestrained despotism makes it harder for its public relations teams to spin the fairy tale of ‘reform’ to allies and international business.”
Saudi Arabia ‘seeks death penalty for woman activist’ – BBC News
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Jamal Khashoggi: Saudi journalist vanishes in Istanbul
Khashoggi went to complete “routine paperwork”, the Post said, and has not been heard from since.
“We don’t know if he is being detained, questioned or when he will be released,” the newspaper said.
…His fiancée accompanied him to the consulate but was not allowed to go inside with him. Khashoggi was also required to surrender his mobile phone – which is standard practice in some embassies and consulates.
…”I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know if he’s inside or if they took him somewhere else,” she told Reuters.
Jamal Khashoggi: Saudi journalist vanishes in Istanbul – BBC News
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Women Are Not ‘Chattel,’ Says India’s Supreme Court In Striking Down Adultery Law
India’s Supreme Court has struck down a colonial-era law that made adultery illegal, calling it arbitrary and saying it is unconstitutional because it “treats a husband as the master.”
…Noting that the law is singular in the penal code for treating men and women differently, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, “The adultery law is arbitrary, and it offends the dignity of a woman.”
He said adultery is grounds for divorce, but not jail time.
…Earlier this month, the court struck down a long-standing ban on gay sex. Last year, the justices outlawed the summary “triple talaq” divorce for Muslim men, and in a country with more child brides than anywhere in the world, the high court ruled that sex with an underage wife constitutes rape.
…The ruling to decriminalize adultery had been strongly opposed by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose center-right coalition is led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. Modi advocated amending the law to make it gender-neutral, while maintaining adultery as a criminal offense.
Women Are Not ‘Chattel,’ Says India’s Supreme Court In Striking Down Adultery Law : NPR
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Discovery of Galileo’s long-lost letter shows he edited his heretical ideas to manipulate the Inquisition
Galileo wrote the 1613 letter to Benedetto Castelli, a mathematician at the University of Pisa in Italy. In it, Galileo set out for the first time his arguments that scientific research should be free from theological doctrine (see ‘The Galileo affair’).
He argued that the scant references in the Bible to astronomical events should not be taken literally, because scribes had simplified these descriptions so that they could be understood by common people. Religious authorities who argued otherwise, he wrote, didn’t have the competence to judge. Most crucially, he reasoned that the heliocentric model of Earth orbiting the Sun, proposed by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus 70 years earlier, is not actually incompatible with the Bible.
…The changes are telling. In one case, Galileo referred to certain propositions in the Bible as “false if one goes by the literal meaning of the words”. He crossed through the word “false”, and replaced it with “look different from the truth”. In another section, he changed his reference to the Scriptures “concealing” its most basic dogmas, to the weaker “veiling”.
This suggests that Galileo moderated his own text, says Giudice.
…For now, the researchers are stunned by their find. “Galileo’s letter to Castelli is one of the first secular manifestos about the freedom of science — it’s the first time in my life I have been involved in such a thrilling discovery,” says Giudice.
Discovery of Galileo’s long-lost letter shows he edited his heretical ideas to fool the Inquisition
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We thought the Incas couldn’t write. These knots change everything
The Incas left no doubt that theirs was a sophisticated, technologically savvy civilization. At its height in the 15th century, it was the largest empire in the Americas, extending almost 5000 kilometers from modern-day Ecuador to Chile. These were the people who built Machu Picchu, a royal estate perched in the clouds, and an extensive network of paved roads complete with suspension bridges crafted from woven grass.
…The Incas may not have bequeathed any written records, but they did have colorful knotted cords. Each of these devices was called a khipu (pronounced key-poo). We know these intricate cords to be an abacus-like system for recording numbers. However, there have also been teasing hints that they might encode long-lost stories, myths and songs too.
…Recent breakthroughs have begun to unpick this tangled mystery of the Andes, revealing the first signs of phonetic symbolism within the strands. Now two anthropologists are closing in on the Inca equivalent of the Rosetta stone. That could finally crack the code and transform our understanding of a civilization whose history has so far been told only through the eyes of the Europeans who sought to eviscerate it.
We thought the Incas couldn’t write. These knots change everything | New Scientist
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A forgotten soldier on a forgotten front
“I could see nothing,” the trooper wrote. “It was exactly as though I had gone suddenly blind; but I felt the tail of an overcoat sweep across my face. Instinctively I clutched it with my left hand, and must have held on for two or three yards before I fainted.
“The Serbs have a theory that you must not give water to a wounded man because they say it chills him, so they poured fully half a bottle of brandy down my throat and put a cigarette in my mouth.
“I caught the little sergeant who had helped carry me watching me with his eyes full of tears. I assured him that it took a lot to kill me, and that I should be back again in about ten days”.
…It took Sandes not ten days but six months to recover sufficiently to rejoin the ranks and to return to the front line. By the end of the war, Sandes would be awarded Serbia’s highest military honour, the Order of the Karadjordje Star.
Sandes is a celebrated national hero in Serbia to this day. That’s all the more remarkable for two reasons. First, Sandes was not Serbian but British – born and raised in Yorkshire.
And second, Private Sandes’s first name was Flora. She was the only British woman to serve in uniform, in combat, as an enlisted soldier in World War One.
A forgotten soldier on a forgotten front – BBC News
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Meet the Puerto Rican sisterhood reinventing the island’s future after Maria
For generations, more than half of Puerto Ricans relied on informal construction to build affordable homes and bypass a costly, bureaucratic process. It was these homes that bore the brunt of María. About 300,000 dwellings suffered significant damage and some 70,000 of those were completely destroyed, according to the island’s Housing Department. Without formal property deeds, home owners struggled to get federal aid.
…The answer: shipping containers.
“They are fabricated to withstand the worst atmospheric conditions, in the middle of the ocean, getting hit by waves and typhoons.”
…HiveCube’s basic model is priced at $39,000. It includes two bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen-living area. They are compliant with US building codes and are ADA accessible. The entire structure, including the windows, can withstand a Category 5 hurricane with winds up to 175 miles per hour, assuming it is properly anchored to a foundation.
For an additional cost, the homes can be fitted with a solar power microgrid, rainwater collection and a sewage treatment system that doubles as a garden.
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…Vilar put out a call for seeds through her nonprofit, Americas for Conservation and the Arts, …[and] working with Rodriguez Besosa, launched the Resilience Fund, a two-year campaign to restore 200 farms destroyed by María.
…Vilar and Rodriguez Besosa are on the front lines of a fast-growing movement to use locally-grown food as a way to decolonize the island. Their mission has evolved from emergency response to creating a lasting food legacy for future generations.
…Rodriguez Besosa, an architect by training, envisions a fundamental shift in the way farms are run — from large, one-crop, corporate strongholds to small-scale, sustainable, locally owned farms.
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…With over 80 manufacturing plants and 10,000 skilled workers, Puerto Rico is a garment powerhouse.
…Puerto Rico is a major source of military apparel in the United States, according to a Congressional Report.
…It brought much needed cash flow, but also created a dependency on military contracts.
…In the first three months of operation, Retazo Moda Lab has received ten orders for high-end ready-to-wear fashion, which they’re in the process of delivering. They have an additional 30 clients on a waiting list.
“We want to plant the seeds for a fashion ecosystem to exist on the island,” said Herrero Lugo. “This is about coming together and seeing the potential of being good at multiple things.”
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“After a month, it became clear that there were already these amazing service organizations on the island that had the systems, infrastructure and personnel to help people. But they didn’t have power.”
…”We got materials, solar panels, then flew them down there, got crews on the ground,” said Roig-Morris. Resilient Power’s mission quickly evolved from crisis response to building partnerships with community organizations providing critical services to vulnerable groups like the elderly, children and the impoverished.
…”You are choosing a community asset who is providing other services like education, clean water, health clinics.”
Resilient Power has identified about 100 community centers across the island that meet those criteria.
…Long-term, she explained, Resilient Power plans to emphasize training of young people in collaboration with universities on the island, and to promote an alternative-energy industry that creates jobs.
Meet the Puerto Rican sisterhood reinventing the island’s future after Maria – CNN
Very cool!
Aung San Suu Kyi defends verdict against Reuters journalists
Aung San Suu Kyi defends verdict against Reuters journalists – BBC News
Sigh….
Perhaps I want to believe the best of her I always wonder about the behind the scenes power structure and whether or not she is actually empowered to disagree with or challenge the existing government.
Watch Russia’s bizarre RT interview to deflect blame for UK spy poisoning
The British government has identified two men — Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — as Russian intelligence agents sent by the Kremlin to assassinate Skripal using Novichok, a Russian-made nerve agent.
The RT interview features two men claiming to be Petrov and Boshirov. And their story is, uh, let’s go with “interesting.”
They claim they’re not intelligence officers at all, but rather tourists who were visiting the town of Salisbury, where the attack occurred, on vacation.
Their main reason for going to this completely random British town where a former Russian spy just happened to be living? They really, really wanted to see Salisbury Cathedral, which boasts the tallest spire in Britain.
…The UK called the two men’s comments “lies” after the interview came out. But that, in a way, is the point: Russia created the narrative that the two suspects were just innocent tourists, forcing the British government to respond to the claims.
Russia’s manipulation of the media doesn’t just muddy up the facts; it also turns the truth into a joke.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of Russia’s entire fake news propaganda strategy, which they’ve also used in Syria to deny chemical attacks by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Russian troop presence in Ukraine, and interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.
It’s just ridiculous enough to work. And it does.
Watch Russia’s bizarre RT interview to deflect blame for UK spy poisoning – Vox
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Ocean Cleanup steams out to sea in plastic pollution quest
The hope is that the vessel, the first of a planned fleet or 60 or more, can strain out the millions of pounds of plastic trash that collects in slow-moving ocean whirlpools called gyres, which can be hundreds of miles across.
…Currents and waves push trash into the machine’s center to collect it. Floating particles are captured by the net while the push of water against the net propels fish and other marine life under and beyond.
…The system is fitted with solar-powered lights and anti-collision systems to keep any stray ships from running into it, along with cameras, sensors and satellites that allow it to communicate with its creators.
…If all goes well, it will be towed out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch nearly 1,400 miles off the West Coast, about halfway between California and Hawaii. A support vessel will fish out the collected plastic every few weeks, according to the Associated Press. The waste will then be transported to dry land for recycling.
Ocean Cleanup steams out to sea in plastic pollution quest
Yes, we need to reduce the plastic we use but unless that mythical day, this seems like a logical step in the right direction.
Hirono grills Supreme Court nominee for views on Native Hawaiians that he went on record with
via Hirono grills Supreme Court nominee for past views on Native Haw – Hawaii News Now – KGMB and KHNL
Any official with any significant number of native americans in their district is doing their constituents a huge disservice if they vote to confirm this racist.
Climate Change Likely Iced Neanderthals Out Of Existence
Some paleoarchaeologists have hypothesized it’s possible they simply couldn’t reproduce fast enough to keep up with the modern humans moving into Europe around that time. Others suggest modern humans slaughtered any bands of Neanderthal they came across or infected them with novel diseases. And some suggest that an environmental catastrophe, like a volcanic eruption in Europe, killed off many plants and animals.
…Researchers propose a new hypothesis this week that suggests our bipedal brethren weren’t equipped to stand a cold spell that accompanied two long periods of extended climate change that took place around the time the species began its decline, Malcolm Ritter at the Associated Press reports.
…Not everyone is convinced by the research. Israel Hershkovitz, a physical anthropologist at Tel Aviv University, tells David that Neanderthals went through a lot of cold snaps before the ones 45,000 years ago and weathered them fine, so it doesn’t make sense that this one event would impact them so heavily. He also questions whether the climate record from caves in Romania can accurately represent all of Europe, saying there is evidence that other parts of the continent had a mild climate in the same period.
However, the researchers point out that the cold spells didn’t just impact Neanderthals. They continued to ice out modern humans after the Neanderthals disappeared; each time one culture of ancient humans disappeared in the face of a changing climate, another culture replaced them when the world warmed up again.
Climate Change Likely Iced Neanderthals Out Of Existence | Smart News | Smithsonian
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