#stop putin's agents usa

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

#fake referendum #ukraine #stop russian invasion #putin war criminal #putin war ukraine russia #ukraine war #stop putin's agents usa #stop putin allies #i stand against soviet/russian imperialism #i stand with ukraine

[reddeaddamnation]

There have been USA right wing conservative supporters who have been vocal claiming Vladimr Putin is justified taking Ukraine to denazify it. They say Ukrainians are just as guilty as any neo nazi. This is ignoring USA have allowed Klu Klux Klan and NeoNazis who are perfect sleeper agents for Vladmir Putin and his loyalists to help fund money to them as sleeper agents. These sleeper agents help disinformation agents bring out biased propaganda to turn people to rebel their own free country.

USA is the last country who have a right to speak when they destroyed innocent countries in the middle east to serve their own agenda and greed and turned the world against helpless muslim refugees, fueling islamophobia and racism. Now they want to spew more bullshit because this time they can't bomb a random small nation and get away with it like always. At least once they should stfu when they are oceans away and stop adding more oil to the fire.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Getting creative to help the homeless (AP) After three years on the streets, Tiecha Vannoy and her boyfriend Chris Foss plan to weather the pandemic this winter in a small white “pod” with electricity, heat and enough room for two. Portland this month assembled neat rows of the shelters, which resemble garden sheds, in three ad-hoc “villages”—part of an unprecedented effort unfolding in cold-weather cities nationwide to keep people without permanent homes safe as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases surge. “We just get to stay in our little place. We don’t have to leave here unless we want to,” said Vannoy, wiping away tears as they moved into the shelter near a downtown train station. “It’s been a long time coming. He always tells me to have faith, but I was just over it.” ... “Those (are) folks who would under normal circumstances maybe come into a drop-in center to warm up, or go into the subway to warm up, or go into a McDonald’s to warm up—and just not having those options available to them. What then?” asked Giselle Routhier of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City.

Raise your mittens: Outdoor learning continues into winter (AP) Cindy Soule’s fourth graders in Maine’s largest city have studied pollination in a community garden. They solved an erosion problem that was damaging trees. They learned about bear scat. Then came a fresh layer of snow and temperatures that hovered around freezing—but her students were unfazed. Bundled up and masked, they scooted outside with their belongings in buckets. They collected their pencils and clipboards, plopped the buckets upside down in the snow, took a seat and went to work. The lesson? Snow, of course, and how snowflakes are formed. Schools nationwide scrambled to get students outdoors during the pandemic to keep them safe and stop the spread of COVID-19. Now, with temperatures plummeting, a smaller number of schools—even in some of the nation’s most frigid climes—plan to keep it going all winter long, with students trading desks in warm classrooms for tree stumps or buckets.

Explosion in Nashville that damaged 20 buildings, injured 3 people an ‘intentional act’ (USA Today) Authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning and was felt for miles was an “intentional act” sparked by a vehicle. Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked outside the AT&T building just before 6 a.m. Upon arrival, police said an officer “had reason” to alert the department’s hazardous devices unit, which was en route, when a “significant explosion” happened. Three people were hospitalized with injuries, police said. At least 20 buildings were damaged, Nashville Mayor John Cooper said. The sound of the explosion could be heard from miles away, and people reported windows shaking from South and East Nashville. “It looks like a bomb went off,” Cooper said. The downtown area will be “sealed off” for further investigation and to make sure everything is “completely safe.”

US to require negative COVID-19 test from UK travelers (AP) The United States will require airline passengers from Britain to get a negative COVID-19 test before their flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late Thursday. The U.S. is the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere. Airline passengers from the United Kingdom will need to get negative COVID-19 tests within three days of their trip and provide the results to the airline, the CDC said in a statement. The agency said the order will be signed Friday and go into effect on Monday. “If a passenger chooses not to take a test, the airline must deny boarding to the passenger,” the CDC said in its statement. The agency said because of travel restrictions in place since March, air travel to the U.S. from the U.K. is already down by 90%.

Many just want a hug for Christmas this year, Queen Elizabeth says (Reuters) All many people want for Christmas this year is a simple hug, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said in her annual festive message, saying it would be hard for those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 pandemic or were separated by curbs on social mixing. In her traditional pre-recorded Christmas Day address to the nation, the 94-year-old monarch repeatedly spoke of hope for the future whilst acknowledging millions of Britons would be unable to have their usual family celebrations this year. “Of course for many, this time of year will be tinged with sadness; some mourning the loss of those dear to them, and others missing friends and family members distanced for safety when all they really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand,” Elizabeth said. “If you are among them, you are not alone. And let me assure you of my thoughts and prayers.” “Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has in many ways brought us closer,” said the queen, adding the royals had been inspired by stories of those who volunteered to help others in need. “In the United Kingdom and around the world, people have risen magnificently to the challenges of the year and I’m so proud and moved by this quiet indomitable spirit.”

For the European Union, It’s a Pretty Good Deal (NYT) The European Union emerges from fraught negotiations with Britain over its exit from the bloc with a sense of satisfaction—that it has maintained its unity and its core principles, especially the integrity of the single market of now 450 million consumers that is the foundation of its influence. And it is now looking ahead to its life without Britain. The final deal is a free-trade agreement that recognizes Britain’s desire to leave the single market and the customs union while preserving tariff-free, quota-free trade in goods with the European Union. To that end, Britain agreed to a mechanism, with arbitration and possible tariffs for violations, that would keep its regulations and subsidies roughly in line with those of Brussels, to prevent unfair competition. But the deal will require inspections of goods to prevent smuggling. The deal also covers many mundane but crucial matters of visas, health insurance, and air, rail and road travel. It treats Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, as within the E.U. customs area to prevent the need for a hard border on the island, but requires some checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland. And the deal reallocates fishing areas and quotas, given that Britain is now an independent coastal state.

Pope Francis celebrates low-key Christmas Eve Mass amid coronavirus restrictions (Fox News) Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday night amid coronavirus restrictions that reduced a normal crowd of as many as 10,000 congregants to a group of fewer than 100 people, according to reports. During his homily, the Roman Catholic leader urged followers to reach out to the needy, noting that Jesus Christ was considered an outsider. “The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God,” the pope said. May the Child of Bethlehem help us, then, to be generous, supportive and helpful, especially towards those who are vulnerable, the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship due to the economic effects of the pandemic, and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown,” he said.

Turkey debates law that would increase oversight of NGOs (Reuters) Turkey’s parliament began debating a draft law on Friday that would increase oversight of non-governmental organisations and which, according to rights campaigners, risks limiting the freedoms of civil-society groups. The government says the measure, covering “foundations and associations”, aims to prevent non-profit organisations from financing terrorism and to punish those who violate the law. Civil-society groups, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Association, said terrorism charges in Turkey were arbitrary, and that the draft law would violate the presumption of innocence and punish those whose trials were not finalised.Investigations based on terrorism charges have been launched against hundreds of thousands of people under a crackdown following a failed coup in 2016. Hundreds of foundations were also shut down with decrees following the coup attempt.

Half of Russians sceptical Kremlin critic Navalny was poisoned (Reuters) Half of Russians believe that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was either not poisoned, as he and Western governments contend, or that his poisoning was stage-managed by Western intelligence services, a poll showed on Thursday. The poll, released by the Levada-Center, shows how hard it remains for Navalny to shape public opinion in Russia even as his case attracts wide media attention in the West and his own slickly-produced videos of what happened to him this summer rack up millions of views online. Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critics, was airlifted to Germany for medical treatment in August after collapsing on a plane in Russia. Germany has said he was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him, an assertion many Western nations accept. The poll by Levada, which is regarded as more independent than state counterparts, showed only 15% of Russians believed what happened to Navalny was an attempt by the authorities to rid themselves of a political opponent. By contrast, 30% thought that the incident was stage-managed and that there was no poisoning, and 19% said they believed it was a provocation orchestrated by Western intelligence services.

Hong Kong street refrigerator keeps giving (AP) Most people who head to Woosung Street in Hong Kong’s old-school neighborhood of Jordan are visiting its popular restaurants serving everything from curries to seafood. Others may be headed for a lone refrigerator, painted blue, with a sign that reads: “Give what you can give, take what you need to take.” The door of the fridge sitting outside a hockey academy opens to reveal it is stuffed with packets of instant noodles, biscuits, tins of food and even socks and towels for anyone who may need them. Ahmen Khan, founder of a sports foundation on the same street, said he was inspired to create a community refrigerator after seeing a film about others doing the same thing. He found the refrigerator at a nearby refuse collection point and painted it blue. “It’s like a dignity, that when you go home, you open your fridge to get food,” Khan said. “So I want the people to just feel like that. Even if it’s a street, it’s their community, it’s their home, so they can simply just open it and then just put food there, and collect the food.” Khan’s blue refrigerator project went viral on social media and people have been dropping by to leave food inside.

Israeli jets fly over Beirut, explosions reported in Syria (AP) Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli towards the Masyaf area. Israeli jets regularly violate Lebanese airspace and have often struck inside Syria from Lebanese territory. But the Christmas Eve flights were louder than usual, frightening residents of Beirut who have endured multiple crises in the past year, including the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the city’s port that killed over 200 people and destroyed parts of the capital.

#headlines #news

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Düşmənin S-300 zenit-raket kompleksinin məhv edilməsi

Azərbaycan Respublikası Müdafiə Nazirliyi

(Destruction of the enemy S-300 anti-aircraft missile system [made by Russians and supplied to Armenians]; Уничтожение зенитно-ракетного комплекса С-300 противника ) 

P.S. Azerbaijan, supported by Turkish military technology, shows quite advanced military capabilities and stopped Russian imperialist “projects“ in the Caucasus region. Both allies, Azerbaijan and Turkey are changing the power balance in the region. Its huge humiliation for former KGB agent Putin and his minions and fellow riders in “old“ European countries, like Germany and France ...with their “realpolitik”....and Nord Stream 2...  

    Now, negligence of European politicians pertaining to Europe’s military capabilities (diminished military budgets, obsolete and tiny European armies and lack of modern weapon systems) is backfiring against them not only in Ukraine, but also in Libya, Syria.... Eastern Mediterranean.... European “old superpowers“, France, Germany and UK under “leadership” (actually lack off any leadership) of Trump’s America are loosing military technology edge and political influence in a new multi-polar world. This process is happening amazingly fast.... probably as example for Ukrainians in the field of military technology, it is better idea to search closer ties with Turkey....and modernize Ukrainian Army with Turkish made drones, and throw out useless promises and empty paperwork....., and secret deals made  by USA and EU with Russian imperialists...

#Azerbaijan #new technology #C-300 #S-300 #anti-aircraft missile #Russian defeat #Russian imperialism #proxy war #Armenia #Europe #caucasus #multi-polar world #new normal #USA #Nagorno-Karabakh #military history

[aurianneor]

Ils font rire Poutine

Donald Trump est un agent de Poutine qui a suffisamment d'influence sur lui. Par conséquent, les décisions de la Maison Blanche au cours des 4 dernières années ont été en faveur de la Russie au détriment des intérêts des Etats-Unis.

C'est la simple vérité, comme l'explique l'ancien chef du contre-espionnage du FBI, Peter Strozk.

Peter Strzok: What I Saw With Trump Is ‘Deeply Concerning’ – Morning Joe – MSNBC: https://youtu.be/ZdrzayXWDRk

Mais une simple vérité dérangeante peut être trop difficile à accepter pour certains qui sont alors tentés de cautionner une théorie du complot.

Aujourd'hui, son dernier avatar est le groupe QAnon, qui s'est répandu dans le monde entier. Il y a eu de nombreux cultes similaires dans un passé proche. Mais cette fois, ils sont des millions, connectés, soutenus par Donald Trump, beaucoup sont armés et menaçants. Aucune preuve n'est assez bonne pour les raisonner puisque la vérité elle-même a été attaquée depuis des années.

Ignorer les faits et déformer les chiffres ont longtemps été une stratégie pour leurrer les citoyens, mais au début des années 2000, le président W. Bush et de nombreuses industries comme Monsanto ont engagé de faux scientifiques pour publier des articles niant le changement climatique et la toxicité de leurs produits. Les médias se sont laissés prendre au jeu avec leur format d'argument/ contre-argument. Le public a eu l'impression qu'il y avait autant de pour que de contre à tout fait scientifique qui était auparavant universellement accepté. En conséquence, les gens ont progressivement perdu leurs références, les faits scientifiques sont souvent étiquetés comme de simples opinions et il est devenu de plus en plus difficile de démystifier les fausses théories.

Lies, damned lies and Donald Trump: How the Reagan and Bush assaults on truth and science may presage what’s coming. – Salon https://www.salon.com/2016/12/18/lies-damned-lies-and-donald-trump-how-the-reagan-and-bush-assaults-on-truth-and-science-may-presage-whats-coming/

Science publishing: The trouble with retractions – Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/478026a/box/2

Ce dangereux mélange en fait de facto un mouvement nazi rebaptisé, donnant à son sauveur Donald Trump le pouvoir de détruire tout ce qui restait de la démocratie aux États-Unis, à la grande satisfaction de Vladimir Poutine qui, nous le savons, tire de nombreuses ficelles au profit de la Russie.

QAnon est une secte nazie très répandue, qui enrôle des gens normaux en faisant craindre des complots cachés et en soutenant Donald Trump qui les protégera. Il s'agit d'un grave danger imminent pour nos nations.

Conspiracy theories – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver : https://youtu.be/0b_eHBZLM6U

How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Election—and Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy – Time Magazine : https://time.com/5887437/conspiracy-theories-2020-election/

Comment QAnon, cette mouvance conspirationniste américaine, s’est infiltrée en France - France Info: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/usa/presidentielle/donald-trump/comment-qanon-cette-mouvance-conspirationniste-americaine-sest-infiltree-en-france_4058795.html

QAnon is a nazi cult, rebranded – Just Security: https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-nazi-cult-rebranded/

The Week QAnon Became Everyone’s Problem – Defense One: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/08/week-qanon-became-everyones-problem/168124/

America’s neo-Nazis don’t look to Germany for inspiration. They look to Russia. – The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/08/22/americas-neo-nazis-dont-look-to-germany-for-inspiration-they-look-to-russia/

Si vous vous demandez pourquoi personne n'a arrêté les nazis dans leur ascension au pouvoir dans les années 1930, pensez à ce que vous pourriez faire aujourd'hui.

Meeting Snowden – Arte: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/072258-000-A/meeting-snowden/

QAnon groups hit by Facebook crackdown – NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-hit-facebook-crack-down-n1237330

Twitter announces broad crackdown on QAnon accounts and content – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/21/twitter-broad-crackdown-qanon-accounts-content

À ceux qui peuvent agir, c'est le moment de réfléchir vers qui ira votre loyauté. À cette administration ? Aux ordres ? À cette nation ? Les fascistes QAnon et la trahison de Donald Trump sont devenus le problème de tous.

La théorie du complot QAnon se mondialise - Vice: https://www.vice.com/fr/article/pkym3k/la-theorie-du-complot-qanon-se-mondialise

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They make Putin laugh: https://www.aurianneor.org/they-make-putin-laugh/

The army’s duty is to stop this fascist: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-armys-duty-is-to-stop-this-fascist/

Protect the voters: https://www.aurianneor.org/protect-the-voters/

Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moore: https://www.aurianneor.org/and-that-if-this-is-the-america-were-trying-to/

#bush #complot #culte #élections 2020 #fascisme #lanceurs d'alerte #nazisme #post-vérité #poutine #russie #théorie du complot #trahison

[libertariantaoist]

US

The Supreme Court rules the 8th Amendment applies to state laws. The ruling will prevent states from imposing excessive fines and forfeitures. [Link]

A video surfaces showing a Delaware cop putting a gun in a man’s face for no reason. [Link]

Brian Saady breaks down the trial of El Chapo. He explains why taking El Chapo off the streets will do nothing to end drug violence. [Link]

The Federal government shares the terror watch list with over 1,400 private groups. [Link]

Americans want a less aggressive foreign policy. [Link]

Russiagate

Gareth Porter explains the real motives behind the FBI investigation of Trump. [Link]

John Kiriakou argues the FBI was close to attempting a coup against Trump. [Link]

Haiti

The State Department urges all Americans to leave Haiti. Protesters in Haiti are demanding the country’s president step down. [Link]

Five Americans armed with automatic rifles were arrested in Haiti. [Link]

The New Cold War

Ukraine adds joining NATO and the EU to its constitution. [Link]

American Paul Whelan remains in a Russia prison and is accused of being a spy. Whelan’s lawyer claims he is doing well. [Link]

Putin says he will respond to the US putting intermediate-range missiles in Europe by targeting the US. [Link]

Putin says he is open to arms control talks with the US, but the US must initiate the talks. [Link]

Korean Peace

Trump says there is no rush for North Korea to denuclearize. [Link]

South Korean President Moon Jae-in tells Trump South Korea can increase cooperation with North Korea to speed denuclearization. [Link]

Kim Jong-un makes changes to his denuclearization talks team. [Link]

Read More

#kyle anzalone #immersion news #news roundup

[chessinventor]

Let me pursue the matter of Ukraine-Russia war from an alternative perspective, that is the hypothesis of Deep State or group of conspirators conspired with motivations to benefit themselves by manipulate governments/politicians to do their bidding. One popular DS theory pointed to the direction of Putin fighting one of the important node of DS in Ukraine with various highly secure and advance bio-engineering labs so he must be the white hat and those who fought along with Ukraine must be black hat, and they are either misguided or manipulated by DS to act according to their plan. So it would be very strange that Joe Biden the US president as part of DS puppet refused to send US troops to aid Ukraine in the surface but with a highly classified aim to protect the ultimate interest of USA? Definitely US has strong motivation to protect them from Russia getting any state secret or the so-called truth of Pandemic (And 'coincidentally' that shift the responsibilities of Pandemic from CCP to USA.)  when any of them could be evidence to impeach the current US president and caused major political earthquake in USA. Contrary to the common sense that doesn't happen and what happen to those state secrets?Another logical extension from this hypothesis is Putin would announced it in the public to wage war against the enemy of humanity so to gain the supporter of whole humanity; and that would definitely stopped any intervention attempts by USA, EU or NATO. That, however, didn't happen at all. All Putin is referring to is the corruption of the Ukrainian government like Russia is free of corruption (Or is it corrupted by the Western democracy but not Russian oligarchy?) with higher transparency in Russia. I am not arguing for or against whether that made a strong case for initialize a war to Ukrainian government. All I want to point out is that there is insufficient evidences to support the hypothesis of DS in the "true" motivation behind this war. I try to take it from a military angle, Putin should have sent it special ops/spies and agents to temporarily seize control of those secret bio-engineering labs, gather enough evidence then leave and open a press release to demonstrate all those evidences to the world then there would be revolt in every part of the world against those conspirators. Again this didn't happen which further weaken the DS hypothesis. Now I am assuming here Putin would values and treasure every soldier's life. All it follows from the DS hypothesis is that the current war is completely unnecessary and pointless if that is the real objective of Putin.Now assume those labs are indeed there built by US and operating secretly, then a reasonable hypothesis is Putin is working with DS to destroy any evidences of misdeed by US in the pandemic with the pretext of war. So everything that could be incriminating against Joe Biden or US government is 'accidentally' destructed in the crossfire between Russian and Ukrainian army. All other military tactics and maneuvers are merely cover-up of the real objective of invasion, and certainly it made sense when missiles 'misguided' to destroy something other than the intended target. Thus it followed that US and Russia or even the whole NATO and EU are all actors and actress in one of the biggest cover up in human history. Putin is a US puppet installed as a Russian president in order to do the bidding of DS and to take the blame for all the side-effects of this war, or they even had an exit plan for Putin to leave Russia safely after he completed the ultra-secret objective of eliminate any evidences of the misdeed of US government. That would made sense when Russian army targeted some of the government buildings in Ukraine, it is to erased completely any official records of the wrongdoing and criminal collaboration of US with DS, Ukrainian president maybe the man who knew too much. It would be hard for some conspiracy theorists to swallow when somehow Russian Putin must be the good guy and US president/EU/NATO/Ukrainian government must be the bad guy, I saw that as successful application of the 'Active measure' of the psychological warfare by Russia agents which disguised itself as Anti-Vax movement. It is to sow and seed discords to every Western democracies and build mistrust and rivalry between Pro and Anti-vax supporters in order to weaken every government in the world then Russia could use the Pandemic as a political weapon similar to how Putin supported the Right Wing political parties in EU nation in order to weaken EU. All that is for the ultimate objective of Russia taking part Ukraine and return to the glorious time of Czar. I  could understands when all the big pharmacist corporation are buying big and small media to push for vaccination when that pop up their stock price (when vaccination against COVID is becoming a daily necessity), they would also try to influence all the ruling parties of the governments to mandate vaccination when they had the most to gain and probably try to find a way out of the legalities that require compensation for the side effects of the vaccination which may costed them a lot of money. However, that in itself doesn't disprove any other sinister objectives of those alternative TG groups, it could be a garage bag of both good and bad intentions. It could also be those who had the best intentions of showing the world the side-effects of vaccination which is harmful to any human being manipulated into being the Devil's advocate. Those two hypothesis is not mutually exclusive. Thus I seldom place any Anti-vax posts in my facebook when I really dislike anyone from manipulate me into doing his bidding (while not paying me hefty.)

#ukrainerussiawarrussia invasion of ukraineenergydeep stateqanonconsipracyconspiracy theorieschristian fundamentalismputinvladmir putinusaint

[aspiringbelle]

Another dispiriting bit of news I saw last week was about one of my least favorite actors playing a man who I consider to be a conspiracy theorist, a liar, and a major reason why the USA and Europe are wasting billions of dollars and risking World War III. And then it got worse.

Why do I not like Cumberbatch? Well, imagine promising to play someone in a sympathetic manner and doing the exact opposite. He's done that twice. (Once in The Fifth Estate and once in Zoolander 2.) There are other reasons, like disliking the work of Steven Moffat since he retroactively ruined one of my favorite Doctor Who companions with one throwaway line, and one more reason which will be mentioned later.

Why do I not like Litvinenko? He is one of those people who rose to prominence on making up all sorts of nefarious actions involving Russia. He claimed that Romano Prodi was a KGB agent. This was disproven, majorly. He claimed after the July 7th London Bombings that it was carried out by Russia, not by Al-Quaida terrorists. (This didn't stop the infamous Louise Mensch from claiming the same.) He helped make up the conspiracy theory that the Russian government bombed several apartment buildings to get Putin into power. He was an Ally of Chechen terrorists. He also was a major buddy of Boris Berezovsky, a noted corrupt oligarch who a UK court declared was "an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes."

He was allegedly poisoned by Russians using polonium, though the inquiry chose to ignore revelations by Mario Scaramella that Litvinenko was smuggling radioactive material to others.

Since then, he's been hailed as a hero in books, documentaries, an opera, and now two film projects.

Now to the part where it gets worse, and where I mention the other reason I don't like Cumberbatch. Not long ago, he did Hamlet for the National Theatre. Reviews were mixed, though the Daily Mail and several other outfits liked his Hamlet. This was different from another Hamlet done by one of my favorite British actors (who has been more ignored in the USA), David Tennant.

Now, while I like David Tennant, I am not fond of some of his stances, like his opposition to Corbyn. But now, I find this out.

So now they are dueling again. And both appear to be whitewashing Litvinenko.

#politics #tw russophobia #alexander litvinenko #tw propaganda #benedict cumberbatch

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

#we will rave in putin's grave #rave party to clean up #chernihiv #ukraine resistance #i stand with ukraine #slava ukraini #keep giving weapons to ukraine #stop russian invasion #putin war criminal #putin war ukraine russia #ukraine war #russia will crack first #defend ukraine #help ukraine #stop putin's agents usa #stop putin allies

[soccerdrawings]

How To Leave Sport Award Ideas Without Being Noticed | Sport Award Ideas

• Neil Warnock, January – asked about Brexit while sitting in advanced of a “Visit Malaysia” assurance put up by a Cyprus-born administrator to advice armamentarium his 11-nationality Cardiff squad: “I can’t delay to get out, if I’m honest. We’ll be far bigger off out of the blood-soaked thing. In every aspect. Football-wise as well, absolutely. To hell with the blow of the world.”

10 Youth Sports Awards Ideas - sport award ideas | sport award ideas • Ian Holloway, August – calling for football to be played beneath WTO rules. “I don’t anticipate that’s our boys authoritative up that new law. I anticipate that’s bodies cogent us what to do with our game. Now they should stop accomplishing that. I achievement we get out, Brexit, because that’s what bodies are voting for. You cannot accept addition cogent us how to do our own game.”Leading on the year’s added hot-button issue: “Extinction of our chase is acceptable added and added acceptable … the apple is a messed up place. Apple leaders are either benighted or don’t affliction about the ambiance at all. Honestly, I feel like giving up… bodies don’t assume to care.” Lewis Hamilton – who denied afterwards that his jet, £13m car accumulating and £50m Petronas endorsement took the bend off. “I awash my alike a year ago.”Gianni Infantino in June – acclamation Fifa’s assembly two years afterwards he sacked the belief aggregation investigating him. “We angry it around! Fifa has gone from actuality toxic, about criminal, to what it should be: alike with credibility, trust, integrity, equality, and with beastly rights.”His added big bulletin in 2019: abnegation allocution that it was Fifa’s new assurance on Chinese sponsors that led it to bead all beastly rights checks and accolade China the 2021 Club Apple Cup. “There are problems in this world, everywhere, in abounding countries. It is not the mission of Fifa to break the problems of this world.”• Additionally not affairs complaints from beastly rights and belief groups about sportswashing in 2019 – Uefa arch Aleksander Ceferin:a) Explaining why captivation the Europa Alliance final in Azerbaijan was the appropriate affair to do: “Human rights is a botheration in added places too. Does it beggarly the admirers in Baku do not deserve alive football?” And b) reacting to the Apple Anti‑Doping Agency’s alarm for Russia to be bare of Euro 2020 by adjoin Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. His bulletin to Putin – Uefa stands by Russia because: “I charge say, the Apple Cup was organised perfectly… I do not allege aloof to be nice: I absolutely beggarly it.”Pushing the Fifa belief boundaries too far in 2019: Central African Republic controlling Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona – banned for six years from all Fifa activities for arch a militia accused of “mass executions, torture, anamorphosis and rapes”. Ngaïssona, on balloon in The Hague in 2020, denies 111 war crimes charges.Was acquainted by Sepp Blatter - aggressive to sue Fifa in July for not giving aback the 60 affluence watches he larboard in his office. “These are my watches, accord me my watches. It’s important for me.” His bigger question: “Why are they angry me for these watches? There is no respect... I’ve accomplished the end of my temper.”José Mourinho – started 2019 out of work, activity viral with an ice-rink faceplant in Russia and a €3.3m tax artifice sentence; concluded it managing Spurs and commendation Nelson Mandela. “Like Mr Mandela said: ‘You never lose, you win or you learn.’ At United I won and I learned. My time afterwards I larboard United, that was a acceptable time for me.”@realDonaldTrump – responding to Megan Rapinoe’s “I’m not activity to the fucking White House” boycott in June by mis-tagging a alternation of rebukes – cogent @meganrapino, a afraid 21-year-old Starbucks agent from Virginia: “Never boldness our country, the White House, or our flag.”• Additionally accepting to him during the USA’s Women’s Apple Cup run: Rapinoe’s examination of the quarter-final, played in Pride month. “Go gays! You can’t win a championship afterwards gays on your aggregation – it’s never been done before, ever. That’s science, appropriate there!”Israel Folau – suing Rugby Australia for “discrimination”. Folau, sacked in May for angle including “hell awaits homosexuals” and gay alliance causes bushfires, claimed £7.4m for corruption of “religious freedom”. Statement: “Mr Folau wants all Australians to apperceive that he does not disregard bigotry of any kind.”Franck Ribéry – administration the acknowledgment aftermost January afterwards he acquaint a video of himself bistro a steak coated in gold. “Let’s alpha with the jealous, the haters, those alone built-in because a condom had a aperture in: f*** your mothers, your grandmothers and alike your ancestors tree. I owe you nothing.” Bayern Munich: “Franck accepts his words were unwise.”Still acceptable on racism: Serie A – cogent “sincere regret” for the “No To Racism” posters they put up this ages featuring monkeys with corrective faces. CEO Luigi De Siervo: “I realise now these were inappropriate. But what cannot be questioned is the strong, connected accusation of racism by Serie A.”• Additionally continuing close in 2019: a) Uefa, allowance Porto of racism in September afterwards a fan claimed he was apropos to himself as a antic aback he led chants of “monkey” while a atramentous amateur lined up a penalty. The fan said: “Everyone in Portugal knows me as Monkey, it’s my nickname. This is an awkward aberration from Uefa.” Uefa accustomed the defence. And b) Downing Street, 10 canicule afterwards Boris Johnson’s win, borderline why racists were activity emboldened: “Racism has no abode in football, and we charge accost this abandoned behaviour. There is added assignment to be done by the football authorities ... We don’t aphorism out demography added steps, if required.”Jack Leach, charwoman his glasses at one end as history abundant at the other. “They bare cleaning. I apperceive I attending brainless aback I am out there. But it got the job done.” See additionally the slow-mo video of the year:

Fun End Of Year Sports Awards Editable - sport award ideas | sport award ideas Came in July: Liverpool FC aggravating to brand the chat “Liverpool”. The bid was agape aback by admiral due to the “geographical acceptation of the city”; the club said it would “continue aggressively to accompany those who illegally accomplishment our bookish property”.Bernard Tomic – fined for not aggravating at Wimbledon again. Tomic appealed to get his £45,000 award-winning money aback afterwards his 58-minute avenue in July; Wimbledon said no. Tomic: “They’re biting me with what they’re saying. I don’t charge the money. It’s aloof about what’s right.”Out of annual aftermost January, Fulham approved a aggregation yoga affair to about-face assignment anatomy and “find peace”. It concluded aboriginal aback Aboubakar Kamara and Aleksandar Mitrovic had to be “dragged apart” – sources cogent the columnist it was triggered aback “Abou started talking during bashful time – a amenity moment. Mitrovic told him to shut up.”Another big year for poppy annual and sad mascots – but viral retweets of Tranmere’s 2017 abounding anatomy poppy had new resonance in 2019.Sebastian Vettel, 32 – swapping the finishing position cards at the Canadian Grand Prix in June afterwards a five-second amends denied him victory. Vettel, who put “1” abutting to his car, and “2” abutting to Lewis Hamilton’s, said: “This is a amiss world. This is not fair.”Italian Serie C club Viterbese – reacting to a five-year ban for vice-president Luciano Camilli for punching action admiral Giorgio La Cava “and blame his legs away”. The club alleged the ban “squalid” and “slander”, alleging Arezzo’s La Cava affronted it by shouting: “You suck, bits fans.” The ban was cut to 20 months on appeal.Came from Zamalek admiral Murtada Mansour in Egypt: burglary Christian Gross in comedy during a 1-1 draw for actuality “a failure, a bones … I went to the bathrobe allowance at half‑time and told the players to avoid him.” Mansour said critics pointing to his man-management almanac – including his 2016 move to appoint “sorcerers” due to three players “being bewitched”, and the actuality that he’s now on his fourth administrator aback burglary Gross in May – should “know this: I’m not some crazy guy.”1) Ex-Notts County buyer Alan “Big Alan” Hardy – aggravating to betrayal “the arbitrary ancillary of fans” in January by announcement screenshots of two adverse tweets from the aforementioned fan, but accidentally announcement a photo of his penis instead.2) @Cristiano – tweeting a private-jet selfie in January on the aforementioned day he was fined £16.6m for tax artifice and Emiliano Sala went missing in a alike crash. Three emojis: smiley face, alike demography off, thumbs up.3) Adidas UK in July, active its #DareToCreate amusing media attack to advance Arsenal’s new kit: auto-generating images of the band featuring the Twitter handles of users who aggregate the hashtag. Adidas said the aftereffect – their official annual tweeting a alternation of racist slurs with the bulletin “welcome to the squad” – was an adventitious corruption “of a personalisation artisan created to acquiesce aflame admirers to get their name on the jersey. We accept angry the functionality off.”4) Fleetwood armchair Andy Pilley, @capboy70, cogent admirers to vote Tory or he’d shut the club down.5) And Welsh Fire candid drillmaster Gary Kirsten, assuming his best activity in October. “Can’t delay for The Hundred Draft and to aces the band on Sunday at 7pm. #TheHundredDraft.”Was lower alliance clubs live-tweeting the colour as able-bodied as the action:1) @lossiemouthfc, April: “8.20pm: Bold delayed briefly while the adjudicator spews in the centre amphitheater … 8.22pm: That’s him done yakking up his tea and we’re on the go again.”2) Berwick Rangers’ @OfficialBRFC, March: “Cowdenbeath decay a bend and Berwick get the adventitious to bright … Ugly scenes in the dugout as Cowdenbeath’s administrator has aloof told Johnny Harvey to ‘take his face for a sh*te’ #BRFC.”3) @sligorovers, February: “9 min. The brawl is kicked out of play, arresting the box of chips endemic by the fan at the Joma sign. Abounding chips abatement to the ground. (0-0).”

10 Best Sport Certificates images | Certificate, Track, field .. | sport award ideas 4) @AFCFylde, October: “80’ There’s a abeyance in comedy as a rather ample man storms the field, topless, with a boutonniere of flowers. (4-0).”5) And @NuneatonBoroFC, activity for a face-palm emoji afterwards their babysitter Tony Breeden came up to booty a amends in November: “61‘ He’s absent and has bankrupt the lights in the terrace. What accept I aloof witnessed.”Sarah Thomas, September – pond the approach and back, afresh back, afresh aback again. The 37-year-old blight survivor from Colorado did it in 54 hours; the avenue was 80 miles, but flat pulls meant she concluded up pond 130. “I got stung in the face by a jellyfish. I’m ambrosial annoyed appropriate now.”Was Sky spotting Huddersfield’s admission administrator Jan Siewert in the directors’ box in January, and activity in for an absolute interview. “It was bizarre,” said Man City fan Martin Warhurst later. “I was sat in the army and aback I was acquainted of a guy advancing appear me from the right. He anticipation I was the manager; I said: ‘No, no, that’s not me. I’m Martin from Wakefield.’”Billy Sharp’s beat boob ambition anniversary in February – his accolade to WWE brilliant Mick Foley’s “Mr Socko”. @RealMickFoley alleged it “TREMENDOUS” and angry up a ages later. Sharp: “After the bold I had 200 texts afresh God knows how abounding on Twitter. Abutting affair I apperceive Mick Foley is accepting breakfast at my house.”National alliance @AFCFylde - ambrosial in February for three youths who “duped our amphitheater anchorperson into allurement for a white Nissan Micra NE14 ABJ to be confused aftermost night”. The boys came forward; Fylde gave them chargeless shirts.Calling it early: three Spurs fans, missing the Champions Alliance improvement at Ajax in May afterwards abrogation the arena aloof afore half-time, cerebration it was abounding time due to actuality “pretty drunk”. James Perkins: “We anticipation we were abrogation at the absolute time.” He said they were “pretty confused” at the base “when no one was stood about us cat-and-mouse for a train”.Came from New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham, tweeting beeline afterwards their Apple Cup defeat to England in July. @JimmyNeesh: “Kids, don’t booty up sport. Booty up baking or something. Die at 60, absolutely fat and happy.”Was Coco Gauff during her Wimbledon breakthrough. On her self-image: “Weird. Weird, goofy, and, I don’t know. Yeah, awe-inspiring and goofy, I guess.” On her mum’s anniversary dance: “I didn’t acquaint her, but she’s activity to go viral, I know. She’s activity to be a meme.” And on why the best bit of the summer was rapper Jaden Smith tweeting her. “Obviously the tennis is abundant … but I’ve looked up to Jaden for so long. Bodies who chase me apperceive that’s all I column about. It was ambrosial agitative for me.”Among 2019’s regrets: Abundant Britain actuality butterfingers from the men’s 4x400m at the European Athletics Aggregation Championships in August afterwards allotment assets attempt doodle Youcef Zatat in the calendar by mistake; and Telstar striker Jordie van der Laan actuality sacked in May for calling in ailing so he could biking to London to watch Ajax comedy Spurs. Telstar admiral spotted him in the army on TV; Van der Laan said: “It was not my best decision.”Colorado Rapids – cancelling their post-game fireworks in August due to “plague”. Admiral said “the attendance of plague-infested fleas affecting prairie dog colonies” about Dick’s Sporting Goods Park meant the club “had no addition but to cancel”. A Rapids fan in a affliction doctor affectation told the Denver Post. “I assumption we’ll aloof embrace it.”Solid brawl from David Duval at the Open in Royal Portrush in July: birdieing his aboriginal two holes, extensive the 5th one off the lead, afresh hitting a quadruple bogey, a bogey and a nonuple bogey 14 at the par-five 7th afterwards accident two tee shots afresh arena the amiss ball. He accomplished with a 20-over 91, but said he never anticipation about walking away. “If you play, you column your score. Is there some adumbration of embarrassment? I don’t know. What I shot, I put on the board.”2018: David Beckham accepts the Uefa president’s award. “I’m actual honoured, honoured to be here.”2019: Eric Cantona accepts the Uefa president’s award: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they annihilate us for their sport. Anon science will not alone be able to apathetic the ageing of cells, anon science will fix the beef to the accompaniment and so we will become eternal. Alone accidents, crimes, wars will still annihilate us, but unfortunately, crimes, wars, will multiply. I adulation football. Thank you.”“Wayne Hennessey is ‘desperate’ to apprentice about the Nazis, says Roy Hodgson” – theguardian.com, April. Runner-up: The Times, aftermost week: “West Ham footballer Michail Antonio comatose Lamborghini while dressed as snowman.”Making it big on Twitter in 2019: @visualsatire’s Football Administrator Beard on Politicians. Including acclaimed works “Henry VIII with the beard and earpiece of Phil Brown”, and “Angela Merkel with the face of Steve Bruce”.

Volleyball Certificate Templates | Softball coach .. | sport award ideas Fallon Sherrock, @Fsherrock: “Really active now.... ! I accept done it again.. ! OMG”. Sherrock said this month’s PDC Apple Darts Championship run was “incredible… the actuality that all these bodies are tweeting me, abnormally Billie Jean King. Oh my god... I mean, this is me. I’m aloof a accustomed person.”Defining VAR’s solid admission season: the official @Premierleague annual – agitation online derision in November afterwards Martin Atkinson begin Roberto Firmino’s appropriate nipple gluttonous to accretion an arbitrary advantage: “The red band was accumbent to Firmino’s armpit, which was hardly advanced of the aftermost Villa defender.”• The year’s absolute VAR decision: Bundesliga 2, October – VAR operators spotting a sub who was abating up abaft the ambition had affected a aberrant attempt with his foot, millimetres afore it had gone out of comedy for a goal-kick. The verdict: a amends and chicken card. Teammate Alexander Mühling: “The boy didn’t apperceive that rule. None of us knew that rule.”Was Luis Suárez – hailed for “reaching aiguille Luis Suárez” in Uruguay’s Copa América win over Chile in June after: a) Seeming to address for a handball in the box by the goalkeeper; and b) Reacting to an adversary benumbed a angle face by active appear the adjudicator brandishing an abstract card.Days afterwards Cardiff Met administrator Christian Edwards was taken ill in November, adolescent son Isaac stepped up to alter him with this teamtalk afterwards an bizarre win over Cefn Druids.Katarina Johnson-Thompson, nine canicule afterwards heptathlon gold in October. @JohnsonThompson: “If anyone wants to apperceive how my off division is activity … I’ve been to two karaoke confined in 48 hours. My called songs are Bonnie Tyler ‘Total concealment of the heart’ and Busta Rhymes ‘Look at me now’.”2.1m wholesome angle for this acknowledgment to England’s Candid Apple Cup win.A appropriate accomplishment from Harlequins’ Joe Marler in November – absolutely committing to his metaphor. “We’ve got addition anniversary to get aback on the horse, and booty that horse to the water. And you can ask that horse, you can say: ‘Hey, horsey, do you appetite to accept a alcohol or do you appetite to swim?’ It’s up to that horse to afresh realise what he wants to do in his life. That horse, at the moment, wants to go out on Saturday and he wants to say ‘hello’ to those fans. And he goes : ‘I’m apologetic about the aftereffect aftermost week, but I’m activity to accord a bigger achievement adjoin Bath.’ He’s a hardly Irish horse. So we are attractive forward, like I say, to accepting aback on that horse.” Interviewer: “And are you attractive advanced to accepting aback on the horse?” Marler: “I don’t like horses, I can’t ride.”Headlining 12 months of viral beastly cameos:• Multiple bodies causing time added on, including at Everton v Wolves in February and a Real Salt Lake bold in July at Rio Tinto Amphitheater in the US, area a avoid pitch-invaded aftermost year. • A ailing fox elimination itself on the Oval in July during Surrey v Glamorgan;• A accumulate abolition the Minnesota Twins alert in two nights, authoritative the Twins’ dugout “scatter in fear”. • A bee army sending players to the accommodation at Sri Lanka v South Africa at Chester-le-Street in June. Faf du Plessis: “It is actual funny actually. It’s like someone’s run a apparatus gun through the players.” • Two stags abolition Fort William’s training this month. @Mocko500: “Fort William approved to action them contracts, but they were two deer.” • A awkward first-half possum dabbling Puebla’s cruise to Veracruz in January. Veracruz said the possum was “treated by vets afore abiding to the wild”. • Half a dozen hippos bistro Letaba’s rugby angle in May. The club told South African media: “These boys aloof came up from the river and started grazing.” • And the purest ambition anniversary of 2019 – a deer hitting the net, afresh dancing away. 20.8m views.Was Freddie, accepting his life-changing aboriginal attending central Goodison Park.Also causing “something in my eye” tweets in 2019:• David Martin adhering dad Alvin afterwards his West Ham admission at 33; • Tearful tennis adept Nicolas Mahut actuality consoled by his adolescent son in June afterwards defeat at Roland Garros to Leonardo Mayer, who additionally larboard in tears; • And Jordan Henderson with his dad Brian in June afterwards the Champions Alliance final. Brian, a blight survivor, said later: “When he was 12 I took him to the Champions Alliance final, and aback they came out to the Champions Alliance music he said: ‘Dad, I’m activity to comedy it one day.’ Not alone already but twice, and now he’s won one. So the tears come, you alpha shaking, you grab the wife, you grab the daughter-in-law, you grab anybody that’s about you. I’m aloof so happy.”Going the added mile: Duncan Ferguson’s Everton ambition celebrators; José Mourinho advantageous Callum, 15, with a pasta cafeteria for his abetment adjoin Olympiakos; and this Wimbledon tennis ballboy who, admitting a sustained, shock assimilation from a rogue sprinkler, backward in place, cocked and straight-faced. Until the atomic beam got out.From Rebekah Vardy, asked if she’d confronted Coleen Rooney afterwards their amusing media advancing calm in October. “That would be like arguing with a pigeon. You can acquaint it that you are appropriate and it is wrong, but it’s still activity to bits in your hair.” How To Leave Sport Award Ideas Without Being Noticed | Sport Award Ideas - sport award ideas | Encouraged for you to my personal blog, in this particular time period I'm going to demonstrate with regards to keyword. 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Justice Department sues over ‘Permanent Record’

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The suit doesn’t seek a halt to distribution of his book, released in more than 20 countries, but does press for recovery of all proceeds. USA TODAY

The Justice Department filed suit Tuesday against renegade former CIA and NSA employee Edward Snowden, saying his memoir “Permanent Record” violates nondisclosure agreements he signed with both agencies.

The suit claims Snowden, living in exile in Moscow, violated the agreements by publishing the book without submitting it for review and by giving public speeches on intelligence-related matters.

The suit doesn’t seek a halt to distribution of the book, released Tuesday in more than 20 countries, but does press for recovery of all proceeds. 

“Intelligence information should protect our nation, not provide personal profit,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Snowden hawked the autobiography in a satellite book tour from Russia. The book follows him from his youthful obsession with video games through his dash out of the country six years ago after leaking information on how the intelligence community conducted surveillance on the U.S. public.

Snowden thought his stop in Russia was a layover on a flight from Hong Kong to Latin America, but his passport was canceled, and he has lived in exile, approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, ever since.

Snowden – hailed as hero, trashed as traitor – said he never took an oath of secrecy, he took an oath to defend the Constitution “from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

He claimed he rejected overtures from Russian agents to aid their cause. He describes himself as a whistleblower – but the Justice Department under President Barack Obama charged him with espionage.

Read this: Thanks to a drone, Russian activist saves sensitive hard drive right before police raid

Snowden said that he does not regret his actions and that he wants to return to the USA.

“I’m not asking for a parade. I’m not asking for a pardon,” he told CBS News. “I’m not asking for a pass. What I’m asking for is a fair trial. And this is the bottom line that any American should require.”

For Snowden, a fair trial means allowing the jury to consider his motivations rather than simply deciding the case on whether a law was broken.

“They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong,” Snowden said. “And I’m sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial.”

Ilhan Omar: Trump admin can’t be trusted on Iran if it ‘lies about weather maps or crowd sizes’

Snowden claimed his goal was to reform the NSA, not destroy it. He said he is a privacy advocate concerned by the information collected and distributed from cellphones. The government, he said, often uses the same tools as criminal hackers.

“Anything you can do on that device, the attacker ⁠– in this case, the government ⁠– can do,” Snowden told MSNBC. “They can see anything that is on that phone instantly and send it back home to the mothership.”

Snowden made international headlines when The Washington Post and The Guardian published stories based on his leaks detailing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance program, including access to the cellphone records of millions of Americans. 

Federal courts subsequently rejected the mass collection of American phone records, but Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, which allows limited collection. The controversy hasn’t gone away: The National Security Agency acknowledged improperly collected phone call records of Americans last fall, months after another breach that compelled the agency to destroy millions of records from the contentious program.

The lawsuit names as defendants the corporate entities involved in publishing Snowden’s book to ensure that no funds are transferred to him.

“The United States’ ability to protect sensitive national security information depends on employees’ and contractors’ compliance with their nondisclosure agreements,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “This lawsuit demonstrates that the Department of Justice does not tolerate these breaches of the public’s trust.”

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The Great Emergence

On February 2, 2001, the monster race emerged from Mount Ebott after centuries of living beneath the surface. Paranoia and fear led the government of the United States to scramble to cover up the incident, installing a total lockdown around the mountain. Unsure why this was happening, the monsters waited uneasily for whatever might come next while attempting to make diplomatic overtures through their ambassador, but none were accepted. President Bush feared what the monsters could be planning and sent the military to DEFCON 4, hoping to keep the issue secret for as long as possible while he and the rest of the government attempted to figure out a way to deal with the problem.

The inhabitants of the area around Mount Ebott, however, did not wait for them. Confused as to why there was currently a noticeable military presence around the mountain, some locals sneaked past the military with a variety of ingenious strategies and managed to get pictures and video of the monsters. Once they escaped, they promptly released this media to several major newspapers, not having an Internet connection. By May 6, practically everyone in the country had heard of what was being termed the “Ebott Incident.” Initially, Bush planned to deny everything, but when an incident occurred following a short skeleton monster inexplicably managing to get out of the containment zone and wander into a town, he was forced to admit that the military has been keeping the monsters in Mount Ebott and, in a momentary lapse of control, also stated that they are intelligent and sentient. It was on May 22 that monsters were finally released amid an ongoing storm of controversy with people from all political wings alternatively lashing out at Bush for not releasing the monsters earlier and accusing monsters of being demonic, genocidal freaks. Most of the monsters chose to stay on Mount Ebott or in the surrounding areas due to fear of what the humans might do while monster diplomats attempted to negotiate with the reluctant American ambassadors.

On July 5, 2001, hoping to foster better relations between humans and monsters, King Asgore managed to convince the US government to allow him to temporarily use parts of nearby Harrisburg in order for humans from around the country to be able to come and meet the monsters to see that they genuinely mean no harm. It grants mixed results, as although most people who attend see that monsters are genuinely kind-hearted, the gathering falls into awkward silence after a reporter asks Asgore how the barrier was broken and says that he heard it required human souls to be broken.

Two days later, American intelligence agencies uncovered evidence that several monsters committed unethical acts, including the killing of six human children and unethical experiments by the royal scientist, Dr. Alphys. Acting on their own, some rogue FBI agents attempt to arrest Asgore in the middle of the night, but he is defended by the local division of the Royal Guard, and the agents are forced from the palace and flee. Asgore quietly accuses the Bush administration of attempting to carry out a coup the next day, but President Bush is confused, seeing as he never ordered anything of the sort. (Many conspiracy theorists will still accuse Bush of trying to kill Asgore.) By July 20th, a combined task force made from parts of the Royal Guard (including Sans, who decided to join the Guard to protect his brother) and the FBI manages to finally capture the rogue agents. In the face of arrest, they spill all the evidence they have against Asgore’s regime. For the Royal Guards, this is old news, but they pretend to not know what the agents are talking about. However, once Asgore finds out about this, his sense of honor does not allow him to continue this deception any longer, and he publicly confesses to having killed six human children, offering to appear at a trial for war crimes. Alphys is eventually ignored, as the experiments were done on monsters and not humans, and additionally there’s circumstantial evidence that the prior Royal Scientist began the experiments. King Asgore, however, is placed on trial for war crimes on July 28.

Much to the surprise of the world, Asgore is eventually acquitted following clear presentation of evidence showing that several of the fallen humans killed monsters, with the defense arguing that he was merely attempting to protect his people from a possible genocidal maniac. Following Asgore’s release, he resumes his duties in a shaken kingdom and begins hopeful negotiation over reclaiming ancestral monster land, but despite the considerable amount of gold that he offers all attempts at purchasing any of that land is met with blatant refusal. The only land that the monsters are allowed to keep is Mount Ebott and some of the surrounding land. Attempts by monsters to assimilate into human society frequently end after just a few weeks of racism and segregation. The monsters also attempted to negotiate with other nations as to the possibility of getting land there, but the only thing even close is that the Canadian government agrees to the possibility of allowing monsters to migrate to Canada en masse and settle in parts of Ontario and Manitoba.

The rest of the world has not remained the same, however. Many changes are relatively minor, but the most minor is that Osama bin Laden decided to integrate monsters into his campaign against the ostensibly satanic western world. One day in July, he was extremely incensed following a meeting in which some others argued that, since monsters and the United States are not on the friendliest of terms, they should be trying to steer the kingdom to their side, and in his anger tripped down a set of stairs and broke his neck. Al-Qaeda attempted to pull off the 9/11 attacks anyway, but due to incompetence on their part only one plane was successfully hijacked. Several monsters were in Washington, D.C. at the time for a diplomatic meeting, and as a result the plane was stopped from crashing into the Capitol Building by quick use of gravity magic by Sans. Al-Qaeda, already not in the best state, collapses within months. America does not intervene in the Middle East, keeping the situation there the same as it was before, and there are no massive floods of anti-Islamic sentiment. 

In early 2002, Dr. Alphys proposes the formation of artificial islands off the coast of New Jersey and Long Island in order to provide room for monsters to settle free from human bigotry. The project receives Asgore’s approval, and the most skilled monster mages immediately go to work raising new land in international waters. It is around this time that other nations begin to recognize the Kingdom of Monsters as a legitimate nation. By July 2003, thirteen new islands have been created for monsters to settle in, though the capital remains in New Home for the time being.

The Arab Spring occurred in 2004, destabilizing multiple countries across the Middle East and prompting multiple coups, most notably in Pakistan, where a near-totalitarian military government takes control. The Arab Spring will not end until 2007 and proves massively destabilizing, with multiple nations scrambling to place allied governments in the nations wracked by revolution and some that aren’t.

Following the Arab Spring, world events prove relatively uneventful. Bush wins reelection in 2004 by a slim margin, though the Democrats manage to take control of both houses of Congress due to a gradual dissipation of anti-monster racism. Colin Powell ends up becoming president in 2008, but leaves office in 2012 voluntarily after refusing renomination. He is replaced by Obama, who in the modern day is still president. In other news, Cuba’s communist regime fell after Castro’s death in 2013 from food poisoning and has since been replaced by an American-allied government that is genuinely trying to create a Cuban republic. The monsters mostly keep to themselves nowadays, occasionally aiding the American government in return for maintenance of their tentative alliance, and monster population outside of the Kingdom of Monsters is practically nonexistent save for tourists and exchange students. Many view the kingdom as another North Korea due to its relative isolation and utter lack of democracy, and in reality the kingdom is essentially a benevolent dictatorship. Despite some tension, this world is overall better than ours, with much lower anti-Islam sentiment than our timeline due to almost all Islamic terrorist factions having fallen apart during the Arab Spring (and those that do still exist are, quite frankly, laughably incompetent) and a stable Middle East. Of course, North Korea still exists and is still doing nuclear missile tests, and Vladimir Putin maintains control over Russia. But hey, no timeline is utopian, but for its inhabitants it’s as good as they’ll get.

THE WORLD IN 2017

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Mount Ebott, the location where the Great Emergence happened, is surrounded by the United States. New Home remains the capital of the Kingdom of Monsters due to the Atlantic Islands not being very industrialized yet, and it’s since become an international tourist attraction.

2. Cuba’s new semi-democratic government is an American ally thanks to the lifting of the embargoes, and is on its way to becoming the #1 tourist destination in North America.

3. Thanks to Puerto Rico, the flag of the USA now has fifty-one stars.

4. The United Kingdom has not left the EU. Yet.

5. Wallonia enjoys considerable autonomy from France.

6. Thanks to the EU backing Catalan independence, the Republic of Catalonia left Spain in 2015 and joined the EU in 2016.

7. Released just now, Serbia v2! Half the size, twice the firepower, and twice the xenophobia! Sponsored by Vladimir Putin. Daily rebellions not included.

8. Some things can’t be changed.

9. You can thank the Arab Spring for the current situation.

10. According to Vladimir Putin, Georgia’s annexation into Russia was backed wholeheartedly by the population, and he has the results of the referendum to prove it.

11. The Pakistani military kindly requests that you not pay too much attention to their troops here or question their business here.

12. North Korea hasn’t changed much from our timeline. President Obama has recently considered making a deal with the Kingdom of Monsters to eliminate the threat it presents.

This map and scenario was a commission for @fnafredux. If you’d like to make a scenario request, please see this post.

#undertale #undertale au #the surface #undertale fanfiction #i mean i guess it is #asgore dreemurr #king asgore #commission #undertale the surface

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 1/22/20

By Kyle Anzalone

US News

Illinois changes a law that suspended driver’s licenses for unpaid parking tickets. [Link]

Reports say Trump will add seven countries to his travel ban list. [Link]

Iranian students with valid visas are being detained when they get to the US and some of them have been deported. The Iranian students have reported CBP agents accusing them of being radical Islamists. [Link]

The US sanctions and travel bans imposed by Trump on Cuba is harming the Cubans who are in the tourism industry. [Link]

The US sanctions 15 planes owned by Venezuela’s state oil company. Secretary of State Pompeo says the planes have been harassing military flights. [Link]

The US is pushing China to join arms control talks with the US and Russia. [Link]

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald had been charged with hacking by the Brazilian government. Greenwald is the editor of Intercept Brazil and the outlet has published several documents revealing corruption in the Brazilian government. [Link]

North Korea

North Korea says it is done with a moratorium on tests of its nuclear weapons program. [Link]

Afghanistan

A drone strike in Afghanistan killed a leader of a Taliban splinter group. A report now shows the US also killed 15 innocent people in the strike. [Link]

Middle East

Both leading political factions in Israel are pushing for the annexation of parts of the West Bank. [Link]

Lebanon announced it formed a new government. The new prime minister is Hassan Diab. [Link]

US soldiers in Syria stop a convoy of Russian soldiers from reaching oil fields Trump has claimed for the US. No shots were fired on either side. [Link]

The US is looking to deport an Iraqi man on clearly false charges. The man fears he will lose his life over a crime he is innocent of if he is forced to return to Iraq. [Link]

Saudi Arabia carried out several bombings targeting Yemen’s capital city. [Link]

Burkina Faso

Thirty-six people at a market in Burkina Faso were killed by militants. The government has labeled it a terrorist attack but did not name the group responsible. [Link]

Read More

#kyle anzalone #immersion news #libertarian institute #news roundup

[vampirenaomi]

I was bored last night, so I turned on the TV to see what was on, and I caught the second half of an episode of some American live action series. And it was an eye-opener because everything in it was something I wouldn't even bat an eye at if I saw it in a Lupin TV special, but as live action with real actors, all it did was leave me feeling like my intelligence had just been severely insulted. I can't remember the last time I watched anything that made me go "no, no, that's stupid, who the hell wrote this?" in pretty much every scene.

The plot was that some Russian terrorist group had gotten their hands on a Soviet era bomb and planned to blow it up somewhere in Europe, so our heroes needed to find the scientist who originally built the bomb because he's the only one who knows how to deactivate it. They did, but he told them that they needed to find his old pal as well because he's the only one who knows the passwords. They found him, too, like within five minutes. Funny how these two former high ranking Soviet agents just happen to be living in the exact same place in the USA even though they don't get along and haven't spoken since 1991, as is told to us in an embarrassingly badly written "witty" banter scene that only exists because the script writer wanted to show off all the historical references they found while browsing Wikipedia for ten minutes. I know because this is how I used to write dialogue in my Hetalia fics. There was barely one exchange in the half an ep I watched in which the characters spoke to each other like real people. Everything was banter and one-liners.

I don't really have a problem with things like bullshit computer hacking or convenient coincidences if the show is entertaining, but this wasn't, and there's a limit. At one point in the episode they needed to find an old Soviet computer because only those can be used to deactivate the bomb. To find one, they went to an old KGB safe house in Russia that was perfectly clean, fully furnished and had working electricity and all, so clearly someone had been maintaining it for all these years, and yet the characters could just walk in with no questions asked or anyone stopping them (until later when it was convenient for the plot) even though the scientist guy is a defector. But whatever, I can live with that. What I cannot live with is that as they walked inside the house, the scientist's pal said that he hid the computer in the house and that "if you hide things well enough, even capitalists like Putin can't find them" and then he just walked over to the closest framed picture on the wall, took it down and what do you know, there was a safe behind it. Hide things well enough my ass! At first I thought this was just the work of an incompetent or lazy writer, but then I realized they did it like this on purpose to have a character moment.

Because the framed picture was of the scientist and his pal back when they were still friends, so that made it possible for the scientist to comment on that and for the pal to snarkily reply that it was the only photo that was the right size. Because the whole "I hate you and don't want to talk to you" thing they had going on was of course only a misunderstanding. Which of course gave us the super original never-saw-that-coming ending where the pal took a bullet to protect the scientist and died, but of course not before telling him that he never hated him and he was just hurt he'd never told him he wanted to betray the Soviet Union and go to America. I don't even know how many fucking times I've seen this "former friends want to make things right but they can't because one of them dies tragically" plotline, and I'm SICK OF IT. It carries zero emotional weight, unless you do it really well, which this series didn't and probably didn't even care to do because the good guys were bantering about fashion sense and karaoke only a scene later.

Oh, and the characters had like this boss who gave them orders and called them periodically to remind them of the deadline of deactivating the bomb. And there was a scene where she was in a bar, watching some bad guy hand over a memory stick to another bad guy. And she said, unless she's lost her touch, they will soon know what's on the memory stick. And that's it. The next time we saw her, she had the memory stick. Well excuse me, maybe I wanted to see how she got it. Did she seduce the bad guy who had it, have him arrested, kill him, what? How did she do it? I want to see that because it might actually be fun. And anyway, how is it possible that she stole the memory stick, and the next day the terrorists are still going onwards with their plan without taking any extra precautions? Are they so incompetent they haven't noticed that they've lost the memory stick and possibly contact with one of their men?

And that’s really just the start. Everything in this was unbearably ridiculous. In fact, so ridiculous that some of the bullshit in this episode is too much even for Lupin TV specials.

[musingsofmaniacs]

The Slap that Changed The World

All Muhammad Bouazizi wanted to do was to sell his fruits. But his stall was encroaching the premises of Municipal Office of Tunis. So a policewoman, Fedya Hamdi confronted him about it, and the ensuing argument turned ugly when the police woman slapped him and confiscated his produce. Humiliated, the fruit seller approached higher authorities to have his fruits returned. He was refused. Bouazizi turned hysterical and did something that he would never have thought would change everything.

Muhammad Bouazizi. (Image Courtesy: Wikipedia)

He set himself up on fire. And then, something happened.

Tunisia is surrounded by relatively poor countries, and is among the more prosperous ones. A relatively peaceful and stable, riots were rare. Of course, a despot as the head of the government for a long time came with a slew of problems that are typical of a despotic regime, but all was OK, until that act of self immolation by Muhammad Bouazizi.

Protests broke out, massive in nature. Rioting occurred in streets like never before. The populace rose up against Ben Ali, the president and all the detentions, executions, clampdown, curfew did little to stop the anger that had reached the point of no return. 28 days later Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and after after a few adjustments archetypal of a violent revolution, democracy rushed through to its citizens.

So far so good.

Tahrir Square (Image Courtesy: EPA)

The news reached the world almost immediately, through the social media. It also reached the Egyptian people, who came to a realisation that theirs was a situation remarkably familiar and similar. Protests broke out, fierce, and this time with a much greater coverage. This was probably the watershed moment for Facebook, when it truly transformed from a selfie sharing platform to a force so potent that Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian strongman was slighted by it. For days end, the protesters sat at Tahrir Square, made new friends from people all over the world, sang the songs of a new era which they were sure of bringing, filmed the brutal acts Mubarak ordered his soldiers to commit towards his own citizens and shared it, and it seemed became one united entity against a brutal regime.  

Hosni stepped down too, and the world romanticised the idea of a protester, a nobody with no money or power, could take on the entire system with their tanks and its missiles. The Time Magazine paid a magnificent tribute to this institution by proclaiming the protester as the ‘Person Of The Year’.

The revolution turned to Libya, where it turned a bit prolonged and ugly. Siege by the people, failure of outside intervention and a brutal conflict between rebels and Muammar Gaddafi’s forces protracted the war for a long time. The vacuum in governance it created created some extremist terrorist movements, many aligned with malicious organizations like the al-Qaeda. In the end, Gaddafi was deposed, dragged through the streets of Sirte, his birthplace, and shot. His body, along with that of his slain sympathizers’ was stored in a freezer at local market and put on display for days.

Gaddafi’s dead body being captured by a smartphone (Image Courtesy: AFP)

The wave, or the spring as it came to be described snaked northwards while all of this happened and reached Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iraq and Syria. It was quickly crushed in Saudi and Bahrain. The regime in Bahrain even went to the extent of razing down a landmark in the capital Manama, called Pearl Roundabout, because protesters were camping around it and the regime feared that the place would become the next Tahrir Square.

As an offshoot, the protests reached even to the countries like USA, India and China. In the latter, it was suppressed as soon as the watchdogs got the whiff of it. In 2011, taking a leaf from the book of their Arabian counterparts on raging against a despotic family dabbing into highly corrupt shenanigans, India decided to take Anti Corruption protests to a new heights and while there were no brutalities as seen in the Arab countries, the movement did change the political landscape of the nation significantly. In the US, the protesters took to the Wall Street to give the finger to the White Collar Mafia that robbed them (and continues to do so) of their wealth by gambling it off all the while filling their pockets.

Arvind Kejriwal during the protests. (Image Courtesy: AFP)

Parallely Vladimir Putin had just begun to flex his muscles. After his meddling in Georgia by sending troops to Abkhazia and South Ossetia Putin had evoked the ire of the Western world. Then he changed the constitution with the help of his lackey Dmitry Medvedev to give him longer term and more power. Then he (allegedly) rigged the general elections, which triggered mass protests and birthed Pussy Riot, but the former KGB agent merrily crushed it all. Then he went on a rampage to make life difficult for opposition, gays and of course journalists. Opponents were conveniently shot or poisoned. It all seemed to lead somewhere.

Pussy Riots, an all girl punk band was a chief Russian Icon of subversion (Image Courtesy:Wikipedia)

In 2014, the nation of Ukraine, a former Soviet territory which gave it one of its heads of the state, begin to boil after Viktor Yanukovych, the erstwhile president refused a closer integration with the EU. A massive pro-EU protests, dubbed the Euromaidan, forced Yanukovych out of Kiev and marked a big victory for the crowd. Until Vladimir Putin decided to take advantage of the situation of a country bitterly divided among pro-Russians and pro-Europeans and annexed Crimea. Since then, Russia has been actively involved in destabilising a pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine, where rebels continue to combat the government and have even accidentally downed a civilian aircraft.

Meanwhile, we return to Syria and Iraq, where the Arab spring turned into a blistering, hot, airless summer. The Bashar al-Assad government was the target of the rebels and the back and forth between rebel and government forces kept continuing. The entire nation was embroiled in a massive civil war, with government resorting to chemical weapons to kill off its own citizens, bombing hospitals and relief camps.  Rebels, like in the case of Libya, began getting infiltrated by fundamentalist elements like al-Qaeda. In areas where government ceased to exist, a power vacuum grew.

And this vacuum was filled by a notorious Salafist terrorist organisation with an aim to create a caliphate. It called it itself Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, of Syria, and eventually, just the Islamic State. They distinguished themselves by swanky modern videos with professional looks, an aesthetically designed propaganda magazine, and ruthless videos of beheadings and burning.Their first major victory came with the fall of Mosul in Iraq and they rapidly expanded in Syria and Iraq. Barbaric human rights violation alarmed the world, with incidents like killing, raping and pillaging non-Muslim dominated villages, public beheadings and brutalization of the innocents. Obama and friends were forced to step in after initial reluctance, with a sustained bombing campaign in Iraq. IS became the gravest threat to the stability in the region.

Worth mentioning is the red line that Assad crossed, that of chemical weapons. Obama had promised to intervene if Assad used chemical weapons, and Assad did. But Obama was of course wary of going to Middle-East, so he went to the Republican dominated congress, which promptly sent him back. Obama, weakened from a blow by the Republican party as a revenge for Affordable Care Act, then booked a deal with Putin, by which it was agreed that Assad will dismantle all his chemical weapon stock under supervision of OPCW, an organisation that later would go on to win Nobel Prize for its efforts in ridding Syria of huge stockpiles of deadly chemical weapons. It was of course agreed that any further attempts by Govt. forces to gas its people will not go unpunished.

Clearly it did not work.

The human cost of Syrian Civil War (Image Courtesy: UNICEF)

Assad’s govt. found itself at a prospect of another rounds of sanctions after multiple instances of violations were found post the 2013 agreements, and this is when the proverbial shit began to hit the fan. Russia, which had been instrumental in getting the deal on chemical weapons passed started asserting that the chemical weapon was in fact used by the rebel forces and not the Assad regime, an assertion strongly rebutted by the US and the UN. Things got even messier when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine illegally in 2014. The entire Western Hemisphere imposed sanctions on Russia. Adding to Russia’s agony were falling oil prices. Cumulatively, Rouble was all but obliterated, and Putin was livid with the current situation. Media continued to get gagged, protestors and opposition continued to get killed, and Putin kept cultivating cult-of-personality persona a la Kims of the DPRK, and selling the dreams of return to the Soviet era superpowerdom. In 2015, Russia finally sent its air force to Syria at Assad’s request, and a beleaguered Assad found himself in a powerful position once again against a host of rebels, some backed by West, some affiliated to al-Qaeda and ISIS  (or ISIL or IS or Daesh) itself.

While the superpowers were playing geopolitical soccer, the real cost of war started to pour in, as they somewhat inconveniently always do. The photos of Alan Kurdi’s body washing over to the beach; a gravely injured, muddied and bloodied Syrian kid with a vanquished look in his eyes; reports of boats capsizing in the Mediterranean; bombing of UN aid trucks, shelters and hospitals, the latter being the most cruel sign of absolute breakdown of humanity itself are all too fresh in the collective memory of the discerning half of the public. The rest, well, they had started to worry about the other problem that such strifes create: Refugees and Immigrants.

UKIP’s Leave Ad and Nigel Farage (Image Courtesy: Getty)

As refugees began pouring in Europe, cracks began to emerge. Conflicts among member states vis-a-vis accommodation of immigrants and refugees coupled with the never ending crowd of refugees pushing against the borders developed into a full blown crisis. Angela Merkel, the de facto leader of Europe and its most powerful leader became the refugee angel for persuading Europe to open its borders, accommodate more people and herself allowed thousands to get into Germany. Initially hailed by her compatriots as a hero, the mood soon soured when hundreds of reports of rapes and molestation emerged in Cologne, one of the key immigrant sanctuary cities. Paris was rocked with deadly terrorist attacks, at the Bataclan and later on at Nice. As refugees continued to pour in, the far right parties which until recently were considered toxically xenophobic started to gain traction among an otherwise highly liberal Europe. Geert Wilders of Netherlands, Alternative fur Deutschland from Germany, Beppe Grillo of Italy, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Norbert Hofer of Austria, and most prominently Marine Le Pen of France and Nigel Farage of UK cashed in on anti-immigrant sentiment, even fanning them when they needed fanning. The best solution these populists found for immigrant and terrorist problem (equal in their eyes) was to leave the European Union. They felt EU’s constricting bureaucracy and its rules meant loss of autonomy and loss of control over their borders.

Europe’s Far Right. Clockwise from Top Left: Norbert Hofer (Austria), Marine Le Pen (France), Beppe Grillo (Italy) and Geert Wilders (Netherlands). Image Courtesy: The Telegraph

Campaigning chiefly on the immigrants and islamophobia (because of course: immigrants  = Terrorists = Muslims), Nigel Farage gained strong foothold for the ‘Leave’ vote. A vote (ill-conceived in hindsight) called by David Cameron to strengthen his pro-European position among his peers and opposition. He miscalculated, grossly. It did not help at all that opposition Jeremy Corbyn’s response was tepid and uninvolved, even though he voiced his support for EU.

In 2012, Greece as at the brink of bankruptcy. A solvency crisis fuelled by unchecked spending and corruption, Greece was on the verge of defaulting its massive loans to EU. If Greece failed to pay, then it would have had no other choice but to leave the EU. A Euro-hostile leftist government headed by arrogant and cocksure leaders did little to help the matters and mush to raise grave concerns over the fact that Greece leaving could mean a major blow to EU, that Greece leaving could create a domino effect that could blow up the Nobel Prize winning bloc and drown the world economy. Bankers and leaders scrambled day and night to come up with a deal and save Greece. They rejoiced, thinking that they had saved EU.

And then UK just exits. The British people vote ‘Leave’. David Cameron resigns. There is a Hindi saying: चींटी पकड़ ली, हाथी जाने दे दिया| Roughly, it translates to “Catching the ant while the Elephant slips away”.

Brexit, as it came to be fashionably known, sent shockwaves across the world. The biggest jolt to established world order and a shot in the arm to the fringe, the people of Britain took a decision that was widely characterized as dangerously reckless by experts all over the world. All of a sudden the world seemed to look unpredictable. Anything could happen.

And ‘anything’ did happen. The Islamophobia, the refugee crisis, and a general lack of charisma took the most unlikely anti-establishment character to the White House: Donald John Trump. The real estate reality star with his names on skyscrapers all across the world. Trump’s win mainly stemmed from a discontent among the working class with what they perceived as ‘elites’ ripping them off, demographic dilution due to immigration and its perceived  effect on jobs, and from discontent among young democrats resulting abstention from voting. Also nudging the scales was intervention by the Russian Intelligence into the elections. Russian state-backed hackers allegedly stole emails from Democrats and Clintons and this leak followed Hillary to her political grave. Trump officials like Mike Flynn and Jeff Sessions were found to be communicating with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and former has been fired. I will not write much about here because it is everywhere. No point in feeding from the same carcass, as John Oliver said.

Divider-in-Chief

Russia continues its operation to this day. Not long ago, Syria decided to use the chemical weapons on civilians. Russia has once again denied the hand of Assad’s forces and blamed it on the rebels. The US was forced to attack a Syrian defence base, where some russian soldiers were also stationed. The relations between Russia and US, once again become frosty. The on again off again relationship continues like a bad soap opera. North Korea’s craziness is now taller than their tall Bond-Villain-Lairesque hotel, and Seoul still remains the world city that can be decimated by a military hardened from punching trees on its way southwards, a ballistic missile that reaches Alaska and a leadership known for its unpredictability. UK has never been in a worse shape, with increasing terror attacks and decreasing confidence in the government. At least Theresa May can thank her stars that her long, hard political career didn’t come to a point where she lost to a candidate with a bucket on his head. Hillary Clinton unfortunately doesn’t have that privilege. The one heartening development amidst the West’s slide to the far-right was election of Emmanuel Macron and defeat of ‘French Trump’, Marine Le Pen. Macron has been hailed as a manna from heaven for Europe, and the indications are that he indeed is.

All Bouazizi wanted to do was sell fruits.

A TL;DR Info-graphic of the politics of this decade. Images that are not flags shown (Clockwise from top right): Euromaidan protests in Kiev, Vladimir Putin, MH17 debris, Alan Kurdi, Donald Trump, Brexit, Narendra Modi, Destruction of Pearl Square, Manama)

Sincerely,

Captain Not So Obvious

Source: As the article is quite exhaustive, I didn’t bother to cite a lot of sources. All information is taken from major Newspapers, Websites, and non-dodgy Wikipedia pages. Readers are welcome to verify the facts, and especially to point out any inadvertent inaccuracies.