Posts - Americans

China Will ‘Celebrate’ The Summer Solstice With Horrific Slaughter Of 10,000 Dogs

Culture

While China continues its push to be a world superpower its domestic policies continue to be some of the most crude and backwards of any reasonably developed nation in the world.

One area where the Chinese are notably regressive is in their protection of animals. China, and fueled by its quack medicine industry, are the top consumers of endangered animal species like rhinos, elephants and sea turtles.

But the nation’s cruelty to animals doesn’t stop with just critically endangered species – even man’s best friend is treated with a level of cruelty rarely seen in the world.

The most stunning example of this horrific cruelty is the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, a supposed celebration of the summer solstice, which takes place in June. The ‘highlight’ of the festival is the slaughter of approximately 10,000 dogs, which are killed and eaten on the street.

The dogs are kept in terrible conditions, tortured, beaten, and forced to live in tiny, crowded, cages.

Many are then boiled, burned, or skinned alive before being served as food.

Dogs are not the only victims of this horrific celebration. Cats are considered a specialty and can be easily found at the kiosks.

This year activists are stepping up pressure on the barbaric festival and actively protesting, though by doing so they risk imprisonment by the harsh Chinese authorities.

Instead of vocal demonstrations that will land them in jail forever, the activists can be seen buying dogs from merchants in order to spare their lives, or marching on the streets with candles.

Yet global celebrities, not subject to harsh Chinese censors or repression, are speaking against this festival. Comedian Ricky Gervais and singers Richard Marx and Leona Lewis are using the hashtag “#StopYuLin2015” on Twitter in order to spread awareness.

An online petition has already gained over 850.000 signatures, demanding a stop to the killings.

In typical Chinese fashion, the local government has officially banned the festival, yet the slaughtering of cats and dogs remains legal in the area, and so the event goes on as usual.

We encourage our readers to retweet this article with the hashtag #StopYuLin2015 to help spread the word and stop this barbaric practice.

FIFA Scandal Noose Tightens As Third Largest Swiss Bank Launches Internal Probe

Finance

As we’ve seen over the last eight years, global mega-banks rarely launch internal investigations on their own volition. Instead they come one step ahead of a legal inquiry into their criminal activities, whether that’s market manipulation, money laundering, violating sanctions, preying on vulnerable customers or perjury.

So when Swiss bank Julius Baer said on Wednesday it has opened an internal investigation in connection with the FIFA corruption scandal, this likely means the bank is squarely in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators investigating bribery, corruption and money laundering within soccer’s governing body.

Julius Baer, Switzerland’s third largest public bank, was one of a number of banks mentioned in the U.S. Department of Justice’s May charge sheet against FIFA officials.

“We have launched an internal investigation,” a spokesman for Julius Baer said. “We are fully cooperating with the authorities.”

The spokesman declined to say when the investigation began, or with which authorities it was cooperating with, but it is likely doing what banks normally do to avoid criminal prosecution – cooperate, say sorry, pay a fine and move along.

North Korea Looks For Sympathy Claiming Drought Hurting Farm Production

Entertainment News

North Korea is tugging at the heart, and purse, strings of the global community, saying it has been hit by its “worst drought in a century” and has suffered extensive damage to agriculture.

In a rare outreach to global media outlets, the official Korean Central News Agency said the drought has dried up 30 percent of its rice paddies, which need to be partially submerged in water during the early summer.

“Recently in our country, there has been a severe drought with sudden extremely high temperatures and nearly no rain,” Ri Yong Nam, a senior North Korean weather official, told the world media on Tuesday. “Now the drought is causing a water shortage and great damage to agriculture, and we foresee this drought will continue for a while.”

He said temperatures in May 9-12 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal.

Both North and South Korea have had unusually dry weather this year.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said precipitation in North Korea was abnormally low in May but that it couldn’t confirm North Korea’s claim that it was experiencing its worst drought in a century.

In a concerted press blitz to get coverage of the supposed problem, North Korea even authorized the head of a farm work team to talk to international media. North Korea typically never allows such access and barely talks to the global press through official channels at all.

“This is the first drought damage in my 20 years of farming experience,” said Sin Jong Choi, head of a work team at North Korean farm. He went on to detail how seedlings dried out, forcing farmers to re-plow the fields and plant corn instead.

But the corn plants were “completely burned to death,” said Bae Tae Il, another member of the farm authorized to speak to reporters. “We are launching all-out efforts to overcome the drought damage.”

The unusual press blitz is likely a positioning move, designed to draw attention away from North Korea’s nuclear arms and missile programs, as well as its the squandering of the country’s resources by the ruling elite class.

This behavior has caused international aid donations to North Korea to fall in recent years, with the UN allocating just $111 million for North Korean operations this year, the lowest such level since 2009.

Denying the country food aid puts pressure on its rulers to divert resources away from expensive weapons systems. It also has economic consequences, as the great famine of 1990 loosened the regime’s control over the economy by damaging its public food distribution system and paving the way for private economic activity in the form of unofficial markets.

North Korean experts actually believe that while famine could happen again this year, the chances are remote given the regime learned from the last famine and has improved farming and related infrastructure. The country does not trumpet these advances for fear of losing access to foreign aid, which help it fund weapons programs.

Israel Launches Global Lawsuits Against Companies That Boycott It Over Genocide

Entertainment News

The world is waking up to Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people, with numerous recent events suggesting the genocide is becoming both well known and actively opposed by the international community.

The fact Israel killed over 500 Palestinian children last year alone, along with 1000 innocent civilians has led to boycotts by student unions and angry investors.

Yet rather than investigate the atrocities or stop them, a remote possibility given current Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly advocated for the extermination of the Palestinian people, Israel has instead decided it will sue anyone, anywhere, who won’t do business with its murderous regime.

On Wednesday, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced the country is preparing to file lawsuits against activists who call for blacklisting the Jewish state because of its war crimes and genocide activities.

The truly bizarre and desperate looking tactic came after a review by the international department of the Justice Ministry found that although boycott activists have appealed to many courts in Western countries for sanctions against Israel, they have never succeed in obtaining a ruling in their favor.

The Ministry believes that legal circumstances, particularly in the United States, where a powerful Jewish lobby enjoys significant political and legal influence, present the option of suing activists with civil and criminal lawsuits for damaging Israeli trade.

Shaked has already instructed that the number of positions in the international department be doubled so that it can push ahead with the lawsuits as soon as possible.

The legal campaign is part of a wider plan to combat the international outcry over Israel atrocities being put together by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

“The boycott weapon is a double-edged sword. If you’re thinking of boycotting Israel, keep in mind that there are tens of millions of Israel supporters around the world — Jews and non-Jews — with considerable buying power and boycott power,” threatened Education Minister Naftali Bennett. “Whoever boycotts Israel will be boycotted. Whoever hits Israel, will be hit back. We will no longer remain silent.”

Israeli officials have been spurred into action after recent gains by supporters of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, known by the acronym BDS, which included comments by the director of major French communication Orange that he is keen to pull out of a partnership with Israel, and a vote by British students to support the boycott movement. The movement has led to many student groups, who are not affiliated with either Israel or Palestine, to take grassroots action to stop the human rights abuses in the Gaza strip.

The movement has even been stirred up inside the notoriously close-knit Israeli nation, as numerous current and former soldiers have recently gone on record outlining the murder of Palestinian children, women and unarmed males in a campaign of “indiscriminate killing”, according to a United Nations report.

Mainstream Media Partnering With Virginia Tech To Develop Drone News Coverage

Finance

While drones have, thus far, mostly been a solution looking for a problem, mainstream media figures that they can use the flying quadcopters to take pictures of the news. Mega-outlet CNN has already announced plans to make drones part of news coverage but it isn’t the only one looking to leverage UAVs.

A group of 15 other news companies are partnering with Virginia Tech to run trials of their own. The university’s facility in Bealeton, Virginia is one of the few FAA approved test sites for such activities.

The group of media companies includes Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Getty Images, USA Today, NBC Universal, Univision and others. The group has worked with the National Press Photographers Association to create guidelines for the trials, though its unclear why such agreements would be needed.

“The research testing we are initiating will provide the news media coalition a safe and innovative way to gather and disseminate information and keep journalists out of harm’s way,” said Rose Mooney, the executive director of Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership.

The testing begins today and will focus on the use of drones in both remote and urban locations.

Video capture is the leading market for drones, which aren’t capable of carrying heavy loads. Cameras and video recording equipment is now high quality and extremely light, making it the perfect payload for drones. The footage is already being used extensively in reality TV shows, where a cheap drone camera rig can capture shots previously only possible with expensive helicopters.

New Facebook App Immediately Banned In Europe Over Privacy Issues

Finance

The world’s media gave Facebook’s latest app release on Monday the fluffiest of coverage but missed one key thing: Moments, the new photo sharing app, won’t be coming to Europe any time soon.

The creepy facial recognition software in Moments, which automatically scans the faces in any picture against Facebook’s massive database of users (and non-users!) violates EU privacy standards.

Since 2012 Facebook has disabled the privacy invading facial recognition software on its system in Europe to ensure compliance with EU privacy laws that ban the practice.

After the splashy U.S. launch of Moments, Facebook declined to comment about any planned deployment of the app inside the EU.

In classic word games, for which Facebook is known for, it promised that its Moments app would sync photos on an Android or iOS device in “a private way” to allow close friends to quickly share pictures of each other.

While Facebook is no doubt eager to convince EU regulators to soften their stance against Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology, the EU isn’t exactly impressed by the company, as it faces numerous probes from both the EU and individual member countries over its business practices.

Huge Flaw Leaves Virtually All Samsung Galaxy Phones Exposed To Hacking, Eavesdropping

Finance

If you’re the owner of virtually any Samsung Galaxy device, chances are it has a security flaw that lets hackers install malware on it or eavesdrop on your calls.

The worst part is that there is nothing you can do it about it.

Chicago-based security firm NowSecure has published details on a bug in the Swift keyboard software which is pre-installed on over 600 million Samsung devices. The bugs allows a remote attacker to control a user’s network traffic to launch any software they want on a user’s phone.

The problem is that if your phone has the Swift keyboard software installed it’s impossible to uninstall it.

Swift runs with the highest permissions possible, meaning once a hacker has compromised it they can secretly install malware on a user’s device, access the phone’s camera, microphone and GPS, eavesdrop on calls and messages, steal photos and text messages. and change the way other apps behave.

In a shocking oversight, NowSecure notified Samsung of the vulnerability in December 2014, along with the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) and Google’s Android team. But it appears despite Samsung issuing a patch to network operators, who control the software on your phone, many didn’t install it.

The affected devices include the popular Samsung Galaxy S6, S5, S4 and S4 mini on all major U.S. carriers.

NowSecure says the only way to make yourself a little safer is to avoid unsecured Wi-Fi networks or use a different mobile device, which probably isn’t practical for more people.

Fortunately, while the vulnerability is severe, your chances of being infected are minimal because a user must be connected to a compromised network, where a hacker with the right tools is specifically targeting their device.

Yet while most civilians won’t be victim to such an attack, its likely that this exploit has already made its way into the arsenal of cyber weapons used by China, Russia and various other nations, which means our politicians, military leaders and corporate executives are at risk.

China Reads Statement, Continues Full Steam Ahead With Military Bases In Disputed Waters

Entertainment News

The Chinese foreign ministry released its latest belligerent statement indicating the country has nearly completed its illegal South China Sea island construction projects. Even as China signaled an end to its dredging activities, it continues to build military bases on the islands, a fact which it conveniently buried in the press release.

“Apart from satisfying the need of necessary military defense, the main purpose of China’s construction activities is to meet various civilian demands and better perform China’s international obligations,” the foreign ministry started with, before vaguely stating that “after the land reclamation, we will start the building of facilities to meet relevant functional requirements.”

As one of the “relevant functional requirements” is “satisfying the need of necessary military defense,” China will continue to construct precisely the type of facilities on the islands that have become the subject of intense international controversy.

The essence of China’s announcement is that it is simply shifting work on disputed South China Sea islands from creating land in the middle of the sea to constructing military facilities. In short, its pushing forward with a program that has deeply aggravated tensions with the U.S. and more importantly its Asian neighbors.

“This is a step toward halting land reclamation, which the U.S. has demanded, and at the same time, China can tell its people that it has accomplished what it wanted to do,” said Huang Jing, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the Singapore-based Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

“China unilaterally started the land reclamation and now China is unilaterally stopping it,” Mr. Huang said. “China is showing that—as a major power—it can control escalation, that it has the initiative, and that it can do what it sees fit for its interests.”

The Philippines’ Foreign Ministry as well as the foreign ministries of Vietnamese Malaysia declined to comment on the statement.

The timing of China’s statement comes on the final day for China to submit comments to an international arbitration tribunal that is weighing the Philippines’ territorial claims in the South China Sea.

China has made clear it wants nothing to do with the arbitration proceedings in The Hague, contending that The United Nations has no jurisdiction, and that it will not recognize the tribunal’s verdict.

The statements by China are typical of Chinese foreign policy – say one thing, do the other. The heavily censored country seems to lack awareness of just how closely scrutinized its actions are, as well as the response they will trigger from its neighbors, both economically and militarily.

In addition to stalling trade, the Chinese land grabs have led Vietnam, one of the strongest and most battle tested armies in the region, to purchase sophisticated U.S. weapons systems, which we covered here.

SEC Chief Found To Embody And Promote Wall Street-Regulator Revolving Door Policy

News

A new report has severely eroded the already thin credibility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and its Chair Mary Jo White, finding the head of the securities regulator “both embodies and promotes the revolving door between government regulator and regulated industry that empowers Wall Street insiders at the expense of investors and society writ large.”

The damning findings are detailed in a new report by Rootstrikers, a nonprofit organization that advocates for campaign finance reform. The report, released Tuesday, criticizes White’s work as a corporate defense lawyer, her recusals from certain SEC enforcement cases and her continued policy of hiring aides who previously worked in the securities industry.

It goes on to criticize White for letting her longstanding ties to Wall Street skew her ability to police the finance industry. The report referenced the litany of complaints by left-leaning groups about her tenure.

The attack increases pressure on White, particularly from Democrats, who are demanding the SEC impose appropriate penalties on financial firms and at the same time finally complete rules that have languished for years.

White’s sharpest critics include Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who bluntly called her leadership “extremely disappointing.”

Responding to the straight-shooting Warren, White, in a typically tone-deaf statement, said that she is “very proud of the agency’s achievements under my leadership, including our record year in enforcement and the commission’s efforts in advancing more than 30 congressionally mandated rulemakings and other transformative policy initiatives to protect investors and strengthen our markets.”

“We wanted to put this report out and really lay out a strong case on why the Obama administration should have chosen better last time around,” said Kurt Walters, campaign manager for Rootstrikers, in reference to White’s selection. “We intend to encourage them to make the right choice this time.”

Rootstrikers began operation in 2011 and was founded by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig. It has principally been active in pushing to reform the campaign finance system in the wake of Supreme Court decisions that have resulted in corporations and union controlling virtually every politician in the country. It has more recently taken an interest in issues related to financial regulation.

One of the major regulations that both Rootstrikers and investor advocates want passed by the SEC would force companies to publicly disclose their political spending.

White has, predictably, signaled the SEC won’t act on the measure.

Amazon Uses ‘We’re From The Internet So Laws Don’t Apply’ Strategy To Avoid Drone Regulation

News

As time has passed since the founding of America the federal government increasingly regulates nearly all activity within the nation. While originally states were able to decide what is best for them, based on what local residents wanted, its now the feds calling the shots.

Or make that corporations.

Federal regulation makes it easy for corporations to get laws changed to their advantage. Lobby one group in D.C., get the entire country on board.

The latest shining example of this comes courtesy of internet retailer Amazon, which warned a House oversight committee that states and cities “must not be allowed” to regulate unmanned aircraft that get the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval.

If Amazon wants to fly a drone in your backyard and the FAA gives it permission to fly a drone, it can put it in your backyard, so the theory goes.

Amazon argues that there should be only one set of rules for airspace, purpose and qualifications of drone aircraft, such as those that would be used in its drone delivery service.

For Amazon, this makes sense. It would be very hard to run a nationwide drone delivery service if some states or cities have strict requirements or ban these services entirely.

Yet that’s precisely what states and cities ought to do. They already do it with airports, to ensure planes aren’t flying over residential houses at all hours of the day and that planes fly in an orderly pattern so as to avoid chaos in the skies.

Commercial airlines are subject to a variety of such restrictions as they fly people across the country, meaning there’s no reason why Amazon, the U.S. Postal Service or anyone else shouldn’t be subject to the same set of rules as well.

The push for the new rules comes, as nearly always, from a billionaire looking to make more billions. In this case Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who notoriously fought the idea of paying state sales tax because his company was from the internet, is looking to mass-invade the rights of American citizens by lobbying DC, all so he can make a buck.

Its a case study in what’s wrong with American democracy, not to mention the political process in Washington.

But don’t expect Amazon to go down without a long, drawn-out, tooth and nail fight. Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the influential Washington Post newspaper because he’s suddenly into journalism. He bought it to lobby, hard, for changes, such as establishing a single American rulebook for robotic shipments, that benefit him personally.

How Much Should Your Child Be Eating? New Study Says Way Less.

Health & Wellness

The rise in America’s level of obesity isn’t just affecting adults. Children are increasingly developing weight related diseases once seen only among an older population. Fatty liver disease, hypertension and osteoporosis are among the typically adult diseases being diagnosed more and more in children. Others include sleep apnea, Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol levels.

The importance of recognizing obesity early and stopping the cardiovascular decline it causes in young children has become so critical that the American Academy of Pediatrics established guidelines and recommendations for pediatricians, who typically do not see the resulting health issues in their patients.

“Several studies have shown that obesity is under recognized by parents as well as by physicians,” said Dr. Seema Kumar, of the Mayo Clinic Children’s Center.

“Parents in general tend to think they will outgrow it. It also depends on the ethnic group they’re coming from. In some cultures, being overweight is actually a sign of prosperity. So they may actually not even consider that as a problem.”

A study by the New York University Langone Medical Center, published online in April in the journal Childhood Obesity confirmed Kumar’s observations. It found that while rates of childhood obesity have risen over the last several decades, an overwhelming majority of parents perceive their kids as “about the right weight.”

Dr. James J. Maciejko, who studies the science of fats in the body at the Adult and Pediatric Lipid Clinics at St. John Hospital in Detroit, is deeply concerned by how few Americans understand the grave dangers posed by overeating. Maciejko sees children eating 3,000 calories a day, which is significantly more than their young bodies can handle. In general, he recommends that pre-pubescent children should be consuming about 2,000 calories per day, slightly more if they are extremely active. After puberty, most boys should consume about 2,000 calories a day and girls about 1,500.

So what should parents do?

In short, the same things adults should be doing: Eating healthy sources of protein such as low-fat dairy products, lean cuts of meat and eggs; fresh fruit and vegetables, and healthy beverages such as water and skim milk, according to Maciejko.

He also advises to avoid excess starch such as potatoes, pasta, and white bread and instead eating whole-grain pasta, rye or whole-grain bread and vegetables.

The big key though is portions. Whether the foods are healthier or not, the total amount matters.

New York City Seizes 500 Illegal Uber Cars In Latest Escalation

Finance

While well-funded ride sharing company Uber wages hundreds of legal battles across the world over its ride sharing app, some municipalities are becoming fed up. Case in point: New York City, which has begun seizing improperly registered Uber cars.

New data shows that hundreds of Uber cars were taken off NYC streets this spring as part of a larger crackdown on illegal activity by black and livery cars.

The powerful Taxi and Limousine Commission seized 496 cars affiliated with Uber between April 29th and June 15th for picking up illegal street hails, according to released records.

Black and livery cars are only allowed to do pre-arranged trips, either through a smartphone app or a base dispatch.

Many of the Uber drivers were doing illegal pick-ups at JFK Airport, resulting in their vehicles being seized.

“Street hails are not permitted on the Uber platform — period,” said Uber spokesman Matt Wing. “This is a small group of bad actors and the violations add up to less than one hundredth of one period of our rides over the same time period.”

Uber has 19,000 drivers in the NYC market which is about 30 percent of the industry.

“The fact that the TLC has seized such a staggering amount of Uber cars in such a short period of time only shows that more oversight is needed,” said Tweeps Phillips Woods of the Committee for Taxi Safety, which represents taxi brokers as well as drivers who own their vehicles.

The New York Taxiworkers Alliance is strongly against Uber, as it has depress their wages as there are no caps on the number of Uber drivers.

“I think it’s honestly a reflection of the oversaturation of the vehicles, and the desperation everyone is feeling on the streets to earn a living,” said Bhairavi Desai, who represents both yellow cab and Uber drivers for the union.

Desai wants a cap on the number of Uber drivers, and require the app to give them a minimum fare requirement, in addition to a guaranteed number of trips.

“At least they’re beginning to take action,” she added.

While occupying 30 percent of the market, Uber drivers accounted for over 50 percent of the total of 938 black, livery, and luxury cars were taken off the streets.

“Our officers noted an uptick in illegal activity attributable to licensed for-hire vehicles acting outside their authority,” said agency spokesman Allan Fromberg. “And seizures have a greater deterrent value than summonses alone.”

Citigroup Found To Be Enabling Vast Money Laundering In Latest Act Of Bank Criminality

Finance

The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal investigation into money laundering at Citigroup Inc.’s Banamex USA unit has unearthed violations serious enough to warrant a large fine under the Bank Secrecy Act, according to reports.

The criminal revelations are the latest to plague America’s banking system, which has been handed tens of billions of dollars in fines over the last 3 years yet somehow escaped criminal prosecution.

Prosecutors uncovered e-mails from low-level employees at the unit who had concerns about lax anti-money-laundering practices, specifically that they didn’t know enough information about the recipients of large cash transfers, and that requests for more resources for compliance staff were ignored.

There are likely to be more violations, as the investigation, conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, won’t be finished until next year.

The corruption runs deep in the U.S. banking industry, as just last year JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid $2.6 billion to the Justice Department and other regulators for failing to halt Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the biggest fine yet from a probe into secrecy-act violations.

Citigroup and the Justice Department both declined to comment on the reports.

Yet Citigroup clearly knows a large fine is coming, as it set aside $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter to cover fines from investigations into money laundering as well as allegations, in addition to rigging currency and interest-rate benchmarks and other “small matters”, according to company presentations.

So while the bank, like many others such as JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, continues to run a brazenly criminal operation, nobody within law enforcement seems to be able or willing to prosecute.

While the large fines make headlines they amount to far less than the spoils the banks reaped from their various criminal enterprises.

The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 was passed to stop organized crime from laundering funds through foreign accounts. It mandates that U.S. banks keep records of transactions of more than $10,000 and obliges them to report suspicious activities that could be linked to money laundering, tax evasion or other criminal activity.

Pakistan Secures First International Customer For Homemade Fighter Jet

Entertainment News

The first day of the Paris International Air Show saw Pakistan make the most surprising announcement, as according to the Pakistan Air Force, it has successfully secured an export order for its newest fighter jet, the JF-17 Thunder.

The jet, manufactured in Pakistan in collaboration with China, is hardly a world-beater. While cheap, at around $25 million a unit its slow and lacks modern avionics, which makes a customer order somewhat surprising.

Khalid Mahmood, Air commodore for the Pakistan Air force and the chief officer responsible for sales and marketing, confirmed “we have signed a contract with an Asian country.”

The name of the ‘friend country’ and the specific number of jets ordered is not being revealed for security purposes.

When asked about what makes the aircraft compelling, the chief project director, Arshad Malik, revealed, “JF-17 contains all the facilities that a latest fighter jet should contain.”

He further stated that “new fighter jets are based on an avionic system, and this jet contains the latest avionics of the world which can combat any 4th generation jet.” He also confirmed that the JF-17 Thunder has been introduced with the latest Pakistani missile system that can attack a target at sea.

Three JF-17 Thunder jets were taken to the Paris show by the Pakistan Air Force. One aircraft will perform flying displays each day, while the other two fighters are on a static display, exhibiting their latest weapons.

Khalid also provided an update on Pakistan’s induction of the type.

So far, 54 examples have been produced and delivered to the Air Force. The first 50 were originally delivered in a Block I configuration, and these are in the process of being updated to a Block II configuration. The Block II setup features improved avionics and better software, and adds a fixed air-to-air refueling probe.

Another 46 aircraft will be delivered in the Block II configuration. A subsequent 50 aircraft, pushing Pakistan’s fleet to 150 aircraft, will have an advanced Block III configuration. These are forecast to be delivered by the end of 2018.

Leaked Contract Shows Taser Gouging Police Forces For Body Cams

News

In the wake of the Baltimore riots, police forces are quickly deploying body cameras to record police activities, raising logistical questions about how to store all that video, and for how much.

A leaked $2.7 million contract between Taser International and the Fort Worth, Texas, police department shows contractors are lining up to provide the service, while marking up storage prices as high as 23 times what they should be.

Such plundering of public funds is hardly new in the are of paramilitary policing, where forces rush to get their hands on military-grade hardware despite having little to no use for it. In Taser’s case, the company’s Evidence.com app and video-storage fees are literally 23 times more expensive than Amazon Web Services charges for storage alone, which Taser uses to host files for Evidence.com.

While police require extra software functions such as security and some applications to retrieve footage, these are all one time costs and do not come anywhere near justifying the outrageous price Taser has decided to charge.

Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle tried to muddy the waters by saying that a “direct comparison is inaccurate.”

“By looking at the storage line items, you can see that we’ve never charged a customer over $1.50” per gigabyte per year, Tuttle adds.

The only problem with that fine sounding statement is that Amazon, of which Taser is essentially a middle-man to, charges less than 36¢ a year, for its top storage option.

The difference in price is significant. Fort Worth purchased 64 terabytes of storage a year from Taser, which at Amazon’s highest-priced option costs about $30 per terabyte per month, or about $23,040 a year assuming no bulk discount.

That compares with $527,198 Taser is charging the Forth Worth police department.

Taser, which supplies stun guns and body cameras, is using its hardware to lure police forces into the ridiculously expensive monthly service. Yet in the Fort Worth contract, the price is still 14 times more expensive than Amazon, even when factoring in free hardware.

Thanks to supply rules, carved out by the lobbyists that represent the major defense contractors, “Only certain companies can be considered, as we have specific needs in reference to the storing of criminal evidence,” Officer Tamara Pena, a spokeswoman for the department, said.

By eliminating competition from the bidding process, Taser gets to be nearly the only game in town and can charge whatever it would like.

With contracts already in place to provide energy weapons to nearly all of the 18,000-plus police departments in the U.S., Taser is now a leader in the body camera and video-storage markets. It been aggressively pursuing these markets after a wave of litigation over the lethal use of its stun guns.

The astounding rate at which companies like Taser can siphon money out of the public coffers mean less schools, roads, hospitals and other vital community services for American cities and towns. And big paydays for Taser executives and their shareholders.

Which also gives rise to ethical concerns. Taser, in seeking this super-lucrative new business, has been found to be bribing local police chiefs to make sure it gets its foot in the door. Once its in, moving away from the company is difficult. Taser then attaches itself like a parasite, sucking public funds for years or decades to come.

Thousands Of Red Crabs Invade San Diego Coastline

Culture

Thousands of bright red crabs are taking over San Diego’s coastline, from Ocean Beach the the way to La Jolla.

For the past couple of weeks the small red tuna crabs have been washing up along the southern California shoreline, according to reports from local media.

The beach invader showing up en mass are likely the result of warm water carrying the crustaceans from their normal home along the west coast of Baja California and the Gulf of California, says Linsey Sala, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“Typically such strandings of these species in large numbers are due to warm water intrusions,” said Sala.

Pleuroncodes planipes, the proper name of the species, is subject to such currents because of its unique live cycle. It can live its entire life, from larvae to adulthood, in the water column from surface to seafloor, said Sala. This means it can easily be carried along by winds, tides, and currents.

The red-shelled visitors have been flooding social media, as locals marvel at the thousands, if not millions, of crabs.

There isn’t much local can do, however, as experts warn against eating the creatures because they likely contain unknown toxins.

FBI Investigating Attacks On Major San Francisco Internet Cables

News

Over the past year, on four separate nights, ten important telecom cables were intentionally cut in Fremont, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Berkeley and San Jose, the FBI announced on Monday.

FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich said it’s not clear if the incidents are connected, but the FBI is would like to hear from anyone who may have witnessed anything suspicious.

“We are hoping for anybody that has seen anything out of the ordinary,” he said. The perpetrators likely wore uniforms to make themselves look like telecom employees, “so even if it looked like normal uniforms, we’d like to hear so we can vet them out.”

The FBI’s disclosure of the incidents is low key, so as not to alarm, but such purposeful cuts could easy be the work of terrorists. While not the calling card of ISIS, they could be the work of domestic terrorists looking to prove a point.

The first two cuts occurred on July 6th, 2014. Cables were severed in Berkeley and the intersection of Niles Canyon Road and Mission Boulevard in Fremont.

The night after, three additional cuts occurred – one on Niles Canyon Road near Alameda Creek, nearby the previous night’s incidents.

Then on February 24th of this year the attacker(s) struck again, cutting fiber optic cables again at each of the same Niles Canyon locations, raising the possibility that the attacks aren’t just vandalism but are targeted in some way.

Then last week the attackers struck again on June 8th.

This time a fiber cable was cut near the corner of Danville Boulevard and Rudgear Road in Alamo. Approximately 40 minutes later near Overacker Avenue and Mowry Avenue in Fremont. At 1:38pm the following day, another cable was cut near Jones Road and Parkside Drive in Walnut Creek.

The FBI is also investigating linkages to an April 2013 attack on an electricity substation near San Jose, where attackers shot at electricity transformers and several local fiber optic cables were cut at around the same time.

The attack caused telephone problems for large areas of San Jose and Silicon Valley, raising the possibility that it was targeted at the large tech companies that inhabit the region.

Which makes sense, given a June 2014 investigation by IDG News Service revealed that such attacks have been the single biggest cause of major telecom outages in the United States.

Russia’s Putin Opens ‘Military Disneyland’ Amusement Park

Entertainment News

Does a lunch of army rations or shopping for mainly Vladimir Putin accessories sound like fun? How about instead of riding roller coasters playing with grenade launchers?

That’s exactly what visitors will get when they visit Russia’s Patriot Park, unveiled by, who else? Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday.

Located an hour’s drive from Moscow in the town of Kubinka, Patriot Park will host tens of thousands of visitors daily, where they’ll have the opportunity to witness reconstructions of famous Russian military victories, operate military simulators and experience military equipment firsthand.

The park will be “an important element in our system of military-patriotic work with young people,” said Putin, who relishes the idea of Russian child soldiers, as we covered here and here. The entire construction reportedly cost over $360 million.

But it won’t just be a “military Disneyland” as Patriot Park is also a full service conference and exhibition venue. On Tuesday it hosted Army 2015, a Russian military exhibition showcasing the latest equipment. The event is a lackluster rival to the Paris International Air Show, which is occurring this week and where most of the world’s militaries present their latest technology for purchase.

Russia is, of course, not welcome and so decided to throw its own arms trade show.

Putin arrived is style fit for a czar, by helicopter and speaking in front of a military choir and balalaika orchestra, who belted out patriotic songs. Putin touted the Russian next-generation Armata tank, which broke down during its unveiling at a military parade in Moscow last month.

Putin promised that hotels and entertainment centers will be opened on the grounds, which will allow families to visit for several days and have a complete holiday, according to promotional literature distributed at the unveiling.

Like many Russian construction projects the park isn’t yet finished and is due to be fully completed in 2017.

Iran Sentences 18 To Prison For Being Christian

Entertainment News

Iran’s revolutionary ‘court’ imposed harsh prison sentences last week on 18 Christian converts for charges that included ‘evangelism’, ‘propaganda against the regime’, and creating house churches to practice their faith, according to leaks from the Islamic Republic’s secretive judicial system.

The sentences totaled 24 years, though the lack of transparency in Iran’s tightly censored judicial system does not provide for a breakdown of individual sentences. The defendants were additionally barred from organizing home church meetings and given a two-year ban from leaving the country.

“The cruelty of Iran’s dictatorial leaders knows no limits,” Saba Farzan, the German-Iranian executive director of Foreign Policy Circle, told reporters.

The Christians, most of whom have been arrested since 2013, were sentenced under with notorious Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, a vague law used as a catch-all to penalize threats to Iran’s fanatical religious rulers. The law states that “Anyone who engages in any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations, shall be sentenced to three months to one year of imprisonment.”

Morad Mokhtari, Christian Iranian who fled the Islamic Republic in 2006, told Fox News on Monday that many of the charges were related to home church activities.

“Iranian religious authorities prefer that they [converts to Christianity] leave Iran because the authorities can’t control them,” Mokhatari said. “Just their name is evangelism. Imagine someone says he is a Christian and has a Muslim name.”

Two reports released by the United State Commission on International Religious Freedom and by a UN study on human rights, respectively, documented extreme persecution of Muslim converts to Christianity.

“Over the past year, there were numerous incidents of Iranian authorities raiding church services, threatening church members, and arresting and imprisoning worshipers and church leaders, particularly Evangelical Christian converts,” read the commission report. “Since 2010, authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained more than 500 Christians throughout the country.”

There are estimated to be between 200,000 and 500,000 Christians in the country, which has an overall population of nearly 78 million people. While Iran’s constitution guarantees on paper that Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism are protected religions, the application of Sharia Law relegates members of minority religions to second class status.

“The Iranian regime’s systematic persecution of Christians, as well as Baha’is, Sunni Muslims, dissenting Shi’a Muslims, and other religious minorities, is getting worse not better,” said U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) “This is a direct consequence of President Obama’s decision to de-link demands for improvements in religious freedom and human rights in Iran from the nuclear negotiations.”

Hamid Babaei, head of the press office in the Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York, declined to comment.

Avocados Found To Contain Key Cancer Fighting Chemical

Health & Wellness

Avocados, the single most popular fruit in the United States, are long known for their mild taste and healthy fats but new research shows that they may also contain a key to fighting leukemia.

Molecules derived from the humble avocado have been shown to target the stem cells of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) sufferers, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer Research. The fat molecule found in avocado is similar to just a small number of drug treatments available that attack leukemia stem cells directly yet leave healthy cells unharmed.

AML is the most aggressive form of Leukemia, a cancer that kills 90 percent of people over 65 who are diagnosed. Drugs that target stem cells are the most effective in treating the disease.

“The stem cell is really the cell that drives the disease,” said Professor Paul Spagnuolo, from the University of Waterloo and author of the study. “The stem cell is largely responsible for the disease developing and it’s the reason why so many patients with leukemia relapse.”

While a production drug is still years away from being approved for patient use, Spagnuolo is already preparing the compound for a Phase I clinical trial, the first step is getting a drug to market.

Scientists Grow Complete Rat Limb In Laboratory

Health & Wellness

The scientists of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston made news earlier this month after they published research in the journal Biomaterials describing the process they used to create the world’s first artificial limb in the laboratory.

The fact that scientists have now grown the entire forelimb of a rat in a lab has huge implications for human medicine, where artificially grown limbs or other organs would carry a significantly lower chance of rejection by the body that transplants from donors.

Dr. Harold Ott, head of the Ott Laboratory for Organ Engineering and Regeneration, led the team that was able to “engineer rat forelimbs with functioning vascular and muscle tissue,” according to the hospital.

The scientists used a process called decellularization, where they removed the living tissue from an existing rat limb, leaving just the “framework” of proteins behind. They then re-populated this “scaffolding” with healthy, living cells.

While not a limb from scratch, the holy grail of lab grown organs, it is the first step leading to such lab grown organs, which could be used in transplants.

“The loss of an extremity is a disastrous injury with tremendous impact on a patient’s life,” Ott and his team wrote in Biomaterials. “Current mechanical prostheses are technically highly sophisticated, but only partially replace physiologic function and aesthetic appearance.”

“[Ott’s] team and others at MGH and elsewhere have used this decellularization technique to regenerate kidneys, livers, hearts and lungs from animal models, but this is the first reported use to engineer the more complex tissues of a bioartificial limb,” Mass General said in a press release.

Ott said his team’s work “finally proved that we can regenerate functional muscle.” The team was able to prove this when they ran an electrical current through the muscle tissue and the little limb began to twitch.

The team is now working on the arms of primates, which seems to be showing that the process might work on humans.

Gap Announces It Will Close 175 Retail Stores Across North America

Finance

Iconic American retailer The Gap announced on Tuesday that it will close 175 stores across North America over the next few years as it struggles to turn around the business.

A “limited number” of European stores will also be closed, the San-Francisco-based company said in a statement.

The company also announced further cuts of about 250 jobs from its head office in addition to the store closings.

Once known for its trendy jeans and celebrity endorsed khakis, it has been struggling with falling sales amid competition from fast-fashion brands like H&M and Zara.

Same store sales for the Gap brand fell by 15% in April, compared with a 3% increase in the same month last year.

Chief executive Art Peck said: “Returning Gap brand to growth has been the top priority since my appointment four months ago.”

“Customers are rapidly changing how they shop today, and these moves will help get Gap back to where we know it deserves to be in the eyes of consumers,” he added.

Yet how growth will happen remains unclear, as the closures will result in $300 million of lost sales, Gap said, and result in a one-off cost of between $140 to $160 million.

It did not say how many employees would be laid off as a result, though there will likely be over 2000 layoffs.

Federal Law Allows Companies To Fire Sick Employees For Using Medical Marjuana

News

While the citizens of Colorado have enacted laws to permit the sale and use of marijuana, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-0 on Monday that a medical marijuana patient who was fired after failing a drug test cannot get his job back.

The bizarre ruling in the closely watched case makes Colorado the fourth state in which courts have ruled against medical marijuana patients fired for taking their medicine.

Despite having medical conditions and doctor prescribed marijuana, federal laws still criminalize all uses of Marijuana, creating a loophole that allows employers to fire sick workers who need the drug.

Supreme courts in California, Montana and Washington state have all made similar rulings, while federal courts in Colorado and Michigan have rejected such claims.

Underscoring the absurdity of the law, the Colorado worker in question, Brandon Coats, is a quadriplegic who was fired by Dish Network after failing a 2010 drug test.

The loophole allows employers to legally remove sick employees, who use healthcare insurance and lead to increased premiums that must be paid mostly by employers.

In addition to being sick, they now face huge medical bills without insurance.

Dish Network agreed that Coats wasn’t high on the job and didn’t use marijuana at work but cited its zero-tolerance drug policy, a highly convenient excuse to part ways with the sick man.

Coats maintained that his pot smoking was legal under a state law intended to protect employees from being fired for legal activities that happen off the clock.

Yet the Colorado justices ruled that because marijuana is still illegal under federal law, Coats’ use of the drug wasn’t a legal off-duty activity. “There is no exception for marijuana use for medicinal purposes, or for marijuana use conducted in accordance with state law,” the court wrote in a ruling that will surely be outdated in short order.

“Although I’m very disappointed today, I hope that my case has brought the issue of use of medical marijuana and employment to light,” Coats said in a statement.

Coats was paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager and has had a prescription for medical marijuana since 2009, which he uses to help calm violent muscle spasms.

Toymaker Lego Will Invest Over $170 Million To Find Sustainable Alternative To Plastic

Culture

Going green and using sustainable production methods and materials is creeping into every part of society – from hybrid cars, to LEED buildings and even now children’s toys. Famed Danish toymaker Lego announced on Tuesday that it will invest over $170 million in finding sustainable materials for toys and packaging, including a replacement for the oil-based plastic used in its iconic building blocks.

“It’s a big step in the right direction in achieving our ambition of sustainable materials by 2030,” said Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of the Lego Group.

“We have already taken important steps to reduce our CO2 emissions and do something positive for the environment by reducing box sizes and investing in an offshore wind farm. Now, we are shifting our focus towards our materials.”

The initiative will see Lego create a ‘Lego Sustainable Materials Centre’ in Berlin, where more than 100 specialists will work on research and improvements to production methods.

Lego’s biggest shareholder Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen called the move an important and necessary step forward for the company.

“The investment is a testament to our continued ambition to have a positive impact on the world our future generations will inherit,” he said.

Kristiansen, a descendant of Lego’s founder, pointed out that the plan is largely in line with Lego Group’s mission statement and fits with the motto of his grandfather, Ole Kirk Kristiansen that “only the best is good enough.”

While the move is a giant step forward for the company, it has a significant challenge on its hands. The toymaker produces an average of 60 billion bricks per year and has already been working to find alternatives to oil-based plastic since 2012.

The technical challenge for Lego is to find a plastic material that is just as color-responsive yet physically as stable as the current petroleum-based Lego bricks.

“Several factors affect the environmental sustainability of materials. When we’re looking for new materials, all factors are included,” Knudstorp said.

Food And Drug Administration Enacts Sweeping Ban On Trans Fats

Health & Wellness

The FDA reached an agreement on Tuesday in which artificial trans fat will be removed from the U.S. food supply over the next three years due to such products posing health risks that contribute to heart disease.

The FDA’s final decision, released Tuesday, stated that there’s no longer a scientific consensus that partially hydrogenated oils, the primary source of trans fat, are safe.

Partially hydrogenated oils are typically used for frying, in baked goods and confections.

Food manufacturers will still be able to petition the FDA for specific uses of partially hydrogenated oils if they can prove the use isn’t harmful. A June 2018 deadline has been set to comply with the FDA’s determination.

While the new regulation still leaves the door open for manufacturers to present data that their specific uses are safe, the FDA said it hasn’t seen any data to prove that even very low levels of partially hydrogenated oils are safe for humans.

Partially hydrogenated oils have been used by big food manufacturers for decades, though many such have been phasing them out. Most baked goods such as pie crusts, biscuits and canned frosting still use partially hydrogenated oils because they help processed baked goods maintain their flakiness and help long shelf life frostings remain spreadable.

To replace the dangerous oils in frying, palm oil is expected to be the most common alternative, while modified soybean oil could be used as well.

“I don’t know how many lives will be saved, but probably in the thousands per year when all the companies are in compliance,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

According to the FDA, the ban will cost the food industry $6.2 billion over 20 years, due to the need to reformulate products and find substitute ingredients. But the FDA estimates that the benefits will total $140 billion during the same time period from lower spending on health care.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the lobby group for big food companies, said that the three-year compliance period “provides time needed for food manufacturers to complete their transition.”

Yet the association will still petition the FDA for approval of uses of low levels of partially hydrogenated oils and thinks it can demonstrate they are as safe as naturally occurring trans fat.

Australian PM Caught Paying Criminal Syndicates To Return Migrants Home

Entertainment News

Prime Minister Tony Abbott dodged new questions on Sunday about whether Australian officials paid people smugglers thousands of dollars to return 65 asylum seekers to Indonesia, saying only that his government is “prepared to do what is necessary to keep the boats stopped”.

Mr Abbott was asked four direct questions about the claims in Canberra on Sunday, including whether Australian taxpayers had a right to know the government was funding a criminal syndicate.
Both Abbott and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not comment on the operation.

The questions come after the United Nations interviewed asylum seekers who allegedly witnessed the handover of money, prompting Abbott to be asked whether the Australian government would be launching an investigation into the claims.

“Again I keep making the point the only question that matters is, is this government prepared to do what is necessary to keep the boats stopped, the answer is yes,” said a typically dismissive Abbott, who is known have a flagrant disregard for the rule of law if it interferes with what he sees as his moral duty.

When asked if he believed it “didn’t matter” that Australia was funding people smugglers, he responded:

“What I am saying is that we keep the boats stopped, that’s the important thing. We will do whatever is reasonably necessary consistent with the principles of a decent and humane society to keep the boats stopped. That’s what we will do.”

“Unfortunately we know the Labor party will start them up again. It’s interesting the Labor party is now asking about people smugglers and their financing. The Labor party put the people smugglers into business,” Abbott said, in an attempt to deflect blame to his political rivals.

The United Nations revealed it had interviewed asylum seekers in Indonesia who repeated allegations that Australian officials paid human traffickers thousands of dollars to return to Indonesia.

James Lynch, the regional director of the United Nations High Commission On Human Rights (UNHCR), said that the asylum seekers were held on a Customs vessel for four days before being put on two blue boats and returned to Indonesia.

“The boat that was rescued by the Indonesian navy on 31 May – we have interviewed the 65 passengers and they have said that the crew received a payment,” Mr Lynch told the BBC.

“What we were told – this is unconfirmed – but what we were told by the 65 passengers is that they were intercepted by a naval vessel from Australia. And then they were transferred to a customs boat where they spent four days. And then they were put on two blue boats and then sent back to Indonesia,” he said.

UNHCR head Antonio Guterres has strongly criticized Australia for paying off criminal gangs.

“We need to crack down on smuggling and trafficking: not paying to them, but putting them in jail whenever possible, or prosecuting them,” he said to the BBC.

“But at the same time protecting the victims, and with each country assuming also its responsibilities in relation to the protection of refugees,” he said.

A number of government ministers have refused to confirm or deny if people smugglers were paid by Australian officials, citing the vague “on water” matters.

New Chinese Submarine Hunting Ship “Like A Black Hole In The Ocean”

Entertainment News

Photos of the Chinese navy’s new Type 636 survey ship have been posted by “military fans” on Chinese social media, showing China’s advanced capabilities in building super-quiet anti-submarine warships.

The captions on the photos state that the Chinese navy’s Type 636 survey ship is “brilliant in its silence” thanks to a side slanting propeller, a floating vibration dampening system for its diesel generator, the vibration-reduction design of its major machinery, and a soft connection from the hull to its acoustic monitoring equipment.

Enthusiastic Chinese posters said that the ship is quieter by far than other anti-submarine warships, effectively making it a “black hole in the ocean.”

Yet it remains to be seen if the enthusiasm is of military significance. According to experts the silencing technology used on the new ship has also been used in many destroyers and frigates in service in the Chinese navy, as well as Russian and American vessels.

Given the details of the technology and the rather odd designation of ‘survey ship’, experts believe that the ships are in fact anti-submarine warfare vessels.

Experts believe the new warship is a Type 054 frigate, specifically the Daqing no. 576, with enhanced anti-submarine capability.

The class is already deployed throughout the Chinese Navy but no. 576 likely has an upgraded surveillance package.

The U.S. Navy did not comment on the latest reports and due to deep secrecy around the capabilities of American submarines it is unknown if the new Chinese vessel would pose a direct threat to American vessels.

Florida Town Makes It Illegal To Live Off The Grid

News

As the world moves towards solar panels, wind power and naturally cooled homes, off the grid living is becoming a viable reality for those willing to make the investment. But unplugging from municipal services means that those who still have use of them would need to pay more, given the costs would be spread less evenly.

This issue, while new, was no doubt on the mind of a Florida magistrate who ruled it illegal to unplug from the municipality of Cape Coral.

Special Magistrate Harold S. Eskin ruled that Robin Speronis is not permitted to live on her own private property without being hooked into the city’s water system.

He also ruled that while she had the right to live without utility power, all of her alternative power sources must first be approved by the city.

Speronis has been battling the city of Cape Coral for years, as back in November of 2013 a code enforcement officer actually attempted to evict her for “living without utilities.”

The city argues that the International Property Maintenance Code was “violated” because she chose to rely on rain water rather than paying the city for water. The IPMC also makes it a crime for her to use solar panels instead of being tied into the electric grid.

“It was a mental fistfight,” said Todd Allen, Speronis’ attorney. “There’s an inherent conflict in the code.”

Allen says that the ruling means Speronis must “hook up” to the grid, even if she doesn’t use utilities from it.

While Speronis has won on two of three counts already, there is still a big fight looming ahead of her.

“But what happens in the courtroom is much less important than touching people’s hearts and minds,” she explained.

“I think that we are continuing to be successful in doing just that and I am so pleased — there is hope! The next morning, as I took my two hour walk, there was a young man unknown to me, who drove by me, tooted his horn and said, ‘Robin, congratulations on your victory yesterday, keep up the fight and God bless you.’ That is beautiful.”

A local newspaper reported that Magistrate Eskin “admitted that the code might be obsolete.”

“Reasonableness and code requirements don’t always go hand-in-hand given societal and technical changes that requires review of code ordinances,” Eskin told the paper.

Eskin cited his obligation to enforce the code yet acknowledged that some of the charges against her are unfounded.

“I am in compliance,” Speronis said in an interview. “I’m in compliance of living… you may have to hook-up, but you don’t have to use it. Well, what’s the point?”

Speronis has been living “off the grid” for some time and it was only after she publicly discussed her home with Liza Fernandez, a local news reporter, that the city started to give her trouble. After the appearance, a code enforcement officer deemed her home as “uninhabitable” and served her an eviction notice.

“We will continue to use due process and legal measures available to enforce the codes of the city,” Connie Barron, spokeswoman for the city of Cape Coral said. “The building official has pulled the certificate of occupancy… this was the next step we decided to take to bring the property into compliance. Legally, she cannot be in the house.”

Barron fully admits that it is “unusual for the city to escalate a case to this level.”

“Even if they board the house up, I’m not leaving,” Speronis explained. “They did the best they could when they took my dogs and arrested me. It fell apart because I’m unshakable.”

Many people do not realize that the International Property Maintenance Code is still used by cities throughout the United States and Canada. It holds that even if you have power and running water, you can be evicted from your home if you remain “off the grid.”

Russian President Putin Boasts About Adding 40 Nuclear Missiles To Russian Arsenal

Entertainment News

In the latest sign that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is re-living the Cold War of his youth, the increasingly erratic leader said Russia will be deploying 40 nuclear missiles in 2015 that will be able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems.

Putin’s comments, appropriately delivered at an arms fair, come after the U.S. proposed increasing its military presence in Eastern Europe NATO states.

That move comes after Russia invaded Ukraine and continues to occupy the territory.

The 40 nuclear missiles are not additional missiles, but would replace older models with new designs capable of penetrating anti-missiles defense systems.

Russian military officials have warned that Moscow will respond if the U.S. carries out its plan to move heavy military equipment into Eastern Europe. Russia views the Baltic states, where the U.S. may store such weapons, as part of the ‘Soviet Union’, despite the fact such a state hasn’t existed in over 30 years.

“The feeling is that our colleagues from NATO countries are pushing us into an arms race,” said Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov at the arms fair, just outside Moscow. He refused to answer any questions about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is the most destabilizing event in the region since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed a renewed emphasis upon his country’s nuclear arsenal due to the country’s weakness in conventional military systems. As we reported last week, Russia lost three aircraft due to maintenance issues in the span of just five days.

Moscow is trying to modernize its strategic nuclear weapons systems, with new ballistic missiles being deployed, upgraded bombers, and new submarines being launched.

The country’s older, obsolete weapons have been withdrawn from service in recent years, leading to the overall size of the Russian arsenal decreasing.

Virtually all countries in the region have been put on edge by Putin’s increased rhetoric around nuclear weapons. Threats to deploy short-range nuclear weapons in Russian-occupied Ukraine have been accompanied by warnings of nuclear targeting against NATO members who might host ballistic missile defenses.

While most of the world realizes just how idiotic the use of nuclear weapons would be, Russia and its dictator seem stuck in the Cold War, attempting to re-live what they perceive as the glory days of the Soviet Union.

Apple Launching News Service By Stealing Other Companys’ Content

Finance

Apple is apparently not content to just provide you with movies, music and TV shows – it wants to bring you the news as well.

Apple is reportedly hiring journalists for its Apple News venture, according to a job posting. Its looking for editors to deliver “the best in breaking national, global, and local news”.

In addition to holding a bachelor’s degree in journalism or “a related field” and having more than five years of newsroom experience, candidates must have “a deep knowledge of multiple content categories”.

“They will have great instincts for breaking news, but be equally able to recognise original, compelling stories unlikely to be identified by algorithms,” the ad goes on to say.

“Successful editors will be ambitious, detail-oriented journalists with an obsession for great content and mobile news delivery.”

The product seems haphazard and has two glaring flaws.

The first issues is that Apple News would lack any sort of journalistic independence.

Apple is notoriously fanatical about employees drinking the Kool Aid. Just to work at one of its retail stores, employees must prove themselves to be die-hard Mac lovers. If you’ve ever even used an Android phone you will probably be blacklisted from the job.

So when news breaks about its rivals such as Google or Samsung, or perhaps its appauling factory conditions in China, its safe to assume Apple simply won’t cover it.

The second strange twist to the Apple News service is that it seems to want to steal content from real news outlets.

A number of Apple bloggers recently received emails from the company and they were anything but cordial. Mike Ash, who covers the company, received one of these letters, informing him that the company wants to include his content on the app’s RSS feed.

The kicker, as Ash noted in a blog post, is that Apple is mandating an “opt out” approach to scrapping his content.

He wrote: “Let me get this straight, Apple: you send me an e-mail outlining the terms under which you will redistribute my content, and you will just assume that I agree to your terms unless I opt out?”

Apple, like so many other industries its entered, is playing hardball. It will steal your content and unless you write to it requesting an opt-out, it will continue to do so for as long as it likes.