[News] News From Other Places!

It's news you can use from places with different views! (Don't misuse or abuse you yahoos.)

Mixolyde wrote:

Uganda be kidding me!

I know right? Kenya even believe this guy?

maverickz wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Uganda be kidding me!

I know right? Kenya even believe this guy?

He Congo to hell as far as I'm concerned.

This conversation got derailed all of a Sudan.

That guy is a total Chad

Nonsense, he's my pick for General of Zaire.

Don’t let this thread go South, Africa deserves better.

Pun threads can get pretty stale, but what are you Ghana do? You know?

That's why I've Benin the wings till now.

(murmurs of apprehension over who's going to do Djibouti)

This is getting to be too much, I've got Togo away from this thread.

Japan's prime minister orders government investigation into the Unification Church

I saw this article and instantly thought of a prior post saying the assassination was wildly more successful then the assassin could imagine.

IT's completely mind-blowing. It's the most successful assassination of a major world leader in my lifetime.

Like, the LDP has been in control of Japan almost continuously from 1955. Imagine if what sinks it is having its most famous leader of the last 30 years get assassinated!

It won't happen until there is a viable opposition. Right now it's really difficult to find opposition candidates to vote for. And the system doesn't really give opposition parties a chance to participate in government in such a way to make them viable alternatives. At least to a typical conservative Japanese voter.

Fuel protests gripping more than 90 countries

High costs of living are driving people to protest in the streets against crippling prices. The BBC has mapped all reported demonstrations over fuel since January 2021, revealing a huge increase in protests this year.

Fuel costs affect many aspects of daily life - personal travel, transportation of goods, energy for electricity and heating.

Around the world demonstrators have called for change. They've demanded that petrol be made more affordable or available at all.

They've sat in peaceful protests and they've attacked governments.

Some have paid an even higher price.

Ethiopia civil war: Hyenas scavenge on corpses as Tigray forces retreat

Hyenas scavenging on the corpses of villagers, cities and towns hit in air strikes, elderly men and young women conscripted into armies - these are the horrific accounts emerging from a war that has left tens, if not hundreds, of thousands dead in Ethiopia's historic region of Tigray.

The region was once a tourist attraction, with visitors drawn to its rock-hewn churches, Muslim shrines and ancient scripts in the Ge'ez language.

Now Tigray is the site of a vicious war, as the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies on the one side, and the army of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other, fight for control in a region that has long been seen as the key to power in Ethiopia - or what was historically part of Abyssinia.

When the Hindu Right Came for Bollywood

Like nudity and sex, profanity discomfits the average Indian film or television producer. This is especially true of those who make the quintessential Hindi movie—the song-and-dance melodrama, fit for all ages—but the instinct persists in those who aim to be edgier. When lawyers for Amazon Prime and an external law firm first reviewed “Tandav” ’s scripts—a customary procedure—Shiva’s line had been a full, florid “What the f*ck?” One of the lawyers told me that his team had urged the showrunners to prune the expletive, but that there was more concern about “Tandav” coming off as anti-B.J.P. One character, the lawyer remembered, “was a politician depicted as a conservative, pushing for the privatization of education, which is one of the Modi government’s issues. We always said, Do it in a way where you can’t match the incidents onscreen to real incidents.” (Amazon broadly disputed this characterization.)

Drawing inspiration from bleak headlines—the religious lynchings, the cronyism, the autocratic acts of the state—had become a fraught enterprise. The B.J.P. and its supporters were growing intolerant of contrary views and criticism, and they were liable to react badly—through social-media attacks, targeted harassment by government agencies, or endless litigation. Outright violence was rarer, although its threat was never distant. “In the year or so before ‘Tandav,’ ” the lawyer said, “people were objecting to anything.”

When “Tandav” premièred, in January, 2021, Ayyub was on location, shooting a film. On Twitter, he noticed that he was being tagged frequently—sometimes by people praising him, but mostly amid heaps of abuse. In cities and towns far from Mumbai, people filed police complaints, claiming that the portrayal of a foulmouthed Shiva was an insult to Hinduism. (A B.J.P. official told me that, in the large family of Hindu-nationalist organizations, “an enthusiastic worker can always be found who will file these complaints to keep his bosses happy.”) Such cases usually go nowhere, but in the B.J.P.’s India, where the police and the courts are pliant, it’s hard to be sanguine. Recently, a Muslim journalist was imprisoned for three weeks because someone complained that a four-year-old tweet derided Hinduism. The account that reported him was anonymous, had one tweet and one follower on the day of the arrest, and went offline thereafter.

To be safe, Amazon cut the skit scene from “Tandav” a few days after the show began streaming. But the storm raged on. A senior B.J.P. leader wrote to Amazon, accusing its “ideologically motivated employees” of running “vicious programming.” Amazon petitioned India’s Supreme Court to protect the show’s director and producers from arrest while the cases were being heard; the Court refused to grant this reprieve. That felt unprecedented, Ayyub said, and it tipped everyone into a state of high alarm. An Amazon employee who worked on “Tandav” remembers how taxing the experience was. “It took over our days, nights, weeks, months,” he said. “And we were all working from home, because this was peak covid. So I was on calls with the Amazon guys in the U.S. late night my time, early morning my time, because the company wanted to protect its employees.” All the discussions, he said, were about “how to keep our people safe”—but for a few months it really looked as if an Amazon executive might go to prison for green-lighting a cheesy TV show.

The rise and rise of anti-Muslim hate music in India

Chaturvedi started his career as a singer of devotional songs about a decade ago, but he changed tack a few years later when he decided to compose songs about "Hinduism and nationalism". The idea, he says, was to get an image makeover.

He hit a jackpot of sorts when a music video he produced in 2016 became an overnight sensation amongst the right-wing Hindu nationalist ecosystem.

The lyrics of are too incendiary to be reproduced here. But the tone of the song was straightforward: a warning to the Muslim community about what will happen the day Hindu nationalism rises.

Chaturvedi says this song garnered millions of views on YouTube before his channel got suspended, following thousands of complaints. He blames Muslims for reporting his song as inappropriate content.

He rues losing "millions of subscribers", but refuses to divulge the money he was making from YouTube. He said it costs him around 20,000 rupees (£207; $253) to create a music video.

"I wasn't making much money from YouTube. What's more important is the recognition I got as a nationalist-revolutionary singer," he insists.

Chaturvedi has since created a new channel on YouTube. But the number of views on some of the content he uploaded has not been encouraging. He is hoping to change that with his latest song.

Often accused of targeting Muslims through his music, Chaturvedi is unapologetic. "If I plead with folded hands to get what is mine, will you agree? You won't. So we have to be provocative, don't we?"

Mystery as former Chinese leader is escorted out of Communist Party Congress in front of world media

NBC News wrote:

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was led out of the country's Communist Party Congress Saturday in a moment of unexpected drama during an otherwise highly choreographed event.

The 79-year-old was sitting beside President Xi Jinping in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People when he was approached by a man in a suit and surgical mask who spoke to him and appeared to pull his right arm.

With Xi looking on, the man then place both hands under Hu's armpits and attempted to lift him out of his seat. Xi appeared to talk to his predecessor before the man got between them and tried to lift him again.

Another man in a mask arrived, Hu eventually stood up and after appearing to attempt to get back to his seat before he was escorted away after exchanging a few words with Xi and placing a hand on the shoulder of Premier Li Keqiang, the nation’s No. 2 official.

Just before the incident Hu had been speaking with Li Zhanshu, the chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, the top leadership team in China.

Li had his chair turned toward the former president to talk. As Hu was led away by the men, Li attempted to stand up, but was pulled back down by Wang Huning, another party leader.

No explanation was given for the incident, which lasted several minutes and took place shortly after international media were let into the hall to report on the twice-a-decade event when new promotions and appointments are announced, and political strategy is decided for the next 5-year cycle.

It came after the party approved amendments to its constitution aimed at cementing the core status of Xi and the guiding role of his political thought within the party, which has around 96 million members.

Among the amendments, the “Two Establishes” define Xi as the “core” leader of the party and his ideas as the guiding principles of China’s future development. The “Two Safeguards” assure Xi’s “core” status within the party and the party’s centralised authority over China.

The central committee will announce the new politburo Sunday, which typically consists of 25 people. A new standing committee will also be announced, the top leadership team of the party.

Premier Li Keqiang, a strong proponent of economic reforms, was among four of the seven members of the nation’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee who will not be reappointed in a leadership shuffle Sunday.

It is widely expected that Xi Jinping will hold onto his status as general secretary and head of China’s armed forces.

Given the cementing of his status as a “core leader,” he could also be named “party chairman,” a title previously bestowed only on Mao Zedong, who ruled the People’s Republic of China for 27 years after it was founded in 1949.

Given how things work in Communist Parties and the importance of the concept of "face" in China, this is a pretty big deal and a very strong message. To someone.

Fears Bolsonaro may not accept defeat as son cries fraud before Brazil election

Gonna be fun to see whose imminently upcoming election is more of a sh*tshow. Brazil or the U.S.

Sunday's the big day!

Brazil's electoral authorities are preparing for a competitive election on Sunday with a result that may be contested by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro if he loses to his leftist adversary, who has a narrow lead in recent opinion polls.

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE), led by justices from the Supreme Court, is ready for Bolsonaro to dispute any victory by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, potentially mobilizing angry demonstrations, according to people familiar with the court's preparations who requested anonymity to share the information.

"What we see is a series of things intended to destabilize and disrupt the electoral process," a senior judicial source told Reuters, while playing down the risk of widespread unrest.

"We have to follow what will happen closely and keep in touch with the security forces to avoid riots in the streets," said the source.

Four sources told Reuters the TSE and Supreme Court have plans to reinforce security for judges and institutions on Sunday, and they expect tensions could last until the result of the presidential election is certified on Dec. 19.

This is nuts:

Officials: 120 dead after Halloween crowd surge in Seoul

At least 120 people were killed and 100 more were injured as they were crushed by a large crowd pushing forward on a narrow street during Halloween festivities in the capital of Seoul, South Korean officials said.

Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could rise and that an unspecified number among the injured were in critical conditions.

He said 74 of the dead have been sent to hospitals while the bodies of the remaining 46 who had been kept on the streets were being transported to a nearby gym so that workers could identify them.

Interesting Sunday read (NYT Link)

Wang Xiaodong, once called the standard-bearer of Chinese nationalism, now fends off criticisms of being too moderate, even a traitor. “They’ve forgotten,” he said, “I created them.”
Prederick wrote:

Fears Bolsonaro may not accept defeat as son cries fraud before Brazil election

Gonna be fun to see whose imminently upcoming election is more of a sh*tshow. Brazil or the U.S.

Looks like Brazil's federal police and highway police have thrown up roadblocks on election day--ostensibly to conduct vehicle inspections and searches--but they seem to be only happening in rural areas where voters overwhelmingly favor Bolsonaro's opponent.

Here's the Guardian's MbM. Bolsonaro's up as regions that favor him are tallied first. There are another good three hours to go before we'll have a good idea who won.

Numbers for now are leaning to Lula but it's only a matter of when not if Bolsonaro makes his move.

Polling firm Datafolha has called it for Lula, although the electoral authority has yet to confirm a winner.

Even if they do, there is very little reason to believe Bolsonaro is going to peacefully accept the L.

As I post that, the confirmation comes in from the electoral authority and the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court. Lula wins.

Closest election in the history of Brazil's fairly young democracy as well. Now to see what happens between now and inauguration day on January 1.

That's great news, although we'll have to see how events unfold. That monster belongs in jail.

Biden has already released a statement congratulating Lula and explicitly noting the election as free and fair, which seems like a not-so-subtle signal to Bolsonaro that the US isn’t going to support a right-wing coup for the first time ever.
(well, not openly at least)