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Old 08-24-2020, 11:23 AM   #1
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Post Breaking International News And Headlines

We have a Breaking News Events thread which is mostly American News and a Canada In The News thread so, I thought I would start a thread for International News.

Feel free to post any information you find that may be of interest to others.
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Old 08-24-2020, 01:14 PM   #2
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Post Australia's big four banks remove thousands of ATMs and shut down hundreds of branches

Australia's big four banks remove thousands of ATMs and shut down hundreds of branches as the coronavirus crisis
pushes nation closer to a cashless society.

* At least 2150 ATM terminals removed across Australia in the recent June quarter.

* Australia's big four banks shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months.

* Sparked by COVID-19 as Australia move closer to becoming a cashless society.

* Opinion divided over branch and ATM closures which will inconvenience elderly.


The coronavirus crisis has sparked the closure of a record number of ATMs and hundreds of bank branches as Australia moves closer towards a cashless society.

The number of ATMs across the nation are at their lowest level in 12 years at 25,720, after at least 2150 terminals removed in the recent June quarter, according to the Australian Payments Network.

Australia's big four banks – ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac – also shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months.

The widespread closures have divided public opinion and left 2.5 million elderly Australians who don't do online banking inconvenienced.



At least 2150 ATM terminals were removed in the June quarters, according to the latest quarter. Pictured are Commonwealth Bank customers withdrawing cash in Brisbane.


Of the 175 branch closures, ANZ had the highest number with 68, followed by the Commonwealth with 44, Westpac had 36 while NAB shut 27.

Westpac removed the most ATMs at 84, followed by ANZ at 73 and NAB at 21 while Commonwealth Bank didn't disclose its number of closed terminals.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s head of payments policy Tony Richards said most ATM closures were in metropolitan areas in locations such as shopping centres.

'Overall the bank expects the long-term downward trend in the use of cash to continue,' he told News Corp.

Australian Banking Association's chief executive officer Anna Bligh added: 'Australia's banks have invested heavily to keep up with the customers banking preferences with technology and data now playing a key role in how banks do their business'.



NAB recently closed 21 ATM terminals as Australia moves towards a cashless society.


Not everyone has welcomed the move by the banks.

National Seniors Australia chief advocate Ian Henschke said many of the elderly feel more comfortable using cash amid a fear of being scammed online.

'Many of them are older Australians and taking away services from them is going to be extremely difficult for them,' he said.

The ATM and branch closures have also divided public opinion.

'This is stupid If I wasn't living with my son and family I would not be able to have the Internet. So how the hell do low income and pensioners get their money. Oh right we will be forced to walk into a bank and will be charged. Profit before people as usual,' one woman posted on Facebook.



ANZ has closed 68 branches across the nation in the last 12 months. Pictured is a branch in Newcastle, north of Sydney.


Another added: 'Banks ‘forced ‘ don’t believe that, it more they wanted to shut them down so we move cashless. Cash is still legal tender . Not to meant all the people young and old that would suffer from a cashless society. The banks and the government are pushing this . And they use Covid as a way to push this forward even more suggests business to accept contactless payment only. The government needs a wake up call.'

Some disagreed Australia was heading towards a full cashless society.

'I work in retail and I call BS on this. I don't see the cashless society. I see people working to budgets using cash, the elderly and not so elderly using cash,' one woman posted.



Westpac has closed 36 branches in the last 12 month and recently removed 84 ATMs.


Others believe the closures were more about bank profits.

'Banks aren’t being forced at all. They choose to close branches and ATMs because profit is more important to them than providing a service,' one man commented.

The news comes as ANZ struck a deal to sell 1,300 off-branch ATM to Armaguard Group in the next 12 months.

The banks says it will maintain its network of 900 branch ATMs, as well as what it has called “strategically important” offsite ATMs.



Source: dailymail.co.uk
Website: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ronavirus.html
Date: August 16, 2020
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Old 08-24-2020, 01:52 PM   #3
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Post Russia’s Navalny in Coma, Allegedly Poisoned by Toxic Tea


Alexei Navalny


MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, lay in a coma Friday at a Siberian hospital, the victim of what his allies said appeared to be a poisoning engineered by the Kremlin.

Navalny’s organization was scrambling to make arrangements to transfer him to Germany for treatment; a German group said it was ready to send a plane for him and that a noted hospital in Berlin was ready to treat him.

The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter.

She told the Echo Moskvy radio station that he must have consumed poison in tea he drank at an airport cafe before boarding the plane early Thursday. During the flight, Navalny started sweating and asked her to talk to him so that he could “focus on the sound of a voice.” He then went to the bathroom and lost consciousness, and has been in a coma and on a ventilator in grave condition ever since.

In a video statement released early Friday in Omsk, Yarmysh said Navalny remained in critical condition and she called on the hospital’s leadership “not to obstruct us from providing all necessary documents for his transfer.” It was not clear what the possible obstructions could be.

Other opposition figures were quick to suggest Kremlin involvement.

“We are sure that the only people that have the capability to target Navalny or myself are Russian security services with definite clearance from Russia’s political leadership,” Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the protest group Pussy Riot who ended up in intensive care after suspected poisoning in 2018, told The Associated Press. “We believe that Putin definitely is a person who gives that go-ahead in this situation.”


MORE STORIES:

Toxic tea: Multiple Russians hit by suspected poisonings

Belarus leader warns of tough new steps against protesters

Belarus chaos brings a poker-faced response from Russia


Jaka Bizilj of the German organization Cinema For Peace, which arranged for Verzilov’s treatment in Germany, said that at Verzilov’s request “we will send at midnight an air ambulance with medical equipment and specialists with which Navalny can be brought to Germany.”

Omsk is about 4,200 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

Doctors at Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, where the politician was being treated, remained tight-lipped about his diagnosis saying only that they were considering a variety of theories, including poisoning. Local health officials said they found no indication that Navalny had suffered from a heart attack, stroke or the coronavirus.

Authorities initially refused to let Navalny’s wife, Yulia, see her husband and have rejected requests for documentation that would allow him to be transferred to a European hospital for treatment, Yarmysh said.

Verzilov, who was flown to Berlin for treatment in 2018, said hospitals in Omsk or Moscow would not be able to treat Navalny properly and expressed concern about possible pressure from security services that doctors could be under in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was necessary to wait for test results showing what caused Navalny’s condition, adding the authorities would consider a request to allow Navalny to leave Russia, which has not fully opened its borders after a coronavirus lockdown, for treatment.

State news agency Tass reported that police were not considering deliberate poisoning, a statement the politician’s allies dismissed.

Reports about the alleged poisoning made waves in the West.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France was ready to offer Navalny and his family “all necessary assistance ... in terms of health care, asylum, protection” and insisted on the need to clarify what happened.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a joint news conference with Macron, echoed that sentiment. “What is very important is that it will be clarified very urgently how it could come to the situation.”

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and the United Nations also expressed concern over what happened to Navalny, and Amnesty International demanded a full and thorough investigation.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian agent who was killed in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006, voiced concern that Navalny’s enemies within Russia may have decided that it’s time to use a “new tactic.”

“Maybe they decided ... not to stop him just with an arrest but to stop him with poison. It looks like a new tactic against Navalny,” Marina Litvinenko told The Associated Press from Sicily, Italy.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Navalny last week of organizing unprecedented mass protests against his re-election that have rocked Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbor since Aug. 9. He did not, however, provide any evidence and that claim was one of many blaming foreign forces for the unrest.

The most prominent member of Russia’s opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russia’s Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the region’s governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

Full Coverage: Russia

In the interview with Echo Moskvy, Yarmysh said she believed the suspected poisoning was connected to this year’s regional election campaign.

Commentators say Navalny has become increasingly dangerous for the Kremlin as Putin’s approval rating has plummeted to a record low of around 60% amid the coronavirus pandemic and growing public frustration with the declining economy.

Navalny’s ability to mobilize voters against pro-Kremlin candidates poses a particular challenge ahead of the 2021 parliamentary elections, said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter-turned-political-analyst.

“The Duma elections are particularly important for the Kremlin,” as the new Duma will be operating in 2024, when Putin’s current presidential term expires and he may announce running for re-election, Gallyamov told the AP.

“That’s why controlling the next State Duma is crucially important for the Kremlin. Navalny really makes it harder for the Kremlin to establish that control,” Gallyamov added.

At the same time Navalny, who rose to prominence by exposing corruption all over Russia, could have other enemies, Gallyamov said, and may have been targeted by people featured in one of his investigations, if he was indeed deliberately poisoned.

Navalny is not the first opposition figure to come down with a mysterious poisoning.

Verzilov, who spent a month in a hospital recovering from his suspected 2018 poisoning, told the AP that Navalny’s initial symptoms — loss of coordination, pain, fainting — were very similar to his.

Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice — in 2015 and 2017. Prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also reportedly poisoned in 2004 — two years before being murdered.

On Thursday evening, activists in several Russian cities held protests in support of Navalny. In St. Petersburg, a crowd of about 100 people gathered in the city center, and several supporters were detained.

“It was actually in the interests of the authorities to safeguard him,” Yegor Batozhok, 34, a municipal deputy in St. Petersburg, told the AP. “But for some reason a number of those who criticize the authorities get poisoned.”
___

Associated Press writers Irina Titova in St. Petersburg, Angela Charlton in Paris, Pan Pylas in London, Alexander Roslyakov and Jim Heintz in Moscow and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.



Source: apnews.com
Website: https://bit.ly/3hp8eyk
Date: August 20, 2020
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Old 08-24-2020, 02:01 PM   #4
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Post Scientists Say Hong Kong Man Got Coronavirus a Second Time


This electron microscope image made available and color-enhanced by the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases Integrated Research Facility in Fort Detrick, Md., shows Novel Coronavirus
SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, orange, isolated from a patient. University of Hong Kong scientists
claim to have the first evidence of someone being reinfected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
They said Monday, Aug. 24, 2020 that genetic tests show a 33-year-old man returning to Hong Kong
from a trip to Spain in mid-August had a different strain of the coronavirus than the one he’d
previously been infected with in March. (NIAID/National Institutes of Health via AP)



University of Hong Kong scientists claim to have the first evidence of someone being reinfected with the virus that causes COVID-19.

Genetic tests revealed that a 33-year-old man returning to Hong Kong from a trip to Spain in mid-August had a different strain of the coronavirus than the one he’d previously been infected with in March, said Dr. Kelvin Kai-Wang To, the microbiologist who led the work.

The man had mild symptoms the first time and none the second time; his more recent infection was detected through screening and testing at the Hong Kong airport.

“It shows that some people do not have lifelong immunity” to the virus if they’ve already had it, To said. “We don’t know how many people can get reinfected. There are probably more out there.”

The paper has been accepted by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases but not yet published, and some independent experts urged caution until full results are available.

Whether people who have had COVID-19 are immune to new infections and for how long are key questions that have implications for vaccine development and decisions about returning to work, school and social activities.

Even if someone can be infected a second time, it’s not known if they have some protection against serious illness, because the immune system generally remembers how to make antibodies against a virus it’s seen before.

It’s not clear how different a virus needs to be to trigger illness, but the new work suggests that “COVID patients should not be complacent about prevention measures” and should continue social distancing, wearing masks and other ways to reduce infection, To said.

Two experts with with no role in the work agreed.

“We’ve always known reinfection was a possibility and I think this is highly suggestive” that it occurred in this case, said Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief scientist now at Georgetown University. “If there is a reinfection, it suggests the possibility there was residual immunity ... that helped protect the patient” from getting sick again, Goodman said.

However, “if immunity wanes from natural infection, it could be a challenge for vaccines” and may mean booster shots are needed, he added.

Julie Fischer, a microbiologist at CRDF Global, a nonprofit health group in Arlington, Virginia, said the study gives convincing evidence that reinfection can happen.

“The real question is what this means for severity of disease” if that occurs, and whether such people can infect others, she said.

One expert saw the report as good news. Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said it’s encouraging the reported reinfection was without symptoms.

“That’s a win as far as I’m concerned” because it suggests a first infection may protect a person from moderate to severe disease the second time around, he said in an interview streamed by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A mid-May survey by the doctors’ information-sharing site Sermo found that 13% of the 4,173 doctors responding believed that they had treated one or more patients who were reinfected. Among the respondents, 7% of those in the U.S. and 16% in other countries thought they’d seen such a case.

However, health officials have also wondered whether people who tested positive long after their initial illness were simply showing signs of not completely clearing the virus rather than being infected anew.

___

AP medical writers Linda A. Johnson and Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.



Source: apnews.com
Website: https://bit.ly/3hqcduh
Date: August 24, 2020
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Old 08-24-2020, 05:07 PM   #5
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Alexei Navalny


MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, lay in a coma Friday at a Siberian hospital, the victim of what his allies said appeared to be a poisoning engineered by the Kremlin.

Navalny’s organization was scrambling to make arrangements to transfer him to Germany for treatment; a German group said it was ready to send a plane for him and that a noted hospital in Berlin was ready to treat him.

The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter.

She told the Echo Moskvy radio station that he must have consumed poison in tea he drank at an airport cafe before boarding the plane early Thursday. During the flight, Navalny started sweating and asked her to talk to him so that he could “focus on the sound of a voice.” He then went to the bathroom and lost consciousness, and has been in a coma and on a ventilator in grave condition ever since.

In a video statement released early Friday in Omsk, Yarmysh said Navalny remained in critical condition and she called on the hospital’s leadership “not to obstruct us from providing all necessary documents for his transfer.” It was not clear what the possible obstructions could be.

Other opposition figures were quick to suggest Kremlin involvement.

“We are sure that the only people that have the capability to target Navalny or myself are Russian security services with definite clearance from Russia’s political leadership,” Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the protest group Pussy Riot who ended up in intensive care after suspected poisoning in 2018, told The Associated Press. “We believe that Putin definitely is a person who gives that go-ahead in this situation.”


MORE STORIES:

Toxic tea: Multiple Russians hit by suspected poisonings

Belarus leader warns of tough new steps against protesters

Belarus chaos brings a poker-faced response from Russia


Jaka Bizilj of the German organization Cinema For Peace, which arranged for Verzilov’s treatment in Germany, said that at Verzilov’s request “we will send at midnight an air ambulance with medical equipment and specialists with which Navalny can be brought to Germany.”

Omsk is about 4,200 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

Doctors at Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, where the politician was being treated, remained tight-lipped about his diagnosis saying only that they were considering a variety of theories, including poisoning. Local health officials said they found no indication that Navalny had suffered from a heart attack, stroke or the coronavirus.

Authorities initially refused to let Navalny’s wife, Yulia, see her husband and have rejected requests for documentation that would allow him to be transferred to a European hospital for treatment, Yarmysh said.

Verzilov, who was flown to Berlin for treatment in 2018, said hospitals in Omsk or Moscow would not be able to treat Navalny properly and expressed concern about possible pressure from security services that doctors could be under in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was necessary to wait for test results showing what caused Navalny’s condition, adding the authorities would consider a request to allow Navalny to leave Russia, which has not fully opened its borders after a coronavirus lockdown, for treatment.

State news agency Tass reported that police were not considering deliberate poisoning, a statement the politician’s allies dismissed.

Reports about the alleged poisoning made waves in the West.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France was ready to offer Navalny and his family “all necessary assistance ... in terms of health care, asylum, protection” and insisted on the need to clarify what happened.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a joint news conference with Macron, echoed that sentiment. “What is very important is that it will be clarified very urgently how it could come to the situation.”

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and the United Nations also expressed concern over what happened to Navalny, and Amnesty International demanded a full and thorough investigation.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian agent who was killed in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006, voiced concern that Navalny’s enemies within Russia may have decided that it’s time to use a “new tactic.”

“Maybe they decided ... not to stop him just with an arrest but to stop him with poison. It looks like a new tactic against Navalny,” Marina Litvinenko told The Associated Press from Sicily, Italy.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Navalny last week of organizing unprecedented mass protests against his re-election that have rocked Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbor since Aug. 9. He did not, however, provide any evidence and that claim was one of many blaming foreign forces for the unrest.

The most prominent member of Russia’s opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russia’s Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the region’s governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

Full Coverage: Russia

In the interview with Echo Moskvy, Yarmysh said she believed the suspected poisoning was connected to this year’s regional election campaign.

Commentators say Navalny has become increasingly dangerous for the Kremlin as Putin’s approval rating has plummeted to a record low of around 60% amid the coronavirus pandemic and growing public frustration with the declining economy.

Navalny’s ability to mobilize voters against pro-Kremlin candidates poses a particular challenge ahead of the 2021 parliamentary elections, said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter-turned-political-analyst.

“The Duma elections are particularly important for the Kremlin,” as the new Duma will be operating in 2024, when Putin’s current presidential term expires and he may announce running for re-election, Gallyamov told the AP.

“That’s why controlling the next State Duma is crucially important for the Kremlin. Navalny really makes it harder for the Kremlin to establish that control,” Gallyamov added.

At the same time Navalny, who rose to prominence by exposing corruption all over Russia, could have other enemies, Gallyamov said, and may have been targeted by people featured in one of his investigations, if he was indeed deliberately poisoned.

Navalny is not the first opposition figure to come down with a mysterious poisoning.

Verzilov, who spent a month in a hospital recovering from his suspected 2018 poisoning, told the AP that Navalny’s initial symptoms — loss of coordination, pain, fainting — were very similar to his.

Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice — in 2015 and 2017. Prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also reportedly poisoned in 2004 — two years before being murdered.

On Thursday evening, activists in several Russian cities held protests in support of Navalny. In St. Petersburg, a crowd of about 100 people gathered in the city center, and several supporters were detained.

“It was actually in the interests of the authorities to safeguard him,” Yegor Batozhok, 34, a municipal deputy in St. Petersburg, told the AP. “But for some reason a number of those who criticize the authorities get poisoned.”
___

Associated Press writers Irina Titova in St. Petersburg, Angela Charlton in Paris, Pan Pylas in London, Alexander Roslyakov and Jim Heintz in Moscow and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.



Source: apnews.com
Website: https://bit.ly/3hp8eyk
Date: August 20, 2020
I've been following this story with great interest!
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Old 08-28-2020, 09:34 AM   #6
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Default Russian prosecutors reject criminal investigation into illness of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny..

Russian prosecutors said on Thursday they saw no need for a criminal investigation into the sudden illness of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, whom his supporters suspect was poisoned, and that they had found no sign that any crime had been committed.

The Interior Ministry said it had started a preliminary investigation into the case, but this was routine.

According to a statement released Thursday by a branch of Russia's Interior Ministry, investigators in Siberia have been working on "establishing all the circumstances of the incident," conducting forensic studies and collecting items "that may have probative value."

Navalny, an opposition politician and corruption investigator who is one of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia last Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia...alny-1.5701843
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Old 09-07-2020, 05:48 PM   #7
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Post Alexei Navalny Out of Coma!!

Hospital: Russia’s Alexei Navalny Out of Coma, is Responsive.


FILE - In this July 20, 2019, file photo, Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gestures while
speaking to a crowd during a political protest in Moscow, Russia. The German hospital treating
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he has been taken out of an induced coma and is responsive.
German experts say Navalny, who fell ill Aug. 20 on a domestic flight in Russia, was poisoned
with a substance belonging to the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)



BERLIN (AP) — Poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s condition has improved, allowing doctors to take him out of an induced coma, the German hospital treating him said Monday.

Navalny, a fierce, high-profile critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was flown to Germany last month after falling ill on Aug. 20 on a domestic flight in Russia. German chemical weapons experts say tests show the 44-year-old was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent, prompting the German government last week to demand that Russia investigate the case.

“The patient has been removed from his medically induced coma and is being weaned off mechanical ventilation,” Berlin’s Charite hospital said in a statement. ”He is responding to verbal stimuli. It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning.”

It added that the decision to publicly release details of his condition was made in consultation with Navalny’s wife.

Navalny had been in an induced coma in the Berlin hospital since he was flown to Germany on Aug. 22 for treatment.

News of his gradual recovery came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office indicated that she might be willing to rethink the fate of a controversial German-Russian gas pipeline project — a sign of Berlin’s growing frustration over Moscow’s stonewalling about the Navalny case.

German authorities said last week that tests showed “proof without doubt” that Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group. British authorities identified the Soviet-era Novichok as the poison used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.

Many countries joined Germany in calling for a full investigation after the revelation, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week calling the use of a chemical weapon “outrageous.” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that the poisoning esd “completely reprehensible” and that the U.S. was “working with our allies and the international community to hold those in Russia accountable.”

On Monday, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab summoned Russia’s ambassador to register his “deep concern about the poisoning,” he said on Twitter.

“It’s completely unacceptable that a banned chemical weapon has been used and Russia must hold a full, transparent investigation,” Raab said, while greeting the news that Navalny had been taken out of the medically-induced coma.

Russia has denied that the Kremlin was involved in poisoning Navalny and accused Germany failing to provide evidence about the poisoning that it requested in late August.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Sunday that the Russian reaction could determine whether Germany changes its long-standing backing for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine.

“The chancellor also believes that it’s wrong to rule anything out,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Monday.

Previously, Merkel had insisted on “decoupling” the Navalny case from the pipeline project that is strongly opposed by the U.S. and strongly favored by Russia.

In August, three U.S. Republican senators threatened sanctions against the operator of a German Baltic Sea port for its role as a staging post for ships involved in building Nord Stream 2.

Seibert cautioned that it was premature to expect Moscow to respond to the request for help with the Navalny probe within a few days, but made it clear that Berlin wants answers soon.

“I can’t express a clear, time-limited expectation, except that we are certainly not talking about months or the end of the year,” he said.

German diplomats rejected the Russian suggestion that Berlin was to blame for any delay in investigating the case, noting that Navalny was first treated for suspected poisoning in the Siberian city of Omsk on Aug. 20.

“All evidence, witnesses, traces and so forth are in the place where the crime was committed, presumably somewhere in Siberia,” said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger.

The co-leader of Germany’s opposition Green party, Robert Habeck, called on the government to take a stronger stance and “bury” the pipeline project.

The project “divides Europe, it is economically nonsensical and oversized, and it is wrong in security policy terms,” Habeck said. Completing it “would mean that Russia can do what it wants. This signal must not be sent.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to international organizations in Vienna, voiced suspicions about the timing of demands to link the pipeline with the Navalny case.

“Suspicious coincidence of Navalny case and the final stage of Nord Stream 2 construction, which some states desperately want to be closed. I am not fond of conspiracy theories but it is obvious that the tragic events with Navalny are very timely and helpful for opponents of NS2,” he tweeted.

___

Geir Moulson and David Rising in Berlin and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.



Source: apnews.com
Website: https://apnews.com/bd9b23bb9c7dbfdf36ffb8ffb514e305
Date: September 7, 2020
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Old 10-01-2020, 07:22 AM   #8
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Post Alexei Navalny Says Putin Was Behind His Poisoning

Kremlin critic makes claim in first media interview since recovering from novichok attack.


Alexei Navalny, centre, and his family pose for a photo in Berlin’s Charité hospital last month.



Alexei Navalny has accused President Vladimir Putin of being behind the poisoning that put him in a coma, but insisted he would return to Russia to continue his political campaign against the Putin regime.

In his first interview since recovering from the poisoning, Mr Navalny told Der Spiegel magazine that he “won’t give Putin the satisfaction of not going back to Russia”, adding: “My task is to remain the guy who has no fear. And I have no fear!”

Mr Navalny, Russia’s best-known opposition activist, has been the focus of international attention since Germany revealed he had been poisoned with the nerve agent novichok while in Siberia. Berlin has demanded an explanation from the Kremlin, which has denied any involvement.

Mr Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in August and days later was flown to Berlin for specialist medical treatment. He was in a coma for weeks but recovered and has since been receiving treatment in Berlin.

In the interview, Mr Navalny said the use of a new strain of novichok, which is “only accessible to a small circle of people”, showed Mr Putin must have been responsible. “I have no other versions [to explain] what happened,” he said.

He said the direct order to deploy the nerve agent could have come only from the heads of the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the SVR, its foreign spy service, and the GRU, Russian military intelligence.

Mr Navalny’s accusations prompted a vehement response from a Russian political elite that has normally tried to ignore him. Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, said the claims were “absolutely groundless and unacceptable”.

“Some of these statements in the mentioned publication [Der Spiegel] we consider offensive,” Mr Peskov said, according to Interfax.

He also claimed that Mr Navalny was co-operating with the CIA. “Specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency are working with him these days,” Mr Peskov said. “This is not the first time he’s been given various instructions.”

According to the Spiegel report, the after-effects of Mr Navalny’s poisoning were visible during the interview when he had to use both hands to pour a glass of water. But whereas a few weeks ago he could barely walk, he took the stairs to reach the Spiegel offices, eschewing the lift.

Mr Navalny said those who poisoned him had clearly planned for him to die on the plane and end up in a morgue in Moscow or the Siberian city of Omsk, where the airline crew carried out an emergency stopover after he fell ill.

“Then no one would have found any novichok, there are no mass spectrometers in a morgue,” he said. “It would have just been a suspicious death.”

Mr Navalny said he believed he was exposed to novichok in the hotel in Tomsk, where he had been on a campaign trip, and he had absorbed it through his skin. He said he assumed it had been left on a surface in the hotel room, which he had subsequently touched.

Describing how he fell ill on the plane, Mr Navalny said: “The most important impression was: you feel no pain but you know you’re dying.”

During his stay in Berlin’s Charité hospital, he was visited by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. He said he had thanked her for interceding for him, “and she said: ‘I did my duty’”.

The activist said that in view of recent events in Belarus, where recent elections triggered mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, and the long-running demonstrations in the Russian eastern city of Khabarovsk over the arrest of a popular governor, the Kremlin felt it had to “resort to extreme measures”.

“The system is fighting for its survival, and we’ve just felt the consequences,” said Mr Navalny.



Source: ft.com
Website: https://www.ft.com/content/805f5ea1-...6-485b96c11cf7
Date: October 1, 2020
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Old 10-01-2020, 08:10 PM   #9
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Default Breaking International News

Do you suppose that Trump and Putin are collaborating on how to defeat their opponents? hummm
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Old 11-11-2020, 05:47 PM   #10
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Post Vladimir Putin Steps Down?

PUTIN 'TO QUIT' Vladimir Putin, 68, ‘stepping down as Russian president early next year amid fears he has Parkinson’s’


VLADIMIR Putin is planning to quit early next year amid growing fears for his health, Moscow sources claimed last night.


Kremlin watchers said recent tell-tale footage showed the 68-year-old strongman has possible symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.



Vladamir Putin is planning to quit early next year amid growing fears for his health, Moscow sources claimed. Credit: Getty - Contributor



Putin pictured with Alina Kabaeva who reportedly gave birth to the Russian head honcho's twins.


And informed analysts claimed that the Russian president’s glamorous ex-gymnast lover Alina Kabaeva, 37 - once dubbed 'Russia's most flexible woman' - is begging him to release his grip on power.

Observers who studied recent footage of Putin noted his legs appeared to be in constant motion and he looked to be in pain while clutching the armrest of a chair.

His fingers are also seen to be twitching as he held a pen and gripped a cup believed to contain a cocktail of painkillers.

Speculation that his 20-year-reign - second only to that of Stalin - could be nearing an end grew earlier this week when laws were drafted to make him a senator-for-life when he resigns.

Legislation introduced by Putin himself was being rushed through parliament to guarantee him legal immunity from prosecution and state perks until he dies.

Moscow political scientist Professor Valery Solovei fuelled further speculation last night by suggesting Putin may have symptoms of Parkinson’s.

The academic said he also understood Putin’s undisclosed partner Alina was pressuring him to quit - along with his daughters Maria Vorontsova , 35, Katerina Tikhonova, 34.

Solovei said: "There is a family, it has a great influence on him. He intends to make public his handover plans in January”.

The professor predicted that Putin would soon appoint a new prime minister who would be groomed to become his eventual successor.

And back in 2015, a team of researchers at he Department of Neurology, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands headed by Professor Bas Bloem identified signs in Putin's gait which could point to Parkinson's.

The researchers spotted how the Russian strongman walks with his left arm unmoving, almost pinned to his side, while his right arm swings freely.

Pictures of the President giving speeches also show him with his right arm resting casually an a lectern, with his left straight by his side.

The peer-reviewed research says a walk that shows a marked reduction in arm swing on just one side can sometimes be a symptom of Parkinson's disease, says Medical News Today.

But the team also pointed out it could be a "gunslingers walk", with KGB agents trained to keep their weapons tightly pinned to their left-hand side.

However, the president’s staff have repeatedly played down rumours that he is paving the way for a political exit.

And the Kremlin today insisted Putin was in "excellent health" and "everything is fine with the President".

A spokesperson dismissed claims of Parkinson's disease as "nonsense".

And Putin himself has regularly released pictures of him looking fit and toned in Action Man poses hunting, shooting, horse riding and playing ice hockey.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the senator-for-life move: : "This is the practice that is being applied in many countries of the world, and it is quite justified.

“This is not innovation from the point of view of international practice.”



Analysts said the President keeps his hands busy with pens and paper to stop them from shaking. Credit: Reuters



The man himself has pushed through new laws to protect him. Credit: Getty Images - Getty



Source: thesun.co.uk
Website: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/131220...t-year-health/
Date: November 6, 2020
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Old 11-13-2020, 12:24 PM   #11
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Post 1,000 Fans in Northern Ireland Get Sprayed Before Watching The Game

Match of the spray: 1,000 fans go through anti-Covid disinfection pods before being allowed to watch Northern Ireland play football


* Supporters stepped through pods before the crunch showdown against Slovakia
* Machine helps to limit spread of Covid-19 by firstly taking a temperature reading
* Fans then proceed to next stage with UV light and disinfectant spray is deployed
* Northern Ireland's leaders tonight agreed a one-week extension, say sources


One thousand fans went through anti-Covid disinfection pods before being allowed to watch Northern Ireland play football tonight.

Every supporter was asked to step through one of the pods before the crunch showdown at 7.45pm, which welcomed Slovakia to Belfast's Windsor Park for the UEFA 2020 Play-off finals match.

The machine, built by 4Ur Protection, helps to limit the spread of coronavirus by firstly taking a reading of fans' temperatures using an infrared scanner.

If all the measurements look normal, they can proceed to the next stage and move forward into what is called the 'sanitising tunnel'.



A member of the public pauses in a disinfection pod prior to the UEFA Euro
2020 Play-off Finals Match at Windsor Park in Belfast on Thursday evening.



A man stands inside the disinfection pod ahead of the crunch showdown, which
welcomed Slovakia to Belfast's Windsor Park for the UEFA 2020 Play-off finals match


UV light is then used to kill off any other germs on the person's clothes or belongings and then air-sanitising and purification spray is deployed.

On its website, 4Ur Protection says: 'A MistPal cleansing pod at the entrance will show your staff and the public that you are taking customer safety extremely seriously.

'All goods passing through the MistPal pod will also receive the same level of protection.'

The concept has also been tested by CLeanTech and was experimented with by Hong Kong International Airport.

The BBC's Sports Editor Dan Roan tweeted: 'One of the keys to getting fans back inside sports venues?

'All of the 1000 N Ireland supporters allowed inside Windsor Park must pass through one of these ‘disinfecting pods’ & have temperature checks.'

It comes as Northern Ireland's leaders have tonight agreed a one-week extension, sources say.

This follows four days of arguments between lawmakers, and hours after they realised the original Covid rules were due to end a day later than they had originally thought.

The new rules will see an extension of the current circuit-break lockdown followed by a partial reopening of the hospitality sector, Stormont sources have said.

It is understood that the DUP, UUP and Alliance voted for the proposals, made by Economy Minister Diane Dodds, while Sinn Fein voted against and the SDLP abstained.



A member of the public pauses in the disinfection pod. The machine, built by 4Ur Protection,
helps to limit the spread of coronavirus by firstly taking a reading of fans' temperatures


According to reports, under the new rules, close contact services, including hairdressing, beauty treatments and driving lessons, will resume on November 20 by appointment only.

Unlicensed premises, including cafes and coffee shops, will also reopen on November 20, with restricted opening hours to 8pm. However, no alcohol can be consumed in these premises.

All other sections of hospitality that have been closed during the circuit-break will open on November 27.

Pubs and bars permitted will be permuted to sell sealed off-sales from November 20.

A Sinn Fein source said the party voted against the proposals because it ran contrary to the guidance from Stormont's medical and scientific advisers to extend the circuit-break in its entirety for two weeks.



Source: dailymail.co.uk
Website: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-football.html
Date: November 12, 2020
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Old 12-21-2020, 12:05 PM   #12
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Post Alexei Navalny

Russian Agent 'Tricked into Detailing Navalny Assassination Bid'


Mr. Navalny is recovering after weeks in intensive care.


Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny duped a Russian FSB state agent into revealing details of an attack on him with the nerve agent Novichok, the investigative group Bellingcat reports.

Mr. Navalny reportedly impersonated a security official to call the agent.

The agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, told him the Novichok had been placed in a pair of Mr. Navalny's underpants.

Mr. Navalny, who is still recovering in Berlin, posted a recording of the long conversation on his YouTube channel.

He collapsed aboard a Russian airliner in August in the attack, which nearly proved fatal.

As part of Mr. Navalny's ruse to elicit more details of the assassination attempt, Bellingcat says the call to Mr. Kudryavtsev was set up to indicate it was coming from a Federal Security Service (FSB) landline.

In the conversation, Mr. Navalny posed as a senior official seeking details for a report on the FSB operation.

Mr. Kudryavtsev told him the swift response of the airline pilot and the emergency medical team in Omsk, Siberia - where Mr. Navalny was first treated - could have been the reason for the failure to kill him.

* Two hours that saved Russian opposition leader's life.

Mr. Kudryavtsev said he had been sent to Omsk later to seize Mr. Navalny's clothes and remove all traces of Novichok from them.

There has been no comment from the Russian authorities.

Last week President Vladimir Putin told a huge TV audience that the Bellingcat investigation - carried out with other Western media partners - was a "trick" invented by US intelligence.

But he added that it was right for the FSB to be shadowing Mr. Navalny.

The Bellingcat report last week named several FSB agents - chemical weapons specialists - who, it alleged, had been tailing him for years before the attempt on his life.

* Report names 'Russian agents' in Navalny poisoning.

* Putin calls Navalny poisoning inquiry 'a trick'.

Mr. Navalny has millions of followers on social media, where he denounces Mr. Putin's United Russia party as deeply corrupt and full of "crooks and thieves". He says Mr. Putin runs a "feudal" system of patronage "sucking the blood out of Russia".

In the summer, before the August poisoning, Mr. Navalny campaigned to get several of his supporters elected to councils in Siberia.




Source: bbc.com
Website: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55395683
Date: December 21, 2020
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:13 PM   #13
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Post Blackout In Pakistan

Massive Blackout In Pakistan After National Power Grid Breakdown

"A countrywide blackout has been caused by a sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system,"
Pakistan's Power Minister Omar Ayub Khan said on Twitter.



The latest blackout was caused by a fault in southern Pakistan, country's power minister said.



Islamabad: Pakistan was hit by a massive power blackout early Sunday, officials said, with much of the country, including all major cities, plunged into darkness.

The electricity distribution system in the nation of more than 210 million people is a complex -- and delicate -- web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.

The latest blackout was caused by a fault in southern Pakistan at 11:41 pm local time on Saturday (1841 GMT), power minister Omar Ayub Khan tweeted, citing preliminary reports.

"The fault tripped the transmission system of the country... leading to the shutdown of power plants," Khan said.

The blackout hit all of Pakistan's major cities, including the capital Islamabad, economic hub Karachi and the second-largest city Lahore.

The Ministry of Energy said that power had been restored in some parts of the country, and that teams were still working on restoring supply completely in the early hours of Sunday.

Netblocks, which monitors internet outages said internet connectivity in the country "collapsed" as a result of the outage.

Connectivity was at "62 percent of ordinary levels," it said in a tweet.

In 2015 an apparent rebel attack on a key power line plunged around 80 percent of Pakistan into darkness.

That blackout, one of the worst in Pakistan's history, caused electricity to be cut in major cities nationwide, including the capital Islamabad, and even affected one of the country's international airports.



Source: ndtv.com
Website: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/mass...akdown-2350214
Date: January 10, 2021
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Post Big Tech

Big Fines and Strict Rules Unveiled Against ‘Big Tech’ in Europe

European Union and British authorities released draft laws to halt the spread of harmful content and improve competition.



Facebook’s offices in Dublin in 2019. The tech company is among a handful of “gatekeeper” platforms that
European policymakers say deserve more oversight. Credit...Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times




LONDON — Authorities in the European Union and Britain built momentum on Tuesday for tougher oversight of the technology industry, as they introduced new regulations to pressure the world’s biggest tech companies to take down harmful content and open themselves up to more competition.

In Brussels, European Union leaders unveiled proposals to crimp the power of “gatekeeper” platforms like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which policymakers argue deserve more oversight given their outsize influence. The proposed E.U. laws would require the companies to do more to prevent the spread of hate speech and sale of counterfeit merchandise, and disclose more information about how services like targeted advertising work.

In Britain, which is preparing to exit the bloc, the government proposed banning some harmful internet content like terrorism material, suicide videos and child abuse, which could result in billions of dollars in fines. Separately, Irish regulators announced a fine of 450,000 euros (about $547,000) against Twitter for violating E.U. data protection laws, one of the first penalties of its kind.

The string of announcements helped reinforce Europe as home to some the world’s toughest policies toward the technology industry.

“The European Union wants to be the leader in the tech regulation,” said Christoph Schmon, the international policy director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

But the region is no longer alone in its efforts to limit the power of Big Tech. In the United States, regulators sued Facebook last week for illegally squashing competition, and Google was hit with an antitrust lawsuit in October. In China, the government has begun to clamp down on local tech giants like Alibaba. Australia, India and Brazil are among others debating new regulations.

Governments are increasingly scrutinizing tech companies that have become critical infrastructure for billions of people and businesses to communicate, shop, learn about the world and be entertained. The result could be that the technology sector becomes more like banking, telecommunications and health care — industries of such size and importance that they are subject to more government supervision.

“2021 will be the year of regulation for the tech giants — they are a mature industry now, not shiny young start-ups,” said James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We used to say too big to fail for banks, but banks are highly regulated and these guys are moving in this direction too.”

The European Union proposals introduced in Brussels on Tuesday present the greatest risk to the tech industry, as the 27-nation bloc is home to roughly 450 million people and its regulations often become a model for others in the world. The rules do not single out any company by name, though the targets were clear.

One measure, called the Digital Services Act, proposed large fines for internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube if they do not restrict the spread of certain illegal content like hate speech. Along with the similar proposal made earlier in the day in Britain, the debate will be closely watched. Large internet companies have faced years of criticism for not doing more to crack down on user-generated content, but governments have been reluctant to impose laws banning specific material for fear of restricting speech and self-expression.

British officials outlined a “legal duty of care” to force companies to remove content considered “harmful,” a definition that some critics have said is overly vague. Ofcom, the British regulator for broadcasters in charge of enforcing the proposed law, would have the power to block services that violate the rules from access in Britain. The announcement came after British officials last week proposed creating a regulator to oversee other areas of the digital economy.

Both measures still must be debated by Parliament.

In Brussels, leaders also proposed new transparency rules that require companies to disclose more about their services, including why people are targeted with advertisements and other content online. Internet retailers like Amazon could face new requirements to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods.

Another measure aimed at fostering competition would prevent the largest platforms from giving their products better treatment over rivals, potentially affecting how Google displays search results or what products Amazon promotes.

Regulators would have a path for breaking up companies that repeatedly violate E.U. antitrust laws.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president who oversees digital policy and antitrust enforcement, said the global tech policy debate is a “different world” compared to five years ago when she was criticized for taking action against Google and other American firms.

Now, she said, there is broad agreement that “with size comes responsibility.”



Google’s London offices, in 2018. European leaders want Google and other companies to provide more
information about how ads are targeted to users. Credit...Benjamin Quinton for The New York Times



Many in Brussels expect a drawn out fight, as the tech industry spends more than ever on lobbying. And while there is strong political momentum for new regulations, the policies may not be approved for years, with many stages of negotiations where the debate could snag.

Mr. Lewis said the debate will be a test for the relationship between the United States and European Union, which was strained during the Trump administration on issues like digital taxes. A trade group representing big American tech companies, called the Internet Association, has already complained to officials in Washington about the new European rules.

Veterans of past European debates said the challenge will be translating the law’s lofty ambitions into strong enforcement, an area where previous E.U. policies have fallen short.

Europe’s landmark 2018 online privacy law, called the General Data Protection Regulation, has been criticized for not fulfilling its promise because of lack of enforcement. Despite a limited budget, Ireland is responsible for regulating all tech companies with a European headquarters within its borders — including Facebook, Apple and Google — and issued only its first fine of a major tech platform on Tuesday with the penalty against Twitter, more than two years after the law was enacted.

“For the E.U., it is important to get its priorities right in practice and not just talk about them,” said Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament who now teaches at Stanford University.

The European debate is already turning some companies against one another. On Monday, Facebook issued a statement urging European regulators to act against Apple, part of an ongoing feud between the two companies over Apple’s App Store policies, which Facebook said “harm developers and consumers.”

Raegan MacDonald, head of public policy in Brussels for the Mozilla Foundation, which operates the Firefox browser, called the efforts in Europe a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, particularly the transparency rules that would provide important insights about how the companies operate.

“What this is really about at its core is how people experience the web — the misinformation in our feeds, the recommendations that are being pushed toward us, or the creepy ads we’re seeing and don’t know why,” she said. “If this is done well, this could be game changing regulation for platform accountability.”



Source: nytimes.com
Website: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/t...on-europe.html
Date: December 15, 2020
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Old 01-17-2021, 01:06 PM   #15
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Post Uganda's Bobi Wine Urges Lifting of 'House Arrest'

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine on Sunday urged the international community to demand he be"house arrest"
released from after a disputed election returned President Yoweri Museveni to office for a sixth term.


Security forces outside the house of Presidential candidate Bobi Wine on Saturday.



The former ragga singer turned lawmaker, who came second in the presidential election, has not left his home since he went out to vote on Thursday, and has said his home is surrounded by hundreds of police and soldiers.

"We are here, we have run out of food, and nobody is allowed to come in or go out," said Wine, speaking on a crackling "clandestine" line on a Zoom call with journalists as Uganda remains under an internet blackout.

"We have not been charged of any crime."

Wine, 38, has said he has video footage of ballot box stuffing, soldiers forcing people to vote in a certain way or pre-ticking ballots, but that the internet shutdown is preventing his local lawyers from putting together a legal case.

He called for international sanctions against Museveni, the release of political prisoners, the restoration of internet, an international audit of the election and for "all the nations to kindly re-audit their relationship with Uganda".

He said he has been unable to meet his party officials to decide on a way forward but "we are putting all non-violent, all legal and all constitutional options on the table and that includes peaceful and legal protests".

Museveni has said it was the cleanest election in the country's history.

Wine's National Unity Platform earlier said that prominent MP, Francis Zaake, who had been arrested as he tried to visit his house on Friday, had been admitted to hospital "badly beaten and brutalised" by security forces.

Ugandan officials have said the soldiers and police were there for Wine's own security.

Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said the internet would begin to come back online on Monday.

"We anticipate that by Monday the opposition, who have been misusing the internet, would have come to terms with the loss they suffered in the presidential election".

- 'Deeply troubled' -

Museveni, 76, has ruled Uganda without pause since seizing control in 1986, when he helped to end years of tyranny under Idi Amin and Milton Obote.

Once hailed for his commitment to good governance, the former rebel leader has crushed any opposition and tweaked the constitution to allow himself to run again and again.

His re-election with 58.6 percent of the vote, to Wine's 34.8 percent, came after the most violent election campaign in recent years, with the harassment of the opposition, media and deaths of scores of Wine's supporters.

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus praised Ugandans on Saturday for voting "despite an environment of intimidation and fear".

She added that the US was "deeply troubled by the many credible reports of security force violence during the pre-election period and election irregularities during the polls".



Source: msn.com
Website: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...st/ar-BB1cPX9W
Date: January 17, 2021
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Old 01-17-2021, 01:55 PM   #16
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Post Alexey Navalny Finally Returns Home

Russia's leading opposition figure and chief Kremlin critic, Alexey Navalny, was
detained by local police on Sunday, moments after his return to the country.


A group of people around each other: Passengers and journalists take photos of Alexey
Navalny as he takes his seat on the flight Sunday. © Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images.



He was taken away "by police officers at the border" without explanation, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh tweeted. "The lawyer was not allowed to go with him, because just seconds ago 'he passed the border.'"

Navalny and his wife Yulia were returning from a five-month stay in Germany, where he recovered from poisoning with military-grade nerve agent Novichok. They landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport just after 8 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET), according to flight data information.



Alexei Navalny et al. posing for the camera: Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia march in memory of murdered
Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2019. Yulia became ill during a vacation in Kaliningrad.©


Standing in the airport after landing, Navalny told journalists, "This is the best day in the past five months."

"Everyone is asking me if I'm scared. I am not afraid," he added. "I feel completely fine walking towards the border control. I know that I will leave and go home because I'm right and all the criminal cases against me are fabricated."



Alexei Navalny et al. standing in a room: © FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/AFP via Getty Images Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
looks on ahead of a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg on November 15, 2018. - Top Kremlin critic
Alexei Navalny heads on November 15 to the European Court of Human Rights which will rule on whether his repeated arrests were
politically motivated. The court in Strasbourg must decide whether Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and President
Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic, was arbitrarily arrested and detained by Russian authorities. Between 2012 and 2014 he was
arrested seven times at public gatherings and prosecuted for either breaching procedures for holding public events or
disobeying a police order. (Photo by Frederick FLORIN / AFP) (Photo credit should read FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)


A perennial thorn in Russian President Vladimir Putin's side, Navalny was placed on the country's federal wanted list during his convalescence in Germany, in relation to a years-old fraud case that Navalany dismisses as politically motivated.

Last week, Russian's prison authority (FSIN) warned it would "to take all action to detain" Navalny.

After Navalny's poisoning in August, a joint investigation by CNN and the group Bellingcat implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning, piecing together how an elite unit at the agency followed Navalny's team throughout a trip to Siberia in August, where Navalny was poisoned and fell ill on a flight to Moscow.

The investigation also found that this unit, which included chemical weapons experts, had followed Navalny on more than 30 trips to and from Moscow since 2017. Russia denies involvement in Navalny's poisoning. But several Western officials and Navalny himself have openly blamed Russia.


Alexei Navalny et al. sitting in a room: Alexey Navalny in hospital in
Berlin, Germany, on September 15, 2020.© Alexey Navalny/Instagram.


Flight diverted to Sheremetyevo
Navalny had originally been scheduled to land at Vnukovo airport, where a crowd of hundreds of supporters and journalists waited. CNN has been unable to establish why the flight was diverted.

Their 2.5-hour flight by Russian carrier Pobeda took off from Berlin Brandenburg Airport on Sunday afternoon.

Russian media broadcasts showed police arresting several allies waiting for him at Vnukovo, despite temperatures of around -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees F), including politician and lawyer Lyubov Sobol and Ruslan Shaveddinov, who works for Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Before departing Berlin, Navalny had thanked all the other passengers on his flight, according to a live feed from TV Rain. "Thanks to you all, I hope we will get there fine," he said. "And I'm sure everything will be absolutely great."



A group of people looking at a cell phone: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen in a Pobeda plane
after it landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on January 17, 2021.© Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images


In an Instagram post on Saturday, Navalny also wrote a post to thank Germany, adding that Germans were "nice, sympathetic, friendly people."



Alexey Navalny, sitting in front of a crowd: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, right, and his wife,
Yulia Navalnya, on a Pobeda airlines plane heading to Moscow before take-off from Berlin on Sunday.


"Doctors and nurses. Physical therapists and police officers. A lot of cops. The neighbors who invited us to drink, and those who allowed us to rent. Politicians and lawyers. Shopkeepers. Journalists. The prosecutors who interrogated me on requests from Russia. Coaches. Teachers. And even, once, the Chancellor. I had quite a wide circle of friends here. And I can only say a huge thank you to everyone."

What's next for Navalny?
Navalny, who has been detained by Russian authorities many times, was placed on the country's federal wanted list during his time in Germany at the request of the FSIN, which in December accused him of violating probation terms in a years-old fraud case that Navalany dismisses as politically motivated.

Now the FSIN alleges that Navalny has been in violation of the terms of his suspended sentence by failing to show up for scheduled inspections.

The FSIN has requested that the court replace his suspended sentence with a real prison term. A hearing has been scheduled for January 29, and if the request is satisfied, Navalny will likely be jailed for 3.5 years.

In 2014, Navalny was found guilty of fraud after he and his brother Oleg were accused of embezzling 30 million rubles ($540,000) from a Russian subsidiary of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. While Navalny was given a suspended sentence, his brother was jailed.

If Navalny is not convicted later in January, he will still face an investigation for a newer fraud case, in which he and his Anti-Corruption Foundation have been accused of misusing donations from supporters.

Putin, who refuses to acknowledge Navalny as a legitimate opponent, has described the extensive media coverage and investigations into the poisoning as a fabrication by Western intelligence, and said in December that if Russian security services had wanted to kill Navalny, they "would have finished" the job.

"The situation with Navalny looks like two trains running towards each other at full speed, bound to collide," said Tatyana Stanovaya, a visiting fellow, also at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "There will be many victims."

Attacks on Navalny's allies have indeed continued. Pavel Zelensky, a cameraman with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was arrested Friday and will be detained until the end of February.

According to Agora, a Russian human rights organization, Zelensky was accused of extremism for tweets from September, in which he blamed the government for journalist Irina Slavina's self-immolation. Before taking her own life, Slavina blamed pressure from Russian law enforcement for her decision to self-immolate.



Source: msn.com
Website: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ed/ar-BB1cPwKI
Date: January 17, 2021
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Old 01-18-2021, 02:43 PM   #17
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Post Alexey Navalny Jan 18, 2021

Russian Court Orders Alexey Navalny Jailed for 30 Days,
Defying U.S. And European Calls to Free Him.


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Old 01-19-2021, 06:25 AM   #18
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Australia's big four banks remove thousands of ATMs and shut down hundreds of branches as the coronavirus crisis
pushes nation closer to a cashless society.

* At least 2150 ATM terminals removed across Australia in the recent June quarter.

* Australia's big four banks shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months.

* Sparked by COVID-19 as Australia move closer to becoming a cashless society.

* Opinion divided over branch and ATM closures which will inconvenience elderly.


The coronavirus crisis has sparked the closure of a record number of ATMs and hundreds of bank branches as Australia moves closer towards a cashless society.

The number of ATMs across the nation are at their lowest level in 12 years at 25,720, after at least 2150 terminals removed in the recent June quarter, according to the Australian Payments Network.

Australia's big four banks – ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac – also shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months.

The widespread closures have divided public opinion and left 2.5 million elderly Australians who don't do online banking inconvenienced.



At least 2150 ATM terminals were removed in the June quarters, according to the latest quarter. Pictured are Commonwealth Bank customers withdrawing cash in Brisbane.


Of the 175 branch closures, ANZ had the highest number with 68, followed by the Commonwealth with 44, Westpac had 36 while NAB shut 27.

Westpac removed the most ATMs at 84, followed by ANZ at 73 and NAB at 21 while Commonwealth Bank didn't disclose its number of closed terminals.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s head of payments policy Tony Richards said most ATM closures were in metropolitan areas in locations such as shopping centres.

'Overall the bank expects the long-term downward trend in the use of cash to continue,' he told News Corp.

Australian Banking Association's chief executive officer Anna Bligh added: 'Australia's banks have invested heavily to keep up with the customers banking preferences with technology and data now playing a key role in how banks do their business'.



NAB recently closed 21 ATM terminals as Australia moves towards a cashless society.


Not everyone has welcomed the move by the banks.

National Seniors Australia chief advocate Ian Henschke said many of the elderly feel more comfortable using cash amid a fear of being scammed online.

'Many of them are older Australians and taking away services from them is going to be extremely difficult for them,' he said.

The ATM and branch closures have also divided public opinion.

'This is stupid If I wasn't living with my son and family I would not be able to have the Internet. So how the hell do low income and pensioners get their money. Oh right we will be forced to walk into a bank and will be charged. Profit before people as usual,' one woman posted on Facebook.



ANZ has closed 68 branches across the nation in the last 12 months. Pictured is a branch in Newcastle, north of Sydney.


Another added: 'Banks ‘forced ‘ don’t believe that, it more they wanted to shut them down so we move cashless. Cash is still legal tender . Not to meant all the people young and old that would suffer from a cashless society. The banks and the government are pushing this . And they use Covid as a way to push this forward even more suggests business to accept contactless payment only. The government needs a wake up call.'

Some disagreed Australia was heading towards a full cashless society.

'I work in retail and I call BS on this. I don't see the cashless society. I see people working to budgets using cash, the elderly and not so elderly using cash,' one woman posted.



Westpac has closed 36 branches in the last 12 month and recently removed 84 ATMs.


Others believe the closures were more about bank profits.

'Banks aren’t being forced at all. They choose to close branches and ATMs because profit is more important to them than providing a service,' one man commented.

The news comes as ANZ struck a deal to sell 1,300 off-branch ATM to Armaguard Group in the next 12 months.

The banks says it will maintain its network of 900 branch ATMs, as well as what it has called “strategically important” offsite ATMs.



Source: dailymail.co.uk
Website: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ronavirus.html
Date: August 16, 2020
Yes we have an ultra conservative far right evangeical christian govt pushing that agenda,and the only first world govt to not condem trump over the events in washington on jan 6.
On getting cash if you have a commonwealth account you can get access to cash through post offices or supermarkets give cash on any card.
But yes,it is something that they have on their agenda.
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