Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Bangladesh Gay Rights Activist Is Hacked to Death - The New York Times

Bangladesh Gay Rights Activist Is Hacked to Death - The New York Times: "In the last two years, similar killings have taken place, targeting intellectuals, secular writers, members of religious minority groups and activists who had published views critical of Islam. Ms. Hossain said this was the first time extremists appeared to go after someone for his sexual identity.



 “It’s a new shift, a new turn,” she said. “This is something different now.”



 Monirul Islam, the head of the counterterrorism unit for the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, described the attack as a “planned killing.”



 On Saturday, a university professor, Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, was hacked to death and nearly beheaded when he was attacked near his home in the northwest city of Rajshai. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on the professor, according to a message posted on Twitter by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.



 Last year, unidentified men used machetes to attack four activists who published views critical of Sunni Islam, and two publishers who had published their works. The attacks took place in broad daylight, on crowded city streets, or in the victims’ homes.



 Since those attacks, extremists appeared to broaden their list of targets to include new categories of minorities. Shiite Muslims, Hindu priests and Christian priests were attacked, and two foreigners were shot, apparently at random. The killings resumed this month, with the hacking death of a student activist in Dhaka and the killing of the university professor."



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Facebook threat targeted executed Ohio family - CBS News

Facebook threat targeted executed Ohio family - CBS News: "PIKE COUNTY, Ohio -- A law enforcement source has confirmed that investigators found some 200 marijuana plants in the executed Ohio family's indoor grow operation, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

 The source said the size of operation indicates it was being grown for sale not for personal use.

Each plant could produce about one pound of marijuana. A pound of high-grade quality marijuana has a street value of about $2,000.

A second law enforcement source said that investigators are looking at numerous avenues as a motive for the killings among them is whether there is a Mexican drug cartel connection or a possible drug turf war or family feud."



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Monday, April 25, 2016

Google is building its own in-house incubator | VatorNews

Google is building its own in-house incubator | VatorNews: "Over the last few years Google has been one of the leaders when it came to mergers acquisitions, gobbling up startups left and right. What if it could find, and nurture, those startups in-house, though? That would save it both time, and potentially money, if it wanted to bring them on board. 

Now that's just what the company has done, launching a new incubator so that teams within Google can work on their projects, according to a report from The Information on Sunday. 

Called “Area 120,” it will be overseen by Don Harrison and Bradley Horowitz, who are both long-time Google executives. Harrison is Vice President of Corporate Development, while Horowitz is VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing at Google.

To join, teams of Google employees have to submit a business plan and apply. If they are accepted, then they are allowed to work full-time on their idea over a few months. After that, they'll be given the opportunity to pitch Google on creating a new company, and for additional funding.

If successful, these companies would obviously immediately be on Google's radar for a potential "spin-ins," where they would be acquired by Google to become part of the family. The company would get a first look at some emerging startups, and gobble them up before they can go somewhere else."



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Former US senator talks of 2 loves — Clare and Matthew - The Washington Post

Former US senator talks of 2 loves — Clare and Matthew - The Washington Post: "The 90-year-old Pennsylvania statesman said in the Sunday piece (http://nyti.ms/1SrVeEh ) it’s been his good fortune to pair love with a best friend twice in life.

“Too often, our society seeks to label people by pinning them on the wall — straight, gay or in between. I don’t categorize myself based on the gender of those I love,” he said. “I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman, and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness.”

Wofford reflected on his life with his wife of 48 years — they had three children — and how he unexpectedly fell in love with Charlton five years after her death in 1996."



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Friday, April 22, 2016

The smug style in American liberalism - Vox

The smug style in American liberalism - Vox: "If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest? But no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too.

Abandoned and without any party willing to champion their interests, people cling to candidates who, at the very least, are willing to represent their moral convictions. The smug style resents them for it, and they resent the smug in turn."

The smug style in American liberalism - Vox: "It is central to the liberal self-conception that what separates them from reactionaries is a desire to help people, a desire to create a fairer and more just world. Liberals still want, or believe they still want, to make a more perfect union.

Whether you believe they are deluded or not, whether you believe this project is worthwhile in any form or not, what I am trying to tell you is that the smug style has fundamentally undermined even the aspiration, that it has made American liberalism into the worst version of itself."

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Thursday, April 21, 2016

After raising money for a well in Sierra Leone, local teen turns focus on Flint - WTOP

After raising money for a well in Sierra Leone, local teen turns focus on Flint - WTOP: "Lewis first got interested in clean water issues when deciding upon a community project to do for his bar mitzvah.

“It ended up being a complete success. I was able to raise $6,875 to be the sole source funder of a well in Sierra Leone,” Lewis said of the clean water source constructed by The Water Project. “It’s so great to see them, they’re all smiling — so happy that they finally have access to clean water and it’s by their home.”

Now, raising money to help children affected by the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, Lewis is finding this second effort more of a challenge.

“Compared to raising money for a well in Africa — which is a direct, tangible thing that people are donating for — the fund that I’m raising money to donate money to is helping with long-term effects. It’s a little hard for people to understand, so sometimes they’re not as motivated,” Lewis said."



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Sierra Leone 'helped deploy ex-child soldiers to Iraq', academic says | Reuters

Sierra Leone 'helped deploy ex-child soldiers to Iraq', academic says | Reuters: "LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sierra Leone's government helped British private security service firms recruit former child soldiers to work as guards in Iraq from 2009, said a Danish academic who has spent years investigating the issue.

Thousands of children were forced to fight in Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002. More than 50,000 people were killed in the fighting and many tens of thousands more mutilated or raped by rebels.

By 2009, with Iraq in chaos, impoverished Sierra Leone was looking for a way to engage its workforce, said Maya Mynster Christensen, a researcher at the Danish Institute Against Torture who made repeated trips to the West African country.

"From a Sierra Leone government perspective the recruitment was supposedly quite a good deal because it could take the local troublemakers and send them to Iraq for a couple of years," the anthropologist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"The government returned the men, many of them now in their late twenties and thirties, with money earned on their overseas deployment," she said.

But Christensen said this ran counter to Sierra Leone's stated policy of demobilization following the civil war."



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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

WHO Approves World’s First-Ever Dengue Vaccine | TIME

WHO Approves World’s First-Ever Dengue Vaccine | TIME: "The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday endorsed the world’s first-ever vaccine for dengue fever, a potentially deadly mosquito-borne virus that threatens to infect close to half of the world’s population.

Unlike malaria, there is no established cure for dengue fever, which can cause severe nausea, bone pain, headaches, rashes, bleeding and even death. The virus can last for up to 10 days. About 390 million people are infected by dengue each year in some 120 countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa."



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Landing an internship has become way more important and complex than anyone's acknowledging | Jeff Selingo | LinkedIn

Landing an internship has become way more important and complex than anyone's acknowledging | Jeff Selingo | LinkedIn: "No one wants to be the first full-time employer anymore of new college graduates who haven’t worked or interned anywhere. As a result, the race to lock up the best interns early in their undergraduate career for full-time employment later is commonplace among employers of all sizes and in all industries. The peak recruitment time for internships is February and March. 

This new emphasis on the internship has upended the traditional recruiting calendar on campuses nationwide, and not only at the elite universities. With more companies hiring from their intern pools, recruiters have shifted their attention from hiring soon-to-graduate seniors as full-timers to scoping out juniors, even as early as the fall term to be interns the next summer."



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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Brazil president defiant after impeachment vote, won’t quit - The Washington Post

Brazil president defiant after impeachment vote, won’t quit - The Washington Post: "BRASILIA, Brazil — Expressing outrage over the congressional vote to open impeachment proceedings against her, President Dilma Rousseff says she will not resign and vows to keep fighting the forces arrayed against her.

The defiant comments came at a Monday news conference at the presidential palace, which was Rousseff’s first public appearance since the Chamber of Deputies voted 367-137 the previous night to send the impeachment proceedings to the Senate for a possible trial of Brazil’s first female president.

The proceedings against Rousseff are based on accusations that her administration used illegal accounting tricks that allowed government spending to shore up flagging support before elections.

Rousseff has said previous presidents used such fiscal maneuvers without repercussions and calls the accusations against her an act of “violence against democracy.” She says the claims against her are really a flimsy cover for Brazil’s traditional ruling elite to grab power back from her left-leaning Workers’ Party, which has governed for 13 years."



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Samantha Bee Grills Bernie Sanders Focus Group: You Think the GOP Will Work with a ‘Socialist Jew?’ - The Daily Beast

Samantha Bee Grills Bernie Sanders Focus Group: You Think the GOP Will Work with a ‘Socialist Jew?’ - The Daily Beast: "Everyone in the room voted for Obama in the previous two elections, inspired by his message of “hope and change,” but admitted that he was not able to accomplish as much as they had hoped due to brutal opposition from Congress. “So all of these conservative representatives in their safe gerrymandered districts are going to wake up and say, ‘You know what, I like what this socialist Jew is doing?” Bee asked.



They immediately pushed back, explaining why Sanders different, causing Bee to ask, “Are you literally saying that the difference between Obama and Bernie Sanders is that the people of America are going to continue to be motivated within the political process and they’re going to keep putting pressure on our elected leaders to make change?”"



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Mind the gap in local and international aid workers' salaries

Mind the gap in local and international aid workers' salaries

April 18, 2016 10.32am AEST
Expatriates are often quick to dismiss dual salary systems as a non-issue. But local workers told us a different story. They said disparities created significant feelings of workplace injustice. They felt less valued than their expatriate colleagues.
Wage disparities are often a taboo topic, especially when power relations are involved. Socially responsive and accountable research like the ADDUP project can “speak truth to power”. This is especially important because differential treatment between international and local aid workers may undermine international aid programs.
Ishbel McWha-Hermann, now based at the University of Edinburgh, who is a co-author of this article, found that the fall-out from pay disparities can damage relationships in the workplace and thereby interfere with aid effectiveness. Employees “form work groups and alliances based on observed differences and similarities”. A likely source of comparison is socioeconomic status linked to salary.
She warns that large pay gaps “may be undermining poverty-reduction initiatives before they even reach the community”.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Like a Good Samaritan, Pope Francis takes in 12 Syrian families - CSMonitor.com

Like a Good Samaritan, Pope Francis takes in 12 Syrian families - CSMonitor.com: "In his most recent act of compassion and solidarity, Pope Francis returned to Rome with 12 Syrian refugees with him aboard the papal plane following his visit to the Greek Island of Lesbos."



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The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems — The Development Set — Medium

The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems — The Development Set — Medium: "But if you ask that same 22-year-old American about some of the most pressing problems in a place like Uganda — rural hunger or girl’s secondary education or homophobia — she might see them as solvable. Maybe even easily solvable.
I’ve begun to think about this trend as the reductive seduction of other people’s problems. It’s not malicious. In many ways, it’s psychologically defensible; we don’t know what we don’t know.
If you’re young, privileged, and interested in creating a life of meaning, of course you’d be attracted to solving problems that seem urgent and readily solvable. Of course you’d want to apply for prestigious fellowships that mark you as an ambitious altruist among your peers. Of course you’d want to fly on planes to exotic locations with, importantly, exotic problems.
There is a whole “industry” set up to nurture these desires and delusions — most notably, the 1.5 million nonprofit organizations registered in the U.S., many of them focused on helping people abroad. In other words, the young American ego doesn’t appear in a vacuum. Its hubris is encouraged through job and internship opportunities, conferences galore, and cultural propaganda — encompassed so fully in the patronizing, dangerously simple phrase “save the world.”"



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Sunday, April 17, 2016

Don't shortchange foreign aid

Don't shortchange foreign aid: "The effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of our overseas programs are unmatched. And we are setting the global model for providing a hand-up – not a hand-out – to countries and communities through our assistance. From sustainable agriculture training in Latin America to HIV and AIDS relief in Africa, the return on investment for our economy and advancing our values around the world is unequaled across the federal budget."



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I'm A Woman Who Doesn't Have Or Want Kids, And I'm Happy

I'm A Woman Who Doesn't Have Or Want Kids, And I'm Happy: "The plot would thicken when I was around children at family gatherings.
“See, you’re so good with children. Why don’t you want your own? You like them so much. I just don’t understand.”
As if being able to keep a child occupied for a span of time was the only qualification I needed to be a good mother. Maybe I would be. But what if I still didn’t want to?"



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Saturday, April 16, 2016

Secret aid worker: what should doctors do when we witness human rights abuses? | Global Development Professionals Network | The Guardian

Secret aid worker: what should doctors do when we witness human rights abuses? | Global Development Professionals Network | The Guardian: "After finishing my medical training as a doctor, I was excited to start working for a healthcare NGO in an African country that was making a lot of progress, despite only recently coming out of a civil war. However, while I was proud of the healthcare advancements during my stay, I came to struggle with the government’s egregious human rights abuses, and the sense that in some ways by simply being there I was complicit."



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Denmark looks to further aqua equipment supply to Malaysia | Undercurrent News

Denmark looks to further aqua equipment supply to Malaysia | Undercurrent News: "Denmark's environment and food minister has inaugurated a forum to secure the supply of Danish pumps, filters, feed technology and equipment to the Malaysian aquaculture sector.

The Danish-Malay forum, launched by Esben Lunde Larsen, will aim to strengthen the presence of Danish companies in Southeast Asia, as it looks to ramp up exports to Malaysia -- a country looking to make its aquaculture industry more sustainable."



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Second deadly quake hits Japan, 'race against time' to find survivors | Reuters

Second deadly quake hits Japan, 'race against time' to find survivors | Reuters: "Japanese rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings and mud on Saturday to reach dozens believed trapped after a powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck a southern island, killing at least 26 people and injuring about a thousand.

The shallow earthquake hit in the early hours, sending people fleeing from their beds and on to dark streets, and follows a 6.4 magnitude quake on Thursday which killed nine people in the area."



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For the first time, the USDA said it won't subject a crop edited with controversial gene-editing tool CRISPR to the same rules as GMOs - Business Insider

For the first time, the USDA said it won't subject a crop edited with controversial gene-editing tool CRISPR to the same rules as GMOs - Business Insider: "The mushroom, developed by Yinong Yang at Penn State, is not the first crop to be modified using the controversial gene-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9, but it is the first one that the USDA has said isn’t subject to regulation.

At the center of the agency’s decision not to subject the new crop to its rules is the fact that the CRISPR-edited mushroom doesn’t contain any “introduced genetic material” or foreign DNA and thus would not be a threat to other plants."



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Friday, April 15, 2016

California crime ring goes nuts: targets almonds, cashews - CSMonitor.com

California crime ring goes nuts: targets almonds, cashews - CSMonitor.com: "The problem itself is far from new. American farms have long had a reputation agricultural theft, known as "plaid-collar crime." Many farm workers may not pay attention to all the paperwork, and large swaths of farmland are difficult to patrol. In the early 2000s, however, farmers began to see a shift from quick thefts of copper wire or unauthorized timbering to far more sophisticated – and costly operations, The Christian Science Monitor's Patrik Jonsson reported in 2006. "



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Possibly the world's longest snake ever found in Malaysia — then it dies - Chicago Tribune

Possibly the world's longest snake ever found in Malaysia — then it dies - Chicago Tribune: "In a span of three days, humans managed to find what might have been the longest snake in the world, capture it, kick it and watch it die.

The reticulated python, a fairly common species in Southeast Asia, was spotted last Thursday at a construction site in Paya Terubong, part of the island of Penang, Malaysia. It was stuck under a fallen tree, The BBC reports.

The Penang Civil Defence Department was called in. Herme Herisyam, an official on that team, said it took a half-hour to capture the slithery beast.

"It is eight metres in length and weighs about 250kg," Herisyam told The Guardian.

Or more than 26 feet long and 550 pounds. If an official measurement confirms this, it will be the longest snake on record."



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Amazon to set up temporary homeless haven on downtown campus | The Seattle Times

Amazon to set up temporary homeless haven on downtown campus | The Seattle Times: "The tech giant will let Mary’s Place, a nonprofit dedicated to helping homeless women and their families, run a shelter housing more than 200 people for a year in a former Travelodge that it bought as part of its downtown Seattle expansion."



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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Bilingual Babies Have More Flexible Brains | IFLScience

Bilingual Babies Have More Flexible Brains | IFLScience: "As such, the researchers conclude that the need to distinguish between two languages presents a cognitive challenge to bilingual babies that requires them to engage these brain areas, thereby strengthening their executive function capacities. According to study co-author Naja Ferjan Ramírez, this finding “suggests that bilingualism shapes not only language development, but also cognitive development more generally.”

In other words, babies who are exposed to multiple languages are likely to get a head start at strengthening the connections in the parts of the brain that are necessary for flexible thought and problem solving. ¡Qué bien!"



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Chinese investors love California, but they're putting money elsewhere in the U.S. too - LA Times

Chinese investors love California, but they're putting money elsewhere in the U.S. too - LA Times: "Chinese investments in U.S. businesses hit a record $15 billion last year, with California remaining a top destination, but the money increasingly is being spread throughout the nation as investors expand their spending into hospitality, auto parts and other industries.

This year is on pace to set another record as China's slowing economy and unsteady exchange rate have spurred investors to seek out more security and diversity abroad, according to a study that will be released Tuesday by the nonprofit National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and research firm Rhodium Group.

More than $5 billion in U.S. deals have been completed in the first three months of this year alone. The largest was Dalian Wanda Group's $3.5-billion acquisition of Hollywood production company Legendary Entertainment, known for "The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic World," among other movies."



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Monday, April 11, 2016

SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform - BBC News

SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform - BBC News: "The US aerospace company SpaceX has successfully landed a resusable rocket on an ocean platform, after four previous attempts failed.
Mission controllers cheered as the Falcon 9 rocket remained upright on the platform off Florida.
It was returning from delivering an inflatable habitat into space for Nasa.
The inflatable room will attach to the International Space Station (ISS) for a two-year test and become the first such habitat for humans in orbit.
It is due to reach the ISS around 09:00 GMT on Sunday along with other freight aboard the Dragon capsule.
Built by Nevada company Bigelow Aerospace, the habitat is intended to pave the way towards the use of such rooms for long space trips, including to Mars."



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California’s Primary Is Finally Going to Matter -- NYMag

California’s Primary Is Finally Going to Matter -- NYMag: "Before digging into the findings, it's important to understand some peculiarities about the California primary. 

First of all, Democrats, but not Republicans, have decided to open their process to independents this year. That's of obvious importance to Bernie Sanders. According to Field, a little over a fourth of Democratic likely voters will be independents — a group Sanders has been winning by a large margin.



 Second of all, California is a state with relatively heavy voting by mail, driven in part by the option of permanent voting-by-mail registration; those who so register automatically receive a ballot about a month from the election so long as they keep voting. In the 2014 statewide primary, 69 percent of votes were cast by mail. This means the "campaign" in California will begin much earlier than June. 



 And third of all, the presidential primary will coincide with the state's top-two primary for all non-presidential offices. Instituted by a ballot initiative in 2010, the top-two system abolished party primaries for non-presidential contests altogether, substituting a "jungle primary" where everyone competes for two spots in the November general election. Unlike Louisiana's version of the "jungle primary," a majority in the first round does not enable a candidate to avoid the second. As intended, the system has produced some two-Democrat and two-Republican general-election contests that reward candidates who can win crossover votes. But against its proponents' expectations, top-two, so far at least, has not boosted primary turnout; in June 2014 turnout dropped to an all-time low of 25 percent."



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Earthquake in Delhi: North India, Pakistan hit by strong 6.8 magnitude quake; 6 dead, 28 injured | The Financial Express

Earthquake in Delhi: North India, Pakistan hit by strong 6.8 magnitude quake; 6 dead, 28 injured | The Financial Express: "Earthquake in Delhi: In Pakistan, in all 6 people have been killed – two people died in Buner and Swat areas of KP province, while one died in Diamer area of Gilgit-Baltistan region, an official of the National Disaster Management Authority said, and added 28 people were reported injured in the provincial capital Peshawar alone. In India, However, as can be seen in this Reuters photo some damage was caused (man clears debris after his house partially collapsed following the earthquake, in Srinagar, Kashmir). People in Kashmir and Chandigarh were seen rushing out of their homes into open areas in panic. “The earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale at a depth of 190 km hit Hindukush mountain region at 3:58 PM,” said J L Gautam, Operations Head of National Centre for Seismology in Delhi."



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Obama says Hillary Clinton emails did not endanger national security - Washington Times

Obama says Hillary Clinton emails did not endanger national security - Washington Times: "President Obama said Sunday that Hillary Clinton showed “carelessness” by using a private email server, but he also strongly defended his former secretary of state, saying she did not endanger national security, while also vowing that an ongoing FBI investigation into the matter will not be tainted by politics."



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American Airlines Removes Young Turks' Host from Flight for Recording Customer Service Chaos - PINAC News

American Airlines Removes Young Turks' Host from Flight for Recording Customer Service Chaos - PINAC News: "But it was only after he posted his initial video to YouTube where it went viral that he was informed by American Airlines that he had been removed from the flight for video recording.

Turns out, American Airlines introduced a policy in December 2014 forbidding passengers from video recording its employees on planes and inside terminals, including ticket counters, which obviously includes an customer service interactions.

The policy came in place after several instances on other airlines where passengers uploaded videos of interactions with rude employees, sparking national embarrassment for the airline."



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President Obama Calls Libyan Intervention Biggest Mistake of His Administration

President Obama Calls Libyan Intervention Biggest Mistake of His Administration: "President Barack Obama told Fox News what he thought was the worst mistake of his presidency on Sunday, saying his failure to adequately plan for the aftermath of the U.S.-supported overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 was "probably" his biggest error.

"Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya," the president told Fox's Chris Wallace in response to the inquiry."



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Friday, April 8, 2016

Silicon Valley job boom unleashes challenges that could choke growth - San Jose Mercury News

Silicon Valley job boom unleashes challenges that could choke growth - San Jose Mercury News: "That's because roughly 59,900 housing units were added from 2007 through 2015 in Silicon Valley, but 100,300 housing units were needed during those eight years to maintain the ratio of 2.7 persons per household, the study determined. To reduce the ratio of persons per household to 2.65, the region would have needed to create 124,700 housing units.

This means that Silicon Valley suffers a shortage of 40,000 to 65,000 housing units to meet the needs of the new workers and residents in the region, the study suggested.

The trends also pose hazards to the region's economy.

"This can choke off growth," Levy said. "Home prices are rising, people are doubling up in homes, and they are driving further. It can get to the point where job growth will slow."

That could happen if employees simply can't find housing near their workplaces.

"The cost of living and the cost of housing puts a squeeze on employment growth and overall economic growth in the Bay Area," said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Stockton-based Business Forecasting Center at University of the Pacific."



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Uber agrees to pay up to $25M for misleading customers in California over its safety | TechCrunch

Uber agrees to pay up to $25M for misleading customers in California over its safety | TechCrunch: "Uber has agreed to pay up to $25 million to California-based prosecutors to settle a case in which the ride sharing giant is accused of misleading consumers around the safety of its service.

The civil lawsuit, filed in December 2014, took issue with Uber’s background checks of drivers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Specifically, Uber billed its checks as “the gold standard” that made its service the “safest ride on the road.” However, investigations uncovered at least 25 instances in which an approved Uber driver had serious criminal convictions, including identify theft, burglary, child sex offenses and even one murder charge.

Uber was also accused of misleading drivers around fees for airport rides. The company began charging a $4 fee for passengers being collected from or going to California airports. Prosecutors found that the “toll” wasn’t being passed on to the airports, while it also worked at some airports were it was not authorized."



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Thursday, April 7, 2016

In Pakistan, tackling extremism is a political minefield

In Pakistan, tackling extremism is a political minefield: "ISLAMABAD (AP) — Tackling extremism is a political minefield in Pakistan, where politicians openly consort with leaders of banned militant groups and sympathy exists within the security forces and civil administration for perpetrators of crimes committed in the name of religion. As a result, many remain skeptical of the state's ability to put an end to the militant violence that kills hundreds of Pakistani civilians each year.

A suicide bombing in a park in Lahore that killed 72 people, many of them Christians celebrating Easter Sunday, brought renewed international attention to Pakistan's extremism problem. In the aftermath, security forces arrested hundreds of suspected militants.

At the same time, however, demonstrators calling for the implementation of Islamic law and expressing their support for the man who murdered an anti-blasphemy campaigner were allowed to congregate freely in the capital. On social media, pictures circulated showing senior members of Pakistan's elite police forces praying at the grave of Mumtaz Qadri, the policeman charged with killing the secular, left-leaning politician Salman Tanseer because he defended a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. When Qadri was hanged for the murder in February, tens of thousands of Pakistanis rallied in his support."



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Student activist hacked, shot to death in Bangladesh - The Washington Post

Student activist hacked, shot to death in Bangladesh - The Washington Post: "NEW DELHI — Three motorcycle-riding assailants hacked and shot a student activist to death as he was walking with a friend in Bangladesh’s capital, police said Thursday.

The killing on Wednesday night follows a string of similar attacks last year, when at least five secular bloggers and publishers were killed, allegedly by radical Islamists.

Police suspect 28-year-old Nazimuddin Samad was targeted for his outspoken atheism in the Muslim-majority country and for supporting a 2013 movement to demand capital punishment for war crimes involving the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971, according to Dhaka Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Nurul Amin.

No group immediately claimed responsibility."



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The DEA will decide whether to change course on marijuana by July - The Washington Post

The DEA will decide whether to change course on marijuana by July - The Washington Post: "In a lengthy memo to lawmakers, the Drug Enforcement Administration said it hopes to decide whether to change the federal status of marijuana "in the first half of 2016."

Marijuana is currently listed under the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that for the purposes of federal law, the drug has "no medical use and a high potential for abuse" and is one of "the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence." Marijuana shares Schedule 1 status with heroin, and it is more strictly regulated than the powerful prescription painkillers that have killed more than 165,000 people since 1999."



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Malaysia MP: Banning Child Marriage Will Lead Girls to Seek Casual Sex

Malaysia MP: Banning Child Marriage Will Lead Girls to Seek Casual Sex: "A Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) member of Malaysia’s parliament said he opposes banning child marriages because such a move would lead girls to seek out casual sex.

Nik Mazian Nik Mohamad made the assertions as the parliament debated the Child (Amendment) Bill 2015.

“Nowadays, kids under the age of 16 are already having sex and already have open sexual relationships,” he claimed. “If we prevent them from getting married, these urges are still there, so they will be exposed to have sex freely and outside of marriage,”"



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Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Myanmar's former president leaves office, joins monkhood

Myanmar's former president leaves office, joins monkhood: "YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's former president Thein Sein has shed his formal attire and his hair to join the Buddhist monkhood.

Thein Sein's ordination as a monk took place Monday, officials said, four days after he presided over a historic transition of power to the former opposition party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Photographs circulating on social media show the former president, with his head shaved and dressed in a saffron robe, beside a fellow monk."



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Secret aid worker: fixing the humanitarian and development divide | Global Development Professionals Network | The Guardian

Secret aid worker: fixing the humanitarian and development divide | Global Development Professionals Network | The Guardian: "Earlier this year the UN secretary-general, described a humanitarian system that operates “in silos created by mandates and financial structures rather than towards collective outcomes by leveraging comparative advantage”. In September 2015, the EU stated that there was a “compelling need to reframe the humanitarian-development cooperation, so that this partnership reinforces the outcomes of both streams”. They are re-stating the obvious. Everyone agrees this must happen. This unity cracks on the reasons for change, and dribbles away altogether, when solutions are proposed that would fix the problem."



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One of Africa’s Biggest Dams Is Falling Apart - The New Yorker

One of Africa’s Biggest Dams Is Falling Apart - The New Yorker: "The news comes as more and more of the biggest hydroelectric-dam projects around the world are being cancelled or postponed. In 2014, researchers at Oxford University reviewed the financial performance of two hundred and forty-five dams and concluded that the “construction costs of large dams are too high to yield a positive return.” Other forms of energy generation—wind, solar, and miniature hydropower units that can be installed inside irrigation canals—are becoming competitive, and they cause far less social and environmental damage. And dams are particularly ill-suited to climate change, which simultaneously requires that they be larger (to accommodate the anticipated floods) and smaller (to be cost-effective during the anticipated droughts)."



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Monday, April 4, 2016

Greece Grapples With Unrest Ahead of Migrant Transfers to Turkey - WSJ

Greece Grapples With Unrest Ahead of Migrant Transfers to Turkey - WSJ: "Greece is due to start sending Syrian refugees and other migrants back across the Aegean Sea to Turkey on Monday, putting into practice a controversial deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at stemming the migration flow into Europe."



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What Are the Panama Papers? - The Atlantic

What Are the Panama Papers? - The Atlantic: "Some of the products of that research were published Sunday. The BBC reported the leak reveals information about 72 current or former heads of state, including Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak, and Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi. It reported Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stored millions of dollars of investments in Iceland’s major banks in an offshore company. The Guardian reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associates secretly moved as much as $2 billion through offshore accounts. Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Juan Pedro Damiani, the Uruguayan lawyer who is president of the country’s most popular soccer team and a FIFA ethics expert, managed companies through which FIFA members may have received bribes.



 Owning an anonymous shell company is not illegal. It’s also pretty easy to set one up, as Fusion’s Natasha Del Toro showed Sunday, when she reported she had opened one in Delaware, a state known for its corporate-friendly privacy laws, for an anonymous owner—her cat. Shell companies allow their owners to hold assets that are subject to minimal governmental oversight. Some are used to dodge taxes—especially in tax havens, the name given to countries that offer foreign businesses little or no tax liability—and other criminal activity.



 The reports published Sunday only scratch the surface of the leaked material, which eclipses in size the WikiLeaks dump of American diplomatic cables in 2010 and Edward Snowden’s disclosures in 2013. An untold number of stories emerged from those leaks and continue to pour out today. The first reports from the Panama Papers mark the beginning of a steady drip of potentially incriminating information."



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Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin | News | The Guardian

Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin | News | The Guardian: "A network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

An unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy.

Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.

The documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.

The files are part of an unprecedented leak of millions of papers from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. They show how the rich and powerful are able to exploit secret offshore tax regimes in myriad ways."



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Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens - BBC News

Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens - BBC News: "Eleven million documents were leaked from one of the world's most secretive companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
They show how Mossack Fonseca has helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax.
The company says it has operated beyond reproach for 40 years and has never been charged with criminal wrong-doing.
The documents show links to 72 current or former heads of state in the data, including the Icelandic Prime Minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugson, who had an undeclared interest linked to his wife's wealth and is now facing calls for his resignation.
The files also reveal a suspected billion-dollar money laundering ring involving close associates of President Putin.
Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), said the documents covered the day-to-day business at Mossack Fonseca over the past 40 years.
"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents," he said."



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