In the current news climate we see that some figures and events tend to dominate the front-pages heavily. Still, there are important, interesting or just plain weird things happening out there and a group of people can find these better than one.

I thought I would test with a thread for linking general news articles about "other news" and discussion. Perhaps it goes into the abyss that is page 2 and beyond, but it is worth a try.

Some guidelines:
- Try to find the "clean link", so that links to the news site directly and not a social media site. Avoid "amp-links" (google).
- Write some cliff notes on what it is about, especially if it is a video.
- It's not an excuse to make outlandish claims via proxy or link extremist content.
- If it's an editorial or opinion piece, it is polite to mark it as such.
- Note the language if it is not in English.
- There is no demand that such things be posted here, if you think a piece merits its own thread, then make one.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54503968

"More than 100,000 people have signed a petition by former Australian PM Kevin Rudd calling for an inquiry into Rupert Murdoch's media dominance in Australia."

https://apnews.com/article/beirut-le...b498cb78a0c5bb

"Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict draws in fighters from Mideast"

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/u...streaming.html

I just stumbled on this article which I never heard about.
Please note that this is not exactly a light read and might be too negative for some.
It is about a live streamed rape on social media.
And please OP feel free to remove if not apropiate.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...-media-suicide
https://www.google.com/amp/s/longrea...her-death/amp/

This is about a teenager live streaming her death on social media. The role of social media. Comments that were made are mindboggeling.
The second one more about the role of social media in today's culture in connection to the case.

It's a gruesome and extremely uncomfortable story, but it certainly illuminates the most grotesque consequences of social media.

Also very disturbing.

The comments remind me of the fascinating, if extremely morbid and disturbing case, of the performance artist (Marina Abramovic) who stood passive in front of an audience with a selection of various instruments (knives, guns, bullets, scissors and also more peaceful objects) and allowed them to do anything.

The story of Rhytm-0: https://lonewolfmag.com/most-terrify...art-passivity/ (Mild NSFW on this one, so people are warned)

So in this regard, perhaps social media isn't that different from real life. However uncomfortable that thought might be.

Yes. And I'm sorry I had no positive articles to link.
I am doing research into social media/suicides right now.

The internet has become so engrained into everyone's life. And if you thought this can only only happen to teenagers. At the bottom of this list the ages increase. Everyone on this list had been bullied on social media to suicide.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ed_to_bullying

It definitely has its parallels.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...s-council-seat

"China, Russia, Saudi Arabia set to join UN Human Rights Council"


My thoughts:
As is noted in the article, all of these countries have long been on under fire from Human Rights Watch (HRW) for grievous human rights abuses. Personally I fear this will even further erode trust in the UN as an institution. The UN has long been the victim of political rhetoric in modern democracies, and it has rode hand in hand with the slow erosion of the body's utility overall.

The US withdrew from the council in 2018, as part of its increasing isolation from international diplomacy. A move strongly favored by hawks like John Bolton. This is not new, the US also withdrew under the Bush administration. On one hand, one can sympathize - why work with a rotten council? On the other hand, it used to be that when the US spoke internationally, a lot of countries did in fact listen and a critical voice inside an institution can be powerful.

I stopped taking the UN seriously after Rwanda. I do agree that the US should stay and use its influence from within though.

Rather bizarre articles in MSM regarding The Pentagon allegedly in possession of ‘Off-World Vehicles Not Made on This Earth'
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...th/ar-BB178OAS

https://www.fox13news.com/news/with-...-on-this-earth

I doubt if this is true but needless to say it's the biggest story in human history if it is. But again I doubt it.

It's hard to dig into these types articles, because you always need a pinch of salt.

That said, vehicle could be used in the broadest sense. Meaning some kind of medium (meteor, asteroid) through which a material or alloy that either
a) does not occur naturally on our planet ended up here
b) it is material we have, but in this case has properties that tells us that this specific case it did not originate on this planet (like say evidence of not being present through various radioactive events).

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54641076

"US approves $1.8bn weapons sale to Taiwan"

Interesting that Taiwan's defense ministry is directly stating a need for increase in asymmetric warfare capacity. Perhaps I am reading too much into it (as such a conflict could never be truly symmetric), but it could be taken as a sign that Taiwan is really sensing the slow erosion of various international coalitions and constellations.

I was intrigued y the term not made on this Earth and felt it was too good to be true and short answer- it is. After digging about a bit I found out that the guy who claimed this, Eric Davis claimed to work as a consultant to the Pentagon, only no mention of him can be found there soI very much doubt this amounts to anything.

Sorry for late reply just caught this now

From the WSJ:

It's unfortunate that not more has been done to transition energy production. The writing is on the wall, this is an industry where many practices will not survive. Corporations failing is one thing, people being left with dead or near-dead career prospects is another.

I think part of the problem is the overlap. Fossil fuels will keep on churning at maximum profitable capacity until they are actually replaced by other energy sources, but those energy sources won't be ready to replace them until a lot of the work is already done - IE there will be less opportunity to transition, because the replacement energy sources will already be fully (human) resourced. Seems like the best hope for a transition is when the fossil fuel company itself is the one developing alternatives.

This is just my very simplistic take on it based on nothing more than what I think is common sense. Obviously there is a lot more complexity and nuance to the issue, and I may have some (much?) of this wrong.

That is very likely true. There is no perfect solution when technology drive drastic shifts in production and competency requirements.

Soft measures like changing priorities in education and infrastructure planning should definitely be on the list of measures, however.

"Dozens of protesters have clashed with police in the French capital Paris in fresh demonstrations against a controversial draft security law."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55201993



Known to most of our European posters, but perhaps more unknown to people outside the continent; France (and especially Paris) is a bit of a hotspot for violent riots. This is small-scale still, but they have a long history of things getting out of hand.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rights-abusers

EU approves its 'Magnitsky Act' to target human rights abuses.

"The EU will take on powers to freeze assets and impose travel bans on individuals involved in human rights abuses from next month, after the bloc’s member states provisionally approved a European Magnitsky Act."

This is great news in my opinion. A lot of this is owed to the work of Bill Browder, who has worked tirelessly for years to fight for this type of legislation to be passed around the world. Anyone not familiar with his story should check it out.

Australia seems to finally get unstuck and be on route to similar legislation as well.

Wait....Am I the only one who that didn't know (until a min ago) that Gavin Newsom and Kimberly Guilfoyle used to be married?

Yes.

The scriptwriters are just messing with us.

The US isn't the only country with an impeachment case going.

The parliament in Denmark has got a majority in favor of proceeding with an Impeachment trial versus its former immigration minister, Inger Stjoberg.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-three-decades

She was the main politician behind Denmark's hardliner immigration laws that, among other things, separated couples at the border if the female was under 18. Stjoberg failed to instruct authorities to assess cases on an individual basis which lead to some rather unfortunate separations, and then later lied about this to parliament. It is this lie she is now going to face an impeachment trial for.

Of course, this is not impeachment as the US knows it (which should be clear by the fact that she is a former minister). Denmark has a parliamentary system, so getting rid of cabinets and cabinet members is much more trivial. Rather than this, an impeachment trial in Denmark (and similar in other Scandinavian countries) is an alternate high court, convened by the parliament and consists of supreme court judges and experts appointed by parliament. It is called "riksrett", which translates to "court of the realm". It is a very, very serious thing.

With all Scandinavian countries having popular right-wing parties with hardliner stances towards immigration, I expect this one to be hotly debated.