Corax
47-year-old civil engineer Kristian Dimitrievski sentenced to three years in prison for corporate espionage for Russia, regularly met a Russian diplomat between 2016 and 2019 and handed over copied secret information from Scania, was acquitted of handing over Volvo data as it could not be proven that the information could damage Sweden's security
World
UK High Court justices grant US government permission to challenge January court decision not to extradite Julian Assange, as psychiatric expert witness Professor Michael Kopelman is found to have misled the court about the existence of Assange's children
Ecuador revokes the citizenship of Julian Assange, citing multiple inconsistencies in the naturalisation letter, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, Assange’s lawyer will file appeals, saying the decision was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case
Lufthansa stops using "ladies and gentlemen" to greet passengers, replacing it with "dear guests" or "good morning", saying they respond to a discussion that is rightly being held, comes after EasyJet, Air Canada and Japan Airlines modified their greetings during the last couple of years
Julian Assange could be permitted to serve any custodial sentence he receives in an Australian prison if convicted in the US and would not be held in its strictest maximum-security jails, according to new assurances made by the US government, seen as concessions in attempt to extradite the 50-year-old from the UK
Vladimir Putin says US threats are done within the context of its domestic political process, with assumptions that the US has such might it can get away with it and can make some mistakes, adding that problems accumulate and a moment comes when they cannot be solved anymore, a mistake which led to the downfall of the Soviet Union
Britain to sail a Type 45 destroyer and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate to the Black Sea in May amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, aiming to show solidarity with Ukraine and Britain's Nato allies, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth will stand ready to support with RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters
US State Department announces new guidelines encouraging engagement between US and Taiwan government officials in federal buildings or Taiwan’s de facto embassy in New York, following the Trump administration’s elimination of old hampering guidelines
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledges to work on global corporate minimum tax rate among more than 140 countries, with German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz now hoping to put an end to worldwide race to the bottom in taxation and the Biden administration wants to raise minimum corporate tax from 10.5% to 21%
Miscellaneous
Norwegian women's beach handball team fined for not wearing bikini bottoms during championship game, instead chose to wear tight shorts covering parts of their thighs which was deemed inappropriate by disciplinary commission of the European Handball Federation
Eric Clapton says he will cancel shows at places that discriminate by requiring vaccination, as a response to the British government requiring Covid-19 vaccine passes for access to live venues and nightclubs
22-year-old Tadej Pogačar wins his second streight Tour de France and also defends his wins in the mountains and the young rider classifications, as Wout van Aert becomes the third rider after Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault to win a mountain stage, an individual time trial and a bunch sprint in a single Tour following his win on the Champs-Élysées
Yokozuna Hakuho wins his 45th Grand Basho and his 16th undefeated tournament defeating Ozeki Terunofuji in the deciding match in the Nagoya Grand Basho, despite the loss Terunofuji is expected, in the coming week, to be be named the 73rd Yokozuna, crowning a remarkable comeback story
British sprinter Mark Cavendish equals Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 Tour de France victories by winning the sprint in Friday's stage from Nîmes to Carcassonne, the 36-years-old's fourth win in this year's Tour after not winning a stage for five years
Psychoanalyst Dr. Donald Moss writes article claiming whiteness is a malignant, parasitic like condition with no permanent cure and which triggers perverse appetites particularly targeting nonwhite peoples, published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Uttar Pradesh bride dies suddenly on wedding day, groom instead marries her sister on the same day with dead body of original betrothed lying in next room, family says change of plans was a tough call and that they have never witnessed such mixed emotions
Media
British news channel GB News vows to be anti-woke and that they will have no no-go areas which has triggered outrage on the left despite claiming to be heaving with diversity, recruits high profile presenters from BBC, ITV and Sky as well as a former Labour MP
Facebook freezes Nicolás Maduro's account for 30 days for repeatedly stating that carvacrol works as a miracle medication against COVID-19, Facebook's spokesman comments that they follow WHO's guidelines saying there currently is no medication to cure the virus
Donald Trump will return to social media in 2-3 months with his own platform which is going to completely redefine the game, has been having high-powered meetings with various teams and numerous companies have approached the former president, according to his advisers Jason Miller
CNN hemorrhages viewers since Donald Trump left office, dropping 49% since Inauguration Day from 3.1 million primetime viewers to 1.6 million and 58% among key demographic of adults age 25-to-54 most important to advertisers
Indian authorities threaten to jail local Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter staff if companies don't abide to government requests to remove information on protests over agricultural bills which have drawn thousands of farmers to rally in the Indian capital
Disney slaps The Muppet Show with offensive content disclaimer, warning viewers the show features stereotypes and mistreatment of people or cultures and that "these stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now", wanting it to "spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together"
Facebook blocks pages from domestic and international news organisations as well as state governments in Australia in escalation of dispute with the government over law to require it to share news revenue with news outlets, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Facebook is as arrogant as they were disappointing
Politics
Japan prime minister Abe Shinzo resigns due to health concerns, recently became the longest sitting prime minister in the post world war two era, Abe has a brief stint as prime minister between 2006 and 2007 when he was also forced to resign due to chronic illness which was later claimed to have been successfully medicated
National Justice Party founded in US by members of alt-right, front man Mike "Enoch" Peinovich says in speech that freedom is a European concept and can not be upheld without European people, new party will work for rights of whites in US and the world
Orthodox Church locks horns with Montenegrin government over new anti-ecclesiastical legislation, law gives state leave to seize ecclesiastical property from churches who cannot produce ownership titles notarised before 1918, thousands march through streets of Podgorica amid clerical hymn chants decrying "[the State] ... snatching people's souls", gloves come off as President Milo Djukanovic attacks the Orthodox Church for undermining Montenegrin independence, The Church has 12 million followers in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro
Greta Thunberg throws down the gauntlet at Bristol climate rally, rain-soused teenagers bellow "The ocean is rising and so are we" and other equally stirring slogans, Greta—donning her iconic yellow mac—attacks political complacency in face of impending climate apocalypse
Sweden's foreign ministry summons Chinese ambassador with the intention of demanding immediate release and consular access to Gui Minhai, apprehended and detained by Chinese authorities in 2018 for sale of literature vilifying the Chinese state apparatus
Donald Trump's adviser and confidant Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months' imprisonment, found guilty on five counts of obstructing House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump retweets Tucker Carlson segment calling for pardon, request for retrial filed by Stone's legal team
Arts Council England (ACE) threaten to withold public funding for museums and arts organisations who don't implement diversity quotas, appalled ethnic non-whites should be so woefully underrepresented in arts, report unearths a number of unnerving statistics - only 6% of workforce disabled as opposed to 21% in the national labour force
EU arch-bureaucrat Josep Borrell tells Munich Security Conference the European Union must learn to embrace its oft-derided hegemonic structure by "developing an appetite for power", the EU must throw equivocation, dawdling and prudence to the winds and learn to act, a conciliatory EU won't be able to challenge U.S. dominance in global politics
Opinion
Paul A. Nuttall: Viktor Orbán's 5-question referendum on LGBTQ+ law is a brave move, if he wins it could be the end of Hungary's EU membership and if he loses it would be curtains for him as prime minister, EU doesn’t like referendums as it does not like to leave anything to chance, but will now make the referendum about Hungary's membership, confident its people will be cowed into voting against Orbán’s proposals
Matthew Crawford: When science is elevated to authority to rule society it is distorted into a scientistic religion, manipulation becomes necessary to make public opinion conform to official intepretation of research results, leads to unstable regime which provokes stronger and more militant counterreactions
Peter Hitchens: The West pushes for war with Russia, which is a broken former superpower with the economy of about the same size as Italy's, imagine how US would act if Soviet had won the cold war, engulfed the former Nato nations into the Warsaw Pact, encouraged Texas and California to form an independent Spanish-speaking nation hostile to the US and based troops along the American border
Peter Hitchens: Scotland Yard’s raid on Polish Church of Christ the King in Balham during Good Friday devotions proof of revolution where much we used to know and believe is being insistently destroyed, with Johnson Government’s contemptuous indifferent to how insulting their actions are to those who acknowledge a power higher than them, but if the police had come in with Communist emblems on their cap-badges the Poles probably would have thrown them out, but free countries are incredibly easy to turn into despotisms, because nobody can believe what is happening
Kevin Karp: EU press Northern Ireland’s onerous post-Brexit arrangement as key for the Good Friday Agreement, while using it as a political prop to claw the rest of Britain back into the EU regulatory straitjacket, whatever the damage this causes to peace in Northern Ireland, spurring the recent sectarian violence and validating EU’s condescending disregard for British interests
Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Political exploitation of Covid-19 frighteningly successful, the state kills and makes ill more people than it saves with protective measures, at the same time local leaders are given opportunities to challenge central power and the critical importance of decentralized decision making is demonstrated
Ricardo Duchesne: White men are the most resented group because they are responsible for almost 100% of the greatest achievements in all fields of human endeavor in all of history, created all fields of academic study, were the foremost thinkers, artists, statesmen and explorers
Peter Hitchens: The lockdown and destruction of statues show the pillars of freedom and civilization are rotten as police chiefs and political leaders kneel like conquered slaves to the new gods of woke, and while the Left controls every lever of power, ignorant armies seek the final abolition of Britain as we face nothing less than a regime change
Europe
47-year-old civil engineer Kristian Dimitrievski sentenced to three years in prison for corporate espionage for Russia, regularly met a Russian diplomat between 2016 and 2019 and handed over copied secret information from Scania, was acquitted of handing over Volvo data as it could not be proven that the information could damage Sweden's security
England ditches vaccine passport plans, Health Secretary Sajid Javid says they looked at the evidence properly and "shouldn't be doing things for the sake of it"
Five people injured including a child slashed in the throat in stabbing spree in Rimini after a Somali man was asked for his bus ticket, police arrested the man after he failed to hijack a car
Scottish government says children aged four can change gender at school without parents' consent, tells teachers not to question a child's request to choose a new name or use a different toilet and schools to have transgender books on their curriculum
Russian woman takes McDonald’s to court claiming it made her break her fast during Lent when a billboard enticed her to buy a cheeseburger, demanding moral compensation of USD 13.5, a source from the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate advises her to go to confession instead
Poland’s justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro indicates his government could consider leaving EU amid dispute over proposed judicial reforms, saying government will not succumb to the illegal blackmail of the bloc carried out by the Court of Justice
Emmanuel Macron sues billboard owner for depicting him as Adolf Hitler in poster as a statement against the compulsory vaccinations, the poster shows Macron in Nazi uniform with a toothbrush moustache and swastika replaced by his party's abbreviation LREM, next to the slogan "Obey: Get Vaccinated"
UK government to launch surveillance app to track people’s routines and to award those who buy fruit and vegetables or increase their daily exercise, enabeling them to exchange points received through the tracking app for event tickets, discounts and other bonuses, in scheme to manage obesity levels in Britain
North America
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs executive order banning local school districts from requiring students to wear masks, shortly after CDC issued guidance recommending all students and teachers to wear face coverings, DeSantis said there will be no lockdowns, no school closures and no restrictions or mandates in the state of Florida
Wildlife agencies rebrand the invasive Asian carp because it casts Asian culture and people in a negative light, recently the invasive Gypsy Moth got a woke rebrand because its name is considered an ethnic slur
Lorraine Graves gets arrested after she comments on Tulsa Police Department's Facebook post listing her as the force’s Weekly Most Wanted for Accessory to Murder, asking "where’s the reward money at?”, enabling the Oklahoma police to track her down
Texas cyclist carrying a concealed weapon, shoots driver who deliberately crashed into his riding partner, police say he was justified in pulling the trigger as he feared for his life and was trying to defend himself, carrying a concealed weapon in Texas will no longer require a license from 1 September
Ladislas Kenderesi is facing mutiny charges from the Canadian military for giving a speech at an anti-mask rally in Toronto, he asked his fellow military members to not take the unlawful order to distribute the covid-19 vaccine and protect the citizens from foreign and domestic threats, mutiny charges haven not been laid in Canada in over 80 years
Over 120 retired US generals sign open letter warning country is in deep peril from full-blown assault on its constitutional rights, outlining threats to its survival in conflict between supporters of socialism and Marxism and supporters of constitutional freedom and liberty
Hollywood elite school Harvard-Westlake introduces Diversity, Equality and Inclusion programme where children are being groomed in wokeness and which teaches students they are racists and oppressors because they are white, with one mother saying she would rather be called a murderer in Hollywood than a racist
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors buys a $1.4 million home in an upscale mostly white enclave in Los Angeles, residents of Topanga Canyon are 88% white and 1.8% black, Cullors founded BLM with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013 and assumed leadership of the Black Lives Matter Global Network in the summer of 2020, BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year
Latin America
At least 79 inmates die in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as two rival gangs were trying to gain criminal leadership within the detention centres and an escape attempt, with 800 police offices helping to regain control of the facilities
32-year-old Mexican doctor goes into convulsions within 30 minutes of being injected with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, remains in intensive care after suffering from encephalomyelitis, an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, has a history of allergic reactions
91% of seats in Venezuelan legislature claimed by government allies after opposition boycotts election, the US and EU has disavowed elections as manipulated by Maduro regime
Argentina’s government is considering a one-off tax on the super-rich, the tax would start at 2% and rise depending on wealth starting at a fortune of 2.7 million USD affecting about 12 000 people
The Cuban government has turned 72 state-run shops into "dollar stores", shelves, unlike many regular supermarkets dealing in local currency, are well stocked with basic food and hygiene products but must be paid for in USD, the government denies the new stores are part of a "dollarisation" process turning the USD into the official currency as has happened in Panama, Ecuador and El Salvador
Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for covid-19, is said to have mild fever and receiving treatment including hydroxychloroquine and azitromycin
Asia
Teresa Van Lieshout is arrested for allegedly ordering fake police badges as part of preparations to overthrow the Australian government, she is part of a group which discussed forming an alternative federal police force to arrest politicians and public servants
Russian authorities blame Azerbaijan for violating the ceasefire agreement that was signed last November to end the war, clashes have continued between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces despite the ceasefire
Hong Kong lawmakers object to government facilitation of the organisation of Gay Games Hong Kong, Junius Ho does not want officials involved leaving it up to the civil society's business to arrange them because he does not want to earn what he considers dirty money, local LGBT+ activist and Director of the Hong Kong Pride Parade Wylie Yeo slammed the lawmakers’ comments calling them homophobic garbage
Indian hospitals report more than 8,000 cases of Mucorales fungal infection which is primarily spread among covid-19 patients, spread is increased by steroid treatment which counters lung inflammation but increases blood sugar levels
Khemia HI Vibe Frequency hair salon owner Yazmina Jade Adler is refusing customers who have received a Covid-19 vaccine, she cites unknown health effects of the mRNA vaccine not being covered by the public liability insurance and the 1000s of reported side effects this shot has shown so far as reasons, in Queensland, it is not illegal to discriminate against someone for medical reasons
MIDDLE EAST
Turkey is building a wall along its border with Iran to prevent a new refugee flow, a 5 km section of the 3 metre-high wall is under construction and Turkey is aiming to build a 295 km-long wall on its Iranian border, beefed up by barbed wires and trenches
Hard-line Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi wins Iran presidential election in landslide victory amid lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history after a panel under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualifies Raisi's strongest competition
Yamina leader Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid reach deal to form new governing coalition consisting of partners that span the Israeli political spectrum, ending the record-setting 12-year rule of Benjamin Netanyahu, the agreement still needs to be approved by the Knesset
Requests for permits to carry a weapon spike in Israel after the riots in Lod and Ramla, normally, 270 applications are made weekly, but between May 10 and May 16, 1,926 were received, all Israeli citizens can apply for a license to carry a firearm once they reach the eligible age
Israel Defence Forces announce it killed five senior Hamas leaders in targeted strikes, the dead include head of Hamas military intelligence security department and head of the military intelligence counterespionage department, adding "looks like our intel was better"
Israeli police in night-time clashes with thousands of rock-hurling Palestinians at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday amid potential eviction of Palestinians from homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers, leaving 205 Palestinians and 17 Israeli officers injured
Africa
Guinea declared new Ebola outbreak on Sunday when tests came back positive after three people died and four fell ill in the southeast, in first resurgence there since the 2013-2016 outbreak which killed at least 11,300 people
More than 270 elephants have mysteriously collapsed and died in Botswana since early May, poaching has been ruled out while Covid-19 has not, the country is home to around 130,000 elephants which is a third of Africa’s total
Opposition activists in Zimbabwe say torture and sexual abuse is used by state security services to discourage protests, MDC members claim to have been arrested at roadblock and subjected to humiliating treatment for two days before being released
Libyan government forces retake eight cities west of Tripoli from militias loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar, secure the road from the Tunisian border to the Abu Grein area, more than 1,000 government soldiers killed by Haftar's forces since last April
Economy
Royal Dutch Shell is acquiring ubitricity the owner of the UK’s largest public electric vehicle charging network, for an undisclosed amount marking the oil giant's expansion into the fast-growing on-street EV charging market
Idaho legislators introduce House Bill 7 allowing state funds to be held in physical gold and silver to help secure state assets against the risks of inflation and financial turmoil, South Carolina and Wyoming are considering similar measures
Record sales of Christmas trees in Australia leads to tree farms closing earlier than planned, four-year production cycles cause difficulties balancing supply and demand when sales peak
Scandinavian airline SAS signs SEK 3.3 billion three-year revolving credit facility agreement where 90% is guaranteed by the Swedish and Danish states approved by the European Commission, the company says it will further its dialogue with the Norwegian government regarding NOK 1.7 billion state guaranteed funding and that it will seek additional governmental support to ensure its providing of critical Scandinavian airline infrastructure
Japan decides on USD 930 cash handout for every citizen to lessen the economic Covid-19 blow, originally planned on giving 300,000 yen to qualified households that had lost income but changed that as the payments were seen as too complicated and too small
Bill Gates resigns from boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, states intention to focus more on philantropic efforts, remains involved in Microsoft which he founded 45 years ago and where he remains a top shareholder with 1.36% of shares
Bank of England bid to thwart Covid-19 recession drives Euro Zone banks index .SX7E 1.5% higher by kindling hope of ECB following suit, precarious 6% gain dashed as U.S. stock market opens sharply lower, British minister of finance say he will do "whatever it takes" to protect the UK economy, BoE gives UK banks provisional leave to tap capital reserves
Technology
Apple to scan iPhone user’s private photos and report child abuse imagery found to the authorities, bypassing any end-to-end encryption, describing privacy activists as "the screeching voices of the minority", Edward Snowden among signatory of petition on Github against Apple's plan
Virgin founder Richard Branson makes trip to suborbital space on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 spaceplane on Sunday, narrowly beating Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos to travel away from Earth, who argues it does not count as it failed to pass the Kármán line, which at 100km above sea level is considered by many to be the true boundary of space
Kawasaki Heavy Industries builds world’s first of 80 planned tankers for liquified hydrogen, the tanker is 116 meters long and can transport 75 tons of liquified hydrogen kept at temperatures of minus 253 degrees Celsius, the Japanese government’s plan for 2050 is having hydrogen and ammonia serve as the fuel for 10 percent of electric power generation
Third of staff quit as software company Basecamp refuses to let internal work tools become platform for political activism and shuts down employee committee formed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion
Valve will not allow Super Seducer 3: The Final Seduction to be released in any form on Steam citing it does not ship sexually explicit images of real people, the first two games remain available on Steam, the game revolves around the art of pickup artistry
Science
Researchers should be banned from using the word Caucasian because it is associated with a racist and pseudo-scientific classification of humans, instead the term "the European-associated principal component analysis cluster" should be used, according to paper written by five Cambridge and University College London scientists
Norwegians have as much sex as they had 20 years ago, unlike rest of the West where sexual activity is generally declining, according to survey with 4,000 participants
Chinese Tianwen-1 spacecraft successfully lands on Mars' surface on the vast plain Utopia Planitia on Saturday, leaving its orbit where it's been since March, the rover Zhurong is later to depart from its platform to conduct inspections on the ground
Method for blocking sunlight developed by balloon test over northern Sweden although first version will not disperse darkening particles, Harvard scientist are behind project which is controversial as it may decrease interest in cutting greenhouse gas emissions
Sharing bed with dogs beneficial for length and quality of sleep say researchers who surveyed 962 American women, dogs disturb less than human bed fellows and give stronger feelings of comfort and security, cats as disruptive as humans and the least comfort inducing of the three species studied
Previously unknown whale species discovered in waters west of Mexico, US marine biologists were looking for beaked whales when they notice individuals with unusual teeth placement and unique calls, water samples taken in hope of doing DNA analysis
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus, which essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis
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