Home
World
Vienna named as the world's most livable city by Economist magazine, the Austrian city and former capital of Austro-Hungarian empire displaces Australia's Melbourne, it is the first time a European city tops the list that evaluates political and social stability, crime, education and access to medical care, nearly half of the cities surveyed saw their liveability index rise over the past year
UAE plans building oil pipeline between Eritrea's port city of Assab and Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, seen as latest sign of Gulf state's increasing involvement in the Horn of Africa motivated by investment opportunities in fast-growing Ethiopia as well as fear that rivals such as Iran or Qatar could gain foothold
Loading
Media
Facebook to be sole distributor of Spanish football series La Liga in Indian markets, will be offered to platform's 348 million users in region, terms of deal not disclosed but Sony Pictures Network last purchased rights for USD 32 million in 2014, part of trend where technology companies compete with traditional TV distributors by offering live sports
German entertainment software regulator rules that "anti-constitutional" Nazi imagery can be shown in video games, previously motion picture films designated as "art" and escaped youth protection censorship laws, decision comes after numerous outcries over German-edition video games having offending imagery removed or altered
The Infowars Official app is the number 4 most downloaded Apple Appstore news app after the Infowars podcast is punted off the Apple iTunes directory service, radio host Alex Jones encouraged his listeners to become "unstoppable" by downloading the app after Apple did not believe the app itself violated their terms of service and left it up
Facebook removes four pages owned by Alex Jones "for glorifying violence" and "using dehumanizing language" which the company states violates its community standards guidelines, Jones' content also recently removed from Apple and Spotify platforms in separate incidents which Paul Joseph Watson labeled a conscious attempt to influence US mid-term elections in favor of Democratic candidates
Politics
German politicians united against Steve Bannon's plans for nationalist think tank focused on European Parliament's 2019 election – Michael Roth (SPD) says their values are stronger than Bannon's hate and lies, Florian Hahn (CSU) says entire bloc should remain vigilant "against any inadmissible external electoral interference" and FDP calls plans "frontal attack on the EU and European values"
Opinion
Peter Wolodarski: Sweden Democrats polling at record 20% behind ruling Social Democrats will have a hard time forming a governing coalition, they are obsessed with categorizing Jews, Muslims, Sami and other minority groups as non-Swedish and thus are pursuing a repulsive agenda, my own family history of a Jewish mother who had to flee Communist Poland demonstrates one can be a minority and a national at the same time
Arthur Gordian: immigration trends in the USA have brought the nation to a "Machiavellian Moment" wherein it must consider a radical reorientation to avoid existential dissolution, this historical moment may see the emergence of a "Machiavellian Reformer" who is the late-stage political equivalent of an original "Founding Father", examples from history include Camillus, Sulla and Augustus in Rome and Lincoln in the USA
Cathy Ruse: Grassroots movement fighting perverted sexual education in schools in English-speaking countries healthy reaction against current order where tax money is used to recruit children into sexual revolution, significant that education focuses on contraceptive drugs rather than marriage and family
Brianna Heldt: Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally must-read for modern parents raising kids in cultural climate marked by transgender activism and relativistic understanding of sexuality, combines solid scientific evidence with personal anecdotes from transgendered men and women themselves
George Stanciu: Francis Bacon's experimental method of science and rejection of senses as measure of things launched man's Second Fall, lead to progressive hubris that technology and inventions could create paradise on Earth, resulted in communism, nazism and contemporary society plagued by loneliness, depression and malaise
Europe
Norwegian Minister for Fisheries resigns after breach of security protocols on recent trip to Iran, the disgraced minister Per Sandberg is also deputy-head of the anti-immigration Progress Party, another veteran of the Progress Party has been named as minister over the economically significant ministry, Norway is the world's largest producer of farmed salmon
Turkey's government plans to start weekend schools in Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, schools aim to teach children with dual citizenship Turkish language, history and religion, the Netherlands Social Minister is positive as long as education does not hinder integration or stimulates anti-democratic opinion formation, other Dutch MPs criticize the move as an attempt for Turkey's Erdogan to treat Dutch as personal subjects
The 13th Century "Lyghfield" Bible is back in the Canterbury Cathedral library after being purchased for GBP 100,000 from a private auction by a public fund, the bible disappeared 500 years ago during the reign of King Henry VIII when he dissolved the original Benedictine monastery and its collection of nearly 30,000 volumes
Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson claims Muslim women wearing face-veil "look like letter boxes" while defending their right to wear what they please in public, public outrage highlights the tension between women's liberation culture, free-speech laws and the supposed clash of civilizations in UK
Head of German intelligence agency warns children from Islamist households in Germany represent a "not insignificant potential threat" to domestic safety in coming years, increasing number of children being raised in radical homes leads to calls to reduce the legal limit for domestic surveillance to children under the age of 14
Latin America
Nicolas Maduro announces the phasing out of state subsidies for petrol over two years in effort to curb smuggling, the official rate of 1 Bolivar per liter creates valuable arbitrage as street price is Bolivar 4 million per liter, the Venezuelan government claims that fuel smuggling costs the country USD 18 billion per year in lost revenue
Chile's Minister for Cultural Affairs resigns after facing criticism for 2015 comments about human rights museum, Mauricio Rojas claimed museum was a "shameless and inaccurate use of a national tragedy", human rights organizations and local politicians pressured him to quit four days into his new job
Brazil struggles with "serious problem with lethal violence" after achieving record high of 63,880 murders in 2017, data compiled by Brazilian Public Security Forum shows an average of 175 murders per day corresponding to 30.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, incidence of rape also increased 8% to 60,018 for the period, murder has a strong racial and political element with many victims being young, black men and little police follow-up
Venezuelan President Maduro unharmed but seven National Guard soldiers injured after alleged drone attack against military event where he gave a speech in Caracas, says everything points to right-wing plot linked to Colombia and Florida and several were caught, little-known group "National Movement of Soldiers in T-shirts" claims responsibility for attack in series of social media posts
Brazil's government indigenous agency Funai releases footage of uncontacted indigenous man who has lived alone in Amazon forest for at least 22 years, man believed to be in his 50s fells tree in video and appears to be in excellent health, believed to be only survivor of land grab attack in 1995, Funai whose policy is to avoid contact has protected 8,070 hectares in area
Asia
Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan sign an agreement on use of the Caspian Sea, "Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea" governs resource exploitation and presence of foreign militaries, designates special legal status neither lake nor sea with surface water shared by all, "seabed" and its minerals divided up amongst the five powers
Chinese Communist Party argues its police procedures against Muslim Uighurs has prevented "China's Syria", the official editorial in Global Times defends mass incarceration of suspected militants in internment camps, claims Western policy of support for recent rebellions "has destroyed numerous countries and regions"
Australian government strips five dual nationals of citizenship after investigating ISIS ties, first such incident was Khaled Sharrouf who posted picture of 7yo son with severed head on social media, the three men and two women in their 20s and 30s had flown to Syria and Iraq to support Islamic State
30 hours of interview recordings with the crew of the atomic bomber Enola Gay long thought lost have been recovered and donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, along with typed manuscripts the tapes provide an inside account of the mission that left an estimated 100,000 dead from the blast and fallout of the first nuclear bomb used in warfare on a city
Middle East
Saudi coalition airstrike in Yemen hits schoolbus killing at least 29 children amongst numerous other dead and wounded, Yemen the site of 258 verified Saudi airstrikes in the month of June one third of which hit residential areas, ongoing war in Yemen considered the globe's worst humanitarian crisis according to numerous international organizations
Economy
Global sand shortage results in black-market gangs stealing large amounts from rivers and beaches, 51.7 billion tons to be used for construction in 2019 – China has used more sand in recent years than US did throughout 20th century, India's market taken over by organized crime where the Sand Mafia employs 75,000 people to dive for sand
Technology
EU Commissioner of Competition threatens Apple with imposition of uniform USB cable charging standard as the company clings to its proprietary Lightning technology, the EU arch-bureaucrat recently meddled with Google to the tune of a USD 5 billion fine, Apple's proprietary cable technology is a lucrative source of licensing fees