Friday, March 31, 2017
Random Japan
Crazy Kyoto train will have a giant lens motif taking up its entire front end
Casey Basee
Set to go into service next year carrying passengers from downtown Kyoto to Buddhist mountain temples.
When people in Japan hop on a crowded commuter train to go to or from work, it’s not exactly a glamorous experience (though it is something that everyone should experience at least once in their life). But outside of such workaday train trips, riding the rails in Japan can still have a definite dynamically adventurous appeal, especially if you happen to be aboard one of the country’s trains with a highly-developed sense of style.
In the past, we’ve looked at trains with interiors boasting gorgeous hotel rooms, lovely lacquer, traditional foot baths, and even art galleries. But a newly unveiled design from Kyoto-based Eizan Railway is putting the focus on the outside, with what appears to be a giant lens on the front of the lead car.
Don't Try This At Home
But This Idiot Did
Subliminal At The Speed Of The Shinkansen
Hopefully Your Mind Can Handle Velocity
Donald Trump Escapes By Jumping Onto Train Tracks
Not Really Just An Acolyte
India's Ladycops
Exclusive access to a police station in India run by women for women reveals a unique perspective on a changing society.
Hundreds of women's police stations have been set up across India to combat domestic abuse and sexual violence, following the Delhi rape case in December 2012.
Parmila Dalal is second-in-command at the women's police station in Sonipat, in the northern state of Haryana. Every day she has to deal with the cases the public bring to her.
Some days she works as a typical police officer, investigating crimes or managing matters of public order. But much of Parmila's time is spent mediating in family disputes, in which she acts more as a counsellor or social worker.
Six In The Morning Friday March 31
Kim Jong-nam: Malaysians stranded in North Korea return home
Nine Malaysians who were prevented from leaving North Korea have arrived home, after the two countries struck a deal to end a diplomatic row.
The quarrel, over last month's killing of Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur, had resulted in both countries banning each other's citizens from leaving.
Two North Koreans wanted for questioning are believed to have been allowed to leave Malaysia.
Malaysia has also released Mr Kim's body to Pyongyang.
North Korea is widely suspected to have orchestrated Mr Kim's murder.
Mr Kim was the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The late Kim Jong-il's eldest son was passed over for the leadership and was living outside North Korea at the time of his death.
Japan kills more than 300 whales in annual Antarctic hunt
Whaling fleet returns to port after slaughtering hundreds of minke whales, in defiance of moratorium on hunting and global criticism
A Japanese whaling fleet returned to port on Friday after an annual Antarctic hunt that killed more than 300 of the mammals, as Tokyo pursues the programme in defiance of global criticism.
The fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, with plans to slaughter 333 minke whales, flouting a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand.
The fleet consisted of five ships, three of which arrived on Friday morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan, the country’s Fisheries Agency said.Venezuela careers towards dictatorship after Supreme Court seizes power from opposition-led Congress
Calls for street demonstrations and 'democratic resistance' as ruling labelled legal coup
Venezuela slid closer toward dictatorship after the country’s Supreme Court gutted the only opposition-run institution — the Congress — seizing its powers and declaring the elected body invalid.
The court’s ruling late on Wednesday night was, in the words of lawmakers, nothing short of a coup. Several opposition leaders called for street demonstrations and other forms of “democratic resistance.”
As the once-wealthy oil power descends into a chaos of hunger and crime, however, it remained far from clear whether the increasingly despondent population will view the court’s move as a genuine turning point or just another step in the nation’s bottoming out toward hopelessness.
Canada’s overdose crisis: 'This drug takes over your life'
Canada is grappling with a “serious and growing opioid crisis” across the country that has caused an unprecedented rise in overdose deaths. With authorities slow to respond, some people are opening their own pop-up safe injection sites. Here’s the first of our two-part article looking into the overdose crisis.
A crisis that began at home
The overdose crisis ravaging the country is primarily associated with the drug fentanyl (an opioid that can be up to 100 times stronger than heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Opioids are a type of drug that work by binding to receptors in the brain and nervous system and essentially blocking or reducing the feeling of pain. Fentanyl can be smoked or injected, or patches with gel inside can be chewed or worn on the skin. To understand why fentanyl is at the heart of the drugs crisis, we have to go back to another opioid called OxyContin, the main ingredient of which is oxycodone — and the doctors that prescribed it.
Ex-President Park arrested
By Kim Bo-eun
Former President Park Geun-hye was arrested Friday, 21 days after she was removed from office by the Constitutional Court.
Park became the nation's third president to be put behind bars facing criminal charges, following Chung Do-hwan and Roh Tae-woo in the 1990s.
The Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant at 3:03 a.m. following a hearing that lasted nearly nine hours.
"There are considerable reasons and need to arrest (Park) as key charges have been substantiated considerably and concerns over the destruction of evidence still prevail," presiding Judge Kang Bu-young said, approving the prosecution's request to arrest her.
FACEBOOK FAILED TO PROTECT 30 MILLION USERS FROM HAVING THEIR DATA HARVESTED BY TRUMP CAMPAIGN AFFILIATE
IN 2014, TRACES of an unusual survey, connected to Facebook, began appearing on internet message boards. The boards were frequented by remote freelance workers who bid on “human intelligence tasks” in an online marketplace, called Mechanical Turk, controlled by Amazon. The “turkers,” as they’re known, tend to perform work that is rote and repetitive, like flagging pornographic images or digging through search engine results for email addresses. Most jobs pay between 1 and 15 cents. “Turking makes us our rent money and helps pay off debt,” one turker told The Intercept. Another turker has called the work “voluntary slave labor.”
The task posted by “Global Science Research” appeared ordinary, at least on the surface. The company offered turkers $1 or $2 to complete an online survey. But there were a couple of additional requirements as well. First, Global Science Research was only interested in American turkers. Second, the turkers had to download a Facebook app before they could collect payment. Global Science Research said the app would “download some information about you and your network … basic demographics and likes of categories, places, famous people, etc. from you and your friends.”
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Rewind: Daughters of the Brothel
Raised in a brothel, Naseema founded an NGO to fight for the rights of sex workers in a village in northeast India.
Chatrubhuj Sthan in Bihar Province, eastern India has more than 3,000 sex workers who ply the oldest profession in the world.
In the face of the extreme legal and social discrimination experienced by the prostitutes, a group of intrepid women, who themselves grew up in brothels, set up a workers' rights organisation - Parcham (meaning flag).
They offer women an opportunity to seek other forms of income, provide education for their children and work constantly to close down sex-trafficking routes.
Six In The Morning Thursday March 30
Trump travel ban: Hawaii judge places indefinite hold
A US federal judge in Hawaii has indefinitely extended the suspension of President Trump's new travel ban.
Judge Derrick Watson's ruling means Mr Trump will be barred from enforcing the ban on six mostly Muslim nations while it is contested in court.
In a lawsuit, the US state says the ban would harm tourism and the ability to recruit foreign students and workers.
President Trump says his revised travel ban seeks to prevent terrorists from entering the United States.
Judge Watson made the ruling late on Wednesday after hearing arguments from attorneys for the state of Hawaii and the US Department of Justice.
'They're going to kill me next': Yemen family fears drone strikes under Trump
Before Trump took office, the US drones that killed several members of the Tuaiman family used to come about once a week. Now they come every day
Every day, as they hear the whine of the drones overhead, the Tuaiman family waits for Donald Trump to finish killing them.
The drones used to hover about once a week over al-Rawdah, the Yemeni village where the family lives, sending children running for cover.
Now, according to Meqdad Tuaiman, the drones come every day – sometimes three or four times. Usually they arrive in the afternoon. Other times they come after sundown and linger until sunrise.
The drones have not fired their weapons in four months, but their patrols have intensified since late January, when Trump took office. Meqdad, a 24-year-old used-car salesman and occasional pipeline guard, considers it no coincidence.
Air pollution from globalisation linked to premature deaths of more than 750,000 people a year
'If the cost of imported products is lower because of less stringent air pollution controls in the regions where they are produced, then the consumer savings may come at the expense of lives lost elsewhere'
Globalisation has become, in the eyes of some, the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the world – allowing multinational corporations to drive down wages, run roughshod over workers’ rights and even challenge democracy itself.
But an international team of scientists has now laid another alleged crime at its door – the premature deaths of more than 750,000 people.
They found that 411,100 people died in 2007 after breathing in fine particles of air pollution, known as PM2.5, which were carried on the wind from one region of the world to another.
El Salvador becomes first country to ban metals mining
El Salvador has banned all metals mining, saying it poses "a threat to the development and well-being of families." It becomes the first country to implement a blanket metals mining ban.
El Salvador's congress on Wednesday approved a law banning all metals mining in order to protect the environment.
Some countries have banned strip mining and open-pit techniques, but the bill passed in El Salvador prohibits all underground, above-ground or artisanal mining for metals.
Supporters of the bill say the ban is necessary to protect water resources and reduce social tensions.
"Mining is not an appropriate way to reduce poverty and inequality in this country. It would only exacerbate the social conflict and level of water contamination we already have," the charity Oxfam's El Salvador Country Director Ivan Morales said.
China will use 'other options' to return fugitives as extradition treaty falters
Chinese authorities would use "other options", such as persuading fugitives to return by pressuring family members, if an extradition treaty with Australia is not ratified, analysts said.
The director of Peking University's anti-corruption study centre, Zhuang Deshui, said the extradition treaty was only one way for China to return fugitives and recover stolen funds as part of its anti-corruption drive.
"If the treaty can't be signed in the near future, there are other options, like return by persuasion, illegal immigration and other judicial cooperation ... When this gate is not open, we can try the window, and if windows are not open, we can try digging holes," he said.African students hospitalized in roving mob attacks in India
Updated 0642 GMT (1442 HKT) March 30, 2017
Africans living in northern India are locking themselves indoors in terror after a spate of mob attacks left several hospitalized.
Multiple attacks on Kenyan and Nigerian students have been reported this week in Greater Noida, 18 miles southeast of the capital New Delhi.
Nine Nigerians were attacked, including five who were wounded and two who were hospitalized with undisclosed injuries, said Abike Dabiri, Nigeria's special assistant on foreign affairs and diaspora.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
What's the BJP's agenda in Uttar Pradesh?
India's ruling party is cracking down on butchers and abattoirs in the country's most populous state.
Police in India's Uttar Pradesh have been closing dozens of slaughterhouses, leading to a meat shortage in the state that is home to 200 million people.
Politicians say the crackdown is about licenses, but government critics say it is about religion.
Muslims say they are being targeted.
Is it just about meat or an ominous indicator of rising Hindu nationalism?
Six In The Morning Wednesday March 29
Theresa May set to trigger Brexit Article 50
British prime minister signs letter to be delivered to European Union, triggering countdown to EU exit.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May will on Wednesday trigger the formal, two-year process of negotiations that will lead to Britain leaving the European Union (EU).
Late on Tuesday, a photograph was released of her signing a letter invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and officially notifying the EU of Britain's decision to withdraw from the bloc after more than 40 years in a process popularly known as Brexit.
The letter is to be hand-delivered to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels by British Ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow at 1130 GMT and copies are to be sent to the other 27 EU member states.
Mexican man cleared in sexual assault of schoolgirl because he didn't enjoy it
Diego Cruz, 21, one of four privileged youths dubbed ‘Los Porkys’ who abducted and vaginally penetrated the teenager, did so without ‘carnal intent’ a judge ruledA Mexican judge has freed a wealthy young man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a schoolgirl, on the grounds that the perpetrator did not enjoy himself.
Diego Cruz, 21, was one of four young men from prominent families in the coastal state of Veracruz who were nicknamed “Los Porkys” on social media after they were accused of seizing a classmate from their elite private school as she left a New Year’s party on 1 January 2015.
In a ruling which was made public on Monday, Judge Anuar González found that although Cruz was accused of touching the victim’s breasts and penetrating her with his fingers, he had acted without “carnal intent” – and so was not guilty of assault.
Iraqi government 'made a mistake' by attacking Mosul before capturing Isis sanctuaries
Endgames: inside Iraq In his second dispatch, Patrick Cockburn speaks with the Governor of Kirkuk, who says Isis will survive fall of Iraqi city because it can still find support among displaced Sunni Arabs
The Iraqi government made a mistake that will allow Isis to survive by seeking to capture Mosul before eliminating other Isis safe havens in northern and western Iraq to which its fighters can retreat, according to a senior Iraqi leader.
“It would have been better first to eliminate Daesh (Isis) sanctuaries to which they can retreat when Mosul falls,” says Najmaldin Karim, the Governor of the oil province of Kirkuk, in an interview with The Independent. He says that half of Kirkuk province is still held by Isis and cited, in particular, the Hawija area, a notorious stronghold south west of Kirkuk city of Isis and previously of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Venezuela's government hopes for international sanctions
Venezuela's government is moving further and further away from democracy, sparking criticism from former political partners. The socialists in Caracas portray the criticism as proof of their own integrity.
Fourteen countries from North and South America have urged Venezuela's Socialist Unity Party (PSUV) to restore democracy in Venezuela. In a joint statement, they have asked the government in Caracas to release their political prisoners and recognize the legitimacy of parliamentary decisions.
Along with representatives from the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, diplomats from leftist-governed countries like Chile and Uruguay signed the statement issued at a special meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington. Eighteen of the 35 OAS member states had requested the meeting to analyze the situation in Venezuela. The warning that the states issued, however, did not meet Secretary General Luis Almagro's request to suspend Venezuela. His tough line against Caracas is also controversial among political analysts.
Rohingya as Myanmar’s perpetual ‘other’
Myanmar's persecution of its ethnic Rohingya minority is rooted in racism that has endured through the transition from military to democratic rule
MARCH 29, 2017
For decades, Myanmar’s elites have identified the Muslim minority Rohingya community as an existential security threat. This long lasting policy of treating the Rohingya as outsiders, or ‘others’, has cultivated perceptions of the Rohingya as ‘enemy others.’
This is also the reason why, regardless of leadership or regime change in Myanmar, the conflict appears unending. The Rohingya people have a long history of being ‘otherized’ in Myanmar through a wide variety of policies that have sought to restrict their community and their freedoms.
For instance, in October 1982, former dictator Ne Win gave a speech outlining Myanmar’s new citizenship law and stated that Muslim and Chinese people were not trustworthy and so did not deserve full citizenship status or rights. This was justified on the grounds of national security. The Rohingya had been denied these rights for decades.
DONALD TRUMP REWARDS FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY BY SIGNING CLIMATE DENIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER
TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDER issued Tuesday doesn’t just knock over the centerpiece of Obama administration’s efforts to prevent the worst effects of climate change, the Clean Power Plan. It also includes a list of disastrous concessions that the fossil fuel industry and its front groups have worked for years to win.
It orders the Interior Department to end a moratorium on new coal mine leasing on federal land; directs agencies to reconsider rules limiting emissions from hydraulic fracturing; kills guidance requiring climate change be considered in environmental reviews for infrastructure projects; and calls for a re-calculating of the social cost of carbon, which puts a dollar value on what greenhouse gas emissions cost society. Trump’s order also demands federal agencies rethink any policy that stands in the way of energy development and cancels other Obama-era climate efforts such as his Climate Action Plan.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Can OPEC still control the oil market?
Cartel members are debating whether to extend a deal to reduce output.
The discussion was held in Kuwait, but its outcome could affect the entire world.
Oil producing countries are considering further cuts in output to try and force prices higher.
Ministers from both OPEC and non-OPEC countries met in Kuwait City on Sunday to review progress on an agreement, made in December, to cut production for six months.
They are due to meet again in April to decide if they want to extend that deal.
Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates all expect further production cuts.
Six In The Morning Tuesday March 28
Cyclone Debbie: 'Monster' storm batters Australia
A powerful cyclone has pummelled the north-east Australian coast, causing major damage, torrential rain and power cuts to tens of thousands of homes.
Cyclone Debbie made landfall between Bowen and Airlie Beach in Queensland as a category four storm, whipping gusts of up to 263km/h (163 mph).
It is moving inland as a category three but could cause damage for hours yet. One serious injury has been reported.
PM Malcolm Turnbull told parliament he had activated a disaster response plan.
The extent of Cyclone Debbie's devastation, which has a 50km-diameter eye wall, may not be known for some time, authorities said.
Mosul residents were told not to flee city before airstrikes that killed civilians
Pentagon opens investigation into reports that more than 150 civilians died in US-led bombings to retake Iraqi city from Isis
Residents in Mosul were instructed not to leave their homes ahead of airstrikes last week that are reported to have killed more than 150 civilians, Amnesty International has said.
The recent spike in civilian casualties suggests the US-led coalition in Iraq is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles Isis alongside Iraqi ground forces, according to a report by the human rights group on Tuesday.
The coalition has acknowledged that the US military was behind an airstrike on 17 March that hit a western Mosul neighbourhood. Residents have said at least 150 civilians were killed. US officials have not confirmed that there were civilian casualties but have opened an investigation.
Hungary opens shipping container camp for refugees
Every asylum seeker in Hungary, except for young children, will be housed in shipping container camps along the border. The camps have been condemned by rights groups.
Hungary was due to begin detaining asylum-seekers in shipping-container camps on its southern border with Serbia on Tuesday.
Asylum-seekers entering Hungary as well as those already in the country will be confined in camps while their applications are processed.
A statement by the interior ministry said the country's prison service installed 324 shipping container homes at two camps.
"The border protection agencies are fully prepared for the entry into force of the reinforced legal border closure on March 28," said a statement by the interior ministry.
Ahmed Kathrada, anti-apartheid activist and Mandela ally, dies
Internationally, Ahmed Kathrada didn't have the name recognition of his close friend and cellmate Nelson Mandela, but he was one of South Africa's best-loved and revered anti-apartheid activists -- and a moral compass for the nation.
So much so, many South Africans simply called him "Uncle Kathy."
Kathrada died Tuesday after a short illness following brain surgery, his foundation announced. He was 87.
Brazil's prisons: A battleground in the drug wars
A growing gang war over drugs is fuelling bloodshed in Brazil's neglected and overcrowded prisons.
Manaus, Brazil - It was early evening on January 1, 2017, when Maria heard that a riot was under way at Complexo Penitenciario Anisio Jobim (COMPAJ) - the prison where her two sons Antony, 27, and Antonio, 22, were being held.
Maria - an alias she requested for security reasons - spoke to Al Jazeera from her small red brick home in a poor Manaus neighbourhood.
Her son Antonio had been sent to the prison in September, his third sentence for stealing motorbikes. He entered as a marked man, having supposedly informed on someone when he was arrested.
GSDF steps up preparations to create U.S. Marine Corps-like force
KYODO
The Ground Self-Defense Force took a step Monday toward creating an amphibious force similar to the U.S. Marine Corps by establishing a new unit that will train members of the envisioned brigade.
The GSDF amphibious brigade, to be launched at the end of the next fiscal year through March 2018, will be tasked with countering possible attacks on Japanese islands that stretch from Kyushu to Taiwan, as the country faces China’s growing maritime assertiveness.
The brigade will train using the ship-to-shore tracked AAV-7 amphibious landing vehicles that are also used by the U.S. Marines, according to GSDF officials.
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