Tokyo is the most successful metropolis in the history of the world with 39 million residents, 50% more people than any other urban area. It is the safest big city on the planet and has a two trillion dollar GDP--an economy larger than all but eight entire countries.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
TOKYO: Earth's Model MEGACITY
Tokyo is the most successful metropolis in the history of the world with 39 million residents, 50% more people than any other urban area. It is the safest big city on the planet and has a two trillion dollar GDP--an economy larger than all but eight entire countries.
Cuba's Unfinished Spaces
Castro's dream for Cuba's artists and the three architects who tried to make it a reality.
Castro's dream for Cuba's artists and the three architects who tried to make it a reality.
In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba.
Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed.
Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate.
The real story of the Green Book
Road tripping in the 20th century became an iconic American obsession, and the rising middle class was eager to travel the country on the new interstate highway system. The Green Book was a unique travel guide during this time, when segregation was practiced all over the country. The book, which grew to cover locations in all 50 states, listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, beauty salons, and other services that would reliably serve African Americans. The listings grew from user correspondence and a network of African American postal workers under the guidance of Victor Hugo Green, the book’s publisher.
Six In The Morning Thursday 28 February 2019
President Trump meets with Kim Jong Un
By Ben Westcott, James Griffiths, Meg Wagner and Veronica Rocha, CNNChina says it will wait to hear from the US and North Korea
From CNN's Lily Lee in Beijing
China says it will evaluate the Hanoi summit after "hearing authoritative voices" from North Korea and the United States, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters Thursday.
Lu’s remarks came shortly after an abrupt end to a second summit between President Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi.
"Everyone has learned from the experience of the past half century that the resolution of the Korean Peninsula issue cannot be achieved overnight," Lu said.
"China hopes that (North Korea) and the United States will continue to carry out dialogues to solve problems, earnestly respect each other's legitimate concerns, and continue to show mutual sincerity," Lu added.
How violent American vigilantes at the border led to Trump’s wall
From the 80s onwards, the borderlands were rife with paramilitary cruelty and racism. But the president’s rhetoric has thrown fuel on the fire. By Greg GrandinNo myth in American history has been more powerful, more invoked by more presidents, than that of pioneers advancing across the frontier – a word that in the United States came to mean less a place than a state of mind, an imagined gateway into the future. No writer is more associated with the idea of the frontier than Frederick Jackson Turner, who, in the late 1800s, argued that the expansion of settlement across a frontier of “free land” created a uniquely American form of political equality, a vibrant, forward-looking individualism. Onward, and then onward again. There were lulls, doubts, dissents and counter-movements. But the expansionist imperative has remained constant, in one version or another, for centuries. As Woodrow Wilson, who before he was president was a colleague of Turner, said: “A frontier people always in our van, is, so far, the central and determining fact of our national history. There was no thought,” Wilson said, “of drawing back.”
Venice imposes entry fee for day-trippers
From May, millions of day trippers to Italy's ancient, lagoon city will have to pay an entry fee. The price is set to double in 2020 and be used to keep the ancient islands clean.
There are 25 million visitors to the city of Venice in northern Italy each year. Of these about 14 million stay just for a day, and often bring their own picnics.
With no visible benefit for local restaurants and bars, and costs of cleaning up after the visitors growing every year, councilors have decided to put a price on entry.
With no visible benefit for local restaurants and bars, and costs of cleaning up after the visitors growing every year, councilors have decided to put a price on entry.
From May, visitors will pay an entry fee of €3 (about $3.50) for this year, and a planned €6 in 2020. Plans also include a variable fee depending on the number of visitors in the city at the time, on a range of €3 to €10 for entry.
Pupils learn military discipline in Brazil school scheme
It was the beginning of a new school year and the group of 13- and 14-year-olds listened with a mixture of surprise and curiosity as the sergeant told them the rules have changed.
From now on, it's military discipline all the way, Sergeant Nunes told them.
They will enter into classrooms single file -- hair short for the boys, a bun for the girls, he said.
Their school, the CED 07 educational center on the outskirts of Brasilia, is one of four public schools -- 7,000 students in all -- that are being transformed into military-run schools.
President Jair Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper, promised to establish more of these state-run military secondary schools during his election campaign last year.
White House bars four reporters from Trump-Kim dinner
Reuters
The White House barred reporters from Reuters, the Associated Press, Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times from covering a dinner between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday after two of them asked Trump questions during his initial interactions with Kim.
The reporters are part of the White House press pool, which covers the U.S. president wherever he goes.
Reporters in the pool regularly shout out questions to leaders and on Wednesday they asked Trump about the summit and the testimony in Congress of his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, in two separate opportunities known as "pool sprays."
YouTube has a pedophilia problem, and its advertisers are jumping ship
The video platform has major child safety issues. Will big-name advertisers force it to solve them?
By
For years, health professionals and childhood advocacy groups have been vocal about their concerns over child safety and YouTube. The company has taken measures to try to make YouTube a safe space for children and shield its young viewers from the dangers of the internet. Four years ago, for example, it launched a special app specifically for children’s content, YouTube Kids.
But despite these efforts, the problems have not gone away.
Last week, an investigation by Wired reported that on YouTube, “a network of pedophiles is hiding in plain sight.” People are apparently flocking to YouTube to watch videos of children performing activities like yoga or gymnastics, or playing games like Twister; these users are then leaving sexually suggestive comments on the videos, and communicating with each other as well. Per Wired, there are hundreds of thousands of sexually suggestive comments on videos featuring children.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Trashopolis Mumbai
Documenting the Troubles: Journalism and justice in N Ireland
While the conflict is formally over, unsolved killings left in its wake have kept the Troubles alive in the media.
On August 31, 2018, Northern Irish journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey awoke to loud knocks at the doors of their Belfast homes.
"My street outside my home was filled with police," McCaffrey told The Listening Post's Daniel Turi. "They informed me they wanted to search my house for materials relating to the documentary, No Stone Unturned. The first thing they did was they sought to seize all digital materials: mobile phones, laptops, computers."
Six In The Morning Wednesday 17 February 2019
Pakistan-India: Pakistan 'shoots down two Indian jets' over Kashmir
Pakistan says it has shot down two Indian Air Force jets in a major escalation of the Kashmir conflict.
A spokesman said one plane had fallen inside Pakistani territory and a pilot had been arrested. There is no comment from India. Indian reports said a Pakistani aircraft had been shot down.
Pakistan earlier said it had hit Indian targets, a day after Indian jets struck militants in Pakistan.
The raids follow a militant attack in Kashmir which killed 40 Indian troops.
Rohingya crisis: UN investigates its 'dysfunctional' conduct in Myanmar
Exclusive: Inquiry follows claims it ignored warning signs before alleged Rohingya genocide
The UN has launched an inquiry into its conduct in Myanmar over the past decade, where it has been accused of ignoring warning signs of escalating violence prior to an alleged genocide of the Rohingya minority.
UN sources have confirmed to the Guardian that the initially hesitant UN secretary general, António Guterres, decided to proceed with the investigation after a “build-up in pressure” within the organisation.
It will be headed by Gert Rosenthal, a former foreign minister and Guatemalan permanent representative to the UN, who is thought to have begun overseeing meetings in the role.
The women who risked their lives to uncover the crimes of the Holocaust
'There is a tendency to understand history as being about men and written by men,' says curator of new exhibition
A new exhibition sheds light on the work of women who risked their lives to record the atrocities of the Nazis – and who researchers say were overshadowed by their male colleagues.
The Weiner Library, the world’s oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, is tracing the stories and legacies of the individuals and institutions who first collected evidence of the extermination plot.
The new exhibition, which opens on Wednesday and runs until mid-May, includes the work of both those who carried out the vital work as genocide exploded around them and also those who pursued justice and remembrance much later on.
Incumbent Buhari declared winner in Nigeria presidential vote
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari won a second term at the helm of Africa's largest economy and top oil producer, the electoral commission chairman said on Wednesday, following an election marred by delays, logistical glitches and violence.
Buhari, in power since 2015, faced a tight election contest against the main opposition candidate - businessman and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar.
Buhari, 76, secured 56 percent of the vote, compared with 41 percent for Atiku, a candidate for the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
Buhari faces a daunting to-do list, including reviving an economy still struggling to recover from a 2016 recession and quelling a decade-old Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands of people in the northeast.
Bernie Sanders Asks the Right Question on Reparations: What Does It Mean?
AFTER SENS. KAMALA HARRIS and Cory Booker were asked about reparations for slavery in a Breakfast Club interview last week, the issue quickly became hot on the 2020 campaign trail, with candidates Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro quickly voicing their support for the policy. Last night, the reparations question surfaced again when Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked for his position during a CNN Town Hall hosted by Wolf Blitzer.
“There are massive disparities that must be addressed,” Sanders answered. “There is legislation that I like introduced by Congressman Jim Clyburn — it’s called the 10/20/30 legislation — which focuses federal resources in a very significant way on distressed communities.”
High risk of powerful quake in northeastern Japan within 30 years: panel
A government panel said Tuesday there is a high chance of an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 to 8 occurring within the next 30 years along the Japan Trench lying in the Pacific Ocean off northeastern Japan.
While maintaining there is almost zero percent of another magnitude 9 earthquake occurring in the same area on the trench as the one that hit eastern Japan in March 2011, the Earthquake Research Committee revised upward the probabilities of major quakes in other parts from the previous estimate compiled in November 2011.
In its latest long-term estimate, the panel said there is a 50 percent chance of a quake of magnitude 7 to 7.5 occurring off Fukushima Prefecture, up from the previous 10 percent, and 20 percent of a magnitude 7.9 quake occurring off Miyagi Prefecture, up from almost zero percent.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Pakistan shoots down two Indian fighter jets: Foreign ministry
Pakistani military spokesperson says they shot down two Indian aircraft inside its airspace and captured one pilot.
Pakistan confirmed on Wednesday that it had carried out air raids in Indian-administered Kashmir and shot down two Indian jets in its own airspace, capturing one of the pilots as tensions escalate a day after India bombed targets in Pakistan.
"Today, Pakistan Air Force undertook strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace," the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Earlier, Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesperson of the Pakistani army, said Indian jets had entered Pakistan in response and two fighter jets had been shot down, with one pilot captured.
Making Hoshi-imo at a Japanese Sweet Potato Factory
We visit Namegata's Farmer's Village in Ibaraki to make dried sweet potatoes (hoshi-imo) in a school that was converted into a working sweet potato factory as well as a museum.
Inside China's Only Pinball Machine Factory
Today we're going on a tour of the only pinball machine factory in China. We get to see how they're rapidly prototyping and making hundreds or maybe even thousands of custom parts, taking advantage of the amazing Shenzhen ecosystem and supply chain.
Will Brexit push Cambodia into economic crisis?
As the UK prepares to leave the EU, we look at Brexit's potential effect on Southeast Asian economies.
Cambodia has been one of the best performing economies in the world over the past two decades. But there are threats on the horizon, including the UK's impending exit from the European Union.
The German Development Institute has studied how a no-deal Brexit could affect least developed countries, and it found Cambodians living on the brink of poverty are at risk - that's if the country's garment producers lose access to UK markets.
The country's economy has been largely built on agriculture and textile exports, two sectors it very much relies on. Cambodia's textile industry is a major supplier to the UK fashion industry and it has favourable entry terms under the EU's Everything But Arms (EBA) trade scheme, which unilaterally grants duty- and quota-free access to 49 least developed countries - excluding weapons.
Six In The Morning Tuesday 26 February 2019
Balakot: India 'strikes Kashmir militants in Pakistani territory'
India says it launched air strikes against Kashmiri militants in Pakistani territory in a major escalation of tensions between the two countries.
A top Indian minister said strikes targeted a training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group in Balakot.
Pakistan said it scrambled fighter planes in response.
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been strained since a suicide attack earlier this month that killed more than 40 Indian troops.
India accuses Pakistan of allowing militant groups to operate on its territory and says it played a role in the 14 February attack - claims that Pakistan denies.
George Pell: cardinal found guilty of child sexual assault
Vatican treasurer, the third most senior Catholic in the world, convicted on five charges in Australian court case• Follow live updates on the reaction to Cardinal George Pell’s conviction
• Five times guilty: how Pell’s past caught up with him
• Journalists accused of breaking suppression order may face jail
Cardinal George Pell, once the third most powerful man in the Vatican and Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of child sexual abuse after a trial in Melbourne.
A jury delivered the unanimous verdict on 11 December in Melbourne’s county court, but the result was subject to a suppression order and could not be reported until now.
A previous trial on the same five charges, which began in August, resulted in a hung jury, leading to a retrial.
Austria proposes preventative detention for asylum-seekers deemed 'dangerous'
In the future, asylum-seekers could be held without a court order if deemed a security risk. The move is part of larger efforts to discourage asylum requests, including renaming reception areas as "departure centers."
Austria's right-wing government announced plans on Monday to hold asylum-seekers in so-called preventative "security detention" if they are found to pose a potential threat to the public.
The constitutional amendment would enable Austrian authorities to detain asylum-seekers without first securing a court order.
In order to hold someone in preventative detention, authorities would need to have concrete suspicions that the person could carry out, or planned to carry out, a specific criminal offence, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told reporters.
Venezuelans trapped along border after weekend unrest
Some Venezuelans are living in limbo across the border in Colombia, trapped after a failed effort to bring humanitarian aid into their country.
That weekend drive turned violent as supporters of the opposition clashed with Venezuelan security forces on the borders with Colombia and Brazil, leaving four people dead.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro later shut down four bridges that cross the frontier into Colombia.
So some Venezuelans who came across to volunteer in the aid shipment effort, or who work in Colombia but live in Venezuela, are suddenly trapped on the Colombian side.
36 hours with the Taliban
CNN goes exclusively behind Taliban lines as the US prepares to pull its troops after 17 years of war in Afghanistan
By Clarissa Ward, Chief International Correspondent, Najibullah Quraishi and Salma Abdelaziz
On the outskirts of a dusty village in northern Afghanistan, a mass of Taliban fighters is gathered along the side of the dirt road. They are carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades and waving the militant group’s flag. They stand in stoic silence, staring at us intently. There is no trace of emotion in their eyes.
It’s an eerie scene, not least because large Taliban gatherings are a prime target for airstrikes.
The commander appears unfazed. He has been fighting since he was old enough to carry a gun.
What everyone wants at the Trump-Kim summit
By Foster Klug
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will likely be all smiles as they shake hands later this week in Hanoi for a meeting meant to put flesh on what many critics call their frustratingly vague first summit in Singapore. But behind the grins is a swirl of competing goals and fears.
In addition to the two main players, China, South Korea and Japan also have deep interests in what Trump and Kim can hammer out in Vietnam, including the biggest question of them all: Can the U.S. and North Korea agree on what the "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" means — the wishy-washy language they settled on in Singapore — and, if so, can they create a successful framework that gets it done?
Monday, February 25, 2019
China's TV Confessions
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Activists accuse Chinese state media of human rights violations, for televising confessions they allege were forced.
"They put me in this chair, they lock me in it, they lock the cage, and there are all these camera lenses poking through the bars of this cage."
Peter Humphrey had been held by Chinese authorities for almost two months when he says he was sedated and brought before television cameras to "confess" in August 2013.
Human rights activists say Humphrey, a British corporate investigator who was jailed for almost two years in China, is just one of dozens of alleged lawbreakers who have been subjected to this kind of treatment since 2013.
The Surprising Pattern Behind Color Names Around The World
Six In The Morning Monday 25 February 2019
Venezuela: Pressure mounts on Maduro as US plans 'concrete steps'
Mike Pence to announce 'clear actions' to address Venezuela crisis as Brazil urges allies to join 'liberation effort'.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is facing growing international pressure after his troops repelled foreign aid convoys at the country's borders, with the United States threatening new sanctions and Brazil urging allies to join a "liberation effort".
Juan Guaido, Venezuela's self-declared interim president, urged the international community on Sunday to consider "all measures" to overthrow Maduro after clashes at border crossings left at least three protesters dead and 300 others wounded near the Brazilian border.
Serena Williams cartoon not racist, Australian media watchdog rules
Herald Sun newspaper’s depiction of player ‘spitting the dummy’ at US Open had been widely condemned
A Herald Sun cartoon that depicted Serena Williams jumping in the air and “spitting the dummy” after losing a match to Naomi Osaka was not racist, the Press Council has found.
The News Corp cartoon came under global condemnation in September last year for publishing what some saw as a racist, sexist cartoon.
But in an adjudication published in the tabloid on Monday, the Australian Press Council accepted the Herald Sun’s argument that the cartoon was in response to Williams’ “outburst” on the court at the US Open final, and rejected suggestions that the tennis champion was in an ape-like pose.
They came to Syria to fight Isis. Now they want to stay
A Canadian metal worker, a British engineer and an American restaurant worker are among thousands of western volunteers who came to join a ‘revolution’, writes Richard Hall
The rise of Isis attracted thousands of foreigners from around the world to Syria. But it wasn’t just religious extremists who were drawn here.
While scores were travelling to Syria for jihad, a smaller but no less committed group of internationalists was heading to the other side of the battle.
“People back home like to think Daesh [Isis] is just a problem for the Middle East and that’s it,” says Kyle Town, a mild-mannered 30-year-old from Thunder Bay, in Ontario, Canada, using the Arabic name for Isis. “But it doesn’t just exist here. It affects everyone.”
Monsanto 'Roundup' weed killer trial begins in San Francisco
A key trial concerning the controversial weed killer Roundup — a trade name for glyphosate — begins Monday in San Francisco. At issue is whether or not Roundup and Monsanto are responsible for a Californian man's cancer.
The maker of the controversial herbicide Roundup, Bayer's Monsanto, goes on trial again on Monday in the United States, six months after a groundskeeper won the first-ever lawsuit alleging that the chemical causes cancer.
Roundup contains glyphosate, a chemical that environmentalists and other critics have long maintained leads to cancer. Roundup is a brand owned by German chemical and pharmaceutical giant Bayer after its purchase of US-based Monsanto last year.
Chameli earns 51¢ an hour making clothes for Australia's $23 billion fashion industry
By Anna Patty
Chameli often goes hungry and earns about 51¢ an hour making clothes in a factory that supplies Australia's $23 billion fashion industry.
She lives in a nine square metre room with her husband and three daughters, aged between 5 and 14, and shares two stoves and one bathroom with five other families. Because she is unable to make ends meet on poverty wages making clothes supplied to Australian brands including Big W, her children no longer attend school and the eldest works in a clothing factory.
"The thing that motivates me the most ... I just think if I don't work, my children won't get any food," she says.
Trump: North Korea 'could be great power' without nuclear weapons
North Korea could become one of the world's "great economic powers" if it relinquishes its nuclear weapons, US President Donald Trump has said.
Writing on Twitter, Mr Trump said the nation had "more potential for rapid growth than any other".
His comments came hours after his secretary of state Mike Pompeo said Pyongyang remains a nuclear threat.
Mr Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the second time on the 27-28 February in Hanoi, Vietnam.
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