The fan community for global computer game championships is growing rapidly. Computer games have become a booming economic sector. All the big soccer clubs have their own online FIFA teams and young plyers dream of careers as stars.
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Can we trust the polls? | Start Here
Most polls show Joe Biden leading the US presidential race.
But can we trust the polls after they got it wrong in 2016?
So, we asked the man who has picked the last nine presidents in a row.
What voter suppression looks like online
According to a report by CNN, the federal government has warned that Russia "might seek to covertly discourage or suppress US voters from participating" in the upcoming election. If so, it would be a repeat of their tactics four years ago, when Russian operatives posing as Americans on social media discouraged Black Americans from voting or encouraged them to vote for the third-party candidate, Jill Stein. The Trump campaign itself pursued a strategy of vote suppression targeted at African Americans, who vote against Republicans at higher rates than any other demographic group.
Boris Johnson warns of “critical moment” as deaths rise and pressure grows on NHS - BBC News
The United Kingdom is at a “critical moment” in the battle against Coronavirus, according to Boris Johnson. He has warned that he won't hesitate to put further measures in place if necessary.
CDC Told to Downplay COVID-19 Risks So Schools Could Reopen
Bitter chocolate | DW Documentary
In Ivory Coast, the dark side of cocoa and chocolate production is hard to miss. Many people – including children – are driven here from neighboring Burkina Faso by drought and famine to find work. They often come alone, without their families, to find jobs on one of the many cocoa plantations. The conditions are spartan. They work with sharp machetes, carry heavy loads, are exposed to toxic herbicides, and lack protective clothing.
Six In The Morning Wednesday 30 September 2020
Presidential debate: How the world's media reacted
US voters have endured the first of three presidential debates between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The event has also prompted a huge reaction from world audiences who tuned in for the chaotic event.
Newspapers and commentators around the world have criticised the tone and tactics of the debate.
As The Times in the UK wrote, "The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America."
Families plead for Hong Kong activists accused of trying to flee by speedboat
The ‘Hong Kong 12’ - arrested for allegedly trying to flee to Taiwan - have become the latest flashpoint for protesters
The family of a Hong Kong activist detained in China after allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan by speedboat say they have had no communication from him and are relying on a piece of paper from Chinese authorities as confirmation of his whereabouts.
Andy Li was among 12 people caught by Chinese coastguards on 23 August. He had been arrested earlier that month under Hong Kong’s newly introduced national security law, after which the authorities had confiscated his passport before releasing him on bail.
Andy’s younger sister, who did not want to publish her first name, told the Guardian they had no idea he had planned to leave Hong Kong – a venture reportedly months in the planning for at least some of the passengers – and only learned of his arrest from the media. They have been told little since.
Clean sweep: Russian woman beats pro-Putin boss in council election
Marina Udgodskaya has cleaned the local administration building for the last five years
A woman who cleans a local government building in rural Russia has been voted into office after she only stood to get her boss re-elected.
Marina Udgodskaya won after taking 62 per cent of the vote, easily beating Nikolai Loktev, an ally and supporter of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party.
She only stood for election because no one in the village of Povalikhino, Kostroma - some 525 kilometres east of Moscow - had challenged the former policeman.
Is Putin's war in Syria against America a miscalculation?
When Putin sent troops to Syria five years ago, he caught the US napping. But the Middle East is changing fast, and what looked like a success strategy may turn out to be a failure, writes Konstantin Eggert.
At the end of September 2015, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its allies, the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, were on their last legs trying to prop up the Assad regime and its forces, which were fighting an increasingly losing battle against Islamists of all stripes, supported by various regional players — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar — plus the formations of Syrian Kurds. The Kremlin gave Assad and the Iranians what they were sorely lacking — massive air cover. The Russian pilots were soon followed by marines, military advisers, and mercenaries from the so-called Wagner private military company.
French court approves transfer of Rwanda genocide suspect Félicien Kabuga to UN tribunal
France's top appeals court ruled Wednesday that alleged Rwandan genocide financier Félicien Kabuga should be transferred to a UN tribunal in Tanzania to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Kabuga, arrested near Paris in May after 25 years on the run, has asked to face justice in France. But the Court of Cassation ruled there was no legal or medical obstacle to implementing an international warrant for Kabuga's transfer to the Arusha-based tribunal.
Kabuga, 87, is accused of bankrolling and importing huge numbers of machetes for ethnic Hutu militias who killed some hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda during a 100-day period in 1994.
There is no getting 'back to normal,' experts say. The sooner we accept that, the better
Updated 0919 GMT (1719 HKT) September 30, 2020
As 2020 slides into and probably infects 2021, try to take heart in one discomfiting fact: Things are most likely never going "back to normal."
It has become a well-worn phrase our politicians, officials, experts, even family, like to lean on — an ultimate, elusive prize.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
When ENGLISH in Japan Goes HORRIBLY Wrong
Engrish. Japanglish. Whatever you want to call it, when Japanese-English marketing goes wrong, the results are spectacular. But WHY is English used so frequently in Japan and how bad can it really get?
With no end in sight to the crisis – where do we go from here?
After coronavirus emerged in a market in Wuhan, China, it has affected every single part of the planet.
In efforts to stem the spread, economies have been crippled. This is a global crisis – but it is deeply personal for those affected.
With the World Health Organisation warning it could be the middle of next year before a vaccine is ready, how many more lives will be lost?
How coronavirus lockdowns disrupted education systems worldwide
The coronavirus pandemic is the largest disruption of global education systems in history. When the pandemic first hit, around one-and-a-half billion students around the world were sent home as schools closed their doors. Some have since re-opened. But class isn't in session for half of the world's school children
Oktoberfest in Munich 🍻 The Wiesn Madness
16 days of madness! Some 6.5 million people travel to the Munich Oktoberfest in Germany every year – and they all head for the beer tents! But they’re often closed due to overcrowding! The Wies’n – as it’s commonly known - is the biggest Volksfest (beer festival and travelling funfair) in the world!
Amy Coney Barrett Accepted Money from Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Group
What is QAnon and why is it so dangerous?
Donald Trump has referred to QAnon followers as 'people who love our country' - while to the FBI considers them a potential domestic terror threat. The Guardian US technology reporter Julia Carrie Wong explains the roots - and rise - of QAnon, the unfounded conspiracy theory that emerged in the US in 2017, and is now spreading across the world
Six In The Morning Tuesday 29 September 2020
‘Agonising milestone’: One million people dead from COVID-19
The US has reported a fifth of all deaths from COVID-19, which first emerged in China late last year.
The global death toll from COVID-19 has crossed one million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, but the World Health Organization (WHO) says that number is probably an underestimate and the actual toll is likely to be much higher.
Some 1,000,555 people across the world have now died from the virus, data from JHU showed on Tuesday.
COVID-19 was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year when doctors began noticing people were getting seriously ill with a mysterious new form of pneumonia. Despite border closures and quarantines, the virus spread across the world and the WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic in March.
Amnesty to halt work in India due to government 'witch-hunt'
Authorities froze bank accounts after criticism of government’s human rights record
Amnesty International has been forced to shut down operations in India and lay off all staff after the Indian government froze its bank accounts.
The Indian enforcement directorate, an agency that investigates economic crimes, froze the accounts of Amnesty’s Indian arm this month after the group published two reports highly critical of the government’s human rights record.
Amnesty said the move was the culmination of a two-year campaign of harassment by the home affairs ministry, and more broadly part of an “incessant witch-hunt” of human rights groups by the Hindu nationalist government of the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Independent journalism is a pillar of open society
Diversity and pluralism are the basis of journalistic credibility, as is competition between public and private media outlets, says Mathias Döpfner, president of the Federation of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV).
We are living in confusing and uncertain times. The world order seems to be disintegrating. Europe and the US are growing apart. China is striving for global domination. Russia's behavior is becoming increasingly outrageous. Islamists are assaulting open society. Populists are on the rise from London to Budapest. Artificial intelligence could make humans servants of algorithms. A virus has put the world in a state of emergency and occasionally brought it to a standstill.
In such times, thoroughly researched, truthful information becomes more and more important — a historic opportunity for journalism. During all this, our business model has been changing from an analog one to a digital one. This transformation is great, but it confronts many publishers with existential challenges.
France pushed for international talks on Tuesday to resolve an escalating conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia as fighting raged for a third day over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy losses.
Urgent calls from world leaders for a halt to the fierce clashes that erupted on Sunday have gone unheeded by the ex-Soviet rivals, who have been locked for decades in a territorial dispute over Karabakh.
The UN Security Council was scheduled to meet Tuesday for emergency talks on the military escalation over the ethnic Armenian exclave, where intense fighting in recent days has caused nearly 100 confirmed deaths.
North Korean killing of South Korean official deepens internal division
By Yi Whan-woo
The mystery behind the deadly shooting of a South Korean fisheries official in North Korea's territorial waters last week is deepening the political and ideological divide in the South.
The government and the North Korean authorities are apparently at odds over how the official surnamed Lee, 47, was killed after going missing from a fisheries patrol boat, Sept. 21, near the western sea border and floating into the North's territorial waters.
Seoul said he was shot while attempting to defect while Pyongyang argues it was in response to Lee refusing to identify himself and trying to flee.
The WhatsApp voice note that led to a death sentence
Updated 1209 GMT (2009 HKT) September 29, 2020
An intense argument recorded and posted in a WhatsApp group has led to a death penalty sentence and a family torn apart over allegations of insulting Prophet Mohammed, according to lawyers for the defendant.
Music studio assistant Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was sentenced to death by hanging on August 10 after being convicted of blasphemy by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria.
The judgment document states that Sharif-Aminu, 22, was convicted for making "a blasphemous statement against Prophet Mohammed in a WhatsApp Group," which is contrary to the Kano State Sharia Penal Code and is an offence which carries the death sentence.
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