World News Thread

[RoseMorninStar]

(regarding the Trudeau joke)


The Russian 'election' is depressing.

[Frelga]

Rose, yeah. For perspective, the Kremlin party polled at about 30% before the election.

[Jude]

So Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada has had his Twitter account suspended for singling out three journalists, publishing their emails and encouraging his followers to "play dirty" with them.

CBC Article

CTV journalist Christy Somos responded to the attacks online. In a tweet describing "what your inbox looks like after Bernier tweets about you," Somos posted a screenshot of a threatening email she was sent.

In that email, someone who appears to be a PPC supporter says that they hope Somos is sexually assaulted and murdered and encourages her to kill herself.

The article contains an image of the email, if you have the stomach for it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's awful. His account should have been permanently deleted, not suspended for 12 hours.

[RoseMorninStar]

Goodness. What is wrong with these nuts? Why do they think this behavior is OK?

[Frelga]

Because they can get away with it.

[Túrin Turambar]

The Premier of New South Wales resigned this morning facing investigation by the state's anti-corruption authority over her relationship with another MP who is being investigated. She maintains that she hasn't breached anything, but acknowledges that it's impossible for her to stay on as premier in these circumstances. This is the sixth time in fifteen years a NSW Premier has either resigned or been forced out, prompting this observation from an ABC journalist:

Is the NSW Premier role cursed?

This is just a reminder that it's been 18 years since a NSW Premier has served a full term. The last Premier to not have not been ousted by their own party or to not resign was Bob Carr in 2003.

The state's top job is basically the Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching position at Hogwarts.

[Inanna]

LOL

[Túrin Turambar]

British Conservative MP Sir David Amess was stabbed to death today while meeting constituents at a church. There's no known motive. This is the second assassination of a British MP in five years, which is alarming.

[Frelga]

This is probably not great.

[RoseMorninStar]

Well, we've trashed this planet and we've been looking to export ourselves to a new planet so we have to figure out how quickly we can trash that up and harm one another.

[N.E. Brigand]

The United States Department of Treasury today announced sanctions on four Ukrainian individuals, two of whom currently serve in Ukraine's parliament, who have apparently been plotting with Russian intelligence services to undermine and/or take over the Ukrainian government in the event that Russia launches a new invasion into Ukraine (which the U.S. president, Joe Biden, yesterday said he believed was likely to happen). I don't know if the U.S. intelligence that led to these determinations is accurate.

If it is, I wonder if these individuals have been contemplating the careers of of Prime Minister Pétain and Prime Minister Quisling.

[N.E. Brigand]

Remember last May when the Belarusian government used a false bomb threat to force an Irish commercial airliner traveling from Greece to Lithuania to land in Belarus in order to seize a Belarusian dissident who was on that flight?

The U.S. government has just charged four Belarusian government officials with air piracy for their role in the scheme. U.S. law allows for such charges to be brought when any American national is traveling on the flight in question, as was the case here.

[N.E. Brigand]

The United States Department of Treasury today announced sanctions on four Ukrainian individuals, two of whom currently serve in Ukraine's parliament, who have apparently been plotting with Russian intelligence services to undermine and/or take over the Ukrainian government in the event that Russia launches a new invasion into Ukraine (which the U.S. president, Joe Biden, yesterday said he believed was likely to happen). I don't know if the U.S. intelligence that led to these determinations is accurate.

If it is, I wonder if these individuals have been contemplating the careers of of Prime Minister Pétain and Prime Minister Quisling.

Russia has informed Ireland that it will be conducting naval exercises southwest of that nation. Some observers are wondering about that:



it could be just a coincidence, though, but my uninformed guess would be that probably it's meant to make the U.S. and Europe nervous about imposing sanctions if Russia launches a new invasion of Ukraine.

Others are expressing concerns that Russia might engage in cyber-sabotage similar to what happened with the Colonial pipeline ransomware attack last spring that led to a temporary gas shortage in 17 U.S. states.

Here's hoping that these are only remote possibilities.

[Alatar]

Unsurprisingly there's a lot about that here. It looks like Putin is trying to point out Ireland's neutrality (and thus, lack of military) as a weak link in Europe's defenses. In other words, "Mind your own business about Ukraine, or maybe we'll make it your business"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's scary to me. Maybe it shouldn't be, and maybe it wouldn't be if I were better informed, but yeah, that is scary to me.

[Frelga]

No, the more you know the scarier it gets.

[Alatar]

Good read

https://www.ft.com/content/d307ab6e-57b ... 9717c60023

[RoseMorninStar]

I couldn't read your article Alatar, it's behind a paywall.. but here's to Irish Fisherman!

How a group of Irish fishermen forced the Russian Navy into a U-turn

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. and Iran are apparently near to reinstating the nuclear deal that was scrapped by the U.S. a couple years ago.