Reddit users are furious after the site banned a community dedicated to hating fat people | ||
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Reddit has ignited a firestorm of debate after the site banned five communities on Wednesday afternoon — including the popular "Fat People Hate" subreddit. The subreddit, also known as r/fatpeoplehate, was devoted to text and photos that insulted fat people. Reddit works as a link aggregator and discussion board, where anyone can create their own community, called a "subreddit." r/AskScience, for example, is dedicated to asking questions about scientific matters. These subreddits are policed by moderators appointed by the creator of the community, with Reddit employees taking an hands-off approach, typically only intervening when a subreddit blatantly breaks the law. It's illustrative of just how laissez-faire Reddit has traditionally been that many in the community were outraged when the site banned the subreddit r/Jailbait in 2011, a community for sharing pictures of girls who look (or are) under the age of consent. Similarly, when the intimate photos of dozens of female celebrities were leaked last year, a subreddit dedicated to sharing links to the images stayed live for an entire week and accrued a quarter of a billion page views before being shuttered. Then-CEO Yishan Wong wrote that the site "does not ban subreddits for being morally bad." But the times are a-changing. Wong is no longer CEO, having stepped down following an internal dispute over company relocation plans. In his place as interim CEO is Ellen Pao — a lawyer whose profile was raised earlier this year following a failed gender discrimination suit against her old employer, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In May 2015, the company implemented a new harassment policy, aimed to stamp out "systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them." The policy is now being put to use — and many people are furious. On Wednesday night, Reddit closed five communities that it said "break our reddit rules based on their harassment of individuals." These included r/HamPlanetHatred (an anti-fat person community), r/TransF*gs (anti-transgender), r/neof*g (criticising videogame forum NeoGAF), r/ShitN****rsSay (racism), and — most notably — r/FatPeopleHate. (We have used asterisks to avoid offending readers.) While the other four all had fewer than 5,000 subscribers (relatively few, compared to the biggest Reddit communities), r/FatPeopleHate had more than 150,000 subscribers signed up to the community at the time of the ban. The announcement post, co-signed by Ellen Pao, head of community Jessica Moreno, and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, says that their goal "is to enable as many people as possible to have authentic conversations and share ideas and content on an open platform." They continue: "We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment. "It is not easy to balance these values, especially as the Internet evolves. We are learning and hopefully improving as we move forward. We want to be open about our involvement: We will ban subreddits that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action. We’re banning behaviour, not ideas." Here's what it currently looks like to visit r/FatPeopleHate:
And for reference, here's how it looked yesterday, via a version cached by Google:
The response from the community has been explosive, many of whom view it as a betrayal of Reddit's free-speech roots. One of the top posts on the site's homepage currently asks "What are some good alternatives to Reddit?" There's also a heavily upvoted video criticising the ban, and then a photo of a sinking ship entitled "this looks very similar to reddit, RIGHT NOW!" Pao has become a focal point of the virulent and often profane criticism. One comment on the announcement that reads "f**k you Ellen Pao Ellen Pao you SJW [Social Justice Warrior] piece of shit" has been upvoted by users more than 3,000 times. And at one point, 31 of the top 33 posts on the subreddit r/PunchableFaces were photos of Ellen Pao's face. Here's what it currently looks like when you visit r/All, which automatically aggregates the most popular posts on Reddit at any given time:
The admins aren't budging though. Ohanian denies that the move is a ploy to make Reddit more attractive to advertisers, telling a user that he "did not create a platform for communities to target + harass individuals. It's really that simple." All the subreddits in question appear to have attacked and incited harassment of individuals. r/FatPeopleHate had photos of staff from imgur (an image-hosting service) on its sidebar at the time of the ban, with claims that "even their dog is fat." And a discussion on r/OffMyChest says that r/TransF*gs was "banned specifically for harassing a 16-year-old trans girl (nonconsentually posting her photo just to mock her looks, all while throwing slurs at her etc). She saw it and became very suicidal and disgusted. Her mom, frightened for her safety, made a post about it in a trans community subreddit asking what to do." Right-wing news site Breitbart is reporting that some Reddit users are now decamping to Voat.co, a Reddit clone with no such anti-harassment restrictions. Voat's own FatPeopleHate now has 1,300 subscribers, as well as nearly 4,000 users on the page simultaneously — indicative of a massive surge in popularity. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Patrick Stewart's Only Rule For Using Twitter  | ||
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Jawbone just sued Fitbit again and is now trying to stop sales of its biggest rival | ||
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Jawbone on Wednesday filed another lawsuit against rival tracking device maker Fitbit, the second time in two weeks. This latest suit seeks a sales injunction against Fitbit trackers, claiming that Fitbit infringed on Jawbone patents, including a "wellness application using data from a data-capable band,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Jawbone is even planning to take its complaints to the International Trade Commission, which, if successful, could lead to a ban preventing Fitbit from getting its products or parts into the US, the WSJ said. Fitbit said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that it plans to “vigorously defend itself against these allegations.” "Fitbit has no need to take information from Jawbone or any other company," the company said. "We are unaware of any confidential or proprietary information of Jawbone in our possession." At the end of May, Jawbone sued Fitbit, alleging it had poached Jawbone employees who downloaded confidential information before leaving for Fitbit. Jawbone ran into trouble around the release of its UP3 band, which was delayed, though the company's chances started to look up after Apple announced it would start stocking Jawbone products in its stores this summer. The company raised $300 million (£194 million) from BlackRock in February, but according to Bloomberg View this was a loan, not an equity investment. If the Jawbone sells, Blackrock will get paid before earlier investors. Fitbit is preparing to go public, having reported profits of $132 million (around £85 million) from operations, on revenue of $745 million (around £480 million) in 2014. Business Insider has reached out to both companies for comment. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you drop an Apple Watch face down on cement  | ||
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Why Israel spied on Iran talks 'is not the question we should be asking' | ||
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The global cybersecurity firm that uncovered sophisticated spyware in the computers of European hotels hosting the Iran nuclear talks has reported on the powerful Israeli-linked virus before. Interestingly, however, Kaspersky Lab — a Moscow-based firm — has only ever traced spyware with similar espionage capabilities as the "Duqu" code detailed to the Wall Street Journal. "The use of Duqu by Israel against Iran is not the question we should be asking," Jeff Bardin, chief intelligence officer of Treadstone 71, told Business Insider. "The question should be why Kaspersky only finds code of this type by nation-states it does not consider friendly to Russia or those aligned to the West." Kaspersky Lab is a leading cybersecurity firm that helps millions of people worldwide, including Americans, protect their data from cyber criminals. While the firm is often aggressive in its pursuit of foreign hackers, however, it tends to turn a blind eye to hackers operating inside Russia. "Is it because there is no code of this type [Duqu] coming out of Russia?" Bardin asks, "Or is it because disclosing code of this type that is Russian made and in use against target nation-states would place Eugene Kaspersky at risk of countering his country's cyber espionage efforts and, at risk of incurring the wrath of Putin?" The firm's billionaire founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, used to work for the KGB and reportedly maintains relationships with former and current Russian intelligence officials.
"Kaspersky releases this information as a political tool," Bardin said. "The absence of any photos of Kaspersky with Putin on the internet is itself evidence of direct alignment. Can you be a billionaire in Russia today without the direct scrutiny of Vladimir Putin?" A Bloomberg analysis of Kapersky's work generally supports Bardin's suspicions: "While Kaspersky Lab has published a series of reports that examined alleged electronic espionage by the U.S., Israel, and the U.K., the company hasn’t pursued alleged Russian operations with the same vigor." If anything, it appears that Kaspersky is at least partially aligned ideologically with the Kremlin — he has claimed in the past that some social networks have "too much freedom," hinting that government regulation might not be such a bad thing. "Freedom is good," Wired quotes him as saying, referring to sites like Facebook. "But the bad guys — they can abuse this freedom to manipulate public opinion." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why Putin is the most powerful man in the world  | ||
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Tesla shareholders are pleading with Elon Musk to make a 100% leather-free car (TSLA) | ||
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk received an unusual request at the electric car company's annual general meeting on Tuesday. Shareholders Mark and Elizabeth Peters, from Texas, asked Musk to produce a version of the Tesla roadster that is made without leather, Bloomberg reports. They even pleaded with the company to drop leather altogether by 2019. Here's what Peters said at the AGM, via Seeking Alpha: Tesla has two choices. Tesla can continue to fill cars with the skins of sentient beings that suffer unspeakable horror while adding massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the air. According to the UN and other sources, this is the fundamental truth of using animal skins or Tesla can adopt one of the many faux leather materials used by Mercedes Benz, Lexus, BMW, Infiniti and others that are cruelty free, have wonderful reviews, last the long time, come in multiple colors and have -- and involve far less greenhouse gases. The Tesla Model S is available now without leather seats, but the trim is still leather, Fortune reports. A representative from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contacted Musk to offer its help in finding alternatives to leather, Bloomberg said. Musk reportedly told the organisation that "we'll look into it." Another shareholder at the AGM brought along multiple copies of a DVD called "Conspiracy," which he hoped would educate the company's board about the threat of climate change. Seeking Alpha reports that the shareholder directed Musk to a website, conspiracy.com/facts, which currently redirects to a YouTube video about British political party UKIP. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 5 cool tricks your iPhone can do with the latest iOS update  | ||
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EU parliament urges Blatter to quit FIFA immediately | ||
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Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The European Parliament called Thursday on Sepp Blatter to step down immediately as FIFA president and allow for an interim leader to launch reforms in football's governing body. In a show of hands, members of the parliament overwhelmingly voted for the resolution during a plenary session in Strasbourg, France. The resolution is not legally binding. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Putin: 'Clearly God has built my life in a way that I won't have anything to regret' | ||
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When asked about any regrets he had, Putin told the Italian newspaper Corriere de Sera: "I will be quite frank with you. I cannot recollect anything of the kind. "Clearly God has built my life in a way that I won't have anything to regret.” Currently, Putin is Italy, a relatively Moscow-friendly European state, where he was enthusiastically greeted upon meeting Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi in Milan today. Crowds cheered "Russia! Russia!" and Putin's name over and over again. And Putin mirrored the sentiment in the aforementioned interview. He spoke warmly of Italian-Russian relations nothing that "in the last couple of years, trade between our countries increased eleven fold, from what I believe was $4.2 billion ... to over $48 billion." But the trip isn't just about economics. One of the biggest highlights of Putin's Italian excursion was his meeting with Pope Francis. Reportedly, Ukraine was the topic of discussion during the meeting, but it's so far unclear what the conclusion of the meeting was. Earlier this week, at the G7 summit in Germany, president Obama blasted Putin, stating that "He's got to make a decision: Does he continue to wreck his country's economy... in pursuit of a wrong-headed desire to recreate the glories of the Soviet empire?" Furthermore, Ken Hackett, the US ambassador to the Vatican, and many others in the West hoped that the Pope would urge Putin to seek peace in the Ukraine, and adhere to the Minsk convention.
"Maybe this is an opportunity where the Holy Father can privately raise concerns," Hackett told Reuters. Changing the mind of a man who has no regrets seems a tall task, but Moscow looks on these meetings as an important source of "supplementary external legitimacy," as Andrei Zolotov, a Russian journalist, said to The Telegraph. However, notably, the Pope has not taken a strong stance against the conflict in Urkaine, despite the fact that many Ukrainian Catholics have urged him to do so. In fact, the Pope even referred to the conflict as "fratricidal," which was blasted by the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as being "reminiscent of 'Soviet propaganda.'" And in any case, although Western media zeroed in on the Putin-Pope rendezvous, Russians barely blinked an eye. As Mashable notes, locals in Pushkin Square weren't even aware that the meeting was taking place. SEE ALSO: Spot The Differences In These Uncanny Photos Of Obama And Putin With The Pope Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why Putin is the most powerful man in the world  | ||
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Vladimir Putin, leader of Russia, doesn't feel the need to repent.
Europe went after a 'pipe dream' to counter Russia — and it's working | ||
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Europe has taken another swing at Russian gas dominance. The European Union has been buttering up Turkmenistan, which has the fourth-largest known gas reserves, and Azerbaijan over the past year with the aim of shifting away from Russian gas. And the efforts seem to have paid off. "Europe expects supplies of Turkmen gas to begin by 2019," Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice president, told Reuters in May. "We have good mutual understanding," he added. "For Turkmenistan it is very important to diversify its export options, while for the EU it is very important to diversify its imports." Notably, The Diplomat points out, "This is the first time the EU has put a date on what has traditionally been regarded as a pipe dream." Traditionally, about one-third of the gas that Europe guzzles comes from Russia. But Europe has gotten nervous about the state of Russian gas over the past year, amid the on-and-off conflict in Ukraine. Furthermore, Moscow tends to use its arsenal of gas pipelines as tools of coercion — much to Europe's annoyance. "I think that Europe has really got tired of each summer having a discussion of how to make it through the next winter," Sefcovic told the Financial Times back in February. "The world's biggest economy should not have such concerns in the 21st century." Last year, Turkey and Turkmenistan signed a preliminary agreement that would take gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea via the Trans-Anatolian natural-gas pipeline project (Tanap). It is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. And this May, Sefcovic visited the energy ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan to discuss the construction of a 300-kilometer trans-Caspian pipeline that would connect to the Tanap to bring gas to Europe across the Caspian Sea. (Turkmenistan also recently completed its East-West pipeline, which connects the main pipelines within the country.) This project has been proposed for years, but political and economic problems have chronically delayed it. Notably, Russia and Iran have "voiced objections to laying a pipeline on the bottom of the Caspian, saying this could harm the fragile ecology of the shallow sea." But "now there is a political decision that Turkmenistan will become part of this project and will feed the European direction," Sefcovic told Reuters.
He declined to say exactly how much gas Turkmenistan would (and could) supply Europe with, though Turkmen officials previously said negotiations swirled around 10-30 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Europe's reinvigorated interest in the so-called southern gas corridor comes not long after the January announcement of the Turkish Stream, an OAO Gazprom project and the abandonment of the $45 billion South Stream project in December.
In the end, as The Diplomat notes, the latest development largely depends on post-Soviet Turkmenistan and whether it will "move forward with the political decisions necessary to bring its natural gas to Europe." SEE ALSO: Why this 2,073-foot Chinese building could be an omen of economic doom Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Forget the Apple Watch — here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants  | ||
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The key geopolitical takeaway regarding both projects is that they're supposed to bypass crumbling Ukraine — which would allow Russia to both maintain its Reddit users are furious after the site banned a community dedicated to hating fat people | ||
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Reddit has ignited a firestorm of debate after the site banned five communities on Wednesday afternoon — including the popular "Fat People Hate" subreddit. The subreddit, also known as r/fatpeoplehate, was devoted to text and photos that insulted fat people. Reddit works as a link aggregator and discussion board, where anyone can create their own community, called a "subreddit." r/AskScience, for example, is dedicated to asking questions about scientific matters. These subreddits are policed by moderators appointed by the creator of the community, with Reddit employees taking an hands-off approach, typically only intervening when a subreddit blatantly breaks the law. It's illustrative of just how laissez-faire Reddit has traditionally been that many in the community were outraged when the site banned the subreddit r/Jailbait in 2011, a community for sharing pictures of girls who look (or are) under the age of consent. Similarly, when the intimate photos of dozens of female celebrities were leaked last year, a subreddit dedicated to sharing links to the images stayed live for an entire week and accrued a quarter of a billion page views before being shuttered. Then-CEO Yishan Wong wrote that the site "does not ban subreddits for being morally bad." But the times are a-changing. Wong is no longer CEO, having stepped down following an internal dispute over company relocation plans. In his place as interim CEO is Ellen Pao — a lawyer whose profile was raised earlier this year following a failed gender discrimination suit against her old employer, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In May 2015, the company implemented a new harassment policy, aimed to stamp out "systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them." The policy is now being put to use — and many people are furious. On Wednesday night, Reddit closed five communities that it said "break our reddit rules based on their harassment of individuals." These included r/HamPlanetHatred (an anti-fat person community), r/TransF*gs (anti-transgender), r/neof*g (criticising videogame forum NeoGAF), r/ShitN****rsSay (racism), and — most notably — r/FatPeopleHate. (We have used asterisks to avoid offending readers.) While the other four all had fewer than 5,000 subscribers (relatively few, compared to the biggest Reddit communities), r/FatPeopleHate had more than 150,000 subscribers signed up to the community at the time of the ban. The announcement post, co-signed by Ellen Pao, head of community Jessica Moreno, and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, says that their goal "is to enable as many people as possible to have authentic conversations and share ideas and content on an open platform." They continue: "We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment. "It is not easy to balance these values, especially as the Internet evolves. We are learning and hopefully improving as we move forward. We want to be open about our involvement: We will ban subreddits that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action. We’re banning behaviour, not ideas." Here's what it currently looks like to visit r/FatPeopleHate:
And for reference, here's how it looked yesterday, via a version cached by Google:
The response from the community has been explosive, many of whom view it as a betrayal of Reddit's free-speech roots. One of the top posts on the site's homepage currently asks "What are some good alternatives to Reddit?" There's also a heavily upvoted video criticising the ban, and then a photo of a sinking ship entitled "this looks very similar to reddit, RIGHT NOW!" Pao has become a focal point of the virulent and often profane criticism. One comment on the announcement that reads "f**k you Ellen Pao Ellen Pao you SJW [Social Justice Warrior] piece of shit" has been upvoted by users more than 3,000 times. And at one point, 31 of the top 33 posts on the subreddit r/PunchableFaces were photos of Ellen Pao's face. Here's what it currently looks like when you visit r/All, which automatically aggregates the most popular posts on Reddit at any given time:
The admins aren't budging though. Ohanian denies that the move is a ploy to make Reddit more attractive to advertisers, telling a user that he "did not create a platform for communities to target + harass individuals. It's really that simple." All the subreddits in question appear to have attacked and incited harassment of individuals. r/FatPeopleHate had photos of staff from imgur (an image-hosting service) on its sidebar at the time of the ban, with claims that "even their dog is fat." And a discussion on r/OffMyChest says that r/TransF*gs was "banned specifically for harassing a 16-year-old trans girl (nonconsentually posting her photo just to mock her looks, all while throwing slurs at her etc). She saw it and became very suicidal and disgusted. Her mom, frightened for her safety, made a post about it in a trans community subreddit asking what to do." Right-wing news site Breitbart is reporting that some Reddit users are now decamping to Voat.co, a Reddit clone with no such anti-harassment restrictions. Voat's own FatPeopleHate now has 1,300 subscribers, as well as nearly 4,000 users on the page simultaneously — indicative of a massive surge in popularity. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Patrick Stewart's Only Rule For Using Twitter  | ||
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Spain set to approve citizenship plan for Sephardic Jews | ||
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Madrid (AFP) - Spanish lawmakers were set Thursday to give final approval to a law to right a "historical mistake" and ease the path to citizenship for the descendants of Jews it expelled in 1492. The measure, championed by the centre-right government, grants dual citizenship rights for Jews with Spanish ancestry, who are known as Sephardic Jews. Under the previous 1924 law the government had discretionary powers to award Sephardic Jews nationality but candidates had give up their previous citizenship and they had to be residents of Spain. The new law gives Sephardic Jews the same dual citizenship privilege Spain currently grants only to people from its former colonies and neighbouring Portugal and Andorra. The bill -- which was introduced last year and which the government said was an effort to right a "historical mistake" -- has the support of all major parties and it is expected to pass final reading in the lower house of parliament by a wide margin. "This is a historic day, an important day, an emotional day," the president of the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities, Isaac Querub, told journalists on the steps of parliament ahead of the vote. "It is a day of hope, a day of joy and we hope that this will make Spain a better place," added Querub, whose ancestors took refuge in North Africa after they were expelled from Spain. The Spanish government estimates that about 90,000 people will apply for citizenship, although officials admit there is no precise way of knowing how many descendants meet the criteria. Applicants do not have to be practising Jews but they must have their Jewish heritage vetted by the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities or by rabbis where they live. They will also have to pass tests on Spanish language culture, prove they have a "special connection" to Spain and travel to the country at their own expense to apply. The law will come into effect in October and will expire after three years although it could be extended by another year if deemed necessary.
- 'Bureaucratic hell' -
While Jewish groups have welcomed the move, some Jewish leaders have complained that the requirements are too burdensome. Leon Amiras, who heads an association of immigrants to Israel from Latin countries, said the length of the process and costs involved will deter most Sephardic Jews from applying. "They will have to go through a Via Crucis, a bureaucratic hell, they will say they don't want it. I am disappointed with the law," he told AFP. Gabriel Elorriaga, a senior lawmaker for the ruling Popular party who is responsible for shepherding the law through parliament, said the government had sought a "difficult balance" with the law between the need for checks and the desire to make is straightforward to apply. "Granting citizenship to someone is a very solemn act in any state, you can't give citizenship just like that to someone," he said last month when asked about the complaints. Kelly Benoudis Basilio, 70, a retired French literature professor who lives in Lisbon, said she was "very interested" in applying for Spanish citizenship even though she has no plans to live in Spain. "For emotional reasons it is very important," said Basilio, a descendant of Jews expelled from Spain who was born in Ksar el-Kebir in northwestern Morocco and has Portuguese citizenship through marriage. Though estimates vary, historians believe at least 200,000 Jews lived in Spain before the Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered them to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country. Many who refused were burnt at the stake. Up to 3.5 million people around the world are thought to have Sephardic -- Hebrew for "Spanish" -- Jewish ancestry. The citizenship law is the latest step in Spain's modern efforts to atone for its past harsh treatment of Jews. One major step was a visit to a Madrid synagogue in 1992 by Spain's former King Juan Carlos to recognise "injustices of the past." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Jawbone just sued Fitbit again and is now trying to stop sales of its biggest rival | ||
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Jawbone on Wednesday filed another lawsuit against rival tracking device maker Fitbit, the second time in two weeks. This latest suit seeks a sales injunction against Fitbit trackers, claiming that Fitbit infringed on Jawbone patents, including a "wellness application using data from a data-capable band,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Jawbone is even planning to take its complaints to the International Trade Commission, which, if successful, could lead to a ban preventing Fitbit from getting its products or parts into the US, the WSJ said. Fitbit said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that it plans to “vigorously defend itself against these allegations.” "Fitbit has no need to take information from Jawbone or any other company," the company said. "We are unaware of any confidential or proprietary information of Jawbone in our possession." At the end of May, Jawbone sued Fitbit, alleging it had poached Jawbone employees who downloaded confidential information before leaving for Fitbit. Jawbone ran into trouble around the release of its UP3 band, which was delayed, though the company's chances started to look up after Apple announced it would start stocking Jawbone products in its stores this summer. The company raised $300 million (£194 million) from BlackRock in February, but according to Bloomberg View this was a loan, not an equity investment. If the Jawbone sells, Blackrock will get paid before earlier investors. Fitbit is preparing to go public, having reported profits of $132 million (around £85 million) from operations, on revenue of $745 million (around £480 million) in 2014. Business Insider has reached out to both companies for comment. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you drop an Apple Watch face down on cement  | ||
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Draft text for global climate deal due by end-October: official | ||
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Bonn (AFP) - Negotiators for a global climate pact will produce a draft text by the end of October, one month before the start of a UN conference scheduled to adopt the deal, the co-chairman of the talks said Thursday. "You will have by the end of October the draft package," Ahmed Djoghlaf told journalists in Bonn, referring to a core political agreement backed by a set of technical decisions. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Syrians fleeing to an ISIS border crossing are exposing Turkey's open secret | ||
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Pipes, ammonium nitrate, and other bomb-making materials are being transported across Turkey's border into Syria by agents of ISIS while Turkish border guards look the other way — and Ankara hasn't been willing to do much about it. But now thousands of Syrian civilians fleeing an ISIS offensive are streaming toward the Turkish border — and Turkish soldiers are using water cannons on Syrians at a border crossing used more-or-less freely by ISIS. The situation highlights Turkey's relaxed border policies between 2011 and 2014, when Ankara allowed militants and weapons to cross freely into Syria to counter the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. As the Syrian war dragged on, the policy strengthened the jihadists who are now causing more Syrians to flee their country. Consequently, Turkey is struggling to deal with a crisis it inadvertently helped to create.
This week's chaotic influx of Syrian refugees — the result of a battle pitting Islamic State militants against Kurdish and opposition forces in Syria — has forced Turkish border guards to respond with water cannons.
Ironically, the substantial police presence in recent days along the border of Alcakale is not the norm for this small Turkish border town — even though ISIS militants control the town of Tel Abyad that lies across a railway and a fence.
"On the day I entered Alcakale, there was one police car at a roundabout as you entered the main drag and a policeman sitting on the ground with his back to the road drinking tea with a local," Jamie Dettmer of The Daily Beast reported early last month.
The lack of security led to a flow of bomb-making materials into ISIS-controlled Syria: "Smugglers say the piping can sustain high pressure and will be used by jihadists in Syria to manufacture pipe bombs, improvised explosive devices and launch-tubes for mortars," Dettmer writes.
And now, as Turkish soldiers arrive to handle the flow of refugees, Ankara's indirect facilitation of ISIS extremists is uncomfortably obvious. | ||
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China's ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang 'sentenced to life in prison' | ||
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Beijing (AFP) - Former Chinese security chief Zhou Yongkang was sentenced Thursday to life in prison on charges of bribery, abuse of power and leaking state secrets, state media said. Zhou -- the highest ranking former official to be investigated in an anti-corruption campaign for several decades -- "admitted guilt" at a trial in the northern city of Tianjin, the official Xinhua news agency said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Orange chief to visit Israel after boycott scandal: firm | ||
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Paris (AFP) - French telecoms group Orange said its boss Stephane Richard was heading to Israel Thursday for a two-day visit after his plans to review ties with a local firm sparked a boycott row. Richard was invited by Israel to "clarify the misunderstanding" after he said last week that Orange was going to withdraw its brand from the Jewish state. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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EU opens anti-trust probe into Amazon e-book business | ||
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Brussels (AFP) - The EU's anti-trust regulator opened a formal investigation on Thursday into Amazon's e-book distribution, in the latest Brussels inquiry to target the US-based Internet retailer. "It is my duty to make sure that Amazon's arrangements with publishers are not harmful to consumers... Our investigation will show if such concerns are justified," Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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