Spain striker Borja Iglesias steps down from Spain's (male) national team after Rubiales’ refusal to resign

Real Betis striker Borja Iglesias has announced his intention to step down from the Spanish national soccer team, following statements made by Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales and his refusal to resign in the wake of the scandal caused by a non-consensual kiss with midfielder Jenni Hermoso after the victory of the women’s team at the 2023 World Cup. “I am sad and disappointed,” Iglesias said, while declaring solidarity with his “teammate” Hermoso.

Half of all active satellites are now from SpaceX. Here’s why that may be a problem (March 2023)

SpaceX’s rapidly growing fleet of Starlink internet satellites now make up half of all active satellites in Earth orbit. [...]

"These big low-orbit internet constellations have come from nowhere in 2019, to dominating the space environment in 2023,” says McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “It really is a massive shift and a massive industrialization of low orbit.”

Why do governments provide Low Earth Orbit to one awful person?

@abbadon420

Maybe she wouldn't accept it, but the public probably would.

So violating an individual's rights is acceptable as long as 'the public' accepts it?

And if so, who is 'the public'? I feel I'm also part of the public in that case, and don't accept it.

Instead they've escalated the accident into a lawsuit and made a public enemy of themselves.

No, not 'they'. It was just him, can't see any wrongdoing by her.

As Nobel laureate Angus Deaton claims, 'The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’

Yeah, but that's what all authoritarian states do.

I guess violations of human rights like the one we have here happen a million times a day across the globe, although mostly not in the public sphere. Sexual harassment is not 'blown out of proportion', it has to have consequences as any crime.

Reading an article is a good way to avoid posting garbage.

I'm wondering what China's potential BRICS partners like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and possibly others say. I mean, Islam is the state religion these countries, and China declares that "illegal religious activities." Can someone enlighten me?

FYI: There's a study published in March 2023 investigating the Prevalence and predictors of depression among women in Afghanistan (pdf, 9 pages). It is obvious that women are facing a harsh life reality which is far beyond what we can imagine here in our western world.

A recent national survey in Afghanistan reported that 47% of women suffered from mental health illnesses including depression [10]. An earlier survey conducted in 2003 evaluated the depression rate among women in Afghanistan. The survey reported high rates of clinical depression (73–78%) and suicidal ideation among Taliban-controlled regions versus those in a Pakistani refugee camp (28%) [11]. The provision of overall healthcare services including psychiatric services has been halted or inaccessible due to an ongoing political crisis in the country [12]. [...]

Women in Afghanistan face chronic trauma, emotional abuse, and patriarchal community ideals which may lead extreme depression and suicidal thoughts [13, 14]. Gender-based violence against women, forced marriages, and the impact of war are the most important factors for this [14]. Traditional practices and customs, early marriage, and teenage pregnancies make it more difficult for women to obtain an education, learn new skills, and inherit property, all of which contribute to poor mental health outcomes [15].

I'm not sure. You may have children, elderly among your relatives dependent on your care and you don't want to leave behind, things like that. I have never been in such a situation and hopefully never will be, but it's hard to generalize imho.

The book is a Musk biography by the author Walter Isaacson. Musk admitted his action to tbe author as the article says. (But, yeah, maybe if someone doesn't read the entire article it could be misleading.)

Fifa suspends Luis Rubiales from all football-related activity over Hermoso kiss

A Fifa statement said: “The chairman of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee, Jorge Ivan Palacio (Colombia), in use of the powers granted by article 51 of the Fifa Disciplinary Code (FDC), has decided today to provisionally suspend Mr. Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities at national and international level.

We even used to be subscribers of the Economist for a long time, but they have made a complete u-turn over the years. In the meantime they appear to just echo mostly pro-establishment opinions with weak research and an often weird approach of interpreting data and issues. So this does not come as a surprise unfortunately.

South Africa levels accusations of ‘genocidal conduct’ against Israel at world court are different as we know.

The original article contains 126 words, the summary contains 126 words. Saved 0%.

😅

No, they aren't. In 15 or 20 years, however, when people have left their indoctrination camps disguised as schools ...

YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users

Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

Guess a human rights group in China is not possible for a lack of democracy. That aside, it doesn't matter where the group sits, the issue is clear here. But, wait, ...

USA national team player Alex Morgan has come out in support of Jenni Hermoso, saying she was “disgusted” by how the Spain forward had been treated.

Yes, and it's clear that any concessions to Putin will encourage him to go further. The one and only solution here is that Russia has to leave the whole country of Ukraine.

Whether or not we call it slavery, it is for sure a gross exploitation of labour. The article reminds us that we in the so-called 'western world' can only afford their luxury life because there's someone elsewhere who pays the price.

A 17-year-old boy said border guards forced him and other survivors to rape two girl survivors after the guards had executed another migrant who refused to rape another survivor.

@zerfuffle

It really helps if you read the article before posting.

I guess the first thing all people needed to do is self-hosting (Yunohost, Nextbox, or the like), and the second thing is paying for Open Source software they use (if they can pay, as digital communication should be free very much like the commons -fresh air, drinking water- but those who can should pay imo.)

'They are dealers, not leaders’: Retired judges, officers [in India] write to [Indian] President seeking action against ‘China-backed portal’

"We have no words to describe such people except as traitors. … we are giving too wide a leverage to all kinds of inimical forces under the garb of ‘free press’. … The email exchanges that are in the public domain establish beyond doubt that these people are not leaders but dealers. They are not columnists but actually fifth columnists,” the letter said.

In Putin's Russia, there are no citizens, just subjects

This is how Russia has operated from the times of Ivan the Terrible, when the backs of princes and their princedoms were broken, ushering in an era of never-ending despotism.

Imagine living under such a political system, generation after generation, century after century, knowing that your own existence means nothing to lords, Bolshevik commissars, and finally, Vladimir Putin’s cronies.

The Republicans are tying everything to cuts in public spending, may it be the IRS, FTC, EPA, or any other agency. This is not new and has nothing to do with Ukraine, Israel, or any other 'external' factors imho. It's the Republican economic policy, an austerity policy we have been observing in the US for decades. Ronald Reagan would be proud today.

their people are starting to get paid a bit better than other more easily exploited people in some other countries

That is hopefully the good part of the story, but a growing number of Chinese don't find work at all, especially the youth. The government even refuses to release the unemployment data.

I hope she won't get a sentence, but I am not a lawyer for expressing an informed legal opinion. The point I make is that we know in the meantime that the oil industry has been downplaying climate change and its related health issues for decades, although they new about it from their own research in the 1980s already. And no one faces any consequences. As a legal layman I can't say whether that's legal, but I don't feel it's right.

There's is also Jstor Open Content and Sci-hub, just fyi.

Edit: I forgot libgen (simply speaking, libgen is for books what sci-hub is for papers).

@N1cknamed

but it seems odd to me that this mans life should be ruined over a kiss.

This was not 'a kiss', this was sexual assault.

@N1cknamed

Not to mention that we have no clue about their private interactions.

What a bullshit. There's no 'private interaction.' Such a comment is as unacceptable as this so-called president.

Yeah, they say she's in Europe, and imho she's also candidate for the Nobel Peace prize.

@deegeese

The promise of WikiLeaks was exposure of wrongdoing, anywhere. Assange ran it as his personal score-settling service to help Russia.

The US war crimes in Iraq back then didn't help Russia as much as the Russian war crimes in Ukraine now don't help the US. Both are crimes against humanity. It is impossible that they 'help' anyone.

Addition: the CCP is actively hiring Chinese people all over the world to control and dissent as Safeguard Defenders says in a report

The consolidation of overseas United Front networks as the providers of services such as consular community assistance may not only give them potential broad access to individuals’ private data, home addresses, and contact information but may also dangerously enhance their function of control over overseas communities and dissenters.

@wolf6152

So no matter what side wins, you’re going to a reeducation camp. Awesome…..

Ukrainians are breaking their ties with the Russian language

In Kharkiv, a historically Russian-speaking city in eastern Ukraine, just 25 miles from the Russian border, Ukrainian classes are in high demand. Waiters, hairdressers and shopkeepers have stopped using Russian. Ukrainian language books are flying off the shelves, and local publishers are struggling to keep up with orders.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s central — and false — justifications for invading Ukraine, that he was defending Russian-speaking people, has backfired dramatically.

In cities across Ukraine, people started bringing their Russian literature to local recycling stations to be shredded and converted into toilet paper. Street names have been changed to honor Ukrainian heroes instead of Russian writers. Russian dishes, like pelmeni dumplings, have been relabeled on restaurant menus. Radio stations stopped playing songs by Russian artists, long popular in Ukraine.

As an EU citizen, I'm often disappointed how these things are applied. New rules may be fine, but often it takes a really really long time here until the necessary changes take an effect in the real world.

The GDPR is a good example imo. We have it for 5 years now, but even many public authorities still don't comply with it. So I feel that many things are just written on paper.

History has been teaching us painfully often how quick people give up their individual believes for the sake of a centralised propaganda machine. It'd be very dangerous to think we are immune to it imho.

That's what I thought, too, but unfortunately I feel somehow there's more to come.

Update: Russian governor reported to police after saying regional authorities ‘were not prepared’ for war in Ukraine and have ‘no need’ for it

The governor’s statement came in response to a question from a woman whose husband is fighting in Ukraine about why soldiers were not issued backpacks with equipment.

@zerfuffle

Yes, I fully understand what you say. You mean this, but honestly, does it add any value?