In a park in Heze city in China’s eastern Shandong province, two people were killed and 24 wounded, including three currently in critical condition, when a bomb was detonated Monday night. The bomber was also killed.
Chinese authorities have identified the man as Xie Xintang, 33, an unemployed villager. official state media Xinhua, which originally reported the incident, did not provide details about the motive of the man or about the explosion, which happened at 10:34 local time at Huxi park, Heze city, Shanxian county, Shangdong.
Other Chinese reports say the man was chronically ill and his condition had recently worsened.
Monday night’s terrorist attack in southeastern Turkey, in which 31 people were killed and around 100 injured, may be the first of a series of seven.
The Turkish government is pointing toward the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for the attack in Suruc, and if it was carried out by the terrorist group this would be their first suicide bombing in Turkey. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
As reported by Turkish news organization Hurriyet Daily News, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) of Turkey repeatedly warned national security services about seven ISIL militants — four men and three women — who crossed the southern border with Syria.
On June 22 and July 3 MIT warned authorities about the seven individuals, provided their names, and stated that there existed an extremely high risk of terrorist attack, after which notice police began counter-ISIL operations in Istanbul, Ankara, Sanliurfa, Konya and Izmir, during which they detained nearly 100 people, but this did not lead to the arrest of any of the seven.
Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, regularly sees a significant increase in religiously-motivated killing, but this year’s was the most deadly of the century, according to The Religion of Peace, a terrorism watch group that keeps records of killings in the name of Islam.
“This year’s Ramadan was the highest since I’ve been keeping track,” Glen Roberts, editor of TROP, told The Speaker. “Normally, Islam’s holiest month sees about 30 percent more terror deaths over a typical month.”
“Nearly 3,000 people were shot, beheaded, blown up, drowned, burned or hacked to death in the name of Islam,” stated Roberts in the summary on TROP’s webpage, noting that no deaths in the name of other religions took place during that time.
For the period roughly corresponding with Ramadan, which lasts 29-30 days based on visual sightings of the crescent moon, 314 terror attacks took place globally, including 63 suicide bombings, which resulted in 2,988 deaths and 3,696 wounded.
Killings during the first few days of Ramadan(TROP resource)
However, as Roberts pointed out, the actual numbers are higher than reported because TROP relies on news reports for figures. There is not a news report for every attack, Roberts told us, and the reports are not followed up by deaths that occur days or longer after the initial incident.
The figures include all killings motivated by a sentiment of religious duty, and so include killings by the Islamic State. “Any killing that I come across by the Islamic State is included in the count. I’m sure that there’s quite a bit that I miss,” commented Roberts.
The 314 attacks that resulted in death between June 18 and July 16 took place in Iraq, Niger, Somalia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Egypt, Mali, Chad, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Kenya, India, Phillipines, Thailand, China, France, and Austria.
The United Nations’ top diplomat in South Sudan is not needed by the country, according to the young nation’s Unity State government.
Mary Cummins was the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) head, based in oil-rich Unity State. The UN’s human rights division released a report at the end of June in which it accused the government army of human rights violations including systematic killing including killing of women and children, gang rape and burning people alive.
Sunday the South Sudanese government announced that Unity State officials had submitted a request that Cummins be expelled.
Cummins will not be the first UN head to be expelled from South Sudan. Last May, the nation expelled UN humanitarian coordinator Toby Lanzer.
Lanzer was also removed following the publication of a UN report on serious human rights violations in South Sudan, including killing, rape and kidnapping.
The difficulties UN officials face in South Sudan are also illustrated, commentators note, in the resignation of former UNMISS peacekeeping leader Hilde Johnson in July of 2014. Johnson assumed office in the summer of 2011 when South Sudan’s Independence was new and no serious violent conflict existed in the region.
But according to South Sudanese lawyers, the state government does not have authority to remove Cummins because the UN made agreements with the national government, not Unity State.
“The notion that Mabek Lang and his colleagues expelled a top UN official in the country is like saying Unity State Governor banned the United Nations Secretary General,” an independent South Sudanese legal expert told South Sudan News Agency.
“What the Unity State government supposed to say is that it has decided to expel Mary Cummins from Unity State, not South Sudan; from there, the national government can decide of what to do with the state decision.”
The number of Russian desertions in the first half of 2015 is already almost double the number of desertions between 2010 and 2014, according to Russian journalists and lawyers involved, who also say that Russian soldiers do not want to fight in Donbas despite high pay promised by recruiters.
The desertions are taking place, lawyer Tatyana Chernetskaya said, because Russian soldiers do not want to fight in the Donbas even for the high pay rate — up to 8,000 rubles or $160 per day — promised by senior officers and other recruiters, who, soldiers report, present themselves out of uniform but with clear marks of rank.
“If there is a real trial according to the law, the commanders will be responsible for the violation of order”
Russian deserters face up to 10 years in prison.
One such deserter is Anatoly Kudrin, 23, who served in Maikop Intelligence Brigade, has received six months in a settlement colony, feared being sent to war in Donbass.
“I did not want to take part in the fighting on the territory of Ukraine,” Kudrin told Gazeta.ru news.
The defence of the soldiers includes the soldiers’ own oaths of service. One soldier facing charges wrote in a brief that he “did not fulfill a criminal order since he did not want to go against the oath which [he] took and did not want to participate in military actions on the territory of Ukraine.”
Human Rights Council’s Sergei Krivenko agreed. Russian military statutes, Krivenko noted, provide that important orders shall be written. “In case of doubt it requires the order in writing by any officers.”
Further, Krivenko said, sending troops on combat missions abroad is impossible without a presidential decree. Formally, any such soldiers could be considered “mercenaries” and “participating in illegal armed groups.”
“If there is a real trial according to the law, the commanders will be responsible for the violation of order,” said Krivenko.
“I did not want to take part in the fighting on the territory of Ukraine”
Russian journalists said that they could not provide comment on the issue from the Russian defence ministry, but noted that the ministry has repeatedly provided news outlets with their official position: that Russian soldiers are not in Ukraine.
After months held in Thai immigration detention centers, over 100 Uighurs have been deported to China, despite protests from the United Nations and the Uighurs themselves, who fear punishment in China.
“Thailand and Turkey are not rivals and we do not want to destroy trade and commerce with Turkey,” said Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha in Bangkok Friday. “At the same time, we do not want to destroy the relationship between China and Thailand.”
Without public notice, last month the Thai government sent 172 Uighurs to Turkey from the holding camps where they had been provided for in Thailand.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) commented on the move, saying it was “shocked by this deportation of some 100 people and consider it a flagrant violation of international law.”
Many of the deported Uighurs have been accused of terrorism by Chinese officials. China’s Foreign Ministry said those Uighurs suspected of “committing serious crimes” would be brought to justice, while others would be dealt with in “proper ways.”
Over 60 Uighurs remain in Thai custody awaiting deportation. The Thai government is processing their paperwork to be sure of their citizenship status before moving them.
Not only are business people going to invest in Microsoft’s cloud, they are going to do it despite thinking that they will end up spending more with Microsoft over time. Fifty-seven percent of CIOs who were using or planned to use services like Azure and Office 365 said they thought they would spend MORE with Microsoft in a recent poll. Only 16 percent thought they’d end up paying less to Microsoft.
Using cloud services is widely considered to be a way for businesses to cut down on other costs — for example, hardware and IT staff — although results are far from uniform.
This is in part due to the ongoing nature of cloud service provision– the lifetime customer value in a budding industry projected to be worth $150 billion when it ripens. According to Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss, current evidence supports Microsoft’s calculations of a 1.2-1.8X increase in customer value — a future that sounds more sunny than cloudy.
Who knows best what content users of social media want to see? According to Facebook in statements accompanying the roll out of their latest news feed update, users themselves.
“We know that ultimately you’re the only one who truly knows what is most meaningful to you and that is why we want to give you more ways to control what you see,” said Facebook’s product manager Jacob Frantz.
“Today we are announcing even better tools for you to actively shape and improve the experience. We’ve redesigned and expanded Facebook’s News Preferences to give you more control.”
With the new algorithm, Facebook users will choose their own top 30 friends or pages. This will leave all the others further below when users check their newsfeeds.
For businesses, this could be boon or misfortune, according to social media expert Dionne Lew, whose remarks were reported by SmartCompany. “I think this is a really good change to the algorithm,” said Lew.
“People have been unhappy about the decline in reach as a result of the changes with the last news feed update and there’s been general unhappiness — from people using it personally, but also businesses who have seen a significant decline in organic reach.”
The companies that have the best relationships with their customers will have the best chances of rising to the top in the new newsfeed, Lew predicted.
“It’s going to work really well for those brands who’ve put the effort into building relationships.”
In order to get prioritized, though, businesses on Facebook may need to ask for it.
“For some brands it might be appropriate to ask directly for some people to prioritize them,” said Lew.
“But it’s a bigger ask. When it was a click of a button [to like a page] it was just click and off you go. But what you’re saying here is we know you have limited space and you’re actually going to have to find that option in your settings. It’s not something that’s as easy as clicking a button – it needs to be a more thoughtful ask and you need to give them a bit of a reason and a call to action.”
Complaints against Jiang Zemin, the former leader of China’s Communist Party, rose from only a few thousand to around 35,000 over the previous month. The number of complainants is currently around 44,000.
They are practitioners and supporters of the Chinese religion Falun Gong, and they are urging China’s governing authorities to bring Jiang to justice for his administration’s persecution of the minority religion.
Similar to other mass movements currently taking place in China, the group action against Jiang is taking place on a website. Claimants are submitting complaints to Minghui. Between 1,700 and 2,700 complaints have been filed per day between the end of June and the beginning of July, mostly in China, but complaints have also come in from 19 other countries.
The complaints include illegal detention, forced labor, torture, and murder.
Over the past 16 years, the Chinese government’s torture of Falun Gong adherents has resulted in 3,800 reported deaths. The actual number may be much higher, as matters such as executions, although extremely common in China relative to the rest of the world, are guarded as state secrets.
Under the banner of the New England Annual Conference of United Methodist Churches, 600 Methodist churches in six states have issued a resolution passed Saturday calling for an end of the War on Drugs in the name of Christ.
The group cited the failure of the “‘so-called’ War on Drugs” to make progress in eliminating “or even reducing” substance abuse, as well as the negative consequences that have resulted from “War on Drugs” policy, including a violent underground market and its associated loss of life, the high incidence of death due to overdose in the unregulated and sometimes adulterated market, and the harms associated with processing and punishing people as criminals for drug use.
“The ‘War on Drugs’ has arguably been the single most devastating, dysfunctional social policy since slavery” for people of color, the resolution noted, while costing millions of dollars per year to finance.
The group concluded that the issue was one of the poor and marginalized, and the consequence of the drug war was “mass incarceration, racial injustice, and the breakdown of families,” according to Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of LEAP.
The group made their call under the authority of “the love of Christ, who came to save those who are lost and vulnerable.”
Conor McGregor is the white Muhammad Ali. I say this because of what the American boxer represented to his people. He was always cognizant of what his success meant to underprivileged African-Americans in the USA. McGregor embodies something similar: his Irish red beard, ripped UFC torso, his cutting mouth and his fixed mind obliterates opponents and stereotypes alike. He is arrogant, trenchant, and he is our’s.
In a few hours Greece will be heading to the polls to answer the question, “Should the plan of agreement, which was submitted by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the Eurogroup of 25.06.2015 and is comprised of two parts that constitute their unified proposal, be accepted?”
The turnout of the referendum will determine Greece’s future position in the Eurozone, but also its own economic stability. Only last Tuesday the country defaulted on its 1.5 billion Euro loan from the IMF, which means that Greece is officially bankrupt.
Over the last few years Greece has been in an economic crisis which has led to two major bailouts by the EU in order to continue the country’s economic prosperity. However, the new government, led by Prime Minister Alex Tsipras, has made it clear that it no longer wants to accept the new bailout proposed by the Eurogroup, as it would come with a package of severe austerity measures which would only further cripple Greece.
A protester outside the Greek parliament building June 29, 2015 – Jan Wellman
Yet the issue is not so black and white, as a “No” turnout would possibly lead Greece to exit the Eurozone and return to its old currency — which would lead to further economic contraction. However Greece votes Sunday, it has a pernicious future ahead.
Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has made a declaration suggesting that the creditors have been “terrorizing” Greece with their proposals and that he would not stand for it. He said that if the final turnout is Yes, he will resign his post.
However, it is obvious that if people want to continue with EU aid, the government which has been in power the past two years will most likely dissolve, sending the country into more political turmoil. This of course amid the bank closures that have had a serious effect on cash flow, as people have been lining up at ATMs only to withdraw limited amounts of cash.
The debt crisis has led to unrest amid the populace, as yesterday two major rallies took over in Athens, the “No” and the “Yes” camps, who all urged the populace to vote for what they believe to be the right choice for Greece and its people.
A “No” vote will undoubtedly lead to a serious economic meltdown, however a “Yes” will lead to a postponement of the same consequence, accompanied by serious economic austerity.
As the country is divided on the issue, the EU is urging people to vote “Yes,” which would mean that a Greek exit from the Eurozone would be less likely. Germany, the de facto leader of the EU, has said that “It is clear that we will not leave the [Greek] people in the lurch.”
Today, Greeks all over the nation stood in soup and bread lines. The national interest of the entire Greek people lay with the result of this vote. Whatever happens tomorrow, it is obvious that the times ahead will definitely be difficult for Greece, and the vote will not yield an immediate solution.
Photo Credit / Stephanie Limage of Limage Media Group www.limagemedia.com in Athens July 4th 2015
