Erick the Read
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J&K youths defy terrorists; 67,000 apply for 700 cop jobs
Source: The Times of India
M Saleem Pandit | TNN | Updated: May 14, 2017, 10.50 AM IST
SRINAGAR: Four days after Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz was abducted and shot by Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Shopian district to serve as a warning to Kashmiri youths aspiring to join the security forces, about 2,000 boys and girls from the Valley lined up at Bakshi Stadium here on Saturday.
All of them had come for the physical endurance test (PET) and physical standard test (PST) for the post of sub-inspectors in J&K police.
Various terrorist groups have repeatedly warned Kashmiri youths against joining the security forces by issuing threatening videos from time to time.
However, youths from the Valley not only ignored these threats by lining up for posts in J&K police but they far outnumbered their counterparts from the Jammu region. A total of 67,218 candidates have applied for 698 posts of sub-inspector.
Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/jk-youths-defy-terrorists-67000-apply-for-700-cop-jobs/articleshow/58663929.cms
It's important to rebuke terrorists, and all others who peddle nonsense. And now, I'm going to bed. Who knows, maybe I'll still be here tomorrow!
China's Xi lays out $900bn Silk Road vision amid claims of empire-building
Source: The Guardian
Tom Phillips in Beijing
Sunday 14 May 2017 01.42 EDT
Chinese president Xi Jinping has kicked off a two-day showcase of what some call the most ambitious development project ever by comparing his country to a peace-loving explorer set on transforming the world with treasure-laden galleys not warships, guns or swords.
Speaking at the start of a high-profile summit about China’s “Belt and Road initiative”, Xi hailed his multi-billion dollar infrastructure crusade as a means of building a modern-day version of the ancient Silk Road and a new “golden age” of globalisation.
“The glory of the ancient Silk Road shows that geographical dispersion is not insurmountable,” he told the 29 heads of state who have gathered in Beijing for the event, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan.
However, as Xi took to the stage his signature foreign policy initiative faced a backlash with India launching a scathing attack on the $900bn Chinese plan and announcing it would boycott proceedings. According to the the Times of India, New Delhi believed the scheme was “little more than a colonial enterprise [that would leave] debt and broken communities in its wake”.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/14/china-xi-silk-road-vision-belt-and-road-claims-empire-building
Actual news story.
Harvard Constitutional Scholar Calls For Trump Impeachment Probe
Source: HuffPost
05/13/2017 08:59 pm ET | Updated 4 hours ago
A top Harvard constitutional law professor is calling for an impeachment investigation into Donald Trump for obstruction of justice, branding the president’s firing of FBI Director James Comey as an “obvious effort to interfere with a probe involving national security.”
To “wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation’s fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader,” Professor Laurence Tribe wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Saturday. Tribe added that Trump’s conduct “strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government.”
After Comey’s firing last week, Tribe joined the legal advisory board of Impeach Trump Now, a campaign pushing for an impeachment probe into the president.
“It is now up to Congress to save the Constitution by initiating impeachment proceedings,” Tribe said in a statement Friday when he joined the board. “Trump can’t say ‘You’re fired’ to the House of Representatives.”
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/laurence-triber-impeachment_us_59178898e4b0031e737e0f78?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Pope says will be 'sincere' with Trump at Vatican meeting
Source: Reuters
Sat May 13, 2017 4:21pm EDT
Pope Francis said on Saturday he would be "sincere" with U.S. President Donald Trump over their sharp differences on subjects such as immigration and climate change when the two hold their first meeting at the Vatican later this month.
But the pope also told reporters aboard a plane returning from Portugal that he would keep an open mind and not pass judgment on Trump until first listening to his views at their meeting on May 24.
"Even if one thinks differently we have to be very sincere about what each one thinks," Francis said in a typically freewheeling airborne news conference.
"Topics will emerge in our conversations. I will say what I think and he will say what he thinks. But I have never wanted to make a judgment without first listening to the person."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-trump-idUSKBN1890T0
Free advice, Frank: BRING HOLY WATER! (Wouldn't it be great seeing Donnie Boy writhing around on the floor of the Oval Office, screaming "It BURNS! It burns BIGLY! YUUUUUUUUGELY!!!"
Fox News' Chris Wallace reels after 'astonishing' week in Washington: 'I find it very troubling'
Source: The Week
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace admitted Friday that he's absolutely reeling from this week in Washington. "I just find it one of the most astonishing weeks that I've ever covered in this town," said Wallace, discussing President Trump's abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey and the White House's shifting stories about it. Wallace, Mediaite noted, "has spent the better part of the past four decades reporting on Washington."
Wallace said he was particularly struck by one exchange during Friday's White House press briefing between White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Reuters reporter Jeff Mason. Mason pressed Spicer on Trump's Friday morning tweet that seemed to threaten Comey with "tapes" of their conversations, asking Spicer whether the president is recording private conversations.
"It took my breath away," Wallace said of Spicer's response, in which he declined three times to outright deny the president is recording any such exchanges. "That was what in Watergate they called a non-denial denial. He was asked specifically, is there a recording device in the Oval Office of the president of the United States? And he said, 'I have nothing for you on that.'"
Wallace posited that maybe Trump is "trolling the press corps and saying, 'Work yourself into a frenzy about this,' and it turns out it's nothing." But "I've never seen anything like it and I find it very troubling," Wallace said. "I just don't understand the game that they're playing. Because it isn't a game."
Read more: http://theweek.com/speedreads/698801/fox-news-chris-wallace-reels-after-astonishing-week-washington-find-troubling
Erdoğan to urge Trump to ditch US deal to arm Kurds in Syria during visit
Source: The Guardian
The Turkish president will seek to persuade Donald Trump to reverse his “mistaken and shortsighted” plan to arm Kurdish forces in Syria, announced as part of an American attempt to crush Islamic State’s final stronghold in Raqqa.
US officials this week announced a deal to directly supply arms to the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that Turkey has long argued is a terrorist organisation affiliated with its own homegrown Kurdish insurgent group, the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK).
In a wide-ranging speech in London on Friday, the Turkish prime minister, Binyali Yıldırım, described the Americans’ chosen partners as “not humans. They are machines that kill people. They are people that will fight for whichever government gives them money.”
Yıldırım suggested that even Trump’s White House team had wanted a different plan for Raqqa, but were rebuffed by staff in the field linked to the old Obama administration.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/12/erdogan-to-urge-trump-to-ditch-us-deal-to-arm-kurds-in-syria-during-visit
Trump will end up doing whatever Erdogan wants. After all, the two men are cut from the same dictatorial cloth.
Aetna fully exits Obamacare exchanges with pull-out in two states
Source: Reuters
Wed May 10, 2017 | 6:49pm EDT
By Deena Beasley
Health insurer Aetna Inc (AET.N) said on Wednesday it will exit the 2018 Obamacare individual insurance market in Delaware and Nebraska - the two remaining states where it offered the plans.
Aetna had already said it would exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa, after pulling out of several other states last year.
Aetna has now "completely exited the exchanges," the company said in an emailed statement.
Insurers Humana Inc (HUM.N) and UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) have also pulled out of most of the government subsidized individual health insurance market.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-aetna-obamacare-idUSKBN1862XK?il=0
The sharks have begun their feeding-frenzy. Or, more accurately, their greeding-frenzy.
Indian solar power prices hit record low, undercutting fossil fuels
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Plummeting wholesale prices put the country on track to meet renewable energy targets set out in the Paris agreement
Michael Safi
Wednesday 10 May 2017 08.29 EDT
Wholesale solar power prices have reached another record low in India, faster than analysts predicted and further undercutting the price of fossil fuel-generated power in the country.
The tumbling price of solar energy also increases the likelihood that India will meet – and by its own predictions, exceed – the renewable energy targets it set at the Paris climate accords in December 2015.
India is the world’s third-largest carbon polluter, with emissions forecast to at least double as it seeks to develop its economy and lift hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/10/indian-solar-power-prices-hit-record-low-undercutting-fossil-fuels
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Name: Erick VGender: Male
Hometown: Niagara Falls, NY
Home country: US
Current location: Alaska
Member since: Sun Apr 30, 2017, 12:04 PM
Number of posts: 55