[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:09 pm

So, France has suspended the convention on human rights...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 12:40 pm

They are going full on Police State aren't they? O.o

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:05 pm

That's somewhat hyperbolic Longes... but it's still nuts.

"The derogation is foreseen by Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights in times of public emergency threatening the life of a nation and has been used in the past by other member states."
-but the current situation in France is not remotely that. The Paris attacks were an awful crime but they or their aftermath do not constitute an existential threat to France.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:07 pm

@Stahlseele: Pretty much, and the government keep claiming that emergency state is constitutional state and that it's not at all infringing on rights and freedom.

Actually, they do it so much that one might start wondering why they'd ever revert it since according to them it makes everyone more secure at no cost at all.

However the name of the link might be misleading. The French government is following the procedure that allows it to temporarily suspend some rights. It's a procedure that other western democracies have already used during crisis.

@Schleiermacher: It looks like the other recent cases where it has been used are quite similar in scope. It's still nuts, but it seems in line with international practice.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 2:17 pm

Schleiermacher wrote:That's somewhat hyperbolic Longes... but it's still nuts.

"The derogation is foreseen by Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights in times of public emergency threatening the life of a nation and has been used in the past by other member states."
-but the current situation in France is not remotely that. The Paris attacks were an awful crime but they or their aftermath do not constitute an existential threat to France.

I... agree. I somewhat misunderstood the text initially, as I was reading a google translated french version. I assume that "the Court" is the European Court on Human Rights?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 2:22 pm

France likely to close more than 100 mosques (for 'radicalization').

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:19 pm

Yes. Because as we all know preventing open practice of a religion makes its adherents less radical.

Wait, no, it was the other thing.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Fri Dec 04, 2015 10:30 pm

And once again a society chooses the worst of all possible options. How do you people manage it, time after time?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Dec 04, 2015 11:01 pm

Occluded Sun wrote:And once again a society chooses the worst of all possible options. How do you people manage it, time after time?

This actually explains so much.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:21 pm

Speaking of police states, the trucker protest in Russia continues. A small trucker camp is standing at the parking lot of a hypermarket in Moscow. The attempted blockade of MKAD failed, as the police stopped them. No one has been arrested, but TV is pretty much silent about the whole affair. In response to the demands our duma has significantly lowered the fines for not using PLATON, but the protest continues. The present truckers demand complete removal of the system.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 9:21 pm

Longes wrote:France likely to close more than 100 mosques (for 'radicalization').

"There was a world view [being preached] that was quite worrisome. I'm talking about the politicisation of Islam. I've heard some speeches that tend to promote the notion among Muslims present that Islamophobia is organised by the French state, that somehow non-Muslim French people are against the Muslim minority."

But isn't that true?

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 10:57 pm

It's certainly becoming true. Which was likely the intended purpose of the attacks.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 1:54 am

Longes wrote:Speaking of police states, the trucker protest in Russia continues. A small trucker camp is standing at the parking lot of a hypermarket in Moscow. The attempted blockade of MKAD failed, as the police stopped them. No one has been arrested, but TV is pretty much silent about the whole affair. In response to the demands our duma has significantly lowered the fines for not using PLATON, but the protest continues. The present truckers demand complete removal of the system.

What are MKAD and PLATON?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 2:16 am

hyzmarca wrote:
Longes wrote:France likely to close more than 100 mosques (for 'radicalization').

"There was a world view [being preached] that was quite worrisome. I'm talking about the politicisation of Islam. I've heard some speeches that tend to promote the notion among Muslims present that Islamophobia is organised by the French state, that somehow non-Muslim French people are against the Muslim minority."
But isn't that true?

There have been cases, though I'm not sure how widespread it was prior to the attacks. Which could not have been more blatantly a deliberate effort to turn public opinion against the refugees if they carried pamphlets explaining that's why they were doing it. And yet somehow it still worked.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 2:25 am

name_here wrote:There have been cases, though I'm not sure how widespread it was prior to the attacks. Which could not have been more blatantly a deliberate effort to turn public opinion against the refugees if they carried pamphlets explaining that's why they were doing it. And yet somehow it still worked.

You are always underestimating the stupidity of people. No matter how stupid you think they might be, they can always prove themselves even stupider.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 6:38 am

RadiantPhoenix wrote:
Longes wrote:Speaking of police states, the trucker protest in Russia continues. A small trucker camp is standing at the parking lot of a hypermarket in Moscow. The attempted blockade of MKAD failed, as the police stopped them. No one has been arrested, but TV is pretty much silent about the whole affair. In response to the demands our duma has significantly lowered the fines for not using PLATON, but the protest continues. The present truckers demand complete removal of the system.
What are MKAD and PLATON?

MKAD is the Moscow Automobile Ring Road, the outer yellow ring on this map

It's a big circle road around Moscow.
Platon is a new automated payment system for truckers, that's supposed to take money for using federal roads (and damaging them). Its implementation was assinine, and by the time of system's start the vast majority of truckers were unable to install the devices, which, coupled with giant fines for not using it, caused problems.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 10:27 am

PLATON = "PLAta za TONny" = "per-ton payment" is a per-km tax on truckers which amounts to approximately all of an independent trucker's monthly income. (edit: and I don't mean "with the tax implemented, they'll take home as much as they pay in taxes", I mean the new tax is $600/month and they take home $600/month without PLATON).
Politicians say:
(1) the payment is negligible -- as it turns out, their calculation is based on a truck doing like 50 km per day (not a typo), each day, while always fully loaded, which is of course batshit.
(2) the prices will rise negligibly -- this is a lie because the published calculations only account for transportation of the finished product to a point of consumption (e.g. milk from the packaging plant to the city).
(3) similar taxes exist in e.g. Germany and Belarus -- again a lie, because the taxes only apply to foreign trucks, and like 92% of trucks move cargo through Belarus.
(4) the tax will serve to maintain the roads -- fuck no. The system is implemented by the Rotenbergs' company (think Koch bros), who "won" a no-contest contest "of strategic importance" (the reason for why no one else was allowed to participate, which doesn't explain the silence of e.g. the state-owned and managed "CS HQ" GlavNIVTs), which will get compensation for govt use of the system far greater than the projected collected tax.

On another hilarious note, you've probably heard of Chikatilo.
Well, over the recent decade, two prominent crime sprees occurred, perpetrated by the Tsapok gang (who owned a city -- it doesn't get more grimdark than that) and the GTA gang (who killed motorists and truckers on federal highways). Turns out Tsapok's wife, Tsapok's right-hand man's wife, the wife of a high-up State Prosecutor who was hiding a GTA member, and the Vice Prosecutor General's wife own a business together.

Nice, right?

Oh and the Prosecutor General's son murdered the CEO of a shipping company, among other things.
The government is "uninterested" in these claims, because "they concern not the officials themselves but their adult relatives". Nevermind that a state employee (or for that matter a church employee) has to (break the law and) subject to background checks and dox every single one of their relatives to apply for a job.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 11:09 am

On another hilarious note, you've probably heard of Chikatilo.
Well, over the recent decade, two prominent crime sprees occurred, perpetrated by the Tsapok gang (who owned a city -- it doesn't get more grimdark than that) and the GTA gang (who killed motorists and truckers on federal highways). Turns out Tsapok's wife, Tsapok's right-hand man's wife, the wife of a high-up State Prosecutor who was hiding a GTA member, and the Vice Prosecutor General's wife own a business together.

Honestly, this is a non-starter. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows Obama. That doesn't mean I have a hand in the US government's operations. Making chains of friends between two given people is absurdly easy.

Oh and the Prosecutor General's son murdered the CEO of a shipping company, among other things.

While this should definitely be investigated, Navalny's movie gives fuck all in terms of proof for this.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 1:33 pm

Longes wrote:Honestly, this is a non-starter. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows Obama.

Does your wife run a business with Michelle Obama? Because that seems substantially different from knowing a guy who knows a guy who knows Obama.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 3:59 pm

DSMatticus wrote:
Longes wrote:Honestly, this is a non-starter. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows Obama.
Does your wife run a business with Michelle Obama? Because that seems substantially different from knowing a guy who knows a guy who knows Obama.

Still, being business partners with someone whose relative turned out to be a criminal is not a crime by itself.

Starmaker wrote:or for that matter a church employee

Huh, really? Why?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 4:24 pm

But since we are talking about suspicious things and transparency, let's talk about Dozhd. You guys may have heard of it. It's an independent russian oppositional TV channel. It usually comes up whenever people talk about the last independent media in Russia. You may have heard about its big fiasko, when in 2014 Dozhd made a poll "Should Leningrad have been surrendered (to the Nazis) to save millions of lives?", suffered massive backlash, and got kicked out of the cable networks. Dozhd blamed everything on the state oppression.
Well, here's a thing. Since at least 2011 Dozhd has been in debt. Like, 300 million rubles in debt. And it is losing 100 million rubles every year. This raises the question: where does the channel get the money? Channel's administration publicly claims that the channel exists on donations and money from subscriptions. In reality there are two sources of income:
1. State tenders full of legalistic stuff that I can't parse.
2. Massive loans with 0.3-1% interest. This is actually interesting. Such a low interest rate can't come (at least officially) from any of the Russian banks. This means that the loan most likely came from some anonymous organization. The most likely explanation for why there is any kind of interest rate at all, is that zero-interest loans of more than 600 thousand roubles need to be registered in Rosfinmonitoring, to make sure you are not laundering money or financing extremists.

And this is why Russian opposition is bringing me such despair. While waving the banners of transparency and fight against corruption they themselves tend to be muddy and corrupt.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:59 pm

IMF Tweaks Lending Rules in Boost for Ukraine. Welp. I imagine Greece is going to be pissed.

The International Monetary Fund tweaked its lending rules on Tuesday, paving the way for more emergency cash for Ukraine and undermining Russia’s economic leverage over the former Soviet republic.

IMF rules previously prevented lending to countries with arrears to other nations, a policy that would have stalled the IMF’s bailout for Ukraine if Kiev failed to pay the $3 billion debt it owes the Kremlin by the end of the year.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 3:35 pm

National Front leader Le Pen acquitted of inciting hatred

How convenient, that this resolved right after the election finished.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 3:43 pm

Egypt claims to have found no evidence that the Russian passenger jet was destroyed by terrorists

Because planes are well known for spontaneously exploding in midair.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:42 pm

Longes wrote:National Front leader Le Pen acquitted of inciting hatred

How convenient, that this resolved right after the election finished.

Yeah, the timing is weird. But the acquittal is actually kinda more weird. These are laws that she breaks all the time. Like, literally every single day her political party crosses the legal line of what is illegal hate speech in her country. She is explicitly the banner holder of a political movement that is the direct descendant of the fascist movement those laws were created to eradicate. The only way that she can avoid arrest and imprisonment is by claiming that a distinction exists between what she stands for and the forbidden ideology. But no distinction exists or ever has existed.

Her actual defense in this trial is that when she said horrible things about "Muslims" she actually meant "some small group of specific (yet unnamed) people who happen to be Muslims" and not "Muslims." That's ridiculous. She obviously didn't mean that, and none of her supporters thought she meant that, and no one else did either. That semantic shell game was come up with years later and served no purpose but to boggle prosecution with a tongue twister.

But it's like how Jeb! flagrantly violated election laws with his flatly illegal election finance structure. No one expects him to go to jail for that, even though he obviously should. There are certain laws that conservative politicians are simply expected to be allowed to break.

The National Front of France is a fascist movement. They are constantly in violation of France's de-Nazification laws. Constant. And there is a general understanding that they are allowed to break those laws so long as they don't cross some rather ill-defined lines. Better to let the brown shirts contest elections as a permanent minority party than exclude them from public discourse altogether I suppose.

My assumption is that when the National Front became the plurality (if still minority) party in France's EU parliament, that some parliamentarians thought the understanding was void and it was time to start swinging the book around. And then when the National Front face planted in the regional elections and failed to get any of the regions at all, the judge said "Meh. Back to status quo I suppose."

-Username17