5: This Dude Accidentally Convinced the Internet that Finland Doesn’t Exist
Quick, name one fact about Finland.
If you’re not Finnish, well, you probably can’t and, you know what, there’s no shame in that since, frankly, the country doesn’t really exist. Hell, the landmass that we believe is there doesn’t exist either.
That’s how one theory goes anyway.
The prophet of the theory is a 22-year-old man named Jack who goes by the name Raregans on Reddit. Jack, like any good prophet, learned his doctrine from his parents. They taught him a convoluted explanation that weaves in Japanese fishing routes, Nokia phones, and the Trans-Siberian Railway that, in the end, proves that Finland doesn’t exist. In its place exists nothing but the cold and lonely ocean.
“I was about 8 or 9 and they just casually brought it up one morning when we were watching the news and Finland was mentioned,” Jake told VICE. “I can’t remember the exact wording at the time but the jist of it was that Finland didn’t exist. It didn’t seem that big of a thing to me at the time because when you’re a kid your parents’ word is gospel.”
Jake took his teachings to the only place that it could ever truly be loved: Reddit. A year ago, on a post asking about the weirdest things your parents taught you, Jack laid out the whole idea and it blew up. This would be the Finland-doesn’t-exist conspiracy’s sermon on the mount, this was its fundamental teaching.
The thing is that Jack, the false prophet, doesn’t believe his own teachings—he actually believes that Finland is a real country that actually exists. But his idea has taken on a life of its own which has, shall we say, irked some Fins.
Vice News
4: EXTENSIVE BRITISH SPYING THROUGHOUT AFRICA REVEALED IN LE MONDE
TOP-SECRET BRITISH SURVEILLANCE operations targeted the director of the World Trade Organization, several multinational corporations, a top French businessman, and heads of state across Africa, according to a new series of reports by Le Monde.
On Tuesday, the French newspaper began publishing the revelations, which include a wide range of previously undisclosed details about British covert activities across the world. The reports were produced in partnership with The Intercept and are based on documents provided by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The series of stories focuses largely on the controversial work of the U.K.’s electronic surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. According to Le Monde, in March 2009, the British agency spied on Pascal Lamy, then the head of the World Trade Organization and member of the French socialist party. Between 2008 and 2009, it also targeted Octave Klaba, the founder of the French company OVH, one of Europe’s largest internet hosting companies; Emmanuel Glimet, a French trade and economy official; phone lines at the French ministry of foreign affairs; and several multinational French corporations, including the energy company Areva, oil giant Total, and the defense conglomerate Thalès.
The Intercept
3: Iraqi army denies bombing civilians in ISIL-held Qaim
Iraq’s military responded to what it called a “fake story” that alleged its air strikes mistakenly killed dozens of civilians in the ISIL-held city of al-Qaim, accusing media and politicians of doing propaganda work for the armed group.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said on Thursday the air raids a day earlier targeted dozens of foreign fighters of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) – not civilians.
Aljazeera
President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt is seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as an “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with the nation’s top energy producers to fight Obama’s climate efforts. Senator Bernie Sanders said, “Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels.” For more, we speak with May Boeve, executive director of 350 Action, and Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.
Democracy Now!
1: German firms including BMW pull advertising from Breitbart
Major German companies including BMW have stopped advertising on Breitbart, the rightwing US news and opinion site that campaigned for Donald Trump and plans to launch in Europe before key elections next year.
The boycott, prompted by a social media campaign titled KeinGeldFürRechts or No Money for the Right, follows a similar decision by Kellogg’s in the US, to which Breitbart responded by urging readers to stop buying the cereal firm’s products.
Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow, has confirmed it is interviewing journalists to staff new services in France and Germany which it aims to have operational in time for pivotal 2017 elections in which mainstream centre-right and centre-left parties face strong challenges from populist, hard-right rivals.
The Guardian
