TDB Top 5 International Stories: Tuesday 31st January 2017

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5: “Let Them In”: Thousands Descend on Nation’s Airports to Protest Trump’s Refugee & Muslim Ban

Thousands of protesters flooded airports across the United States over the weekend after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday temporarily banning all refugees from entering the country, and barring access for 90 days to nationals from seven majority-Muslim nations. The draconian measure instantly cut off access to the U.S. to 218 million people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees. Across the world, travelers were left stranded, while scores were detained by customs officials after landing at U.S. airports. As news of the order spread on Saturday, thousands gathered at John F. Kennedy airport in New York City for an impromptu protest. On Saturday, Democracy Now! spoke to protesters at JFK.

Democracy Now

4: The Data That Turned the World Upside Down

On November 9 at around 8.30 AM., Michal Kosinski woke up in the Hotel Sunnehus in Zurich. The 34-year-old researcher had come to give a lecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) about the dangers of Big Data and the digital revolution. Kosinski gives regular lectures on this topic all over the world. He is a leading expert in psychometrics, a data-driven sub-branch of psychology. When he turned on the TV that morning, he saw that the bombshell had exploded: contrary to forecasts by all leading statisticians, Donald J. Trump had been elected president of the United States.

For a long time, Kosinski watched the Trump victory celebrations and the results coming in from each state. He had a hunch that the outcome of the election might have something to do with his research. Finally, he took a deep breath and turned off the TV.

On the same day, a then little-known British company based in London sent out a press release: “We are thrilled that our revolutionary approach to data-driven communication has played such an integral part in President-elect Trump’s extraordinary win,” Alexander James Ashburner Nix was quoted as saying. Nix is British, 41 years old, and CEO of Cambridge Analytica. He is always immaculately turned out in tailor-made suits and designer glasses, with his wavy blonde hair combed back from his forehead. His company wasn’t just integral to Trump’s online campaign, but to the UK’s Brexit campaign as well.

Of these three players—reflective Kosinski, carefully groomed Nix and grinning Trump—one of them enabled the digital revolution, one of them executed it and one of them benefited from it.

Vice News

3: Suspect detained in deadly Quebec mosque shooting

Quebec City, Canada – Canadian police have said only one of two men initially detained in connection to a Quebec City mosque shooting – which killed six people – is now considered a suspect.

The second man, who was initially reported as a second suspect, was now considered a witness, provincial police said on Monday.

Authorities did not provide additional information about the identity of the suspect, or about the possible motive behind the shooting that left six worshippers dead and at least eight wounded at the Islamic Cultural Centre.

Gunmen opened fire on about 50 people shortly after evening prayers on Sunday. Another 12 people sustained minor wounds, according to a local hospital spokesperson.

Aljazeera

2: Brexit negotiator warns Donald Trump poses ‘third threat’ to EU

Donald Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, are determined to break up the European Union, and are working to stage exit referendums in Berlin and Paris, Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said.

He claimed Trump represented the third threat to the EU alongside Vladimir Putin and Islamic extremism, adding that the US president’s call to organise the continent of Europe around national identity risked playing with fire.

His dramatic remarks at the Chatham House thinktank in London on Monday underline how some Europeans believe Trump represents an existential threat to the EU project and to European values.

The former Belgian prime minister and leader of the European liberal group said disaster lay ahead if the continent followed Trump’s call to return to nationalism.

Saying the EU faced three threats, he identified the first as “radicalised political Islam that has mounted attacks on European soil”. The second was Putin, “who is trying to undermine the EU from inside with cyber-attacks and financing far-right political parties including [Geert] Wilders in the Netherlands and [Marine] Le Pen in France”.

The Guardian 

 

1: Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister.

IN 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate – the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out – another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.

The Intercept

 

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