TDB Top 5 International Stories: Thursday 20th June 2019
5: Why Hong Kong Won’t Back Down
HONG KONG — In a feeble attempt to quell a city on edge, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam offered her “most sincere apology to all people of Hong Kong” on Tuesday, after an estimated 2 million people — more than a quarter of the city’s population — jammed up downtown in a second Sunday rally against a proposed bill to let criminal suspects be sent to China for prosecution. Multiple officials followed Lam with rather weak apologies, but it’s not enough. The protesters vow more action in the streets unless the government withdraws the bill this week.
Vice News
4: ‘Credible evidence’ links MBS to Khashoggi’s murder: UN report
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated over the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a UN rights expert has concluded, citing “credible evidence”.
In her long-anticipated report, which was released on Wednesday, UN extrajudicial executions investigator Agnes Callamard said Khashoggi’s death “constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera just after the report was published, Callamard said based on the information made available to her, “there is little doubt in my mind that the killing was premeditated. It was planned.”
Aljazeera
3: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRUMP’S MASS DEPORTATION THREAT
IN BETWEEN TWEETS complaining about Fox News polling numbers and boasting about the size of future rallies, President Donald Trump took a moment on Monday to send shock waves through immigrant communities with a threat meant to rally his base — but one that is not actually logistically possible.
“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” he tweeted. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.” An administration official later told the Associated Press that the effort would target people who have received final orders of deportation. There are more than 1 million people living in the United States with final deportation orders, among an undocumented population of about 11 million.
“He obviously wants everyone to believe he’s talking about some mass roundup, which is just not possible,” immigration attorney Matt Cameron said of Trump, “both because of resources and because of due process.”
The Intercept
In a move that could reshape the world’s financial system, Facebook has unveiled plans to launch a new global digital currency called Libra. Facebook announced its plans on Tuesday after secretly working on the cryptocurrency for more than a year. It will launch Libra next year in partnership with other large companies including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. Facebook said it wants to create “a simple global currency and infrastructure that empowers billions of people.” The plan has already come under fierce criticism from financial regulators and lawmakers. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown tweeted, “Facebook is already too big and too powerful, and it has used that power to exploit users’ data without protecting their privacy. We cannot allow Facebook to run a risky new cryptocurrency out of a Swiss bank account without oversight.” We speak with David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect. He recently wrote a piece for The New Republic headlined “The Final Battle in Big Tech’s War to Dominate Your World.”
Democracy Now
1: US beekeepers lost 40% of honeybee colonies over past year, survey finds
In re the Bees
This might be more of a concern than climate change via CO2 emissions.
Of course Climate change had to be brought into the narrative as a sort of a footnote. It must never be left out of any discussion on environmental degradation, but just how it is supposed to be adversely affecting bees or any other insect populations is extremely vague. Poisons like 1080 are a much more likely suspect. We are being sent on a wild goose chase. Persuaded to focus on something we can’t change while things we can change are destroying the planet .
D J S