Some 42,000 staff members--including lecturers, researchers, librarians and technicians and other campus workers--are continuing their strike at more than 60 universities and colleges across the UK, after the rank and file rejected a deal agreed to by union leaders.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) had voted in favor of 14 days of strike action over a period of four weeks starting on February 22, largely in response to plans to end guaranteed pension benefits. Universities UK (UUK), the body that represents university managers, wants to change the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) from a "defined benefit" system, which gives workers a guaranteed income when they retire, to a "defined contribution" system, where pension benefits are subject to fluctuations in the stock market. The union estimates that this could cut UCU members' pensions by an average of 10,000 pounds ($14,000) per year.

Who will explain the election result ... amazing!

Labour party completely devastated
SP and D66 have both taken a big hit
Rural areas big win for locals ... they have overall the largest representation
VVD of Mark Rutte a winner most likely due to the fact that Geert Wilders PVV ran a worst campaign as novice to ths election
Great WINNER in the major cities Groen Links or the Green Party ... congratulations

A referendum on a further hit on people's privacy most likely will not pass ... but that doen't matter. Mark Rutte can and will do what's needed for national security ... just as under the Bush/Blair years.


'Sapere aude'

Mr Gabuev, Ms Mostinskaya, Mr Ovchinnikov and other Russians are part of a new generation of Russian elite who share the European values declared by Mr Gorbachev around the time of their birth and are traumatised by their reversal 30 years later. A significant and vocal group, they are imbued with a sense of entitlement and have the potential and desire to complete Russia's aborted transition to a "normal" country. Whether they get a chance to do so depends on many factors, including their determination and the resistance of the system embodied by Mr Putin's rule.

The new generation define themselves by their difference from their "fathers" as well as some similarities with their "grandfathers". Gorbachev's grandchildren recognise in each other a dissatisfaction with the aggression, degradation and lies that underpin Mr Putin's rule. He presides over the sort of power structure that Douglass North, an American political economist, has called the "natural state". In this, rents are created by limiting access to economic and political resources, and the limits are enforced by "specialists in violence". In Russia these are thesiloviki of the assorted security and police forces, serving the system as they did in Soviet times.

That system is not about to crumble. But the rise of a new generation--especially one which, through quirks of demography, is large (see chart)--matters in Russia. "Every new group coming to power has always declared a break with the previous one," wrote Yuri Levada, a prominent Russian academic, "blaming it for every possible sin. A demonstrable rejection of predecessors has been the main way for leaders of a new generation to establish themselves in power, regardless of whether they carried on or changed the means and style of governance."

archived
"Black Protests"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

German police said they had arrested Puigdemont in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain. [...] In a statement, police said Puigdemont was detained near a section of the A7 highway which cuts through the state from the city of Flensburg near the Danish border. Police did not say exactly where Puigdemont was being held but the Spanish press said he was at a police station in the nearby town of Schuby.

The period of arrest permitted law enforcement agents to ascertain facts varies by state statutes, we have duly noted, from indefinite (for undocumented migrants to the US) to, say, 24 hours. But no charge predicates such action. Suspicion or "probably cause" to suspect illegal or unlawful conduct in progress is sufficient authority to arrest an individual. In the US at least, a suspect's arrest status changes upon arraignment, presentation, of charges and court order, if any, to remand the suspect's freedom to law enforcement agents.

This was at the time Greenwald's friend Miranda (ironically) was "detained" by UK law enforcement at Heathrow for nine hours.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Sarkozy has been the target of no fewer than 10 different investigations so far - seven of them still ongoing.

The French establishment, predictably, is livid. An array of mostly center-right politicians swanned on to political talk shows to support the former president and emphasize "presumption of innocence." Quite the opposite of the Salisbury spy gambit, where the Kremlin and President Putin have been swiftly condemned, evidence-free.

Leave Jeremy Corbyn Alone. He's The Leader We Young Jews Have Waited For. | The Forward - Opinion |

I first voted in a UK General Election in 2005, the year after I left school. I remember various adults telling me grand things about democracy and its history in this great liberal nation. I remember walking into my local voting station, feeling very grown up, putting my X on the ballot paper and checking several times that I'd done it right before putting it into one of the boxes. What I don't remember is who I voted for

...
I don't have much faith in our political system. And I am not alone. During every election in my memory, a running line of commentary has been that "young people don't vote." Whether out of apathy, or, like me, deciding to put their energy elsewhere, young voter turnout has been a recurrent issue here in the UK.

Until last June.

The General Election last year saw a surge in youth turnout the likes of which hadn't been seen in a quarter of a century. The reason was an ageing, bearded activist who wears brown suits and grows his own vegetables.

Jeremy Corbyn has defied all predictions. And like Bernie Sanders in the U.S., he is particularly popular among Britain's disenchanted youth.

Corbyn is the first political leader in our living memory who we've heard say anything real, with policies that go beyond buzzwords, that might actually change the future we are facing. Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are the only MPs who have actually listened to my concerns, and responded to them. Last year, many of my friends who had never before shown any interest in electoral politics not only turned out and voted, but actually campaigned on the streets for the Labour party.

○ Facing Jewish community protest, Corbyn apologizes for Labour anti-Semitism
○ Bernie's Socialism and Kibbutz Experience of '63

'Sapere aude'

Facebook has refused to take down a post calling for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to be assassinated. The threat was posted on a Tory-supporting Facebook page, Evolve Politics reports.

The post from the page `Conservative memes for Tory Teens' reads: "I think we should order hits on Russia's spies," before going on to say "let's start with Jeremy Corbyn."

Evolve Politics signaled the post to Facebook, which got back to them with a generic message saying the post does not contravene its `Community Standards.'

Average weekly earning, private sector, CYE 2017
€ 674.94 (gross) -- approx. € 2,924.74 / mo.

Average weekly earning, public sector, CYE 2017
€ 946.55 (gross) -- approx. € 4,101.72

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Depreciation accounting is generally a set of procedures designed to institutionalize "decommodification-through-purchase" of means of production by business. To those who find decommodification abhorrent, this is a great sin. "Mark-to-market" is the incoherent counterattack

— Nathan Tankus (@NathanTankus) 28. März 2018

So how can Haspel gain the president's trust, while staying true to the CIA mission?
[...]
Yet Haspel's selection has raised concerns among many - including key Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee - regarding her role in approving the torture of detainees during the Bush years. She is even purported to have been at the heart of "tapegate," when videotapes showing prisoner torture were illegally destroyed at the agency.

Critics are right to condemn this history. Even though Haspel is likely be confirmed, she must work to restore confidence that she will follow the law and resist political influence. If she can do this, she will be well positioned to start rebuilding relations between the CIA and senior policymakers in both the White House and Congress.
[...]
Finally, the CIA director cannot simply tell the president what he wants to hear. This is where Haspel's career is important. After serving in several senior positions at the agency, her commitment to the CIA culture of speaking truth to power will be critical to her success. And if she and the CIA don't have the respect and trust of the people making life-or-death decisions about national security, America - and the world - will face an even more uncertain future.

Comparing supporters of different candidates in the presidential primaries, the highest level of openness to authoritarian political systems is among those voters who supported Donald Trump in the primaries. Thirty two percent of Trump primary voters support a "strong leader." The level of support for this option is especially high (45 percent) among those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then switched parties to vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Perhaps more unexpectedly, 20 percent of Hillary Clinton's primary voters support a "strong leader" unbound by Congress and elections and 15 percent go so far as to support "army rule" -- both slightly higher than the levels expressed by the primary supporters of Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz. (Yet Clinton's primary supporters were more likely to say that democracy is preferable to any other form of government.)

42 U.S. Code § 2000dd-1 - Protection of United States Government personnel engaged in authorized interrogations

(a) Protection of United States Government personnel
In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent's engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States, its interests, or its allies, and that were officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted, it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or extinguish any defense or protection otherwise available to any person or entity from suit, civil or criminal liability, or damages, or to provide immunity from prosecution for any criminal offense by the proper authorities.

(b) Counsel
The United States Government shall provide or employ counsel, and pay counsel fees, court costs, bail, and other expenses incident to the representation of an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent described in subsection (a), with respect to any civil action or criminal prosecution or investigation arising out of practices described in that subsection, whether before United States courts or agencies, foreign courts or agencies, or international courts or agencies, under the same conditions, and to the same extent, to which such services and payments are authorized under section 1037 of title 10.

(Pub. L. 109-148, div. A, title X, § 1004, Dec. 30, 2005, 119 Stat. 2740; Pub. L. 109-163, div. A, title XIV, § 1404, Jan. 6, 2006, 119 Stat. 3475; Pub. L. 109-366, § 8(a), Oct. 17, 2006, 120 Stat. 2636; Pub. L. 110-181, div. A, title X, § 1063(d)(1), Jan. 28, 2008, 122 Stat. 323; Pub. L. 110-417, [div. A], title X, § 1061(b)(10), Oct. 14, 2008, 122 Stat. 4613.)section 1037 of title 10.

[...]
I would also like to take this opportunity to describe the process of this study.

As noted previously, the Committee approved the Terms of Reference for the Study in March 2009 and began requesting information from the CIA and other federal departments. The Committee, through its staff, had already reviewed in 2008 thousands of CIA cables describing the interrogations of the CIA detainees Abu Zubaydah and 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose interrogations were the subject of videotapes that were destroyed by the CIA in 2005.

The 2008 review was complicated by the existence of a Department of Justice investigation, opened by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, into the destruction of the videotapes and expanded by Attorney General Holder in August 2009. In particular, CIA employees and contractors who would otherwise have been interviewed by the Committee staff were under potential legal jeopardy, and therefore the CIA would not compel its workforce to appear before the Committee. This constraint lasted until the Committee's research and documentary review were completed and the Committee Study had largely been finalized.
[...]

Diane Feinstein
Chairman Senate Select Commitee on Intelligence  
Approved December 13, 2012
Updated for Release April 3, 2014 Declassification Revisions December 3, 2014

The fact is, CIA personnel were not burdened by "legal jeopardy" at anytime 2008-2012, the period of the US Senate "study". Congress enacted Pub. L. 109-148, div. A, title X, § 1004 ("42 USC 42 U.S. Code § 2000dd-1") in 2005. And Congress has not since repealed this act.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Israeli-Palestinian lawmaker Haneen Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset for a week by the ethics committee last week, after the committee reviewed a case where Zoabi suggested that Israeli Defense Forces soldiers murder Palestinians.

Marvin Feuer ... claimed that nothing in the bill prevents constitutionally protected speech and that the rewritten language targets only commercial conduct.

But the ACLU ... group points out that political boycotts were recognized as constitutionally protected free expression by the US Supreme Court in 1982, in a landmark case [NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982)] stemming from the civil rights movement.
[...]
California Senator Kamala Harris [D-CA] spoke at this year's [AIPAC] conference as she did last year ... repeating the standard claim by Israel advocates that the Zionist expulsion of Palestinians and settler-colonization of their land "made a desert bloom."

S. 720, "To amend the Export Administration Act of 1979 to include in the prohibitions on boycotts against allies of the United States boycotts fostered by international governmental organizations against Israel and to direct the Export-Import Bank of the United States to oppose boycotts against Israel, and for other purposes ... This Act may be cited as the 'Israel Anti-Boycott Act' ", 16 of 55 co-sponsors: Nelson [D-FL], Menendez [D-NJ], Blumenthal [D-CT], Peters [D-MI], Cantwell [D-WA], Schumer [D-NY], Hassan [D-NH], Donnelly [D-IN], Manchin [D-WV], McCaskill [D-MO], Wyden [D-OR], Coons [D-DE],  Bennet [D-CO], Heitkamp [D-ND], Cardin [D-MD]

Happy Black History Y3 D80

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Location:  Announced gathering point includes the following location in

Milan, Italy:
Piazza Cavour

Event:  A static demonstration is scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m. at Piazza Cavour.  The event is scheduled to end at 6:00 p.m.  Approximately 50 [sic!] people are expected to attend.  The police will be monitoring the event.

Action to take:

Avoid the area of the demonstration. Exercise caution if unexpectedly in the vicinity of large gatherings or protests. Monitor local media for updates. Keep a low profile.  Assistance
U.S. Consulate General Milan, Italy

March For Our Lives - Milan 24    MARZO
16:00 - 18:00

Piazza Camillo Benso di Cavour, 20121 Milano MI, Italia

DA Italy Milan welcomes students, Americans and friends to join us in solidarity with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and more than 800 other «March For Our Lives» on Washington D.C. and around the globe.

North Korea poses a "real threat" whose solution will require international co-operation, former US President Barack Obama said Sunday on a visit to Japan.
[...]
He has largely avoided the limelight, playing golf with former prime minister John Key in New Zealand and offering parenting tips to the current leader Jacinda Ardern, who is pregnant.

Asked after his speech on Sunday what he most missed about his time in office, Obama quipped: "I do sometimes miss Air Force One. That's a nice airplane -- especially when you fly across the Pacific." But he also revealed that he had to buy his own groceries in the White House. "You think you get to live for free but no, no! It's expensive being in the White House, I'll tell you."

"I put it in my Amazon cart and forgot about it. Then, later, the ad popped up on ... Facebook, and I was like `oh shoot.' It reminded me and I clicked on it and bought it."

Britain, France and Germany proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missiles and its role in the war in Syria, according to a confidential document seen by Reuters, in a bid to persuade Washington to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

The Nobel laureate and activist for girls' education, Malala Yousafzai, has made an emotional return to Pakistan for the first time since she was shot in the head nearly six years ago in a Taliban assassination attempt.

Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Noble prize winner, arrived on Thursday in the capital Islamabad with her father and younger brother, meeting the prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi before giving a speech on national television.

Alfred Noble Prize
Not to be confused with Nobel Prize.

The Alfred Noble Prize is an award presented by the American Society of Civil Engineers and funded by combined engineering societies of the United States. It is awarded annually to a person not over thirty-five for a technical paper of exceptional merit, published in one of the journals of the participating societies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly compared the women accusing movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct to prostitutes on Thursday.

"We're trying to keep up with the mayhem that's been happening in America," Peskov said, according to the Latvian news outlet Meduza, which cited BBC Russia.

"You know, it reminds me of the Hollywood stars who became stars and who have done a lot that clashes with our notions of honor and dignity. But they did these things anyway, in order to become celebrities. They earned hundreds of millions of dollars, and after 10 years they started saying that Weinstein is a bad man. Maybe he's a scumbag, but none of them went to the police and said, `Weinstein raped me!' No! They wanted to earn 10 million dollars. What do we call a woman who sleeps with a man for 10 million dollars? This might sound rude, but we call her a prostitute," he said.

Nixon also said she didn't understand why the Second Avenue subway had cost $3.5 billion. She feels the project should have only cost "half a billion" dollars per mile and said that union agreements would need to be addressed to bring costs down.

"With the deals that they [unions] have now, you can't hope to make improvements to the trains in a  fiscally responsible way," she said, not specifying which unions she was referring to. "Everybody's got to pull together, and everybody's got to make sacrifices."

Russian soldiers are set to lose access to Coca Cola and Snickers bars at canteens and vending machines installed at bases, says a representative from a state contractor.

German researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin's blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy.

But new research suggests that the changes Lagos has seen in the last 60 years may be nothing to what might take place in the next 60. If Nigeria's population continues to grow and people move to cities at the same rate as now, Lagos could become the world's largest metropolis, home to 85 or 100 million people. By 2100, it is projected to be home to more people than California or Britain today, and to stretch hundreds of miles - with enormous environmental effects.

Hundreds of far smaller cities across Asia and Africa could also grow exponentially, say the Canadian demographers Daniel Hoornweg and Kevin Pope at the Ontario Institute of Technology. They suggest that Niamey, the barely known capital of Niger - a west African country with the highest birth rate in the world - could explode from a city of fewer than one million people today to be the world's eighth-largest city, with 46 million people, in 2100. Sleepy Blantyre in southern Malawi could mushroom to the size of New York City today.

Under the researchers' extreme scenario - where countries are unable to control fertility rates and urbanisation continues apace - within 35 years more than 100 cities will have populations larger than 5.5 million people. By 2100, say the authors, the world's population centers will have shifted to Asia and Africa, with only 14 of the 101 largest cities in Europe or the Americas.

What happens to those cities over the next 30 years will determine the global environment and the quality of life of the world's projected 11 billion people. It's impossible to know how exactly how cities will grow, of course. But the stark fact, according to the United Nations, is that much of humanity is young, fertile and increasingly urban. The median age of Nigeria is just 18, and under 20 across all Africa's 54 countries; the fertility rate of the continent's 500 million women is 4.4 births. Elsewhere, half of India's population is under age 25, and Latin America's average age is as high as 29.

Close your eyes, cover your ears, now go and tour Rome on your own. It's a prospect that seems infeasible, and yet voyaging the world solo while blind and mostly deaf is exactly what Tony Giles does, and he's almost certainly better travelled than you are.

The Devon-based author and explorer, who was diagnosed with a rare genetic visual and auditory impairment during his early childhood, has visited 127 countries thus far, all 50 of the US States, and all seven continents on the planet.

(...)

"I experience monuments by climbing them: as I have the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty," he explains. "I experience cities by walking them. I notice shifting gradients, detect the changes in surfaces under my feet from gravel to tarmac, cobblestones to concrete, earth to marble.

"I sense the change in space when hiking the narrow trails of a forest, as they lead out to an open field when the fresh wind hits my face.

"I visit famous churches, mosques and temples, touch their crumbling walls and feel the textures that have been layered over the centuries.

"I enjoy the aromas of a marketplace, the grilling of meat, the frying of onions and garlic, the zesty spices, ginger and herbs.

"It's the hussle and bussle of somewhere like Jerusalem's Old City, or Zanzibar's Stone Town - alive with people, animals and sellers haggling that gives me the impression of a place."

Latest UN projections expect the world's population to grow by 2.9 billion - equal to another China and India - in the next 33 years, and possibly by a further three billion by the end of the century. By then, says the UN, humanity is expected to have developed into an almost exclusively urban species with 80-90% of people living in cities.

Territorial borders between people must be enforced.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.