This is Africa we’re talking about. That whole continent was the playground of ruthless European colonizers for centuries, and I’m under the impression it wasn’t exactly a paradise before that, either. So, probably not.
This was my snap initial thought too but it does not hold up well. Their previous system may not be sanitary by today’s standards, could be impractical to access in modern times, or socially humiliating now. Even if all of those were non concerns though I believe we should still be able to provide modern solutions to people requesting them instead of writing it off as “be happy with the solution you had yesterday”
The jihadists surrounded a military bus in eastern Deir al-Zour province before opening fire, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Despite losing the last of its territory in 2019, IS still maintains hideouts in the vast Syrian desert, from which it carries out ambushes and hit-and-run attacks.
Sana news agency quoted a military source saying a “terrorist” group had attacked a military bus on Thursday in the steppe desert on the road from the T2 pumping station - which lies close to the Iraqi border south of the city of Deir al-Zour - leaving a number of army personnel dead and injured.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group that relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria, said the death toll was likely to rise.
Earlier this week, 10 Syrian soldiers and pro-government fighters were killed in an IS attack in the former jihadist stronghold of Raqa province, the SOHR said.
The former suspected leader of the IS group in Syria, Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, was killed by Turkish forces in April, the country’s president said.
A well-known Norwegian mountaineer has denied accusations that her team climbed over an injured guide during a bid to break a world record.
Speaking to the BBC’s The World Tonight programme, Ms Harila said members of her team tried to help Mr Hassan but it was “not possible” to get him back down the narrow route, which was crowded with other climbers.
Ms Harila suggested there were questions to answer for the company that employed Mr Hassan - who was part of a “fixing” team sent ahead of the climbing group to secure ropes - because he appeared not to have an oxygen supply or suitable cold weather clothing.
Ms Harila said she did not see exactly what took place, but the next thing she knew, Mr Hassan “was hanging upside down” on a rope between two ice anchors, with his harness "all the way down around his knees.
Her team tried for an hour-and-a-half to fasten a rope to the guide and give him oxygen and hot water, she recounted, until “an avalanche went off around the corner”.
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Joe Biden’s son Hunter will now be investigated by a special counsel with additional powers, the US attorney general has announced.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, responded in a statement: “We are confident when all of these manoeuvrings are at an end my client will have resolution and will be moving on with his life successfully.”
Hunter Biden had previously reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to the tax charges and admit the gun offence to spare himself prison time.
However, US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika squashed the deal due to “non standard terms” and the “unusual” nature of the proposed resolution for the gun charge.
House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that the Republican-controlled chamber will continue to investigate the president and his son regardless of the special counsel announcement.
The White House called the allegations “insane conspiracy theories” and rejected the assertion that Mr Biden has participated in his son’s business affairs.
Firstly, Trump already had his guy investigating Hunter, and when the Biden admin came in, they allowed that investigation to continue, with the unprecedented step that Trump’s c guy didn’t even have to answer Biden’s DoJ.
From that investigation they found … nothing. No Biden crime family. Nothing. Some minor tax issues and also Biden lied on a gun application by saying he wasn’t a drug addict. It’s bad, sure but absolutely nothing to do with the allegations that started the investigation.
So essentially we have a private citizen that’s been investigated to an obscene degree. But Republicans can’t let it go, because if there’s one thing that defines them it’s that they fiercely believe things that have no evidentiary basis, and no amount of logic or reason can change their minds.
So, I don’t know what this nonsense is, with Garland appeasing the right wing even further on this. It’s harassment of Hunter at this point, not any actual pursuit of the truth.
Meanwhile Trump’s own family nakedly traded favors for cash when Trump GAVE THEM JOBS IN HIS ADMINISTRATION, and Garland isn’t even investigating those deals…I mean, the Saudi’s gave Trump’s son-in-law $2 BILLION.
Garland is once again opting for the appearance of impartiality, instead of actually faithfully executing his duties impartiality.
The Trump crime family is a real thing that we’ve all seen hard evidence of. The Biden crime family is a fiction. He’s acting as if it’s the other way around. Shame on him.
But someone fucked up of he didn’t have proper equipment, and it was her expedition, so If any of their partner organisations were this careless, she should name and shame. Stuff like this should not be ignored.
The art unit of Italy’s police force found the items had been looted and sold to US museums and private collectors in the 1990s.
The oldest item dates back to the Villanovan age (1000 - 750BC), while other artefacts were from the Etruscan civilisation (800 - 200BC), Magna Graecia (750 - 400BC) and Imperial Rome (27BC - 476AD).
Most artefacts had been stolen in the 1990s, then sold through a series of dealers with one selection apparently being offered to the Menil Collection, a museum in Houston, Texas.
The ministry said the owner of the collection “spontaneously” returned the items after police found that they had come from illegal excavations of archaeological sites.
Separately, the ministry said that 145 of the returned artefacts had come from a bankruptcy procedure against an English antiques dealer, Robin Symes, who amassed thousands of pieces as part of a network of illegal traders.
Italy has long sought to track down antiques and artefacts that have been stolen and sold to private collectors and museums.
Ms Gonzalez, 36, whose career has mainly focused on environmental issues, is due to take part in Sunday’s presidential debate in the capital.
Mr Villavicencio, 59, a former journalist and member of the country’s national assembly, was shot three times in the head as he left a public event in the capital on Wednesday.
His death has shocked a nation that has largely escaped the decades of drug-gang violence, cartel wars and corruption that has blighted many of its neighbours.
Mr Villavicencio’s campaign focused on corruption and gangs, and was one of only a few candidates to allege links between organised crime and government officials in Ecuador.
Interior Minister Juan Zapata said on Thursday that six suspects had been arrested, adding that were Colombians who were members of organised criminal groups,
Patricia Villavicencio, his sister, said “this crime can’t go unpunished… We are hurting, with a broken soul, there is no justice, there is no protection”.
US health officials are investigating the death of a three-year-old Venezuelan girl travelling with her parents on a bus carrying asylum seekers from Texas to Chicago.
Before it left the state, passengers had their temperature assessed and were asked if they had any medical conditions, Texas officials said.
Officials said when it was noticed that the girl’s health appeared to be deteriorating, the bus “pulled over and security personnel on board called 911”.
Republican governor Greg Abbott of Texas has sent more than 30,000 migrants to cities controlled by the Democrats since last year under his “Operation Lone Star” policies.
Last month, the US department of Justice sued Mr Abbott for his refusal to remove a floating barrier placed on the Rio Grande river aimed at stopping migrants from entering the US from Mexico.
The latest tragedy comes weeks after an eight-year-old girl died at a US border patrol site in Texas.
“Big data is this vast mountain,” says former Netflix executive Todd Yellin in a video for the website Future of StoryTelling.
Facebook had been keeping track of other websites I’d visited, including a language-learning tool and hotel listings sites.
Netflix told me that what a user has watched and how they’ve interacted with the app is a better indication of their tastes than demographic data, such as age or gender.
“No one is explicitly telling Netflix that they’re gay,” says Greg Serapio-Garcia, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge specialising in computational social psychology.
According to Greg, one possibility is that watching certain films and TV shows which are not specifically LGBTQ+ can still help the algorithm predict “your propensity to like queer content”.
For me, it’s a matter of curiosity, but in countries where homosexuality is illegal, Greg thinks that it could potentially put people in danger.
bbc.co.uk
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