Tesla - Love Song (Official Music Video)
Afghan VP candidate targeted in deadly Kabul attack
At least 20 people were killed and 50 injured in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday in a suicide bombing and gun battle at vice presidential candidate Amrullah Saleh’s office, the government said in a statement on Monday.
Saleh, a running mate of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, was slightly injured in the attack.
Afghan forces killed three militants who entered Saleh’s four-storey office after a suicide bomber blew himself up during rush hour, said the interior ministry.
More than 150 civilians were rescued during the six-hour-long operation, said interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack that came only hours after Ghani and Saleh, along with more than a dozen Afghan politicians, launched their two-month long election campaign.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190729-afghanistan-attack-vp-candidate-saleh-kabul-office-ghani-elections
Ethics report says U.N. figures abused authority for private gain
July 29 (UPI) – A leaked internal ethics report within the United Nations' Palestinian relief agency accuses some members of its senior management team of abusing their authority for personal gain.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency report said an "inner circle" in the organization's top ranks also abused authority "to suppress legitimate dissent and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives," Al Jazeera reported Monday.
The report from the UNRWA ethics office named Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, former deputy Sandra Mitchell, former chief of staff Hakam Shahwan and senior adviser Maria Mohammedi among those involved.
The report was sent to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres months ago, but there has been little movement on the issue, Al Jazeera's report said.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2019/07/29/Ethics-report-says-UN-figures-abused-authority-for-private-gain/7471564398310/?sl=4
North Korea economy shrinks most since 1990s famine: Seoul
Trade lowest in a decade as sanctions bite
n a move analysts attribute to a shortage of foreign exchange, North Korean State Security spooks have been ordered to provide US$500 each to a “loyalty fund,” the Seoul-based news organization Daily NK reported this month.
Another report says that two uniformed North Korean border patrol guards were arrested this month after crossing into China and stealing food from a house there. International sanctions have interfered with border guards’ customary income of bribes from smugglers and defectors, Daily NK quoted a source as explaining, and low-ranking guards “are finding life more difficult than their superiors.”
And now, besides such anecdotal evidence that hard times have struck some officials, new figures suggest overall tight economic conditions in North Korea.
The country’s sanctions-hit economy shrank in 2018 by its largest margin since the country’s devastating famine in the 1990s, the South’s central bank said at the weekend. Another South Korean governmental watchdog organization reported that North Korea’s total trade for 2018 was the lowest in a decade.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/north-korea-economy-shrinks-most-since-1990s-famine-seoul/
Hong Kong reaches a protest point of no return
Weekend of rage ends with clashes, tear gas and tense standoffs between protesters and riot police in now familiar scenes of chaos
Tens of thousands of protesters in Hong Kong peacefully assembled at the city’s central business district on June 28 for the weekend’s second mass demonstration and began marching in different directions, a day after black-clad activists descended on the northwestern town of Yuen Long in their thousands.
Police denied permission for both marches to be held, though umbrella-wielding protesters still turned out in force.
Police, in a now-familiar cycle of events, fired repeated volleys of tear gas at groups of protesters who marched both to Causeway Bay and westward to Sai Ying Pun near the Central Government Liaison Office, which was vandalised with ink and graffiti one week earlier. Riot police cordoned off Des Voeux Road to prevent restive marchers from reaching the building.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/hong-kong-reaches-a-protest-point-of-no-return/
Russia Probe Twist: The FBI, A Convicted Russian Agent, & A Billionaire American CEO
If what you already know about the FBI’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia has you wondering what can come next, “make sure you are sitting down because it’s about to get worse,” said Patrick Byrne, the philanthropist and CEO of the mega online retail chain Overstock.com.
Byrne revealed never published details about his intimate relationship with the Russian gun right’s activist and libertarian, Maria Butina, who is now serving out her sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to working as a foreign agent in the U.S. without registering.
In an interview several weeks ago, Byrne recounted first meeting Butina at Freedom Fest 2015. He described the relationship that developed between the two and revealed that he had initiated contact in July, 2015 with the FBI after his first meeting with Butina. He also disclosed that he met twice with Justice Department attorneys in April, 2019 giving a total of seven hours of interviews on the separate occasions. A source directly familiar with the interviews, confirmed those meetings took place.
Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, also confirmed the relationship between Byrne and Butina. Driscoll stated that he also had relayed the information to the FBI and prosecutors earlier during his trial, and asked repeatedly about any Brady material -exculpatory information – that the bureau may have collected from Byrne on Butina, to no avail. The bureau denied it had any information regarding Byrne and Butina’s relationship, said Driscoll.
On Thursday, Driscoll sent a letter to United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation; Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is conducting an investigation into the bureau’s origins of the Trump probe and Corey Amundson, with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/74029/russia-probe-twist-the-fbi-a-convicted-russian-agent-amp-a-billionaire-american.html
Iranians bombarded by scams as US sanctions bite
As economic prospects in the country decrease, get-rich-quick schemes are on the rise
As the Iranian economy crumbles under US sanctions, scammers are exploiting the popularity of state-backed game shows to swindle the middle class.
For Iman Fard, a 30-year-old computer engineer in the northern Caspian coastal city of Rasht, it all started with a phone call from an unknown number.
“They called me around 9 PM, saying that they represented a radio station in Tehran. They said I was one of 14 people who were chosen by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Iran to receive a cash prize of 50 million rials ($455) for my reasonable and responsible use of my cell phone,” he told Asia Times.
“They said the ministry wanted to award me because I don’t use my cell phone excessively, make frequent calls, or send too many text and multimedia messages. After a brief talk, I was interviewed live for the radio station to share my sentiments about winning the prize” Fard said.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/iranians-bombarded-by-scams-as-us-sanctions-bite/
Iranian regime's interior minister forewarns of further protests
Iran, July 29, 2019 - Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Iranian regime's Minister of Interior, warned of the possible eruption of popular uprisings.
“We shouldn’t neglect, ignore the protests and unrests, and not take preventive measures and proper responses. Any incident could turn into a great event,” Rahmani Fazli said in an interview with the regime’s state-run TV network.
“The enemy attempts to trigger these incidents by imposing sanctions. They have repeatedly said that they should do anything to escalate protests and social unrests. This policy began right after the protests at the beginning of 2018,” he added.
At the end of 2017, protests erupted across Iran. Demonstrations over economic woes quickly turned into anti-regime protests that spread to more than 140 Iranian cities. The regime has constantly attempted to quell the protests through sheer suppression, imprisonment, and torture of protesters and organizers. Various segments of the Iranian society, however, continue to take to the streets and challenge the regime and its apparatus of suppression.
https://english.mojahedin.org/i/iran-rahmani-fazli-new-uprising-tehran-mullahs