Hong Kong extradition: How radical youth forced the government’s hand

By Helier CheungBBC News, Hong Kong

In just one week Hong Kong has witnessed two of its largest ever protests, as well its most violent protest in decades. At the forefront of these demonstrations are young people, many barely out of their teens. How did they get radicalised – and how did they manage to force the government’s hand?

“We screamed at people to run.”

“My parents kicked me out after the protests.”

“It was the first time I got tear gassed – tears were coming uncontrollably out of my eyes.”

“I’m afraid to give my real name.”

These are not words anybody would have expected to come out of the mouths of Hong Kongers – and certainly not ones aged between 17 and 21.

Hong Kong protests: pressure builds on Carrie Lam as public rejects apology

Calls for government leader to stand down after an estimated two million march over unpopular extradition bill

Emma Graham-Harrison in Hong Kong

Mon 17 Jun 2019 05.13 BST

Hong Kong’s political crisis has entered its second week, after protesters who had filled the city’s streets in record numbers on Sunday rejected an apology from leader Carrie Lam, and vowed to continue their fight against a controversial law she championed.

After the sweeping protest – which organisers say attracted 2 million people, the largest in the semi-autonomous city’s history – Lam apologised in a statement for the way the government had handled the draft extradition law.

But she did not meet any of demonstrators’ key demands. They are calling for her to withdraw the extradition bill, end a crackdown on activists and hold police accountable for brutal tactics at previous protests. They also want her to resign.

Nuclear powers upgrade arsenals as numbers fall: SIPRI

Nuclear-weapon powers continue to modernize their arsenals despite an overall reduction in warheads, a report has found. Reductions may slow if a US-Russia treaty is not renewed past 2021.

Nuclear powers are continuing to modernize their arsenals despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads, a Sweden-based peace research institute said Monday.

Nine nuclear-weapon powers — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — had an estimated 13,865 nuclear weapons at the start of 2019, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported. Deployed warheads and those held in reserve or awaiting dismantlement are included in the estimate.

Indian doctors strike over violence from patients and families

Tens of thousands of Indian doctors went on strike Monday calling for more protection against violence by patients and their families, as parliament met for the first time since national elections.

The nationwide strike, which will last until Tuesday morning, is in solidarity with doctors in the eastern state of West Bengal after three were viciously attacked by the relatives of a man who died.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), representing 350,000 of India’s 900,000 doctors, called for tougher punishments for those assaulting medical staff.

Desperation and exploitation in the food delivery gig economy

Aymen Arfaoui strapped on a plastic Uber Eats bag and checked his mobile phone for the fastest bicycle route before pedaling into the stream of cars circling the Place de la Republique. Time was money, and Arfaoui, a nervous 18-year-old migrant, needed cash.

“I’m doing this because I have to eat,” he said, locking in a course that could save him a few minutes on his first delivery of the day. “It’s better than stealing or begging on the street.”

Argentina does not believe a cyber attack caused massive blackout across South America

By Helen Regan and Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated 0730 GMT (1530 HKT) June 17, 2019

 

 

 

Pitch and Poles not Slo-Mo buff umm… jiggling. Got the stupid uniform suit thing right, full timers have 3, a good one, one on requisition so you can start using your good one, and the rags you actually work in. Rinse thoroughly and hope they dry enough in your locker so you don’t have to put them on sticky damp tomorrow.

Takin’ It To The Streets – The Doobie Brothers 1982

I certainly don’t want you to think Syracuse is some kind of scary urban hellhole. I lived in a converted Victorian a block from a big Park, King Bedroom, Full Bath, Galley, Nook, and a seriously large living room. My next door neighbor, Lacerta, kept Snakes, Spiders, and Lizards as pets. It had more diversity than I was used to but I found the people generally friendlier and nicer than they were in Stars Hollow.

One particularly friendly and nice person I had previously known in Stars Hollow. I’ll call her Joan because she’s a big deal Lawyer now.

It is a source of constant amazement that anyone tolerates me at all. Joan apparently liked me well enough even though our primary social circles touched but tangentally. We shared an American History Class marked by unabashed drooling dozing in the hot window seats, hands perma-raised, correct answers burbling tag team from our lips.

In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone? …the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? …raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. ‘Voodoo’ economics.

I imagine everyone else in class just hated us. We obviously didn’t care at all and broke every curve. At the time Joan was sporting her Goth/Biker Rebel look while I was full on Sartre Existential Crisis. Ran the Library (oh, did I mention I was a volunteer Librarian? One period a week and all the keys.) dead out of Camus and was despairingly deep into Kierkegaard whom I understand better now.

Anyway Joan was “cool” and I wasn’t (noticably to me at the time) anything much. In retrospect I realize that many people envied my nigh untouchable immunity that was merely an accident of undiscovered crime and mischaracterization. I was the perfect guy to hide your stash if you needed it because I was not tempted and I’m not a snitch. Never had to, but I would and people knew it because even then I was a fairly militant Civil Libertarian.

Joan was also in my WSLI Class and while others were a tad reluctant to partner up with 93 pounds of cunning and gristle I simply asked she not hurt me, too much, and she didn’t, too much. I think she lied. She was never 93 pounds, it was simply the minimum.

After parting ways with the University of Connecticut because of disagreement about my education (I have many, many more slanderous things to say, but I’ll save them for another day) she heard I was between Institutions and unsolicited renewed her invitation (she thought given my career goals my list of Ivies and Fallbacks a poor fit) to grab a space at Big Orange and she’d help me find a cot and a gig.

Slept on her floor for a month before I got my place which I’ve told you about. The gig was with Parks and Rec as an Instructor/Life Guard full time, with benefits.

Look, I told you she was cunning and a big deal.

For my test I had to pass a written and for the practical you had to swim 450m and demonstrate a Takedown.

A Takedown is when someone jumps in the water and flails about pretending they’re drowning. Forbidden from using any of the common sense approaches like tossing them a float or a line, or hooking them with a stick, you’re supposed to dive in and hand wrestle them to the side of the Pool.

That is a monumentally stupid idea and I recommend with all my professional expertise against it. If not trained do not even attempt otherwise we’ll be fishing out 2 dead bodies on hooks.

Of course they gave me the 6’3″ 230# Steroid Abusing Christian Metal Pothead (I later worked for him at Nottingham, he wasn’t so bad). Fortunately I had a fool proof plan and an airtight alibi. The best way to gain control of people in a drowning situation is to ambush them from below.

You see, on some level they expect you to be fair, to come into range so they can climb on you. Turtles all the way down Bucky. You dive out of reach and drag them under by the ankle. You crawl up their back, zap them in a Full Nelson and kick for the surface.

Now you can horse them to the side that way or go to a single or double breast carry, but I like the Hair Pull (at the Hair Line, ruffle from the back and coil the pull fingers to lock them) which puts both the subject at a nice safe arm’s length and encourages co-operation due to pain compliance (squeeze please) and the threat of permanent cervical injury (hey, you just tried to kill me you bastard, drive around in a Dr. Xavier chair for the rest of your life).

Anyway, I passed and actually looked like I knew what I was doing, Pam Andersen style (Hasselhoff was an airhead Pec Pretty Boy) having survived the rigors of the Stars Hollow Death Trap. Pools? Abusing defenseless little people? I am sooo down with that. Took 30 seconds in my first live jive class for my Supervisor to catch me turning my back on a kid. First of all I didn’t really have any practical as an Instructor and secondly it’s not best form but on a scale of 1 – 10 about a 3, maybe a 2. It’s not like I tossed them off the end of the Springboard and cackled as they sank to the bottom, my 2’10” waif dutifully wall kicking in 3′ of water on my right so I could hear them was out of sight when I turned to address other class members on my left.

My bad. I had to go back and re-read the chapter on Class Management.

The mainstream Primary School students were basic and conventional. We also made a specialty of training the severely Learning Disabled and you haven’t lived until you’ve shut down the pool to let the filters do their thing while you fish the floating turds out with nets or pried a 21-year-old with lots of hormones and little self control off your waist. The guy I ruined the life of I coaxed and pressured from a fetal position by the wall to face wetting and blowing bubbles. Only took 2 years and the 3rd he opted for something else because I was such a hard ass.

But don’t get me wrong, Life Guarding, even full time with Instruction is not such a terrible job. We had a crew of 5 or 6 plus a Supervisor. You got wet about 4 times a day and in between we played Pitch (also known as ‘Setback’ you Hartford suckers) with damp cards at the picnic table on the deck (Office wasn’t big enough) FOR MONEY!

The Onondaga LaCrosse Player and I pretty much cleaned up, everyone else not so much.

Winters (long and early) we’d get our season night passes to Greek Peak in Tully and at least 3 times a week we’d drag in our boards (which rot something terrible at the edges in the atmosphere) and after work we’d bop down and bash moguls to powder.

Valley Pool is a totally real place I really worked at-

Not quite as dingy as I remember.

Summers, because of my dutiful scut work (I didn’t mind, others considered it a hardship), I was posted to the premier Pool in the City- Nottingham High School. Capable of hosting an Olympics the 10m Platform feet and head was a rite of passage but we didn’t have to police it. 1m Springboards only and 90% of the time we were configured for Water Polo so no diving at all.

But we were staffed for it and during your 1 – 9 shift you could expect about 4 or 5 deck rotations. Not hard, you got out soon enough to hit the parties and slept late enough so you didn’t feel compelled to leave early.

I also subbed Winters during School Breaks and one memorable day hiked the 2 miles or so from my Apartment in weather so cold my car wouldn’t start. Still, full time, with benefits. Including Vacation and Sick Days most of which I blew on being actually sick and visiting Stars Hollow on the Holidays.

At the time I was too naive to understand how captive I was to City and State politics and policies but they made a reasonable Bohemian existence possible if you didn’t mind the snow. I might have persisted but other opportunities presented themselves closer to Stars Hollow, so I returned.

It was the end of my Life Guarding Career, not that there’s much of a path from Instructor to Head Honcho, Parks and Rec, in the Org Chart.

 

Hong Kong extradition bill: Large-scale march under way

Thousands of people are marching on government buildings in Hong Kong over a controversial extradition bill, despite a government climb-down.

The bill, which would have allowed extradition to mainland China, prompted hundreds of thousands to demonstrate in the past week.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Saturday that the plans had been “suspended” for the time being.

Protest leaders, however, are demanding it be permanently scrapped.

Some have urged Ms Lam to resign over the unrest.

By early Sunday afternoon, large crowds had gathered in the city’s Victoria Square, many wearing black or carrying white flowers.

Saudi crown prince tells Iran: ‘We won’t hesitate to deal with any threat’

Mohammed bin Salman speaks publicly for first time about latest tanker attacks amid fears of regional conflict

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has spoken publicly for the first time since a second attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, blaming arch-rival Iran and vowing that the kingdom “won’t hesitate to deal with any threat” to its interests.

According to an interview for pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, published on Sunday, the crown prince said: “We do not want a war in the region … But we won’t hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, our sovereignty, our territorial integrity and our vital interests.

“The Iranian regime did not respect the presence of the Japanese prime minister as a guest in Tehran and responded to his [diplomatic] efforts by attacking two tankers, one of which was Japanese.”

The Voice of BeijingChina’s Expanding Media Dominance in Africa

Chinese state television is gaining influence in Africa. But while the media outlets involved officially claim their journalism is independent, those who work for the companies tell a different story.

By Bartholomäus Grill

An interview? Or perhaps just a discussion on background? “We have no interest in speaking with you,” Liao Liang writes in an email. And, thank you for understanding, but a visit to his television broadcaster in Nairobi isn’t possible either, he writes. Indeed, the rejection is so complete, it’s as though he is protecting a state secret.

Yet Liao Liang’s mission in the Kenyan capital is hardly confidential: As a senior editor of the China Global Television Network (CGTN), a subsidiary of Chinese state television, his task is that of shining a positive light on his country’s ambitious activities — particularly those in Africa, where China’s reputation has suffered as its footprint has grown.

The $450 million question: Where is Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’?

 

 

 

 

 

Summer in the City – Lovin’ Spoonful

Atrios reminds me that Lifeguarding and Water Safety Instruction (you can go and get a dive certificate, but the American Red Cross has no more to teach you) is something I did professionally from the time I was 16 into my mid-Twenties.

I started in Stars Hollow and before you say “But ek, you told me Richard and Emily live in Hartford,” nobody actually lives in Hartford, it’s too urban. They live in Farmington or Glastonbury, if you can’t afford those there’s Rocky Hill but they say the schools aren’t all that.

Stars Hollow is farther away, and in a different direction, but close enough. I have siblings and didn’t go to Chilton Academy (could have, but Stars Hollow is pretty good) and didn’t get pregnant and drop out to run away and work at an Inn.

With 4 years of 10 mile-a-day Swim Team and my newly minted WSLI I marched in, filled out some forms, and bang, I was a Life Guard. At the most miserable and dangerous puddle in town. It was a stream dam that pooled into a 20 yard wide spot between the Beach and a Retaining Wall and tapered into a 10 yard wide ford about 40 yards upstream that only came half way up your calves, people would wade across to the picnic grounds rather than take the bridges at either end. In the Spring it was the site of a popular Fishing Derby and the deeper parts (it got to around 20′ right before the dam) were littered with snagged hooks.

There were 2 “diving boards” which were basically wooden planks with a canvas cover nailed to them, strapped to 2 concrete piers. The “shallow” board pointed at water a mere 3′ deep. Parents loved it because they could stand and catch their kids. The “deep” board pointed at water that was 8′ deep.

THIS IS NOT DEEP ENOUGH! You need 10′ and then feet and not head first. Real Pools are at least 12′ for a 1 Meter Springboard. Hope you had a good time, I always had a panic attack and opened my Manual to Cervical Injuries and made sure our Back Board didn’t have any crap in front of it.

The water was so dark that if you got ankle deep you couldn’t see your toes and if you knew anything about how the stream ran you’d realize it was about a mile from being fresh off the Town Dump.

I knew because I had to test every day.

But it never tested positive and indeed of all the imagined and real hazards I never had to deal with a single one, mostly because it was very, very slow and few people, even kids, got wet above their knees.

Though I spent most days banging a tennis ball against the back of the Guard Shack because I was so bloody bored, I established this reputation as some kind of Super Life Guard, probably because my occasional substitutes perceived my Area (correctly) as the horror show of liability and torts that it was and I had a perfect record.

They only ran it from Memorial Day to Labor Day but because I did scut work all Summer and was eventually one of their most experienced Life Guards (lots of turnover), they’d call me in early and late to work the “normal” pools so I was pretty much employed May – October.

Then I got an opportunity to go to Syracuse University, home of the Newhouse School of Journalism, and moved into the second phase of my career as a Professional Life Guard.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

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What To Cook

Sunday is Father’s Day. What better way to celebrate his day than with special meals of his favorite foods. Epicurious has lots of recipes starting with breakfast/brunch, ending with a special dinner and a dessert that will have him raving.

Buttered-Pecan French Toast with Bourbon Maple Syrup

I was never much of a fan of French toast until I discovered the wonders of brioche. It turns out that this dish, usually made with half-stale whole-wheat sandwich bread, is a very different thing when it’s made with fresh, buttery, eggy brioche! I added the Southern-inspired buttered pecans and bourbon maple syrup, because this is the delicious world I live in.

Brown Butter–Basted Steak

How to make steakhouse-quality steak at home. Step 1: Buy a great steak from a great butcher. Step 2: Salt it liberally. Step 3: Gradually build up a crusty sear. Step 4: Butter. Butter?! Yep—butter. Browned, nutty butter will deliver toasty flavor to every bite. It’s the secret to pretty much all the great steakhouse dinners you’ve ever had.

Rib-Eye Steak and Crispy Smashed Potatoes for Two

Looking for a special dinner for two? First, pan-sear one big steak to share. Then, while the steak rests, use the tasty beef fat left in the skillet to sear smashed paprika-spiced potatoes to crispy, golden perfection.

Pan-Seared Ribeye with Miso Butter

The beef is topped with savory miso butter for the ultimate steak experience.

Grilled Garlic-and-Black-Pepper Shrimp

Salt, pepper, garlic, acid, and a bit of heat are all you need to punch up this easy shrimp skewer recipe.

Sticky Maple and Bourbon Pork Ribs

Skip the same old boring barbecue sauce and opt for a sticky malt vinegar, bourbon, and maple syrup glaze to slick up these boiled-and-baked pork ribs.

Caesar Salad

Nailing this misunderstood classic (no, we don’t want grilled chicken) is all about restraint and, yes, anchovies.

Mushrooms with Béarnaise Yogurt

The frilly edges and large clusters of these mushrooms catch all of the spices and get nice and charred.

Triple-Cooked Fries

Don’t let the type of fat put you off—particularly because the fat pretty much makes the fry. I start the spuds in water, which preps them for the subsequent fryings. The double frying and the chilling create a light brown canvas of crevasses and fissures that, after two plunges into hot fat, produce irresistibly crunchy, crackly french fries.

French’s Green Bean Casserole

The quintessential casserole for the holidays. A creamy mushroom sauce surrounds tender green beans, topped with French’s Crispy Fried Onions.

Pecan-Orange Baklava Pie

This pretty baklava with a diamond-cut top can easily take the place of pecan pie on a Thanksgiving dessert buffet. The bourbon-honey syrup and orange zest in the filling add rich, savory flavor, and keep things less sweet than the traditional Middle Eastern treat.

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