news

how fuckin predictable are these shitheads? very.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/634586

happening

no but seriously, this guy was fucked over pretty consistently:

The court heard Mr Reid consumed about six bourbons for "Dutch courage" before attending a local service station earlier in the day and filling up the jerry can.

"There was a build up of stress," Mr Reid told the court.

"He had to vacate four rental properties, which were all on short six-month leases, and had to find another house to live each time with a new bond."
...
The court heard O'Brien had no history of mental illness but a psychological assessment found he had a "paranoid personality".

Mr Reid said he had attended Kalgoorlie Police Station the Friday before the fire "feeling overwhelmed" and threatening self-harm.

"He was admitted to hospital, he's provided me with the medical band … he wanted to speak with a psychiatrist," Mr Reid said.

"He spoke to a psychiatric nurse … he felt he was not given the help he needed and left feeling worse than when he arrived."

and the reaction is much less libby than I was expecting:
https://old.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/16lvfur/arsonist_who_torched_kalgoorlie_real_estate/

"Cuba will be there presenting the demands of the g77 plus China Summit"

Justin Trudeau has said there is “credible evidence” India is responsible for the alleged assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Canadian Sikh leader.

The allegations from Canada’s prime minister is likely to further strain relations between the two nations. On Monday, Trudeau told the House of Commons of Canada that, in recent weeks, national security authorities had been probing allegations that New Delhi was behind a state-sponsored assassination.

He said he raised the issue “in no uncertain terms” with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, when the two met briefly in New Delhi last week for the G20 summit.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he said. “Canada is a rule of law country, the protection of our citizens in defence of our sovereignty are fundamental.

“Our top priorities have therefore been one, that our law enforcement and security agencies ensure the continued safety of all Canadians. And two, that all steps be taken to hold perpetrators of this murder to account.”

Trudeau said the alleged killing “is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves”.

The New Democratic party leader, Jagmeet Singh, who is Sikh, said there must be consequences for the assassination. “To hear the prime minister of Canada corroborate a potential link between a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil by a foreign government is something I could never have imagined,” he said.

“We will ensure that no rock is unturned, that every possible link is examined.”

The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, said the allegations, if true, “represent an outrageous affront to Canada”, adding that citizens should be free from extrajudicial killings.

He added: “Canadians deserve to be protected on Canadian soil. We call on the Indian government to act with utmost transparency as authorities investigate this murder, because the truth must come out.”

In June, Nijjar was shot and killed in front of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. He was a strong advocate of the Khalistan movement, which seeks an independent homeland for Sikhs in India’s Punjab region.

New Delhi had previously alleged Nijjar was part of a plan to murder a Hindu priest in Punjab, offering a bounty of nearly $12,000 (£9,688). The fatal shooting of Nijjar led many to accuse India of playing a role in the killing.

“Today, the prime minister of Canada has publicly said what Sikhs in Canada have known for decades – India actively targets Sikhs in Canada,” said the World Sikh Organisation.

The foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, said Canada had expelled a “key Indian diplomat” and “expects India to fully collaborate with us and ultimately to get to the bottom of this”.

The diplomat is the head of the Research and Analysis Wing (Raw), India’s foreign intelligence agency in Canada. “We’ll hold the perpetrators accountable and bring them to justice,” said the public safety minister, Dominic LeBlanc, adding the RCMP was leading the murder investigation.

The Indian high commission in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement comes a week after Trudeau was in New Delhi for the G20, where there were signs of tensions with Modi. After the meeting, Modi’s office said the Indian leader had “strong concerns about continuing anti-Indian activists of extremist elements in Canada”.

India and Canada have been negotiating a trade agreement, but talks have been paused.

Goddamn libs gaslighting hard about Biden's economy being so great and we ungrateful serfs need to understand eCoNoMiCs. Two straight years of retracting incomes, with a third likely, and Democrats can't figure out why the voters aren't feeling overwhelming adoration for Bidenomics. This is how Trump will win, whether or not he's in prison. People remember that their material circumstances were at their height in 2019, and along comes Biden and its been nothing but downhill for them since then. Imagine how easy this would be to fix if Democrats dared to do something, ANYTHING, to actually help people? Minimum wage going up to $15 per hour would increase family income of 56 million workers by roughly $5500. Bet that would have made a dent. But nooooooo, instead we get Union Busting Joe.

🚆 👨‍🏭

If you want something done that benefits the people and the planet, with tangible results, in a timely manner, call China.

The only infrastructure the US is ever interested in producing is military bases.

POINT AT THESE LOSERS AND LAUGH HAHAHAHAHAHA, lmao even

https://archive.ph/r1uIH

An ex-police officer in the US state of Colorado - who locked a handcuffed woman in a police car that was then hit by a freight train - has avoided jail.

Jordan Steinke was sentenced to 30 months on supervised probation, after being found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault in July.

She was acquitted of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter.

The 29-year-old, who lost her job over the incident, has been ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

The woman who was placed in the car, Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, suffered serious injuries in the crash, including a brain injury.

The incident happened in September 2022, when Steinke and another officer were investigating an alleged road rage incident involving a weapon in Weld County - about 72 miles (115km) from the state capital of Denver.

Ms Rios-Gonzalez was pulled over, taken into custody and moved into a police car that had been parked on train tracks.

The officers were searching her vehicle when a train struck the police car.

What happened that night has haunted me for 364 days," Steinke said in an apology read out in the court during the sentencing.

"I remember your cries and your screams. I remember begging you to tell me your name. Praying that you would stay awake. I have never felt so helpless. We couldn't get you out of the car."

Steinke added that she hoped to give educational talks to police officers about the dangers of railway tracks.

According to the Denver Post, a lawyer for Ms Rios-Gonzalez told the court that while his client suffered from having her life so radically altered by the crash and felt angry, she also felt sorry Steinke had lost her career.

The judge, Timothy Kerns, said he had planned to send Steinke to prison as a lesson that police officers would be held responsible for misconduct.

However, he changed his mind when both the defence and prosecution asked for a probationary sentence.

The second now former officer involved in the incident, Pablo Vazquez, is due to go on trial later this year.

"We've assessed how far Ukrainian forces have really progressed... The area to the south-east of the city of Zaporizhzhia is by far the most strategically important... There hasn't been much progress on this front... We have verified nine social media videos along the frontline near Verbove... However, these show incursions, not that Ukraine has managed to take control of the area. So far it has only been Ukrainian infantry getting through, and we're not seeing Ukrainian armoured columns pouring through, exploiting the gap and holding the ground taken... Ukraine's first attempt to charge through [Russian defences] in June quickly ended in failure, with its modern, Western-supplied armour crippled and burning. Ukrainian infantry came similarly unstuck, taking horrific casualties... for Kyiv, the clock is ticking. The rainy season will arrive within weeks, turning the roads to mud and hindering further advances. Beyond that lies the uncertainty of the US presidential elections, where a Republican victory could see US military support for Ukraine dramatically slashed."

Image is of President Hakainde Hichilema and President Xi Jinping on September 15th, from this article.

Zambia is a country of 20 million people, located in southern Africa. Breaking free from British rule in the 1960s, the new government was a one party state ruled by the socialist UNIP party with its leader Kenneth Kaunda, who was a strong supporter of the Non-Aligned Movement (and was its chairman from 1970-73). Its economy has been and remains characterised by copper exports - it is the second-largest copper exporter in Africa - and the economy deeply struggled in the 1970s due to the price of copper plunging. After the fall of the USSR, and due to violent protests, Kaunda stepped down and instituted a multiparty democracy, which has been maintained without (successful) coups to this day, though there are warnings by the leader that some are plotting a coup, given the trend right now.^AA^

Earlier this year, in June, Zambia struck a deal to restructure the $6.3 billion in debt that they are burdened with, of which China is the single largest creditor.^Reuters^ Though he has typically been more West-friendly, last week, President Hichilema traveled to China for two days, meeting with various companies, and Xi Jinping himself. They elevated their relationship to that of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.^Xinhua^ He and Xi have agreed to the increased use of local currencies in trade.^BB^

Hichilema said Zambia thanks China for supporting the African Union's entry into the G20 and China's positive role in resolving the Zambian debt issue. The Zambian side abides by the one-China principle, highly appreciates the guiding philosophy and principles of Chinese modernization, and hopes to learn from China's development experience.

Hichilema has also said:^AN^

"We can do more, faster, because the needs are tremendous in Zambia. I heard some of the solutions are here. All we need to do is to combine the two together."

Check out @Othello@hexbear.net's discussion of The Wretched of the Earth!

The Country of the Week is Singapore! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The news summary for last week is here!