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Erdély
2019. IX. 10. 1991-ben, az RMDSZ második marosvásárhelyi kongresszusán az egyik legfontosabb dokumentum, mely a küldöttek elé került, a Borbély által írt “Merre vigyük végzetünk” című tanulmány volt, aminek konklúziója, hogy az erdélyi magyarság nyilvánítsa magát nemzetté és törekedjen elérni Románián belül a társnemzeti státuszt. A javaslattevő eltekintett a szavazástól, szerinte ugyanis csak közfelkiáltással nyilváníthatta volna az RMDSZ küldötteinek összessége nemzetté az általa képviselt közösséget. Fontos siker volt, hogy a társnemzeti státusz meghatározása, miszerint az erdélyi magyarság “államalkotó tényező, a román nemzet egyenjogú társa”, bekerült a hivatalos dokumentumokba. Borbélyt a tanulmány hatására választották be az RMDSZ 1991 és 1993 között hivatalban levő Országos Elnökségébe. (Forrás: BorbélyImreBlogspot)
Felvidék
2019. IX. 1. Sikerhez már nem elég a kisebbségi agenda. Mindaddig, amíg a felvidéki magyarság megmaradásának feltételei nincsenek biztosítva, amíg fogy a közösség, amíg Dél-Szlovákia leszakadóban van, elvárás lesz az etnikai alapú érdekképviselet. Az Összefogás azért jön létre, mert a hagyományos pártok ezt nem tudták biztosítani. A Híd és az MKP stabilan 5% alatt teljesít, a választók egyre kisebb hányadát tudják megszólítani. Az egyetlen esély a 2020-as parlamenti bejutásukra egy választási koalíció megkötése lett volna, ezt viszont a Híd elutasította. Az elmúlt tíz év a politikai megosztottságról, a Híd és az MKP szembenállásáról, egymás leszalámizásáról szólt – ennek legfőbb áldozata pedig a felvidéki magyarság. Ennek kell véget vetni, összefogás nélkül nincs se képviselet, se program, se megmaradás. Dél-Szlovákia az elmúlt 30 év egyik legnagyobb vesztese, alig érkezett befektetés, a munkanélküliség magasabb az átlagosnál, a fizetések alacsonyak, gyenge a közlekedési, oktatási és egészségügyi infrastruktúra, közben pedig a népszámlálások szerint több mint 100 ezer magyar, a közösség negyede elfogyott. A Híd és az MKP külön-külön nem fogja tudni megugrani az 5%-ot. Ezt ők is tisztán látják, legfeljebb a 3%-os eredményre pályáznak, ami állami támogatást jelent. Ez viszont csak pár fizetett pártalkalmazott számára lehet cél, nem a magyar közösség számára. Szlovákia és benne a magyar közösség érdeke az, hogy a jelenlegi kormány távozzon. A Smer 2006-tól szisztematikusan maffia-államot épített, amely most omlik össze. Nem lehet partner a hagyományosan magyarellenes SNS és a Kotleba-féle neonáci párt sem. A magyar sajtóban olykor olyan interpretációk is megjelennek, hogy egy kormányváltás gyökeres fordulatot hozna a V4-es vagy a szlovák külpolitikában. Ez így nem állja meg a helyét, a szlovák ellenzéki pártok többsége sem változtatna a partnerségi viszonyon. Ezért is fontos, hogy a leendő kabinetben jelen legyen a magyar érdekképviselet, amely mindig a mérleg nyelve tudott lenni. (Forrás: Mandiner)
Germany
9 September 2019 Germany is considering setting up independent public agencies that could take on new debt to invest in the country's flagging economy, without falling foul of strict national spending rules. The creation of new investment agencies would let Germany take advantage of historically low borrowing costs to spend more on infrastructure and climate protection, over and above debt limits enshrined in the constitution. Germany's debt brake allows a federal budget deficit of up to 0.35% of gross domestic product (GDP). That's equivalent to about 12 billion euros. Berlin only has the scope to increase new debt by 5 billion next year. Pent-up demand for public investment from towns and cities across the country is estimated at 138 billion euros. Under the "shadow budget" plan being considered by government officials, new debt taken on by the public investment agencies would not be accounted for under the federal budget. Under the European Union's fiscal rules, countries can run a deficit of up to 1% of economic output as long as their debt-to-GDP ratio is significantly below 60% - something that Germany's Finance Ministry expects to happen this year. That would mean Germany could take on new debt worth up to 35 billion euros a year, rather than the 5 billion allowed under its own constitutionally enshrined debt brake. With the current fragmentation of Germany's political landscape, it would be very difficult to reach the two-third majorities needed in both chambers of parliament to change the national debt brake. Economy Minister Altmaier today floated the idea of creating a non-profit climate foundation into which Berlin could initially inject 5 billion euros. The foundation would issue interest-free loans for climate protection projects - up to a maximum of 50 billion euros - with the aim of reducing German carbon emissions. The foundation would be private. (Source: Reuters)
6 September 2019 Between 2011 and 2014, WikiLeaks annually published extensive material on the cooperation between private and state agencies in monitoring the population - the so-called “Spy Files.” One of the key components of the revelations was the business connections and product portfolio of the German FinFisher GmbH, a subsidiary of the British Gamma Group. The inconspicuous company from Munich, which, according to its homepage, “works exclusively with intelligence services and law enforcement authorities,” is the world’s leading provider of state spy trojans. The current version of FinFisher’s Cyber Weapon FinSpy no longer requires user interaction to gain access to a device. Instead, the malware manipulates the download of updates to existing programs. Among other material, WikiLeaks published parts of the FinSpy source code to “help the technical community develop tools to protect the population from FinFisher.” The WikiLeaks documents led to a further investigation. It turned out that FinSpy has been used by the governments of Ethiopia, Bahrain and Turkey to monitor civil rights activists and opponents. On every occasion the spyware was sold to dozens of other reactionary regimes, including Qatar, South Africa, Vietnam, and Hungary, it was awarded an official German export license. The German interior ministry gave the BKA a green light to use FinSpy for telecommunication surveillance on January 10, 2018. (Source: Wikileaks / wsws)
September 5, 2019 Germany’s traditionally export-driven economy. Weaker demand from abroad drove a bigger-than-expected drop in German industrial orders in July, suggesting that struggling manufacturers could tip Europe’s biggest economy into a recession in the third quarter. Contracts for ‘Made in Germany’ goods fell 2.7% from the previous month in July driven by a big drop in bookings from non-euro zone countries with the decrease in foreign sales mainly driven by Britain and below average demand from China. (Source: Reuters)
Russia
9 Sep 2019 Putin's United Russia lost a third of its seats it previously controlled in Moscow's local elections. Navalny advised his supporters to vote tactically across Russia for the candidate with the best chance of defeating Putin’s party. At more than 60 percent, Putin’s own popularity rating is much higher than most Western leaders, though lower than it has been previously. (Source: TheSun)
Serbia
September 10, 2019 China to boost Serb military with drones, other equipment. A Serbian Defense Ministry statement after a visit by a high-ranking Chinese military delegation thanked Beijing for economic and military support. Serbian officials said China has agreed the sale of armed drones, marking the first export of Chinese remotely piloted aircraft to a European country. Defense Minister Vulin said the delivery expected in the coming months. The country, which is formally seeking European Union membership, has already been boosting its armed forces with Russian warplanes, battle tanks and other equipment. Serbia has reportedly agreed to the delivery of nine Chengdu Pterodactyl-1 drones, known in China as Wing Loong, with a possible future order of additional 15. The combat drones are able to strike targets with bombs and missiles and can be used for reconnaissance tasks. The arming of Serbia by its allies Russia and China could encourage the Balkan country toward another war, especially against its former province of Kosovo. (Source: AP)
China
September 3, 2019 The Poisonivy Program, an extraordinarily effective cyber intelligence-gathering weapon for 3PLA. All computers and networks using Microsoft Windows operating systems are easy prey. Once inside, the malware allows remote key logging, screen capturing, video capturing, massive transfers of files, password theft, system administration access, internet and data traffic relaying and more. Beginning in the 1990s, the Chinese used large-scale cyberattacks in support of a larger industrial policy of building up the country’s science and technology business and military sector. 3PLA is China’s most aggressive technology collector by far, with at least 19 confirmed and nine possible cyber units under its command. In late 2015, 3PLA was subsumed into a service-level military organization known as the Strategic Support Force and became the main component of a new unit called the Cyber Corps. The Cyber Corps is one of the PLA’s most secret units and is staffed by as many as 100,000 hackers, language specialists and analysts at its headquarters in the Haidian District of Beijing. Branch units are located in Shanghai, Qingdao, Sanya, Chengdu and Guangzhou. In spring 2018, the Trump administration took an unprecedented step and, for the first time, exposed the activities of one of China’s most important spymasters, PLA Major General Liu, who for many years headed 3PLA. 3PLA has been one of Communist China’s most successful tools for stealing American military technology through cyber means. A second Chinese military intelligence-gathering arm is called the Second Department of the General Staff Department, or 2PLA. The Fourth Department, or 4PLA, conducts both electronic spying and electronic warfare. Chinese unfair trade practices and Beijing’s intellectual property theft cost Americans a staggering $225 billion to $600 billion annually in lost information. Less than a decade after the Boeing C-17 data heist, the Chinese were busy showing off their version of the aircraft, the Xian Y-20 heavy transport, a jet that not surprisingly looked almost identical to the C-17 when it was showcased in November 2018 at the Zhuhai International Air Show. Chinese propaganda outlets bragged that the Y-20 “made China the third country after Russia and the US to design and develop its own heavy military transport aircraft.” The first prototypes were built in 2013 - three years after the Boeing hack. (Source: TheWashingtonTimes)
Iraq
10 Sep 2019 At least 31 people have been killed in a deadly stampede at a religious festival in Iraq. More than 100 have been injured after pilgrims were crushed during the Shia holy day of Ashura in the city of Karbala. The ceremony sees millions travel to Karbala to mark the death of Imam Husayn, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Ashura worshippers often cut themselves as a sign of their faith and devotion to Husayn. as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims ran through the streets, one person stumbled and fell other, causing others to fall and triggering the deadly stampede. (Source: DailyStar)
Turkey
September 5, 2019 Erdogan says Turkey should have nuclear weapons like Israel. (Source: TimesofIsrael)
Australia
5 Sep 2019 Community BBQ for Garden. At least 4,000 meat-lovers are set to stage a mass cookout in protest at a moaning vegan who too rilled meat and fish were ruining her quality of life. In response, thousands plan to stage a “peaceful” protest outside Carden’s home, organised through a Facebook page named “Community BBQ for Cilla Garden”. 4,900 confirmed their attendance while a further 11,000 said they are “interested”. (Source: DailyStar)
Bahamas
Sep 6th 2019 Bahamas Hurricane Dorian death toll will be 'staggering' with thousands still missing as bodies pile up and militias are formed to stop looting. Half of Bahamas homes destroyed or severely damaged, with $7bn in insured and uninsured property losses. (Source: Mail)
September 2, 2019 Yesterday Dorian’s maximum sustained winds reached 297 kph, with gusts up to 354 kph, tying the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to make landfall. That equaled the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before storms were named. The only recorded storm that was more powerful was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 305 kph winds, though it did not make landfall at that strength. A mandatory evacuation of entire South Carolina coast took effect today covering about 830,000 people. A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida’s East Coast from Deerfield Beach north to South Santee River in South Carolina. (Source: AP)
United States
Sep 10, 2019 The CIA's secret qeest for mind control. During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, created and run by a chemist named Gottlieb. Some of Gottlieb's experiments were covertly funded at universities and research centers, while others were conducted in American prisons and in detention centers in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Many of his unwitting subjects endured psychological torture ranging from electroshock to high doses of LSD. (Source: DemocraticUnderground)
Sep 10th 2019 I informed Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House - Trump wrote on Twitter, citing disagreements over policy. Bolton had opposed the peace agreement with the Taliban that collapsed after Trump cancelled a secret meeting at Camp David between Taliban leaders and the president of Afghanistan. (Source: MediaITE)
Sept. 10, 2019 President Trump said today he had fired National Security Adviser Bolton after a string of disagreements between the two over how the U.S. should handle North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran. Most recently, the two had clashed over Trump's desire to have leaders of the Taliban visit Camp David in the days before the Sept. 11 anniversary to finalize peace talks. The idea was strongly opposed by Bolton, even as officials at the State Department argued it could move the parties closer to an agreement. (Source: NBCNews)
2019/09/09 Total US debt including all forms of government, state, local, financial and entitlement liabilities comes close to 2,000% of GDP. The biggest potential load comes from entitlements, but is being pressured from rising levels of federal government debt as well. The total federal debt outstanding has surged to $22.5 trillion. (Source: CNBC)
September 6, 2019 Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, but the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Gates and the investor Black. Epstein was credited with securing at least $7.5 million in donations for the lab, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, gifts the e-mails describe as “directed” by Epstein or made at his behest. The effort to conceal the lab’s contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab’s director, Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.” The University has said that it received eight hundred thousand dollars from Epstein’s foundations, in the course of twenty years, and has apologized for accepting that amount. Ito disclosed that he had separately received $1.2 million from Epstein for investment funds under his control, in addition to five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that he acknowledged Epstein had donated to the lab. Epstein used the status and prestige afforded him by his relationships with élite institutions to shield himself from accountability and continue his alleged predation. (Source: TheNewYorker)
September 6, 2019 President Trump has promised to help the Bahamas recover from Hurricane Dorian, the devastating storm that has decimated parts of the island nation. The United States is not only concerned about the Bahamian people, but also the national security implications if China steps in to help fill the country's vast needs in a situation where they would develop intelligence capabilities, intelligence gathering capabilities. Parts of the Bahamas are only about 50 miles off the coast of Florida. The administration is encouraging donations via the Center for International Disaster Information website. The Chinese government largesse comes with a lot of baggage. It comes with a lot of strings attached and it has implications for democratic institutions and rule of law. (Source: MPRNews)
Sep 5. 2019 Democrats appearing at CNN's marathon 7-hour global warming forum have a plan to solve a changing climate: Ban everything! Democrats' leading 2020 presidential candidates floated a variety of proposals to cut Americans' energy use and, ostensibly, to stop the climate from changing. Among them: Bans on straws, red meat, incandescent lightbulbs, gas-powered cars, nuclear energy, off-shore drilling, fracking, natural gas exports, coal plants, and even "carbon" itself, and, eventually, fossil fuels. Sanders (I-Vt.) went the furthest, saying we should try to minimize human life itself to help the environment. He said he'd use taxpayer money to help fund 3rd world population control programs: "The answer has everything to do with the fact that women in the United States of Americas, by the way, have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions. And the Mexico City agreement, which denies American aid to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control to me is totally absurd." Former Vice President Biden said he'd shut down coal plants and work to eliminate gas-powered cars. CNN asked most candidates if they support a "carbon-free America" and every candidate answered in the affirmative. How America can become "carbon-free" as every living thing on Earth contains carbon was never discussed or explained. (Source: Grabien)
Globalization
9 Sep 2019 An online anti-masturbation group has over 450,000 members on Reddit alone. Adherents of "No-Fap" claim that their health, intelligence and attractiveness are all boosted by refraining from self-pleasuring. Fans of the idea claim that stopping masturbation allows testosterone to build up in the body. The benefits, according to a No-Fap blogger, include improved memory, thicker hair, a deeper voice, decreased social anxiety and boosted confidence, and even an increase in wealth. An estimated 5% of No-Fappers are women. (Source: DailyStar)
02/09/2019 The 126 countries in the Belt and Road region now account for 28% of global emissions, but on their current trajectory, that could rise to 66% by 2050. That could mean global carbon levels would rise to nearly double the level needed to keep temperature increases to below 2C, a major goal of the Paris Agreement. China has invested in 67.9 gigawatts of coal-fired power in Belt and Road countries since 2014, compared to 12.6 GW of wind and solar. (Source: ClimateChangeNews)
09/01/19 Eighty percent of global oil trade is paid in dollars. The dollar is used by counterparties in 80 to 90 percent of all currency transactions. The dollar comprises 62 percent of the global currency reserves, whereas the euro is in second place with a meagre 20 percent. Sixty percent of international outstanding debt is priced in dollars. Brazil and India are paying 80 percent of their imports in dollars, whereas just a fraction of the imports hail from the U.S. itself. Countries want to become less dependent on the dollar. Whereas China owned 14 percent of U.S. government paper in 2011, that percentage has dropped to 7 by now. The dollar reserves at other central banks have started to play a slightly less prominent role. Some 70 percent of the currency reserves of central banks consisted of dollars around the year 2000, whereas this share is currently 60 percent. We are also seeing political initiatives by countries trying to keep away from the clutches of the U.S. financial system and the dollar. Europe wants to continue to trade with Iran via the so-called INSTEX instrument as parties try to bypass the U.S. sanction regime. And there are more and more initiatives that are intended to ensure that countries can trade in their domestic currencies instead of using the dollar - for instance, in the context of energy trading between China and Russia. The tentative measures that countries are taking to reduce their dependency on the dollar show they are anticipating that a post-America era is in the making. This trend is bound to strengthen now that the U.S. is regarded as an increasingly fickle opponent and unpredictable ally. (Source: TheHill)
Moon
Sep 7 2019 India’s ambitious space programme Chandrayaan-2 suffered a setback after scientists lost contact with the spacecraft trying to land on the south pole of the Moon, a mission that had fired up the imagination of people in the country. The 15-minute descent of the lander was the most complex part of the mission. Scientists lost contact with the lander just 2.1 km above the surface and within four minutes of its descent. The orbiter will remain for a year and is in a healthy condition. (Source: StraitsTimes)
Space
Sep 5, 2019 The Yarkovsky effect is basically when the Sun heats up one side of the rotating body so the asteroid is rotating as it orbits the Sun. And as one side heats up, it kind of absorbs heat and then, as it rotates, that side will begin to face away from the Sun and will radiate that heat outwards. That basically acts like a small thruster to push the asteroid into a slightly different orbit. And because the amount of heat that the asteroid absorbs is to do with things like composition, what the asteroids made of, which we don’t know, that means it’s really really hard to predict the effect of the Sun. Some of the asteroids that are in the asteroid belt can be deflected so much that they come onto Earth, crossing orbits. “These are the ones that are dangerous. (Source: Express)
September 4, 2019 Quickly destroying a small star by a black hole? NASA NuSTAR X-ray observatory satellite spots a mysterious green light from the Fireworks galaxy that quickly disappeared. The main goal of the NuSTAR observations was to examine a supernova - a huge star explosion. It's possible the light, the green blob, known as an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) was from a black hole consuming another object like a star. When objects get too close to a black hole, they can get torn apart by gravity, and their debris is pulled into a close orbit around the black hole. Material at the disk's inner edge moves so quickly that it "heats up to millions of degrees and radiates X-rays. Neutron stars can create strong magnetic fields that form "columns" and take material to the surface. In the process, they generate strong X-rays. Another possible explanations for the green blob's appearance: its source could be a neutron star, which is an extremely dense object created from the explosion of a star that wasn't big enough to create a black hole. The mass of a neutron star is similar to that of the Sun, but it's only around the size of a large city. Therefore, neutron stars can pull in material and cause debris to move really quickly in a disk. (Source: CNet)
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