Segacs's World I Know » Rest of the world

An important read about the role of social media in the global rise of the far right, and how a handful of tech companies are now scrambling to answer for the damage that they’re only starting ...

https://www.segacs.com/2018/technology-and-the-far-right.html

The worldwide rise of fascism continues, with Brazil only the latest example: Mr Bolsonaro’s pledge to fight crime and corruption following a string of scandals have won him mass support. Howev...

https://www.segacs.com/2018/brazil-the-latest-country-to-fall-to-fascism.html

An 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico last night. So far, at least 30 people have been killed, and destruction is widespread. There’s also a major tsunami risk. Mexican authorities...

https://www.segacs.com/2017/earthquake-in-mexico.html

When I visited Cuba in December, the Cubans and Americans I met were all optimistic about the continued thawing of relations between the two countries following Barack Obama’s historic easing o...

https://www.segacs.com/2017/cuba-us-relations-one-step-forward-one-giant-trump-leap-back.html

If this is true, it could signal a major change for Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan’s veteran dictator, Islam Karimov, has died, leaving central Asia’s most populous country in a state of turmoil and ...

https://www.segacs.com/2016/uzbekistan-leader-karimov-reported-dead.html

More than ten years after the BBC aired a devastating report about North Korean concentration camps, mass killings, torture, poison gas chambers and other horrific atrocities, the United Nations ...

https://www.segacs.com/2014/north-korea-united-nations-pulls-head-out-of-sand-finally.html

Update: Venezuelan election authorities have awarded Hugo Chavez the victory, with 54% of the vote, versus 44% for Capriles — a suspiciously high margin of victory. Sadly, it looks like the nig...

https://www.segacs.com/2012/is-venezuelas-nightmare-over.html

News wires are reporting the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il at the age of 70. The “Dear Leader” of the People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps can count, among his accomplis...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/north-korean-dear-leader-reported-dead.html

Libya’s long-standing dictator is no more: Muammar el-Gadhafi is confirmed killed after being captured and arrested by revolutionary forces: Gadhafi was captured alive and unharmed as troops fr...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/gadhafi-confirmed-dead.html

A French couple has been charged in the death of their 11-month old baby, after allegedly feeding her an insufficient vegan diet and refusing to treat her illnesses, instead using “natural” (...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/french-vegans-kill-bab.html

The UN Security Council has approved military action in Libya. Now the question remains: who will follow through? So far, all of the uprisings across the Arab world have been domestic matters, de...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/gaddafi-changes-game.html

Warning to those of you who like a few glasses of wine with your meal: Apparently, virulent antisemitic ranting is now a side-effect of alcohol consumption. First, Mel Gibson. Now John Galliano: ...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/antisemitism-galliano-dior.html

If there’s such a thing as a recipe for disaster, this is it: A friend and former professor of a California man whose yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates said that Scott Adam wanted to combine...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/oh-yeah-cause-that-always-turns-out-well.html

The results are in: By an overwhelming majority of 99%, South Sudan has voted to split from the North and form its own country. When/if statehood is officially declared in July, the folks over at...

https://www.segacs.com/2011/south-sudanese-vote-for-independence.html

“The United Nations is a wonderful idea in principle, except for the little problem of giving barbarians a vote.” That’s courtesy of PZ Myers, in a blog post WTFing the UN’s move to remov...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/quote-of-the-day-2.html

So Wills and Kate are getting hitched next April at Westminster Abbey, where Princess Diana’s funeral was held and where a number of royal weddings have taken place in recent years: Several mem...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/royal-wedding.html

The United Nations created a new body to promote the rights of women worldwide. And all the usual suspects, namely, Iran, rushed to sign up to the executive board. This is nothing new for the UN,...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/iran-blocked-from-un-womens-board.html

The rent is too damn high? Not in Trundle, Australia: An Australian rural community desperate to encourage new families to move in and revitalize the town is offering to rent farm houses to inter...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/town-promotes-buck-a-week-rent.html

The rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners, who have been underground for 69 days, is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. As of right now, two of the miners have been rescued so ...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/briefly.html

It’s total devastation in Haiti. There are fears that the death toll will surpass 100,000. Pretty much all the major relief organisations are accepting online donations, including MSF, the Inte...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/haiti-earthquake-how-to-help.html

Big. Huge. Potentially game-changing. These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us ...

https://www.segacs.com/2010/googles-new-approach-to-chin.html

Is Vietnam the latest country to block access to Facebook? Since last week, it seems that way. Even though the Vietnamese government is issuing denials. Some Vietnamese Facebook users launched a ...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/facebook-blocked-in-vietnam.html

I looked outside and saw masses of cars honking like crazy and waving Algerian flags out the windows. And I had to ask myself why. Oh. That’s why. Algeria became the last African nation to qual...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/whats-with-all-that-honking.html

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was commemorated with free outdoor concerts and celebrations this weekend. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Obama healthcare re...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/weekend-update.html

Ukraine has closed all its schools for a week, trying to prevent the spread of H1N1. No word on whether Alice Cooper will be releasing a song on the subject. The post School’s out for… swin...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/schools-out-for-swine-flu.html

Why, indoctrinate the children, of course. And Venezuela continues its steady slide into repression. The post How to become a dictator, step seventy-three first appeared on Segacs's World I Kn...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/how-to-become-a-dictator-step-seventy-three.html

So apparently, Hillary Clinton is not okay with a nuclear North Korea… but she doesn’t seem to have a problem with a nuclear Iran. Better hope that umbrella is big enough to protect you from ...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/hillarys-priorities.html

Hugo Chavez is trying again to become dictator-for-life, after being narrowly defeated last time around. Venezuelans vote in a referendum this Sunday to get rid of term limits. Observers are pess...

https://www.segacs.com/2009/meanwhile-in-venezuela.html

The People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps has expelled UN monitors and announced plans to resume its nuclear weapons program. On a scariness scale of one to ten, this little tidbit of new...

https://www.segacs.com/2008/all-eyes-turn-to-north-korea.html

Does anyone really still believe that Mugabe will go quietly? Didn’t think so. Here we go again: The construction on St-Laurent launches full steam ahead into round 2… as though round 1 wasn�...

https://www.segacs.com/2008/in-brief-2.html

Hugo Chavez’s referendum on his bid to become a sweeping dictator was narrowly defeated, 51% No to 49% Yes. (Hmmm, what other referendum do those results remind you of?) The defeat was astonish...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/some-hope-for-venezuela.html

The U.N. took a break from its usual Israel-bashing agenda today to call out some actual human rights violators: A United Nations panel rebuked Myanmar, Iran and North Korea on Tuesday for human ...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/breaking-news-flying-pigs-spotted.html

Lisa posts her thoughts following a fascinating interview with five refugees from Darfur currently staying on an Israeli kibbutz. An absolute must-read. The post Darfur refugees in Israel firs...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/darfur-refugees-in-israel.html

By now, most everyone knows about the terrorist bombing on the Samjhauta Express train between India and Pakistan, which killed at least 66 people: Two bombs exploded aboard a train bound from In...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/the-friendship-train.html

If you picked this week, you may want to start mentally planning what you’re going to do with all the cash. The secrecy surrounding Castro’s condition would seem to indicate that he’s going...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/okay-who-has-castro-in-the-dead-dictator-pool.html

Yesterday’s Ynet had a piece about female Sudanese refugees from Darfur who have found their way to Israel and the private shelter that has offered them a refuge: Eleven young women and 18 of t...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/darfur-refugees-in-israel-need-help.html

This is the seemingly-innocuous beginning to the plot of pretty much every B-grade horror movie: A German pensioner who won a prize and worldwide fame for breeding his country’s largest rabbit ...

https://www.segacs.com/2007/attack-of-the-killer-rabbits.html

That’s the key lesson from Augusto Pinochet’s death today, which some Chileans are mourning while many others celebrate: More than 3,000 people died in political violence under Pinochet’s r...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/my-enemys-enemy-is-not-my-friend.html

Andrea is blogging from Malawi this month. If you’re not already reading her, now would be an excellent time to start. The post Red Rabbit in Africa first appeared on Segacs's World I Know .

https://www.segacs.com/2006/red-rabbit-in-africa.html

At least that’s what appears to be happening: WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Fiji’s president had dissolved parliament and sanctioned the removal of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, New Zealand Prim...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/coup-in-fiji.html

Nicholas Roach of Brossard, who writes in a letter published in today’s Gazette: U.S. ambassador David Wilkins is mistaken when he assumes all Canadians would be offended if our prime minister�...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/and-the-delusional-dumbass-of-the-month-award-goes-to.html

A Reuters article, perhaps accidentally, stumbles on the true crux of the matter when it comes to North Korea: North Korea has committed “crimes against humanity” against its own people accor...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/north-korea-excuses-excuses.html

As the Sudanese government does its best to boot the United Nations, the violence is getting worse. Damian links to this Times article from last week in which a janjaweed defector explains, in ho...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/sudan-bad-to-worse.html

The Times reports frightening details of the Dear Leader of Death Camps’ drive towards “racial purity” (via Damian Penny). As I’ve said before, I don’t take Nazi comparisons lightly, bu...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/more-north-korea-horror-stories.html

Looks like the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya is finally opening the eyes of the world to what’s been going on in Russia for quite some time: Unnatural death occurs with alarming regul...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/meanwhile-in-russia.html

Seems everyone’s jumping on the adopt-a-baby-from-a-poor-country celebrity bandwagon these days. The latest participant in this media circus is Madonna, who seems to have adopted a Malawian boy...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/madonna-saves-the-children.html

So much for recent promises… The “so ronery” Dear Leader of Death Camps now officially has nuclear weapons… and it’s about the scariest situation imaginable. Except that we already pret...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/about-the-north-korean-nukes.html

I was away over the long weekend so I didn’t hear the news until last night. Steve Irwin was a real Australian icon. Though he had his fans and his critics in life, his death has sent shock wav...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/rip-steve-irwin.html

In the latest chapter of the continuing saga of the irrelevance of the United Nations, the U.S. and Britain are co-sponsoring a resolution to deploy U.N. troops in Darfur: The U.S. and British sp...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/what-good-is-the-u-n-part-twelve-million.html

In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers rejected peace talks. They’re spoiling for all-out war over there, and don’t look now, but it’s about to get worse. I wonder whether, if the cease-fire betwee...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/tamil-tigers-reject-peace-talks.html

All right, that’s it: It was one thing when it was just getting Google to censor search results or other such “minor” infringements on freedom of speech. But now China has gone too far: It�...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/the-last-straw.html

It’s one of the most popular beach, sand and sun destinations for Australians, New Zealanders, and backpackers in general. But Fiji, where I spent a few hours on layover just a few months ago, ...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/fiji-israelis-not-welcome.html

The London Times reports that Iran is trying to mine Uranium in Africa, with the goal of importing it to make, well, I’ll give you three guesses. (Via IrisBlog). Related to the above, Mark C. a...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/in-brief.html

Watch for the newest craze to hit the blogosphere: Prisonblogging: The prison blog of a New Zealand political activist jailed for the rare crime of sedition has outraged opposition politicians bu...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/what-happened-to-the-whole-one-phonecall-thing.html

This is the first tiny sliver of potentially good news to come out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in longer than I can remember: From the crumbling riverside capital Kinshasa through to ...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/elections-in-the-drc.html

North Korea wants to bolster its nuclear weapons program: North Korea will upgrade its arsenal “in every way by employing all possible means and methods” and will greet any aggressors with �...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/peoples-democratic-republic-of-death-camps-ups-the-stakes.html

Remember Darfur? The “UN sez we can’t call it genocide cause then we’d have to do something about it” crisis where deaths aren’t in the hundreds (like in Lebanon) but in the hundreds of...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/meanwhile-in-darfur.html

I can’t help it. But my first cynical reaction to today’s horrific terrorist transit bombings in Mumbai was that the reaction in the Western media wouldn’t be anywhere near as frenzied as i...

https://www.segacs.com/2006/cynicism.html

That must be the new quote, replacing “if it bleeds, it leads”. Because Meryl wonders how it’s possible that one of the most wanted terrorists in the world was captured and nobody’s talki...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/dead-terrorists-dont-sell-newspapers.html

Well, I never thought I’d live to see the day when this would happen: The United Nations has unanimously declared an international Holocaust Day in commemoration of the Holocaust and as a stand...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/are-you-sure-they-dont-mean-anti-israel-day.html

What can be said about this? Three powerful bombs tore through New Delhi markets packed with families and shoppers on Saturday ahead of the biggest Hindu and Muslim festivals of the year, killing...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/new-delhi-terrorist-attacks.html

Love Castro. Hate Bush. Be popular. At least that seems to be the general idea for one soccer star: Argentine soccer hero Diego Maradona promised Cuban President Fidel Castro on Thursday he would...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/more-fawning-over-castro.html

That’s what the U.N. is saying about the earthquake in Pakistan: The United Nations said yesterday the earthquake in Pakistan was a worse disaster than last year’s tsunami, as its secretary g...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/worse-than-tsunami.html

Of course, the big story is the earthquake in Pakistan that has claimed a staggering 30,000 lives so far. All the aid organizations are accepting donations, as they do their best to rush aid to t...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/really-big-stuff-thats-happened.html

In a horrifying scene of deja-vu, terrorist bombings in Bali murdered 26 people today at tourist resorts: The blasts struck the seaside area of Jimbaran Bay and the bar and shopping hub of Kuta, ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/more-bombings-in-bali.html

That’s my sentiment about today’s announcement of an agreement in principle on the part of the world’s most despotic regime, North Korea, to abandon its nuclear weapons program: North Korea...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/very-very-skeptical.html

An epidemic of plane crashes seems to have hit the globe. In this past month alone, a plane crash-landed in Toronto – an episode in which, miraculously nobody was hurt. But not everyone was so ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/a-bad-month-for-plane-crashes.html

The President of Turkmenistan has banned lip synching: He has outlawed opera and ballet and railed against long hair and gold teeth, but now President Saparmurat Niyazov is determined to wipe out...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/watch-out-ashlee-simpson.html

Two more U.N. officials are being accused of taking kickbacks: The former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, was accused on Monday of receiving nearly $150,000 in kickbacks, and ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/whos-even-surprised-anymore.html

How could the U.N. possibly get any more irrelevant than it already is? Well, one way would be to adopt this proposal to enlarge the Security Council from 15 to 25: Brazil, Germany, Japan and Ind...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/how-to-make-un-more-useless.html

This report is truly disturbing: the local head of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Darfur, Sudan has been arrested, ostensibly because MSF published a report detailing widespread reports of rape...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/msf-head-arrested-in-sudan.html

Autonomous Source has a story that’s getting little press coverage but could have widespread implications. Debbye warns us that Carolyn Parrish may be staging a comeback, now that Paul Martin�...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/around-blogopshere.html

Amnesty International just keeps sabotaging its own mission again and again. The latest episode is today’s report on human rights, which blasts countries around the world for violations, singli...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/amnesty-internationals-broken-moral-compass.html

…with Tina Fey. Okay, maybe not. But here are some of the tidbits from the weekend. It looks like there might not be an election after all, as the Conservatives’ polling numbers slip and Harp...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/weekend-update-2.html

Let’s play which photo of the week is weirder. This one? Or this one? Shall we put it to a vote? The post Which is weirder? first appeared on Segacs's World I Know .

https://www.segacs.com/2005/which-is-weirder.html

People in the know have been watching Vladimir Putin with a wary eye for quite some time now. His State of the Union today, in which he described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greate...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/putin-soviet-breakup-was.html

Kofi Annan has learned the redirection game well, as he tries to deflect some of the heat from the oil-for-food scandal off himself and onto the U.S. and Britain: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anna...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/annan-its-americas-fault.html

Check out the opening paragraph of this news story on North Korea’s nuclear announcement: North Korea is to strengthen its “atomic potential” in response to Washington’s hostile policies,...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/reuters-does-it-again.html

Hmmm… you think there may be more obstacles to unification of North and South Korea than financial costs alone? The post Not just dollars and cents first appeared on Segacs's World I Know .

https://www.segacs.com/2005/not-just-dollars-and-cents.html

North Korea has the world’s worst human rights record, according to British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell. He urged the UN Human Rights Commission to pass a resolution condemning the cou...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/north-korea-worlds-worst-human-rights-record.html

The United Nations has ruled that people accused of war crimes in Darfur can be tried by the ICC. That’s a real comfort to the nearly 200,000 dead and over 2 million homeless and starving peopl...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/un-we-dont-stop-em.html

Three bombings in the Philippines have killed 11 people so far and wounded at least 130: Security forces quickly blamed Abu Sayyaf, a small Muslim rebel group associated with al Qaeda, for the im...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/bloody-monday.html

The People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps has admitted its nuclear program and refused to return to talks on nuclear disarmament, claiming it needs the weapons for “defence against the ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/north-korea-admits-nukes.html

“Crimes against humanity with genocidal intentions”, of course. This according to the United Nations, which displays its gutlessness even more glaringly as each day goes by. Cause calling the...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/if-it-looks-like-genocide.html

Elie Wiesel addressed the U.N. in the first time that the world body has ever commemmorated the Holocaust: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nobel Laureate author Elie Wiesel, a death camp su...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/wiesel-who-will-stop-genocide.html

Most of the donations that have been pouring in so far for Tsunami disaster relief have been motivated by genuine shock, empathy and desire to help. But in case those reasons don’t seem quite c...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/and-for-rest-of-you.html

The founders of the Canadian retail chain Music World have donated five million dollars to the Canadian Red Cross for Tsunami disaster relief: The gift, by Kroum and Eva Pindoff, who made their f...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/five-million-dollar-donation.html

One of the consequences of the Asian Tsuanami disaster has been the somewhat unexpected spotlight that the media has placed on charitable giving – in Canada and around the world. The Globe and ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/spotlight-on-charitable-giving.html

The Tsunami disaster has meant that we are in full emergency mode here at work. So blogging will be light for a little while. Not the greatest blogging start to 2005, I know. But hey, I didn’t ...

https://www.segacs.com/2005/in-case-youre-wondering.html

There are no words to express the horrors of the Tsunami earthquake disaster that so far has claimed over 80,000 lives and completely destroyed millions more. I won’t attempt to find them. But ...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/80000-and-counting-tsunami-disaster.html

Peace by New Year’s… or else. Or else what, though? That’s the question nobody seems to be able to answer. Because military action is pretty much a non-option, and half the Security Council...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/un-security-council-sets-peace-deadline-for-sudan.html

A rally in Toronto today is aimed at persuading world powers to do more in Sudan’s Darfur region, where over 50,000 people have already been killed, and millions more are homeless and in urgent...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/canadian-sudanese-rally-for-darfur.html

One of the reasons we know so little about the horrors that go on in North Korea is that hardly anyone escapes to tell the tales. Today, a group from North Korea made it to the Canadian embassy i...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/few-who-gt-out.html

The U.N. has continued its uselessness this week by calling for nuclear disarmament and inspections in North Korea. The predicted North Korean response is: “Oh yeah? And if we don’t agree, wh...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/nuclear-threats.html

In PM Paul Martin’s first address to the United Nation, he blasted the world’s inaction on Sudan and called for more rapid international action there, and in other countries in crisis: “The...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/martin-to-un-action-needed-in-sudan.html

Terrorists publicize a video of the beheading of another hostage in Iraq. The nuclear threat from Iran continues to grow, because the Iranian government believes – probably rightly – that the...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/just-another-tuesday.html

Witnesses saw a mushroom cloud. Little else is known so far. Update: Both the US and South Korea are saying it’s unlikely to be nuclear. Which, of course, begs the question of what it was. Upda...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/nuclear-blast-north-korea.html

Colin Powell called a spade a spade today, when he used the word “genocide” to describe the horrible mass killings that have been going on in Darfur, Sudan for months: In the strongest U.S. s...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/powell-uses-the-g-word.html

A group of Chechen terrorists are holding over 350 adults and children hostage in a school in Russia, in a horrifying saga that is now in its second day. Imshin calls it every parent’s worst ni...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/hostage-crisis-in-russia.html

A suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 and injured 51: Russian investigators were under pressure on Wednesday to establish quickly who was behind a suicide bomb attack on a busy Moscow street that...

https://www.segacs.com/2004/more-terrorism.html