China’s “social credit” system is another worry for executives, as tensions spike over the arrest of a Huawei executive at U.S. behest. The government’s plan to blacklist people and companies for misbehaviour is widely misunderstood. But its implications for business should raise eyebrows. By holding executives accountable for their company’s misdeeds, it blurs the already fuzzy Chinese line between corporate and personal interests.

The social credit system poses additional risks to foreign companies. Take the tiff between U.S. airlines and China’s civil aviation agency earlier this year over their labeling of Taiwan as a “country” in ticket-booking systems; Beijing considers the island a breakaway province. If a court had fined the airlines and they refused to budge, it’s conceivable their China-based managers might have been placed on a do-not-fly list, or seen their children kicked out of private school.

A statement from the spokesman of Yemen’s Armed Forces reported that the US-backed Saudi coalition dropped 38 airstrikes just over the course of Saturday. At least 12 of which targeted various areas of Hodeidah which constitutes a direct violation of the peace negotiations calling for a ceasefire.

Airstrikes killed at least 15 civilians since the peace negotiations began last week — including seven women and three children. Meanwhile, 28 sustained injuries, eight of whom were children as well as five women.

Yemen’s Ministry of Health pointed out that this displays the Saudi coalition’s unwillingness to engage in a peace process. “This expresses the unwillingness of these countries to stop the bloodshed and alleviate the suffering of the people of Yemen, which exposes the reality of these countries’ goals in their aggression against Yemen,” a statement from the MoH reads.

YouTube was once seen as safe space, free from government regulation and censorship.

But the dark side of the sharing platform has been laid bare in a report that reveals in the past three months, it has had to remove 58 million videos that were posting hateful or inappropriate content.

Catherine Archer, a lecturer at Murdoch University who specialises in social media, said it is the tip of the iceberg.

"I guess it's starting to admit the problem, but the whole point of YouTube was being able to upload a video without being a professional," she said.

"These social media platforms are, more and more, having to realise how hard it is to control the content on their channels."

A CHILDREN’S SPEECH PATHOLOGIST who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told she can no longer work with the public school district after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court in the Western District of Texas alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech.

Talos said that as soon as their bomb threat campaign appeared to hit a dead end, the group switched to another one.

"The attackers have returned to their empty threats of harming the individual recipient," Schultz said. "This time, they threaten to throw acid on the victim." A copy of an email carrying this latest threat is available below.

As investigative reporters on multiple continents have burnished Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' reputation as a ruthless capitalist by exposing some of the company's more extreme labor abuses, like effectively forcing employees to pee in bottles to avoid taking unpaid bathroom breaks and hiring ambulances to wait outside some of its warehouses to cart away workers suffering from heat stroke.

As the debate about what, exactly, Amazon owes its workers and the municipalities that host its facilities has taken on renewed relevance following the backlash to the generous tax breaks offered by NYC for Amazon to build a new headquarters in Long Island City (the city's subway is crumbling, but Amazon is getting taxpayer-funded handouts to build a helipad!), more Amazon workers are rising up to protest their brutal working conditions.

A member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, called on Sunday for the President of the Palestinian Authority to have his head “chopped off”. Oren Hazzan MK made the comment about Mahmoud Abbas, as well as his Deputy, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, during a march held by illegal settlers in Jerusalem, Maan News Agency has reported.

Dozens of settlers gathered in and around Jerusalem’s Old City chanting racist slogans against Abbas and calling for him to be killed. In the evening, they gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house and burnt pictures of Abbas. Banners held by the settlers called for the PA leader’s assassination.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has acknowledged that the government made mistakes while handing the massive Yellow Vest protests that have gripped the country for the past five weeks.
“We made mistakes. We did not listen enough to the French people. I remain convinced that they want this country to be transformed,” he told Les Echoes newspaper on Sunday.

Violence at the demonstrations has been hitting record levels with hundreds of protesters injured since November 17. At least seven people died during the protests. Police officers have also suffered injuries.

French cities descended into chaos, with protesters smashing store windows, looting, overturning cars, and burning barricades. City centers were shrouded in fog from tear gas, smoke grenades and firecrackers. Earlier in December, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire admitted that the protests were a “catastrophe” for the country's economy and businesses.

An unprecedented “flood of bomb threats” prompted hundreds of evacuations and closures of private buildings, transport hubs and offices in four countries on Thursday, causing confusion and in some cases panic. The threats —which numbered in the hundreds— were issued throughout the day Thursday against businesses, schools, hospitals and media companies in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It is the first time in history that such a large wave of bomb threats was issued against so many targets internationally.

A deadline of one business day was given to deposit the funds. Throughout the day, police agencies across three continents issued notices cautioning people to remain aware of their surroundings and report suspicious messages or behaviour. It was eventually determined that virtually all bomb threats were not credible.

HOWEVER, IT WAS THE SHEER NUMBER AND GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT OF THE THREATS THAT SHOCKED LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ACROSS FOUR COUNTRIES.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech unveiled the US strategy to counter Chinese and Russian influence in Africa. He accused Moscow and Beijing of deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the US.

The American official claimed that China was using bribes, opaque agreements and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands. In addition, Bolton announced a new program, "Prosper Africa", to support American investment across the continent and provide alternatives to Chinese projects.

Radio Sputnik has discussed this new plan with Ian Taylor, a professor in International Relations and African Political Economy at the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland.

A South Carolina pastor who still preaches occasionally at Joel Osteen's famed Lakewood Church became emotional defending his extravagant purchase of a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus for his wife's wedding anniversary gift after coming under fire for its excess.

John Gray of Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, received a social media backlash after a video of him presenting his wife, Aventer Gray, with the keys to the luxury vehicle during their 8th anniversary vow renewal was posted online.

'Pastor buys his wife, you know, this expensive car,' The pastor said in an impassioned Instagram video now taken down. 'First of all, it wasn't a pastor that bought the car. It was a husband that bought the car. Get that in your spirit.'

George Pell, the Vatican's CFO and often called the "3rd most powerful person in the Vatican" was convicted on all charges that he sexually molested choir boys in Australia in the 1990s. However, the press is barred from reporting on it based on one of those gag orders. The Herald Sun in Australia did post a brilliant, Streisand Effect-inducing front page display about how it was being censored from publishing an important story:

Front page of Thursday's edition of Australia's Herald Sun: "CENSORED"

"A statement to our readers...The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians. The Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news." https://t.co/bzFOluucy9 pic.twitter.com/J0vSkBrB1g

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 12, 2018
Though, if you click on the link in that tweet it now shows an error message reading Error 400 and "Content is deleted, expired or legal killed." Legal killed.

This week, the Russian-born comedian Konstantin Kisin has been at the centre of a vaguely heated Twitter spat. Admittedly that might have passed you by if you aren’t fully absorbed in the netherworld of vaguely heated Twitter spats, but thankfully it’s been a quiet news week, so I’ve managed to stay abreast of things.

The flare-up related to an unpaid charity gig organised by a student society of a London university that Kisin had been asked to perform at, in particular a “behavioural agreement form” that he was asked to sign beforehand. This stipulated that certain topics and approaches were off limits, including sexism, racism and homophobia, as well as anti-religious and anti-atheist material.

Iraq’s foreign ministry on Friday summoned Turkey’s ambassador in Baghdad to protest over what it called repeated airspace violations, after Turkish warplanes earlier carried out strikes against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Reuters reports.

Hours earlier, the Turkish military said on Twitter it had killed eight militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes targeting the Zap, Hakurk and Haftanin regions of northern Iraq.

Turkey has regularly carried out air strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq, as President Tayyip Erdogan pursues his stated aim of ending the militant group’s presence near Turkey’s borders. Ankara has also threatened to launch a ground offensive in northern Iraq.

But Iraq’s foreign ministry said the air strikes were unacceptable “on all levels” and violated its sovereignty and the security of its citizens.

The Matrix movie series was one of the most revolutionary works of art to ever come out of Hollywood. Its pro-humanity, anti-authoritarian message instantly made it a classic and it has since become the subject of internet memes and (red pill) movements alike. At the center of this silver-screen revolution is Keanu Reeves whose real-life heroism makes his role as Neo that much more incredible.

It is no secret that Keanu Reeves is Hollywood’s biggest low-key real-life hero, but did you know that he also secretly funds children’s hospitals? We didn’t, and most people probably wouldn’t either as the upcoming star of the sci-fi thriller Replicas is not exactly boastful of his contributions to society—unlike many other Hollywood celebrities.

The U.S. government’s chief tool to coordinate responses to bioterror events has for years suffered from big security problems, according to Homeland Security Department inspectors and a former employee.

For more than 15 years, the United State’s first line of defense against a major biological incident has been a program called BioWatch. Its sensors, mounted (600 in more than 30 cities across the U.S.), works like canaries in a coal mine. If a terrorist released, say, a deadly aerosolized biological toxin into Grand Central Terminal, sensors would pick up the toxin. Health care workers collect samples from the sensors and bring them to BioWatch labs every day.

EFF doesn’t endorse products. But as Internet-connected products proliferate, ads for them bombard holiday shoppers with promises of a more streamlined life. And they do so without always divulging that they’re tracking you more than a jolly fat man who sees when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake.

So, we are taking a different approach to the holiday gift guide: highlighting products that raise red flags for us, as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Here are some gifts being pushed this year that, from a privacy or security standpoint, are on our naughty list.

The Haylo eBulb is the world's first self-charging emergency light bulb that works just like your ordinary light bulbs but is always ready instantly when you have a power failure. Just turn on the light you put the eBulb in and you can safely check on everyone in your family.

Imagine never having to worry about being stranded in the dark because of a blackout.

It's like having an expensive emergency generator installed without the costs or inconvenience. The Haylo eBulb only takes a few seconds to install because it simply replaces your old light bulb and starts charging itself.

This is the best emergency light solution available for your home. Plus, the LED lights are so efficient that they start saving you money instantly!

Serbia has threatened military action against neighbouring Kosovo after its parliament approved the creation of a new army.

Kosovar MPs voted on Friday to expand the existing Kosovo Security Force into a 5,000-troop army, plus 3,000 reservists.

Belgrade called the move a “direct threat to peace and stability” in the Balkans and lashed out at the United States for supporting the proposal.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008, but Serbia does not recognise its former province as a state.

Belgrade insists the new army would violate a UN resolution that brought to an end its bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.

Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic said armed intervention was “one of the options on the table”.

A Texas federal judge has struck down the Affordable Care Act, ruling it can not be classed as a tax without a penalty for those who don’t buy health insurance. Without that penalty, he wrote, “Obamacare” is unconstitutional.
The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court and the law will remain in effect until the appeals process is over. The ACA previously withstood more than 70 unsuccessful repeal attempts.

he relentless stream of controversy at Facebook continues unabated as the social media giant has revealed that a bug in its software gave third party apps access to photos belonging to nearly seven million users.
The bug gave the external operators far greater access to Facebook users’ images than the tech firm normally allows. Permission usually only extends to the public photos that people share on their timeline.

However, due to the API glitch developers were given access to other images belonging to users, including ones on Facebook stories, Marketplace and even photos that had been uploaded onto the social media site but that users had decided not to publish.

The API malfunction existed for nearly two weeks from September 13 to 25 this year. Facebook developer Tomer Bar said in a blog post on Friday that the only apps that had access to the hidden photos were those to which users had already granted access to their public images.