I wonder though, maybe South Africa was easily made a pariah state in the 90s because it was the end of the Cold War. SA’s utility in geopolitics to contain communism had run its course. Meanwhile, Israel is situated in still tense Middle East, and the main reason US still support Israel is because the latter provides excellent intelligence gathering which they provide then to the US and the West.

As much as I dislike Obama’s drone strikes, at least he could stand up to Netanyahu.

Am I missing something? Is this saying there is similarity between an innocent victim of a genocide with someone who is creating a new genocide on another group of people?

It’s up to the medical practitioners to decide.

Bought games from years ago I have to finish. Waste of money if I don’t complete them but I keep buying new ones.

I’m nearly finishing up The Witcher 2. Judging from the discussions, I’m afraid of starting Witcher 3 because I have other backlog of games I have to finish as soon as possible.

Jacob Hersant

With a name like that…

Many mosques in Xinjiang are reportedly damaged or destroyed though. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67483202.amp

I watched “The Man in the High Castle”, and the Christian imagery and symbolism in a former Christian Church were replaced with Nazi symbolism. I thought it was a bit farfetched, but now hearing something similar being done by China as part of totalitarianism, it is rather spooky. I’ve heard religious buildings being destroyed, but converting places of worship and blatantly removing its past to align with state ideology is far more surreal and haunting, and I am an agnostic atheist.

Found a Singaporean.

Melania is a self-admitted trophy wife (when asked if she would have married Donald if he wasn’t rich, she responded that he would not have married her if she wasn’t beautiful). Trump’s base, especially the mysoginists, probably wouldn’t care what she says anyway.

A company headquartered in a tax-haven and laissez faire city state should give hint that bottomline is more important than humans. Always have contingencies when it comes to career, because you never know when your employer might conduct “layoffs”.

Sejong is still a new city to be fair. Also, there is not much jobs there so far, except for civil servants. But the worst crime of all in creating that new city is that public transport is lacking! How could city planners have that oversight! There is more info from Caspian Report about the Sejong city.

I’ve never been to South Korea, but Seoul metropolitan area is said to be a hypercapitalistic hell-hole. The major employers are the chaebols, or the family-owned corporations including Samsung, Hyundai and LG. They have toxic work cultures but is tolerated because they are major employers in the country, especially in Seoul, where half of South Koreans live. Nearly everyone is overworked for little pay resulting in poor birth rate because everyone have little time to spend with partners and families (the South Korean government actually created a new administrative capital city, Sejong, as an experiment to address the declining birth rate, and it worked by and large experiencing probably the only and highest population growth in the country).

Moreover, many North Korean defectors are still seen with suspicion and discriminated. So they feel alienated like the man in the article. I guess the best bet for defectors is to work in Sejong as a government clerk, where they could get generous welfare and employment benefits and protections, unlike corporate-employed workers.

Edit: autocowreck

I wonder if Putin’s plan to ban talking about childless lifestyle and saying this will work? Russias are not as traditional as people make it out to be, especially those in the cities. He will just rile up many folks.

I’d cheer on if Elon Musk becomes a pauper. $9 billion is still worth a lot. It’s still, as the article says, billions.

Still worth billions though.

The notion of a “promised land” is a lie humans tell to themselves to monopolise the resources we all share with all living things.

Adele isn’t that good looking as well, but she is well loved as a singer.

And reported for racism.