Author: Steven Sahiounie

RSPCA Australia has condemned a social media video which showed a teenager forcing a quokka to vape from an e-cigarette at Rottnest Island in Western Australia (WA). The recent video showed a teenage girl laughing as she shoved an e-cigarette device down the quokka’s throat. The quokka, which could be seen standing on its back legs, licked at the device which it believed to be food. RSPCA WA executive manager Hannah Dreaver told 9News it was “completely and utterly irresponsible and unacceptable for this poor defenseless, vulnerable animal to be subjected to that kind of cruelty.” “Those animals are really, really vulnerable,” Dreaver warned,…

Journalist Richard Medhurst claims that he initially didn’t recognize Julian Assange, who looked “awful and ill,” as the WikiLeaks founder appeared in London’s High Court while the United States pushes to have him extradited. Medhurst told RT said that he “literally did a double take” upon seeing Assange during the High Court preliminary hearing on Wednesday, which he was connected to remotely. “I couldn’t recognize that it was Assange, he looked extremely old,” Medhurst declared, adding that the WikiLeaks founder looked so “awful and ill” that it took him a “minute” to realize it was Assange as medical witnesses testified that his “health has deteriorated and he’s been…

Indigenous leaders have cautiously welcomed Ottawa’s $320-million funding pledge to support communities looking for unmarked graves at former residential school sites and to help survivors, deeming it a “long overdue step.” The Trudeau administration announced the funding on Tuesday, with indigenous groups currently developing plans to uncover more burial sites. Around Can$83 million (US$66 million) will go towards plans to research and locate sites, memorialize and rebury victims. A National Advisory Committee (NAC) will offer assistance. Other portions of the funding will be used for mental health and community support, and to help “manage” residential school buildings – by either demolishing or remodeling them…

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has demanded Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, arrested in China for alleged spying, be released “immediately and unconditionally” after he was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday. In a Wednesday statement, Blinken accused China of “arbitrarily” arresting Spavor to “exercise leverage over foreign governments.” “People should never be used as bargaining chips,” the secretary of state said. Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in prison over charges of espionage. In a statement on the ruling, the court said Spavor was “illegally providing state secrets.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously condemned the arrest and the trial, which he…

By Pepe Escobar The ever-elusive Afghan “peace” process negotiations re-start this Wednesday in Doha via the extended troika – the US, Russia, China and Pakistan. The contrast with the accumulated facts on the ground could not be starker. In a coordinated blitzkrieg, the Taliban have subdued no less than six Afghan provincial capitals in only four days. The central administration in Kabul will have a hard time defending its stability in Doha. It gets worse. Ominously, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has all but buried the Doha process. He’s already betting on civil war – from the weaponization of civilians in the main…

France’s Ministry of the Interior found that one Covid vaccination or screening center has been vandalized per day on average since mid-July, with around 20 such sites across the country attacked, local media reported on Tuesday. Information gathered from the Ministry of the Interior shows that there have been 20 attacks on vaccination hubs and Covid testing centers nationwide from July 14 to August 9. A vaccination center in Landes, southwestern France was reportedly defaced on July 19, with vandals writing ‘Nazis’ and ‘collaborators’, alongside dozens of swastikas. Meanwhile, the word ‘genocide’ was painted on the floor of another hub…

More than 8,500 people in a town in northern Germany, who thought they were vaccinated, might have been left without protection against Covid-19 as a nurse allegedly injected them with saline instead of a real vaccine. Thousands of people in the small town of Schortens in northern Germany might have to go through the vaccination procedure all over again, just months after they supposedly got immunized against Covid-19, the local authorities have revealed following an investigation in what was deemed a minor cover-up issue but developed into a major vaccination scandal. “A total of 8,557 people might have received no…

A fire at the Syrian port of Latakia has been extinguished, according to state media, after a reported explosion sent black smoke billowing above the city. Some workers required oxygen and further treatment. On Tuesday, a fire broke out on a commercial vessel during maintenance operations in Syria’s Latakia port, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), a state-controlled news agency. In photos and videos shared online, black smoke can be seen emerging from a docked ship. Some reports suggested that there was an initial explosion. SANA reported that the fire had been extinguished by the city’s fire brigade…

Remote workers at one of the world’s largest call center firms are reportedly being pressured to allow AI-powered camera surveillance to monitor their workspaces at home – even in bedrooms. In March, Teleperformance issued an addendum to its employment contracts that required workers to let the company put in cameras – apparently to record and track their work performance at home in real-time. The contract also allows data collected from workers’ family members, including minors, to be stored and subjected to video and voice analysis. As well, employees had to agree to share biometric data including fingerprints and photos. There…

A Chinese-backed hydroelectric dam built in the north-east of Cambodia has been condemned by Human Rights Watch (HRW) for displacing and destroying the lives of thousands of indigenous people in a new report released on Tuesday. The Lower Sesan 2, a 400-megawatt project and one of the widest dams in Asia, has come under criticism since its completion in 2018, including for flooding large areas of the Sesan and Srepok rivers. The construction project itself forced the displacement of around 5,000 people, according to HRW, with those affected “coerced into accepting inadequate compensation.” Tens of thousands are believed to have suffered devastating losses…