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Up the wooden gangplank in a single-file line, nearly an entire Indigenous village squeezed onto the Aquidaban’s front deck. The Tomárahos had taken the boat downriver to vote in Paraguay’s national elections, and then had slept outside for four days, waiting for the Aquidaban to take them home. Now, more than 200 of them squatted on overturned buckets, crowded on hammocks and sprawled on the floor. No one was quite sure how many life jackets were aboard, but just about everyone was sure the Tomárahos outnumbered them. “Ever since I was a kid, there was always the Aquidaban,” said Griselda Vera Velazquez, 33, a craftswoman in the Tomáraho village, where there is no road.

Persons: “, ”, Griselda Vera Velazquez Locations: Tomáraho

☆ A Boy’s Life on the Front Lines
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Lynsey Addario | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

A Boy’s Life on theFront Lines In a Ukrainian town, an 11-year-old navigates a childhood transformed by war. He lived with his mother, Lena, and his 23-year-old half sister, Angelina, in a borrowed one-story home about four miles from Russian positions to the east. “I remember how I used to have fun here with my friends,” Yegor said. Now only his father, Sasha, remained there, trapped behind Russian lines caring for the home and animals on the road out of Mariupol. But the war had forced Yegor into a sedentary life, almost always behind closed doors.

Persons: Lena, Angelina, Lena didn’t, Yegor, ” Yegor, ”, “, ’, ‘, ‘ Sonny, Sasha, squander, they’ll Organizations: Yegor Locations: Ukrainian, Donbas, Ukraine, stretchers, Kramatorsk, Chernivtsi

☆ US received intel from European ally that Ukrainian military was planning attack on Nord Stream pipelines, officials say
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Natasha Bertrand Alex Marquardt Haley Britzky | Natasha Bertrand | Alex Marquardt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The US received intelligence from a European ally last year that the Ukrainian military was planning an attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines three months before they were hit, three US officials told CNN. The attack on the pipelines last September has been condemned by US officials and Western allies alike as a sabotage on critical infrastructure. CNN has not seen the document but the three officials confirmed the US was told about the Ukrainian plans. But, the intelligence also said that Ukraine’s military operation was “put on hold.”CNN has reached out to the Ukrainian government for comment. “I think you know there are three countries conducting an investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage — and we called it sabotage at the moment — Germany, Sweden, and Denmark.

Persons: Jack Teixeira, “, Valerii, Volodymyr Zelensky, ”, John Kirby, ” Kirby, Magdalena Andersson, ’ ” Mykhailo Podolyak, CIA “ Organizations: CNN, The Washington Post, Air National, Washington Post, ” CNN, White, National Security, European Union, Twitter, Russia, Post, CIA Locations: Western, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Nord, Russia, Baltic, Europe, Swedish, Danish, Ukrainian

☆ Pedro Sanchez: Spanish PM calls snap elections after setbacks in local polls
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Al Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Madrid CNN —Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced snap parliamentary elections in July, hours after his ruling Socialists suffered major setbacks in regional and local elections. Sanchez, 51, became prime minister in 2018 after winning a vote of no confidence in parliament against then-conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. He formed a coalition government with the leftist Podemos party, which also suffered setbacks in Sunday’s local elections. The prime minister is making “a complex chess move,” Andres Villena, a professor at Madrid’s Complutense University, told CNN. “Sanchez’s decision to move up the elections could neutralize the honeymoon for the incoming conservative leaders” in the local elections, Villena said.

☆ One Secret to a Latin American Party’s Dominance: Buying Votes
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Jack Nicas | María Magdalena Arréllaga | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Espinillo Indigenous community is 13 miles from the nearest polling station — and no one in the village has a car. “We want to look after them,” he said, standing watch with six young men he called colleagues. Then, after dark, The Times found a distinctive type of vote-buying, developed over decades, on blatant display. Mr. Paredes, 65, and his colleagues gathered some of the Indigenous people and took down their identification numbers. The young men then walked the Indigenous people through a simulation of Paraguay’s voting machines on a phone, guiding them to vote for Colorado candidates.

☆ If You Don’t Use Your Land, These Marxists May Take It
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Jack Nicas | Maria Magdalena Arréllaga | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

They arrived just before midnight, carrying machetes and hoes, hammers and sickles, with plans to seize the land. When the 200 activists and farm workers got there, the ranch was vacant, overgrown with weeds, and the farm headquarters empty, except for a stray cow. On a recent Sunday, children rode bicycles on new dirt paths, women tilled soil for gardens and men pulled tarps onto shelters. The siblings who inherited the 370-acre ranch want the squatters gone. The new tenants say they aren’t going anywhere.

“It was just so original,” she told Reuters, and her co-lead, “Umbrella Academy” actor Ritu Arya, could not agree more. When Lena drops out of art school and quickly gets engaged, Ria and her friends plan a bride-heist of epic proportions. Director Nida Manzoor's first feature film scored a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Critics have praised the quirky martial arts film for its inspiring and unconventional representation of compelling women and girls. “Strong women come from strong women,” Kansara said.

☆ Ecuador's Lasso authorizes civilian use of guns, citing insecurity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 2 (Reuters) - Ecuador has authorized the carrying and use of guns by civilians, President Guillermo Lasso said in a televised broadcast, citing rising crime and insecurity in the Andean country. "We have a common enemy: petty crime, drug trafficking, and organized crime," Lasso said late on Saturday in a message also posted on Twitter. To fight rising insecurity, the government will allow civilians to carry and use guns, he added. "We've modified the decree that allows the possession and carrying of guns. Lasso did not say how long the state of emergency would last.

☆ To stay or go? The dilemma Ukrainians near front face every day
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Mike Collett-White | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

KALYNIVKA, Ukraine, March 21 (Reuters) - It was finally time for Vasyl Kurlyshchuk to leave. She was going to stay in the settlement and wanted to know if Kurlyshchuk was taking his solar powered battery with him. What is now ordinary for the hundreds who remain in Chasiv Yar out of a pre-war population of some 13,000 would be extraordinary elsewhere. "Vera was evacuated to Poltava but a lot of people have stayed," said the 67-year-old, pointing to pictures on her smartphone of her friend, who had left Chasiv Yar for a safer place. That meant three fewer familiar faces for Olena and her friends as they carried on in Chasiv Yar.

☆ US sanctions three people for abuse of Russian opposition politician
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Katharine Jackson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on three Russians it accused of serious human rights abuses against Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was arrested last year after speaking out against the war in Ukraine. The U.S. Treasury Department said the sanctions target Elena Anatolievna Lenskaya, Andrei Andreevich Zadachin and Danila Yurievich Mikheev for abuses under the Global Magnitsky Act. Kara-Murza, who holds both British and Russian citizenship and was a pallbearer at the 2018 funeral of U.S. Senator John McCain, was a close aide to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in central Moscow in 2015. Kara-Murza has pushed for the U.S., Canada, European Union and Britain to use Magnitsky-style sanctions to target human rights abusers and corrupt actors in Russia, the Treasury Department said.

☆ Colombia court moves to metaverse to host hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Isabel Woodford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] A magistrate speaks during a Colombian court hearing held in the Metaverse, February 15, 2023, in this still image taken from a social media video. Bogota?s Municipal Criminal Court 69/via REUTERSFeb 24 (Reuters) - A Colombian court this month hosted its first legal trial in the metaverse, and now hopes to experiment again with virtual reality, authorities told Reuters. At the two-hour hearing held by Colombia's Magdalena Administrative court, participants in a traffic dispute appeared as avatars in a virtual courtroom. "It felt more real than a video call," Quiones told Reuters on Friday, describing the metaverse experience as "amazing." Nonetheless, Colombia's court proceedings on Feb 15 - streamed to Youtube - went off without too much of a glitch, bar some dizzying camera movement and some distorted movements.

☆ Earthquake death toll tops 35,000 as few survivors pierce misery in Turkey and Syria
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Kelly Cobiella | Mithil Aggarwal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Hulya Bayrak is rescued from rubble of collapsed building 116 hours after earthquakes, on February 10, 2023 in Turkey's Hatay. The death toll from earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria passed 35,000 on Monday as a handful of survivors were pulled from the rubble more than a week after the disasters devastated swaths of both countries. Emergency workers rescued 11-year-old Lena Maradini on Sunday, who had been trapped for over 160 hours close to the epicenter in Hatay, a European Pressphoto Agency picture showed. Another woman, Naide Umay, was rescued from the rubble nearby after almost 175 hours, according to a video by Reuters. The death toll was expected to climb further.

☆ Salary Transparency Is Coming — so I Decided to Tell Everyone What I Make
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Aki Ito | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +37 min

But there's a glaring catch to my support for pay transparency: I haven't actually practiced it in my own life. To find out why, I decided to commemorate the dawning age of salary transparency by telling pretty much everyone in my life what I earn. Norway responded to pay transparency with yet another level of transparency, and that brought down the level of snooping.. Thanks to its nationwide experiment, Norway has been fertile ground for scholars trying to measure the consequences of extreme pay transparency. But I do believe that as more states implement pay-disclosure laws — and as Gen Z increasingly comes to dominate the workforce — salary transparency is going to become the new norm.

☆ These twins started companies together and other cofounders can learn a lot from them about rivalries, comparisons and being close to your business partner
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Having a business partner you are personally close to can be a huge benefit, they said. Torsten Pieper, an academic at UNC Charlotte, told Insider that twins having distinct roles in a business can be beneficial. Research from the Institute for Family Business showed companies that promote themselves as family-run can gain greater trust and are better placed to attract talent. Phan said family businesses inherently care about their communities, because their identity is often attached to the community where they work. As long as we're together, that's greatAll the twins said their businesses have changed the nature of their relationships.

Under the three-day amnesty which began on Saturday, Ukrainians living in villages across the river can traverse the Dnipro during daylight hours and to a designated point. Anastasiia, who also only gave her first name, said she was at the port because she hoped to cross the river the other way, into Russian-held territory where her relatives are. Russian forces have intensified artillery attacks on the Kherson region since withdrawing from the western bank of the Dnipro. Dozens have died in attacks in the region, Ukrainian officials say. Mykola, 73, said his daughter happened to be on the east bank of the river when Kherson was liberated and got stuck alone in Russian-held territory.

☆ Sweden shuns formal joint investigation of Nord Stream leak, citing national security
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Mats Ljungqvist, the prosecutor involved in Sweden's criminal investigation into the Nord Stream leaks in the Swedish economic zone, said Sweden was already co-operating with Denmark and Germany on the matter. He said Sweden had rejected the proposal for a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) from judicial co-operation agency Eurojust because a such a joint investigation would include legal agreements under which Sweden would have to share information from its own investigation that it deemed confidential. He made his comment after a report in German weekly Der Spiegel on Friday that Sweden had rejected plans for a joint investigation with Denmark and Germany, citing German security sources. A Swedish Security Services spokesperson said the security police were co-operating closely with other authorities, also internationally, as part of the Swedish criminal investigation. German TV programme Tagesschau on German public broadcaster ARD said that Denmark, too, had turned down setting up a joint investigation team.

☆ Sweden won't share Nord Stream investigation findings with Russia - PM
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

STOCKHOLM, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Sweden won't share findings of the investigation into the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines with Russian authorities or Gazprom (GAZP.MM), Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Monday. A Swedish crime scene investigation of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Europe has found evidence of detonations and prosecutors suspect sabotage. Last week Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin sent a letter to the Swedish government demanding that Russian authorities and Gazprom would be allowed to be involved in the investigation, which Sweden denied. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterOn Monday Andersson said Sweden won't even share the findings of the explosions that took place in the Swedish economic zone, with Russian authorities. However, Andersson said Sweden had no power to stop Russian vessels from visiting the sites of the explosions now that the crime scene investigation was concluded.

Russia intends to call a United Nations Security Council meeting over damage to the gas pipelines, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Telegram. In the Baltic Sea, gas was still bubbling from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the Swedish Coast Guard said in an email. "There are good teams in place to handle pipeline accidents, there are emergency pipe inventories and experts for onshore and offshore," Jens Schumann, managing director of gas pipeline grid company Gasunie Deutschland, said. European gas prices rose following news of the leaks. The new Nord Stream 2 pipeline had yet to enter commercial operations.

"Any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response," Borrell said. A statement issued by Russia's embassy in Denmark said that any sabotage on Nord Stream's pipelines was an attack on both Russia's and Europe's energy security. Map of Nord Stream pipelines and locations of reported leaksGAS FLOWSOperator Nord Stream has called the damage "unprecedented", while Gazprom (GAZP.MM), the Russian-controlled company with a monopoly on its gas exports by pipeline, declined to comment. Russia reduced gas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 before suspending flows altogether in August, blaming Western sanctions for causing technical difficulties. The new Nord Stream 2 pipeline had yet to enter commercial operations.

☆ Gas is pouring out of the Nord Stream pipelines. Here’s what you need to know
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Rob Picheta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

London CNN —Western nations have said leaks in two Russian gas pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2, are likely the result of sabotage. What happened on the Nord Stream pipelines? Swedish authorities first sounded the alarm on Tuesday about leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines – both of which run under the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark. The two Nord Stream pipelines designed to transport Russian gas to the EU were years in the planning. The damage to the Nord Stream pipelines may spell an ignominious end for the 25-year project, at least for the near future.

CNN —Leaders of several Western countries have said leaks in two Russian gas pipelines are likely the result of sabotage, vowing a strong response as investigations continue. “The destruction that occurred on the same day simultaneously on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented,” said the pipeline’s operator Nord Stream AG. The incident has sank any remaining expectations that Europe could receive gas via Nord Stream 1 before the winter, as gas prices soar and countries hunt for alternative energy supplies. Russia halted all gas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 in August, blaming Western sanctions for causing technical difficulties – which European politicians say is just a pretext to stop supplying gas. The new Nord Stream 2 pipeline had not yet entered commercial operation.

☆ Telescopes and satellites captured clouds and spider-like plumes of debris after NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

NASA's DART spacecraft successfully crashed into an asteroid on Monday night. The spacecraft took images of its impending doom until the very end, when it rammed into the targeted space rock: Dimorphos. LICIACube image showing the dusty aftermath of the DART impact. ASI/NASAThe tiny Italian satellite captured spider-like plumes of debris emanating from the targeted space rock, below. About three minutes post-crash, LICIACube flew within 35 miles of the asteroid Dimorphos, to survey the collision's aftermath.

☆ Sweden's PM says Nord Stream leaks seen as deliberate acts
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

STOCKHOLM, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Sweden's prime minister said on Tuesday that two blasts had been detected in relation to the leaks of the Nord Stream pipelines with information suggesting likely sabotage, though this did not represent an act of war against Sweden. "We have Swedish intelligence, but we have also received information in our contacts with Denmark, and based on this concluded that this is probably a deliberate act. It is probably a matter of sabotage," Andersson said. "It is not a matter of an attack on Swedish or Danish territory. Europe was investigating major leaks in two Russian pipelines that spewed gas into the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark on Tuesday as Sweden launched a preliminary probe into possible sabotage.

A DART view of the Dimorphos asteroid right before impact. NASA via YouTubeThe DART spacecraft, which is about the size of a vending machine, crashed into Dimorphos at 7:14 p.m. "Oh my goodness," said Elena Adams, a DART mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The DART mission is functioning as a proof of concept of asteroid deflection as a planetary defense strategy. Betts said he hopes the DART mission will continue to raise awareness about the importance of planetary defense.

☆ NASA's unprecedented DART mission will intentionally slam a spacecraft into an asteroid next week
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test will collide with an asteroid on September 26. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 in November 2021, with the aim of nudging a space rock into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion asteroid. The $308 million spacecraft traveled 6.8 million miles from Earth to Dimorphos, a small asteroid orbiting the asteroid Didymos. NASA JPL DART Navigation TeamOn Monday, September 26, four hours before impact, DART will switch into autonomous mode, steering itself toward its target. An animation from behind as NASA's first planetary defense test mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, collides with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos.

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