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North Korea’s Ballistic Rockets Are Proof the Country’s a Big Nuclear Threat

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North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un smoking

Kim Jong-un is not as defenseless as the media portrayed him lately.

Last weekend, North Korea tested a new type of ballistic rockets perfectly capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the United States mainland. These new additions are considerably more powerful and efficient than anything else North Korea wielded until now, transforming the country from an irritable pestering presence to one of our biggest nuclear threats.

Jubilant at the sight of the test’s results, Kim Jong-un was obiously sending an international message. It’s North Korea’s way of finally exposing its teeth, showing that sometimes, a barking dog does indeed bite.

Pyongyang Has Threatened Its Enemies for Decades

This is not the first time a North Korean leader threatened one of its enemies. As his predecessor, Kim Jong-un desires to erase Seoul from the face of the Earth. Now, if the propaganda is real – and chances are this is not another exaggerated lie – North Korea could finally constitute a very real and very big nuclear threat for both South Korea and all its allies.

Coupled with Sunday’s successful trials, North Korea’s incessant efforts to become a nuclear power have made the country a top priority in President’s Trump foreign policy to-do list. Although the POTUS has expressed his intentions of meeting with the country’s dictator, other, even more pressing matters, stopped him from going through with this promise. In the meantime, Kim Jong-un declared:

“the most perfect weapon systems in the world will never become the eternal exclusive property of the U.S.”

This loosely translates into “the United States should choose its enemies with more care.” It could also be a hint at North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Alas, it could also be a giant bluff.

Is This a Message to Moon Jae-in?

Some think Kim Jong-un is trying to send a not-so-discrete message to South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in. The freshly-instated liberal has declared numerous times he is planning on sitting down with Kim Jong-un to try and reach an agreement. Such a display of forces can efficiently silence any peace talks.

On the other hand, Europe, Japan, and the United States have been gathering an impressive fleet in the Pacific Ocean, so the missile test could have been the North Korean dictator’s way of saying “I’m not as defenseless as you think.”

Image Source: Flickr

Filed Under: World

Russia Blocked LinkedIn After the Company Failed to Export Users’ Personal Data

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LinkedIn small square chocolates

Russia blocked LinkedIn because the company failed to bring Russian users personal data on a national server.

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communication regulator recently began enforcing a LinkedIn ban all across the country because the network did not manage to transfer all Russian user data on national servers. The problem is that Russian law states that all online platforms that collect personal data must store it on servers from within the country, all companies who fail do so being banned.

LinkeIn officially confirmed the ban in a recent statement, declaring that the social media platform will continue to negotiate with Roskomnadzor. At the moment, the website has millions of Russian users and thousands of small company accounts.

The platform is currently undergoing changes as Microsoft acquired it for $26.2 billion, the merger coming with additional regulatory problems. LinkedIn representatives attempted to meet with Russian representatives on November 11th, but their efforts were in vain as the IPS block is already in place.

Moreover, according to the official statement, LinkedIn did not even get to the meeting, Roskomnadzor preferring to review the social platform’s newest proposal in private.

At the moment, it is not clear if LinkedIn is trying to gain access to a national server or if it is desperately attempting to bypass the law.

However, this is not the first country to ask LinkedIn to host their data within the country. China’s law is similar to that of Russia, stopping online websites from storing sensitive data on international servers. In order to meet the country’s demands, LinkedIn built a different website.

According to Russian sources, LinkedIn is not the only website that is storing Russian data outside the country. An assortment of other international websites are available in the country, the government not doing anything to ban their activity.

The reasons why they chose to attack LinkedIn may be connected to the fact that the website, which currently hosts 5 million Russian users, was a token ban.

Russia blocked LinkedIn as a warning for other major social media players like Twitter and Facebook.

Google, Apple, and Evernote are among the companies who complied with the country’s regulations without much ado.

LinkedIn representatives will continue to try to speak with Roskomnadzor in an attempt to remove the ban. We will keep you posted on the outcomes.

Image source: Wikipedia 

Filed Under: World

What Made the Easter Island Civilisation Vanish? New Evidence Says Not War

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What Made the Easter Island Civilisation Vanish? New Evidence Says Not War

Researchers have found sharp, spear-like objects all across Easter Island, which led them to believe that the ancient civilisation was wiped out due to massive warfare. However, new evidence suggests that the mata’a (the objects) were not used as weapons.

Easter Island is a Chilean island in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean, located about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometres) off the coast of Chile. The name ‘Easter Island’ was given by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, the island’s first recorded European visitor, who came across it on Easter Sundayin 1722.

Polynesian people first arrived on the island sometime between 300 and 1200 CE. The Rapa Nui, or native Polynesian inhabitants of Easter Island, are famous for the majestic stone statues, known as moai – which are monolithic human figures. These statues that were carved by the Rapa Nui people were placed on the coastline; more than nine hundred of them have been discovered. A lot of scholars have said that there must have been tens of thousands of residents on the island at some point.

It was previously thought that an internal warfare led to the collapse of the Easter Island society. However, some archaeologists say that slavery and diseases introduced by Europeans have caused the decline of the Polynesian population.

In a new study – published Wednesday (Feb. 13) in the online journal Antiquity – the researchers used a technique called morphometric analysis to examine the shapes of more than four hundred mata’a.

Carl Lipo, lead author of the study and an anthropologist at Binghamton University in New York, said that mata’a have various shapes: some are square, some are roundish, and some have a triangular aspect.

According to Lipo, the mata’a would not have been very good weapons. Not all of them are pointed, they are not sharp, are too asymmetrical and thick for piercing lethal wounds. The mata’a were likely used to scrape and cut things, based on their wear patterns, according to the researchers. Moreover, evidence of systemic weapons is also absent from the island. Also, no traces of severed limbs, lethal skull trauma, or mass graves have been found through archaeological digs on Easter Island. There are also no defensive fort-like structures.

Mara Mulrooney, an anthropologist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, who also studies the Rapa Nui civilization, said that the small population of 3,000 Rapa Nui individuals probably flourished even after the arrival of the European in 1722. Mulrooney stated that the morphometric analysis of mata’a provided further evidence that the Rapa Nui war not destroyed by internal warfare.

The general purpose of the mata’a was probably for agricultural practices, tattooing, and ritual sacrifice, according to Lipo. Such activities would make a lot more sense, since no archaeological findings suggest that there was a great warfare among locals, he added.

Currently, Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. The nearest town, on the island of Mangareva, is 1,619 miles (2,606 kilometres) away, and the nearest inhabited land, Pitcairn Island, is located 1,289 miles (2,075 kilometres) away.

Image Source: festivalsherpa

Filed Under: World Tagged With: Civilisation Vanish, Easter Island, Not War, Polynesians, Rapa Nui

Water Scarcity May Affect 4 Billion People

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Water Scarcity May Affect 4 Billion People

Four billion people face water scarcity, a number that is actually twice as high as previous estimates, according to scientists from the Netherlands.

The World Economic Forum stated in 2015 that the water crisis is the top risk that Earth faces. Fresh water on Earth is getting scarcer.

Scientists from the Netherlands said that previous research has underestimated the severity of water scarcity across the globe. Dr. Arjen Hoekstra and Dr. Mesfin Mekonnen at the University of Twente in Enschede, Netherlands said that the water crisis is not impacting two billion people around the world, but more like four billion people.

Dr. Mekonnen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente, said that previous studies on water scarcity have relied on annual averages, not showing the actual variability throughout a year. For the new study, Mekonnen and Hoekstra looked at the amount of freshwater that is withdrawn and not returned each month. That way they could assess the scarcity of water on a global level.

The scientists noted that the four billion people do not experience water scarcity for the entire year, but rather for one month a year. According to Dr. Mekonnen, only half a billion people are facing water scarcity all year round.

Dr. Hoekstra explained that it is important for consumers to be informed about the severity of the water crisis around the world so that they can demand transparency from business and governments. For instance, no one is questioning the meat and dairy sections although they contribute more than a quarter to the global water footprint, according to Dr. Hoekstra.

The study also suggested that water scarcity may be linked with population levels, rather than how developed or undeveloped a country is. Both China and India – two of the most populated countries in the world – are experiencing water scarcity. Other populations facing water scarcity live in the United States, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mexico, and Bangladesh, the researchers found. These are five of the ten most populated countries worldwide.

To make sure that water consumption does not exceed the maximum sustainable levels, governments should put a limit on water footprints per month and per river basin, according to Dr. Mekonnen. Human, environmental, economic, and social costs can also be assessed by measuring the water scarcity levels with accuracy, Dr. Mekonnen added.

The new report was published Friday (Feb. 12) in the journal Science Advances.

Image Source: concordmonitor

Filed Under: World Tagged With: Water Scarcity May Affect 4 Billion People

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