RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/October 2020

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October 2020[edit]

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32United Kingdom The BBC new "no bias" rules prevent staff from joining LGBT pride marches. UPDATE: The staff will be allowed to join LGBT pride marches but must avoid "virtue signalling" which some accuse of being a Tory attack against trans rights and the Black Lives Matter movement
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36VenezuelaUnited States It turns out that Operation Gideon (2020)Wikipedia, the hilariously incompetent coup attempt against Nicolás Maduro, was actually supported by officials at the Trump administration
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30New ZealandNew Zealanders vote overwhelmingly in favour of assisted dying.
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18United Kingdom An investigative report into antisemitism in the Labour Party finds that members used the antisemitism campaign to engage in multiple breaches of the 2010 Equality Act including discrimination, harassment and political interference
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23FranceNice attack: Three dead and several injured in suspected terror assault at Notre-Dame de Nice. One victim was "virtually beheaded" according to authorities.
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29the World For the first time, since records began, Arctic Sea ice isn't forming in October.
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37the WorldAustralia The state of South Australia has achieved the world's first milestone of having temporarily 100% of its electricity generated by solar panels
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14United States Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed to US Supreme Court. The Senate vote was largely down partly lines (52-48), with Susan Collins being the only Republican to vote against.
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51SwedenUnited StatesHungaryTurkey A study from the University of Gothenburg has found that, since the year 2000, the Republican Party has abandoned upholding democratic norms and resembles nationalist parties in autocratic nations like in Hungary and Turkey
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27TurkeyFrance French president Emmanuel Macron has pledged to defend secular values. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees a chance to imply Muslims in France are in danger and calls on Turks to boycott French goods.
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34Chile The Chilean referendum ends with a whooping 78% agreeing to rewriting the constitution. Elections will be held for the constitutional convention.
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26ChileChile will hold a referendum on whether to replace its Pinochet-era constitution.
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1United States Due to Democrats' incompetence boycott, the Senate Judiciary Committee approves ultra-reactionary Amy Coney Barrett for SCOTUS. This sets the stage for a full Senate approval next week
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8Australia It has been revealed in the Palace LettersWikipedia, that in 1975 Prince Charles so desperately wanted to be the Governor-General of Australia, that in a hand-written note he personally praised John Kerr, the Governor-General at the time, for sacking the Whitlam Government.
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54United StatesNorth Carolina. Neo-Nazi arrested in North Carolina hoped to assassinate Joe Biden, had a huge stockpile of guns and child pornography. Nasty guy.
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14IsraelSudanUnited StatesSudan's transitional government has normalized relations with Israel in a US-brokered deal, and in exchange Donald Trump will remove it from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
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27France Two French Muslim women stabbed under the Eiffel Tower by white women who shouted "dirty Arabs!"
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4Ireland Hic, in beer news Ireland's most famous brewer Guinness has said after four years of work, it has created an alcohol-free of its iconic stout, called Guinness 0.0. It would be available in British and Irish supermarkets next month and pubs from February 2021.
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17PolandPoland's Supreme Court has effectively banned abortion in almost all instances.
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23NigeriaDozens of anti-police brutality protesters gunned down by police in Lagos, Nigeria.
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84United StatesJames Randi, the skeptic's skeptic, has passed away.
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18United States Administration officials alarmed by White House push to fast-track lucrative 5G spectrum contract to Rivada, which has close ties to the Trump administration.
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47Vatican CityIn the documentary “Francesco” that has been released this week, Pope Francis has said he supports same-sex unions on the grounds that “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable because of it.”
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22United States DOJ launches an antitrust lawsuit against Google for anticompetitive practices
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15United Kingdom Flag of England.svgAfter five senior bishops including the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby criticised them in a letter to the Financial Times about the government’s attempt to break international law. The head of influential Brexiteer group the ERG, Steve Baker has proposed disestablishing the Church to stop it meddling in government affairs.
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25CanadaQuébec A small town in Quebec has just changed its name to Val-des-Sources. Its old name was Asbestos.
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21United StatesRussiaThe 8chan and other Qanon sites have had their website security protection swtiched off, and are now protected by a company based in St Petersburg. The company in question also ironically provides support for the websites owned by Hamas.
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21New Zealand After proving her mettle after the Christchurch terrorist attacks, coping with a volcanic disaster and successfully eradicating New Zealand of Covid-19 not once but twice, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is rewarded with a landslide victory in the 2020 elections
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19the WorldUnited Nations Unthinkable hell: A UN report shows that in the last twenty years there were nearly 7,350 major recorded disasters, including tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires, that combined claimed more than 1.2 million lives and affected 4.2 billion people worldwide
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20Thailand Thailand's continues streak of three months-long pro-democracy protests against the restrictive Lèse-majestéWikipedia laws and allow the banned Future Foward Party to freely operate in the country.
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23United StatesThe New York Times has reported that a series of what appears to local news media sites like the Pine State News, Empire State Today and the Des Monies Sun, are actually highly partisan conservative and corporate astroturfed sites aiming to bolster local Republicans and smear local Democrats.
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30United StatesNevada. Elon Musk’s Las Vegas tunnel loop has become a boondoggle, after it was discovered that won’t transport as many people as promised.
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20France France: Teacher decapitated in gruesome 'Islamist terror attack' near Paris
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27the World Twitter and Facebook will ban posts that push for Holocaust denial
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16Netherlands The Dutch public news broadcaster NOS is removing its corporate logo from its news vans, to prevent attacks by far-right extremists against its staff and equipment.
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6United KingdomEuropean Union Boris Johnson says that it's time to prepare for a no-deal Brexit
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19AfghanistanUnited StatesTop Afghan diplomat says that Trump's tweet calling for US troops to be home by Christmas has emboldened the Taliban and given it leverage in the peace negotiations.
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25United NationsYemenA stranded and deteriorating oil tanker off the coast of Yemen threatens to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil in the Red Sea. The UN is trying to stop the disaster, but they're being held up by Yemeni civil war combatants, potentially for another seven weeks.
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56the World For the first time, wind and solar made up a majority of the world's new power generation
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23Nigeria After widespread protests, the Nigerian government disbands the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) due to instances of torture, police brutality and extra-judicial execution though the government has continued to repress the protestors
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23CyprusCyprus has announced it is shutting down its cash-for-citizenship "golden passport" scheme, due to revelations it has been criminally abused. The golden passport scheme allows people to invest €2 million in Cypriot investments, principally property, in exchange for Cypriot citizenship.
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9Vatican CityItalyThe Catholic Church is at it again, beatifying Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 aged 15, and putting him on the path to potential sainthood. The Church claims he interceded from heaven in 2013 to cure a Brazilian boy who was suffering from a rare pancreatic disease.
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30United States Facebook responsible for 94% of 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US tech firms
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25SpainUnited Kingdom Historical archives unearthed reveal that Soviet surveillance was targeted at George Orwell and his wife during the Spanish Civil War
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24Spain Magistrate calls for Supreme Court to investigate Deputy PM Pablo Iglesias in relation to the theft of a colleague's cellphone and release of the data within
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29Mexico Mexican Senate approves a referendum to ask citizens to decide whether to prosecute five former presidents for corruption
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32United States DHS Homeland threat assessment - "Among DVEs, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists—specifically white supremacist extremists (WSEs)—will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland. "
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38Australia E pur si muove. Human evolution continues - Australian study finds increased incidence of new bones and arteries, disappearing teeth as evidence human micro-evolution is continuing - possibly at a faster rate than previously thought
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40United StatesSouth Carolina. South Carolina's Supreme Court stops Governor McMaster's plan to divert federal relief funds from public to private schools. Alternate link
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49United StatesMichigan. The FBI has arrested six men in connection, and have thwarted a militia plot to overthrow the government of the state of Michigan and kidnap the governor Gretchen Whitmer. It is alleged that the men are connected to the Proud Boys group.
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29GermanyThe German branch of Extinction Rebellion blocked the roads in and out of the Reichstag, protesting for the demand of an “ecocide law”, which would designate climate and environmental damage as a criminal offence.
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30United StatesOklahoma. Three prison guards receive misdemeanor charges after being caught torturing prisoners with "Baby Shark" tune while said prisoners were handcuffed to the wall
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60Greece Leading figures in Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party found guilty of murder, gangsterism, and other crimes following what's called "the biggest trial of neo-fascists since the prosecution of the Nazis at Nuremberg".
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52United Statesthe World Facebook bans QAnon across its platforms.
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16Ireland The Dáil is voting on whether to, in a limited way, allow assisted suicide for persons who are terminally ill in the Dying with Dignity bill.
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13United States Donald Trump says stimulus negotiations are over until the election
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36Australia 3,000 years after they disappeared from mainland Australia, Tasmanian devils have been reintroduced into the wild there.
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23Canada Annamie Paul, the new leader of the Green Party, becomes the first black person to lead a political party in Canada.
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19New Zealand Wildfires in New Zealand destroy holiday village of Lake Ohau.
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35Vatican Citythe World Pope Francis, in his new encyclical [edict] "Fratelli Tutti", declared that the death penalty is inadmissible and all Catholics should work towards its abolition, and life imprisonment is wrong, along with lambasting neoliberal obsession of using the market to solve all problems
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69United States #proudboys has been taken over by gay men. Well played sir!
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28Belgium In forming a new federal government, Flemish Green Petra de Sutter has been chosen as the new minister of the civil service and deputy prime minister. This would make her the first trans minister in Europe.
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30United States Twitter facing backlash after forcing users to delete posts in which they hope for President Trump's death of Covid-19 but does nothing for death threats and harassment
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2United Kingdom The House of Commons Twitter account has been stopped from reporting the results of parliamentary votes, after Conservative MPs complained it broke impartiality rules.
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35United States In a move that is totally not unconstitutional, US immigration services have moved to ban immigration to the United States by anyone who is a "member of a communist or any other totalitarian party."
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20United Kingdom The UK government is setting up a full feasibility study on creating a fixed link between Scotland and Northern Ireland, despite expert and local politicians repeatedly pointing out it is an engineering challenge and economically unviable.