RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/October 2021

October 2021
An investigation by CBC found that Xinjiang tomatoes farmed by Uyghurs were being used in ketchup and pasta sauce by some of Canada's biggest brands. Anti-vaxxer conspiracionist, Rémy Daillet, arrested on the charges of allegedly recruiting soldiers to attempt at storming the presidential palace and overthrow the French government The US issues the first passport that gives the holder's gender as X instead of F or M. Andrew Cuomo charged with misdemeanor offense of "forcible touching" Like the whole renaming of Windscale into Sellafield, Facebook think it wipe its stale clean by rebranding the holding company to "Meta". Prosecutors in the Kyle Rittenhouse case can't use the word "victims" to describe the people shot by him for being too loaded, but apparently using "rioters" and "looters" is okay in closing arguments if his attorneys can prove they were actually looting and rioting Australian Josh Cavallo becomes the only male top-flight professional soccer player currently playing to come out as gay. Evidence suggests that the Big Bang wasn't the beginning of the universe Elephants have evolved to become tuskless due to large-scale poaching, study finds Quebec introduces "most transphobic bill ever introduced in Canada", attempts to reinstate sterilizing surgery as requirement for full gender recognition after removing it 6 years ago States that cutoff of jobless aid see no surge of job seekers [https://www.bbc.com/news/education-59024961 A history textbook for British 16 and 17-year-olds will no longer be published because it asked them to consider if the mistreatment of Native Americans in the 19th century has been exaggerated. An exam board apologizes for approving it.] President Biden promised during a townhall that the US would defend Taiwan against any Chinese attack, enraging the People's Republic and leaving his administration scrambling to explain that there will be no fundamental policy shift in the region. The governor-general of Barbados, Dame Sandra Mason, is set to become the country's first president and replace Queen Elizabeth II as head of State. She will assume office on November 30 when the country becomes a republic and abolishes its monarchy. Alaska state representative David Eastman (R-Wasilla) has openly said he is a member of the far-right group the Oath Keepers. As the Alaskan state constitution prohibits people belonging to groups advocating the overthrow of the government from holding public office, he could be thrown out of Juneau. Robert Willis aka Hacker X, who helped build up a massive pro-Trump disinformation network in the United States has revealed who his employer is, and it is ... NaturalNews.

7-foot statue of Harambe built in Wall Street Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, dead at 84 due to complications from COVID Note that, while he had been fully vaccinated, he also had myeloma which is a cancer that compromises the immune system. Cuban dictatorship bans bid for new protests Tory MP, Sir David Amess, has been stabbed to death, at a constituency meeting in Essex. Update the murder has been declared a terrorist incident by police It was once a source of great abundance—particularly fossil fuels and fish—for the people of Venezuela. Now Lake Maracaibo (the largest lake in South America) is mostly abundant with pollution from leaking oil and excess nutrients. Tommy Robinson handed five-year stalking ban after targeting journalist’s home British global warming denialists Global Warming Policy Foundation, a favourite of Tory MP Steve Baker, rebrand as Net Zero Watch. They apparently now accept global warming is real but don't want anything too drastic to be done about it. One of the UK's biggest heritage foundations, is warning about the far-right "anti-woke" group Restore Trust who are trying to infiltrate its board of governors. One of those trying to get on board, is Stephen Green remember him? The Australian engineer joining William Shatner on board Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight Holdouts including Hungary and Ireland have retreated and agreed to part of the 136 nations to enact a minimum 15% corporation tax rate, as agreed by the OCED. The owner of the Filipino news website Rappler and the editor of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov have jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize for their fight for freedom of expression. According to news agency Reuters, OANN was created to establish a rival conservative news network for the telecommunications and media corporation AT&T. Federal judge blocks Texas heartbeat abortion law. The World Health Organisation has given its approval for the go-ahead to start a pilot of the world's first vaccine against malaria, in three African countries; Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Cuba legalizes SMEs for the first time since 1968. Todd Akin, the former Republican Congressman, notorious for coining the phrase "legitimate rape." has a case of legitimate death. Facebook Whistleblower Reveals Herself In ’60 Minutes’ Interview, Says Company Is “Paying For Its Profits With Our Safety” And today, Facebook gets hit with a major outage. A Texas judge finds Alex Jones liable for [https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1042423742/alex-jones-sandy-hook-hoax-conspiracy damages in three defamation lawsuits brought by the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre over his claims that the shooting was a hoax. The cases now head to trial for juries to determine the amount Jones will have to pay the families]. Five years after the leak of the original Panama Papers, the release an even more colossal leak exposing the financial secrets of the rich and powerful, consisting of almost 12 million files from 14 sources and 2.94TB of data, titled the. The leak includes the secret offshore affairs of 35 world leaders and more than 300 other public officials in more than 90 countries.  Orange skinned man child cries foul to judge over not getting own way. Wonder what happened to his own new, better, freer social media platform. A national embarrassment has another hissy fit A pre-brief to an enquiry into paedophilia in the French Catholic Church, has said that were a least 3000 paedophilic priests operating in the Church since 1950. Pat Robertson has announced his retirement from the 700 Club. The day after it was revealed to the public that was kidnapped via false arrest by Wayne Couzens for violating coronavirus rules, using his Met Police issued  and duty belt; the Met Police have given the real useful advice. If a woman is approached by a lone plain-clothes officer, like Couzens presented himself as, to "shout out to a passer-by, run into a house, knock on a door, wave a bus down or call 999". Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police Commissioner said on BBC radio that women "need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that." Alan "You're Fired" Sugar among 24 lords to have broken parliamentary finance rules New York Times reports on a study that finds "More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled"