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sarahbalick

India stabbing: Bystanders watch as Delhi woman killed - BBC News - 0 views

  • India stabbing: Bystanders watch as Delhi woman killed
  • Indians have reacted with outrage after passers-by watched a woman being stabbed more than 20 times on a busy street in the capital, Delhi.
  • choolteacher Karuna, 22, who died in the attack.
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  • He is seen stabbing her repeatedly as people walk by, before hitting her on the head with a stone and kicking her.
  • Locals did eventually intervene when he tried to escape.
  • "She was attacked as she was walking with her cousin at around 9am. It seems that the assailant started liking her when they used to be neighbours earlier, but since he was married, she never paid attention," senior police official Esha Pandey told the BBC.
  • Earlier deputy commissioner of police, Madhur Verma, told reporters that "the family had lodged a complaint four-five months back and both the families had reached a compromise".
  • On Sunday evening, 28-year-old Laxmi was stabbed to death in front of her house in full view of her neighbours by a man who then killed himself, the Times of India newspaper reported .
Javier E

Opinion | Trump Contrives His Stab-in-the-Back Myth - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The word Dolchstosslegende is hard to pronounce but important to understand. It translates as “stab-in-the-back myth” and was a key element in the revival of German militarism in the Weimar years. Even modestly educated Germans know exactly what it denotes and the evil it entails.
  • Donald Trump and his legal team are now contriving their own Dolchstosslegende.
  • The main point of the exercise is no longer (if it ever seriously was) to find a judge, governor or other pliable instrument to deny Joe Biden the presidency.
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  • It is to deny the legitimacy of the Biden presidency, of the electoral system that gave him the office and of the federal and judicial systems that turned Trump’s legal challenges aside.
  • the nature of the myth wasn’t that it should be believable. It’s that it should be believed.
  • In a famous passage of “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt noted how “Mass Propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”
  • it had the double advantage of bucking up a humiliated nation’s pride and playing to its gut prejudices.
  • Nor does it matter that the lawyer Sidney Powell painted an anti-Trump conspiracy so vast that it seems to have embarrassed Giuliani and would have made the ghost of Joe McCarthy proud. What matters is that Powell’s list of enemies — from the director of the C.I.A. to the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez — hit all the right notes for the president’s die-hards.
  • 52 percent of Republicans think the president “rightfully won” re-election, at least according to a Reuters Ipsos poll from last week. In other words, a majority of Republicans will believe literally anything Trump says.
  • There’s a difference. The success of the first rests on a plausible interpretation of facts. The success of the second requires a psychologically astute understanding of the people to whom the lie is peddled
  • The Dolchstosslegende worked because so many Germans were happy to believe what, at some level, they also knew wasn’t true.
  • it had a clear aim that a growing number of Germans shared, which was to overthrow the struggling Weimar Republic by claiming that it was founded on treason. In other words, it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory. It was a political weapon with the revolutionary aim of destroying democracy itself.
  • the aim is clear: to treat the Biden presidency as a product of treachery by a political order that is so comprehensively corrupt that it will require far tougher means than the ones Trump employed to root out.
  • What I am saying is that this modern-day Dolchstosslegende, like surf pounding against a bluff, abets future demagogues by eroding public confidence in democratic institutions, until, unprotected, they collapse.
Javier E

Opinion | Israel Is In Real Danger For Three Reasons - The New York Times - 0 views

  • the Israel of Oct. 7 is an Israel that I’ve never been to before. They were right. It is a place in which Israelis have never lived before, a nation that Israeli generals have never had to protect before, an ally that America has never had to defend before
  • I now understand why so much has changed. It is crystal clear to me that Israel is in real danger — more danger than at any time since its War of Independence in 1948.
  • it’s for three key reasons:
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  • First, Israel is facing threats from a set of enemies who combine medieval theocratic worldviews with 21st century weaponry — and are no longer organized as small bands of militiamen, but as modern armies with brigades, battalions, cyber capabilities, long-range rockets, drones and technical support.
  • my third, deep concern.
  • But Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza entails urban, house-to-house fighting that creates thousands of civilian casualties — innocent men, women and children
  • But President Biden can only sustainably generate the support Israel needs if Israel is ready to engage in some kind of a wartime diplomatic initiative directed at the Palestinians in the West Bank — and hopefully in a post-Hamas Gaza — that indicates Israel will discuss some kind of two-state solutions if Palestinian officials can get their political house unified and in order.
  • The second danger I see is that the only conceivable way that Israel can generate the legitimacy, resources, time and allies to fight such a difficult war with so many enemies is if it has unwavering partners abroad, led by the United States.
  • Netanyahu’s message to the world remains, in effect: “Help us defeat Hamas in Gaza, while we work to expand settlements, annex the West Bank and build a Jewish supremacist state there.”
  • Worse, I am stunned at the degree to which that leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to put the interests of holding on to the support of his far-right base
  • Israel has the worst leader in its history, maybe in all of Jewish history — who has no will or ability to produce such an initiative.
  • This kind of chilling exuberance — Israel was built so that such a thing could never happen — explains the homemade sign I saw on a sidewalk while driving through the French Hill Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem the other day: “It’s either us or them.’’
  • After being slammed by the public for digitally stabbing his army and intelligence chiefs in the back in the middle of a war, Netanyahu published a new tweet. “I was wrong,” he wrote, adding that “the things I said following the press conference should not have been said, and I apologize for that. I fully support the heads of [Israel’s] security services.”
  • As a result, there is a conviction in the army that they must demonstrate to the entire neighborhood — to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the Houthis in Yemen, to the Islamic militias in Iraq to the Hamas and other fighters in the West Bank — that they will stop at nothing to re-establish the security of their borders
  • it wants to show that no one can out-crazy Israel to drive them from this region — even if the Israeli military has to defy the U.S. and even if they do not have any solid plan for governing Gaza the morning after the war.
  • “Israel cannot accept such an active threat on its borders. The whole idea of people living side by side in the Middle East was jeopardized by Hamas.”
  • This conflict is now back to its most biblical and primordial roots. This seems to be a time of eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth. The morning-after policy thinking will have to wait for the mourning after.
  • So, Netanyahu is saying that seven million Jews are going to indefinitely control the lives of five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
  • while offering them no political horizon, nothing, by way of statehood one day on any demilitarized conditions.
  • Early on the morning of Oct. 29, as the Israeli Army was just moving into Gaza, Netanyahu tweeted and then deleted a social media post in which he blamed Israel’s defense and intelligence establishment for failing to anticipate Hamas’s surprise attack.
  • The euphoric rampage of Oct. 7 that killed some 1,400 soldiers and civilians has not only hardened Israeli hearts toward the suffering of Gaza civilians. It has also inflicted a deep sense of humiliation and guilt on the Israeli Army and defense establishment, for having failed in their most basic mission of protecting the country’s borders.
  • the damage was done. How much do you suppose those military leaders trust what Netanyahu will say if the Gaza campaign stalls? What real leader would behave that way at the start of a war of survival?
  • Netanyahu and his far-right zealots have taken Israel on multiple flights of fancy in the last year: dividing the country and the army over the fraudulent judicial reform, bankrupting its future with massive investments in religious schools that teach no math and in West Bank Jewish settlements that teach no pluralism — while building up Hamas, which would never be a partner for peace, and tearing down the Palestinian Authority, the only possible partner for peace.
  • “When you go to the front, you are overwhelmed by the power of what we lost.”
ethanshilling

As House Was Breached, a Fear 'We'd Have to Fight' to Get Out - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The mob of Trump supporters pressed through police barricades, broke windows and battered their way with metal poles through entrances to the Capitol.
  • Then, stunningly, they breached the “People’s House” itself, forcing masked police officers to draw their guns to keep the insurgents off the chamber floor.
  • “I thought we’d have to fight our way out,” said Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army Ranger in Iraq, who found himself captive in the House chamber.
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  • An armed standoff ensued in the House chamber, with police officers drawing their weapons. A pro-Trump protester casually monkeyed around at the dais of the Senate.
  • It began around 1 p.m., when a mass of Trump supporters, some in camouflage and armed with baseball bats or knives, left the National Mall and, encouraged by President Trump, ascended on the Capitol complex.
  • “I don’t trust any of these people,” said Eric Martin, 49, a woodworker from Charleston, S.C., as he marveled at the opulence of the Capitol and helped a friend wash pepper spray from his eyes. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
  • The Capitol Police fatally shot a woman inside the building, according to Chief Robert J. Contee of the Metropolitan Police Department, and multiple officers were injured.
  • “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said as he and other senators were hustled off to a secure location.
  • The few police officers standing on the steps of the Capitol were overwhelmed. Their flash bang grenades only invigorated the protesters. Around 2:30, an entrance near the west side of the Capitol descended into chaos as a wave of Trump supporters wearing Make America Great Again apparel pressed past police barricades.
  • For about an hour, the Trump loyalists went in and out of at least one entrance of the Capitol with little disruption from the police.
  • Soon, a nervous energy pulsed through the room. The police began to close the gallery doors, which had remained open to allow for better ventilation as lawmakers streamed in. Congressional leaders were quickly ushered out, as staff aides urged lawmakers in the gallery and on the floor to remain calm.
  • In the House, just after 2:30 p.m., a police officer stepped on the dais and informed lawmakers that they might need to duck under their chairs.
  • Frantic shouting filled the room as lawmakers struggled to unfold the plastic bags that they were instructed to prepare to put over their heads in case of tear gas.
  • In a surreal scene of chaos and glee, hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the halls, taking photos and breaking into offices. No police officers were in view.
  • “We’re claiming the House, and the Senate is ours,” a sweaty man in a checked shirt shouted, stabbing his finger in the air.
  • “You guys just need to go outside,” he said to a man in a green backpack. Asked why the police were not forcing the mob out, the officer said, “We just got to let them do their thing for now.”
  • One protester came up to him and shouted in his face, “Traitor!” When another man approached to apologize to the officer, the officer replied, “You’re fine.”
  • Around 3:30 p.m., about 25 police officers had entered the Crypt and started asking people to move back. A few minutes later, dozens more, wearing riot gear and some in gas masks, ejected the roughly 150 protesters in the Crypt.
  • Protesters repeatedly exited the building bearing trophies that they had torn off walls. A few carried “Area Closed” signs that they had snatched and then stormed past.
  • By 7 p.m., the presence of police officers and federal agents had drastically increased along the National Mall. Officers pushed back against aggressive protesters as they prepared for the possibility of more unrest overnight.
  • “We want to go back,” Mr. Crow said. “And finish the business of the people to show that we are a democracy, and that the government is stronger than any mob.”
katherineharron

The impeachment trial's virtual reality - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • Before former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, many Capitol Hill Republicans had argued it was futile to force them to relive the January 6 insurrection because they were already witnesses who knew the facts.
  • But by weaving together riveting snippets of video, body camera footage and never-before seen surveillance tapes, Democratic impeachment managers proved Wednesday that it is only by seeing the events of that day from every dimension that one can truly understand the horror of the Capitol attack and the former President's failure to stop it.
  • Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, one of the impeachment managers, noted that the January 6 attack, which killed five people, also led to the injuries of some 140 officers. One will lose an eye, he said. Others have broken ribs. One was stabbed with a metal fence stake
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  • But they made an even more devastating case by chronicling his inaction as commander-in-chief during the most frightening moments of the siege with clips from Twitter, Parler and YouTube; cell phone footage from reporters and members of Congress; desperate police radio dispatches calling for backup; officer body camera footage that was marked as being obtained by the US attorney's office; and an array of surveillance camera footage from across the Capitol that captured a bird's-eye view of key moments.
  • Wielding the element of surprise by unearthing many previously unreleased videos, they showed the harrowing moments where then-Vice President Mike Pence, his wife and daughter, were rushed to safety down a narrow stairway on the Senate side of the Capitol. They juxtaposed that surveillance video from an overhead Capitol camera with a video shot from within the angry mob outside chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" -- then crystallized the danger with a chilling photograph of a noose and a gallows that was erected that day outside the Capitol.
  • The managers tried to give it all context by showing Trump's tweet attacking Pence two minutes before the vice president was evacuated down those steps
  • To rebut Trump's defenders' claims that he did not incite violence and had no bearing on the events that unfolded that afternoon, the managers then showed video of a Trump loyalist outside the Capitol reading the former President's tweet accusing Pence of disloyalty in real time over a bullhorn as anger mounted.
  • Never before in history have Americans seen one attack on their nation from so many different perspectives. For hours, the managers outlined in painstaking detail what unfolded in each critical minute of the siege with timestamps — later played back against the President's actions or inaction. Sometimes, they showed the same few minutes or seconds from the vantage point of two or three different videos to punctuate their arguments. The montages were brutal, searing and unforgettable.JUST WATCHED'Storm the Capitol!': Rioters react to Trump speechReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH PlayM19.15 55.34l30.07-20a4 4 0 0 0 0-6.66l-30.07-20A4 4 0 0 0
  • At another point, impeachment managers tried to portray the danger that staff members felt as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was being hunted down by rioters who pounded on doors demanding to know where she was.
  • "They're pounding the doors trying to find her," the aide whispers into the phone. The bookend to the call was a video from minutes later, showing a rioter jamming his shoulder into an outer door and then breaking through near where they were hiding, before turning away.
  • In another near miss, new surveillance video showed Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman sprinting down a Senate hallway to respond to the breach, encountering Sen. Mitt Romney and gesturing for the Utah Republican, who had been critical of Trump's baseless election rhetoric, to turn and run in another direction to avoid encountering the mob.
  • The Democratic managers also used shaky, disjointed video to try to capture the confusion and fear that ensued when a Capitol Police officer shot pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt
  • The gunshot is heard, then a gasp of profanity capturing the fear in that moment: "Take your pins off," members are heard telling one another. Swalwell noted that the buzzing sound in the background of the video emanated from the gas masks members were holding.
  • At 4:17 p.m. Trump finally tweeted an on-camera message telling rioters to disperse. A video displayed during the trial Wednesday showed the "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley, who was seen inside the Capitol dressed in horns, a fur headdress and red, white and blue face paint, back outside on Capitol grounds telling others a short while later that Trump had released a video message conveying that they should all now go home.
rerobinson03

Opinion | The War on Truth Reaches Its Climax - The New York Times - 0 views

  • At the time, however, my editors told me that it wasn’t acceptable to use the word “lie” when writing about presidential candidates.
  • By now, though, most informed observers have, I think, finally decided that it’s OK to report the fact that Donald Trump lies constantly.
  • . But the president has closed out this year’s campaign with two huge, dangerous lies — and there’s every reason to fear that this week he will roll out a third big lie, perhaps even more dangerous than the first two.
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  • The first big lie is the claim that America is being menaced by hordes of “rioters, looters, arsonists, gun-grabbers, flag-burners, Marxists.”
  • Anyone who walks around the “anarchist jurisdictions” of New York or Seattle can see with their own eyes that nothing like this is happening. And the data bear out the obvious.
  • One systematic study found that the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, and that “most of the violence that did take place was, in fact, directed against the B.L.M. protesters.”
  • he wants us to ignore the very real menace of Covid-19.
  • But Trump wants Americans to believe that the pandemic — which killed more Americans last month than are murdered in a typical year — is fake news
  • These big lies are immensely destructive, and not just because they lead to bad policies. Like it or not, presidential rhetoric affects how millions of Americans behave.
  • Trump’s lies about an anarchist threat have given encouragement to white supremacists, including domestic terrorists.
  • His dismissal of the pandemic threat, his mocking of precautionary measures like mask-wearing, have done a lot to help the coronavirus spread.
  • Unless he loses in an overwhelming landslide, he has indicated he will try to steal the election by blocking the counting of Biden votes, with the aid of partisan judges.
  • The immediate result may very well be a wave of violence and property destruction — Trump supporters engaging in the behavior they falsely attribute to Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
  • No, the really big danger is that millions of our citizens will probably buy into an American version of the “stab in the back” myth that loomed large after Germany’s defeat in World War I, claiming the military was betrayed by the civilian government. And those voters may well end up choosing the G.O.P.’s next presidential candidate.
redavistinnell

Putin vows to 'immediately destroy' any target threatening Russia in Syria | World news... - 0 views

  • Putin vows to 'immediately destroy' any target threatening Russia in Syria
  • Speaking at a meeting with senior commanders in Moscow, Putin said the military should respond with full force to any “further provocations”, adding that additional aircraft and air defence weapons have been sent to the Russian base near Latakia.
  • In continuing violence, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a triple suicide truck bombing that killed 50 to 60 Kurds in Tell Tamer in the Hasaka area of northern Syria, while the UN said it was sending its senior relief official, Stephen O’Brien, to Damascus to examine the deteriorating humanitarian situation.
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  • Russia has insisted the plane remained in Syrian airspace. Putin denounced the Turkish action as a “treacherous stab in the back”.
  • The campaign took advantage of western disarray and galvanised efforts to end the four-and-a-half-year war.
  • He said Russia was also helping some units of the opposition Free Syrian Army, which were fighting “terrorists” in Syria, providing air cover and supplying them with weapons.
  • The US and Britain have meanwhile welcomed agreement by Syrian opposition groups to hold talks with Assad in the new year. But the Syrians are still insisting he stands down at once – in the face of strong resistance from Russia and Iran, the president’s closest allies.
  • John Kerry, the US secretary of state, welcomed the Riyadh agreement by what he called “an extremely diverse group of Syrians” who created a negotiating body to represent them. The last talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups were in Geneva in January 2014 and got nowhere. Kerry admitted, however, that there were still some “kinks” to be ironed out.
  • The talks excluded Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaida and an important fighting force, as well as representatives of Syrian Kurdish groups.
  • Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, called the Riyadh agreement an important step ahead of new international talks on Syria in New York next week, following up on what diplomats call the Vienna process. The Syrian negotiations are due to be held in the first half of January.
manhefnawi

Henry IV - King - Biography - 0 views

  • he became heir to the French throne through his marriage to Margaret of Valois
  • Despite converting to Catholicism after becoming king of France in 1589, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes to foster religious tolerance. He was killed on May 14, 1610, in Paris, France
  • the spread of civil war made him reflect on its disastrous effect on France
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  • An arranged marriage to Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, brought Parisian Catholics and visiting Huguenots together
  • Upon the death of François, Duke of Anjou, in 1584, Henry of Navarre became heir to the throne of France
  • Henry of Navarre became King Henry IV, but it would take a nine-year siege of Paris to secure his crown from the influence of the Holy League and Spanish interference
  • The situation brought about the War of the Three Henrys, pitting Henry of Navarre against King Henry III of France and the staunchly Catholic Henry, Duke of Guise. Henry of Navarre acted boldly, defeating the army of Henry III
  • He was opposed by the Holy League
  • Henry III was stabbed on August 1, 1589, and died the next day after declaring Henry of Navarre his successor
  • Spanish interference with French succession prompted Henry III to join forces with Henry of Navarre to take control of Paris and the French countryside
  • Paris finally capitulated on March 22, 1594. Pope Clement reversed Henry's excommunication, and Henry brokered the Peace of Vervins between France and Spain on May 2, 1598
  • Having united the kingdom and attained peace at home and abroad, Henry IV proceeded to bring prosperity back to France. He lowered taxes on French citizens, made peace with the Ottoman Empire and opened up trade routes to East Asia
  • Despite his accomplishments, Henry IV endured multiple assassination attempts
  • He was stabbed to death by a Catholic fanatic on May 14, 1610
cjlee29

Turkey Shoots Down Russian Warplane Near Syrian Border - The New York Times - 0 views

  • feared
  • a long-feared escalation that will further strain relations between the NATO member country and Russia.
  • NATO announced that it would hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday in Brussels to discuss the episode
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  • rebels possibly wielding TOW antitank missiles and other weapons had shot down a Russian helicopter sent to the scene of the crash to look for survivors.
  • called the incident a “stab in the back” by those who “abet” terrorism and warned it would have “serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.”
  • Mr. Putin did not specify what those consequences might b
  • a large Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, announced it was suspending sales to Turkey, where Russians account for about 12 percent of all tourists last year.
  • “Russia-Turkey relations will drop below zero,”
  • The two countries are also significant trade partners.
  • The shoot down occurred as Russia and the West were slowly edging toward some manner of understanding to unite forces to confront the Islamic State in the wake of the bloody terrorist attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian charter flight over Egypt that combined killed 354 people.
  • The warplane incident also underscores the uneasy relations between Turkey and other members of the NATO alliance
  • , who fear being dragged into a larger conflict through an impetuous act by the Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
  • Russia’s entry into the heavily trafficked skies around Syria in September had raised immediate concerns about mishaps
  • The Russian military said that the plane’s two pilots had ejected
  • Shadi al-Ouwayni, an activist in rural Latakia Province, where the pilot’s body was recovered, said one pilot was shot as he drifted to the ground in his parachute while the other was captured by a local militia called the 10th Brigade. The pilots landed in different, but rebel controlled, locations, he said.
  • “One of the Russian pilots was shot as he was trying to land,” he said. “The other was injured and captured.”
brookegoodman

These Are the 7 Weapons the Barbarians Used to Take Down Rome - HISTORY - 0 views

  • The Battle-Axe
  • Germanic soldiers were known to wield heavy battle-axes capable of smashing through shield, armor and helmet in a single blow.
  • “The iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides while wooden handle was very short,”
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  • The double-edged long sword was the main weapon of the Gauls,
  • The Long Sword
  • The axe was one of the many barbarian weapons that carried over into the medieval world.
  • Julius Caesar became the first Roman general to encounter the war chariots of the native Celtic tribes.
  • chainmail, which may have been invented in Europe by the Gallic Celts in the third century B.C. Most Gallic mail took the form of a short-sleeved shirt or vest made from an interlocking mesh of small metal rings. This provided flexibility while also protecting the wearer from slashing blows by swords and daggers,
  • Chainmail was extremely labor intensive to make—a single vest might include tens of thousands of rings
  • The Celtic Chariot
  • Chainmail
  • . The Falcata
  • When the Romans invaded modern day Spain in 218 B.C., they came face to face with a barbarian tribe known as the Celtiberians. These warriors were renowned both for their guerilla fighting ability and their skill as sword-smiths and metalworkers.
  • “falcata,” a curved, two-foot-long steel sword that was single-edged near the hilt and double-edged near the point. The weapon was weighted towards the tip, which allowed it to slash or stab its way through armor with relative ease.
  • The Recurve Bow
  • Attila and his Hun steppe marauders invaded Europe from the East and cut a bloody swath across the Roman Empire
  • Most Hun warriors carried composite bows assembled from wood, sinew, horn and bone. Unlike the Western bow, these steppe weapons were made to curve back on themselves at the ends, which generated added torque and made arrows fly with enough velocity to penetrate armor at 100 yards
  • Siege Towers and Battering Rams
  • Unlike most barbarian groups, the Huns were particularly proficient at siege warfare.
  • Huns used massive, wheeled siege towers to move protected archers close to the battlements and rain arrows onto the city’s defenders. They also pummeled the city’s walls with huge battering rams, which Priscus described as “a beam with a sharp metal point suspended on chains hung loosely from a V-shaped timber frame.”
Megan Flanagan

Ahmad Rahami: Fixture in Family's Business and, Lately, a 'Completely Different Person'... - 1 views

  • some friends noticed a marked change in his personality and religious devotion after what they believed was a trip to Afghanistan,
  • traveled to Pakistan, for three months in 2011
  • had a fractious relationship with neighbors and the police in Elizabeth, N.J.
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  • to Quetta, for nearly a year
  • the elder Rahami was dubious of the Taliban and detested ISIS.
  • “Muslims make too much trouble in this country.”
  • Mohammad Rahami told him he was from Kandahar and had been part of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan that fought the Soviet Army
  • he had become more religious and had taken to wearing Muslim robes
  • He used to wear Western-style clothing, and customers said he gave little indication of his heritage.
  • “It’s like he was a completely different person,” Mr. Jones said. “He got serious and completely closed off.”
  • “Where did he really go and what did he do overseas that a kid who lived a normal New Jersey life came back as a sophisticated bomb maker and terrorist?”
  • Rahami family’s filing a lawsuit in 2011 against the city and its Police Department
  • Collisions between those worlds sometimes led to rifts with his father, who was more religious and traditional.
  • Both of those cities’ reputations have become entwined with the militant groups who have sheltered there:
  • He was arrested in 2014 on weapons and aggravated assault charges for allegedly stabbing a relative in the leg in a domestic incident
  • In June 2010, two of Ahmad Rahami’s brothers, Mohammad K. and Mohammad Q., were arrested after an altercation with police officers who had shown up after 10 to tell them to close down for the night.
  • The Rahamis said Mr. McDermott told them that “Muslims make too much trouble in this country” and “Muslims should not have businesses here.”
  • “It was neighbor complaints; it had nothing to do with his ethnicity or religion. It had to do with noise and people congregating on the streets.”
  • Sept. 16, 2011, said that Mr. Rahami had been hospitalized and that his family was in Afghanistan “but returning over the next few days.
  • At 10:30 on Sunday night, the bombs having gone off and the hunt for the perpetrator well underway, Junior Robinson, 19, stopped in at First American Fried Chicken for some drumsticks and fries.
  • Mohammad Rahami served him.
  • Ahmad Rahami was not there. Mr. Robinson gave that no thought.
katyshannon

Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida Death Penalty Law - NBC News - 0 views

  • The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Florida's death penalty law unconstitutional because it requires the trial judge and not the jury to make the critical findings necessary to impose capital punishment.
  • The state's current system is at odds with a string of Supreme Court cases which held that facts that add to a defendant's punishment — known as aggravating circumstances — must be found by a jury.
  • "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough," wrote Sonia Sotomayor for the court's 8-1 majority.
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  • The ruling means the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of the stabbing murder of his co-worker in 1998, goes back to the lower courts.
  • It's not yet clear how many other cases — including the 400 inmates on the state's death row — could be affected, experts said.
  • "The substance of the ruling would affect the vast majority of Florida's death row inmates," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. "The remaining question would be: Will the Supreme Court consider this to have retroactive effect and retroactive to when?" He said he expects the ruling will unleash a wave of litigation.
  • Connie Fuselier, the mother of Hurst's victim, said she doesn't care if he is executed at this point, but she can't bear the thought of more legal proceedings. "It's been hell," she told NBC News. "When you get to thinking it's over with, it starts all over again. It's nerve-racking."
  • At one point during the many appeals the case has spawned, Fuselier said, she told the prosecutor she'd be satisfied with a sentence of life without parole.
  • "I just want it over with. I want to know he has no more appeals," she said. She said the case's 17-year journey through the courts, with the rehashing of the gruesome details of her daughter's death, has taken a toll on the family. "I have post-traumatic stress. I have depression," she said. "It's like the family evaporated. We're all here, but it's like we're not."
fischerry

The Freikorps and Weimar - History Learning Site - 0 views

  • The Freikorps was the name adopted by some right wing nationalists in Weimar Germany after World War One had ended.
  • The Freikorps was effectively a collection of groups as opposed to a cohesive whole but they all shared the same beliefs and objectives. Members of the Freikorps could be described as conservative, nationalistic, anti-Socialism/Communism and once it had been signed, anti-the Treaty of Versailles.
  • They did not believe that Germany had suffered a military defeat in World War One and members of the Freikorps were very vocal supporters of the ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend that was eventually taken up by the Nazi Party.
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    How the Freikorps eventually became the Nazi party. They shared the same anti-Versailles Treaty sentiments.
redavistinnell

Russian warship fires warning shots at Turkish fishing boat - BBC News - 0 views

  • Russia says one of its warships fired warning shots at a Turkish fishing boat in the Aegean Sea to avoid a collision.
  • The captain of the Turkish boat said he was unaware that his vessel had been shot at.
  • Relations remain tense between the two countries since Turkey's shooting down of a Russian warplane.
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  • "We are not in favour of tension," Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying after the incident."We have always been in favour of overcoming tensions through dialogue rather than conflict."
  • "We were not aware that they had fired shots at us," Muzaffer Gecici said. "We have video footage and we have handed this to the coastguard. We didn't even know it was a Russian ship."
  • And last week, Turkey complained over what it said was a sailor on a Russian naval ship brandishing a missile launcher as the vessel passed through Istanbul. R
  • ussia rejected the criticism, saying the crew had a "legal right" to protect the ship.
  • A Turkish F-16 fighter jet shoots down a Russian Su-24 attack aircraft, allegedly because it violated Turkish airspace
  • With Turkey refusing to apologise over the incident, Russia announces a package of economic sanctions against Turkey, including restrictions on imports and travel.
  • Turkey condemns Russian "provocation" after Turkish media publish an image showing a Russian serviceman holding a rocket launcher aboard a warship passing through the Bosphorus.
  • A Russian warship fires "warning shots" at a Turkish fishing vess
  • "Despite numerous attempts by the crew of the Smetlivy, the crew of the Turkish fishing boat did not make radio contact and did not respond to visual signals by semaphore or warning flares,"
  • President Vladimir Putin described as a "stab in the back" Turkey's downing of the Russian bomber and has imposed economic sanctions.
  • Russian warship fires warning shots at Turkish fishing boat
Javier E

Flying the flag of fascism for Trump - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • And so, on the sixth day of a new year that has already felt like a suffocating eternity, democracy bled out. It was bludgeoned and pummeled and stabbed through the heart by a mob of Americans who claimed they were fighting against communism, socialism, liberalism and a host of other isms, when all along they were simply at war with democracy and the inconvenient truth that sometimes you and yours are simply outvoted.
  • What to call these people?
  • Are they traitors? Terrorists? Radicals? Thugs? They are all of those things — a national quilt of our worst impulses and characteristics. They are young and old. They are men. They are women.
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  • They are mostly White. And they rampaged through the Capitol posting photos of themselves and one another breaking into the offices of the speaker of the House, looting and rioting and threatening
  • He said the rioters did not represent who we are. But they are, at least in part, who we have become. They’re certainly part of who we’ve always been. They are Americans just as surely as are those who watch them in horror and disgust.
  • what Trump has unleashed cannot so easily be controlled or pushed back. History is relentless. Hatred is fierce.
  • Americans stormed the Capitol, and they did so while flying the Confederate flag. They did this. They brandished it throughout the marble halls. That is who they are. They are proud of it. And they are part of this body politic.
  • there was nothing to applaud here. No reason to cheer. As Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) noted, “The shame of this day is that it’s been aided and abetted by good Americans who are falling prey, who are choosing Trump over truth.”
  • Americans are choosing Trump over democracy.
  • The rioters want to wallow in the Confederacy. They want to be reborn under the flag of Trump. They want to live in an angry, polluted, heartless world, if only because it means that they get to stand victorious atop the whole, miserable mess.
Javier E

A groundswell for sanity - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • a third key constituency that is underanalyzed because its ranks are not exceptionally partisan or ideological. They are citizens who ask for a basic minimum from those in charge of their government: some dignity and decorum, a focus on problem-solving, and orderliness rather than chaos. Trump and the conservatives sustaining him are completely out of line with this behavioral conservatism built on self-restraint and temperamental evenness.
  • here is a bet that there is also a quiet revolution of conscience in the country among those who are sick to death of the chaos they see every day on the news, a White House whose energy is devoted to stabbing internal foes in the back and a president who can’t stop thinking about himself. In the face of this, demanding simple decency is a radical and subversive act.
rachelramirez

Putin Calls for Sanctions Against Turkey | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

  • Putin calls for sanctions against Turkey after downing of plane
  • The decree published on the Kremlin's website Saturday came hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had voiced regret over the incident
  • It doesn't specify what goods are to be banned or give other details, but it also calls for ending chartered flights from Russia to Turkey and for Russian tourism companies to stop selling vacation packages that would include a stay in Turkey.
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  • It was the first time in half a century that a NATO member shot down a Russian plane and drew a harsh response from Moscow.
  • Putin has denounced the Turkish action as a "treacherous stab in the back,"
  • After the incident, Russia deployed long-range S-400 air defense missile systems to a Russian air base in Syria just 30 miles south of the border with Turkey to help protect Russian warplanes,
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