At least one person has been killed and three others injured after an 18-year-old student opened indiscriminate fire at his classmates at a college in Russia's Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk. Read Full Article at RT.com
At least one person has been killed and three others injured after an 18-year-old student opened indiscriminate fire at his classmates at a college in Russia's Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk.
Armed with a shotgun, the attacker opened fire in his own class, seriously injuring several people, one of whom succumbed to his injuries. When police arrived at the scene, the gunman refused to surrender and turned the gun on himself.
“The bodies of two people, including the attacker, were discovered at the scene,” police have confirmed. “Three more people were injured in the shooting at a college. Those injured include two teenagers and a young man," the local health ministry said earlier.
The area is still cordoned off by police, according to videos from the scene captured by eyewitnesses. Another video posted on social media showed an injured young man lying on the floor.
Crew members who were aboard a Navy warship during a freak encounter with unidentified flying objects in 2004 have come forward with new details about the mysterious episode, offering captivating first-hand accounts. Read Full Article at RT.com
Crew members who were aboard a Navy warship during a freak encounter with unidentified flying objects in 2004 have come forward with new details about the mysterious episode, offering captivating first-hand accounts.
On a training mission with the Nimitz carrier group in November 2004 about 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, technicians on the USS Princeton began to notice anomalous “ghost tracks” and “clutter” on the ship’s radars.
Concerned the Princeton’s brand new AN/SPY-1B radar system was acting up, the crew recalibrated the high tech gear to clear the errors, but the ostensibly “false” radar tracks only amplified and became stronger, the first sign something rather strange was happening.
“Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer,” former Petty Officer 3rd Class and Princeton radar technician Gary Voorhis told Popular Mechanics. “Sometimes they’d be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they’d be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots.”
Their radar cross sections didn’t match any known aircraft; they were 100 percent red … no IFF [Identification Friend or Foe].
Kevin Day, a Senior Chief Operations Specialist tasked with monitoring the airspace around the Princeton, also noticed the bizarre radar artifacts from the ship’s Combat Information Center, which continued for several days.
“The reason why I say they’re weird [is] because they were appearing in groups of five to 10 at a time and they were pretty closely spaced to each other,” Day said in the documentary ‘The Nimitz Encounters,’ describing the radar tracks.
As the crew kept tabs on the mysterious signals, Voorhis became convinced this was no typical radar error, and attempted to put eyes on whatever was causing the anomaly. Using the ship’s systems to pinpoint the signal and then peering through heavily-magnified binoculars, he finally caught a glimpse. While the objects were too far away to clearly discern, Voorhis is sure he saw something zipping around in the distance.
“I couldn’t make out details, but they'd just be hovering there, then all of a sudden, in an instant, they’d dart off to another direction and stop again,” Voorhis said.
At night, they’d give off a kind of a phosphorus glow and were a little easier to see than in the day.
After nearly a week of hide-and-seek with the objects, Day persuaded his superiors to allow an intercept attempt, dispatching two F/A-18s to investigate. Making visual contact from about a mile away, the fighter pilots said they spotted an “elongated egg”-like object, “solid white, smooth, with no edges,” according to an executive summary from an “unofficial” military investigation into the incident obtained by journalist George Knapp. The objects proved too elusive for the fighter jets, however, and they were eventually forced to abandon the effort.
A second attempt would produce the now-infamous infrared footage, leaked to the media in 2017, featuring a pill-shaped object hovering in the sky, and audio of bewildered fighter pilots struggling to identify the craft. While the footage was first released by the military for use in an internal database in 2017, the Pentagon only confirmed its authenticity in September, and maintains it was never cleared for release to the general public.
Cover-up or screw-up?
Over a decade on from the mysterious encounter, Princeton crew members are still scratching their heads about what happened that week in November of 2004, as well as the events that followed.
Soon after the F/A-18 intercept, Voorhis says two men arrived on the Princeton in search of the data recordings captured during the run-in, which he was ordered to turn over immediately. Other recording devices on the ship had also been wiped clean. “They even told me to erase everything that’s in the shop – even the blank tapes,” he said.
“What really made this incident alarming was when a Blackhawk helicopter landed on our ship and took all our information from the top secret rooms,” another sailor aboard the Princeton told Popular Mechanics under condition of anonymity.
“We were all pretty shocked and it was an unspoken rule not to talk about it because we had secret clearances and didn’t want to jeopardize our careers,” he added.
Skeptical about a cover-up, however, one of the F/A-18 pilots present for the intercept, Commander David Fravor, believes the data was simply lost or recorded over on accident, though he acknowledges the disappearance of data records on the ship.
“I think Cmdr. Fravor’s opinion on how the tapes went missing is the most plausible explanation,” Vincent Aiello, another retired fighter pilot familiar with Fravor’s account, told Popular Mechanics. “However, a lot of squadron personnel have access to those materials, so it leaves the door open that someone could have intentionally taken them.”
Despite the disagreement among some of the crew about whether the Pentagon sought to bury the event under the rug, several witnesses remain convinced something bigger than a radar error was at work and stand by their stories.
“This thing, it was so much more than what you see in [the 2017] video,” said former Petty Officer 3rd Class and Princeton crew member Jason Turner.
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) took his Twitter game to the next level during the impeachment hearings, with a series of posts that spelled out a popular meme about the accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Read Full Article at RT.com
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) took his Twitter game to the next level during the impeachment hearings, with a series of posts that spelled out a popular meme about the accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Though each made sense on its own, there was little to tie together 23 tweets he posted starting at 3:09 pm on Wednesday - except for the fact caught by some eagle-eyed twitterati that they spelled out “E-P-S-T-E-I-N D-I-D-N-T K-I-L-L H-I-M-S-E-L-F” with their starting letters.
The common cryptography trick is difficult to pull off in practice, and was even more impressive considering that the tweets had to be in reverse order to make it work.
Epstein’s jail cell death in August was quickly declared a suicide, but recent expert testimony has challenged that narrative. Rumors that Epstein may have been killed to prevent him from incriminating famous political and media figures in his orbit were further fueled by the recent revelation that ABC spiked a story about him in 2016.
Gosar first playfully retweeted a Daily Caller story about the acrostic on his private account, only to confirm it with a more obvious version, spelling out “Area 51,” a secret federal facility in Nevada and the nexus of many conspiracy theories.
𝐀ll of the tweets pertained to today’s hearing. 𝐑est assured, they are substantive. 𝐄very one of them. 𝐀ll of them.
A dentist representing Arizona’s 4th congressional district, Gosar is an outspoken Trump supporter and no stranger to controversy. Back in 2018, he called on Capitol Police to arrest any illegal immigrants that might be present at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, after Democrats invited a number of them as guests.
Russian social network VKontakte has unveiled the upcoming ‘dislike’ button, a simple feature that has been cruelly denied to Facebook users despite years of begging. Now Mark Zuckerberg can claim it was a Russian plot all along! Read Full Article at RT.com
Russian social network VKontakte has unveiled the upcoming ‘dislike’ button, a simple feature that has been cruelly denied to Facebook users despite years of begging. Now Mark Zuckerberg can claim it was a Russian plot all along!
The feature was announced on Wednesday at VK’s Content Day conference in Moscow, and the company thinks it will help “invigorate” the comment section.
VK has answered its users’ prayers with the button, which will appear as an option next to the ‘like’ button on comments, giving users the ability to register disapproval or disagreement without actually leaving a comment of their own. Enough dislikes will turn a comment invisible.
"Dislike" is far from a feature wanted only by VK denizens. Facebook users have pleaded with CEO Mark Zuckerberg for such a button of their own since the “like” button was first unveiled in 2009, only to be denied clickable catharsis. While the platform rolled out emoji reactions in 2016, giving users the option to respond to comments and posts they didn’t like with a ‘sad face’ or ‘angry face,’ there was to be no inversion of Facebook’s iconic blue thumbs-up gesture.
Zuckerberg himself said he is concerned such a button would be used to “demean” others’ posts, apparently unaware of the kind of comments people leave when they don’t have access to such a button.
The dislike button was so popular among Facebook users that multiplepetitions were created to try to change Zuckerberg’s mind. Scammers even lured victims to a malware site by dangling the opportunity to add a “dislike” button to their Facebook before everyone else.
Being beaten to the “dislike” punch by VK is not the only recent frustration for Facebook. The world’s largest social network (and its subsidiary Instagram) recently banned the eggplant, peach, and water droplet emojis when used in a “sexual context” in an effort to put a damper on content that “facilitates, encourages, or coordinates sexual encounters between adults.”
For a platform that unveiled “Facebook Dating” just a few months ago, the social media behemoth doesn’t seem to understand that discouraging sexual encounters won’t win it any customers.
Facebook: We have no way to ban hate speech and fake news.
Also Facebook: Our algorithm can detect the user intent of a fruit emoji with 100% accuracy. https://t.co/uVktjJ5geM
Leaving aside who will be tasked with judging the context of a fruit- and veggie-laden message, Facebook’s move inspired ridicule from users who mused the platform might be trying to virtue-signal to distract from anger over its political ad policy after Twitter appeased critics by banning all political ads.
Ranked No. 12 most popular website in the world, VK is the social network of choice in Russia, with over 38 million monthly users, out of the total 100 million logging in from Russian IP addresses.
While its 477 million accounts worldwide are dwarfed by Facebook’s army of over 2 billion registered users, VK’s numbers are growing. On its blog, VK announced the number of authors and published stories was increasing by 50 percent year over year, while the number of comments had increased 49 percent over 2018. The platform has also rolled out a Patreon competitor, called VK Donut.
Meanwhile, Facebook has been running out of steam. It actually lost daily users among all age groups in the US last year, and the decline has been especially pronounced among young users.
The platform has tried to shore up its scandal-plagued reputation by slapping its branding on Instagram and WhatsApp, but with antitrust and privacy investigations looming at the state and federal level – as well as dozens of lawsuits stemming from the Cambridge Analytica affair and numerous accusations of politically-motivated censorship – public opinion seems to be turning against it.
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Thousands of supporters of deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales gathered in La Paz to demand the resignation of self-declared “interim” leader Jeanine Anez, where they squared off with riot police in hectic street clashes. Read Full Article at RT.com
Thousands of supporters of deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales gathered in La Paz to demand the resignation of self-declared “interim” leader Jeanine Anez, where they squared off with riot police in hectic street clashes.
Flying national and indigenous flags and chanting pro-Morales slogans, the protest march met a forceful police response in Bolivia's administrative capital on Wednesday, facing down volleys of tear gas from armored security forces, dramatic footage captured by Ruptly shows.
The demonstrators, led by indigenous militia group Ponchos Rojos, were headed toward the presidential palace in downtown La Paz before the clashes broke out, in which protesters returned fire with rocks and other improvised projectiles. The chaotic scenes seemingly went unnoticed in western media.
Following Morales’ forced resignation and flight from Bolivia for political asylum in Mexico earlier this week, opposition Senator Jeanine Anez declared herself “interim president.” While opposition lawmakers argued Anez’s declaration was valid under the Bolivian constitution, the ousted president’s Movement for Socialism Party slammed the move as illegal and boycotted the legislature.
Morales resigned under pressure from top military officials after weeks of opposition protests over the result of October’s presidential election, in which the opposition, as well as the US-based Organization for American States (OAS), alleged “irregularities.” The socialist leader’s ouster has been hailed as a triumph for democracy by Washington and its partners in the OAS, though it did little to quell the unrest in Bolivia.
Speaking from Mexico on Wednesday after a sudden departure from his home country, Morales condemned the OAS for acting “in the service of the North American empire,” and said Anez’s move for the presidency only confirmed that he was pushed out of office in a “coup.” Nonetheless, he called for “national dialogue” to resolve the ongoing disorder.
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Police have tried to detain Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin without a warrant on belated and mysterious charges of ‘assaulting’ a Democratic congresswoman during this summer’s siege of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. Read Full Article at RT.com
Police have tried to detain Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin without a warrant on belated and mysterious charges of ‘assaulting’ a Democratic congresswoman during this summer’s siege of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington.
Benjamin was accused of assaulting Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) – months after the alleged incident – when over a dozen officers surrounded her home on Wednesday in Washington, DC.
In footage she posted to Facebook, Benjamin strenuously denies the accusations, explaining that she was the one assaulted – pushed and pulled by right-wing Venezuelans (“big guys”) supporting the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido at an anti-Maduro press conference.
Unable to secure a warrant or convince Benjamin to voluntarily go back to the station with them without one, the police ultimately chose not to detain her, according to journalist Anya Parampil, who was with Benjamin at the embassy in May. Even though police insisted they had footage of the “assault,” after reviewing it they apparently chose not to proceed with the arrest.
UPDATE: police tried to detain @medeabenjamin without a warrant & opted not to proceed with arrest after reviewing footage of the alleged incident
We see once again how local DC police are colliding w @StateDept & right-wing Venezuelan putchists in order to crush dissent
Benjamin is not the first participant in the Venezuelan embassy protests to be accused long after the protests’ conclusion of an “assault” that passed unnoticed at the time. Journalist Max Blumenthal, who also supported the activists occupying the embassy with permission of the Maduro government, was taken into custody last month on charges he had assaulted one of the anti-Maduro protesters outside the premises. He was released after spending the weekend in jail.
Wasserman-Schultz, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, resigned under a cloud amid allegations of rigging the 2016 primaries in Hillary Clinton’s favor. It’s not clear if she had anything to do with the officers appearing at Benjamin’s home, or who ordered Blumenthal’s arrest last month.
So the police realized they were arresting someone based on the LIES of Juan Guaido’s cretinous DC mafia?
Too bad they didn’t realize that before jailing me based on a similar fabrication. https://t.co/CDbf5cAr4V
A group of activists calling themselves the Embassy Protection Collective took up residence in the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC in April, after Venezuelan diplomats were ordered to leave the US, seeking to prevent it from falling into the hands of Guaido supporters. Some protesters remained inside for over two weeks until police raided the building and arrested them.
Are we just randomly arresting dissidents now in this country on make believe charges? What is this nonsense? People should be horrified by this, the recent arrest of Max Blumenthal, and others. This needs to stop. https://t.co/IafGWpAQrl
US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan said their countries were working to “resolve” the issue of Ankara purchasing Russian S-400 air defense systems, without going into any specifics. Read Full Article at RT.com
US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan said their countries were working to “resolve” the issue of Ankara purchasing Russian S-400 air defense systems, without going into any specifics.
Erdogan, who arrived in Washington on Wednesday for an official state visit, spent much of the day in meetings with Trump and several US senators critical of Turkey’s recent actions in northern Syria. Appearing at a joint press conference in the late afternoon, he showed no sign of backing down from Ankara’s current posture, saying that political concerns ought to be separate from matters of commerce. This followed Trump’s framing of US-Turkish relations in the context of a $100 billion trade deal.
Turkey is “ready and committed” to participate in “sustained dialogue” with the US Congress over the S-400 issue, Erdogan said. However, he pushed back on US lawmakers’ approval of a resolution blaming Turkey for the Armenian genocide during the First World War.
Washington has repeatedly tried to pressure Ankara to cancel the S-400 contract with Moscow, even threatening sanctions, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The US has frozen Turkey out of the F-35 program as a result, creating complications since Turkish factories make a part of the stealth fighter’s airframe.
Erdogan has argued that Turkey will buy whatever weapons it wants from whoever it wants, and repeatedly floated the possibility of buying Russian-made Sukhoi fighters if the F-35 question is not resolved to Ankara’s satisfaction – including right before departing for Washington.
The seizure of Venezuela’s embassy in Brasilia was not only an attack on the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, but also an attempt to sow discord between the BRICS member states, Russia’s Deputy FM told RT. Read Full Article at RT.com
The seizure of Venezuela’s embassy in Brasilia was not only an attack on the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, but also an attempt to sow discord between the BRICS member states, Russia’s Deputy FM told RT.
The Wednesday storming on the diplomatic mission by the supporters of US-backed Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido was “planned before and timed that it coincided with the first day of BRICS summit,” Sergey Ryabkov said.
It took place on the same day as the leaders of Russia, China, India and South Africa arrived to the Brazilian capital for the high-profile BRICS summit. Members of the block, which unites the world’s largest emerging economics, have quite different views on the crisis in Venezuela. Moscow and Beijing are backing Maduro as the democratically-elected president, while Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro said he recognized Guaido as Venezuelan leader.
The incident at the embassy shows that those who push for regime change in Caracas will “use and abuse every opportunity to pursue their goals,” the deputy foreign minister said, vowing that Moscow will “disclose the actual intentions of those people.”
The fact that some “unknown persons” were able to make their way into a diplomatic mission “creates questions on how effective the law enforcers in Brazil were,” Ryabkov pointed out.
The Venezuelan opposition supporters remain inside the embassy in Brasilia, with Bolsonaro saying he was looking for ways to restore order without provoking violence.
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The US wants to bring Turkey “back into the fold,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday as he warned again about Ankara drifting away from its NATO partners. Read Full Article at RT.com
The US wants to bring Turkey “back into the fold,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday as he warned again about Ankara drifting away from its NATO partners.
Washington is concerned that recent arms deals with Russia and its recent incursion into northern Syria mean Turkey is slipping away from the military bloc. Esper's comments came ahead of US President Donald Trump's meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Wednesday.
"We need Turkey back in the fold. They've been good allies for many years, all the way back to fighting alongside the United States in the Korean war, up to (its) presence with us in Afghanistan,” Esper told reporters.
The defense secretary said the US needs to continue to build ties, particularly at the military-to-military level, to ensure the two countries have “an enduring relationship that will get us through this tough period right now."
As Russia marks famed Soviet inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov’s centenary, we look at the newest incarnation of his time-tested rifle. The AK-308 fires NATO rounds, giving the Russian manufacturer an edge over western rivals. Read Full Article at RT.com
As Russia marks famed Soviet inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov’s centenary, we look at the newest incarnation of his time-tested rifle. The AK-308 fires NATO rounds, giving the Russian manufacturer an edge over western rivals.
Sitting along a lonely road near Russia’s Kazakh border, the town of Kurya is a long way from the world’s battlefields. The nearest major city, Novosibirsk, is a six-hour drive away. Yet, Kurya’s most famous son devised an invention that would power revolutions, redraw national borders and reshape modern warfare.
Mikhail Kalashnikov was born in Kurya on November 10, 1919, to a peasant family. A keen inventor, Kalashnikov came up with his career-defining masterpiece - the Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947, or AK-47. The rifle was adopted by the Soviet military two years later, and mass production began in the factory city of Izhevsk.
The Izhevsk Mechanical Plant would pump out between 75 and 100 million of these weapons over the next 70 years. Wielded by both states and terrorist groups, cops and criminals, the AK-47 and its variants have turned up in conflict zones around the world, with counterfeits and replicas making its true popularity impossible to estimate.
Famed for its rugged reliability and the wallop of its 7.62x39mm round, the AK drove the US military out of Vietnam and menaced American forces again in Iraq and Afghanistan four decades later. It appears on the national flag of Mozambique, and the East Timorese and Zimbabwean coats of arms.
An updated classic
The newest version of the seminal shooter, the AK-308, stands out due to one unique feature: this modern iteration of a Cold War classic can fire the 7.62×51mm NATO-standard round.
At a glance, the new rifle is marginally longer and heavier than the preceding AK-12. It adopts many of the AK-12’s features, including an adjustable stock and a redesigned gas tube. The 7.62×51mm ammunition it fires was initially designed for the US-made M14 rifle and M60 machine gun in the late 1950s, but it is now used in an array of modern Western-type firearms, like the Israeli-made IWI Tavor or the Belgian FN SCAR.
The 308 model was officially cleared for use by the Russian Army, Naval Infantry and the elite Airborne Troops, but its major operators will be abroad, developers point out.
Potential buyers will be offered “not only the rifle itself, but a Russian-made armor-piercing round,” Sergey Urzhumtsev, Kalashnikov’s chief designer, told Ria Novosti.“We’ll complete all trials this year and will be sending out commercial offers next year.”
“We’ve rolled out an exportable assault rifle, in the first place” Maxim Popenker, a renowned weapons expert who previously served as Kalashnikov’s marketing officer, told RT. The 7.62×51mm round ensures greater penetrating power, which is crucial for mountain, desert or urban warfare, he explained.
Ending NATO dominance
Tempting buyers - in particular the militaries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East currently relying on NATO weapons - with a Russian gun is a politically daring move, but one that could pay off for Kalashnikov.
They could be “those countries that previously used or stockpiled NATO-issue firearms and the 7.62×51mm rounds,” suggested Alexey Leonkov of ‘Arsenal Otechestva,’ a Russian weapons and military magazine. “I think that designing the AK-308 was a commercial move smart and appropriate enough to toss aside Western-made rifles.”
The Izhevsk-based manufacturer has not put all of its eggs in the AK-308’s basket, though. Kalashnikov Director Dmitry Tarasov noted in October that the company’s other rifles - the AK-200, 201, 202, 203 and 204, as well as rifles based on the AK-12 and AK-15 - have caught the attention of government buyers in South America, South Asia, and Africa.
Designing the larger-caliber AK-308, however, follows a worldwide trend, explained military historian Yuri Knutov. “Protective gear is constantly being improved, becoming lighter and more durable,” he said, adding that most bulletproof vests are able to withstand smaller-caliber rounds like Russia’s 5.45mm or NATO’s 5.56mm.
NATO’s 5.56mm has been a mainstay of the US military since the 1960s, and of NATO arsenals since the early 1980s. However, its larger 7.26mm cousin punches through targets with twice the impact energy. After decades of reliance on the smaller round, the US army is scrambling to develop a new bullet that sits somewhere between its current 5.56 and 7.62mm offerings.
For now, the 7.62 remains the only show in town for forces requiring more stopping power. If Kalashnikov is successful in marketing the AK-308 abroad, it is quite feasible that at some point in the near future, an American soldier might find himself up against a foreign adversary, with both lobbing the exact same NATO-standard round at each other.
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UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the most dominant forces in the history of MMA, but has ominously suggested he has sometimes gone easy on his opponents to avoid doing even more damage. Read Full Article at RT.com
UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the most dominant forces in the history of MMA, but has ominously suggested he has sometimes gone easy on his opponents to avoid doing even more damage.
Khabib stands 28-0 in professional MMA and has rarely looked troubled inside the cage.
But despite his dominance, the Dagestani grappling phenom has suggested that on occasion he has held back.
“I had fights in my career where I understood that I could hurt my opponent more, but I’d talk to him, tell him to give up so that I don’t beat him too hard,” Khabib told a group of schoolchildren in Russia.
“For example, if I had a painful hold where I could break something, I wouldn’t tighten it all the way, it’d just fix it so that the opponent would tap out.
“Because I have no aim to hurt anyone in this sport. Yes, we compete in a very brutal sport.”
Khabib had earlier been asked which of his 28 victories had brought him the most pleasure –leading him to suggest, somewhat unsurprisingly, that it had been his fourth-round submission of Irish nemesis Conor McGregor at UFC 229 in Las Vegas in 2018.
“At the beginning, when you’re just starting out and winning fights, it brings you some sort of pleasure. You enjoy it,” Khabib said.
“Recently I haven’t had that. In the last couple of years I’ve gone out there and won and it doesn’t bring me any real joy to be honest.
“Well, with the exception of one fight, let’s say. In that fight I beat that guy with pleasure, I’ll tell you. In that fight, I beat that man with pleasure,” Khabib added.
Google wants you to trust it with your money, even as its latest privacy scandal, where millions of Americans' medical records were covertly slurped up to power a secret AI project, has triggered another federal investigation. Read Full Article at RT.com
Google wants you to trust it with your money, even as its latest privacy scandal, where millions of Americans' medical records were covertly slurped up to power a secret AI project, has triggered another federal investigation.
Google is rolling out a consumer finance division, currently codenamed Cache, in partnership with Citigroup and a Stanford University credit union, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Wednesday. The search behemoth will begin offering checking accounts to customers next year, muscling into yet another market, despite a mounting stack of federal investigations targeting potential antitrust abuses.
And the number of federal probes is growing, thanks to the revelation that Google had secretly obtained millions of Americans' medical records through its partnership with healthcare giant Ascension. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights has opened a probe into whether Google respected federal privacy law in collecting the massive trove of healthcare data from 21 states without patients' permission for its top-secret Project Nightingale. A loophole in the law allows healthcare providers to share patient records without an individual's consent - so long as the sharing "helps" the provider "carry out its healthcare functions."
With Project Nightingale, Google says, it hopes to use data on tens of millions of Americans to program machine-learning AI capable of tracking patients and prescribing treatments. But given Google's history of using everything from search terms to email content for targeted marketing, the project unsettled many after it was revealed earlier this week - especially combined with Google's purchase of wearable device maker Fitbit, which monitors vital signs like pulse.
Google tried asking patients for their health data over a decade ago with Google Health, only to close up shop when patients balked at handing their records to the insatiable data-miner. Users seem far less reluctant to hand over their financial data, though – 58 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they'd trust Google for financial products. That's higher than either Apple or Facebook, other Big Tech behemoths who have already made similarly direct moves for their customers' wallets.
Also like Google, both of those are being probed by the Justice Department for potential antitrust violations. Facebook's ambitions to launch a cryptocurrency are being met with strident resistance from world governments, causing some of its corporate partners to drop out, and Apple's Goldman Sachs-backed credit card is in hot water for what appears to be sexist assignment of credit limits. And even if people don't rush to open checking accounts with Google, there's no guarantee the company will not whip up an AI algorithm to help “normal” banks manage their funds – which will require bank customers' financial information to program.
No school, no IDs and constant CCTV surveillance. Nobody in town knew that they existed. Three kids were locked up behind the fence of a private home for a decade, as their mother tried to protect them from the 'cruel world.' Read Full Article at RT.com
No school, no IDs and constant CCTV surveillance. Nobody in town knew that they existed. Three kids were locked up behind the fence of a private home for a decade, as their mother tried to protect them from the 'cruel world.'
A week ago, a phone rang at the police station in the town of Ust-Katav in the industrial Chelyabinsk Region in Russia's Urals. A panicked woman was calling, claiming that her three children – two girls aged 20 and 11, and 15 year-old-boy – were kidnapped.
The police acted fast and found the trio only a few hours later, but they opted against returning them home, as the story the kids told stunned even the experienced operatives. The shaken children revealed that there was no abduction and that they themselves escaped from their mother, who kept them under hatches for a whopping 10 years. They did nothing wrong, but were basically forced to serve a prison term that could be handed for a murder in Russia.
When social workers contacted their mother, Dina A., she reportedly rebuffed them by shouting: "If you want to put me in prison, you're free to do so, but I only wanted the best for my children."
What happened the next morning became another shock for the small town as the woman set the hut where she kept her children on fire, and took her own life. Her body was later discovered by the firefighters, who were called on site by the neighbors.
The blaze went out all by itself, leaving the house mostly intact and allowing for a glimpse into the daily graft of the three inmates. The conditions they had to endure were miserable. The photos reveled that they were held in a tight, dark and dirty room with wooden walls, deprived of any wallpaper. The hut was littered and furnished with old and broken sofas and cupboards. An outdated TV set with a picture tube, connected to a DVD player, seemed to be the only entertainment available to the children.
A video by Russian broadcaster showed the exterior of the house and the aftermath of the blaze at the ‘child prison.’
The runaways told the social worker that their mother strictly forbade them from leaving the premises of their home, which was located in a quiet spot on the outskirts of town and surrounded by a tall solid fence. The woman put CCTV cameras atop that fence, as well as inside the house in order to always keep an eye on their children. The yard was also guarded by a huge dog.
Internet and any contacts with the outside world were banned. The eldest sister, Darina, owned a smartphone, but it was a little consolation, since she could only use it under mom's supervision.
Dina might've been a tyrant, but she was surely a loving one. She really tried carrying about her kids and went outside to buy food, clothes and all other necessities for them. She was actually well known in town due to being a skillful tailor and made her living out of it. But the 55-year-old never invited her clients into her home.
One of the items she purchased in large quantities was hair dye, which the woman used to turn her daughters into blonds like herself.
With the children skipping school, the mother also had to become a teacher. "My youngest sister could count till 100 and new the alphabet by heart when she was three," Darina said in an interview with the local media. The social workers confirmed that the girls and the boy could read and write, but still lagged behind their peers significantly.
It seems really unbelievable that neither the authorities, nor the neighbors knew about the cruel treatment of the siblings taking place right under their noses. But Dina turned out to be a truly great conspirator: she didn't hide her kids when the family arrived in in Ust-Katav in late 2000s, but a few years later the woman just told everybody that they returned back to the neighboring Republic of Bashkortostan to live with their elder sister. That was the moment when the unprovoked imprisonment for the trio began.
Even their father, who divorced Dina years ago, was fooled. When the man called his children they always told him about the good marks they got in school and the theatre plays they took part in – just like the mother instructed.
The reasons for the woman's actions may never be known, but some locals speculate that the bizarre behavior could've been provoked by what happened to her first daughter. She had a normal life, but made some bad acquaintances in her teenage years, and ended up getting involved in manslaughter. After serving her time, the girl moved to Bashkortostan and settled there.
The mother apparently wanted to protect her other children from the same fate, but her love brought her in the wrong place. They said she persuaded them that "the outside world is cruel; that it will spoil them" and that she was the one to provide them with everything they needed.
vk.com / Dina Azizova
But the siblings were suffocating from the exaggerated care and planned an escape, which was eventually realized thanks to Darina's smartphone. The girl was somehow able to use the device without Dina knowing.
The children fled when their mother went to the store and found shelter in the home of a young man, whom Darina met on social media. They remained there until the police picked them up.
"Morally, we just couldn't withstand staying indoors all the time and fearing that our mom will catch us with the smartphone," Darina explained. The prosecutors said there are traces of physical violence on the kids, which may serve as an explanation to why they were so afraid of their mother.
The siblings currently remain in hospital, where psychologists are trying to help them overcome traumatic experience. It's yet to be decided if they will move to live with their father or their elder sister. The children may also stay in Ust-Katav. After all, they are the legal inheritors of the house and local authorities vowed to provide them money to rebuild after the fire.
British social media gasped in disbelief after watching Conservative PM Boris Johnson’s election campaign video... in which he committed a cardinal sin while attempting to casually make a cup of tea. Read Full Article at RT.com
British social media gasped in disbelief after watching Conservative PM Boris Johnson’s election campaign video... in which he committed a cardinal sin while attempting to casually make a cup of tea.
There is probably nothing more quintessentially British than a lovely cup of tea. However, Brits can be pretty uncompromising when it comes to how you make that perfect cuppa. It’s widely recognised that the order is: tea bag in - hot water - tea bag out - milk - stir.
So when Johnson posted a video on Tuesday, showing him adding milk before taking the tea bag out, all hell broke loose on social media.
One person summed up the overall mood: "Our actual Prime Minister doesn't know how to make a cup of tea." While another appeared to be so incensed by Johnson’s tea-making etiquette that they even questioned whether they could ever “vote for someone who does that."
"I know, bag out before milk in!!!" one person replied. "Needs to get rid of that filthy habit.....Take the bag out first...." wrote someone else.
However, luckily for the PM there were others who leapt to his defence and questioned what all the furore was all about. "Nope. I always do that!" said one, while another agreed: "It's how we make ours. Scalds the milk."
Only time will tell as to whether this faux pas will have damaging consequences on Johnson’s general election prospects.
It comes as Johnson came under fire from a number of angry victims of severe floods in South Yorkshire during a walkabout to see how the recovery operation was progressing. Residents of Stainforth voiced their displeasure at the PM, with many insisting he and his Tory government had been too slow to respond to the crisis.
Russian star Daniil Medvedev is facing an early exit from the ATP Finals in London after throwing away a decisive lead in the final set of his match with world number one Rafael Nadal, prompting fans to accuse him of 'choking'. Read Full Article at RT.com
Russian star Daniil Medvedev is facing an early exit from the ATP Finals in London after throwing away a decisive lead in the final set of his match with world number one Rafael Nadal, prompting fans to accuse him of 'choking'.
Medvedev's challenge of the world's top player looked set to be on course for what would have been a memorable victory for the 23-year-old before he slumped to a three set defeat 7-6 (7-3) 3-6 6-7 (4-7) - despite being 5-1 to the good in the final set.
Spaniard Nadal showed characteristic determination even as he survived a match point before mounting his comeback as Medvedev faded, with Nadal eventually winning via tie-break after the final set finished six games apiece.
As the scoreline suggests, Medvedev was in control for much of the match and appeared close to claiming his first win against the world number one before errors began to creep into his game.
Unfortunately for the Moscow native, his downturn coincided with Nadal rediscovering his deft touch. He came off second best in the majority of the baseline rallies - and even got assistance from the Hawkeye technology after officials determined that a Medvedev backhand which was called in was actually marginally wide.
It was one of those days for the Russian star and while the vast majority of his performance was admirable, he and his fans will undoubtedly be disappointed by the manner of his implosion towards the end, a sentiment which has flooded Twitter in the aftermath of the match.
A lot going on in sports these days. But Rafa Nadal, on his way out of the ATP Masters, just came back from 1-5 down in the third set to beat Medvedev in London. Might be greatest comeback of his career. Connors once told me, "Nadal plays like he's broke." Still true.
There's no way to deny it, Medvedev choked but Rafa didn't give up, the hold before he got the 2 breaks back was vital, he even fistpumped after it.. it's really crazy how this guy doesn't give up.
Unbelievable. From 5-1 and a double break down in the third set and after saving match point at 5-2, Nadal is level. 5-5 and Medvedev in serious danger of throwing what looked a certain first win over the world No. 1 away.
Daniil Medvedev did a lot of disintegrating to lose that match and a 1-5, third-set lead but there is no denying the fact that Rafael Nadal is an absolute WARRIOR
Medvedev now faces an anxious wait to determine if he will advance to the next stage of the ATP Finals as he will next face Alexander Zverev and will need other matches to go in his favour if his goal of tournament victory in London is to be realized.
Nadal, meanwhile, meets Stefanos Tsitsipas ahead of a potential semi-final spot in the tournament which will keep him at the summit of the world rankings - so long as rival Novak Djokovic doesn't win the event.
A tycoon who spent millions of dollars arming anti-Russian fighters in Ukraine has emerged from the shadows to blast the Europe he once idolized. The oligarch now sees alliance with Russia as the only option for his country. Read Full Article at RT.com
A tycoon who spent millions of dollars arming anti-Russian fighters in Ukraine has emerged from the shadows to blast the Europe he once idolized. The oligarch now sees alliance with Russia as the only option for his country.
Igor Kolomoysky, the oligarch seen by many as the shadow power behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has changed his tune sharply from the days of the 2014 Maidan rebellion.
Back then he was an ally of pro-European President Petro Poroshenko, who even appointed him governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region. Once installed there, Kolomoysky placed a bounty on captured fighters from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics, who fought against the new authorities in Kiev, and spent a reported $10 million per month fielding his own private militia, also funding ultranationalist volunteer units, like the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
“We’ll just have to kill them,” he said of the rebels at the time.
He now believes an alliance with Russia is the best bet for Kiev, he told the New York Times in an interview.
“They’re stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations,” he said. “People want peace, a good life, they don’t want to be at war. And you [America] are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it,” he added, referring to reports that the International Monetary Fund is holding up an aid package to Ukraine until the government pursues money missing from Kolomoysky’s Privatbank - money Kolomoyasky is accused of embezzling.
“You all won’t take us,” the oligarch said of the EU and NATO. “There’s no use in wasting time on empty talk. Whereas Russia would love to bring us into a new Warsaw Pact.”
The IMF, he said, could easily be replaced by loans from Russia. “We’ll take $100 billion from the Russians. I think they’d love to give it to us today,” Kolomoisky said. “What’s the fastest way to resolve issues and restore the relationship? Only money.”
Progress towards EU and NATO membership, coveted by the government in Kiev, has been slow at best. Despite the signing of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement in 2017 (which the electorate rejected in the Netherlands), European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at the time that it would take at least 20 years for Ukraine to become a full-fledged member state.
Kolomoysky’s referencing of the Cold War military alliance is likely to raise eyebrows in Washington, especially given his closeness to Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky. Kolomoysky used to be Zelensky’s employer back when the president was a comedian, and is reported to have bankrolled his election campaign. In addition, Western leaders have expressed concern that the billionaire could play puppet-master to Zelensky, prompting the new leader to publicly declare that his wealthy backer would hold no sway over his administration.
Though Zelensky has maintained dialogue with European leaders on resolving the war in Ukraine, he has also held phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on mending ties and simmering down the conflict.
US President Donald Trump has expressed hope that Zelensky and Putin can “get together and solve” their problems. However, for most lawmakers in Washington the prospect of a Moscow-Kiev pact is a no-go.
Kolomoysky is undaunted by the prospects of a Democrat taking office next year and cracking down.
“If they get smart with us, we’ll go to Russia,” he told the Times. “Russian tanks will be stationed near Krakow and Warsaw. Your NATO will be soiling its pants and buying Pampers.”
Though described by Putin as a “swindler” and “one of a kind chancer,” Kolomoysky is certain that Kiev will drift towards Russia.
“I’m describing, objectively, what I’m seeing and where things are heading,” he said.
Ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the US-headquartered Organization of American States of making a political decision in backing the right-wing opposition, saying the coup continues to wreak havoc after his exile. Read Full Article at RT.com
Ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the US-headquartered Organization of American States of making a political decision in backing the right-wing opposition, saying the coup continues to wreak havoc after his exile.
Speaking from Mexico a day after he fled Bolivia, Morales said: "The OAS is in the service of the North American empire."
Morales said he “could not understand” how his military commanders could show such “disloyalty.”
“That confirms that my great crime is to be indigenous. It’s a class problem,” he said.
The exiled president said that after freeing itself from the International Monetary Fund, the Bolivian economy was doing better.
We had big plans in the field of exports.
Yet, the coup plotters “do not accept the nationalization of natural resources,” Morales said.
He also said the appointment of Jeanine Añez as "interim president" confirms the coup and called for a national dialogue to end violence in his country.
Morales also claimed that a mechanical failure on a helicopter he was traveling on in early November was “not accidental” and said he wants the incident to be investigated. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing just after takeoff due to a “mechanical fault in the tail rotor.”
The socialist leader said he would return to Bolivia if the people asked. He also pleaded with the Bolivian opposition to stop the violence continuing after his exile. "Why do they continue?" he asked.
Daniil Medvedev suffered a third-set meltdown as he lost to Rafael Nadal at the ATP Finals in London, leaving the Russian staring at an early exit from the tournament. Read Full Article at RT.com
Daniil Medvedev suffered a third-set meltdown as he lost to Rafael Nadal at the ATP Finals in London, leaving the Russian staring at an early exit from the tournament.
Medvedev was leading 5-1 in the decisive third set and had match point but threw it away as Nadal rattled off five successive games to take the match into a tie-break, which he won to claim the contest 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).
The match was a re-run of the pair's epic US Open final which Nadal won, although in London both went into the meeting knowing it was likely make-or-break having lost their opening group encounters, with Nadal being beaten by German youngster Alexander Zverev and Medvedev falling to Greek rival Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier in the week.
A tight first set at the O2 Arena went with serve before fourth seed Medvedev took the initiative in the tie-break, winning it 7-3.
But world number one Nadal fought back to immediately break the Russian at the first opportunity in the second set, going on to take the set 6-3.
AFP
It was the 23-year-old Medvedev who seized the first break in the decider as his powerful serving proved increasingly decisive. The 6ft 6in Russian broke Nadal again to set himself up to serve for the match at 5-1, but Nadal showed characteristic grit to save match point and break back to keep himself in the game.
Medvedev continued to appear agitated, giving frequent sarcastic thumbs-up gestures to his team, and the Russian went into full meltdown mode as Nadal incredibly broke again while holding serve to level the set at 5-5.
Nadal took the next game to edge 6-5 in front, although Medvedev finally regained his composure to steady the ship at 6-6 and take the match to a decisive tie-break.
However, Nadal completed his comeback by winning the breaker 7-4 to keep his hopes of a maiden ATP Finals title alive.
ASTONISHING FROM RAFA NADAL 🤯
Down 1-5 in the third set, @RafaelNadal saves a match point & completes a sensational comeback at the #NittoATPFinals!
Nadal, 33, next meets Greek star Tsitsipas in his final group match as he seeks a semifinal berth, but also knows that he will hold on to the world number one spot should Novak Djokovic fail to win the tournament.
Medvedev next plays Germany's Zverev but knows his hopes of progressing in London are likely to be over, facing a disappointing end to what had been a stellar season for the Russian in which he reached a maiden Grand Slam final and won four titles.
Zverev and Tsitsipas play their round-robin match in Group Andre Agassi at the O2 Arena in the UK capital later on Wednesday.
The landing site selected for NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 rover could well be one of the best chances we have of discovering whether the Red Planet was once home to life and whether it could be again. Read Full Article at RT.com
The landing site selected for NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 rover could well be one of the best chances we have of discovering whether the Red Planet was once home to life and whether it could be again.
The 28-mile (45km) wide Jezero crater was selected as the landing site for the new rover in late 2018, and has been found to contain vast deposits of hydrated silica and minerals called carbonates, according to a newly published study.
Once the site of a lake more than 3.5 billion years ago, scientists now believe that Jezero, thanks to its carbonate supplies, will likely contain structures that can survive for billions of years, such as shells, coral and certain types of rock formed by microbial life.
Deltas here on Earth are known to be hubs for preserved biomarkers and signs of life, and the presence of the hydrated silica suggests Mars is likely to be even better in this regard.
“Using a technique we developed that helps us find rare, hard-to-detect mineral phases in data taken from orbiting spacecraft, we found two outcrops of hydrated silica within Jezero crater,” said the study’s lead author, Jesse Tarnas, a PhD student at Brown University in Rhode Island, US.
We know from Earth that this mineral phase is exceptional at preserving microfossils and other biosignatures, so that makes these outcrops exciting targets for the rover to explore.
The intel about the site, and the surrounding delta, replete with mineral deposits, was provided by data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
“The material that forms the bottom layer of a delta is sometimes the most productive in terms of preserving biosignatures,” explained Jack Mustard, professor at Brown and study co-author.
“So if you can find that bottomset layer, and that layer has a lot of silica in it, that's a double bonus,” he added.
The rover will land on Mars on February 18, 2021 when it will begin taking rock core samples that will be deposited in metal tubes on the Martian surface, waiting to be shipped back to Earth for analysis during a later mission.
Bolivian President Evo Morales was “ripped away from his people by greed,” former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters said in a message of support to the exiled leader, ousted in a coup and forced to seek asylum in Mexico. Read Full Article at RT.com
Bolivian President Evo Morales was “ripped away from his people by greed,” former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters said in a message of support to the exiled leader, ousted in a coup and forced to seek asylum in Mexico.
“Evo Morales, if you see this, more power to you. I hope your exile is short, your people need you. They need a leader like you,” Waters said in the video posted online, adding that the socialist leader had done a “great job” as the country’s first indigenous leader.
“You’ve pulled so many of your people out of poverty and gave them a sense of dignity,” the rock ‘n’ roll legend said.
You have right and history on your side and the sooner you are able to come home to your beloved Bolivia, the better it would be for the people and for you… but also for the rest of us.
Waters said he was not a religious man, but if he were, he would be “praying for that moment.”
Bolivia has fallen into the hands of “thugs and fascists and totalitarianism” since the coup which forced Morales to resign this week, the British musician said.
Waters is a lifelong left-wing political activist and opponent of US imperialism around the world. He has also spoken out about the jailing of former Brazilian President Lula da Silva and has been a staunch advocate for jailed Australian journalist Julian Assange.
Morales fled Bolivia on Tuesday after being pressured by to step down following weeks of protests over election results that the opposition claimed were tampered with. Meanwhile, unelected opposition politician Jeanine Anez declared herself “interim president” on Wednesday.
At least one person has been killed and three others injured after an 18-year-old student opened indiscriminate fire at his classmates at a college in Russia's Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk. 
Crew members who were aboard a Navy warship during a freak encounter with unidentified flying objects in 2004 have come forward with new details about the mysterious episode, offering captivating first-hand accounts. 
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) took his Twitter game to the next level during the impeachment hearings, with a series of posts that spelled out a popular meme about the accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 
Russian social network VKontakte has unveiled the upcoming ‘dislike’ button, a simple feature that has been cruelly denied to Facebook users despite years of begging. Now Mark Zuckerberg can claim it was a Russian plot all along! 
Thousands of supporters of deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales gathered in La Paz to demand the resignation of self-declared “interim” leader Jeanine Anez, where they squared off with riot police in hectic street clashes. 
Police have tried to detain Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin without a warrant on belated and mysterious charges of ‘assaulting’ a Democratic congresswoman during this summer’s siege of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. 
US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan said their countries were working to “resolve” the issue of Ankara purchasing Russian S-400 air defense systems, without going into any specifics. 
The seizure of Venezuela’s embassy in Brasilia was not only an attack on the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, but also an attempt to sow discord between the BRICS member states, Russia’s Deputy FM told RT. 
The US wants to bring Turkey “back into the fold,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday as he warned again about Ankara drifting away from its NATO partners. 
As Russia marks famed Soviet inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov’s centenary, we look at the newest incarnation of his time-tested rifle. The AK-308 fires NATO rounds, giving the Russian manufacturer an edge over western rivals. 
UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the most dominant forces in the history of MMA, but has ominously suggested he has sometimes gone easy on his opponents to avoid doing even more damage. 
Google wants you to trust it with your money, even as its latest privacy scandal, where millions of Americans' medical records were covertly slurped up to power a secret AI project, has triggered another federal investigation. 
No school, no IDs and constant CCTV surveillance. Nobody in town knew that they existed. Three kids were locked up behind the fence of a private home for a decade, as their mother tried to protect them from the 'cruel world.' 
British social media gasped in disbelief after watching Conservative PM Boris Johnson’s election campaign video... in which he committed a cardinal sin while attempting to casually make a cup of tea. 
Russian star Daniil Medvedev is facing an early exit from the ATP Finals in London after throwing away a decisive lead in the final set of his match with world number one Rafael Nadal, prompting fans to accuse him of 'choking'. 
A tycoon who spent millions of dollars arming anti-Russian fighters in Ukraine has emerged from the shadows to blast the Europe he once idolized. The oligarch now sees alliance with Russia as the only option for his country. 
Ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused the US-headquartered Organization of American States of making a political decision in backing the right-wing opposition, saying the coup continues to wreak havoc after his exile. 
Daniil Medvedev suffered a third-set meltdown as he lost to Rafael Nadal at the ATP Finals in London, leaving the Russian staring at an early exit from the tournament. 
The landing site selected for NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 rover could well be one of the best chances we have of discovering whether the Red Planet was once home to life and whether it could be again. 
Bolivian President Evo Morales was “ripped away from his people by greed,” former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters said in a message of support to the exiled leader, ousted in a coup and forced to seek asylum in Mexico. 