Laurie Penny insists that it’s people in the real world, not the internet, who hate women. BCCI invites Ashraf Ghani to attend Afghanistan’s debut test cricket match against India.
Putin’s ‘wisdom averted US-Russia war in Syria’
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Russia Times Thursday that Russia and the US had come dangerously close to a direct conflict, but it was averted because of “the wisdom of the Russian leadership”.
Vox had earlier reported that the US bombing of Syria in April, ostensibly to punish Assad for carrying out a chemical attack, had dramatically raised the possibility of a war with Russia.
Damascus had nearly won the seven-year war, despite continued interference by the US, Assad said, but the possibility of peace could potentially make his opponents in the West desperate.
Women and the internet? Think back to 2010
“Misogyny is among the many things millennials did not invent. Long before Twitter was a glint in Jack Dorsey’s eye, women who stepped out of line were being shamed by the Left and Right alike regardless of which wave of feminism they rode.”
That’s author Laurie Penny and she insists on Longreads that it’s people in the real world, not the internet, who hate women, and that such people are able to successfully use the medium to spread hate and online sexual violence.
Now a report from Manchester Metropolitan University has said that 2010 was the year when the new wave of feminism gathered enough steam to become a threat to established norms and that momentum came from the internet.
Come and watch cricket, says BCCI to Ashraf Ghani
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has invited Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani to attend the country’s debut test cricket match against India in Bengaluru mid-June, Pajhwok reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, India’s deputy national security adviser (NSA) Rajinder Khanna met Afghan NSA Haneef Atmar in Kabul Wednesday to discuss the regional security situation, including cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, Tolo News reported.
The visit from the deputy NSA comes only three days after Atmar led a delegation to Pakistan to resume peace talks. The Afghan NSA’s high-level meeting with Pakistan authorities is seen as a potential dampener to the India-Afghanistan relationship, especially as India has helped the country stand on its feet 16 years since the fall of the Taliban.
Two weeks ago, seven Indian engineers working for a power plant project were abducted in Baghlan, an area largely controlled by the Taliban. Atmar, in a tweet, without making any reference to the incident, assured that Afghanistan “will work hard to ensure the security of Indian citizens in Afghanistan”.
What’s in a name? India’s Ocean has a new twin
In deference to America’s growing engagement with India and its expanding security role across the Indian and Pacific oceans, the Pentagon is changing the name of the US military’s Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command.
The name change comes amid growing tensions between the US and China, with the latter expanding its military activity in the region. According to Global Times, US defence secretary Jim Mattis noted that the move signals a resolve and long-lasting commitment to the Indo-Pacific. India and the US have been forging stronger security ties in recent years, with defence secretaries making more frequent visits and conducting talks on sharing technology.
Seven months ago in November 2017, as US President Donald Trump travelled through east Asia, widely replacing the more familiar ‘Asia-Pacific’ with ‘Indo-Pacific’, officials in Beijing sneered, Reuters said.
Interestingly, until the time of publication of this article, the Command is yet to change the name on Twitter handle.
Google is quietly making inroads into China
Google is slowly piecing together a strategy for China to ensure that it doesn’t miss out on the technology growth in the world’s largest country, the Global Times reports.
Google’s plan, which has been months in the making, finally came to light today after a product launch of the app Files Go — a file manager for Android devices.
While the launch of the app was rather small in China, “the mechanisms behind it provide insight into how Google may be thinking about the country, where it has been absent since 2010 after redirecting its Chinese search service to Hong Kong in the face of government pressure,” it adds.
Since Google Play Store — Google’s app downloading software — is not functional in China, Google is taking a partner-led approach to distribution in the country. The company is working with Tencent, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Baidu, each of which will stock the app on their independent app stores.