Mubeen Blogs

Human rights report highlights crackdown on personal freedoms in most restrictive country in the world North Korea has executed people for distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, according to a UN human rights report. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher – including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/L3jlEWZ

Top Senate Republican says Democrats see shutdown as ‘politically advantageous’ as 30 September deadline looms The US government is drawing nearer to a potential shutdown after Donald Trump told Republicans on Friday “don’t even bother dealing with” the Democrats , whose congressional leaders are refusing to support spending bills that do not include their healthcare priorities. Congress is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to approve legislation funding the federal government, otherwise many departments will stop work and employees will be told to stay home. While the Senate and House of Representatives have made some progress on passing the 12 appropriations bills that make up the budget, it seems certain that Congress will need to pass a short-term measure to keep the government open beyond 30 September. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/57ehwxL

Media conglomerate putting together majority cash offer for WBD backed by ultra-rich Ellison family, reports say Paramount Skydance is reportedly preparing a takeover offer for Warner Bros Discovery, in a bid to pull together two of the largest US legacy media conglomerates and Hollywood movie studios. Less than a month after Skydance, a production firm run by David Ellison, son of the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, closed its merger with Paramount , the firm is considering other blockbuster deals. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eEL1z5

Death of anti-apartheid activist in 1977 after police beat him into a coma sparked outrage across the world South African prosecutors will reopen an inquest into the death of the prominent anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko , nearly 50 years after he died in police custody. Biko, the founder of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement, died in a prison cell in 1977 aged just 30 , after being beaten into a coma by police who had arrested him nearly a month earlier. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/FS9tRlc

Game on Sunday to be played at Johan Cruyff Stadium Club’s last match at old Camp Nou was in May 2023 Barcelona have announced that their opening home game of the season against Valencia will not be played at the Camp Nou – five days before it was due to take place. The club had been given permission to play their first three fixtures away from home in order to complete the first phase of construction work at their stadium, and that was followed by the international break. But they were still unable to fulfil the requirements needed to get the permits in time, leaving a public deadline unmet for the third time having originally set an opening date of November 2024. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/TQjOEPv

Toronto film festival: the Oscar winner is adrift in Alice Winocour’s uninvolving film about three thinly written women involved in a Paris fashion week show The otherworldly beauty and consuming, tattoo-strewn look of Angelina Jolie hasn’t always allowed for a great deal of versatility as an actor, a difficult face to seamlessly slot into most stories. The star hasn’t seemed to be all that interested in acting for a while anyway (since 2012, she has physically appeared on screen just seven times) and has preferred to spend time behind the camera and focusing on both her family and her philanthropic pursuits. Her films as a director have been of both genuinely noble intention and minimal cinematic value (her last effort, Without Blood , premiered at last year’s Toronto film festival but still doesn’t have US distribution) and as she enters her 50s, it seems like she’s rediscovered her passion for acting again. The catastrophic box office for her ill-advised entry into the Marvel u...

Attaullah Baig, fired this year, said he had warned Mark Zuckerberg engineers had unaudited access to user data WhatsApp ’s former head of cybersecurity filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that parent company Meta disregarded internal flaws in the app’s digital defenses and exposed billions of its users. He says the company systematically violated cybersecurity regulations and retaliated against him for reporting the failures. Attaullah Baig, who served as head of security for WhatsApp from 2021 to 2025, claims that approximately 1,500 engineers had unrestricted access to user data without proper oversight, potentially violating a US government order that imposed a $5bn penalty on the company in 2020. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/ds1m5ZY

The UK’s ambassador to Washington may believe the US president is merely a ‘risk taker’, but that doesn’t represent my point of view – and it probably doesn’t represent yours. That’s why we must make our voices heard Is it ever the right time to worry about what Peter Mandelson has just said? Given he is so famously allied with the darkness, and the government is beset by more urgent problems, everywhere, it feels as if Mandelson should cut us a break and just say inoffensive things, or ideally, nothing. Instead, the ambassador to the US made a speech on Sunday to the Ditchley Foundation . Of Donald Trump, he said: “The president may not follow the traditional rulebook or conventional practice, but he is a risk taker in a world where a ‘business as usual’ approach no longer works.” According to Mandelson, those of us arguing for a pivot away from the special relationship are guilty of “lazy thinking”. Some things are so depressing that they make themselves urgent, just by resting the...

Compressed timetable and worries about potentially toxic atmosphere narrows field to replace Angela Rayner A series of senior female Labour MPs have dropped out of contention to replace Angela Rayner as the party’s deputy leader, as a compressed timetable for nominations and worries about a potentially toxic atmosphere narrowed the field. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is expected to enter the race, where she would be seen as a de facto Downing Street choice, potentially putting her against Emily Thornberry, who would position herself as a voice for backbenchers. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Zjc4sOo

World No 1 has proved she can control her emotions to become one of the most consistent big tournament players Aryna Sabalenka thought she had everything figured out. She believed she had done all the work necessary, harnessing successfully her once uncontrollable power into consistent excellence. After overcoming so many hurdles en route to becoming the best player in the world, she felt ready for anything. Sabalenka was convinced she could handle any challenge that came her way. It was not until her excruciating French Open final defeat against Coco Gauff that Sabalenka understood this was not true. As she struggled with her nerves under such significant pressure and punishing windy conditions, the 27-year-old was outplayed by a tireless, gutsier opponent in Gauff who broke her down by forcing her to work hard for every single point. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/gNH2jCm

Pool A: USA 60-0 Samoa Tafuna scores four tries as USA finish third in Pool A There was only one thing on the agenda in York on Saturday afternoon: points. The reality was always going to be that the United States would pick up a first win of the tournament and inflict a third straight defeat on Samoa. That was never really up for debate. But it was always going to be about how many points the Eagles could rack up to pile the pressure on Australia later in the day. Nobody really knew what would be enough. Some were saying 60, some were saying 70; others felt they might need as many as 80 to stand a chance. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/QC1B4dh

It’s hard to avoid the feeling that, after Brighton boldly took their chance, Mikel Arteta let one slip against Liverpool Last Sunday, Fabian Hürzeler made a quadruple substitution an hour into Brighton’s Premier League game against Manchester City . Brighton had been scratchy, had struggled to create and were a goal down, but the changes transformed the game and they won 2-1. Hürzeler explained he had been guided by “a feeling that comes from inside … In some moments my body says something to me. Not just in football but generally in life you need to have the courage to take the decisions you want to.” Hürzeler had spent most of his press conference trying to deflect or at least share out the praise. He talked of his players and how important their energy and belief had been, and he stressed that the substitutions had been a collective decision made with his coaching staff. Management these days is a world of data and analysis, of careful programming and meticulous plans. But ultima...

Settlement could be pivotal after authors claimed company took pirated copies of their work to train chatbots The artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5bn to settle a class-action lawsuit by book authors who say the company took pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot. The landmark settlement, if approved by a judge as soon as Monday, could mark a turning point in legal battles between AI companies and the writers, visual artists and other creative professionals who accuse them of copyright infringement. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/ZtxXpcb

Saturnine frontman blames ‘disagreeable and vexatious characters’ for decision to cut ties with band In a sullen episode befitting some of his more gloomy lyrics, Morrissey, lead singer of the Smiths, has abruptly shut down an email address he was promoting to sell his business interests in the band. The notoriously saturnine frontman blamed “disagreeable and vexatious characters” involved with the band for his sudden decision, and claimed he had endured decades of misery, in a post on Friday on his website morrisseycentral.com. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/M7JTx4i

August’s report gave signs of a cooling labor market with negative job numbers for the first time since 2020 – here’s what we learned A closely watched report on US jobs released Friday gave signs of a cooling labor market. The economy added just 22,000 new jobs in August, coming in below expectations, while the unemployment rate ticked slightly up to 4.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the beginning of the year, over 100,000 jobs were being added each month. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/WkBy0RD

Prime minister cautions Canadians as Ottawa moves to curb spending to balance near-record military expenditures Mark Carney has told Canadians to prepare for austerity measures and his finance minister warned of “tough choices” in the coming months, as the government attempts to balance near-record defence spending, cuts to government programs and a trade war with the United States. Carney, the former central banker and economist turned politician, has been meeting senior ministers before the fall budget, and hinted cuts were coming to the federal bureaucracy. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/0pyd2vi

Gift comes 8o years after Welsh guards first left replica uniform for Belgian statue to commemorate end of Nazi occupation When British forces commemorated the liberation of Brussels for the first time in 1945, they left a unique gift – a replica Welsh guards uniform for the Belgian city’s emblematic “peeing boy” statue, the Manneken Pis. Now 81 years after the Welsh guards freed Brussels from Nazi occupation, the gift has been renewed: the Manneken Pis has a new regimental uniform, including scarlet jacket embroidered with gold lace, gleaming white belt and authentic bearskin hat. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/HyDuRcn

President laments accident on railway that carries passengers up and down a hillside in Portuguese capital At least three people have been killed after Lisbon’s Gloria funicular railway derailed and crashed, leaving about 20 people hurt, authorities said. Three people are gravely injured. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/FgCOyom

Venice film festival Al Pacino, Colman Domingo and Myha’la excel in this gripping take on the events of 1977 when an Indianapolis businessman held his mortgage broker hostage With terrific chutzpah, black-comic flair and cool, cruel unsentimentality, screenwriter Austin Kolodney and director Gus Van Sant have made a true-crime suspense thriller set in the 1970s, tapping into the spirit of both Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon and Network. Apart from anything else, it is a reminder that in that post-Kennedy, post-Watergate age, plenty of lawless and febrile things happened that would now be considered phenomena purely attributable to social media. In 1977, an Indianapolis businessman named Tony Kiritsis, with many acquaintances in the police department, kidnapped a mortgage broker named Richard Hall , and tied Hall’s neck with a “dead man’s wire” to his shotgun, which would therefore go off if police sharpshooters tried to kill him. Kiritsis even paraded his victim like this on TV whi...

A murder investigation was launched Sunday after apparent homicide as authorities ask public for help Nevada sheriffs are asking the public’s help in identifying a man killed on Saturday in an apparent homicide at the Burning Man festival. In a statement on Monday, Pershing county sheriff Jerry Allen asked for assistance to identify the man, who was found dead in the futurist encampment of Black Rock City as the festival reaching its climax when an effigy – the eponymous burning man – was set alight. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/I7zybHG