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Saturday, September 30, 2017

USA direct talks with North Korea | Will you speak?


"Will you speak"

The US, according to their foreign minister Rex Tillerson, is in contact with North Korea to explore the possibility of negotiations on its nuclear and missile program. There are communication channels to Pyongyang, said Tillerson on a visit to Beijing. "We're exploring, so stay tuned." The US would ask, "Will you speak?"

Tillerson spoke in Beijing with the Chinese President Xi Jingping and the supreme diplomat of the People's Republic, Yang Jiechi. In the run-up, it was assumed that the talks were mainly about North Korea. 

Tillerson's announcement of direct talks comes after weeks of mutual provocation between the US and North Korea. Thus, US President Donald Trump had threatened "to destroy North Korea completely" before the UN General Assembly in mid-September Kim Jong Un, the North Korean Regime Commissioner, described the US president as a "mentally ill, senile American", whom he "will be" taming with fire. " A few days later the North Korean regime had interpreted a truce trumps as a declaration of war and threatened to shoot down US bombers .

In view of the verbal escalation, Germany and other states had called for a peaceful solution to the conflict. Trump had recently said the United States was prepared for military deployment. But this was not the first choice to resolve the dispute over the country's nuclear and missile program.

China includes all North Korean companies in the country
Trump wants to travel to Asia in early November, including China, Japan and South Korea. The US has long demanded that China exert more pressure on North Korea. A few days ago, China implemented a UN sanction and ordered the closure of all North Korean companies in ChinaHowever, China is still rejecting a complete oil bar against North Korea demanded by the USA.

The nuclear conflict around North Korea has a long history. It came to a provisional climax when the country successfully tested a hydrogen bomb according to its own data at the beginning of September. In order to be able to attack the US with this particularly strong nuclear weapon, North Korea is working on the development of a corresponding long-range rocket, which can carry the nuclear explosive material to America. The isolated country regularly violates resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Kurdish referendum | 'yes' to independence


YES to independence wins by more than 92% in the Kurdish referendum

The High Electoral Commission of Iraqi Kurdistan announced Wednesday that more than 92% of voters said yes in the referendum of independence held on in the autonomous region, despite opposition from the central government of Baghdad and the international community. 


At a press conference in the Kurdish capital Erbil, representatives of the body said that 92.73% of the 4 million people who went to the polls supported independence, with a participation rate of 72.16%. In addition, 7.27% voted "No" and 1.21% were void votes in the consultation that took place in the autonomous region and disputed territories between the Kurdish government and Iraqi, such as Kirkuk province. 

Mohammad stressed that the electoral process "was successfully and without problems or irregularities" and that international observers who came to oversee the consultation witnessed this. 

The head of the commission stressed that the results will be considered definitive when they are confirmed by the Court of Appeals of Kurdistan, but did not detail the date. The Kurdish authorities stressed in recent days that independence would not be declared after the results were known, but that they were willing to talk to Baghdad about "outstanding issues", including the Government of territories that are administratively Iraqi, but are under control of Kurdish forces. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi called the Kurdish authorities to overturn the referendum and to discuss, based on the Iraqi Constitution, that the country is a federal state.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Twitter | The limit of 140 characters would be extended to 280 for a tweet


It is a mini-revolution for the social network 

More than 10 years after its birth and plagued by great financial difficulties, Twitter tries to revive itself by doubling the length of its messages. A change that sparked an avalanche of comments on the network, but left analysts skeptical. "Trying to fit your thoughts into a single tweet - we've all gone through it - it's painful," the group wrote on its official blog Tuesday.
"We want everybody around the world to be able to express themselves easily on Twitter, so we're doing something new: we're going to try a bigger limit, 280 characters," says the American social network, which says this functionality is currently reserved for only a few users, before a possible generalization. "It's a small change, but a big step for us. 140, it was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character limit of SMS. I am proud to see how the teams have been attentive to solve a real problem that people have when trying to tweeter. And while maintaining our conciseness, our rapidity and our very essence  ! "Tweeted the founding boss Jack Dorsey in a message in ... 280 characters.
"Cause of frustration"
The lengthening concerns only the messages in Latin characters, explains the network, because it is mainly in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French that the limit of 140 characters seems to sometimes concern users, unlike those who tweet in Japanese, Korean or Chinese. According to the group, 9% of English tweets reached 140 characters (0.4% in Japanese) and "the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people who tweet in English." "When people do not have to put their thoughts in 140 characters, and even have margin, the announcement sparked an avalanche of reactions on the network, including the NSA, the US national security agency, tweeting: "We're going to need a bigger data center, while others are worried with humor from the prospect of seeing the American president, already frenzied twitters, have more space: 
Good. God. Donald. Trump. A. 280. Characters,  "wrote a user.

Lifting shields

Forced to renew due to financial difficulties - he lost another 116 million dollars in the second quarter, and the number of active twitters stagnates around 330 million - Twitter walks on eggs: early 2016, the hypothesis of the abandonment of the dogma of 140 characters had provoked a lifting of shields of certain users, fearing that the service loses its soul. "We know that there can be a sentimental attachment to the 140 characters ... But we tried (the new limit) and we fell in love with this new length", justifies Twitter, whose main audience is elected officials, journalists and celebrities.
But according to analysts, it is unlikely that this mini-revolution announced is the panacea. "The longer they lengthen (the length of the tweets), the more they start to look like Facebook . And if they start to look like Facebook, then Facebook will get them out of the game, it's already too late: at the time of virtual reality and vocal assistants, tweets are outdated. They are trying everything to try to monetize the service, but the problem is that it was not designed for that. "Twitter is struggling to straighten out as everyone moves in other directions,".