Saturday, February 28, 2015

some news bits late February 2015

In a momentous decision, the Federal Communications Commission gave its reccomendtion after hearing years of public comment. They have opted to adhere to the concept of Net Neutrality, where the largest of the internet service providors cannot limit the bandwidth of certain markets. An npr piece that gives a good overview said that the numbers of public comments went up dramatically after this piece last summer by comedian John Oliver.

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The well known Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot to death within view of the Kremlin in Moscow on February 27th.

The civil war in Ukraine continues with an EU sanctioned ceasefire having fallen apart over the preceeding couple weeks. Yesterday China made a public statement about the crisis there.
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In the US, Congress has been trying to force a reversal on President Obama's executive order regarding immigrants. They have repeatedly tried for months to connect that repeal to the funding of the nation's Homeland Security Department. Bills that the House passes have not been passed by the Senate chamber, all week. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security would no longer be able to pay thousands of its workers if the funding was not approved. The Senate managed to pass a bill funding the Department for three weeks til a larger agreement could be found. The House of Representatives could not accomplish this, and so passed a bill extending funding for only one week and thus became the butt of many jokes.  This is because the House is controlled by the Republican party who pride themselves as 'strong on defense', but can't fund Homeland Security because they disagree so strongly with the President's stance over immigrants.

Another simmering debate between the House and the President involves Speaker John Boehner's invitation of Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to come and speak to Congress before his upcoming elections.
The President has said the invitation was not requested by his office, so as not to show favoritism toward the incumbent in his election efforts in a few weeks. But Netanyahu will come to the US anyway, speak to Republicans but not separately with the Democrats both chambers of Congress.
It's been reported that the speech Netanyahu will bring seeks to derail negotiations between the Obama Administration and Israel's enemy Iran over the future of that state's nuclear power.
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On February 28th, the world mourned the passing of Leonard Nimoy, the actor most known as portraying the iconic Spock on the fifty year-old television series Star Trek.

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