policy

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15 December 2018
Trump's surprise visit to Arlington in the rain
On Saturday, Trump arrived around 2.15pm at Arlington National Cemetery unannounced for wreath laying, which decorates the graves of fallen troops for Christmas.

19 December 2018
independent.co.uk Trump orders full and immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria
The US has more than 2,000 troops in Syria. US officials said on Wednesday that a full withdrawal had been requested by Mr Trump. One official told Reuters that the pullout could take up to 100 days. Shortly after news of the plans emerged, the president appeared to tweet confirmation.

*update*
21 December 2018
BBC Trump to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan
The Trump administration is planning to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan, US media say. Reports, citing unnamed officials, say about 7,000 troops - roughly half the remaining US military presence in the country - could go home within months. The reports come a day after the president announced the country's military withdrawal from Syria.

24 December 2018  read more »

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The world's longest train route spans more than 8,000 miles, crosses through eight countries, and is long enough to stretch from Florida to Washington state 3 times.

The China-Europe Block Train begins in the city of Yiwu in China's east and crosses through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, and France before reaching its destination 21 days later in the Spanish capital of Madrid.

Also called Yixinou, the route surpasses the world's second- and third-longest routes, the Trans-Siberian railway (5,772 miles) and the Moscow-to-Beijing (4,340 miles) train.

The Silk Railroad - Episode I: World's longest rail link, from Yiwu to Madrid
An international freight railway network is connecting China to cities across Europe, dubbed the new "Silk Railroad." Two thousand years ago, commodities from China would need a year to reach Europe, along the ancient Silk Road. But today, Chinese consumer goods can reach London by rail in just 14 days.

Yiwu railway station - a massive freight terminus, began transporting cargoes overland to Europe in 2014. It's part of the multi-billion-US-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to boost international trade.

The Yiwu-Madrid railway is the longest rail link in the world. It spreads across 13,000-kilometers through France, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Along the way, the train transfers three times due to different track gauges in China, Europe, and Russia.

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Image courtesy Skye Gould / Business Insider

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Washington Post: As China cleans up its act, India’s cities named the world’s most polluted
India’s capital, New Delhi, choked by rising automobile emissions and construction dust, was named Wednesday the world’s most polluted megacity by the World Health Organization, which analyzed the levels of the pollutant PM10 in the air in cities with populations above 14 million between 2010 and 2016.
Greater Cairo was the second most polluted large city. India’s other megacity of Mumbai ranked fourth on the list and Beijing fifth.

Nine out of 10 people around the globe are breathing polluted air, the study said, and air pollution is responsible for the deaths of 7 million people worldwide each year, most of them living in Asia and Africa. Of those deaths, 3.8 million were from indoor air pollution from unhealthy cook stoves, a huge problem in India.
Former perennial offender China, in response to citizen outrage, has taken steps to clean up its air, shuttering or reforming factories and reducing its coal consumption in favor of renewable energy. The moves helped improve air quality in Beijing and elsewhere but at a cost — many poor people were denied coal heat during winter or lost jobs.
The World Health Organization’s head of public health, Maria Neira, told the Reuters news agency that India should follow China’s lead.  read more »

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New Zealand bans all new offshore oil exploration as part of 'carbon-neutral future'
The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits. The ban will apply to new permits and won’t affect the existing 22, some of which have decades left on their exploration rights and cover an area of 100,000 sq km.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said her government "has a plan to transition towards a carbon-neutral future, one that looks 30 years in advance”"
The Labour coalition government was elected last year and made tackling climate change one of the cornerstones of its policies, committing to transition to 100% of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2035 and making the economy carbon neutral by 2050.
Last month Ardern accepted a 50,000-strong Greenpeace petition calling for an end to offshore oil and gas exploration.

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Image courtesy 123RF / Radio New Zealand

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#BreakingNews: Fed raises benchmark rate 0.25%. Fed funds rate range now 1.5% to 1.75%. Fed maintains three rate hikes for 2018.

More Than 11 Million Young People Have Fled Facebook Since 2011 According to iStrategy, Facebook has 4,292,080 fewer high-school aged users and 6,948,848 college-aged users than it did in 2011.

March 23, 2018 - Elon Musk joins delete-facebook boycott, deleted Tesla’s and SpaceX’s Facebook pages on Friday. “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do,” Musk tweeted back. He initially said, “What’s Facebook?” to a prior tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook because, “It is time.”

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Image courtesy JOEL SAGET / AFP / Getty Images

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ATM dispensing $100 bills instead of $5 bills< /a>
A Kansas woman is facing a pricey lawsuit after a bank accused her of making dozens of withdrawals from a faulty ATM that was dispensing $100 bills instead of $5 bills, a local report said Tuesday.

Cybercrime costs the global economy $450 billion: CEO
In 2016 "cybercrime cost the global economy over $450 billion, over 2 billion personal records were stolen and in the U.S. alone over 100 million Americans had their medical records stolen," said Steve Langan, chief executive at Hiscox Insurance, told CNBC.
"This is an epidemic of cybercrime, and yet 53 percent of businesses in the U.S., U.K. and Germany were just ill-prepared."

Another mega database? Dr. Ron Paul on E-Verification
E-Verify is a (currently) voluntary program where businesses check job applicants’ Social Security numbers and other Information — potentially including “biometric” identifiers like fingerprints — against information stored in a federal database to determine if the job applicants are legally in the United States.

Imagine how much time would be diverted from serving consumers and growing the economy if every US business had to comply with E-Verify. Also, collecting the relevant information and operating the mandatory E-Verify system will prove costly to taxpayers.  read more »

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Queen Elizabeth II is banning plastic straws and bottles across the royal estates.
The Telegraph reported that the monarch is behind Buckingham Palace's plans to phase out single-use plastics from public cafes, royal residences and staff dining rooms. Royal caterers will instead use china plates and glasses or recyclable paper cups. Takeaway food from the Royal Collection cafes must be made of compostable or biodegradable packaging.

British lawmakers are also urging for more action to fight plastic pollution. A ban on microbeads came into force in Britain last month. In 2015, a 5p (5 British pennies) fee was introduced on plastic carrier bags, which led to 9 billion fewer bags being used. Many businesses in the UK are getting on board with cutting out plastics. Starbucks recently introduced a 5p disposable cup charge in 20 to 25 central London outlets to encourage customers to switch to reusable cups. And Iceland Foods, a major UK supermarket chain specializing in frozen food, announced that it will eliminate plastic packaging from its own brand of products by the end of 2023.

The Queen was reportedly inspired to take action after working with famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough on a conservation documentary about wildlife in the Commonwealth. Attenborough's "Blue Planet II" documentary that aired last year highlighted the devastating effects of plastic on our oceans and marine life.

The Queen declares war on plastic after David Attenborough documentary  read more »