Fugging hell: tired of mockery, Austrian village changes name

 thegaurdian - Residents of an Austrian village will ring in the new year under a new name – Fugging – after ridicule of their signposts, especially on social media, became too much to bear.

They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century.

Minutes from a municipal council meeting published on Thursday showed that the village of about 100 people, 350km (215 miles) west of Vienna, will be named Fugging from 1 January 2021.

Increasing numbers of English-speaking tourists have made a point of stopping in to snap pictures of themselves by the signpost at the entrance to the village, sometimes striking lascivious poses for social media.

Some have reportedly even stolen the signposts, leading the local authorities to use theft-resistant concrete when putting up replacements.

Finally, a majority of the villagers decided they had had enough.

“I can confirm that the village is being renamed,” said Andrea Holzner, the mayor of Tarsdorf, the municipality to which the village belongs.

“I really don’t want to say anything more – we’ve had enough media frenzy about this in the past,” she told the regional daily Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (OOeN).

According to the Austrian daily Die Presse, the villagers, known as Fuckingers, “have had enough of visitors and their bad jokes”.

But not everybody seems happy about the impending change.

Ethiopia’s military chief calls WHO head Tedros a criminal supporting a rebel region

Washingtonpost.com -  World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has received his share of criticism from world leaders, most famously from President Trump, but now his own country of Ethiopia is attacking him.

In a televised address Wednesday night, Ethiopia’s army chief of staff, Gen. Berhanu Jula, called Tedros a criminal and said he should step down from his position as director general of the WHO for seeking to procure weapons for the Tigray region, where the Ethiopian military is fighting local forces.

“He has worked in neighboring countries to condemn the war. He has worked for them to get weapons,” Berhanu said. He offered no evidence to support his accusations.

Tedros rejected the claims. “There have been reports suggesting I am taking sides in this situation,” he said in a statement Thursday. “This is not true, and I want to say that I am on only one side, and that is the side of peace.”

While Tedros is better known as one of the public faces of the international effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the world, he is also a high-ranking member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that rules Tigray and is now in open conflict with Ethiopia’s central government.

“This man is a member of that group, and he has been doing everything to support them,” Berhanu said.

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International Men's Day Divides People as Some Joke and Others Speak About Mental Health

 Newsweek.com -November 19 has marked International Men's Day for over 20 years, but the day has become a point of debate. Many people mocked it online on Thursday, while others made a point to highlight the reasons it began—to bring awareness to men's mental health.

Begun in 1999, International Men's Day was imagined as a way to highlight awareness for men's health and mental health, as well as to promote gender equality and celebrate male role models, according to the International Men's Day website. The website also notes that the day of recognition wasn't intended to compete with or be a response to International Women's Day.

Despite the purpose behind the day, a number of Twitter users made jokes about International Men's Day on Thursday, saying they would partake in silly, traditionally "masculine" activities. One comedian remarked that she planned on watching a Jackass movie to celebrate, while another person shared a video of a young man jumping onto a pile of barbed wire. Someone else pointed out that International Men's Day also falls on World Toilet Day, which it does.

While there were plenty of jokes and criticism to be made, many people used the day as an opportunity to encourage men to speak about their feelings and not be afraid to ask for help when struggling, especially with mental health issues. A number of people, such as London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, highlighted that men account for most of all suicides and sought to end stigma about men discussing their problems. "We must be able to talk about challenges men face.

Related: TOP 10 REASONS THERE WILL NEVER BE AN INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY

Capitalism Will Ruin the Earth By 2050, Scientists Say

Vice.com- A spate of new scientific research starkly lays out the choice humankind faces in coming decades: 

By 2050, we could retain high levels of GDP, at the price of a world wracked by minerals and materials shortages, catastrophic climate change, and a stuttering clean energy transition —paving the way for a slowly crumbling civilization. 

Or, we could ditch the GDP fetish and enter a world of abundance, with energy consumption safely contained within planetary boundaries, and high-tech economies that support jobs, health and education for everyone without costing the earth. ContinueReading

India's deadly mountain-top showdown with China could lead to more military activity at sea

BusinessInsider.com - Clashes in June between India and China high in the western Himalayas saw the first deadly encounter between their forces there in four decades. Both sides appear to be disengaging, and India's northern border, parts of which are in dispute with Pakistan and China, will remain a point of focus for its military.

But India's southern maritime approaches, where increasing Chinese naval activity was already a concern, may gain even more attention from New Delhi in the wake of those clashes.

"On the military side, I think we have to stay on guard. The situation is very fragile, even tenuous," former Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, also former Indian ambassador to China and the US, said at an Asia Society Policy Institute event this week.

"Diplomatically, [India has to] keep our channels open with China, but at the same time, obviously, seek possibilities of closer convergence with friends and partners in the Indo-Pacific."

Kazakhstan denies Chinese report that the country is dealing with an outbreak of pneumonia deadlier than coronavirus

- Officials in Kazakhstan are denying claims from Chinese officials that an unknown pneumonia with a mortality rate much higher than the coronavirus is sweeping through the country.

The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan on Thursday warned Chinese citizens in the country that cases of the alleged unidentified pneumonia have been increasing across the Central Asian nation since June, according to CNN.

“That mortality rate of that disease is far higher than COVID-19 and Kazakhstan authorities are conducting a comparative study of the virus and there is no clear definition yet.”

The Chinese embassy said the cases were concentrated in regions of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent, which together have nearly 500 new cases and more than 30 who are critically ill. The embassy warned Chinese residents to limit how much they go outside, avoid crowded public areas and wear masks.

On Friday, Kazakhstan’s health ministry in a statement denied the outbreak was new or unknown, acknowledging only the presence of “viral pneumonias of unspecified etiology.”

“The Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan officially declares that this information IS NOT CONSISTENT WITH REALITY,” the statement read. The statement included an image that branded a story about the embassy’s warning as “FAKE NEWS.”

Hours later the embassy reportedly edited its message, removing the words “new pneumonia” and “unknown.”

Kazakhstan said China had misinterpreted its statistics, characterizing suspected, but unconfirmed, coronavirus deaths as being the result of an unknown pneumonia.

The ministry said the “unspecified” pneumonia classification followed World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines “for the registration of pneumonia when the coronavirus infection is diagnosed clinically or epidemiologically but is not confirmed by laboratory testing,” CNN reports.

The health ministry said Minister Alekey Tsoy discussed a number of pneumonia cases across the country during a briefing Thursday. The cases included different types of bacterial, fungal and viral pneumonia, including some of “unspecified etiology.”

Tsoy said registered cases of pneumonia in the country increased by 300 percent in June compared to the same time in 2019. Related deaths rose by 129 percent from 274 in June 2019 to 628 last month, CNN reports.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday the country is looking into the situation.

“China hopes to work together with Kazakhstan to fight the epidemic and to safeguard the two countries public health security,” the spokesperson said according to CNN.

The report comes as Kazakhstan has confirmed more than 54,000 coronavirus cases and 264 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The country recently implemented nationwide lockdown orders following a rise in cases. ContinueReading

N. Macedonia becomes NATO’s 30th member

BRUSSELS — North Macedonia on Friday officially became the 30th member of the NATO military alliance.

“North Macedonia is now part of the NATO family, a family of 30 nations and almost 1 billion people. A family based on the certainty that, no matter what challenges we face, we are all stronger and safer together,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

North Macedonia’s flag will be raised alongside those of the other 29 member countries at NATO headquarters in Brussels and two other commands simultaneously on Monday.

Given the impact of the coronavirus around the world, Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski said “we cannot rejoice and mark the event as it should (be marked)… But, this is a historic success that after three decades of independence, finally confirms Macedonian security and guarantees our future. Congratulations to all of you! We deserve it!”