Mississippi school asks students to 'pretend to be slaves' for class assignment, gets roasted for 'whitewashing' slavery
rt.com | 2021-03-04
A middle school in Purvis, Mississippi is under fire after students were asked to pen a letter from the perspective of a plantation slave, with the assignment condemned as "hurtful" and "tone deaf" by local activists. | As part of a class project, eighth graders at Purvis Middle School were told to "pretend like you are a slave working on a Mississippi plantation" and to imagine their day-to-day lives, their journey to the United States and the type of labor they were forced to perform, among other things. But a photo of the assignment making the rounds on Twitter on Wednesday has stoked outrage among some res…
rt.com/usa/517148-mississippi-school-whitewashing-slavery/

Alec Baldwin flees Twitter again, hounded by angry Gillian Anderson fans over his sly dig at her 'switching accents'
rt.com | 2021-03-04
Alec Baldwin's attempt to defend his wife from accusations of faking Spanishness by invoking Gillian Anderson's flawless switching between accents backfired badly and forced him to quit Twitter for a second time this year. | In a lengthy 10-minute video posted to Instagram, the 62-year old actor explained that he was off Twitter again, since "you cannot do any irony in the US anymore because the US is such an uptight stressed-out place" and Twitter in particular was full of "a**holes." Baldwin went on to profess his love for his wife and children and say how good and fulfilling his life was now that he works l…
rt.com/usa/517191-baldwin-gillian-anderson-accents/

Libya's Dbeibah made secret visit to Turkey
Ragip Soylu | middleeasteye.net | 2021-03-04
Libya's Dbeibah made secret visit to Turkey | Interim prime minister designate met Erdogan in Ankara days after his election in bid to maintain ties with the Turkish leadership | Ragip Soylu | Thu, 03/04/2021 – 14: 00 | Libyan Prime Minister Dbeibah met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on 11 February, 2020. This picture has been circulating on social media since 18 February (Twitter) | Libya's prime minister designate…
www.middleeasteye.net/news/libya-turkey-dbeibah-secret-visit-erdogan

Yemen: Car bomb kills southern separatist fighters in Aden
MEE, agencies | middleeasteye.net | 2021-03-04
Yemen: Car bomb kills southern separatist fighters in Aden | Southern Transitional Council forces said Brigadier General Mohsen al-Wali had survived an attack on a convoy | MEE and agencies | Thu, 03/04/2021 – 12: 37 | Video footage shared by STC activists on social media showed a white four-wheel-drive vehicle with extensive damage (Twitter) | A car bomb killed and injured a number of fighters travelling in…
www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-aden-separatists-car-bomb-kills-fighters

Saudi youth take to social media to complain about unemployment
Rayhan Uddin | middleeasteye.net | 2021-03-04
Saudi youth take to social media to complain about unemployment | Young Twitter users break the silence on lack of opportunities, as under 30s and university grads make up majority of kingdom's jobless | Rayhan Uddin | Thu, 03/04/2021 – 14: 50 | Saudi students take exams at a workshop in the Higher Institute for Plastics Fabrication in Riyadh (AFP/File photo) | Saudi youths, including many university graduates, have…
www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-unemployment-youth-graduates-complain

Turkey's growth in agriculture posts 3-year high
yenisafak.com | 2021-03-04
Agriculture in Turkey registered 4.8% year-on-year growth in 2020 — the highest in the last three years, the country's agriculture and forestry minister said Thursday.The average growth rate of the agricultural sector was 2.8% over the last two decades, Bekir Pakdemirli said in a video he posted on Twitter.Stressing that the sector continued to develop and grow despite the coronavirus pandemic and drought, Pakdemirli said the country's agricultural output had reached 333.3 billion Turkish liras ($47.4 billion), which was up 20% from a year ago."We continue our leadership in agricultural output in Europe," he sai…
yenisafak.com/en/news/turkeys-growth-in-agriculture-posts-3-year-high-3562005

EU preparing sanctions against Myanmar junta
yenisafak.com | 2021-03-04
The head of the European Council on Thursday announced that the bloc is preparing sanctions against the military junta in Myanmar."Killing of innocent civilians can and will not go unpunished. The EU is preparing measures against those responsible," Charles Michel said on Twitter.The head of the EU leaders' council also urged security forces in Myanmar to "stop the cycle of violence against peaceful protesters."On Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also condemned the "brutal repression of peaceful protests" and promised sanctions over security forces' "blatant disregard for international law."In a meet…
yenisafak.com/en/news/eu-preparing-sanctions-against-myanmar-junta-3561971

Marc Lamont Hill & Mitchell Plitnick on ICC Probe & the "Palestine Exception" in Progressive Politics
Staff | democracynow.org | 2021-03-04
Israel and the United States blasted the International Criminal Court's decision to open a probe into Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories, as well as crimes committed by Palestinian militant groups. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that the Biden administration "firmly opposes" an investigation. Mitchell Plitnick and Marc Lamont Hill, co-authors of "Except for Palestine," say it's an illustration of the "Palestine exception" that makes even supposedly progressive people unwilling to criticize Israel's human rights abuses and its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories. "We are at…
www.democracynow.org/2021/3/4/except_for_palestine_marc_lamont_hill