Brazil’s Far-Right Sits Down | Despicable Ru | Literally The Cat’s Meow

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” – Albert Einstein

“A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” – Carl Sandburg

Despicable Ru: Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, has been the subject of some embarrassing news stories recently for bungling various “black operations”. Daily Pnut has reported on several, including the attempted hack by four GRU spies of the global chemical weapons watchdog in the Hague, the seven GRU spies indicted by the US for alleged global hacking attempts, and of course the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Britain last April. Some in media have called the GRU blundering amateurs, but it would be wrong to underestimate the army’s influence over Kremlin foreign policy, or to expect a slowdown in its espionage activities.

President Vladimir Putin, himself a former intelligence officer, seems much more defiant than embarrassed. Intelligence suggests the GRU has actually increased its covert activities, particularly since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and the West imposed sanctions on Moscow. One expert said “As the East-West confrontation worsens that empowers these combative agencies and the GRU is being much more active.” He added: “What Russia is doing is operating by wartime rules which means particularly that the GRU has been let off the leash.” One former Russian diplomat said the GRU’s blunders were seen on the inside as less of a disaster than a source of pride. “What was shown was nothing more than working hitches in extraordinarily risky but effective operations which achieved their main aims,” he said.

Literally The Cat’s Meow: Calvin Klein’s perfume “Obsession” is described as a refreshing, oriental fragrance … a feminine scent possessing a blend of vanilla, amber and oriental spices. Consumers might not want to know that in fact the key ingredient is a synthetic version of the musk secreted by the civet, a small nocturnal mammal whose glandular liquid is prized for its powerful aroma. It’s so powerful that zoo veterinarians and wildlife authorities have used “Obsession” to trap big cats. Currently officials in India are deciding whether to use it to draw in a 6-year-old tiger they’ve been trying to catch who’s thought to have killed at least nine townspeople. Sidenote: Chanel No. 5 works, too, but “Obsession” is more affordable. (Guardian)

Bulgarian Corruption Leads to Murder: 30-year-old Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova was raped and murdered Saturday in the northeastern city of Ruse. Last month she began anchoring a television program focusing on political investigations; one episode concerned the alleged misuse of public EU funds by a network of corporations in the region. A global corruption watchdog group has identified Bulgaria as the most corrupt member state in the EU. Authorities have not yet established a link between Marinova’s death and her work as a journalist, but she is the third reporter killed in the past year in Europe. (WaPo)

Halal Hullabaloo: 28-year-old twin brothers Slim and Karim Loumi manage a butcher shop in the eastern suburbs of Paris that has attracted a diverse clientele and critical acclaim at a time when there is intense resistance in Western Europe to the type of meat they sell—halal. For meat to be classified as halal (rough translation, permissible according to Islam), the animal must be slaughtered with a sharp incision to the front of the throat, and with a blessing. Both animal rights activists and others concerned about the quality of the meat are at the forefront of the resistance. (WaPo)

– “‘Our time is now’: world youth poll reveals unexpected optimism: Survey across 15 countries finds 90% of teenagers in Kenya, Mexico, China and Nigeria hopeful for the future – in stark contrast with those in developed nations” (Guardian)

– “Asian Town, Qatar’s mall for migrants: ‘You can’t ignore the racial undertones’: The new Asian Town mall was designed to cater to Qatar’s roughly 2 million migrant workers – but critics say it is simply a way to segregate them” (Guardian)

– “After a Long Wait, India’s #MeToo Movement Suddenly Takes Off:Phantom Films, a major Bollywood production house that made “Sacred Games” for Netflix, was suddenly dissolved on Saturday, with two of four partners publicly apologizing for mishandling an employee’s complaint that she was sexually assaulted in 2015 by a third partner, Vikas Bahl.” (NYT)

– “To the surprise of no one, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are going massively over budget” (WaPo)

Brazil’s Far-Right Sits Down: Jair Bolsonaro’s giant first-round win in Brazil’s election Sunday ushered in a new political landscape. His party scored stunning gains, going from eight seats to 52 in the 513-member lower house. Noticeably, the left lost some seats. But the traditional political center, startlingly, collapsed. The only chance the second place winner, leftist Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad, could possibly have in the runoff October 28 is to somehow obtain the votes of the third of the electorate who didn’t bother casting a ballot on Sunday. (WaPo)

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You’re Resigned: President Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, announced her resignation Tuesday. She will leave at the end of the year. Trump and Haley, sitting together in the Oval Office, praised each other. Haley has been a fierce advocate of Trump’s policies at the UN, and said that in the past two years those policies have made the US respected on the world stage. She said she would be entering the private sector next year, and had no plans to run for president in 2020. (NPR)

They Listen and They Care: Rob Storch, the inspector general of the NSA wants to open up the organization and make much less secretive. One way in which he hopes to accomplish this goal is by creating a “robust whistleblower program”. During a six month period of the program, Storch’s office received 516 calls ranging from people claiming to have been overcharged by contractors to accusations of retaliations against whistleblowers. Storch’s mission from the moment he was nominated for the position by former President Obama (and later renominated by President Trump), has been more transparency in the NSA. He was the first inspector general to release an unclassified version of his semiannual report and created a new website that lists the rights and protections for whistleblowers. (NPR)

– “Trying Not To Break Down — A Homeless Teen Navigates Middle School: About 2.5 million children in the U.S. currently are homeless, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. That number is rising as house prices and rental costs continue to grow in cities large and small, and the trend is clearly visible in Boise — the fastest-growing city in the nation.” (NPR)

– “Why Did No One Save Gabriel?: He was 8 years old, and the signs of abuse were obvious. Yet time and again, caseworkers from child-protective services failed to help him.” (Atlantic)

– “A Mysterious Fossil Points to the Origins of Lizards and Snakes: The ancestors of today’s squamates were lost in time. Now paleontologists have identified the earliest known example: Meet Megachirella.” (NYT)

– “‘Presidents Of War’ Sounds The Alarm About Presidential Power: In his latest book, Michael Beschloss details the windup to eight wars — and the executive branch involvement in each.” (NPR)

– “What Travis Vanderzanden, The $2 Billion Electric-Scooter King, Learned From The Ride-Hailing Wars: Not many year-old companies can lay claim to having a $2 billion valuation and upending the ride-hailing industry. But then, Bird is not an ordinary start-up in any sense of the word.” (Vanity Fair)