Unheralded stuff: 13 January
As New Zealand news media salivate over the wedding of David Bain and the convicted killer in his bridal party, other things happened in the world. Here’s a snapshot of the things I’ve noticed.
*Update: NZ Herald social media editor Paul Harper tweeted at me to tell me that he did “A quick search and I found most those stories on the Herald website…”. I replied that I had tried but couldn’t find the articles so he said:
“Only had to put a key word in the search. Did the same thing with your blog the other day…If you’re going to complain about media not covering stories, make sure they’re not covering the stories.”
Giving him the benefit of the doubt I visited the NZ Herald World section and took a screenshot. You can see that at the bottom of this page. The one story that does feature is the Iranian story. The rest of them require specific searches. If you have to search for news like this while your second top story is about a groomsman at a wedding, then I think there’s a problem.
In Iran, a landmark nuclear deal comes into effect on January 20. The arrangement sees economic sanctions eased on our Persian friends, and as a sign of gratitude Iran stops heading down the nuclear bomb route. Which is good. Because the sanctions on Iraq actually killed more people than Saddam Hussein did. So you know, who’s the real bad guys?
Meanwhile, on the Arabian side of the peninsula, things aren’t going so well in Iraq. A car bomb in the middle of Baghdad killed 9 people and injured 16, while in another neighbourhood, a bomb went off killing 4 people. That’s 13 people. Remember when the Boston bombings happened and four people died? Yeah that shit didn’t leave the news for ages did it.
Protesters plan on shutting down Bangkok for 15-20 days (which is oddly specific). In response, the Government (who seems to have become awfully unpopular) has deployed 14,000 troops to make sure the city is kept under control. Except the protesters asked the soldiers to join their side, and the head of the military has been very careful not to rule anything out.
Further strife in Syria I’m afraid. Nearly 700 people have been killed in the last few days as fighting intensifies. The victims include 351 combatants from the Islamist and non-Islamist rebel battalions, 246 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters, and 100 civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A terrorist organisation in Somalia has demanded that Somalian communication companies “shut down the internet” and has given them a 15 day deadline to do so. In response, the Somalian Government has said “don’t”. The terror group is notorious for prohibiting recreational activities, and has banned films, dancing and watching soccer in the past. Al-Shabaab regularly uses the Internet. It has a major presence on social media, and posted the threat on its Facebook page
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NZ Herald World Section screenshot:
