[HN Gopher] France opens terror investigation after Dakar rally ...
___________________________________________________________________
France opens terror investigation after Dakar rally vehicle is hit
by blast
Author : type0
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-01-08 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rfi.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rfi.fr)
| nikkinana wrote:
| linsomniac wrote:
| I don't follow the Paris-Dakar rally very closely, but the one
| thing I do know about it is that you stay the course or you risk
| running into landmines.
|
| This is notable because the explosion happened on the way from
| the hotel to the race course. I was confused until I read it
| happened on the way TO the race.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I don't follow the Paris-Dakar rally very closely
|
| It shows :P It's now called only "Dakar rally", and hasn't had
| anything to do with Paris or Dakar for years. It had stints in
| South America and is now in Saudi Arabia, precisely because of
| the precarious security situation in Subsaharan Africa.
| sharken wrote:
| Neither do I, as an example i thought the start and finish was
| fixed, but apparently the Paris-Dakar rally does not have to
| visit either city.
|
| A landmine sounds plausible, but i guess the knee jerk reaction
| is to assume terrorism.
|
| Even though it has been rebranded as the Dakar Rally, the
| current 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia all but guarantees that
| Dakar won't be a destination anytime soon.
|
| https://www.arabnews.com/node/1488041/saudi-arabia
|
| "The Saudi Arabia Rally" would be the proper name for this sad
| version of the original.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Land mines seem to me to be terrorism, just done by people in
| military uniforms instead of civilian clothes.
| tremon wrote:
| Land mines are used by people in civilian clothes as well,
| but those are usually called IEDs.
| shakow wrote:
| > Land mines seem to me to be terrorism
|
| Depends what you do with them. If you drop them everywhere
| for the fun factor, sure. If they are but a part of a
| fortification complex, they are neither better nor worse
| than other military ordinance delivery systems.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| Time to go back to South America
| 3guk wrote:
| I doubt South America particularly wants it back - I worked on
| quite a few of the South America rallies and it was quite clear
| that many countries didn't want it and couldn't afford it
| towards the end.
|
| It was particularly interesting driving through Bolivia one
| year with some of the locals in some towns literally hurling
| whatever they could at the service vehicles....
| olivermarks wrote:
| I saw the start of the Dakar in Buenos Aires in 2011, it's an
| amazing event, very sophisticated technology.
|
| I was staying there with a friend who regularly ran ultra
| marathons - the marathon de Sable and other French events in
| Patagonia, China etc.
|
| He told me a story about Africa where the runners were stripped
| naked as they ran through a village - all their expensive lycra,
| camelbacks, shoes etc stolen by locals resentful of western
| sports tourists.
|
| The Dakar has a similar long history of expensive tech being
| stolen, held to ransom etc.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/38650/that-time-ari-vat...
|
| Never underestimate the risks around exposing the western world
| to people in the third world. Millions love what they see, make
| money out of it etc but...
| Bayart wrote:
| >The Dakar has a similar long history of expensive tech being
| stolen, held to ransom etc.
|
| It's not a << long history >>, it's a one time event, and one
| that very likely has nothing to do with the locals. The whole
| story around it is incredibly fishy, and a rally car isn't
| something you can just steal. It doesn't start or drive like a
| normal car, there's no key.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| theelous3 wrote:
| The dakar rally is badass. Sometimes env impact is worth it.
| domador wrote:
| Did you happen to read the article and read about the severe
| injuries experienced by one of the victims? After reading it,
| do you still have the same priority of worries?
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| keewee7 wrote:
| random314 wrote:
| Yes, the laws that the French government has been passing dont
| target any particular community. They make sure every community
| has the freedom to express themselves at any beach/pool, as
| long as they are wearing a bikini. Everyone is allowed to wear
| a religious symbol as long as it is smaller than a particular
| size.
| wbl wrote:
| And you can get one day off a week so long as it is Sunday.
| Good luck being Shomer Shabbat if that was the law. These
| burden people with particular religious beliefs.
| kergonath wrote:
| Lots of people work on Sundays in France. Lots of places
| are closed on Monday as well. Also, there is no law telling
| you when to take your days off.
|
| Besides, it's not like the country has a way of changing
| its laws anyway.
| [deleted]
| jedimind wrote:
| The irony of complaining about demonisation while demonising a
| diverse group of more than a billion people of different races
| and cultures based on some twitter or reddit posts, what a
| joke. Furthermore it's only freedom of speech when minorities
| are also able to speak their minds freely otherwise it just
| becomes a tool of tyranny by which the majority can legally
| bully and harass the minority.
|
| Treating millions of jews as a 'monolithic' group in order to
| discriminate against them was the beginning of something very
| disturbing, something which you probably missed in history
| class.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Look up what r/Islam and Islamic twitter have to say about
| France.
|
| Not only there; this line of reasoning is seeping into
| mainstream media like the New York Times or the Guardian, who
| really should know better. This is really disturbing, as
| progressives really should fight for things like the right to
| blasphemy, the freedom to caricature and the complete
| secularisation of the law instead of fighting for religious
| loopholes on behalf of fundamentalist theocrats.
|
| That behaviour, in the wake of the Charlie people killed for a
| couple of drawings, is as progressive as "she had it coming"
| blame-the-victim Bible thumpers.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| I don't think Reddit and Twitter are the place to go for the
| views of the moderate majority. I'd like to see Islam and
| Christianity go away though.
| [deleted]
| kodah wrote:
| I'm an atheist, but I disagree. Religion is _needed_ by some,
| imo. This is how I view it:
|
| There are ethical frameworks, secular moral frameworks, and
| religious moral frameworks. In my observation people love
| moral frameworks, because moral frameworks have the output of
| righteousness. They're useful for hegemony, they provide some
| sense of justice through outcasting, and they allow people to
| see themselves compared to others. They're also quite dynamic
| and can have modified interpretation by an individual.
|
| Ethical frameworks are a little less fulfilling because their
| intended outcome is fairness. Users may have to sacrifice
| their own perspectives for the ethical framework to remain
| fair.
|
| The issue is unregulated moral communities. We, as humans,
| think freedom to moral communities, whether they be religious
| or secular, is the right thing to do because of generations
| of religious warring. There are some amount of moral
| community people that will never switch to an ethical
| framework because of that strive for righteousness. While
| it'd probably be healthier to get away from morals
| altogether, the mean time would be filled with _a lot_ of
| strife, imo, where righteous people would act on their
| righteousness.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| I wouldn't take Reddit or Twitter posts as anything close to
| representing the vox pop.
| rosndo wrote:
| Yeah well, you can just look at who certain groups of people
| choose to run their countries. Pretty good proxy for vox pop.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Countries well known for their fair democracies right?
| rosndo wrote:
| You don't need a fair democracy in order to establish
| one. I'm currently sitting a couple of blocks away from
| where Nicolae Ceausescu held his last speech.
| xeromal wrote:
| I used to say that too but 2016 is an example of the internet
| made manifest.
|
| We tend to forget that children and young minds live on the
| internet now and they will be influenced by Reddit and
| Twitter posts. It's a real problem that I think we make for a
| more radical younger generation.
| zo1 wrote:
| You could argue that cesspools where you see that stuff are
| what people "really" think. Sure, you get some sub-set of
| trolls and people there just to cause discontent between
| groups. But the rest genuinely believe that stuff, whatever
| that "stuff" may be.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into religious (or nationalistic)
| flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what
| it is for, so we ban accounts that do it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pasabagi wrote:
| Or, when even moderate members of a community have a problem
| with the way they're being treated, it incites extremism
| amongst hotheads?
| Chris2048 wrote:
| "have a problem with the way they're being treated" includes
| satire of the prophet?
| pasabagi wrote:
| That does seem the kind of thing that upsets religious
| people. It wouldn't bother me, an atheist, except it's part
| of a broader targeting of muslims that occurs across
| western europe and at every level of society.
|
| It is, of course, a total coincidence that most muslims are
| brown.
| kergonath wrote:
| > it's part of a broader targeting of muslims that occurs
| across western europe and at every level of society.
|
| Except of course it isn't. Caricatures poking fun at
| various religions are common, have been for quite a
| while, and people complain about them regularly. Yet
| we've somehow accepted that we can make fun of a big guy
| with a beard. Somehow nobody has been killed over the
| Life of Brian.
|
| There are a couple of fundamental human rights to which
| everyone is entitled. These include freedom of
| conscience, the right to live in peace, and freedom of
| expression. Religion is fine as long as it does not
| interfere with the rights of other people, which includes
| the right to laugh at beliefs. Humans have rights, ideas
| don't.
|
| On the other hand, nobody has a right not to be upset,
| and certainly not to kill people and plant bombs over it.
| It really should be a no brainer for anyone supposed to
| be supportive of any kind of enlightenment values.
|
| This "they should not do it, but" is just as bad as "I am
| not racist, but". That we are arguing whether people have
| a moral right to violence where the rule of law prevails,
| over something as trivial as hurt feelings, is absolutely
| disgusting.
|
| Try to substitute "Islam" for any philosophy or belief to
| see how patently absurd that is. Republicans are upset
| when you tell them Biden won. Should we censure that from
| public discourse?
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| > The blast, which French newspaper L'Equipe said ripped through
| the floor of the vehicle before setting it alight, was not
| related to racing, the organisers added.
|
| > Meanwhile Saudi authorities indicated there was no criminal
| suspicion.
|
| Saudi Arabia is a joke, and the US is sustaining that joke.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive/inflammatory comments
| like this. We want thoughtful conversation here, and comments
| like this point threads in the opposite direction.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mercy_dude wrote:
| One word - Petrodollar.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, the faster we can get away from oil as a primary energy
| source, the better things will get in many areas.
|
| (& no, I'm not really concerned about people, companies, and
| countries who have been making their living off fossil fuels
| for the last century+; they've received already great benefit
| and they can find other sources of sustainence, preferably
| sustainable sources.)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am not sure if trading petrodollar for lithiumrenminbi is
| an overall gain.
|
| Industrial civilization, at least until some really
| advanced stage where asteroids can be mined economically,
| will always have a shortage of some important resource.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Space seems like a long way to go versus just mining
| within the existing gravity well. What elements (other
| than hydrogen) do we lack?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Did you mean to say helium? The Earth is 75% covered with
| hydrogen-rich raw material, so I'd expect it to be
| plentiful, with the mines for it needing energy, but
| otherwise be straightforward.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Fair enough. By mass hydrogen is rare, but by
| accessibility easily obtained. But prising it away from
| Oxygen would probably make it uneconomical, not that
| space mining is much better.
| mindslight wrote:
| There is a significant difference between buying units of
| usable energy, and buying capital goods that produce and
| store usable energy. In the former, price increases are
| felt almost immediately, with at most a month reprieve
| while old stocks are used up (unless one has specifically
| paid a premium to hedge for lower prices). Whereas in the
| latter it affects the cost of new buildout first, and
| spot prices as only a secondary effect. Of course there's
| also Jevons paradox.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I'd say it's wishful thinking. You can easily apply the
| "Petrodollar->US supports SA who is a joke" model to other
| country, e.g. "Ydollar->US supports X who is a joke". I
| guess you already see the common part in both models.
| clarkmoody wrote:
| Or we can get away from the dollar.
|
| Oil as an energy source has lifted billions of people out
| of poverty, so its value goes far beyond the industry
| insiders.
|
| However, this is where nuclear power comes in: vast
| quantities of energy, with fuel sources not controlled by
| the United States.
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Poverty exists only within industrial societies (and
| those that interact with industrial societies).
|
| Outside of that scope, poverty doesn't exist. It's a made
| up concept to describe the relative lack of material
| compared to some arbitrary, and ever-changing standard.
|
| Did hunter gatherers live in poverty? Or were they plenty
| content with their lot in life -- spending some of their
| time on survival in food-resource-rich geographies, and
| the rest on socializing and primitive leisure?
|
| How about uncontacted tribes in the Amazon Rainforest?
| Are you going to label them as "living in poverty" so
| they can be "saved" and "enriched" by Western Industrial
| Society's values?
|
| "Lifting people out of poverty" is slowly becoming "think
| of the children"; or even "housewives with nervous
| ailments should be treated with sedatives and lobotomies.
| Their conditions are quite saddening, so we should help
| them post-haste. We know best."
| shakow wrote:
| I'd rather argue that poverty only exists in societies
| developed enough to exhibit stark contrasts between
| individuals' estates. There was what we would perceive as
| poverty in e.g. the Roman Empire or Middle-Age Europe.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| That is such a non comment, dollar is the currency used
| to buy and sell because is the easiest one trade in the
| international market, not because it has some mystical
| power. They can sell it for euros, pounds or whatever.
|
| Oil is currently being used to keep dictatorships and
| regimes afloat within the OPEC.
|
| The United States does not control how many barrels of
| oil SA, UAE or other countries can push to the market.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| > dollar is the currency used to buy and sell because is
| the easiest one trade in the international market, not
| because it has some mystical power
|
| It actually is a little (well, a lot) more complicated
| than you might think.
|
| https://www.lynalden.com/fraying-petrodollar-system/
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-08 23:02 UTC)