The Hangover News

Jet Setting
EDWARD SNOWDEN ARRIVED IN MOSCOW BUT WOULD RATHER BE IN ECUADOR
The choice country of asylum for any wanted whistleblower

Protests in Hong Kong in support of Edward Snowden. (Photo via)

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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden flew out of Hong Kong and touched down in Russia over the weekend.

In doing so, he managed to make the US government pissed off with both Hong Kong for letting him leave and Russia for accepting him. The latter in particular was contentious – Democratic senator Chuck Schumer was moved to comment that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "always seems eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States".

Things are already tense between America and Russia because of the last half a century of history and, more recently, Russia's support for Iran and Syria's regimes – two regimes that aren't particularly popular in the Land of the Free.

In other Snowden news, astonishingly he's got Julian Assange's support and has applied for asylum in Ecuador, a country with a soft spot for men who tell the world secrets that various governments don't want the world to hear.

World Icons
NELSON MANDELA IS CRITICALLY ILL IN HOSPITAL
Madiba was taken to hospital earlier this month with a lung infection

(Photo via)

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The South African presidency has announced that Nelson Mandela has become critically ill in a Pretoria hospital.

Earlier this month, the 94-year-old was taken to the hospital for the third time this year with a lung infection, and President Jacob Zuma – who visited Mandela in hospital – said in a statement that doctors had told him the former president's condition had worsened over the past 24 hours.

Calling Mandela by his clan name, Zuma added, "The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring Madiba is well-looked after and is comfortable."

The release of information concerning South Africa's first black president is reportedly always carefully controlled by the government to avoid causing alarm, so the use of the word "critical" creates, according to Mr Zuma's spokesman, "sufficient explanation that should raise concern amongst us".

Police Corruption
UNDERCOVER POLICE ALLEGEDLY "SPIED ON" STEPHEN LAWRENCE'S FAMILY
They wanted information for a smear campaign, which manages to make the whole thing even more unpleasant

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Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer, has claimed he was ordered to infiltrate the Stephen Lawrence campaign in 1993 to find "disinformation" to discredit those criticising the police.

Francis told media that he posed as an anti-racism campaigner with Youth Against Racism, which supported the Lawrence family's hunt for Stephen's killers after a careless police investigation.

While undercover, he says he was told to search for "any intelligence that could have smeared the campaign. Along the lines of: the family were political activists, someone in the family was involved in demonstrations, drug dealers, anything. What they would have done with the intelligence, I can't call it, but that was our remit."

He also claims to have told Scotland Yard that Duwayne Brooks – Lawrence's best friend, who was with him when he died – was involved in violence at a demonstration against the BNP. Despite the fact Brooks was traumatised from watching his friend die, police searched CCTV images of the protest and he was arrested, but the case was ultimately dismissed.

Scotland Yard have not confirmed or denied Francis' claims, while Lawrence's mother Doreen said the revelation had topped everything she had heard since her son's murder, and that she is shocked and angry.

Drone Retaliations
MEMBERS OF THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN KILLED 11 PEOPLE AT A HOTEL
At least nine were foreign tourists, which is "a significant blow for Pakistan's already struggling tourist industry"

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Gunmen stormed a hotel in northern Pakistan and killed 11 people, at least nine of whom were foreign tourists from Ukraine, China and Russia.

A spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban – the Pakistani wing of the Taliban – claimed responsibility, saying the attack was retaliation for the death of the group's second in command, Wali ur-Rehman, who was killed by a suspected US drone strike last month.

This was the first such attack on tourists in the area, but the group have claimed they will continue to target foreigners.

Worrying Childcare Trends
MORE PEOPLE ARE LEAVING BABIES IN DRAINS
Last time it was China, now it's happened again in Spain 

Not one of the drain babies, just a baby. (Photo via)

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A woman has been arrested in eastern Spain for attempted murder after leaving her baby in a drain.

The baby is reportedly in a serious but not-threatening condition in an Alicante hospital.

However, what's arguably a little more troublesome is the fact that this is the second baby to have been left in a drain in as many months.

Last month, a baby was found in a sewage drainage pipe in China, and when the mother was found she claimed she had accidentally given birth on the toilet and the baby had just somehow slipped down into the pipe.

The mother failed to explain how her umbilical cord or the baby's entire body didn't stop it from being flushed down a relatively small hole.

Top Banter
A MAN GOT STUCK IN A BOLLARD IN HEMEL HEMPSTEAD TOWN CENTRE
The police came to get him out because, obviously, a bystander called both them and the fire brigade

This weekend, a man in Hemel Hempstead got the upper half of his body trapped inside a traffic bollard.

The cameraman who captured the situation and posted a video to YouTube suggested that "he's taken too much ecstasy, by the looks of it", which seemed an odd conclusion to jump to as only the man's legs were visible and they remained stationary for much of the ordeal.

Others theorised that the whole thing was "a wind-up", but called both the police and the fire brigade anyway because that's what generally what you should do if you're being wound up.

Eventually, a police officer arrived at the scene, helped the man out of the bollard he had become ensnared in and let him on his way.

Protecting Women Around the World
KICKSTARTER MADE A PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR HELPING A PICK-UP BOOK RAISE MONEY
Why anyone would want to boycott what's essentially a rape guide that advises "showing women HARD", I have no idea

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Kickstarter has apologised and changed its guidelines after a "misogynistic" pick-up guide managed to raise $16,000 (£10,374) of support through its site.

By "misogynistic", they probably mean that the guide, formulated by Reddit user Ken Hoinsky, sounds more like an aspiring rapist's textbook; here are some quotes:

"Sometimes a girl just wants to be dry-humped on a dancefloor."

"I re-open a girl by walking up, grabbing her, caveman-ing her against the wall & kissing her. Then I cast her aside and get a drink at the bar. The entire time she is staring like "OMG who is this guy?" (in a good way)"

Hoinsky also advises "pushing women HARD" and a bunch of other stuff that seems to glorify violence against women.

As bad as all of that is, perhaps the worst thing about this is that the project actually managed to raise such a decent amount of money when pledgers were perfectly able to access Hoinsky's terrible, predatory sexual abuse tips online before endorsing a whole book of them with their own money.