Tag Archives: Twitter

| Israel discovers it’s not so easy to get away with murder in the age of social media!

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Israel has discovered that it’s no longer so easy to get away with murder in the age of social media ~ MIRA BAR HILLEL, The Independent.

All you now need is a mobile phone and a Twitter account to hold power to account, and help change history.

It used to be said that a lie goes twice around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Not any more. I arrived in Israel on Christmas Eve 2008, the date chosen by Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead, an attack to end all attacks on Gaza.

The tanks rolled in, killing over 1,300 people, many of them women and children, and reducing their homes, schools and hospitals to rubble. But all I heard from the media was that some Israelis were very, very scared because a few primitive rockets were being sent from Gaza into southern Israel.

Reporters were not allowed into Gaza and Israeli soldiers were banned from taking on mobile phones for security reasons. So the 2008/9 massacre, which included use of the banned White Phosphorus, went un-witnessed and almost unreported. It also failed dismally in achieving its objective, as Hamas survived and the local population’s hatred of their arrogant oppressors burned as bright as the fires which consumed their homes. But for the “international community” it was “out of sight, out of mind”. Business as usual.

What a difference a few years of developing technology can make. The Gaza atrocities are now being reported on a constant basis by eyewitnesses, be they professional correspondents representing major media organisations, or amateur locals under fire. Because all you need is a mobile phone and a Twitter account.

It is those devices which brought us heart-rending images – some too horrific to be shown on television – of children with their limbs or half a head blown off. Children covered in shrapnel wounds screaming for dead parents; surviving parents carrying tiny bodies. Sights which caused the battle-hardened BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet to sob during a live broadcast.

They are all on Twitter now, should you care to look. This is the shape of wars to come. Anything less than total nuclear annihilation will, from now on, be recorded for posterity by the victims, as well as the victors, in their own versions. Imagine if this was the case in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, not to mention earlier massacres. Historians will finally have both sides’ stories to work from, and the evidence with which to back up their words.

But far more importantly, aggressors will have to live with the consequences of their acts, unable to hide behind hollow rhetoric. Because the Israelis had and have nothing with which to balance those images of bloodied, mangled little corpses in Gaza. Yes, as of today they continue to bludgeon Gaza in defiance of the UN Security Council and polite requests from John Kerry to stop. But they never cared about that. On the other hand, mass protests marches from California to Chile are taking their toll.

The Israeli army is getting more resistance online than on the ground. It’s  not used to it and cannot cope.

READ MORE:
THE MYTH OF HAMAS’S HUMAN SHIELD
ISRAELI TANKS ‘SHELL GAZA HOSPITAL’ KILLING AT LEAST FOUR
FEARS THAT VIOLENCE COULD TRANSFER TO FRENCH STREETS

| Paralysed Saudi Arabian man’s tweet asking for someone to visit him in hospital becomes most retweeted message in Saudi Arabian Twitter history!

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Paralysed Saudi Arabian man’s tweet asking for someone to visit him in hospital becomes most retweeted message in Saudi Arabian Twitter history ~ JACK SIMPSON, The Independent.

Bedbound and paralyzed as the result of a car accident over half a year ago, he had not had a visitor from his family in months and was in desperate need of life-changing surgery that the Saudi Arabian could not afford.

Alone and isolated, there was not too much joy in Ibrahim’s life.

That was until he posted a tweet aimed at encouraging one of the few followers he had to come and visit as he lay paralysed in his bed.

With his tweet he hoped that at least one sympathetic person might hear his call and provide some much craved company for him.

What he did not expect was the social media storm that it would create.

Within one day Ibrahim’s tweet became the most retweeted message in Saudi Arabia’s Twitter history.

The hashtag #VisitIbrahim circulated through social media circles and within just 24 hours it had been retweeted over 200,000 times.

Not only that, but Ibrahim got a lot more than he bargained for when hundreds of people from all over Saudi Arabia came to visit him.

The Ritadh hospital had to stop visitors after they began affecting the work of staff

Clutching flowers, pizza and other gifts there were cues of hundreds of people outside the King Khalid University Hospital in the country’s capital Riyadh, all with the aim of meeting Saudi’s latest social media star.

The hospital became so busy that its officials had to put a temporary ban on all of its visitors as the number of people in the building was affecting the work of its staff.

Some even resorted to feeding Ibrahim

Yet Ibrahim did not only benefit from the tweet in terms of footfall and flowers, so compelled were the Saudi Twitter community by Ibrahim’s story that they contributed financially towards the life-changing surgery Ibrahim dreamed of.

The surgery which would cost $130,000 and involve Ibrahim travelling to Germany was quickly covered by the generous donors from the oil rich middle-eastern country.

Pictures showing visitors posing, talking to and even feeding the paralyzed man were posted on Twitter.

It is now hoped a trip to Germany can be organised soon so that that Ibrahim can get the surgery he is so in need of.

| Teens In The UK Are Calling It: ‘Facebook Is Dead And Buried!’

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Teens In The UK Are Calling It: ‘Facebook Is Dead And Buried’ ~ , Business Insider.

This year marked the start of teenagers adopting other social networks instead of Facebook as their parents signed up for Zuckerberg‘s site in droves.

mark zuckerberg thumbs down facebook

Illustration: Ellis Hamburger

In a European Union-funded study on social media, the Department of Anthropology at University College London is running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in seven countries to find out how teens were perceiving Facebook.

We read about what UK teens think on The Conversation:

What we’ve learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.

Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

This is similar to what teens in the United States think about Facebook.

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| Retard TV presenter outrages by posing with lion she killed!

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TV presenter causes outrage after posing with lion she killed ~  , New York, The Telegraph.

An American television presenter has prompted outrage by boasting online that she had killed a lion in South Africa!

An American television presenter has prompted outrage by boasting online that she had killed a lion in South Africa  Melissa Bachman after her “Incredible day in South Africa” Photo: TWITTER

Melissa Bachman, a keen hunter who makes programmes on theAmerican outdoors, posted a photograph on Facebook and Twitter of her holding a rifle and smiling beside the corpse of a male lion.

“Incredible day in South Africa,” the self-styled “hardcore huntress” said of her pursuits at the Maroi Conservancy, adding: “Stalked inside 60-yards on this beautiful male lion … what a hunt!”

A furious online reaction led Bachman to deactivate her Facebook and Twitter pages within hours. It also prompted an online petition asking the South African government to bar her from returning.

Bachman has posted many pictures on her Twitter feed of animals she has killed (TWITTER)

“She is an absolute contradiction to the culture of conservation this country prides itself on,” said Elan Burman of Cape Town, the author of the petition, which quickly gathered 3,000 signatures.

“You, lady, are what is wrong with the world,” said Richard Robinson of Maryland, who was among the signatories. “Take with no consequences. Shoot, kill, consume, destroy.

“You didn’t kill a lion, you stood behind a machine and pulled a little trigger, you pathetic, sad excuse of a human.”

While the African lion is rated “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature‘s Red List, it is not officially an endangered species. “The main threats to lions are indiscriminate killing,” said the organisation.

The photograph was in keeping with Ms Bachman’s past activities. Her official website displays pictures of her posing beside dead alligators, turkeys and bears among other quarry.

She was axed as a contestant on the National Geographic programme Ultimate Survival Alaska last year after 13,000 people signed a petition protesting against the inclusion of a “heartless trophy hunter”. Ms Bachman could not be contacted for comment on Friday.

Ricky Gervais, the British comedian, shared Ms Bachman’s comment “what a hunt!” on his own Twitter feed, adding: “Spot the typo”.

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| LIVE UPDATES: Kenya shopping mall siege!

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Kenya shopping mall siege: LIVE UPDATES ~ RT.

Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group took dozens of people hostage, among them foreigners, after seizing the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Saturday, killing at least 69 people.

Monday, September 23

08:49 GMT: At least 69 people are confirmed to have been killed and 63 more recorded missing in the attack, Kenya Red Cross said Monday. The 63 recorded missing are thought to include both hostages still being held by Islamist militants, as well as those possibly killed in the three-day-long siege.

06:48 GMT: International Criminal Court proceedings for the trial of Kenya’s deputy president have been put on a week’s hold as a result of the hostage crisis, Reuters reports.

06: 38 GMT: Two blasts accompanied by brief gunfire were heard from inside the Nairobi mall, according to a Reuters witness.

The news comes as Israeli advisers are aiding Kenyan forces with developing a strategy to end the siege, after having earlier tried and failed to enter the building.

“Israelis and Kenyan forces have tried to enter Westgate (mall) by force but they could not, the mujahideen (fighters) will kill the hostages if the enemies use force,” Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, Al-Shabaab spokesman said earlier in clip posted on the website www.somalimemo.net

05:40 GMT: The militants have threatened to kill hostages as a result of the Kenyan troops moving in on their positions inside the mall, Al-Shabaab spokesman said, according to Naharnet.

05:38 GMT: As Reuters journalists reported bursts of rifle fire from inside the Westgate complex, there also appeared to be clashes taking place inside the building, according to Abbas Guled of the Kenyan Red Cross.

As day broke, following a quiet night, Reuters journalists near the upmarket Westgate complex heard bursts of rifle fire and muffled blasts. A Kenyan Red Cross official, Abbas Guled, said there appeared to be clashes inside the building.

03:20 GMT: There are reports of heavy gunfire being heard from inside the Westgate shopping mall, according to AFP. A security source told the news agency that an assault is underway.

Sunday, September 22

23:54 GMT: The shopping mall siege is not over yet, BBC quoted Kenya’s military as saying. The military added that the top priority is getting the hostages out alive, which makes the operation very delicate.

22:57 GMT: US Secretary of State John Kerry said the attack demonstrates the “seriousness” of the threat posed by Somali militants. The US has increased its security in response to the attack by“ruthless and completely reckless terrorists.”

22:54 GMT: The FBI has begun investigating whether Americans were involved in the Nairobi mall attack based on terrorists’ tweets, sources told NBC News.

22:01 GMT: A Kenyan military spokesman confirmed that “around 10” hostages are still being held by militants inside the Nairobi mall. Also, AP cited the spokesperson as saying that most of the rescued hostages were adults.

21:28 GMT: Among the dead is a 38-year-old Chinese woman. Her son was injured and is currently in hospital in a stable condition, the Chinese Embassy in Kenya said in a statement.

21:24 GMT: Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stated that a dual Australian-UK national was killed in the shopping mall siege.

21:06 GMT: Kenyan military spokesperson Colonel Cyrus Oguna confirmed that “most of the hostages have been released, and the Kenya Defence Forces has taken control of most parts of the building” where at least 68 people were killed.

20:40 GMT: Four military personnel were injured during the latest rescue operation, Kenya Defence Forces stated.

20:37 GMT: Kenyan authorities have regained control of most of the mall and have rescued most of the hostages, Kenya Defence Forces tweeted.

19:55 GMT: At least four American citizens were injured in the attack in Kenya, the US State Department said in a statement. The wife of a foreign service national working for the US Agency for International Development was killed, US officials said.

18:30 GMT:

 

18:15 GMT: The death toll in the Westgate mall siege has risen to 68 after nine more bodies were brought out from the building, Kenya’s Red Cross said on its Twitter account.

17:50 GMT: One of the victims of the terrorist attack was Peruvian doctor Juan Jesús Ortiz, former deputy head of the Kenyan branch of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Ortiz’s daughter was injured during the attack. The 63-year-old physician was a UNICEF consultant on issues of public health systems.

17:00 GMT: Kenyan troops have launched an assault on cornered Somali militants holding people hostage in the Westgate shopping mall.

“Godspeed to our guys in the Westgate building,” Kenya’s National Disaster Operation Centre said in a message on Twitter. “Major engagement ongoing.”

16:55 GMT: US President Barack Obama called Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta to say that the US will support Kenya’s efforts to bring the perpetrators of the shopping mall attack to justice.

16:30 GMT:

 

16:00 GMT: Former Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, said that the militants had established contact with the country’s authorities. He did not mention the attackers’ demands.

Beside Kenyans, among the victims of the attack are also citizens of France, the UK, Canada, China, South Korea and India and a prominent African poet from Ghana, Kofi Awoonor.

15:47 GMT: ‘A big blast’‘occurred at the Westgate shopping mall, AP’s correspondent Jason Straziuso reported on his Twitter account. He added that the cause of the explosion was unknown.

15:30 GMT: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has sent a telegram of condolence to Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, saying Russia strongly condemns this act of terrorism, the Kremlin’s press-service reported.

15:14 GMT: Security forces have “a good chance” of neutralizing the attackers at the shopping mall, said Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta.

“The criminals are now located in one place within the building. With the professionals on site, I assure Kenyans that we have as good a chance to successfully neutralize the terrorists as we can hope for,”he told reporters.

An image grab taken from AFP TV shows Kenyan policemen and soldiers taking position following an attack by Somali militants on September 21, 2013 inside the Westgate mall in Nairobi. (AFP Photo / Nichole Sobecki)An image grab taken from AFP TV shows Kenyan policemen and soldiers taking position following an attack by Somali militants on September 21, 2013 inside the Westgate mall in Nairobi. (AFP Photo / Nichole Sobecki)

Kenyatta also said his nephew and the nephew’s fiancée were among the 59 confirmed killed.

“Soon we will severely punish the organizers,” the President said. “They have to pay for their unworthy and brutal actions.”

The government also received reports of both male and female attackers, consistent with accounts given by witnesses who said they saw women involved.

15:04 GMT:

15:00 GMT: Britain’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday that three Britons were among the dead. Meanwhile, earlier two French citizens were confirmed dead in the attack, France’s presidential office stated. Also, two Canadians have been killed, including one diplomat, according to Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

14:00 GMT:

13:00 GMT: Nairobi Hospital is reporting that the facility has run out of blood bags, although the number of willing donors remains high, Kenya’s Ministry of Interior posted on its Twitter account.

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| Online trolling of women is linked to domestic violence, say campaigners!

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Online trolling of women is linked to domestic violence, say campaigners ~ , The Guardian.

Activists say abuse of women on sites such as Twitter should not be dismissed as harmless.

Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez

Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez, who will speak at a conference on tackling online abuse. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/PA

Online trolling against women is linked to domestic violence and abuse, experts have warned, and should not be dismissed as “obnoxious but harmless” behaviour.

Speaking before a conference on tackling online abuse, which will be attended by high-profile victims including the MP Stella Creasy and feminist writer and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said the links between domestic violence and online abuse were too often ignored.

“It is critical that we make the link between this vicious online harassment and cyberbullying and real-life violence against women,” she said. “We need to understand that this is part of a domestic violence spectrum and we have to challenge this type of misogyny because it is the backdrop that allows that violence to take place.”

The “decimation” of domestic violence services was also leaving providers struggling to provide basic support to victims, and unable to tackle complex problems such as online abuse, she added.

Women’s Aid supports 350 services throughout the country. Its survey of 307 domestic violence survivors showed 48% had been harassed or abused online by their ex-partner once they had left the relationship and 38% reported online stalking. A further 45% were abused online during their relationship.

Three-quarters of women were concerned that police did not know how best to respond to online abuse or harassment, while 12% had reported abuse to the police and said they had not been helped.

The added pressure from online abuse on services to keep women safe comes during a difficult period for domestic violence charities, Neate warned. “We are seeing direct services decimated at a time when we need to invest in enabling them to respond to a new era. Greater access online is putting women at increasing risk of being tracked down by violent former partners – we live our lives online now and the structures in place to keep women safe in these spaces just haven’t caught up,” she said.

“Services are struggling to provide even basic care – how are they meant to cope with this new challenge? Services are being pared down to the bone and in danger of ceasing to exist at all.”

Criado-Perez, who will speak at the conference, said she felt a responsibility to push for change following the abuse she suffered after successfully campaigning to reinstate a woman on the back of an English banknote. “So many women got in touch to say they had been told not to ‘provoke’ attackers and thanked me for taking a stand,” she said. “You are told: ‘Don’t feed the trolls‘ – but that gives no consideration to the victim. It’s about policing the reaction of the victim … telling women to shut up and that there is nothing they can do about it.”

She added that online trolling was the “vocalisation of a culture where domestic violence is still hushed up and not spoken about, a culture where two women can die a week at the hands of an abusive partner or ex-partner and it’s not even shocking”. Criado-Perez added that there was a lack of political will to tackle the situation. “It’s not just about addressing social media, it’s about tackling a deep-seated cultural problem, which takes time and financial investment – and this government is just not interested in that,” she said.

Creasy, who is also speaking at the conference on Tuesday, said the protocol for dealing with online threats and abuse needed a total overhaul. “If I received a bomb threat through the post, there is a protocol for dealing with that, but if I receive it online there is nothing in place,” she said. “We have to challenge this attitude that women just have to learn how to deal with these online threats, that they should be ignored.”

The MP for Walthamstow, who received repeated rape threats on Twitterand has called for the site to implement an online “panic button”, said the trolling had to be recognised as abuse. “Of course it’s distressing to receive these threats. I was told my attacker would fuck my dead corpse – it’s grim. If people want to create worry and fear then that is worrying. I want the police and other services to be able to understand the impact of these messages. I don’t want them to tell me how to learn to cope – I want to hear they are doing something about it,” she said.

She called for more training for police and more action from tech companies on threats. “Just because tackling this is difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing back. We have to say that this is not OK.”

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| Egypt Bloodbath: Rabaa and Nahda give birth to new victory sign!

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Rabaa and Nahda give birth to new victory sign ~ Motasem A. Dalloul, MEMO.

Rabaa SignA sign of a hand with four fingers raised with the thumb closed is fast spreading as a profile picture among Facebook and Twitter users who reject the military coup in Egypt.

 

This sign became common after the dispersal the pro-Morsi supporters in the two protest camps, Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Al-Nahda Squares, in Cairo last Wednesday.

Administrators of several anti-coup web pages have called for all Facebook and Twitter users to use this sign to show their solidarity with the victims of the crackdown after more than one thousand protesters were killed and several thousands injured.

The origin of this sign, as many activists on social media have confirmed, is Turkey, which is the only country, along with Qatar, that officially and popularly oppose the military coup in Egypt. Its Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, strongly criticised the coup and the brutal massacres that were perpetrated in an attempt to suppress voices of dissent and opposition.

Initially, the sign was raised by several Turkish footballers in dug-outs after scoring goals. They said that this is a sign to show solidarity with the victims killed in Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square. The first player, it is said, who raised it is Emre Belözoglu. Supporters at various stadia and Turks who took to the streets in solidarity with the Egyptians soon began to raise the sign.

During a speech delivered on August 17 to mark the launch of an urban renovation project in Bursa, Prime Minister Erdogan saluted the crowds several times with this sign. From there on, the sign was adopted by international anti-coup activists.

Those activists called for all anti-coup Facebook and Twitter users to use it to demonstrate the scale of opposition to the military coup both within Egypt and abroad.

 

Rabaa SisiSome social media users have manipulated the Rabaa sign

 

Many activists now use the sign carrying a photo of Erdogan as their profile photo. Indeed some have added the sign to their own photos such as the prominent Saudi scholar, Sheikh Salman al-Awda, who is considered one of the main critics for the Saudi regime. Al-Awda has at least 1.3 million likes on his Facebook page and 3.4 million followers on Twitter.

In fact, no one has yet spoken about why the Turkish footballers chose this sign, but the reason may be the close convergence between the pronunciation of number four (Arbaa) and the name Rabaa in Arabic.

Erdogan, it is said expected that this sign would replace the traditional ‘V’ sign to represent both victory and solidarity.

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| Frankie Boyle joins hunger strike in support of Guantánamo prisoner!

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Frankie Boyle joins hunger strike in support of Guantánamo prisoner ~ , The Guardian.

Scottish comedian tweets updates to fans while fasting to protest treatment of last British detainee Shaker Aamer.

Frankie Boyle

Frankie Boyle: fasting felt ‘a bit like being drunk’. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Comedian Frankie Boyle has started a hunger strike in solidarity withGuantánamo Bay prisoner Shaker Aamer, who has been striking for 150 days.

Boyle began fasting yesterday, joining Aamer’s lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who had already been fasting for seven days. Stafford Smith had previously tweeted that the comic was prepared to “take over from me when I fall” in theprotest, which aims to raise awareness of Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike, some of whom have reportedly been force-fed.

Boyle has been posting updates on his Twitter feed, after sending his congratulations to Stafford Smith for his actions so far. Yesterday, he signalled the start of his shift by tweeting, “There’s no feeling on earth like being on hunger strike in a Dutch beach bar while they blast out Abba’s Dancing Queen.” Hours later, he added: “Well Day 1 of hunger not too bad. But let’s remember who’s really suffering. My local pizza shop. I jest.”

This morning, he described the start of his second day as feeling “a bit like being drunk.”

According to Stafford Smith, British actress Julie Christie has also agreed to undertake a week of the joint hunger strike.

Aamer is the last British resident imprisoned in Guantánamo, where he has been held without charge since 2002.

As of Saturday, 96 of the 166 prisoners at the detention centre were still being classified as hunger strikers by the US army, down from a high of 106.

Human rights lawyers claim those figures are being wilfully underestimated.

Aamer has twice attempted to pass Stafford Smith a list of those striking, but on both occasions names have been deleted by army censors. On 14 June, Aamer wrote a letter claiming “for sure” that 120 prisoners were on strike, despite an official count of 104.

In December, Boyle donated his £50,000 compensation from a libel action against the Daily Mirror to Aamer’s legal fund.

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| Auction if not buying: Does anyone know the rules to Monopoly?

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Does anyone know the rules to Monopoly? ~ , The Telegraph.

It has been a family favourite for more than 75 years, but it has been revealed we may have all been playing Monopoly the wrong way.

One of eight classic Monopoly tokens will go straight to jail without a get out of jail free card after makers of the board game decided to scrap one playing piece and replace it with a modern-day alternative.

The board game was invented by Charles Darrow, whose young niece suggested he use metal charms from charm bracelets as pieces in the game Photo: Rex Features.

The rules have been named as one of the game’s best kept secret as no one reads the instructions.

It is claimed that this is the reason why the popular board game sparks so many arguments and takes so long to complete

One of the little-known rules demands that when a player lands on a space but does not wish to purchase the property it should be offered up for auction to their rivals.

Now the rules have gone viral on Twitter after a games blogger launched a campaign to teach people how to play properly.

The idea of auctioning up a space is to launch a furious bidding war, and the official rules from Hasbro, which makes the game, state: “If you do not wish to buy the property, the Banker sells it at auction to the highest bidder.

“Any player, including the one who declined the option to buy it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.”

The rule oversight was picked up from a 2011 blog from the Near Miss gaming website.

Johnny Nexus, the editor of Near Miss, which is running The Campaign For Real Monopoly, said that playing the game according to the rules can actually improve your enjoyment.

“Firstly, it speeds up the game, as it enables the quicker collection of a matched set of streets (and remember that it’s only when players have collected sets, and can start building houses, that the game moves into its final phase),” he wrote.

“Secondly, it makes the game much more interesting by massively increasing the interaction between players.

“Thirdly, it makes the game much more skilful, since it is now less dependent on luck, and more dependent on your ability to trick, bluff and manage the other players.”

He added that the confusion comes as the game is something you learn “through word-of-mouth in childhood, like riding a bike or tying your shoelaces”, the Daily Mail reported.

“Your mother, who never read the rules but was instead taught them by her father, taught you, and one day you will teach your children, again without reading the rules first. She passed on broken rules to you and you’ll pass them on to your kids.”

Another common misconception is that landing on Free Parking entitles the player to a cash reward, the blog points out.

Since 1935, 275million Monopoly games have been sold in 111 countries, spanning 43 languages, meaning more than one billion people have played it. The longest Monopoly tournament in history lasted 70 days.

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| CIA agent trying to recruit Russian intelligence officer detained in Moscow (with wig) – FSB!

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CIA agent trying to recruit Russian intelligence officer detained in Moscow – FSB ~ RT.

CIA agent trying to recruit Russian intelligence officer detained in Moscow

CIA agent trying to recruit Russian intelligence officer detained in Moscow
 

Russia’s counterintelligence agency has detained a CIA agent in Moscow trying to recruit an officer of the Russian secret service, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced. The agent was operating under guise of career diplomat.

The FSB Public Relations Center has announced that the person detained is Ryan Christopher Fogle, the third secretary of the Political Section of the American embassy in Moscow.

The agency stressed that Christopher had special technical equipment, printed instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited, a large sum of money and means to change the person’s appearance.

The detainee was delivered to the FSB receiving office where he has been questioned and after all the necessary procedures he has been handed over to representatives of the US embassy in Moscow.

The website of the American embassy in Russia informs that its Political Section is engaged in“bringing to the attention of the Russian government the US position on the issues of foreign policy and security.” The section’s other task is to “inform Washington about the main provisions of the foreign and defense policy of Russia,” as well as Russian domestic political life.

Ryan C Fogle, 3d secretary of US embassy, was detained in Moscow by the Russian counterintelligence agency (FSB)

Ryan C Fogle, 3d secretary of US embassy, was detained in Moscow by the Russian counterintelligence agency (FSB)
Disguise allegedly used by Ryan Fogle (FSB)

Disguise allegedly used by Ryan Fogle (FSB)
Ryan Fogle inside FSB office (FSB)

Ryan Fogle inside FSB office (FSB)

The one-page letter to a would-be recruit proposes a payment of US$100,000 for an interview to discuss possible cooperation and promises up to $1 million a year payment if the contact agrees to supply the American side with the information it demands.

The letter also contains a step-by-step instruction how to create a new Gmail account that would be used for future contacts. The instruction repeatedly stresses not to present any real contact information, like phone numbers, email or home addresses.

Instruction allegedly used to recruit Russian intelligence officer with offers of money and means of conducting the conspiracy (FSB)

Instruction allegedly used to recruit Russian intelligence officer with offers of money and means of conducting the conspiracy (FSB)

It is advised not to use personal handheld mobile devices and notebooks for registration, proposing to use an internet café to go through the procedure. Another option, the instruction says, is to buy a new device especially for contacts and pay for it in cash, with the expenses to be reimbursed.

Once a new Gmail account is created, the recruit should write a letter to ‘unbacggdA@gmail.com and wait one week for a reply.

“Thank you for reading this. We look forward to working with you in the nearest future. Your friends,” the instruction ends.

US Ambassador to the Russian Federation Michael McFaul refused to comment on the detention of his subordinate for espionage activities.

On his Twitter account he simply wrote ‘no’ answering a question about Ryan Fogle.

But tomorrow he will definitely have to have an answer to the Russian Foreign Ministry, where he has been summoned to give an explanation concerning the incident.

Ryan Fogle’s pass to the US embassy (FSB)

Ryan Fogle’s pass to the US embassy (FSB)
Money allegedly used by Fogle for recruiting (FSB)

Money allegedly used by Fogle for recruiting (FSB)
Ryan Fogle’s diplomatic pass (FSB)

Ryan Fogle’s diplomatic pass (FSB)

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