Post No. 1,610 - In this week’s news

Black Lives Matter!

Stay safe - wash your hands, practice social distancing, and follow informed medical advice - and be considerate towards those at risk or in situations of vulnerability (including economic) while the COVID-19 pandemic is a problem.

This is a new, very cut down series of news aggregation posts based on some observations on matters that struck a personal note: unlike the former “Gnwmythr’s News”, it is not trying to convey key events. Also, I am now going to start referring to specific Australian states using accepted abbreviations.

Content Warning: the linked articles and their descriptions here may be about violence, abuse, hate, and other problems.

My articles this week include:   thoughts on managing the pandemic from a political and a spiritual perspective (the latter includes opportunities).

On personal / spiritual matters:   on bullying in Pagan groups/communities.

Overall Commentary:
   there has been a game changing admission that the SARS2 novel coronavirus is airborne, but other problems of resistance, denial (especially when it harms political prospects connected to the economy), and complacency remain present. China remains a growing human rights concern, and a range of responses - of varying validity - are being debated, although debate is both fraught and requests for that are too often a cover for bigotry. Abuses, including genocide and endemic systemic racism, misogyny and other forms of hate, are happening elsewhere as well, and the bigots continue to resist change as actively and directly as they can (putting their tribe/mates ahead of decency, professionalism and competence), although sometimes with a patina of something topical as camouflage, as this continues to diminish both them and their communities/nations. Calls for action to match high-sounding words have included human rights and the environment, on which more evidence supports the need for conserving trees. The continued need for, and attacks on, accurate and timely information is evident - in a wide range of areas, including voting, with at least one national leader appearing to have been elected on the basis of lies. Stuff ups in the use of new and recent technology continue.

In This Week’s News:   swearing;   calls to remove Hong Kong police propaganda from an Australian Uni;   the need for children to learn about media literacy;   stolen children in Indonesia (shades of what happened in Argentina);   scams are still a big problem;   dealing with, um . . . lack of . . . oh, er, concentration;   a call for context, not cancel, culture;   an opinion that the pandemic has shown the world had a “distorted” view of poverty gains.

In the Environmental Arena, where we have been fighting World War III for some time now:   an electric car manufacturer is now the world’s leading manufacturer;   Japan will close 100 inefficient coal plants over a decade;   “why it’s time to get emotional about climate change”;   a call for Europe to delay a trade deal with Brazil until the Amazon is protected;   Pakistan’s reforestation is benefitting bees;   more on the consequences of last summer’s bushfires;   the massive potential for beneficial impact on the climate crisis of Whales;   a proposal to use residual charge in electric vehicles’ batteries to help the grid at times of peak demand;   indigenous seed collectors in Brazil;   the need to aid developing nations to preserve their ecosystems;   water shortages in Iraq;   legal action against a mine in Ghana;   social media rules are preventing scientists rebutting lies;   no excuses to not protect tropical forests.
   other environmental matters have occurred in:   Turkey;   the superannuation industry (good news);   Indonesia;   NSW (good news).

This week on the Protests in the USA and associated protests/issues elsewhere:
   dealing with internalised racism;   an examination of the obvious: organisations can be racist as an organisation - it is NOT only a few bad apples or the problems of individuals;   “the Commonwealth ‘must acknowledge the past’ even if it is ‘uncomfortable’ ”according to members of the British royal family;   the case for reparations;   charges against a white woman who made a false complaint against a black man;   racism and anti-Semitism in US sport;
   in Australia:   another street march by face-mask wearing protestors;
   Police:   USA;   a famous whistleblower says problems have not changed over the last half century;   criticism of police in Singapore appears to have been shut down;   sexual assault and other abuse by police;   a racist incident in the UK is being investigated;   following the response to recent protests calling for institutional reform, Sudan has dismissed its police chief;   Kenya;
   Joining the protests have been:   LGBTIQ+ activists in France;
   more on the very long History of the Causes of the protests:   an excellent video from a few years ago - by a TV comedian - on the history of statues and related aspects.

On Human and Animal Rights:
   “the need to counter hate speech, extremist content and misinformation ONLINE”;
   as the US imposes targeted sanctions, a call for the ICC to investigate China’s “alleged” genocide against the Uyghur;   a rebuttal of some of the moronic myths around the ICC;   China is preparing to impose yet more political policing;   a call for a Japanese company to stop supporting the genocidaires in burma;   a statement on the 25^th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica;   the historical “ethnic cleansing” of Native Americans;   “calls for an Australian Magnitsky Act to target human rights abusers”;
   call for Scandinavian nations to match their peerless rhetoric on human rights with action;
   acknowledging and working with the knowledge of Indigenous children;   far right-wing extremist gestures by trespassers at a University in my home state;   Israel has selected its first ever Bedouin ambassador;   a call “for measurable, short-term health targets to close the almost 10-year average life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians”;   achieving constitutional recognition;   the diminution of Australia’s social capital;   following its recent cultural destruction, calls for a mining company to be stripped of its human rights recognition;   a call to respect the Uluru Statement from the Heart as my home state becomes “the first and only jurisdiction to have actioned the Treaty and Truth elements”;   a call for children’s books to be diverse;   “understanding the role of law and culture in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in responding to and preventing family violence”;
   a rebuttal of the insanity promulgated by a transphobe - who, hypocritically, after trying to silence TGD people, has joined others in signing a letter against censorship - and make no mistake: her words will kill TGD people;
   a police officer who breached family orders and bashed his ex-partner in front of her son has had a jail sentence overturned (this concerns me greatly - especially the use of community work for egregious violence in front of a child [who could well be . I presume the counselling and alcohol ban would have applied anyway - they certainly should have. Was this concern over COVID-19?);   intersectional feminism;   more calls for a way to make complaints against judges who commit sexual harassment;   a court has set a deadline for the Indian Army;
   the child victim of a rape has been jailed - this is in my nation, Australia;
   a notorious ultra-conservative Minister avoided contempt of court by the skin of his teeth by deciding to reject a visa application;
   complaints against NSW police have exceeded targets in two-thirds of stations;   “growing privatization [sic] in the US criminal legal system . . . is effectively criminalizing [sic] poverty”;
   are laws keeping pace with the use of facial recognition?;
   religious bigotry in Pakistan has stopped the building of the first Hindu temple there since that nation was founded;
   poor housing drives released UK inmates back to jail;
   how to bring more diversity to Australia’s media;   a call to ensure diversity is genuine at our national broadcaster.
 - Genocide matters (good and bad) in:   Bangladesh;
 - Immigration, migration and Refugee matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   Tanzania;
 - Racism/caste based matters including land rights (good and bad) have occurred in:   NT;   public service;   speech recognition programmes;
 - Trafficking/slavery/Child Abuse matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   Qld.;   NT;   Brazil;   Uganda;   UK;   Mexico;   a call to back whistleblowers;
 - LGBTIQ+ matters (including internalised homophobia/transphobia) (good and bad) have occurred in:   Poland;   Tunisia;   the Netherlands (good news);
 - Sexism (including internalised sexism), misogyny/misandry and domestic violence matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   engineering;   Kyrgyzstan;   a streaming service;   the climate crisis;   UK;   Egypt;   UK;   Ghana (good news);   South Korea;   Indonesia;
 - Freedom of the Press / Expression matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   Ghana;   Russia - see also here;   Somalia;   Cameroon;
 - Privacy/Surveillance matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   New Zealand;   policing;
 - Repression/Oppression / reduction of democracy and other civil & political rights matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   Turkey;   Turkey;   Venezuela;
 and
 - Other animal and human rights matters (good and bad) have occurred in:   UK.

In the related human rights arena of Employment:   the complexities of remote working;   more on the problems of compulsory insurance that companies have shoved onto super as a way of evading their responsibilities (and a way of robbing workers of the end of their life/getting vengeance?);   25% of nations allow workplace discrimination.

Risks or occurrences of Atrocities, Mass Violence and/or War(s) this week in:   Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and Mexico are still the most lethal conflicts in the world;   nuclear weapons arms control;   Israel-Gaza;   South Sudan;   Mali;   Ethiopia - see also here;   Nigeria;   piracy off Nigeria;   Libya;   Burkina Faso;   Mozambique;   Nigeria;   Mali;   foreign interference in Libya;   Syria, South Sudan, and Mali;   a warning that Da’esh is not ended;   education;   Cameroon;   DR Congo;   Chad;   Nigeria;   Burkina Faso (mass grave);   Burundi;   Iraq;
And:   an opinion that the murder of Gaddafi in Libya in the year 2011 ended the world’s “appetite” for war crimes trials;   keep schools safe during war;   examination of a proposed multinational force around Lake Chad;   a call to sustain the reduction of violence in El Salvador;   the DRC is using former warlords to try to resolve conflict;   reports that a peace treaty in South Sudan is “imminent” - see also here;   a detailed examination of the India-China dispute on the India-Tibet border;   an opinion that the US drone strike in Iraq that killed a controversial Iranian general and nine other people was a violation of international law (although the strike was counter-productive, I’m not convinced the opinion is correct);   far right extremist violence in Israel;   widespread sit-ins in Sudan;   farmers in Mali forced off their land;   a call for regional sharing of intelligence in West Africa.
Other atrocity/violence matters have occurred in:   Cameroon;   Mozambique;   Morocco;   Burkina Faso;   Nigeria.

In the Democracy, Governance, Politics, Public Ethics, and Society arena:   scam claims about a byelection candidate in Australia;   more calls to get rid of private employment agencies after egregious bullying and harassment left a man’s 8 year old daughter terrified;   growing fanaticism and stupidity in the conservative party in Qld.;   as more problems emerge over how robodebt 2.0 - attempts by the neolibs to claw back JobKeeper - is administered, concern over the effects on staff who were forced to administer robodebt;   renewed calls for Parliament to decide when we go to war;   a call for digital “death certificates” (automatic notification using their Medicare number) that are legal and shared by “all layers of government” to make “sorting out” deceased estates easier (which, on the basis of my experience, I will support);   my home state has appointed a former police officer to lead the consultation for a second supervised injection room, a council to guide the adaptation of agriculture to climate crisis - but see also this, and provided extra mental health support for survivors of bushfires;   the problems facing those who survive suicide attempts;   the secret communication between the Queen and the Governor-General before The Dismissal will finally be made public;   lack of accountability of some judiciary in the USA;   protests against the government in Serbia;   the political situation in Ireland, and how the pandemic has affected that;   “the dangers of defence-led foreign policy”;   Bougainville’s future;   widespread electricity blackouts in Lebanon;   Mexico’s president was elected on an anti-POTUS45 platform: that was a lie.

On Disasters this week:   floods in Japan have killed at least 50 people;   locusts in Africa.

Internationally:
   Australia ranked 37^th in the world on overall progress in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals;   details of an attempted assassination of Canada’s PM have emerged in court;   as Israel launches another spy satellite, claims Israel was behind a fire at a nuclear facility in Iran are matched by claims Iran tried to attack Israeli embassies;   a suggestion for the USA on its relationship with Russia;   an analysis of Russia’s regrowing involvement in Afghanistan;   a pause in tensions on the Korean peninsula;
on China and the new ideological Cold War this week:   a comparison of the opportunity now facing our current (neolib) PM with that facing  PM Bob Hawke after the Tiananmen Square  Massacre;   Australia’s need for more and wider  alliances;   China has laid the first charges under its new suppression of Hong Kong law - which is eroding its financial base - as some social media channels “pause” compliance with data requests from China (why are they complying at all?);   pro-democracy books have been removed from bookshelves in Hong Kong - where people are deleting their digital records;   a protest in the USA against China’s “naked aggression” in Tibet;   Chinese students have concerns about studying in Australia (I don’t blame them: aside from the growing international tensions and the pandemic, we are a racist nation and our racism has been growing, become more violent, and is more targeted against anyone who “appears to be” Asian) but there are also concerns that China’s reach include intimidation by Chinese nationals of students in Australia;   examination of why PNG has successfully resisted China’s influence;   as the extradition treaty with Hong Kong is - quite rightly - cancelled, official advice - having now caught up with what is obvious - points out that Australians (and many other nations’ citizens) are at risk of arbitrary arrest in China;   Australia has lost a decade facing the risks associated with China - which now include war;   China is RIGHT to criticise the USA for not joining a global arms treaty;   Xi’s thin skin;   naval tensions in the South China Sea;   the broader context of decision making about responses to the oppression of Hong Kong;   yet another reminder that China will NOT liberalise;   India is using history to rebut China’s expansionism;   an opinion that China is looking to increase its trade with Africa to counterbalance its dispute with Australia (and that is a region we should have been looking to for many years - if not decades);   a human rights blind and therefore deeply flawed opinion that Russia should be brought in from the cold to counterbalance China, much as China was used in the 1970s;
on Israel’s intended annexation of the West Bank:   fear of US disengagement from West Asia may be driving this.

In Africa - Democracy, Governance, Politics, Public Ethics, And Society and International Relations:   I just found that Ethiopia has a pentagram on its flag - and see here for an interesting video on Ethiopia’s potential to become an African “powerhouse”;   an investigation into a former President of Mauritania is proceeding;   an investigation into what has been done with looted funds;   Malawi’s president has urged action against corruption;   another article on the violence in Ethiopia being a risk to its transition to democracy;   a promise of reform in Mali;   protests over the proposed election body leader in DRC;   South Sudan still has some way to go.

On the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (there are other novel coronaviruses) (seven major risks to watch here, and seven sins of thought to avoid here), and Wear Masks!!!):
   a dispute over the evidence that the virus is airborne Ends With An Admission By The WHO That It Is - see here for recommended responses (including not using air conditioning on recycle);
   the world is facing generation COVID;   more on prevention of future zoonotic pandemics;   many international travellers are trying to get home - and empty seats are being used for medical supplies;   security concerns about a Chinese company that has been supplying COVID-19 test kits;   as the pandemic accelerates, a call for leadership and unity;   “disinformation” (i.e., lies) problems;   lies this week;

   good stories:   using music to raise awareness; 

   medical aspects:   although the virus can stay in people for weeks, they’re “probably not” contagious;   another call for masks - with instructions on how to make a 12 layer cloth one at home;   the MANY valid reasons that people may not want to be tested;   possible long term effects on supply chains;   risks of brain damage from the virus;

   Human Rights Aspects (crisis . . . running summary of impacts on elections here):   possible racism in the refusal of one government department to recognise a relationship that another has;   more on the gendered impacts;   some asylum seekers in the USA have abandoned their claims so they can die at home;   return to work technologies could hurt the marginalised;   child poverty in Argentina;   Lebanon’s poor have to borrow money to buy bread;   Kenya has ordered an investigation of increased domestic violence;   Nepal’s widows;   Africa;   how discrimination has made Native Americans vulnerable;
   increased opportunistic repression/oppression / reduction of democracy:   Asia-Pacific.

   Environmental Impacts:   a call for greener homes in the UK as part of the pandemic recovery;

   Australia:   my home state is locking down specific  apartment blocks who had pleaded for help months ago - which, given the use of police and pseudo-police, may not go as well as they hope (at least they’re finally providing food and other support - although there may be problems with that), but at least our human rights body is watching - see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (on the rich communities living there), here, the experience of a nurse doing testing here, here - and some of the towers are now out of “hard” lockdown;   as a call is made for a state-wide lockdown in my state, border closures are imposed - with some exemptions, “escapes”, and problems;   my home city has been put back into lockdown - regretfully, but based on the data, and to keep rural and regional Victorians safe (not, as claimed by the idiots in the rumour mill, to stop legal action from those in the hard lockdown in towers) for six weeks - which is something that could happen anywhere, and thus is a reminder to avoid complacency, and raises mental  health concerns  - see also here, here (hospitals are nearing capacity), here (sourer mood), here;   a critique of the known problems in the security industry;   my home state’s Parliamentary kitchen has now made 300,000 meals for those in need;   caps on international arrivals to reduce quarantine costs;   yet more calls for extended job support as more economic pain looms;   calls for better multicultural communications;   the hospitality industry could lose 30% of small businesses;   the looming threat of deferred debt;   at least half of post-graduate students are considering quitting - particularly those who are disadvantaged;   support to address social disconnectedness and isolation in my home state, and extra services to make public transport safer;

   Internationally:   mass graves in Bolivia;   biggest daily increase so far in South Africa;- and almost in Mexico;   more second lockdowns in Spain where 5% of the population has been exposed, ;   a State of Emergency in Serbia;   easing of lockdown in the UK;   easing of lockdown in Ireland will be delayed after crowds behaved irresponsibly;   some resistance to wearing face masks in Israel, where some people can no longer afford food;   South and Central America;   a concert in Lebanon was held with no audience;   after three key errors, Israel  starts to go back into lockdown as cases surge and the PM admits reopening was premature;   there are fears the USA’s 4^th July celebrations could cause a spike;   Brazil’s blasé Bolsonaro has been infected - and still refuses to wear masks on the basis it will make him “gay”;   India - and here, - but a slum has been outstanding;   the UK left carers at risk;   help for Vietnamese workers in Japan;   the USA’s “pandemic aid program saved 51.1 million jobs, but [the] wealthy and connected also benefited” - and see this, on nepotism;   two violent cretins in France who left a bus driver who refused entry to those without masks brain dead after an assault have been charged with attempted murder;   actions in the USA include compulsory wear face mask orders;   test results in South Korea are promising;   the USA’s ICE spread the virus by deporting infected people;   #45 is overriding and interfering in medical advice;   Japan;   Ecuador;   safety  measures for voting in Singapore;   Brazil’s favelas are helping themselves;   in one city in the USA, local aid in the form of local money made from wood;

   Africa:   Kenya will start to reopen;   innovators are using technology;

   Globally:   sustainable control for low income nations;   food banks are struggling;   commercial seafarers;

   Stupidity:   USA;   Egypt;   Russia (“Comra-er, citizen, we will watch you so closely we will give receipts for use of loo, but . . . what is this testing for virus idea?”).

WLNGRHDMT

And finally . . . Black Lives Matter!