Post No. 1,805 - Cross Posting: On Burma, and from the news

This was originally posted on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2021/03/on-burma-and-from-news.html. 

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On Burma this week:

• the protests and killings continue - see here, here, here, and here, as is the crushing of dissent;
  
• they have come for the poets; 
• one foreign news service journalist has been released;
  
• trump's regime refused to declare the genocide against the Rohingya to be that; 
• hundreds of police are continuing to flee into India; 
• ASEAN's quiet diplomacy is continuing.

From the news this week:

• the pandemic is NOT over yet - and an opinion that "we need social science, not just medical science, to beat the pandemic";
  
• allegations Australia's minerals council is trying to export its "negative approach to climate policy" as Canada's conservatives and toxic social media users show their stupidity;   an argument for increasing aid to ensure poorer nations can address the climate crisis (and for using "multilateral development banks" in the fight against COVID-19);   an explainer on the obvious - why the climate crisis is making the weather worse;   inadequate preparation for disasters - specifically, inadequate evacuation centres;  a call to support Indigenous people's efforts to protect forests and the environment;
• the resistance to change of those "sleeping on the wrong side of history" . . . ;   the USA is at Stage 10 (denial) in its genocides against Native Americans and Black Americans;   Guinea is at Stage 6 (polarisation);
  
• the dangerous destruction of trust and thus democracy in Australia;   "UK conservatives are prepared to increase tax to fund essential government services while in Australia, ... conservatives try to achieve small government by stealth by not properly funding key government responsibilities";   the RBA's attempts to increase wages are being stymied by the vindictiveness of the neolibs;   more bad faith viciousness by Australia's social security department - and our discriminatory refusal to issue a visa on the excuse of a disability is a breach of international obligations;   harassing job seekers with "mutual obligations" and other BS STOPS them getting jobs;
  
• corruption in Kenya  and  South Sudan;   anti-corruption whistleblowers in the DRC have been sentenced in absentia to death;   Putin has removed age limits for his cronies;   
• Thailand's king is enmeshing the monarchy in politics, thereby undermining constitutional monarchy;
  
• a call to protect encryption; 
• the concept of a middle power nation as "a balance between two extremes";
  
• China has the started the show trial of one of the foreign nationals it is holding as hostages as sanctions against China for its genocide against the Uyghurs are spreading - and sanctions for human rights abuses also on Eritrea, and a South Sudanese general;   vindictive China is trying to bully those who want Tibet to be treated with decency into silence;
  
• delivery of the Australian navy's new patrol boats has been slowed because China sent a batch of "deficient" aluminium (why are we buying Chinese aluminium for a military need?);   China's "debt trap diplomacy" in Central Asia;
  
• a multi-national corporation is being tried in France for spying on its employees; 
• attention seeking North Korea has been firing what are probably ballistic missiles towards Japan again; 
• the modern nation of Bangladesh has existed for two generations, and its democracy is struggling . . . ; 
  
• facebook consider death threats and other abuses acceptable . . . ; 
• an opinion - against a history of duplicity and human rights abuses on both sides leaving nothing but bleakness and despair for the people of Yemen - that Saudi Arabia has now clearly lost its war in Yemen;
  
• Saudi Arabia has "issued [a] death threat against [the] UN's [female] Khashoggi investigator". Also, death threats against journalists in Kyrgyzstan; 
• the recent fire in a Rohingya refugee camp killed at least 15, left hundreds missing, and has displaced 50,000 people; 
• young people are leading the protests in Thailand; 
• a trans school in Pakistan;   LGBT discrimination in South Korea has led to a very public suicide;   homophobia in Uzbekistan;
  
• ASIO will continue to identify and call out nationalist and racist ideological threats - which is a timely promise, given nazi threats here and the latest massacre by gun in the USA - which came after US courts blocked an assault rifle ban in response to pressure from their gun nuts associations, who then bragged about their success (still shooting your mouths off, gun nuts? There is a call to hold gun manufacturers accountable, as well as an interesting comment that crime rates are not higher in the USA, but the proliferation of guns means more crimes have a violent outcome [see also here]). Also on US courts, in a blow to open justice, US courts are resorting to secret procedures; 
• police showed their ineptness, stupidity and unprofessionalism by conducting an intrusive and oppressive investigation of a colleague with prurient questions;
  
• police racism against Indigenous youth;   business falsely claiming to be Indigenous;   more criticism of the idiot who claimed a recent mass murder was not racist;   racism in Europe;   one US suburb is planning to pay reparations;   Israel's PM continues to copy the US republicans' playbook by using racist fears and an alliance with a far right wing extremist party;   staggering stupidity around a planned art event shows the need for  art curators with community perspective;   republicans have introduced racist voting restrictions in a US state;
  
• strong condemnation of racism and sexism in the USA - which is still abusing immigrants;
  
• Turkey has moved to allow domestic violence;   women only villages in Kenya are leading to land equality;   avoiding sexual slavery for daughters is one of the factors leading women to flee Central America;   a near billion dollar settlement against a uni for allowing and covering up sexual abuse;
  staggering revelations that Scott appears to have misled the Australian Parliament;   BS claims that Scott wouldn't have been safe as stonewalling leads to comments that the actions - including a false claim of complaints at a media organisation - of Scott's government look like a cover up and women members of the Liberals are called out for supporting  misogyny - and, on that, "‘Cultural misogyny’ and why men’s aggression to women is so often expressed through sex";   Scott's government DILLIGAF on anyone in strife - but a neolib Qld MP has been forced to apologise for abuse of two women but the Tas Libs have sacked a female MP who reported an alleged sexual assault;   the political crisis over the workplace culture in Parliament is deepening;   another sexual assault allegation in an Australian parliament as some Liberal women MPs object to tokenism (others object to quotas), a national cabinet reshuffle is considered, and staffers raise concerns about excessive secrecy in the proposed enquiry into Parliamentary culture;   a formal complaint about the abuse of a rape victim's partner has led to backtracking;   a reminder that sexual assault have plagued Indigenous women for centuries and the current reaction has a racist element;   a call to let victims have legal representation to protect survivors of sexual assault from abuse because "questioning of sexual assault victims during trials 'worse' than in the 1950s" - which, despite the comments about defence requirements is a large part of WHY women do not subject ourselves to this SECOND SEXUAL ASSAULT;   a critique of the AFP and politicisation;  
  more classes in sexual consent;   a rebuttal of media myths on trauma;   more sexism in sport;   tenancy laws around breaking a lease are trapping women in DV;   sexual coercion/blackmail in Australia's farm backpacker scheme;   male sexual assault victims are also raising their voices;
  
• we are losing food farmland to urban developments; 
  
• cyber-ineptness in some Australia government departments.