On psychic, spiritual and related matters, including interesting reading:
- "Consciousness, The Human Heart and The Global Energetic Field Environment";
- "COVID has made Australians more conservative and care less about others" - with an interesting categorisation into into self-transcendence, self-enhancement, conservatism, and openness to change;
- an excellent video - with some staggering revelations about stupidity about mental illness and medication - titled "yes, you can be a witch and struggle with mental illness";
- Myanmar’s junta is torturing children;
- "intuitive" walks;
(Mægan)
On Uganda this week:
- Museveni is continuing his stay in, and abuse of, power;
On Burma this week:
- the protests and killing continue - see here,
- Burma is at risk of a large scale civil war;
From the news this week:
- on the climate crisis and the environment:
natural geological sources of mercury in Greenland have caused major pollution; economists want a faster transition to electric cars; despite the mumblings of our national neolib nitwits, the Reef IS in danger; a report has found that the Western Victorian Transmission Network going underground (and thus being less vulnerable to bushfires) is - at 5 to 6 times to cost of overhead, rather than the claimed ten times - 'worth it'; Australians are worried about the lack of plans to transition away from coal; the national neolib nitwits are trying top turn us into a bunch of freeloaders on climate change; even ONE tree can help animals; the Antarctic is nearing disaster ... ; a legal challenge over 'greenwashing' ads; a less confrontational mindset towards dingoes may help farms; "the delusion of infinite economic growth" (that reminds me of an early argument I had with a lecturer at Uni: he'd just taught us what he considered the way to determine the capacity of a bore, which was based on short term hydraulics, and was totally flummoxed by me arguing that the yield actually was tied to what was going into the aquifer and the total abstraction rate ... SIGH ... I was a pain of a student - but I was right, and now, decades later [decades too late?] my sadly prescient view is now accepted); yet another call for public transport which IGNORES the problem of abuse on PT; a citizen's jury in Germany has supported strong, specific actions against the climate crisis; the long history of regenerative agriculture;
(responsibility) - on international relations including war:
a hard liner has won Iran's elections - and a difficult position; the USA's FBI has warned one particular sect of conspiracy nutjobs is more likely to move from digital to physical violence; a study shows fragmented policing and blind support to wrong doing juniors contributes to police violence - and can contribute to the failure of peace after war; Russian military forces have threatened a UK naval ship which may or may not have been in international waters; the world is pushing for peace in Libya; consideration - again - of a regional force for Mozambique; Sudan's Premier has warned "of "deeply worrying" fractures within the country's security forces and called for reconciliation between civilian and military political factions"; dozens of rebels have surrendered in the eastern DRC; an insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria has killed 350,000 people in 12 years; fighting again in Tigray; China has continued it's economic attack on Australia with a childish tit-for-tat tantrum response; "protect civilians in Mozambique"; "UN urges Israel to halt expansion of new illegal settlements"; we are - AGAIN - abandoning people in other nations who put the lives and wellbeing of themselves and their families at risk by helping our military; "the shifting [and parlous] state of French civil-military relations"; the Sudan-Ethiopia border and dam disputes; the USA has "seized the websites of two Iranian state-controlled news groups";
(BPM group leadership) - on the COVID-19 pandemic:
a warning over the next possible pandemic - which is being brought closer by deforestation and environmental degradation; China's intransigence and malice over Taiwan "may" have stopped a vaccine deal; Indonesia is so overwhelmed that even fully vaccinated health workers have died; the severe lingering effects of COVID; we are closer to a local vaccine in my home state (which is not allowed to buy them from overseas ... ); vaccine shortages; health workers who refused to be professional have been sacked for putting their patients at risk; a new purpose-built quarantine facility has been approved - see also this, on design; anti-vax nutters are trying to spread their mental disease - aided by incompetence on at least one social media platform; "nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among [the] unvaccinated";
(Berkana - healing & compassion) - on genocides and other human rights issues:
a Liberian human rights & war criminal has been jailed for over 20 years for offences committed in the 1990s; "moral bankruptcy and cruelty in the [unconscionable] treatment of the Biloela Family" and the "nonsense" in the "facile immigration policy debate"; sham trial of Mikalai Statkevich (leader of the Socialist International's member party Narodnaya Hramada) in Belarus; asylum seekers are on a hunger strike over their unending detention; an example of the human face of the 1% of humans who are refugees; the EU should not relax sanctions against Burundi; 32 million African have been displaced; the AU will investigate atrocities in Tigray; "Black and Native American burial sites around the country have been neglected, forgotten or targeted by developers"; more details of abuses in China; Cambodia’s government should drop charges against environmental activists; plans by Sudan’s transitional government to create joint security force trigger concern; France should not buy into Rwanda’s rewriting of the past and present; EU should make respect for human rights condition for closer ties with Turkey and finally start defending rights in members Poland and Hungary; UEFA bans show of support for LGBT people at European Championships - which has led to support by other stadiums ... at least the bigotted Hungarian PM won't travel to the event; abuse of individuals as part of an international contractual dispute; in Thailand "hazing rituals in universities foster authoritarianism" - and take lives; ECOWAS has banned action by Nigeria against those who bypass Nigeria's ban on one social media platform; famine in southern Madagascar; progressive businesses are offering menstrual leave; VAD in SA; "an unacceptable number of children are fleeing residential care because they don't feel safe"; "to understand young people's mental health problems, we need to look at the economic and social triggers" (finally!); a "cyber abuse take-down scheme"; housing shortages for the poor; "in Hong Kong, Beijing dismantles a free society"; "UN body should assess Xinjiang abuses remotely"; "a grim signal [against] justice in Chechnya"; a "critic of [the] Palestinian Authority [has been] arrested and killed"; "new German laws threaten privacy rights"; historic win for women workers; modern slavery in Indonesia; refugees in east Africa; "increasing violence towards refugees and migrants held in Libyan detention centres has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations at two facilities"; Russia will withdraw their human rights abusing mercenaries from Libya - and Turkey will also withdraw its mercenaries; "Nigeria’s human rights record ‘very poor’, worse than average in sub-Saharan Africa"; another social media platform has aided human rights abusers by removing content about the abuses;
- on democracy:
the continuing crisis in Lebanon; change of leader (to a hypocrite) for the minor national neolib nitwit party may cause a ruckus - and "rural women say ‘astounding’ return of ... Joyce proves Nationals ‘not listening’"; a review of the month long protests in Colombia; a call for military aid shows the ongoing problem of under-resourced public services; very low turnout for elections in France considered a "slap in the face" for the ruling Centrists; "almost 60 Australian judges, lawyers and prominent experts have urged the Coalition to keep a key election promise by setting up a strong, effective national anti-corruption commission"; Germany is investigating a major tech company over "antitrust" matters; nine Catalonian "separatist" leaders in Spain have been pardoned; "Japan proposes four-day working week to improve work-life balance"; possible misuse of JobKeeper by an elitist school; more suppression of media in Algeria; the evidence of a key whistleblower has not been sought; the tensions in and affecting Indonesia's protected philosophy of "pancasila";
(democracy) - on LGBTIQ+ matters:
an active sports player in the USA has come out as gay; “the Vatican has made an unprecedented intervention urging the Italian government to change a proposed law that would criminalise homophobia over concerns it will infringe upon the Catholic church’s “freedom of thought” ”; discrimination still in the construction industry; anti-LGBT murders in Guatemala; "in the middle of Pride Month, YouTube has removed the channel of an Australian series from LGBTQI creators"; a University has banned transphobia; "Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people don’t feel fully accepted by either community"; - on racism:
Indigenous culture has given one area a very low property crime rate; a complaint of indirect discrimination against the AEC; "more than 1,200 refugees granted protection by the government have been denied exemptions to travel to Australia since August last year, despite being considered at-risk where they are"; Czech police have "done a George Floyd" on a Romany man; "African-Australian youths crushed by the weight of daily prejudice and stereotyping"; more mass burial of Indigenous children in Canada . . . ; racist misogyny in workplaces; - on sexism and misogyny:
an Egyptian group is confronting sextortionists; legal misogyny against independent women in Egypt; sexist limitations on curriculum choices; archaic views on childcare amongst the national neolib nitwits; Pakistan's PM continues to belt his reputation out of the park with misogyny; alternate schools for teenage mothers in Tanzania; feudalistic misogyny in Japan; more 1950s stupidity and misogyny from the national neolib nitwits; racist misogyny in workplaces; - on ableism:
bigotted mindsets amongst doctors - seeing being differently-abled as shameful or something to be avoided - are actively harming children; - on animal rights:
- on other matters:
autonomous trucks are a step closer; a court has overturned a bigotted plan to remove a child from their mother; there have been a few articles on "digital detoxing"; being supportive can improve performance;
