***
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 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.
Content Warning: the linked articles and their descriptions here may be
about violence, abuse, hate, and other problems.
My articles this week
include: more
on helping older workers; autumnal
reflections; telepathy; a
call for health professionals to be professional; on
dentists and professionalism; harassment
(work-related gendered violence) of LGBTIQ+ people in the workplace; "flummoxed by the unfamiliar"; .
On personal /
spiritual matters: from the northern
hemisphere, a call
for a better, more inclusive celebration of Beltane; a don’t have a so-called “smart” phone, so I
don’t know how good or otherwise this is, but there is an app
(of course) for training oneself to be (more?) psychic
. . . (I tried an online version of this principle, and while
I was interested it worked, but that sort of thing just doesn’t interest me,
just as computer games don’t).
Reading I found
interesting this week included: continued working from home after the pandemic could lead
to a change in how we plan cities; a major tech company has fired
two internal critics.
In this week’s
news: two examinations
of the issue of debt levels; “the
US Department of Defense [sic] has released three
declassified videos of ‘unexplained aerial phenomena’ ”
- which is the latest term they use to cover up UFOs; “Barack
Obama’s team watched Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech whenever they were
‘really annoyed’ with Tony Abbott [- who Obama]
went way off the script . . . to blast for climate
inaction”.
In the environmental arena, where we have been
fighting World
War III for some time now: animal disease detectives are being trained to
try to prevent
any further zoonotic diseases; actions to help an endangered species; “Australia
could get 90% of electricity from renewables by 2040 with no price
increase”; air pollution is worse
near major roads than official readings indicate; more
lies from right wing extremist think tanks;
investors have called on Australia’s largest oil company to do more against climate change; more problems
in the Murray-Darling basin; a company
associated with a controversial
neoliberal MP has been found guilty
of poisoning an endangered grassland; far
from being a problem, Australian bats - and flying
foxes - play a beneficial role; “coronavirus will
trigger biggest
ever plunge in energy demand, emissions”; lockdown is allowing illegal
logging in Tunisia.
On human and animal rights:
official transphobia in backsliding Hungary; research supporting the benefits of and the need to be inclusive of TGD people;
judicial backsliding in the USA; a government department has denied that its legal warning to a non-profit transparency website is a threat . . . ;
“Uzbekistan ends plight of thousands of stateless people with landmark law”;
concerningly, Kashmiri police are investigating journalists;
bullying of children with disabilities, and one success story in overcoming same;
Afghanistan’s misogyny also targets women with disabilities;
the disgrace of incarceration of Indigenous people; Hobart's kunanyi/Mt Wellington; eight unknown warriors; a call to correct errors around Cook’s landing, and the vital role of Cook’s Pacific Islander crew; there were a dozen Africans on the British First Fleet to Australia; my home state has appointed the first Aboriginal woman to serve as a member of a major Tribunal; teachers “lack confidence” to teach Indigenous kids; neoliberals are upset at historically accurate commentary about Cook’s arrival;
redress for one colonial massacre may open the doors to redress for others;
a call for the homeless not to be forgotten after the pandemic;
some online payment systems are allowing support for right wing extremists / white supremacists.
Immigration and refugee matters (good and bad) have occurred in: Australia (good news);
trafficking/slavery/child abuse matters (good and bad) have occurred in: Australia; Sudan (ban on FGM); west Africa;
LGBTIQ+ matters (good and bad) have occurred in: USA; Israel (good news); Poland.
official transphobia in backsliding Hungary; research supporting the benefits of and the need to be inclusive of TGD people;
judicial backsliding in the USA; a government department has denied that its legal warning to a non-profit transparency website is a threat . . . ;
“Uzbekistan ends plight of thousands of stateless people with landmark law”;
concerningly, Kashmiri police are investigating journalists;
bullying of children with disabilities, and one success story in overcoming same;
Afghanistan’s misogyny also targets women with disabilities;
the disgrace of incarceration of Indigenous people; Hobart's kunanyi/Mt Wellington; eight unknown warriors; a call to correct errors around Cook’s landing, and the vital role of Cook’s Pacific Islander crew; there were a dozen Africans on the British First Fleet to Australia; my home state has appointed the first Aboriginal woman to serve as a member of a major Tribunal; teachers “lack confidence” to teach Indigenous kids; neoliberals are upset at historically accurate commentary about Cook’s arrival;
redress for one colonial massacre may open the doors to redress for others;
a call for the homeless not to be forgotten after the pandemic;
some online payment systems are allowing support for right wing extremists / white supremacists.
Immigration and refugee matters (good and bad) have occurred in: Australia (good news);
trafficking/slavery/child abuse matters (good and bad) have occurred in: Australia; Sudan (ban on FGM); west Africa;
LGBTIQ+ matters (good and bad) have occurred in: USA; Israel (good news); Poland.
In the related human
rights arena of employment: investors are paying
more attention to workers’ rights.
Risks or occurrences
of atrocities, mass violence and/or war(s) this week in: Israel; Germany
(trial of war criminals from Syria and Iraq), Cameroon, and Niger; the UN enquiry into Syria missed
the real causes; Canada will ban assault weapons
after the recent massacre; CAR; Egypt.
In the governance, politics, public ethics, and society arena: the claims of an Australian MP that documents
he used to attack a city Mayor were from that city’s website have not
been backed up by police investigations;
tech companies refusing
to pay up for Australian content has led to the imposition of a mandatory
code; democracy is being undermined
by inequality and repression.
On disasters
this week: ways
to improve aid after disasters (nice
to see the influence of GiveDirectly there - and in other places).
Internationally: Yemen’s separatists want South Yemen to go
it alone - again (the history of two - struggling - Yemens and
unhappy unification is complex), thus jeopardising
Saudi Arabia’s plans for (an imposed?) peace - see also this,
on preventing this; Pakistan has test
fired an anti-ship
missile; military expenditure has
been increasing; an examination of the inevitability
of a collision between China and the West;
while this decision shows justice
for the Israeli victims, it raises the issue that there are Palestinians who
also deserve compensation; a Saudi TV show character has urged closer ties with Israel, but another
has been anti-Semitic and anti-US; an
examination of the quest
for peace in Ukraine; a review
of Turkey’s now overt support for the internationally backed government in
Libya, as opposed to those who are supporting the war criminal in the
east; a review
of tensions and risks in West Asia; Israel may also have interfered
in the 2016 US Presidential election; a review
of Sudan one year after the coup; violent
protests in Lebanon; water
shortages in Argentina.
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):
some US citizens have shown they are as stupid as POTUS45; others are also falling into the trap of myths; social analysis indicates we have three groups in response to lockdown measures; these photos of Australia under lockdown remind me of the photos of 1950s Melbourne used for the film version of Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”; a bit of satire;
some US citizens have shown they are as stupid as POTUS45; others are also falling into the trap of myths; social analysis indicates we have three groups in response to lockdown measures; these photos of Australia under lockdown remind me of the photos of 1950s Melbourne used for the film version of Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach”; a bit of satire;
good stories -
particularly of people coming together:
even seeing
nature on a screen will help mood; UK; finding stillness at home;
medical
aspects: mobile phones need
daily disinfection (so do keyboards, IMO); at least a dozen children
in the UK have fallen ill to a potentially fatal (they’re in intensive care)
combination of COVID-19 related symptoms (“The cases have in common
overlapping feature of toxic shock syndrome and atypical Kawasaki disease”); doctors in Germany have protested
against the PPE shortage; increased
testing - which is not
a substitute for safe behaviour - will increase
the number of known cases; the psychological
toll of the lockdown may create a “second wave” (I hope people have some
empathy for prisoners now); a warning
against quackery; a reminder
to look after mental health; another
study has concluded the pandemic has not been made by men (and
probably not by women/others either - when will these ****heads learn to use
the word “human” rather than being sexist?); the increased cognitive load is exhausting;
human rights aspects (crisis
. . . running summary of impacts on elections here): the BETTER contact tracing alternatives to using an app; Australians’ data
provided through the app
is NOT
secure - see also this,
and this
explainer that the onus is on the government to obtain trust; heavy-handedness
from Poland’s police - through an app; “the UN human rights office voiced concern on Monday about
more than a dozen countries that have declared states of emergency due to the
COVID-19 pandemic where police
have arrested or detained hundreds of thousands of people and killed others”;
potential problems
with “immunity certificates”; invited
vs. coerced measures; refugees
rights are being attacked; staggering abuse in El Salvador;
POTUS45’s continued
abuse of power; more thoughtless
cretins are developing yet more surveillance technology; responses must
be gender-sensitive; the pandemic may strengthen
the push for democratisation;
Australia:
easing
of restrictions in some states
- which will help
domestic violence victims - as stupidity continues in at least one
state; pokie addicts are benefitting
from not being able to gamble; concerning
claims
about official approval for a test kit are being investigated; attitudes
to the pandemic: vulnerable students could fall
further behind; a flaw
in landlords’ insurance may counter attempts to help tenants; as the neoliberal national government tries to
bribe
private schools to reopen, schools in my home state - and others
- will remain
closed (this has also been rejected
in Israel); vulnerable children and their carers are at
particular risk; hypocrisy
from our neoliberal PM; a business has
been criticised
for sacking workers who are ineligible for help; concerns
about the coming winter; increased use of testing;
the devastation
facing new groups of unemployed; shelters
for rough sleepers;
internationally: in a few months, the death toll from
COVID-19 in the USA (which has one third of all cases in the world) has exceeded
their death toll in the years long Viêt
Nám war (although there is a long way to go to exceed the Vietnamese
death toll, and other
flus have killed more people in the USA); Viêt Nám’s success against the pandemic; Brazil’s health system is being overwhelmed,
and its “leader” doesn’t
give a stuff; Singapore’s mistakes
and attempts to boost
its health system; unsurprisingly,
POTUS45 will invoke
war powers to keep his burgers coming . . . ; Russia’s motives
for providing aid to Italy have been questioned (really? We know they’re
going to milk everything for power and influence [so is almost every other
nation] - is the aid useful, or, as with some of China’s too flawed
to use?); call centre workers in
the Philippines - where lockdown measures are extreme, and enforcement is abusive
- are facing extremely
concerning working conditions; China
is retaliating
aggressively against calls
for an investigation into its (mis?)handling of the pandemic, as it
continues to use aid as a geopolitical tool - e.g., in the Pacific
(once upon a time, the West did that) but tries
to shut
down the appalling “wet” markets;
ways
to provide support in South Asia; deportations from the USA and Mexico are spreading
the pandemic southwards; Erdoǧan’s
authoritarianism is the source
of undermining of his situation in Turkey under the pandemic; Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are “playing
politics with the coronavirus”;
the problems
facing North Korea; easing of lockdown
in Thailand,
Switzerland,
and Denmark,
but not
the UK, and France (which is also selling
antiques to raise funds) will use aggressive
testing as the way out; cooperation
in Israel; stupidity
in the USA has come home to roost; concerns
for the homeless in India;
Africa: concerns
for west Africa - particularly prisons
in the DRC; the effects in Senegal,
which is now receiving food
aid; “climate-smart
cassava
gets new use in Zambia: hand sanitiser”; easing
of lockdowns in Africa, including Ghana,
which subsequently experienced a spike, and Rwanda; stupidity
in Burundi; the World Bank is sending aid
to South Sudan;
globally: the
impacts
of the pandemic on the world’s “blue economy”; safe distancing on planes could be the new
normal (and maybe the old practice of disinfection could be normal again); the pandemic has “exposed” (many could
have - and did - see the flaws actually) the flaws
(stupidity) of the “just in time” economy; consult
with civil society in the developing world;
remittances from overseas workers have been severed, causing a crisis; the UN is sending
aid to vulnerable developing nations;
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