Saturday 30 December 2023

From this week’s news on: politics & democracy, and international affairs

[Note: Content Warning - links to reports on bigotry/hate, violence/abuse/war. Reader discretion is advised]  

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.


From this week’s news on politics & democracy, and international affairs (note: I may continue to add links for a few days, possibly up to a week, after these are published), and noting the conflicts, listed here, for instance, and other global; issues, such as those listed here, that may not have made it into this weeks news: 

 

 





  • “The RBA Wants to Protect the Banks...From People [who are] Getting Poorer?”   https://youtu.be/JT3tFwWkvD4?si=z-xncRdJnh114vXx   Covers the inequity and increasing inequality of recent RBA decisions (and non-decisions, I would add, thinking of the so-called “Stage 3 tax cuts”)   




From the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s (International IDEA)  Global State of Democracy (GSOD) Initiative:

improvements have occurred (last month) in:   Kazakhstan,   Latvia,   Panama,   South Sudan,  

declines have occurred (last month) in:   Chad,  China,   France,   Georgia,   Greece,   Guatemala,   Burma/Myanmar,   Nepal,   New Zealand,   North Macedonia,   Russia,   Serbia,   Sudan,   Türkiye,   Zambia,   Zimbabwe,  

From ACLED: 

For week   2nd - 8th December (note that this is several weeks behind current events owing to the time required to collect and analyse data):  

Large decrease in violence:  Venezuela,   Ghana,   Burkina Faso,   Niger,   Nigeria,   Cameroon,   CAR,   Ethiopia,   Madagascar,   Afghanistan,   Pakistan,   India,   Burma/Myanmar,   Indonesia,  

Moderate increase in violence:   Somalia,  

Large increase in violence:  Russia,   Türkiye,   Sudan,  


From the Early (mass atrocity) Warning Project:

Currently experiencing mass killing:   Nigeria,   CAR,   Sudan,   South Sudan,   Ethiopia,   Somalia,   DRC,   Syria,   Iraq,   Pakistan,   India,   Burma/Myanmar,  

Highest risk (2022-23):    Chad, Yemen,  


My links for activism post may aid any activism  you may decide to do on any/all of these.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

  • this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

 

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