Saturday, 30 March 2024

FROM this week’s news ON: politics & democracy, and international affairs [Note: Content Warning - links to distressing reports on this topic. 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 thiis weeks 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: 

 

  • “DR Congo mission chief says humanitarian disaster ‘unfolding before our very eyes’”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1148046   “Insecurity in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has worsened since the end of recent elections, UN Special Representative Bintou Keita told the Security Council   ...   More than seven million people in the country are displaced, particularly due to the operations of armed groups such as the M23 and the Allied Defense Forces (ADF) across the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri.   “As this Council has regularly reiterated, echoed by a recent statement of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, all foreign forces illegally operating on DRC’s territory need to withdraw, and national and foreign armed groups, such as the ADF and FDLR, need to be disarmed,” she said”   “Eastern DRC ‘at breaking point’ as security, humanitarian crises worsen”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/29/eastern-drc-at-breaking-point-as-security-humanitarian-crises-worsen  


  • “Thousands Arrive in Gabon for Dialogue to End Military Transition”   https://www.voanews.com/a/thousands-arrive-in-gabon-for-dialogue-to-end-military-transition-/7545736.html   “... gathering in Libreville and Akanda for what the government calls an Inclusive National Dialogue, to be held April 2 to 30, aimed at bringing Gabon back to civilian rule.   Military ruler General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema previously said he would hand back power in August 2025.   ...   Gabon's state TV says the participants will include opposition and civil society members. But Gabon's opposition parties say a majority of the approximately 600 delegates are supporters of Nguema, and want him to stay in power.”   So ... if this is genuine, good ... if not, not so good ...   

 


 

 


 

 

From the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistances (International IDEA)  Global State of Democracy (GSOD)s democracy tracker initiative

The “Global State of Democracy” report on the year 2023 (GSoD23) was published, and showed continued contraction/decline of democracy, with human rights organizations and electoral management bodies, as well as civil society networks, popular movements and investigative journalists being significant in countering that. Nine recommendations in three areas, and nineteen regionally focused recommendations, were made

Also published was the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index  2024  report (BTI24), which found “The quality of democracy in developing and transformation countries has been in steady decline over the past 20 years. The latest findings of the Transformation Index of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, now in its tenth edition, show that out of 137 countries surveyed, only 63 remain democracies, while a majority are classified as autocracies. However, there is reason for hope. The examples of the transformation countries Brazil and Poland, where voters have rebuffed authoritarian trends, show the potential for reversing democratic erosion.”   The report found that civil society matters - which I consider aligns with the GSoD23 findings.  

for the month of  February, 2024  (note that this is a few weeks behind current events owing to the time required to collect and analyse data):  

improvements have occurred (last month) in (for details follow each hyperlink):   Australia (industrial reforms),   Bosnia and Herzegovina (reforms to counter t________ and money laundering),   France (right to abortion in constitution),   Greece (equal marriage legalised),   India (Supreme Court strikes down controversial Electoral Bonds Scheme),   Italy (Supreme Court rules sending migrants back to Libya is illegal),   Japan (Japanese court approves first gender change without surgery),   Panama (former President Martinelli sentenced to 10 years for money laundering),   Switzerland (European court upholds complaint of racial profiling by the police);  

declines have occurred (last month) in (for details follow each hyperlink)Albania (Parliament approves controversial deal to detain migrants for Italy),   Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan holds snap presidential election, Presidential election less contested than usual),   Chad (opposition politician killed by security forces),   Ethiopia (civilians reportedly murdered in Amhara; State of Emergency extended),   Hungary (child abuse pardoning decision triggers public outcry [and resignations]),   Italy (Senate approves controversial detention deal with Albania),   Jordan (increased crackdown on activists and protestors),   Latvia (Constitutional Court upholds language requirements for Russian citizens),   Madagascar (High Constitutional Court upholds new law mandating castration of rapists),   Malawi (opposition party supporters attacked at parade),   North Macedonia (Parliament passes amendments allowing state funded ads in private media),   Papua New Guinea (historic deadly violence in Enda Province),   Paraguay (opposition senator is expelled from Congress),   Russian Federation (Alexei Navalny dies unexpectedly in prison at 47, crackdown on LGBTQIA+ movement spreads to private citizens),   Senegal (controversy over election date, Constitutional Council rules it must go forward),   Singapore (Singapore enacts indefinite detention and expands police powers),   Ukraine (mass surveillance scandal hits Ukrainian media),   USA (Homeland Security Secretary is impeached),   Venezuela (UN Human Rights Office is expelled from Venezuela),   Zimbabwe (ruling party wins by-elections after opposition candidates were excluded),   Belarus (elections reach new low in Belarus);  


From ACLED’s dashboard

For the week   9th - 15th  March  (note that this is several weeks behind current events owing to the time required to collect and analyse data):  

Large decrease in violence (this does NOT mean no violence is happening, only that it has decreased):   Sudan,   Somalia,   Iraq,   Nigeria,   Yemen,   Ethiopia,   Colombia,   Pakistan,   DRC,   Burkina Faso,   Haiti,   Cameroon,   Kenya,   Niger,   Venezuela,   South Sudan,   Burundi,   Puerto Rico,   Trinidad and Tobago,   Mozambique,   Indonesia,   Madagascar,   Benin,  

Moderate increase in violence:  Brazil,  

Large increase in violence:   Russia,   Jamaica,   Honduras,   Bangladesh,   South Africa,  


From the Early (mass atrocity) Warning Project   map:

Currently experiencing mass killing:  Nigeria,   DRC,   Sudan,   Ethiopia,   Somalia,   Syria,   Pakistan,   India,  

Highest risk:   Guinea,   Mali,   Burkina Faso,   Niger,   Nigeria,   Chad,   Sudan,   Egypt,   Ethiopia,   Somalia,   Yemen,   Republic of Congo,   DRC,   Angola,   Uganda,   Tanzania,   Mozambique,   South Africa,   Syria,   Iran,   Afghanistan,   Pakistan,   India,   Nepal,   Bangladesh,   China,   Thailand,   Laos,   Indonesia,  

Consistently high risk:  Sudan,   Ethiopia,   India,  

Increasing Risk:  Burkina Faso,   Tajikistan,  


From the International Crisis Group’s monthly Crisis Watch

The ICGs March-August 2024 edition of On the Horizon considers Cameroon, South Sudan, Venezuela, and Western Sahara worth examination. See   https://www.crisisgroup.org/horizon-march-august-2024  


My links for activism post may aid any activism you may decide to do on any/all of these. If you do, dont get too fixated on specific instances of problems - important though they may well be: take a moment to also consider the broader issues these incidents and groups of incidents may suggest/reveal. Note: as with other mass murderers/serial killers/and the like, violent extremists and other evil people/groups crave publicity, so I refuse to give that to them - including not using their names (which is a policy adopted by good law enforcement and media for other mass murderers - as I can do as I am a secondary news source: the name(s) are in the primary sources if people wish to know them).

 

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”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typos may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/  

 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.