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 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: 

• “For a full year, the bodies have piled up in Sudan – and still the world looks away”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/15/sudan-conflict-war      “‘Concerted global push’ for Sudan ceasefire is essential: Guterres”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148566   

• “The U.N. rights chief says eastern Congo’s escalating violence is being forgotten by the world”   https://apnews.com/article/congo-goma-rebels-m23-united-nations-ce29e92ba6d80fd4ec8adc0664b213f4   
  

• “Water Wars: Chinese Fishermen Drown Following Chase Near Taiwan-Controlled Island”   https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/water-wars-chinese-fishermen-drown-following-chase-near-taiwan-controlled-island   “On Feb. 14, two Chinese fishermen fleeing Taiwan’s coast guard drowned off the coast of Kinmen archipelago, also known as the Quemoy. The Kinmen archipelago is a group of islands just six miles from mainland China that Taiwan has governed since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. The incident raised cross-strait tensions”   

• “UN leaders urge ‘wholesale reform’ of global financial architecture”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148591   “The Secretary-General and President of the General Assembly ... led the clarion call for urgent reform of the global financial system, notably how to approach debt relief on behalf of the billions of citizens living in the developing world.”       “World Bank sounds alarm on 'historical reversal' of development for poorest nations”   https://www.reuters.com/world/world-bank-sounds-alarm-historical-reversal-development-poorest-nations-2024-04-15/   “Half of the world's 75 poorest countries are experiencing a widening income gap with the wealthiest economies for the first time this century in a historical reversal of development, the World Bank said in a report”  
  

 

• “The taxman cometh for India’s weakened opposition as Modi eyes election victory”   https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20240414-taxman-cometh-india-weakened-opposition-modi-eyes-election-victory-bjp   “The arrest of top Indian opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal on corruption charges weeks before the general elections helped galvanise an opposition alliance against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party. But as the investigations and graft allegations against opposition politicians mount, defections to the ruling party are also on the rise as they seek to avoid being targeted in tax raids.”      “The Guardian view on India’s election: fixing a win by outlawing dissent damages democracy”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/17/the-guardian-view-on-indias-election-fixing-a-win-by-outlawing-dissent-damages-democracy  
  

 

• “Anthony Albanese rejects 'selective t_rr_r_sm' criticism after Sydney stabbings”   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/anthony-albanese-rejects-selective-t_rr_r_sm-criticism-after-sydney-stabbings/2e8vrt4uj   “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said it is not the role of politicians to define t_rr_r_sm”   “The government says the Bondi Junction attack isn't classed as t_rr_r-related, but should it be? Could it be?”   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-18/bondi-attacks-not-classed-as-t_rr_r-related-should-it-be/103730586   The argument is that misogyny should be a basis for declaration of t_rr_r_sm - which I agree with, and consider resistance to doing so an indication of unconscious bas and/or group think and/or conservatism (as in “reluctance to change”) and/or fear of having to allow other equally valid bases for such declarations to be considered that some people are resistant to because of overt bigotry   For a broader context on this, here is an older article   “Is Australia at risk from green t_rr_r_sts?”   https://theconversation.com/is-australia-at-risk-from-green-t_rr_r_sts-6523   “... after 9/11, there has been no shortage of pressure on policy leaders to push to reclaim “lost” executive security powers and promoting a reorganisation of intelligence duties.   But past events have shown us that the public can not always trust executive conduct or the executive’s relationship with the security sector.   The history here has been troubled to say the least. Public trust has been exploited to reflect a tale of legal ambiguity, managerial breakdown, negligence in standard procedures and domestic human rights abuses.   ...   Alarm bells were raised during bipartisan investigations into intelligence operations and constitutional rights in both America and Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. In that period, an ambitious policy platform for offensive security strategies and target hardening had been badly undermined - particularly due to legislative backlash and media investigations after Vietnam and Watergate.   US intelligence, for example, had actively harassed and constrained political “enemies”, civil society groups and social dissenters engaged in lawful political activities. Such intelligence activity included the monitoring of university professors, anti-Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists such as Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.   In the words of then US Senator Frank Church, an intensification of surveillance on citizens was being “collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action”.”   

• a The Guardian exclusive reports:   “High-ranking Queensland police officers under scrutiny over offensive social media activity”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/19/queensland-police-officers-social-media-facebook-posts-offensive-ntwnfb   “Exclusive: Ethical standards command launches internal review as Guardian Australia unearths Facebook posts dating back years”  
  

• “Remember when they had vision”   https://theaimn.com/remember-when-they-had-vision/   “It seems Prime Minister Anthony Albanese does”   

• “The demise of daily letters, 3G and cash – are governments leaving us old (and young) fogeys behind?”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/15/the-demise-of-daily-letters-3g-and-cash-are-governments-leaving-us-old-and-young-fogeys-behind   “Technology evolves and consumer preferences change – but governments and industry have a duty to plan for the big shifts”    

• a terrible, tragic attack in Sydney has exposed how quick some Australians are to hate:   “Australian’s propensity for hate [Content Warning]”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/04/australians-propensity-for-hate-content.html   

• “Commentary on the Migration Amendment Bill 2024”   https://theaimn.com/senate-submission-on-migration-amendment-bill-2024/   Prepared by a voluntary refugee advocate for over 11 years. This is well laid out, and makes what I consider to be sound points   

• “Crisis communication saves lives – but people with disability often aren’t given the message”   https://theconversation.com/crisis-communication-saves-lives-but-people-with-disability-often-arent-given-the-message-224968  
  

• “More adults are being diagnosed as neurodivergent. Here’s how employers can help in the workplace”   https://theconversation.com/more-adults-are-being-diagnosed-as-neurodivergent-heres-how-employers-can-help-in-the-workplace-225882  
  

My links for activism post may aid any activism you may decide to do on any/all of these. If you do, don’t 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:  

• his 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. 

 

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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. Typo’s 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/