alanjjohnstone
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Don’t trust the internet is the message if it is pro-Chinese in the propaganda war
Will he listen?
Amnesty International followed up a letter by 75 House Democrats to Biden urging him to shut down the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. The 20th anniversary is approaching.
The Cuban government requests aid from other countries as well as from the Catholic charity Caritas International.
Kilian Linder, Caritas project officer in Cuba explained, “There are more doctors per inhabitant than in Germany and Cuba has often provided medical care in emergency situations.” For the government to eat humble pie and ask for help, he said, showed how drastic it thought the situation was.
Caritas flew in personal protective equipment (PPE), face masks, ventilators, testing kits and medicine to Cuba as fast as possible. Russia has also sent 88 tons of humanitarian aid, including food, and China has provided 30 ventilators and plans to send more equipment. Venezuela sent food by ship. Mexico also sent a ship with food and oxygen with two more expected to follow.
Meanwhile, Biden continues the sanctions
https://www.dw.com/en/cuban-government-asks-for-humanitarian-aid/a-58757853
Scotland’s very much smaller cousin, Newbattle Abbey, was deprived of state subsidy some years ago and now survives from hand to mouth through a council grant.
Oxfam says net zero business promises – “greenwash”
Oil tanker hijacked and ordered to sail to Iran
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58078506
Analysts says Iranian forces will be suspected. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards dismissed the reports as a pretext for “hostile action” against Tehran.
The media is full of stories that bacon and other pig products will disappear from supermarket shelves or will become substantially dearer to buy. I find it curious that the flurry of news outlets have publicised this, seems to be a coordinated campaign against the conditions pigs are reared in
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/no-california-isnt-banning-bacon-165042645.html
“We gave the Biden administration more than enough time to fix any problems left behind by the Trump administration, but it has left us no choice but to return to court.”
ACLU and Oxfam are among the groups who said they are returning to court with a lawsuit first initiated against the Trump administration for its use of a provision known as Title 42 in order to carry out expedited deportations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ACLU said the Trump administration implemented Title 42 “in violation of longstanding immigration statutes requiring that asylum seekers receive a full and fair proceeding to determine their right to protection in the United States,” and denounced the Biden administration for doing the same in the first six months of Biden’s presidency.
Oxfam America added that “The administration is choosing to treat refugees like political pawns, and so we are eager to return to court so we can end Title 42 for families once and for all,”
James, did you see this?
The attacks are likely to keep on coming because they have become essential to the political tactics of the right…
If you are unwilling to accept that historical shifts such as the spread of liberal social attitudes – or the fact that young people, increasingly shut out from stable careers and housing, are more amenable to socialist ideas – reflect changes in society at large, then it follows that these must be the product of underhand influences: of “wokeness”, or “cultural Marxism”, or a biased establishment…
there is a thriving media economy founded on rightwing outrage. Attacks on the “loony left” and moral panics about issues such as migration are hardly new to the rightwing press…
for newer rightwing media outlets, hysteria about the great liberal conspiracy is even more essential…
For the government, meanwhile, culture war politics may prove essential if it is to keep its current electoral coalition together. The exact meaning of the term “culture war” is often disputed, but it’s best thought of as a political technique for gathering a disparate group of people with conflicting, even contradictory, interests into your camp. Pick a divisive social issue, make your position on it a badge of identity, and try to make other people do so too…
The rightwing outrage machine does real damage to politics even when its demands aren’t met, because it narrows debate and makes it harder to challenge the decisions taken by people with real power.
Always failed to see anything funny about him, Jeremy Clarkson once again singled himself out as an idiot first class when he remarked in an interview “I think the politicians should sometimes tell those communists at Sage to get back in their box… if it’s going to be forever, let’s open it up and if you die, you die.”
Has he become the male version of Katie Hopkins, seeking media exposure by making ridiculous statements.
Social media took no action against over 80% of the anti-Jewish posts—which included incitements to violence against Jews and Holocaust denial.
The report (pdf)—entitled Failure to Protect: How Tech Giants Fail to Act on User Reports of Antisemitism—was published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), whose researchers analyzed 714 anti-Jewish posts published on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube from May through June that were viewed more than 7.3 million times.
The researchers found that overall, 84% of the hateful posts flagged by users on the social platforms’ own reporting pages that “clearly violated” existing policies were not acted upon.
“Social media has become a safe space for racists to normalize their conspiracies and hateful rhetoric without fear of consequences,” CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said in a statement. “This is why social media is increasingly unsafe for Jewish people, just as it is becoming for women, Black people, Muslims, LGBT people, and many other groups.”
So now Germany who hasn’t had a naval deployment to the Far East for 20 years is sending a war-ship and 200 troops to the South China Sea
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said: “The message is clear: we are standing up for our values and interests together with our partners and allies.”
https://www.dw.com/en/german-warship-sets-sail-for-indo-pacific-region/a-58733630
Pfizer and Moderna, the manufacturers of two of the most effective COVID-19 vaccines, have raised the prices of their vaccines.
The new price for the Pfizer shot was 19.50 euros ($23.15) compared with 15.50 euros ($18.39) previously
The price of a dose of the Moderna vaccine was set at $25.50, according to the contracts, compared with $22.60 in the first procurement deal.
The price hikes reflected the continued demand for effective jabs and that governments had become a captive market to pharmaceutical companies.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/2/pfizer-moderna-to-raise-prices-for-europe-report
The general who took power in a coup in Myanmar in February has named himself prime minister and said emergency rule may now extend to August 2023.
He accused those opposing the coup of deliberately spreading Covid-19…”tool of bioterrorism”.
UK and USA join Israel in blaming Iran for the Mercer Street attack.
