| Time |
Event |
| 10:02a |
A windfall tax on some banks in EU
Italy's government, which on many issues is right-wing, approved a
left-wing
windfall profits tax on banks
so as to cut other taxes and help people who are paying mortgages.
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| 10:02a |
Local sentiments on coup, Niger
*After last week’s surprise coup in Niger, the Russian military group
Wagner is taking advantage of the chaos and anti-French sentiment, says
journalist Garé Amadou in Naimey, while
ordinary Nigerians are
preparing for the worst.*
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| 10:02a |
Destroyed by fire: Lahaina, Maui
A
wildfire in drought-struck Hawaii
destroyed the historic town of Lahaina,
which dates to before the unification of the islands.
Ironically, the immediate trigger was the approach of a hurricane
which was close enough to send strong winds but not close enough to
bring rain that might have put out the fire.
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| 10:02a |
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| 10:02a |
Heatwaves in South America
*Winter heatwave in Andes is
sign of things to come,
scientists warn.*
Human-caused climate disruption and El Niño push temperature in
mountains to 37C, almost human body temperature. This could wipe out many species.
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| 10:02a |
Urgent: FL set to teach a revised Black history
US citizens:
Denounce Governor
DeMentis for trying to turn the
history of slavery inside out.
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| 10:47a |
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Starbucks must rehire workers fired for unionizing
An appeals court insisted that Starbucks must rehire workers
that it fired as retaliation for unionizing. |
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| 10:47a |
Crisis fueled by inequality
*A pandemic is not just a disease — it's a political, social and economic
crisis fueled by inequality.*
*HIV and more recently Covid-19, laid bare that inequality doesn't just
appear. It's human-made. As the head of UNAids, Winnie Byanyima, put it
recently: "Inequalities are a policy choice. They are choices our
governments make."*
The article reports that, in countries that criminalize male-male sex,
men who do that are twice as likely to have HIV as elsewhere.
Who decides to make inequalities? Billionaires, using their money to
brainwash people so they can get more power to impose more
inequalities to get more money. |
| 10:47a |
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| 10:47a |
Police withheld evidence in rape case
*Police withheld evidence making man's rape conviction unsafe, says UK court.*
After 17 years in prison, he was released because DNA evidence showed
someone else committed the crime. However, given a fair trial,
he would not have been convicted at all. |
| 10:47a |
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| 10:47a |
Border areas of Tigray occupied by Ethiopian troops
After the peace deal between Ethiopia and Tigray, some border areas of Tigray
are still occupied by Ethiopian troops.
So are areas that the peace deal assigned to Ethiopia but whose
inhabitants are Tigrayan. The Ethiopian army blocks aid supplies
in these areas. |
| 10:47a |
Republican Death Star plan
*Republican Death Star Plan to Kill the Planet.*
To vote for any Republican in 2024 is to vote for an across-the-board
attack on climate defense for the sake of polluting businesses.
The comparison with the Death Star is not strictly valid. As people
have pointed out, global climate disaster will not destroy the planet
Earth itself. It will wipe out most species but surely not all life.
I expect that some humans will survive, albeit in low-technology
societies and with short life spans. In a million years, life will
diversify again.
But the disaster could easily wipe out technological civilization and
cause the permanent loss of history and culture. Carefully printed
books may survive if people recopy them every few hundred years, but
what could they write on? And who would have time to spare for this?
Another background issue on which I disagree:
Freedom can be taken away either by selective enforcement of rules
that protect it, or by replacing them with rules that oppress. To ask
which method is the more dangerous today is a foolish question; Republicans use
both. They are practiced and adept at combining the two methods: they
change rules and laws to facilitate oppressive selective enforcement.
They have done this for voter suppression,
for preventing prosecution of uniformed thugs
while prosecuting poor people at every opportunity,
and for censorship of schools and libraries.
The overall point of the article is valid notwithstanding these
side points.
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| 10:47a |
Asylum seeker who escaped from Iran
*Asylum seeker who escaped from Iran says Dorset barge will be another "jail".*
This might seem like an exaggeration, because the articles which say
where the barge has been moored don't explain the implications of
"Dorset" and "Portland". They expect readers to be British and know
already.
Portland is an island which trains don't reach. It is in Dorset, a
mostly rural county whose population is under half a million people.
Hardly any of the refugees will know anyone there.
There are buses to Weymouth on the mainland, but it may take a long
time to walk to a bus stop from the dock. Weymouth has a train
station, but it is a long way from there to London or any other large
city. Once there it probably takes an hour to reach whoever the
refugee wants to see.
I cannot access the timetable web sites, because they impose the use
of nonfree Javascript, but I suspect it is not feasible to go to any
large city and come back in a day. In effect, the refugees forced to
live on the barge will be quite isolated from everyone they know,
including friends and support organizations.
This is a gratuitous cruelty, since it would have been perfectly easy
to put the barge in a less isolated place. I am sure this was an
intentional part of the "hostile environment"
which is the stated basis for the UK's policies towards people who are waiting for asylum
hearings or come from countries too unsafe to deport anyone to. |