#Aid and development

[douxlen]

Russia rushes reinforcements to border regions raided by Ukraine

New Post has been published on https://douxle.com/2024/08/10/russia-rushes-reinforcements-to-border-regions-raided-by-ukraine/

Russia rushes reinforcements to border regions raided by Ukraine

Moscow is trying to repulse Kyiv’s biggest cross-border ground offensive since Russia’s invasion.

[sa7abnews]

Paris mayor drops f-bomb-filled rant toward opening ceremony critics

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/06/paris-mayor-drops-f-bomb-filled-rant-toward-opening-ceremony-critics/

Paris mayor drops f-bomb-filled rant toward opening ceremony critics

PARIS — Anne Hidalgo is not holding back.

When religious and political officials voiced outrage in response to the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, the International Olympic Committee chose diplomacy, apologizing to anyone who may have been offended.

Hidalgo, on the other hand, said, “Fuck the reactionaries, fuck this far right, fuck all of those who would like to lock us into a war of all against all,” in an interview with Le Monde published Tuesday, using the expletive in the original English.

Most of the anger surrounding nearly four-hour ceremony was directed at an artistic segment called “Festivity,” which featured a group of dancers and drag performers in a scene that many perceived as paralleling Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” — something organizers have denied.

Christian groups and conservative leaders worldwide — including Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former United States President Donald Trump — criticized the opening ceremony as tasteless and blasphemous.

Much of the vitriol has been directed at the ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, and a DJ who participated in the performance. Both have received death threats and been subjected to cyberbullying online.

Hidalgo said she was proud of the way the opening ceremony presented Paris to the world.

“Paris is the city of all freedoms, the city of refuge for LGBTQI+ people, the city where people live together,” she said.

Hidalgo described the opening ceremony and the Games as an incredibly successful so far, offering hope in light of a far-right surge in France and Europe.

“The far right’s messaging has been crushed by these Games and by the opening ceremony,” the center-left Parisian said. “Something incredibly positive is happening.”

Jaded Parisians have embraced the Olympics, with a joyful atmosphere spreading across the city.

The socialist leader, who has led the French capital since 2014, also used the interview to respond to her critics and anti-Parisian sentiment on the part of French people.

“There’s both admiration for this incredible city, which not many people understand, and at the same time orchestration of a hatred of Paris,” she said.

Critics have targeted Hidalgo’s push for anti-car initiatives and greener urban policy in the French capital. Also the city’s plan to clean up the Seine in time for Olympic water sports was met with ridicule and mockery.

The Seine cleanup has seen mixed results, with heavy rains affecting water quality. It was described as “marginally acceptable” at the most recent of three Olympic triathlon events held in the famed Parisian river.

Public swimming in the Seine — banned for a century — is scheduled to begin next summer.

[saxafimedianetwork]

Chapter 3: If Ten Years Suffice For Somaliland … From Building States

The @UN's 1950 decision to grant #Somaliland independence within 10 years had a significant impact on other colonies. The UN Trust Territory of SL was established under Italian administration with a compromise agreement promising detailed guarantees for the population & strict restrictions on Italy's power to claim land & natural resources

Continue reading Untitled

[reportwire]

France pushes protectionism in Ukraine defense plan

As Russia’s war in Ukraine puts a heavy strain on EU arms, there’s infighting in Brussels over how best to reload. The latest skirmish is focused around a procurement fund intended to ramp up production of arms in Europe. POLITICO has learned that key committees in the European Parliament — namely, the committees for industry, the internal market, and the subcommittee on security and defense —…

[asikomecom]

EU strikes deal with Hungary, reducing funding freeze to get Ukraine aid approved - POLITICO Europe

EU strikes deal with Hungary, reducing funding freeze to get Ukraine aid approved – POLITICO Europe

The deal is done. Hungary on Monday night got EU countries to lower the amount of a proposed funding freeze in exchange for Budapest lifting its veto on key items, including an aid package to Ukraine. Hungary had been on the cusp of losing €7.5 billion in EU payouts over concerns that the money may aid graft in the country. In protest, Budapest had… Read more

[thefatfemme]

Shout out to fat people with chronic pain. Use that mobility aid, get yourself a tasty treat, and don't give a fuck what anyone else thinks. Your body deserves love and care no matter what!

[starry-bi-sky]

Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!

And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.

Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?

Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.

Can't say the same for Danny.

Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.

"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.

When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.

That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.

Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.

TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[reasonsforhope]

Flint, Michigan, has one of the [United States]'s highest rates of child poverty — something that got a lot of attention during the city's lead water crisis a decade ago. And a pediatrician who helped expose that lead problem has now launched a first-of-its-kind move to tackle poverty: giving every new mother $7,500 in cash aid over a year.

A baby's first year is crucial for development. It's also a time of peak poverty.

Flint's new cash transfer program, Rx Kids, starts during pregnancy. The first payment is $1,500 to encourage prenatal care. After delivery, mothers will get $500 a month over the baby's first year.

"What happens in that first year of life can really portend your entire life course trajectory. Your brain literally doubles in size in the first 12 months," says Hanna-Attisha, who's also a public health professor at Michigan State University.

A baby's birth is also a peak time for poverty. Being pregnant can force women to cut back hours or even lose a job. Then comes the double whammy cost of child care.

Research has found that stress from childhood poverty can harm a person's physical and mental health, brain development and performance in school. Infants and toddlers are more likely than older children to be put into foster care, for reasons that advocates say conflate neglect with poverty.

In Flint, where the child poverty rate is more than 50%, Hanna-Attisha says new moms are in a bind. "We just had a baby miss their 4-day-old appointment because mom had to go back to work at four days," she says...

Benefits of Cash Aid

Studies have found such payments reduce financial hardship and food insecurity and improve mental and physical health for both mothers and children.

The U.S. got a short-lived taste of that in 2021. Congress temporarily expanded the child tax credit, boosting payments and also sending them to the poorest families who had been excluded because they didn't make enough to qualify for the credit. Research found that families mostly spent the money on basic needs. The bigger tax credit improved families' finances and briefly cut the country's child poverty rate nearly in half.

"We saw food hardship dropped to the lowest level ever," Shaefer says. "And we saw credit scores actually go to the highest that they'd ever been in at the end of 2021."

Critics worried that the expanded credit would lead people to work less, but there was little evidence of that. Some said they used the extra money for child care so they could go to work.

As cash assistance in Flint ramps up, Shaefer will be tracking not just its impact on financial well-being, but how it affects the roughly 1,200 babies born in the city each year.

"We're going to see if expectant moms route into prenatal care earlier," he says. "Are they able to go more? And then we'll be able to look at birth outcomes," including birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.

Since the pandemic, dozens of cash aid pilots have popped up across the nation. But unlike them, Rx Kids is not limited to lower-income households. It's universal, which means every new mom will get the same amount of money. "You pit people against each other when you draw that line in the sand and say, 'You don't need this, and you do,' " Shaefer says. It can also stigmatize families who get the aid, he says, as happened with traditional welfare...

So far, there's more than $43 million to keep the program going for three years. Funders include foundations, health insurance companies and the state of Michigan, which allocated a small part of its federal cash aid, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Money can buy more time for bonding with a baby

Alana Turner can't believe her luck with Flint's new cash benefits. "I was just shocked because of the timing of it all," she says.

Turner is due soon with her second child, a girl. She lives with her aunt and her 4-year-old son, Ace. After he was born, her car broke down and she was seriously cash-strapped, negotiating over bill payments. This time, she hopes she won't have to choose between basic needs.

"Like, I shouldn't have to think about choosing between are the lights going to be on or am I going to make sure the car brakes are good," she says...

But since she'll be getting an unexpected $7,500 over the next year, Turner has a new goal. With her first child, she was back on the job in less than six weeks. Now, she hopes she'll be able to slow down and spend more time with her daughter.

"I don't want to sacrifice the time with my newborn like I had to for my son, if I don't have to," she says."

-via NPR, March 12, 2024

[cjoat-boost]

This all happened rather suddenly; I apologize, I’m at the crisis center as of late last night.

Please support me through here.During this process.

My Website Social Links: https://cjoatbysamwise.com/cjoats-links

My Website Paylinks: https://cjoatbysamwise.com/donate-to-cjoat

Throne: https://throne.com/cjoat

Benable: https://benable.com/CJOAT

Creative Dumpster: https://cjoatbysamwise.com/creative-dumpster

Wanted to let folks know where I am in case something happens…Living situation update.

Where I’ll go…no body knows…

@a-captions-blog

Just need to…function

I’m keeping things up to date while during this situation. I have a lot of videos scheduled ahead of time, but this was rather sudden.

[douxlen]

Israeli strike on Gaza school reportedly kills at least 90 civilians

New Post has been published on https://douxle.com/2024/08/10/israeli-strike-on-gaza-school-reportedly-kills-at-least-90-civilians/

Israeli strike on Gaza school reportedly kills at least 90 civilians

Israel’s military said it struck an “active” Hamas command center in the attack, which came during dawn prayers at the school.

[moonstarsandspacedust]

I just started the fires of heaven and I’m obsessed with how Rand:

1) shows next to no interest in the various women coming onto him

2) sees a naked woman and his only thought is “wow she’s sunburned”

3) has multiple homoerotic encounters

And then describes a man as “probably attractive to women”. In conclusion: Robert Jordan was a coward.

[saxafimedianetwork]

Debating Somaliland – Lack Of Recognition And Conflict

Continuing our #discussion of #Somaliland, @JAbdi892 argues that the country is an #unrecognized state, operating in the shadows of #InternationalRelations. The country has never been eligible for direct #ForeignAid.

Continue reading Untitled

[reportwire]

High Seas Treaty secured after marathon UN talks

More than 100 countries reached agreement on a United Nations treaty to protect the high seas, following marathon talks at U.N. headquarters in New York that ended late Saturday. The High Seas Treaty will put 30 percent of the planet’s seas into protected areas by 2030, aiming to safeguard marine life. “This is a massive success for multilateralism. An example of the transformation our world…

[djsadbean]

entire body workout just to write "0/100... see me after class"

[averlym]

"now, doesn't that look nice?" [insp]