#Current Affairs in a Line: April 16 2019 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beardedmrbean · 2 years ago

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A poll published on Friday by farmer's union circular Maaseudun Tulevaisuus (siirryt toiseen palveluun) shows Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Green) as leader in the outlet's presidential poll.

Out of nearly 1,000 respondents, 17.3 percent said they supported Haavisto to succeed Sauli Niinistö at the next election in 2024. After two terms in office, Niinistö is constitutionally barred from running again.

Following Haavisto was the Centre Party's Olli Rehn, current Governor of the Bank of Finland, and Mika Aaltola, Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Compared to the previous MT presidential poll in early July, Rehn in particular has lost popularity. In the summer, Rehn received 20 percent of the vote, but now his support is just under 14 percent.

Aaltola, who has not declared any possible candidacy, has been in the public spotlight this year because of his foreign policy expertise, making many television and media appearances. Since the last MT poll this summer, his support has risen from five to eight percent.

Haavisto's support remained unchanged at 17 percent. The Green League MP has previously run for president in 2012 and 2018, losing out to Niinistö on both occasions.

An Yle poll from March showed a similar ranking to the MT poll from July.

A plurality of respondents, 28.8 percent, said that they could not say who they wanted to see as the next president. Other names rounding out the list were Jussi Halla-aho (Finns) at 5.8 percent and Alexander Stubb (NCP) at 4.5 percent.

The poll included 16 candidates from different parties who had received support in previous polls. Respondents were also asked to nominate the candidate of their choice. Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SPD) received the most mentions. Marin has previously announced that she will not run for president in 2024.

The presidential poll was conducted by Kantar TNS Agri between 2 and 7 December with 1,029 individuals responding to the survey. The margin of error is +- three percentage points.

Ex-Centre secretaries react to popularity crash

Ilta-Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) covered doom and gloom within the Centre Party, as its support dipped to 9.0 percent in an Yle poll published on Thursday.

Former Centre Party secretaries Seppo Kääriäinen and Jarmo Korhonen gave their views on the situation to IS.

"There is always work to be done, there is always work to be done. The party leadership, the ministers and the parliamentary group will hopefully now stop [and think] in the face of reality," Kääriäinen told IS.

In the 2019 election, the Centre Party collapsed from being the party of the prime minister to the fourth most popular party, and since then its support has fallen below 10 percent.

The party is now polling behind the Green Party, nearly on par with the Left Alliance.

"The Centre must admit that it has failed completely under a green-left government. The Centre Party must change its line and announce where it will seek support in the elections," Korhonen suggested.

He added that the party's stances are unclear which has whittled away its popularity.

The Centre Party has traditionally relied on rural voters, with much of its support coming from outside of Finland's major population centres.

Despite the current forecast for the Centre Party, the former leaders maintained a shred of hope for the coming parliamentary election in April. This parliamentary term has seen three Centre Party leaders, Juha Sipilä, Katri Kulmuni, and the current chair Annika Saarikko.

Kääriäinen used a colourful Finnish idiom to urge his party comrades not to give up.

"Let's not throw the axe into the well on the basis of a disastrous, dismal election result. We must rally the ranks and get our spirits up! The electoral situation and mood are largely decided during the last month, when people then vote," Kääriäinen said

Nato praise

Finland's Nato application might not be moving forward as quickly as hoped, but behind the scenes Finnish defence forces continue their cooperation efforts with the alliance.

On Friday Helsingin Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reports on a major Nato cyber exercise that saw Finnish forces join western counterparts for exercises in digital resilience.

The Cyber Coalition 2022 exercise took place last week in the centre of the Estonian capital Tallinn and focused on how the alliance would face potential threats from cyberspace. Of particular significance was the resiliency of critical infrastructure such as energy grids in light of Russia's strategy in Ukraine.

More than 30 countries were involved in the exercise with over 1,000 participants.

HS wrote that the Nato exercise in Tallinn was shaped by recent events in Ukraine as Russia targets critical infrastructure to try and cripple Ukraine's power network.

"However, the real-world scenarios we are training for here, we are currently seeing in Ukraine," Colonel Bernd Hansen of Nato's Allied Command Transformation (Act) told HS.

Major Markus Riihonen, a cyber defence specialist from the Command and Control Systems division of the Finnish Defence Command, was present in Tallinn.

The Finnish participants practised incident management in power distribution systems, air traffic control systems and port logistics systems, he told HS.

In total, about 25 Finns from the Finnish Defence Forces and other authorities took part in the exercise, many of them remotely from Finland.

Riihonen said that the cyber battlespace is a concern every day in the real world, both in Finland and in Ukraine. It can be about intelligence, crime, harassment or even state influence.

"It's a game that's going on all the time, and we're part of it, whether we like it or not," Riihonen said.

Commander Charles Elliott told HS that Finland and Sweden are quite competent in this field and bring a lot to the exercise and to NATO in general.

"Their experience is excellent."

Elliott illustrates the capabilities of Finland and Sweden by recalling another NATO cyber exercise, Locked Shields, in which the countries compete against each other. This year's winner was Finland, last year Sweden.

Deputy Secretary General David van Weel believes that Finland and Sweden will integrate into NATO in terms of cyber activities "very quickly and very easily".

"We look forward to welcoming Finland and Sweden into our innovation ecosystem to maintain our technological edge," van Weel said to HS.

#nunyas news #updates from up north

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daisy-quaking-johnson-blog · 6 years ago

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Current Affairs in a Line: April 17, 2019

We are presenting brief information about current affairs per day with current details in a new form titled Current Affairs. • The launch of the launch vehicle for which the Union Cabinet has approved - GSLV • The country which has recently successfully tested the world's first armed amphibious dragon boat - China • The woman's Union Minister on whom the campaigning When stopped for 48 hours due to misrepresentation of went given - Maneka Gandhi • the Ocean where scientists a unique Bac at a depth of 11 thousand meters The discovery of Iria, which makes their food greasy substances - Pacific Ocean • The government department has instructed the Ministry of Environment and Forests to file report on the establishment of biodiversity related committees within three months at a sustainable level - NGT • Newspaper from the US President Donald Trump and his family related information has been awarded the 'Pulitzer prize for exposing - New York Times • in these recent Enra Bank has been appointed Managing Director and CEO - R. a.Sankaranarayanan • The university whose professors have developed a tool called Antibagoroscope to deal with antibiotic resistance - Anna University • India has a new department established in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Indo-Pacific

One Line Current Affairs Gk

Private telecom operator Bharti Airtel recently launched a mobile app My Circle with the help of FLO, the branch of Women Entrepreneurs of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), which will help women in any type of problem or panic. This app will work on the phone with the network of other telecom operators as soon as there are signs of suspicion/crisis. With this app, women can send messages from any of their family or friends to 13 people in 13 languages, if needed, in which English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Bangla, Urdu, Assamese, Oriya and Gujarati is included. The woman in distress can send an alert by pressing the SOS prompt on the app.

Two schemes of the West Bengal Government for skill development and distribution of bicycles to students, Uttarkashi Bangla and Sabuj Sahitya won the prestigious World Summit in the United Nations Information Society (WSIS) awards. Under the 'Uttarkashi Bangla' scheme, vocational training is given to those who leave school by providing free training for 400 to 1200 hours. Under this scheme, beneficiaries are trained in driving, tailoring, TV repairing and other electronic equipment, beautician courses, etc. The aim of the scheme 'Sabuj Saharan' is to empower students, especially girls and reduce the drop-out rate in higher education. Under this scheme, 34.94 lakh bicycles have been distributed to targeted students of class 9 to 12.

DR.D.O. Director Dr. A.K. Singh Chandigarh University, Mohali fourth held in APJ Abdul Kalam Innovation Conclave DRDO during awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. Dr. A.K. Singh has done remarkable work in the interconnection of fission-produced radionuclides and transit imaging. He also created a diagnostic kit for detecting infectious lesions and also introduced pharmacosintigraphy. He has been given this award to contribute to Life Sciences, Aerospace, and Aeronautics.

World-renowned news agency Reuters (Reuters) journalists, Kyaw sleep o and or loans to UNESCO to be given by Guillermo Kano World Press Freedom Prize 2019 has been selected for. At present, both of them are serving a sentence of 7 years in Myanmar, where they collected classified military records, in which information about the extraordinary killings of Rohingya Muslims by the army in the Harian state. It is worth mentioning that by giving Guillermo Keno World Press Freedom Award, started in 1997, that person, organization or organization is honored, who has protected the freedom of press freedom or staying in danger anywhere in the world. World Press Freedom Day on 3 Mayon this occasion, this year's award of 45 thousand dollars is given. The award is named after Colombian newspaper L Espectador editor Guillermo Cano Isaza.

Famous Telugu poet Dr. Shiva Reddy has been selected for the 28th Saraswati Award of 2018. They respect his poetry collection firm Ottigilite will be for (Pakki Ottigilite). This book was published in 2016. This award is given to the outstanding literary work of Indian writers published in the last 10 years in any Indian language as mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution every year. Under this award, prize money, a memento and prize money of Rs. 15 lakhs are provided. It is worth mentioning that in 1991 KK Saraswati Samman was established by the Birla Foundation.

World Allergy Organization 's (World Allergy Organization) 7-13 April World Allergy Week held. This year the theme of the World Allergy Week, The Global Problem of Food Allergy has been kept. Each year the World Allergy Organization works on a different theme, in which people need more to be aware. According to Alex Gazolas, author of the World Famous Living Living With Food Allergy, there are different reasons for food allergies in every country. It is known that for the first time in July 2005, the World Allergy Day was started in collaboration with the Biennial World Allergy Congress.

Recently, Google launched its new cloud platform Anthos. It is based on the cloud services platform, which Google has announced last year. With this help, the user can run the application from anywhere. Anthos allows its users to run applications on Unmodified, Current On-Premises Hardware or General Cloud. Anthos will also allow users to manage workloads running on the third-party cloud such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Sir Edmund Hillary Fellowship, announced by the New Zealand Prime Minister, has been announced for the silver medalist of Rio Paralympics, India's Deepa Malik. He is being given this fellowship for his inspirational achievements. This fellowship program was started in 2008 and its purpose is to strengthen relations between India and New Zealand. It is worth mentioning that Deepa Malik won the Silver Medal at the Shot Put event in Rio in 2016.

#Current Affairs in a Line: April 16 2019 #India's Deepa Malik.#Silver Medal at the Shot Put #Rio in 2016.#fellowship program

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nowgoalbola · 4 years ago

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Match Time: 7/16/2020 03:15 Thursday（GMT+8）

English Premier League -- Arsenal VS Liverpool

Livescore | Match Prediction & Tips| Asian Handicap Odds|Line-ups& H2H Stats

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Champions Liverpool continue their quest for more Premier League history when they take on Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night. Jurgen Klopp's side suffered a setback in their pursuit of top-flight immortality at the weekend, while the Gunners will be looking to bounce back from their North London derby defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.

Match preview

Whatever happens in the final fortnight of the 2019-20 Premier League season, Liverpool's exploits will go down in history - they shattered numerous records and wrapped up the title two games faster than any other team has ever managed in the English top flight before. However, while the supporters would undoubtedly be content with 'only' ending their 30-year wait to be crowned champions of England, a tame end to the campaign would threaten to take some of the gloss off their remarkable achievements. It was not long ago - at least in terms of games played - that Liverpool were being touted as possible Invincibles and treble-winners and looked certain to break Manchester City's 100-point record, having picked up 26 wins and one draw from their opening 27 games. They have since won four, drawn two and lost two of their last eight top-flight outings, in addition to being knocked out of the Champions League and FA Cup - by no means enough to ruin their campaign, but certainly a drop-off in their previously unheard-of form. Saturday's 1-1 draw at home to Burnley means that Klopp's side must now win all three of their remaining games - against Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle United - to break the points record, or take seven points from the nine available to equal it.

The champions are more than capable of doing exactly that, of course, but those three teams will be feeling a lot more optimistic about taking points off the Reds now than they were before lockdown. The Burnley draw brought an end to Liverpool's incredible winning run at Anfield as they dropped points at home in the league for the first time since January 2019, and their recent away form has actually been poor. Last week's 3-1 triumph at Brighton & Hove Albion ended a five-match winless and goalless streak on their travels across all competitions, during which time they conceded 10 goals without reply. Of course, these recent struggles also need to be kept in perspective; Liverpool have still amassed 10 points more than any other team away from home this season, and victory on Wednesday would see them break all-time club records for both most away wins and most wins overall in a single campaign. Klopp's side are now battling against those legends of the past for their place in the historical rankings of England's greatest ever teams, rather than any contemporary rivals this season, and while the manager has claimed that he is not interested in that, there would be a small sense of a missed opportunity if they fail to capitalise fully on such an incredible start.

More than one Arsenal side is in that same conversation of English football's best ever teams, but the current crop are a million miles away and the scale of the job facing Mikel Arteta was once again laid out for all to see during Sunday's derby with Spurs. There were positives for the Gunners as they dominated the game for long spells, but they gifted Spurs both goals and it remains impossible to rely on such a shaky defence. Arsenal have now thrown away a whopping 21 points from winning positions this season - a tally which, if added to their current points total, would leave them third in the table, only a point behind Manchester City and with Champions League football for next term already secured. As it is, the derby defeat saw them slip to ninth, level on points with Burnley and with the possibility of a top-four finish now beyond them. Instead, Arsenal's eyes must now be on qualifying for the Europa League again, although that could also prove problematic with seventh-placed Sheffield United four points ahead with only nine left to play for.

The derby defeat should not cast complete doom and gloom over the club, though, as they had been making noticeable progress under Arteta before that, winning four and drawing one of their previous five games. The Gunners can also boast an unbeaten home record in the Premier League this calendar year - a run which includes five wins and two draws, most recently being held by Champions League-chasing Leicester City. Wednesday's match will be Arsenal's penultimate of the season at the Emirates, with Aston Villa away to come before hosting Watford on the final day - two games which look kind on paper but will come against teams fighting for their lives at the bottom of the table. It has been a difficult run for Arsenal recently too, with four successive league games against teams currently above them in the Premier League table and an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City to come at the weekend. The FA Cup may be Arsenal's priority now given the damaging nature of the derby defeat on their league position, but Arteta has already shown during his time in charge that he will not accept a drop-off in any competition regardless of its importance between now and the end of the campaign.

Arsenal Premier League form: LWWWDL

Arsenal form (all competitions): WWWWDL

Liverpool Premier League form: DWLWWD

Liverpool form (all competitions): DWLWWD

Team News

Arsenal will once again be without suspended striker Eddie Nketiah for this match as he serves the second of his two-game ban following his red card against Leicester. Alexandre Lacazette made a statement in his absence with a thunderous opener in the derby, and he is likely to lead the line again with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in support. The match features a number of Golden Boot hopefuls, with Aubameyang, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane all looking to retain the award, having shared it in a three-way tie last season. Mesut Ozil remains a major doubt for the home side as he continues to struggle with a back injury, while Matteo Guendouzi is out of contention following a bust-up with Arteta. Gabriel Martinelli, Bernd Leno, Pablo Mari and Calum Chambers are all expected to miss the remainder of the season for Arsenal, who have been hit badly by injuries since the restart. Liverpool will also be without two key players for the remainder of the campaign - captain Jordan Henderson missing out with a knee injury and Joel Matip sidelined due to a toe problem. Klopp is being cautious with the fitness of James Milner too, and the veteran midfielder is again expected to be absent for this one after missing out against Burnley entirely. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Naby Keita are among the players who will be pushing for a recall to the starting XI, while Klopp must again decide whether to rotate one of his front three. All of them boast impressive records against the Gunners, with Salah scoring six goals in six meetings, Mane notching four times in seven games since joining Liverpool and Roberto Firmino scoring eight times in nine appearances - his best record against any opponent.

Arsenal possible starting lineup: Martinez; Sokratis, Luiz, Holding; Bellerin, Ceballos, Xhaka, Tierney; Saka, Lacazette, Aubameyang

Liverpool possible starting lineup: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Keita, Fabinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Salah, Firmino, Mane

Head To Head

Arsenal have a torrid record in this fixture recently, failing to win any of the last 10 meetings across all competitions and nine in the Premier League stretching back to April 2015. They are often entertaining affairs too, with the most recent showdown ending 5-5 in the EFL Cup in October - Liverpool winning on penalties - and the last nine meetings producing 49 goals at an average of more than 5.4 per game. The reverse fixture in the Premier League saw Liverpool run out 3-1 winners in August, with Salah grabbing a brace.

Arsenal VS Liverpool

Prediction:Arsenal 2-3 Liverpool

#liverpool #arsenal #english premier league #livescore #sports #soccer #football #Match Prediction #tips #asian handicap odds #line-ups #h2h stats

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felipeandletizia · 4 years ago

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June 16, 2020: King Felipe held videoconferences with the responsible for the Executive Committee of the Spanish Private Health Alliance (ASPE), and the IDIS Foundation (Institute for the Development and Integration of Health), which cover practically all of the Spanish private health actors, a strategic ally of the National Health System during the COVID-19 crisis.

This videoconference is developed within the framework of the contacts maintained by the King with the health sector during the pandemic, in which there have been calls and videoconferences, among others, to 47 hospitals and to the schools of Doctors, Pharmacists, and Nursing and of Psychology. And in those conversations, Don Felipe has sent a message of gratitude, encouragement and recognition to all those who have worked and still work today in the front line against the virus and which today has extended to private health professionals.

According to the data of the 2020 Report of the IDIS Foundation on private health, it represents a high weight in the Spanish productive sector and represents 2.6% of GDP. There are 8.7 million insured (18.5% of the population), perform 30.5% of surgical interventions; 23.5% of the discharges; 24.5% of emergencies; 23.5% of income; 17.5% of stays and 19.7% of consultations. It has 458 hospitals (57% of the total) and more than 51,000 beds (32% of the total), with almost 270,000 professionals and 215 places of residents in private centers in 2020 (24 university hospitals).

Don Felipe has spoken with the executive president of ASPE, Carlos Rus; the vice president, Juan Carlos González; and the honorary president and president of the CEOE Health and Social Affairs Commission, Cristina Contel, in a meeting in which they highlighted that it is one of the sectors most affected by the crisis due to its consideration as an essential sector. This has required the maintenance of operational resources with total and absolute availability, with provisioning costs at an unprecedented speculative level, limitations on the adequacy of structures and expenses, deprogramming of all non-urgent activities; and, in general, with a huge decrease in ordinary activity.

ASPE explains that, depending on the impact of the pandemic in each territory, private health has maintained a different degree of participation with the regional administrations. In areas such as Madrid or the province of Barcelona it has been necessary to double and triple ICUs. In regions such as Castilla-La Mancha or Castilla y León, the creation of parallel circuits was chosen, where the private circuit was used as a COVID-free circuit. On the other hand, it indicates that in the regions with the least pandemic affection, all the private infrastructure was also available, but without being required. All healthcare areas have been significantly affected due to the management of the pandemic. Specifically, surgical interventions decreased by 83%, diagnostic tests by 79%, emergencies by 73% and consultations by 67%. ASPE representatives highlight that, despite the difficulties that the centers are going through, 89% hired new professionals during the crisis, 5% in the comparison of the same period of the previous year.

Another capital issue is related to investments in protective equipment, which only increased by 71% in April and March compared to the entire year of 2019. The most extreme case is that of surgical masks, whose price has increased 1,423% compared to the existing price in December 2019.

The Spanish Private Health Alliance (ASPE) groups almost 1,300 private health entities, among which are hospitals and clinics, specialized centers, laboratories, health transport companies, etc. ASPE has more than 80% representation of the country's private hospital centers. In addition, the territorial associations of Catalonia, Community of Madrid, Basque Country, Andalusia, Galicia, Balearic Islands and Murcia are part of the Spanish Private Health Alliance.

Carlos Rus Palacios, President of ASPE, has a Law degree from the University of Navarra. Diploma in Business Management from the San Telmo International Institute; Senior Management Program of Health Entities by the San Telmo International Institute. Professor of Master in Health Management and Administration at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and CEU San Pablo. President of the Global Health Foundation. Member of the Executive Committee of the European Union of Private Hospitals (UEHP). Member of the Executive Committee of the CEOE and of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Confederation of CEPYME.

Juan Carlos González Acebes, Vice President of ASPE, has a degree in Economics and Business Sciences from the University of Valladolid. Ten years at Arthur Andersen as an auditor and consultant. 22 years in the health sector, where he was founder of the IDC Salud Group (now Quirón Salud). Corporate General Director of the Quirón Salud Group, member of the Board of Directors and president of various companies. Member of the Management Committee of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation and vice president of the Quirón Salud Foundation.

Cristina Contel Bonet, member of the ASPE Executive Committee, has a Law degree from the University of Barcelona, with "Distinction of Honor". Master of Business Lawyers with "Extraordinary Mention", number 1 of the promotion. Master in Labor and Social Security Law, University of Barcelona, and President of the CEOE Health and Social Affairs Commission.

The IDIS Foundation is an institution that brings together the private health sector to promote the improvement of the population's health within an integrated health system. Created in 2010, it has 87 members (hospital groups, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical and technology industries and other entities in the private health sector); In its Board of Trustees it also integrates representative entities of specialists and patients.

This foundation ensures that it defends a solid and viable public health system and highlights its strengths while promoting a private health system of excellence and quality that contributes to promoting competitiveness and improving equity, which eliminates or modulates delays in access. patients to offer services and improve efficiency in particular and health outcomes in general.

IDIS points out that it promotes and values the role of private health not only due to its idiosyncrasy and the quality of its services offered, but also because it is a true reflection of the demand that civil society has, guaranteeing an adequate response to questions. emerging that arise every day (freedom of choice, personalization).

In addition, it maintains a firm commitment from the private sector to the patient, the development of the health professional and their respective training, as well as to quality care, research and innovation in all its forms of expression as an element of sustainability and differentiation.

The IDIS Foundation warns that it works with the premise that private healthcare neither competes nor is an alternative to public healthcare, but that both should complement each other to form an integrated healthcare system. During the 10 years of its existence, the IDIS Foundation has carried out multiple studies that show the excellent level reached by this system of private ownership, not only for its contribution of wealth in terms of GDP and qualified employment, but also in key aspects such as healthcare quality, technological and biopharmaceutical innovation, research and training.

In his opinion, the objective of private health during the COVID19 pandemic has been to enhance collaboration with public administrations and optimize their resources, which has materialized in different actions and strategies to expand coverage to the maximum number of patients. To do this, they have expanded the staff of health professionals: doctors, nurses, health assistants and cleaning staff have been the main profiles incorporated.

Coincides with ASPE in highlighting that they have had to reschedule the activity, with the postponement of consultations and interventions that were not urgent or preferential; Services unrelated to this epidemiological situation due to COVID-19 infection have been closed, such as polyclinics, gyms or dental clinics. Also noteworthy is the adaptation of spaces to receive patients (both intensive care beds and beds); the acquisition of equipment, mainly intended for the diagnosis and treatment of patients, and the implementation of strategies to care for a greater number of patients, with the introduction of telemedicine and teleconsultations, which has allowed increasing the capacity of care and avoiding displacement from patients with other pathologies to health centers,thus freeing up resources to be able to add them to the fight against the COVID19 pandemic.

Its president, Juan Abarca Cidón, has participated in the videoconference with the IDIS Foundation; the secretary general of IDIS, Ángel de Benito; and the general director of this institute, Marta Villanueva.

Juan Abarca Cidón is a doctor of Medicine and Surgery, a graduate in Medicine and Surgery from the Complutense University of Madrid and a specialist in Family and Community Medicine. In addition, he has a law degree from the San Pablo CEU University of Madrid. He is currently president of the HM Hospitals Hospital Group, the group in which he began his career, after being a resident doctor of Family and Community Medicine at the Puerta de Hierro Clinic.

In 2002 he founded the company Profesionales de la Medicina y el Derecho SA (PROMEDE), of which he is president and CEO. He is also vice president of the Spanish Association of Health Law and collaborating professor in the Department of Clinical Medical Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine of the San Pablo CEU University. Between 2012 and 2019 he was a member of the Permanent Commission of the Advisory Council of the Minister of Health.

Ángel de Benito has a degree in Medicine from the Complutense University of Madrid. Later he completed the specialty of Digestive Apparatus and for fifteen years he has combined this activity with that of forensic doctor for the Ministry of Justice.

He has been Head of the Emergency Service of a private hospital in Madrid. Integrated in Mapfre since 1990, he has passed through the Departments of Quality and Expenditure Control, has been medical director of Madrid, director of the Area of Medical Centers and national director of the Area of Medical Providers. He collaborates in the Mapfre Foundation Health Promotion Area. Currently, he is the director of the Medical Orientation Area of Mapfre Spain.

Marta Villanueva has a degree in Economic and Business Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and an MBA in the specialty of Human Resources Management from UNED. Her professional experience has been linked to the Spanish Association for Quality (AEC) since 1993, an entity in which she has held various positions. Since 2008 she was its CEO. She is executive vice president of the European Organization for Quality (EOQ), and a member of the Institute of Councilors-Administrators of Spain (ICA) and member of the Circle of UnLtd Spain for the promotion of entrepreneurship.

#King Felipe #King Felipe of Spain #King Felipe VI #King Felipe VI of Spain #Official Event #COVID-19 #June 2020

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aaronandroberthemmerdalegay · 5 years ago

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7 huge Emmerdale fan theories that will blow your mind

What's next for the villagers? The superfans have some ideas.

Emmerdale fan theories, Cain Dingle, Robert Sugden, Moira Dingle.

In recent months, Emmerdale has really gained momentum. With new arrivals, flashback surprises during the special Big Night Out episodes, heartbreaking and hard-hitting storylines for Victoria and Lisa and, of course, the gripping twists in abusive Maya's downfall – it's been exciting stuff.

We all know one sign of a great soap storyline is if it gets fans talking. Currently, Emmerdale has a wealth of fan theories about what might happen next. Social media has been rife with speculation and we've put together some of the best theories for you to ponder over. Do they sound probable or are they way off the mark?

1. Victoria will give her baby to Robron

Victoria Barton confides in Moira Dingle in Emmerdale

ITV

One of the biggest Emmerdale theories of the moment centres around the outcome of Victoria's pregnancy after her horrific rape. As this storyline has played out in parallel to Robert and Aaron's struggling surrogacy plans, fans have put two and two together and speculated that Vic will give her baby to Robron.

While we know Victoria is pregnant, not much has been said yet about whether she plans to go ahead and have the baby. With brother Robert desperate to have a child with his husband Aaron, could Victoria's tragedy have an unexpected outcome for all three of them?

In truth, we have our doubts on this one, as it wasn't so long ago that Victoria was desperate for a baby herself, so we'll just have to wait and see what she decides...

I'm wondering if Victoria will have her baby and give it to Robron #emmerdale

— Ann beverley (@anniebev6) May 15, 2019

Robert and Aaron are going to bring up Victoria’s baby aren’t they #emmerdale

— Kelly Mew🧚‍♂️ (@x_kelx) May 14, 2019

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I wonder if Aaron and Robert will have Victoria’s baby 🤔 #Emmerdale

— Lindsay Kaye Clamp x (@lindsay_kayex) May 10, 2019

2. Maya has groomed other boys

Maya Stepney in the woods in Emmerdale

ITV

Ever since manipulative Maya began worming her way into Jacob's affections, viewers have wondered whether she has done this before. She might have protested her innocence to the police and Jacob's loved ones, but her efforts to groom him have shown a clever and vindictive woman at work. Could it be that there are other victims of Maya out there? Could they be the cause of her downfall?

Viewers were quick to pick up on ex-husband Liam Cavanagh's reaction to her arrest and after all, it was Leanna who tried to warn the villagers what Maya was like long before we saw her true colours. Will it emerge that Maya has done this before?

Now it's out in the open it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that Maya has done this before. #Emmerdale

— Penn Wooding (@BrixhamUK) May 22, 2019

Going to guess that this grooming #Emmerdale storyline will finally end with the revelation that Maya has done this before and that Maya isn’t her name.

Yes, I watch Emmerdale. 🐏🐄🐓

— Jim Doran (@jai_dee) May 22, 2019

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Maya must have previous form surely?? Jacob can't be her first victim 🤔 #Emmerdale

— pollyk (@joy9kat) February 28, 2019

3. Laurel and Jai set to be Emmerdale's next big romance

Charlotte Bellamy as Laurel Thomas in Emmerdale

ITV

Forget Robron, Coira or Vanity – could Emmerdale's next biggest ship be Jaurel? After Laurel's disastrous affair with Bob, are producers lining up her next romance with another unlikely admirer? Fans think they've spotted sparks in the Sharma sweet factory between Jai and Laurel, and they've certainly been spending more time together in recent months.

Since Jai's last relationship with con artist Nell ended badly, he's been on his own and even actor Chris Bisson expressed interest in Jai having a bit of happiness. What do you reckon, could that be with Laurel?

Anyone else getting the feeling that Laurel and Jai are going to end up together? #Emmerdale

— Anzi (@Monkey_Moom) April 10, 2019

Is it me or are we getting Jai & Laurel vibe? 😊 #Emmerdale

— Sulagna (@maitra_sulagna) April 10, 2019

Think there's going to be a Jai and Laurel romance.. #Emmerdale @ITV

— Eleri (@EleriEdwards) March 21, 2019

4. Moira or Cain will cheat

Moira Dingle in Emmerdale

It hasn't gone unnoticed that things have been strained between Cain and Moira of late. With Cain spending more time with ex-flame Harriet, and Moira left to confide in new farmhand Nate, even the couple themselves seem to be aware they've hit a rough patch. With frostiness at Butler's and each of them spending more alone time with others, could this be a sign that Coira are doomed to split?

Theories circulating have predicted Cain might return to the arms of Harriet again or Nate's attraction to an older woman might mean he'll bunk up with Moira.

But Coira fans might not need to worry too much yet as actor Jeff Hordley's recent interview on This Morning suggested Cain and Moira are solid. Unless this was just to throw us off the scent...

I really don't understand where emmerdale going with the Cain/Harriet and Moira/Nate. I just know they love messing the Cain and Moria fans around. I just want them to have a decent storyline. Not in involving exs. I'm not worried about Coria they love each other ☺☺☺#Emmerdale

— Royal Princess Alice Rinderette 😘😘😘😘😊😊 (@WoodhouseAlice) May 16, 2019

Still can't help but feel the writers of emmerdale are going to split Coira up .Cain getting close to Harriet and then Moira cosies up to Nate not feeling positive but normally turns out ok

— Coirafanatic (@Lunascatcat) May 19, 2019

5. Is Mandy Dingle dying?

Chas Dingle attacks Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale

ITV

You might think the Dingles have had enough tragedy in recent times, but that doesn't stop fans speculating that there's more on the way. When Mandy Dingle returned earlier this year, she hinted that she hadn't revealed her biggest secret, and left without another word. While some fans predicted that her son Vinny could be Paddy's, others had more heartbreaking ideas.

Could Mandy's real secret be a terminal illness? Was her brief visit to Emmerdale to set up a later story where she makes peace with her family and comes home to die? Whatever Mandy's secret, we'd love to see Lisa Riley back in the village – her fun return was all too brief.

Is Mandy ill?? #Emmerdale

— All About Soap & Reality (@about_soap) January 8, 2019

6. Jamie's mystery caller is Joe Tate

Alexander Lincoln as Jamie Tate in Emmerdale

ITV

There's no better way to get soap fans speculating than by throwing in a mystery phone call. Newcomer Jamie Tate has so far seemed nice as pie compared to his mother Kim, despite being embroiled in a car accident in his first week. Nevertheless, Jamie seemed clean cut until we saw he was hiding a secret – twelve missed calls.

Fans' thoughts immediately turned to Joe, once presumed dead and now AWOL somewhere in the world. Could it be him who's trying to get in touch with his estranged uncle? Or is there someone else desperate to get in touch with Jamie?

I bet you that’s joe ringing jamie #emmerdale

— 🌚 (@nottjayy) May 16, 2019

Did anyone else notice Jamie having missed calls from an unknown number? It's Joe Tate!!! He's coming home! 😀

— Dan (@DanONeil95) May 16, 2019

7. Adam Barton will make a return to the village

Victoria and Adam Barton fear Pete has threatened their adoption chances in Emmerdale

After Victoria's rape ordeal, we've only just begun to watch her heartbreaking story. But some viewers are already predicting there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Could a return of Victoria's ex-husband Adam Barton give her back some happiness?

We've seen how much Victoria misses him and with actor Adam Thomas reportedly keen to return, we wouldn't rule it out. But just what would this mean for Moira and her killer secret?

@emmerdale I think Victoria will keep the baby and Adam returns #Emmerdale

— Tam LizAnn ODriscoll (@tamlizann) May 9, 2019

Victoria will give the baby to Robert and Aaron and go in search of Adam her true love

— helen (@Helenwo21468879) May 10, 2019

Emmerdale airs weeknights on ITV.

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theliberaltony · 5 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the week

Political junkies might think the whole country is devotedly following the 2020 presidential campaign (FiveThirtyEight certainly is). But remember, the election is still more than a year away. So it’s definitely fair to ask just how many people are already tuning in.

And with this in mind, a new survey from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 35 percent of Democrats1 said they were paying “a good deal” or “a lot” of attention to the campaign so far. Or in other words, only about one-third of Democrats are seriously following the goings-on of the campaign.

But one-third seemed a bit low to me, given that other pollsters have found that Democrats care a lot about picking a candidate they think can defeat President Trump this year, so I took a look at what other pollsters have found this cycle. I found that Quinnipiac University has asked a version of this question three times so far in 2019, finding each time that Democrats are paying quite a bit of attention to the race. For example, 74 percent said they were either paying “a lot” or “some” attention in the most recent survey.2

Democrats aren’t sleeping on 2020

Amount of attention Democratic respondents are paying to the 2020 campaign, according to three 2019 Quinnipiac surveys

Dates None at all Not much Some A lot June 6-10 8% 18% 29% 45% May 16-20 4 19 34 44 April 26-30 3 12 27 58

* Don’t know/not applicable not shown.

Source: Quinnipiac University

So what’s going on here? Well, it’s probably not that there’s a huge discrepancy in the number of Democrats paying attention to the election, but rather just a difference in how AP-NORC and Quinnipiac have asked this question. AP-NORC gave respondents five choices: “a lot,”, “a good deal,” “some,” “not much,” “no attention so far,” whereas Quinnipiac only offered four choices, not giving respondents the “a good deal” option.3 This means that in the AP-NORC survey, “some” is used as a middle-of-the-road response, whereas “some” is one of the Quinnipiac poll’s more attentive options. This means these polls aren’t directly comparable, but if you were to add the “some” response in AP-NORC’s survey to those who said they were paying “a lot” or “a good deal” of attention, you’d get 71 percent of Democrats in the AP-NORC poll who say they are following the race at least to “some” degree, which is roughly in line with what Quinnipiac has found.

And if we go back to previous cycles, the numbers from Quinnipiac actually suggest that Democrats are paying just as much attention as they normally would, or even more than usual. A CBS News/New York Times poll from early August 2015 that gave respondents options similar to Quinnipiac found that 72 percent of Democrats were paying either “a lot” or “some” attention. In other words, a poll that came out in August 2015 found Democrats to be just as attentive as a June 2019 survey. Plus, if you compare the people who said they were paying “a lot” of attention in both surveys, you’ll see that only 28 percent said that in the 2015 poll, compared to 45 percent in the Quinnipiac poll. And if we rewind eight more years to a late June 2007 survey from CBS News/New York Times, 71 percent of Democrats said they were paying “a lot” or “some” attention to the race, which is analogous to what Quinnipiac found in its June survey, with, once again, the share saying they were paying “a lot” of attention to the race (20 percent) much lower than what Quinnipiac has found in its 2019 polls.

So don’t read too much into that one AP-NORC survey. It turns out that Democrats may be paying as much attention as usual (or even more).

Other polling bites

A new report from the Pew Research Center shows a huge partisan gap over Americans’ attitudes toward capitalism and socialism. Republicans had sharply positive views of capitalism, with 78 percent holding a positive view and just 20 percent holding a negative one. But Democrats held mixed views: 55 percent had a positive impression while 44 percent had a negative one. Conversely, socialism was thoroughly disliked by Republicans, with only 15 percent holding a positive view and 84 percent holding a negative one. But Democrats were much more positive. Sixty-five percent had a positive impression and 33 percent had a negative one.4

New polling from Democratic pollster Global Strategy Group suggests that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might make a better target for Democratic candidates in 12 battleground states than President Trump. The survey, sponsored by campaign finance reform group End Citizens United, found Democrats ahead 48 percent to 45 percent on the generic ballot in those swing states. The pollster tested three different messages using McConnell, Trump and Republicans in Congress as foils to see how they changed voting intention. The language about McConnell produced the largest Democratic gain in the margin on the generic ballot — nine percentage points — while the language about Republicans in Congress and Trump increased the Democratic edge by six and three points, respectively.

According to a survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted just before the first Democratic debates, health care was the topic Democrats5 wanted to hear about most — 87 percent said it was very important for the candidates to talk about it. Other issues that were top priorities included: issues affecting women (80 percent), climate change (73 percent), gun policy (72 percent) and income inequality (70 percent).

Speaking of the debates, a number of candidates spoke in Spanish at different points, and YouGov recently found that 42 percent of Americans thought candidates are “pandering” when doing this versus 31 percent who believed they are being “respectful.” Among Democrats, 46 percent felt it was respectful compared to 32 percent who said it was pandering. Hispanic Americans also were more likely to view it as respectful (37 percent) than pandering (27 percent).

Young voters were an important part of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in 2016, and new polling from College Pulse found that Democratic college students6 are more supportive of the Vermont senator than other candidates. The group’s latest data showed Sanders with 26 percent, Elizabeth Warren at 20 percent, Biden at 17 percent and Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent. However, this represents continued improvement for Warren, who was in the single digits in April, while Sanders has slid from the low 30s to where he is now.

A new report from the Public Religion Research Institute found that only a relatively small share of Americans support refusing services to various minority groups for religious reasons, but that the share has increased in the past five years. Among the key findings was that 30 percent of Americans support business owners refusing service to LGBTQ individuals if it violates their religious beliefs. In 2014, only 16 percent of Americans supported this position.

Last week, President Trump decided to hold off on ordering a military strike against Iran, which had shot down a U.S. surveillance drone. A new HarrisX poll found that 26 percent of Americans support taking military action against Iran while 39 percent oppose such a move. Another 34 percent said they were not sure.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.7 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -10.4 points). At this time last week, 42.5 percent approved and 53.1 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -10.6 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 41.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.0 percent, for a net approval rating of -12.8 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 5.8 percentage points (46.1 percent to 40.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 6.2 points (46.0 percent to 39.8 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 5.0 points (45.4 percent to 40.4 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Geoffrey Skelley

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Why Do Democrats And Republicans Disagree

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-democrats-and-republicans-disagree/

Why Do Democrats And Republicans Disagree

Both Republicans And Democrats Cite Masks As A Negative Effect Of Covid

Patrick van KesselDennis Quinn

The COVID-19 outbreak has upended life across the United States and exposed growing divisions between supporters of the two major political parties. And when Americans are asked to describe in their own words how the outbreak has affected them negatively, no topic divides Democrats and Republicans more than the subject of masks, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey findings collected in late August and early September.

Overall, 14% of U.S. adults mentioned the word mask when asked how the pandemic has made their life difficult or challenging. That made mask the fourth most common term in these responses, behind family and work each of which was mentioned by 19% of the public and friend, mentioned by 14% of respondents.

For this analysis, we surveyed 9,220 U.S. adults between Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel , an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.

To gain further insights into these differences, researchers examined each of the nearly 1,000 open-ended responses that mentioned the term mask.

Despite The State Of Our Politics Hope For America Is Rising And So Is Youths Faith In Their Fellow Americans

In the fall of 2017, only 31% of young Americans said they were about the future of America; 67% were fearful. Nearly four years later, we find that 56% have hope. While the hopefulness of young whites has increased 11 points, from 35% to 46% — the changes in attitudes among young people of color are striking. Whereas only 18% of young Blacks had hope in 2017, today 72% are hopeful . In 2017, 29% of Hispanics called themselves hopeful, today that number is 69% .

More Than Half Of Young Americans Are Going Through An Extended Period Of Feeling Down Depressed Or Hopeless In Recent Weeks; 28% Have Had Thoughts That They Would Be Better Off Dead Or Of Hurting Themself In Some Way

Fifty-one percent of young Americans say that at least several days in the last two weeks they have felt down, depressed, or hopeless–19% say they feel this way more than half of the time. In addition, 68% have little energy, 59% say they have trouble with sleep, 52% find little pleasure in doing things. 49% have a poor appetite or are over-eating, 48% cite trouble concentrating, 32% are moving so slowly, or are fidgety to the point that others notice — and 28% have had thoughts of self-harm

Among those most likely to experience bouts of severe depression triggering thoughts that they would be better off dead or hurting themself are young people of color , whites without a college experience , rural Americans , and young Americans not registered to vote .

In the last two weeks, 53% of college students have said that their mental health has been negatively impacted by school or work-related issues; overall 34% have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus, 29% self-image, 29% personal relationships, 28% social isolation, 25% economic concerns, 22% health concerns–and 21% politics .

History Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.

Famous Republican Vs Democratic Presidents

Republicans have controlled the White House for 28 of the last 43 years since Richard Nixon became president. Famous Democrat Presidents have been Franklin Roosevelt, who pioneered the New Deal in America and stood for 4 terms, John F. Kennedy, who presided over the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, and was assassinated in Office; Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the House of Representatives; and Nobel Peace Prize winners Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter.

Famous Republican Presidents include Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery; Teddy Roosevelt, known for the Panama Canal; Ronald Reagan, credited for ending the Cold War with ; and the two Bush family Presidents of recent times. Republican President Richard Nixon was forced to resign over the Watergate scandal.

To compare the two parties’ presidential candidates in the 2020 elections, see Donald Trump vs Joe Biden.

The Divide Between Political Parties Feels Big Fortunately Its Smaller Than We Think

Image adapted from: Ben Sweet/Unsplash

Political polarization in the United States was once defined by ideological disagreement. Now, this ideological division has been fused with an us versus them sectarianism that feels reminiscent of divisiveness and vitriol more commonly seen in war-torn countries than in healthy democracies. To illustrate the current state of polarization in the United States, consider the following: in the lead up to the most recent presidential election, the federal government arrested a militia that allegedly planned to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, yard signs expressing support for both Democratic and Republican candidates were regularly stolen and vandalized, and businesses across the country boarded up their windows for fear of widespread post-election violence.

As social psychologists, we are interested in understanding how such a toxic form of polarization manifests in our everyday psychology, and how the mental models we hold can undermine social cohesion and democratic health. And as concerned citizens who are also scientists, we are also interested in identifying evidence-based solutions to overcome the division that defines American politics. Through a partnership between a research team at the University of Pennsylvania and the nonprofit organization Beyond Conflict, we work to translate research on political polarization into science-backed interventions to reduce conflict.

Why do these misperceptions matter?

Majority Say Climate Change Is Real

Americans who say climate change is real and agree with at least some methods of addressing it whatever their political affiliation have always been in the majority.

Belief in climate change has shifted over the past 20 years but overall has never dipped below 57% of all Americans, according to surveys by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In 2019, it was 69%.

Whats changed is the context. When you look beneath the hood, concern about this issue has soared among Democrats, increased among independents but has stayed flat among Republicans, said Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the Yale program.

He attributes the strength of the hard-line dismissives in part to fossil fuel interests putting money into delaying carbon reduction policies for as long as possible.

According to Yale survey data released Jan. 16, the proportion of Americans who are either dismissive or doubtful about climate change has decreased to 20%, down 5 percentage points since 2014.

The dismissives, people firmly convinced this is a hoax, are the smallest theyve ever been, Leiserowitz said.

That could be good news for creating policies on climate change that the majority of Americans will support. Theres broad-based social and political consensus on at least one of the main issues around climate change, the transition to clean energy. Its true among Democrats, Republicans and independents, Leiserowitz said.

Arizona Republicans Enact Sweeping Changes To State’s Early Voting List

Earlier versions of SB 7 would also have required disabled voters to produce proof of their status, such as documents from the Social Security Administration or the Department of Veterans Affairs. But that provision was later cut. The original requirements would have been unfeasible for many disabled people and would have exposed counties and the state to expensive lawsuits, according to Lauren Gerken, public policy analyst at the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, a state agency.

What supporters say: It’s meant to cut down on fraud

SB 7 was introduced on March 11, titled the Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021. Its stated purpose is “to detect and punish fraud.” But the legislation’s backers have not been able to point to many specific examples of problems they want to fix.

In April, Hughes was asked to list the places where election fraud had occurred in Texas. Rather than echo former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 vote, he pointed to the previous midterm election.

“In my district over in East Texas, I have a county commissioner under felony indictment … over mail ballot fraud from the 2018 election cycle,” Hughes told Amarillo TV station ABC 7.

“That case in Gregg County involved 38 ballots” that were questioned, the station’s Morgan Duerden noted.

What critics say: There is no widespread fraud

What supporters say:It’s meant to inspire confidence in the voting process

Coronavirus Likely To Supercharge Election

Democrats said the state’s plan would disenfranchise some citizens by leaving them out of the primary; Republicans argued that states’ voter rolls are often inaccurate and that sending out ballots to everyone could lead to the ballots getting lost or winding up in the wrong hands opening up the prospect for fraud.

Voter rolls are often the focus of disputes for these reasons.

People die, move and move out of state and so authorities periodically need to delete names. How frequently that happens, and for what reasons, can become controversial and the kernel of legal and political warfare between the parties.

Likewise with voter identification documents.

In Texas, for example, the Republican-dominated state legislature deemed that handgun licenses were acceptable identification at the polls but student IDs, even those issued by the state’s own universities, were not.

Which Party Is Better For The Economy

Princeton University economists Alan Binder and Mark Watson argue the U.S. economy has grown faster when the president is a Democrat rather than a Republican. “The U.S. economy not only grows faster, according to real GDP and other measures, during Democratic versus Republican presidencies, it also produces more jobs, lowers the unemployment rate, generates higher corporate profits and investment, and turns in higher stock market returns,” they write.???

However, rather than chalking up the performance difference to how each party manages monetary or fiscal policy, Binder and Watson said Democratic presidencies had benefitted from “more benign oil shocks, superior performance, a more favorable international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term future.”??

History Of The Democratic Party

The party can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jeffersons Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. The Democrats adopted the donkey as their symbol due to Andrew Jackson who was publicly nicknamed jackass because of his popular position of let the people rule. The Democratic National Committee was officially created in 1848. During the civil war a rift grew within the party between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. This deep division led to the creation of a new Democratic party, the one we now know today.

A Plurality Believe History Will Judge Trump As A The Worst President Ever; Less Than A Quarter Of Young Americans Want Trump To Play A Key Role In The Future Of Republican Politics; Young Republicans Are Divided

Thirty percent of young Americans believe that history will Donald Trump as the worst president ever. Overall, 26% give the 45th president positive marks , while 54% give Trump negative marks ; 11% believe he will go down as an average president.

Twenty-two percent of young Americans surveyed agree with the statement, I want Donald Trump to play a key role in the future of Republican politics, 58% disagreed, and 19% neither agreed nor disagreed. Among young Republicans, 56% agreed while 22% disagreed, and 21% were neutral. Only 61% of those who voted for Trump in the 2020 general indicated their desire for him to remain active in the GOP.

If they had to , 42% of young Republicans consider themselves supporters of the Republican party, and not Donald Trump. A quarter indicated they are Trump supporters first, 24% said they support both.

We’re Less Far Apart Politically Than We Think Why Can’t We All Get Along

Partisans on both sides of the aisle significantly the extent of extremism in the opposing party. The more partisan the thinker, the more distorted the other side appears. And when we see the opposition as extremists, we them. Our tribal thinking prepares us for battle.

What’s the solution? More information? More political engagement? More ?

Surely more information leads to better judgment. But social scientists at the international initiative More in Common find that having more information from the news media is associated with a less accurate understanding of political opponents. Part of the problem appears to be the political biases of media sources themselves. Of all the various news media examined, only the traditional TV networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, are associated with a better understanding of political views.

What about more political engagement and education? Here again, we’re out of luck. Those who are most accurate in their understanding of each side’s political views are the politically disengaged. They are three times more accurate than the most engaged and passionate partisans. Even education is handicapping at least for those on the left. The accuracy of Republicans views of Democrats is not affected by higher education, but liberals with postgraduate degrees are the least accurate about their ideological opponents. They are also the most afflicted with affective polarization, hostile feelings toward people of the opposing political party.

Here Are The Texas Gop’s Reasons For Voting Restrictions And Why Critics Disagree

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“This is a preventative measure for us,” state Rep. Travis Clardy says of the Republican-backed Senate Bill 7, which sought to tighten voting rules, citing a need to prevent fraud. Here, opponents of the bill hold a rally last month at the Texas Capitol in Austin.

Texas Republicans say their controversial move to tighten voter restrictions is sorely needed to prevent fraud. But the few examples of fraud they cite have been out of proportion to the sweeping changes included in their legislation, which seeks to reshape the way many Texans exercise their fundamental democratic right.

Senate Bill 7 is now effectively dead after Democrats walked out of the Texas Capitol in a quorum-busting maneuver that prevented a final vote on the bill. But Republicans plan to call a special session of the state Legislature to revive their push for new controls.

“Election integrity legislation will pass during the special session. Period,” House Speaker Dade Phelan said late Monday.

The Republican election proposals we’ve seen so far are expansive. The failed bill sought to impose new limits on the vote-by-mail system and to restrict how and when people can vote in person. It also would have increased existing criminal penalties and created new criminal offenses around voting.

Regulating The Economy Republican Style

The Republican Party is generally considered business-friendly and in favor of limited government regulation of the economy. This means favoring policies that put business interests ahead of environmental concerns, labor union interests, healthcare benefits and retirement benefits. Given this more pro-business bias, Republicans tend to receive support from business owners and capitalists, as opposed to support from labor.

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, Republicans have been determined to destroy it while Democrats insist its the countrys best chance at reforming healthcare to make it affordable and accessible. Both parties want reform, but the approach has been fundamentally different and for good reason. There are basic, core reasons why conservatives and liberals cant get on the same page when it comes to healthcare reform. Lets take a moment to dig into the details and figure out what is exactly keeping Republicans and Democrats from being able to find a middle ground on healthcare reform, so far.

Democrats want the federal government to legislate and administer healthcare while Republicans want private industry to helm the healthcare system with as minimal input from the federal government as possible.

Of course, there are always exceptions within each party because people arent one-dimensional. Moderates on both sides, for instance, would seek compromise wherever possible. But in general, these core ideological differences make healthcare reform particularly challenging, especially when one party holds more power. In 2010, Democrats passed the ACA without a single rightwing vote.

The Institute Of Politics At Harvard University

April 23, 2021

A national poll of Americas 18-to-29 year olds released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School shows that despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically, especially among people of color. As more young Americans are likely to be politically engaged than they were a decade ago, they overwhelmingly approve of the job President Biden is doing, favor progressive policies, and have faith in their fellow Americans.

In the March 9-22 survey of 2,513 young Americans, the Harvard Youth Poll looked at views regarding the Biden administrations first 100 days, the future of the Republican Party, mental health, and the impacts of social media.

As millennials and Gen Z become the largest voting bloc, their values and participation provide hope for the future and also a sense of urgency that our country must address the pressing issues that concern them, said Mark Gearan 78, Director, Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.

What we see in this years Harvard Youth Poll is how great the power of politics really is, said John Della Volpe, the Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. With a new president and the temperature of politics turned down after the election, young Americans are more hopeful, more politically active, and they have more faith in their fellow Americans.

Top findings of this survey, the 41st in a biannual series, include the following:

Young Americans Are Significantly More Likely To Be Politically Engaged Than They Were A Decade Ago; A Sharp Increase In Progressive Political Values Marked Since 2016

Less than one year after Barack Obamas election, 24% of young Americans considered themselves to be politically active . Twelve years later, we find the share of politically active Americans increased by half and now 36% are politically active. The most politically active among this cohort are young Blacks .

Over the last five years, on a host of issues ranging from health care, to climate, immigration, poverty, and affirmative action–young Americans are increasingly more likely to favor government intervention. For example, we found:

A 19-point increase in agreement with the statement Qualified minorities should be given special preferences in hiring and education .

An 18-point increase in agreement with the statement Government should do more to curb change, even at the expense of economic growth .

A 16-point increase since 2016 in agreement with The government should spend more to reduce .

A 16-point increase in Basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it .

An 8-point increase in agreement with Recent into this country has done more good than harm .

Actually Republicans Do Believe In Climate Change

Dr. Van Boven and Dr. Sherman are social psychologists.

July 28, 2018

It is widely believed that most Republicans are skeptical about human-caused climate change. But is this belief correct?

In 2014 and 2016, we conducted two national surveys of more than 2,000 respondents on the issue of climate change. We found that most Republicans agreed that climate change is happening, threatens humans and is caused by human activity and that reducing carbon emissions would mitigate the problem.

To be sure, Democrats agreed more strongly than Republicans did that climate change is a concerning reality. And among climate skeptics there were more Republicans than Democrats. Nevertheless, most Republicans were in basic agreement with most Democrats and independents on this issue.

This raises a question: If Democrats and Republicans agree about climate change, why do they disagree about climate policy?

As we and our colleague Phillip Ehret argue this month in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, our research suggests the problem is not so much that Republicans are skeptical about climate change, but that Republicans are skeptical of Democrats and that Democrats are skeptical of Republicans. This tribalism leads to political fights over differences between the parties that either do not exist or are vastly exaggerated.

Red States And Blue States List

Due to the TV coverage during some of the presidential elections in the past, the color Red has become associated with the Republicans and Blue is associated with the Democrats.

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast , Great Lakes Region, as well as along the Pacific Coast , including Hawaii. The Democrats are also strongest in major . Recently, Democratic candidates have been faring better in some southern states, such as Virginia, Arkansas, and , and in the Rocky Mountain states, especially Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico.

1980, geographically the Republican “base” is strongest in the South and West, and weakest in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast. The Republican Party’s strongest focus of political influence lies in the Great Plains states, particularly Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, and in the western states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.

Political Party Platforms And The Death Penalty

Reasserts 2016 platforms call for the abolition of the death penalty.

Protecting Communities and Building Trust by Reforming Our Criminal Justice SystemOur criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safeand failing to deliver justice. America is the land of the free, and yet more of our people are behind bars, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Democrats believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom. Sentencing decisions should be based on the facts of each case, including the severity of the offense and individuals circumstances. Democrats support allowing judges to determine appropriate sentences, which is why we will fight to repeal federal mandatory minimums, incentivize states to do the same, and make all sentencing reductions retroactive so judges can reconsider past cases where their hands were tied. We believe it is long past time to end the federal sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine, which has contributed to the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color. And Democrats continue to support abolishing the death penalty.

The Republican National Committees Executive Committee voted on June 10, 2020, to adopt the same platform the party used in 2016.

For relevant excerpts of the , see below.

Regulating The Economy Democratic Style

The Democratic Party is generally considered more willing to intervene in the economy, subscribing to the belief that government power is needed to regulate businesses that ignore social interests in the pursuit of earning a for shareholders. This intervention can come in the form of regulation or taxation to support social programs. Opponents often describe the Democratic approach to governing as “tax and spend.”

Huge Differences Between Democratic And Republican Platforms

Gallery: Monday night at the DNC 2016 convention in Philadelphia

This post originally ran on July 28, 2016. For the latest on the 2018 Midterm Election, check out our voters’ guide or the on the Menendez vs Hugin race.

— It’s hard to say you don’t have a clear choice this presidential election year.

The and show views of world 180 degrees apart.

The Democrats’ statement of principles encompassed many of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ views, giving him a victory even as he lost the presidential nomination to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Republican platform shifted to the right of its nominee, businessman Donald Trump, amid concern that he wasn’t conservative enough.

At 55 pages, the Democratic document is 11 pages shorter than the GOP platform and mentioned Trump 29 times compared with just one of Clinton in the Republican document.

Here are 10 huge differences in the party platforms:

1. ABORTION

Democrats:“We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.”

Republicans: Abortion should be illegal in all cases and the Constitution should ve amended to ban the procedure.

“We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the platform said.

The GOP argued that supporting the constitutional right to abortion was the “extreme” position.

2. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

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ijcmcrjournal · 4 years ago

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First 65 Days Trajectory of COVID-19 Outbreak in Pakistan (Facts, Hopes and Expectations) an Evidence Review by Khurshied AK in International Journal of Clinical Studies & Medical Case Reports

Abstract

There is a significant risk to the public health in world and strong apprehensions in Pakistan due to emerging infectious disease known as Covid-19 which is characterized by a completely unique mode of pathogen. In this paper we reviewed the first 65 days trajectory of Covid-19 outbreak in Pakistan and its impact on over the coming days, weeks and months. Since the first reported case of infection (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 on February 26th, 2020, in Karachi, (Sindh), until there has been a total of 15760 confirmed cases with 313 victims as of April 30, 2020. The identified route of (COVID-19) in Pakistan was though patients with travel history from various countries, such as Iran, China, Afghanistan and India coming to Pakistan. Further the data revealed that out of the total COVID-19 cases in Pakistan 78 percent cases were reported from visitors coming from Iran, the remaining statistic filled by religious centre Rewind and some by local transmission. Pakistan responded toward the pandemic naturally through management and arrangement of quarantine facilities, field hospitals, and necessary testing and protective kits. It was established early that the state of affairs of quarantines were not adequate, but was supportive to a big extant. The lockdown damaged daily wage labor financially and we have compiled a template for monitoring this impact till this crisis is over. Further COVID-19 higher education response of online system halted due to connectivity and quality issue. We suggested that to reduce the emerging risks of Covid-19 in future, the government should launch contemporary isolation house immediately at the departure and arrival points on border air ports as well as on communication routs and in major hospitals. We proposed hybrid education management for online system and suggested to generate catalogues and database for daily wage labour for on time support in future.

Key words: COVID-19, pandemic; Emergency Quarantine; Partial lockdown

Introduction

Key words: COVID-19, pandemic; Emergency Quarantine; Partial lockdown

Method and Approach

This was a desktop study. Most of the information’s were collected from (http://covid.gov.pk/) which is web portal of COVID -19 and further information from print, electronic and social media from the time line of 26th February to 30 April 2020 about the current situation and challenges of Pakistan against COVID-19 war.

Results and Discussion

2020 COVID-19 Outbreak in Pakistan

The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic trajectory to Pakistan started on 26 February 2020, when a scholar in Karachi found positive upon returning from Iran [6]. By mid-March, cases reported frequently upon arrival of testing kits in all four provinces, the two autonomous territories, and the federal territory of Islamabad [7]. As of 30 April 2020, there have been over 15,758 confirmed cases with 4052 recoveries and 346 deaths in the country. Punjab has recorded the most cases at over 5,800, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported the most deaths in the country, a total of 122 [8]. The country has been put under a nation-wide lockdown until 9 May [4] which was initiated on 1 April and later extended twice [9].

According to a media report, Pakistan could have projected 50,000 cases of the COVID-19 by 25 April [10-12]. However, the numeral statistics by then stopped under 15,000, less than half of what was estimated [13]. According to available data sources predicted that a Tablighi Jamaat religious gathering was main super-spreader foundation for outbreak which took place in Lahore in early March 2020 [14], accounting for 27% of cases in the country by late April [15]. Meanwhile Pakistan started vaccine trials in teamwork with Sinopharm a Chinese pharmaceutical company in April 2020 [16] (Figure 1, Table 1 and 2).

An insignificant deviation of record was observed in two different sources (Table 1 & 2) and figure 1. This can be justify and endorsed as to time taken in bring up-to-date of record. One thing is clear that while observing the data in judgment of the adjacent countries (China and Iran), condition of Pakistan is not as horrible as projected by media. Question arises, how Pakistan managed and sustained such bottom level of COVID-19 cases after 65 days of health emergency. First case in China informed its first confirmed case reported on 10th January, 2020 tailed by Iran on 18th February, 2020. During this time period action plans were taken by Pakistan to concentrate on Pak- Iran border and international flights termination. Being as a developing country, the trajectory of COVID-19 outbreak could be highlighted in graphical illustration given below (Figure 2, 3, 4 and 5).

Figure 2: COVID -19 Demographic % of Pakistan showing different age groups affected by infection .Interesting to note male population 15.62 % age group between 20-30-39 shown higher rate of infection as compared to other age groups . The fact that Pakistan has a higher young population as compared to China, USA and many other affected countries, explains why a majority of the confirmed cases in Pakistan constitute young adults,” The thing that we must be worried about is that many youngsters think that coronavirus only affect elderly people because they have weak immune systems and not taking precautionary measures. Data source; http://covid.gov.pk/stats/pakistan

COVID-19 Demographic Diseased % in Pakistan

Figure 3: Covid-19 Demographic Diseased % in Pakistan indicating the novel coronavirus tends to affect men more severely than it does women. The male age groups have higher rates of infection as compared to females. Perhaps it's because the X chromosome (which women have two of, but men have only one) has a larger number of immune-related genes, giving women a more robust immune system to fight off the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Sex differences aren't the only factor at play, however. Other groups more vulnerable to COVID-19 include the elderly and people with diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

Data source; http://covid.gov.pk/stats/pakistan

Can Taftan Prove to be Pakistan's Wuhan?

The number of corona patients in Pakistan is increasing rapidly and after Sindh, the presence of people infected with the virus has been confirmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The total number of people infected with the corona virus in the country has reached close to 15759 and this number is expected to increase further [17]. Whether it is a new patient from Sindh or the first case from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one thing all these victims have in common is that they all came to Pakistan from Iran and spent 14 days in a quarantine center at Taftan areas. Concerns about the facilities and management of the quarantine in Taftan are not new. Ever since the quarantine was set up, there have been accusations of poor conditions and poor hygiene. Now the situation is that on social media, Taftan is being compared to the Chinese city of Wuhan. Wuhan is the site of the coronavirus outbreak and is one of the most affected areas in China. Balochistan officials acknowledged that due to inadequate facilities in the quarantine on the Taftan border, where it had not been particularly helpful in curbing the epidemic, one of the visitors was kept together. There are also concerns about transmitting the virus to others [18].

Pakistan’s Struggle with COVID-19 Quarantine

In medical science, quarantine means isolating someone for a period of time to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. Government of Pakistan has set quarantine house at borders as well as in various cities. At the same time, the government categorical announced to lockdown metropolitans and highly densely populated municipalities for one month duration. In this line, which we can call it as Chinese approach of self-quarantine, overall country was placed into [19]. But the management presented no competence to retain the citizen inside their houses. For elementary necessities and day-to-day provisions, such as foodstuff and medications, they were acceptable to go outdoors. This is how; selected yards were permitted to keep work and open. These consist of vegetables, general store, and medicine shops. Some commercial and factories were entirely closed, such as industrial zones, barber shops, hotels, weeding hall and barber shops.19 in initial Phase Zaireens from Iran at once created immense problem for Pakistan. In the first week of March more than 3000 Zaireen were acknowledged and were held in reserve restricted to Taftan. When the number of Zaireen surpassed approximately 6000, it became problematic to be providing lodgings in quarantine house at Taftan. Pakistan was not supposing such massive number and was not organized and equipped for this. At first it was decided to place them at Taftan for 14 days quarantine. But the Zaireen were not collaborating with the administration, and were with cracks to discharge from the quarantine center. On 26 March it was decided to hand over the Zaireen to their particular provinces from where they belonged. In this way 4596 were dispensed above to provincial administration. They were engaged in several quarantine centers located in Provinces. For instance Airport campus of Ghazi University DG khan, Multan were initial centers of southern Punjab .In most of the press and electronic media this dispensing over and scattering of Zaireen was underlined as a cause for refinement and spread out of COVID-19 in Pakistan. According to International media reporter Aljazeera TV, Taftan was the epicenter of epidemic in Pakistan. By reviewing a number of tapes slides uploaded by different people, the following problems were identified:

Insanitary and germ infested conditions

No accessibility to medical consultants and specialists

No convenience of medication and treatment

Inadequate capacity of quarantine

Storage in food of water and food supply lines

These hitches couldn’t validate for certain quarantine centre. For example at DG khan a Ghazi University Campus located 25km away from urban ring declared as quarantine centre and further in Multan the quarantine centre was agreed in Industrialized Estate zone for Zaireen returning from Iran. 1247 Zaireen were retained contrary to the existing size of 3000. Zaireen at Sukkur were set aside in Labour Society for quarantine. Residence of these all zones were in deep psychological stress against decision of government for the said quarantine centre. As a whole, the quarantine arrangement was not satisfactory. Therefore Zaireen from Iran were responsible for the mounting epidemic of COVID-19. According to part of hot news on social and electronic media from health ministry 78.2 cases were trace back to the Zaireen travel history coming from Iran (The News International, 2020) [20] .

Higher Education Challenge for Pakistan under COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast uncertainty on education of at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. To sidestep the swift magnitude of coronavirus, all academic and technical school, colleges and universities were shut down on 13th March, 2020 all through the country. At first this action of government was questioned for the reasons that no substitute preparations were arranged to save time of the students. Such as online classes, reading materials, quiz program, assignment etc. Later on, with the passage of time, the infection was spread out rapidly across the globe as well as Pakistan. It was evidenced that this academic termination was defensible and was a respectable choice [21].

Pakistan has 46.8 million affected students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, out of which 1.9 million are registered at the tertiary level. This pose stands the gravest challenge because universities have enrolled students from overseas and the whole country (Developed and under developed zones). Policies and schemes may miscarry but key assessment is not to finding the middle ground on goals and principles. Our learning system must be retain and move by taking care of the health and safety of all (faculty, scholars and staff), and safeguarding stability of academic programs by being elastic in outcome and accommodating innovative solutions. There are number of challenges in this regard where leadership has a key role to play in this time of crisis [22].

Internet Connectivity particularly in remote areas

Faculty’s Lack of enthusiasm for Online Teaching

All Subjects being Treated Similarly (These broader categories are:

i) Arts and humanities; ii) Social sciences; iii) Natural sciences; iv) Biological sciences; and v) Engineering sciences. Lab-based disciplines which may suffer more through online teaching only.

How to Make Things Work

In most parts of Pakistan, due to hot summer, education institutes observed summer vacation during Jun and August. This year all the students will attend classes in hot most months of the year. For some people this may be a simple matter, but technically it is not that sound. All the schools, colleges and universities are not equipped to handle temperature above 40oC and will be a real problem, especially for the small kids. Besides, there is usually outbreak of summer diseases like diarrhea, and dengue. Pakistan may need to arrange a separate session of vaccinating for seasonal disease along with a separate program to beat high temperature to move country clocks time two hours early to use maximum sunlight and secondly in a world where information and facts are a mouse-click away, the title role of the educationalist must change too.

Coronavirus-related disruption can give educators time to rethink the sector with Hybrid learning arrangements. Online teaching should be complimented by at least one month of compulsory condensed face-to-face teaching when the universities open. This hybrid approach will help to maintain a certain level of quality and students will be evaluated the way they have been trained so far.

Regular temperature check of faculty students and staff at entry points to avoid the transmission within community.

A Template to Monitor the Impact of COVID-19 on Pakistan’s Economy

The corona infection has carried us adjacent to an international recession. Government of Pakistan should jerk too exceptionally to evaluate the economic situation [23]. We have accumulated an outline template for observing this influence over the coming days, weeks and months, till this crisis is over. The template categorizes the sectors/industry that could possibly be affected. In addition, we also make available the mechanisms that intricate in the procedure, and the scales that can be used to monitor and gauge the impact. We may supplement here that it is not a comprehensive list which indicates gradient slop and we will retain informing it as the condition progresses.

The Template

The assumed model spots the sectors/industry that could hypothetically be affected. In addition, the mechanisms concluded which they would be exaggerated are also in case. The third column gives the scales looked-for to gauge this influence.

Daily wage labour Daily wage labour is the most vulnerable segment of our population. At present, Pakistan has a labor force of 72.5 million. 9.5 million are above 50 years age and 63 million are above 15 years age working in different sectors. Out of this total, 7 millions are daily wage worker and 3.6 million are unemployed [24]. Being as a developing country, it was not possible for the government of Pakistan to reach every daily wage labour for appropriate support for their daily needs. Initially there was partial lockdown in Pakistan. The aim of partial lockdown was to avoid unnecessary interaction and mobility. Partial lockdown was good for daily wage labour. They could go to their work place. In the second phase major cities were locked down. Again it cannot be called complete lockdown, as someone can go outside for the purchase of various items of daily importance. Major markets, hotels and restaurants have been closed completely. After city level lockdown, Pakistan (Federal Government) has announced a relief package of 3,000 rupees per month for 7 million daily wage workers. Several questions arise with this package. Such as, how to differentiate between labour and daily wage labour? There is any database available with the government to reach the right person? These Rs.3000/- will be enough to meet monthly expenditures? It the question is no, will be a big disappointment. According to economic experts monthly food expenses of an average house hold size of five members is ranged from Rs.14000 to 17000. As per latest estimate, about 12.3 to 18.53 million may lose their emoluments. At present the monthly loss is about 22 billion. If the lock down continued, the monthly loss may goes up to 260.9 billion per month with a total collapse with irreparable loss to labour force of Pakistan. The COVID-19 episode is continued and Pakistan still has a long distance to go. Pakistan has to take care of it population in general and its labour force in particular. Pakistan is required to take the religious institution in confidence, use the government machinery for better planning in the coming days [25].

Conclusions and Recommendations

Due to inadequate possessions of capital Pakistan was not in a position to grips such fast mounting pandemic resourcefully. No one was assuming Pakistan to switch this pandemic professionally but the several developments exposed that the overall results were promising. Therefore, the several actions of Pakistan were significant and contracted the regulator over the spread of COVID-19 to a big magnitude. COVID-19 is/was new to the world; it affected rich and poor countries by the same token. Developing countries like Pakistan seems more vulnerable as compared to developed world due to the following reasons:

Planning and supervision of excellence to quarantine capacity

Work-related protection equipment’s for para-medics and other health workers

Responsiveness and instruction of common persons

Management of day-to-day wage labor and other deprived sections of a society

Accessibility of defensive actions in terms of disinfectant and good personal hygiene

Convenience of first aid utility on time

Exceptional transportation capability for COVID-19 patients and dead bodies.

Availability of treatment in hospitals. On the basis of the above factors, poor countries, like Pakistan are/were more vulnerable and affected the negatively.

The following are few recommendation required for Pakistan:

Pakistan must construct quarantine facilities on all exist and entrance with Iran, China, Afghanistan, and India.

Pakistan should establish quarantine facilities at provincial level in all provincial capital cities, Karachi, Quetta, Lahore and Peshawar.

Pakistan should initiate online classes as future strategy to avoid break in academic session during epidemic.

Pakistan must keep a database for all sort of labour. In this way the government of Pakistan can reach to poor labour on time for support.

For more information about Journal :

https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/

https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/pdf/IJCMCR.SC.ID.00009.pdf https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/ijcmcr-sc-id-00009/

#covid19 #pandemic #emergency quarantine #Partial lockdown #Khurshied AK #ijcmcr #clinical studies

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architectnews · 4 years ago

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Sonova Wireless Competence Center Murten

Sonova Wireless Competence Center Murten Building, Swiss Architecture, Architect, Alpine Design Images

Sonova Wireless Competence Center in Murten

16 Apr 2021

Sonova Wireless Competence Center Murten News

Architect: OOS AG

Location: Murten, Switzerland

Sonova opens one of Switzerland’s first zero-energy office buildings

Stäfa (Switzerland), April 2021 – Sonova Holding AG, a leading provider of hearing solutions, is today inaugurating one of Switzerland’s first office buildings which is carbon-neutral in its operations. The new Sonova Wireless Competence Center in Murten, home to its subsidiary Phonak Communications AG, will accommodate around 180 employees entrusted with developing and marketing miniaturized communication and hearing protection systems.

The innovative building aligns with the Sonova Group’s sustainability program, whose goals include a continuous reduction of the company’s environmental impact. The entire Sonova Group aims to achieve carbon-neutral operations by the end of 2021. The pioneering architecture of the zero-energy building will provide employees with a modern and inspiring workplace.

“We are delighted to open our new Wireless Competence Center in Murten today. As one of Switzerland’s first zero-energy commercial properties, it is part of the world’s first generation of carbon-neutral buildings. This pioneering project is an excellent example of how we are continually reducing the environmental footprint of our business in line with our strategy. We are committed to ensuring that the Sonova Group’s entire operations will be carbon-neutral by the end of 2021. With its unique environmental features, innovative spatial design and construction, our Wireless Competence Center provides an ideal workplace for our colleagues,” says Arnd Kaldowski, CEO of Sonova.

Minimal energy requirements and healthy indoor climate

The Sonova Wireless Competence Center operates carbon-neutrally and adapts to the outside climate, requiring hardly any building services installations such as heating or ventilation systems. The new office has been designed down to the last detail for minimal energy consumption. It was built using mainly renewable and reusable materials, so that construction-related gray energy could be minimized. Made of a single wythe of climate-neutrally manufactured blocks, the solid façade retains energy and moisture. The building largely regulates itself by absorbing heat and releasing it again when it gets colder outside.

The healthy indoor climate is primarily the result of controlled natural ventilation; pure lime putty on the walls and ceilings purifies the air indoors and regulates the atmospheric humidity. Air is refreshed via the windows rather than through ventilation ducts. Controllable ventilation flaps on the windows facilitate the circulation of fresh air. During the summer, the same ventilation flaps cool the building naturally at night.

A pleasant ambient temperature of between 21°C and 26°C is guaranteed throughout the year. The surface area of the windows is sized precisely to ensure that the building does not heat up excessively when temperatures are warm. The high windows on the façade are designed to admit the maximum amount of natural light, so the use of artificial lighting can be largely avoided. Thanks to these features, the new building has very low energy requirements.

Renewable and carbon-neutral electricity

The Sonova Wireless Competence Center’s photovoltaic array generates 260,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year, which is a higher amount of renewable and carbon-neutral electricity than is required to run it. This surplus capacity is fed back into the grid and made available to other consumers. The new building’s energy requirements are comfortably below the limits set by international and Swiss sustainability labels. According to figures supplied by Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment, buildings are responsible for around one quarter of CO2 emissions across the country.

Contemporary and innovative workplace

The architecture of the two-story building creates a contemporary and innovative workplace for employees and reflects Sonova’s open and collaborative culture. On the first floor, the spacious reception area, with its central staircase, forms the centerpiece of the new office and provides a space for spontaneous interaction. Leading off the reception area is an open-plan cafeteria and adjacent terrace. Also located on the first floor are the logistics center, R&D laboratories and R&D test chambers. On the second floor, open-plan offices and various focus and meeting rooms offer ample space for collaboration. All rooms are equipped with cutting-edge communications technology and ensure maximum flexibility for current and future work requirements.

Virtual opening

The recorded virtual opening of the new Sonova Wireless Competence Center took place on April 13, 2021, viewable at: https://ift.tt/3sp0z7C.

Guest speakers will include Olivier Curty, State Councillor and Director of Economic Affairs of the Canton of Fribourg, and Joachim Curtius, Professor for Experimental Atmospheric Research at the Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.

youtube

About Sonova

Sonova, headquartered in Stäfa, Switzerland, is a leading provider of innovative hearing care solutions. The Group operates through its core business brands Phonak, Unitron, Hansaton, Advanced Bionics and the brands of the Audiological Care business, e.g. AudioNova, Geers, Boots Hearing Care, Connect Hearing and Lapperre. Sonova offers its customers one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry – from hearing instruments to cochlear implants to wireless communication solutions.

Pursuing a unique vertically integrated business strategy, the Group operates through three core businesses – Hearing Instruments, Audiological Care and Cochlear Implants – along the entire value chain of the hearing care market. The Group’s sales and distribution network, the widest in the industry, comprises over 50 own wholesale companies and more than 100 independent distributors. This is complemented by Sonova’s Audiological Care business, which offers professional audiological services through a network of around 3,300 locations in 20 key markets.

Founded in 1947, the Group has a workforce of over 14,000 dedicated employees and generated sales of CHF 2.92 billion in the financial year 2019/20 as well as a net profit of CHF 490 million. Across all businesses, and by supporting the Hear the World Foundation, Sonova pursues its vision of a world where everyone enjoys the delight of hearing and therefore lives a life without limitations. For more information please visit www.sonova.com and www.hear-the-world.com.

Photos Copyright: Sonova

Sonova Wireless Competence Center Murten images / information received from Sonova

Location: Murten, Switzerland, central Europe

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yeonchi · 4 years ago

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2020 In Review

It’s that time of the year again. At the end of every year, I write a post to sum up what I did this year and share my (controversial) opinions of the year’s current affairs. However, because I had so much to say for the latter, I’ve moved it to the Red Pill Year post - as obvious from the title, I’ve become red-pilled on quite a few things this year.

Things have been very different due to the coronavirus; while my transition into society has been forced to slow drastically, I did manage to achieve quite a lot over the six months in lockdown (from late-March to October). The lockdown has given me a good excuse to be a NEET and do all the things I want to do because I actually become a productive member of society.

Before I go into detail over various aspects, let’s start off this review with a list of...

What I did during lockdown

Finished my uni degree (I only had one subject left at that point and it was a beginner’s course to Cisco networking)

Reposted my reviews of the Sea Princesses animated series (which I completed last year)

Did some analysis on how Kamen Riders are not weapons

Played Warriors Orochi Z

Did a little reminiscence post on Kingdom of Paradise

Played Dynasty Warriors 8 and collected every 5 and 6 star weapons for each character

Launched Kisekae Insights as a soft reboot of the Yui Hirasawa Kisekae Project

Made a Change My Mind post about freedom of speech, censorship and cancel culture

Translated and reviewed the ten Princesas do Mar books, with the blessings of the author, Fabio Yabu

Played a bit of Dynasty Warriors Multi Raid 2 and 6 Special, no posts made for those games

Kept working on my personal project for a bit before putting it on hold

Checked and rewrote every story in my personal project (it’s still not finished yet)

Looking back at the year

Doctor Who

In case you haven’t read about it already, I decided to take the red pill on this series after watching The Timeless Children. Check out the hiatusbreaker update for some post-review thoughts that I made months after the end of Series 12.

Of course, I’ll be reviewing the New Year’s Special, Revolution of the Daleks, and Series 13 when it premieres late 2021. Be sure to check out my review of the New Year’s Special when it comes out the day after New Year’s Day.

Sea Princesses

For the third year in a row, I’ve done something significant for Sea Princesses. in 2018, I collected the English episodes as they were posted on YouTube. In 2019, I worked on the episode plots and transcripts for the wiki while also downloading the Amazon raws and collecting the remaining episodes that weren’t posted on YouTube (because the Mr Bean and Friends channel has finally given up after years of shitty marathon streams). In 2020, I brought the ten Princesas do Mar books and translated them into English.

When I emailed the author, Fabio Yabu, at the end of April to tell him of my intentions to translate the books, I didn’t get a reply from him until the middle of July. By that point, I had already brought the books from Pure Brazil (on Amazon) and I had finished scanning most of the books. In reflection, if I had known that he would offer to send me his manuscripts, I would have emailed him last year and not a week before I decided to buy the books. However, what’s done is done and at the very least, I’m probably the only person in Australia to actually have the books.

My original plan was to buy the books when I had gotten a job and saved up some money from each paycheck until I got the amount I needed. Looking back, I think it was a stupid idea and I’m glad I decided to cave. Considering the time it took me to scan and translate the books being unemployed and under lockdown, who knows how long it would have taken if I were studying or working full-time.

It’s funny how I’ve tried to spread the word about my efforts to revive the series and yet, I ended up doing all the work. Maybe it was because very few people cared as much about the series as I did, or maybe I didn’t make an effort to promote it enough because I was quite reserved about reaching out on platforms other than Facebook or Tumblr. This whole experience has taught me that in the end, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

In addition to this, I’ve also reposted my reviews of the cartoon series that I did in 2019. You can find all the reviews on this page. On top of that, I wrote three instalments on the series’ involvement in my personal project for Kisekae Insights. All in all, they made up the bulk of content that I posted during the lockdown.

Just as a note, only the English, Brazilian Portuguese and Castilian Spanish dubs have both seasons online in full, whether on YouTube, Amazon Prime or my cloud drive. As for the Latin American Spanish dubs, only the first season is available and I know someone at Southern Star is screwing with us because I have evidence that the second season was broadcast in that region as well. While this channel doesn’t have all the episodes and the videos were filmed with a camera in front of a television in not even 360p quality, it’s probably the only place where that version of the series is available. The second season wasn’t even released on DVD, which complicates things even more, but hey, that’s what happens when a series goes lost and forgotten for a decade.

Yabu has published translated versions of the first four literacy series books on Amazon Kindle and is planning on publishing translated versions of the main series books. As for the main series books on Kindle, there are errors in two of the books. In A Shadow in the Water, there’s two chunks of text missing at the start of Chapter 10, namely the Turtle King’s call to Miss Marla, so that the Turtle King says, “Hello! It’s cancelled!” before Leia gets off the bus and goes to the whale without any context as to how it got there. In The Windy Letters, there was a line missing at the end of Chapter 12 (13 in the Kindle version) saying that Tubarina passed out as she was leaving the cave. I was going to mention this in the epilogue for the book reviews, but I decided to cut it because I thought that Yabu would fix it. Sure enough, the second error was fixed (albeit haphazardly), but the first error hasn’t, and it’s been three months since I pointed it out to him. In hindsight, I’m kind of glad that I have the physical books because I wouldn’t have known about this if I just had the Kindle books.

I didn’t promote this until now because it’s not that important, but the literacy series books (with the exception of Turtles in Danger, I don’t know why distribution rights are all over the place) are available on Ubook in both ebook and audiobook formats. Interestingly, some of the narrators listed on the audiobooks include Eduardo Drummond, Ana Elena Bittencourt and Jullie, who are known for voicing Marcello, Tata and Leia on the Portuguese version of the cartoon. I can likely deduce from this that they managed to get some of the original cast back to do the audiobooks. This is yet another reminder that the series receives more love in Brazil than it does in Australia. I can bet that if the series were to receive English audiobooks, then whoever’s making them won’t bother to find the old cast. I won’t hold it against them if they don’t, but I’ll give them props if they do, even if they just get Paige Walker back as Tubarina.

If anyone wants to know about the production of the series, a few guys did a study on the Brazilian animation industry and Flamma Films, one of the producers of Sea Princesses, is covered in section 3.1. There is nothing special to be gleaned from it that I haven’t known or deduced already; the series is still decent even though there were places where it was screwed over. Although, it’s a shame that this series was never picked up by anyone who could have done better than Southern Star or that Yabu left Flamma in 2009 because I think there was more potential in both him and Sea Princesses. But hey, that’s just my opinion. I might cover the production history on the wiki someday.

With this, all canon material for Sea Princesses has been covered. I will still work on the wiki and moderate the content on there as admin, it’s just that it won’t be as groundbreaking as it was for the past three years. I’ve done all I can for the series and regardless of the reception it has or will receive, it’s time for me to move on.

Kisekae Insights

During the lockdown, I decided to launch Kisekae Insights as a means of sharing my personal project outside of my circle of friends. It also served as a reboot of the Yui Hirasawa Kisekae Project that I attempted to launch in 2015 before abandoning it due to commitments.

At the moment, I’m taking a break from this series to focus on other things, but in 6 months, I managed to make 16 instalments of this series centred around various aspects of my personal project. I don’t know when I might decide to start making instalments again, let alone if, so if you’ve been closely following the series, be prepared for the possibility that the series will stop at any point. I still have a portion of the project I want to write before finishing up, so I want to focus on that first along with revising older portions of the project.

Censorship

This was a topic that I wanted to cover in the Red Pill Year post, but I decided to move it to here because I wanted to get that post published before focusing on this one.

I’ve been on social media for 10 years now and over that time, I’ve seen many cases of censorship (not just on both sides of the political spectrum, but on many other spectrums) and been a victim of it myself. There have been so many different types of censorship that I’ve found it difficult to generalise into a single category until now.

When Donald Trump announced that he wanted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act revoked because his tweets got fact-checked, I was almost onboard with him until someone who owns a (controversial) website I browse regularly pointed out that he would have to shut down his website because of the potential lawsuits that would be filed against him. The sad thing about this is that Joe Biden is looking to revoke 230 as well and no major website is making an uproar about this, given that they were so vocal about things like SOPA/PIPA, Article 13 and net neutrality in the past. I swear, this site is the only site I’ve seen that is actually talking about this.

Basically, the main gist of Section 230, or “the twenty-six words that created the internet”, are as follows: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In other words, websites can’t be held responsible for content posted by users of that website, including posts, comments or videos, and thus they can’t be sued for it. Without 230, websites (particularly big websites and social media websites based in the US) would have more incentive to censor as they would be liable for that content; even with the amount of money the big companies have, they can only fight so many lawsuits before their money runs out, and that’s even if they want to bother doing that in the first place.

Social media sites define what seems to be clear rules for the use of their sites, but lately it seems that they keep moving the goalposts on content that touches the line at best while content that outright breaks the rules (like gore and child porn) remains hiding in the shadows or isn’t deemed a problem when reported. Their moderation systems are heavily reliant on AI with little, if any, human guidance, which basically means that their rationale for censorship is based on reports from, in order, corporations and IP owners, left-wing (SJW) biases and people who cry hard enough (en masse) to get something taken down.

Copyright takedowns are also a form of censorship because it’s mostly corporations being absolute Jews with their content. This is a problem with people who post content with copyrighted material because they run the risk of having the material taken down or demonetised, particularly in the case of content creators who use YouTube as their main source of income. The lines of copyright have been so blurred over the years that many people don’t care about it beyond crediting the original creators or not. At this point, it’s practically common knowledge that corporations are still stubborn over copyright even though they have other sources of revenue, not to mention the way they exploit their assets (franchises, celebrities and so forth).

In summary, political bias is a problem when it comes to censorship, but corporate bias and people gaming the system are just as much of a problem. The political biases of social media can seem like they flip-flop between two sides, but that’s what happens when you let AI do your work for you.

Who remembers the Tumblr NSFW ban of December 2018? I honestly can’t believe I’m saying this, but Pornhub has just gone through a similar purge, now only allowing official partners and verified creators to post because of rape, trafficking and child porn. You know what the common element between the two purges is? It’s burning down a large part of the orchard just because of a few rotten trees. A lot of perfectly legal content has been caught up in the crossfire because Tumblr and Pornhub are a bunch of pussies who are too lazy or afraid to have people go through and delete illegal content like child porn. Is anyone getting a feeling of déjà vu here? However, the situation with Pornhub is more financially motivated because their payment networks, namely Visa and Mastercard, terminated their services with them. I’ll get back to them in a bit.

Going on a bit of a tangent, YouTube has blocked all age-restricted videos from being played on other sites in their embedded player, meaning that users have to go onto their site and log into their account in order to watch those videos. That’s just great. How am I supposed to watch old Chris-chan videos now without having it appear in my internet history or even my Google account history?

Conservatives believe that the amount of censorship that is happening on social media sites is making them look like publishers instead of platforms. Sadly, I agree with this, but the even sadder thing is that Section 230 makes no distinction to such nor mentions “platforms” in any context. Therefore, I don’t believe that Section 230 should be revoked, but I do believe that there should be a reform in order to cover things like platforms, publishers and recourse for people who have been deplatformed. The Communications Decency Act was first passed in 1995; at that time, the internet was in its infancy, but in 2020, it has expanded to levels that people would never have imagined back then. Of course, the government shouldn’t be the only party to do something about censorship; social media sites and their uses have responsibility in this as well.

“bUt PRiVaTe CompanIES cAN dO whaTEveR THey WaNt, ThEy aREN't oblIgeD tO HOsT yOUR CoNTEnt” No. Anyone who still unironically believes this in current year, after all the government and corporate bullshit that has affected and threatened the integrity of the internet, can go fuck themselves. What about all the people who have been unfairly deplatfomed in recent years despite not doing anything illegal? What about #StopTheLeftPurge? I and many other people knew that the karma of censorship would somehow hit back on people eventually, so nobody should be defending any website for the actions they take to censor people. I’m all for getting scammers and people peddling illegal content off of social media, but we’re at the point where people are being deplatformed for things like copyright, wrongthink and criticism “as harassment” and innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire. My attitude to the current state of censorship on the internet is pretty much the same as my attitude to the police: How can we trust social media sites to moderate their users and content if they keep moving the goalposts, being vague about their justifications and believing victims practically all the time?

Here are some suggestions for how I would reform censorship.

Define large social media networks as public platforms: Despite all the alternatives that have sprung up, such as Gab, Parler, MeWe, Rumble, BitChute or the like, very few social media sites will have the potential to become the new Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, which has become so ubiquitous in our society. The alternatives may be good in their own ways, but the main reason why people are moving to them is because the mainstream sites have deemed their content or presences unwelcome. We’re talking about companies the size of supermarket or fast food chains compared to small businesses or businesses with a few branches in less than a few states. I realise that defining Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as “platforms” alone won’t do anything to reform censorship, so I should note that the next few suggestions should be just as important as this one.

Lessen punishments for people who post copyrighted content: Let’s face it, deplatforming YouTube channels after three copyright strikes is unfair considering that this is a fairly minor offence and the lines of copyright and fair use have been severely blurred over the past decade. If the content is from TV or something, then the most that should happen is that the video is removed or the ad revenue goes to the copyright owners, but if a channel is outright impersonating and/or plagiarising (original) content from another channel, that’s a different story.

Allow opportunities for discourse and appeals: When I was postblocked on Facebook thanks to some gaijin bitch who was too butthurt to take or respond to my criticisms of him, there was no way for me to appeal his reports of my content or the postblocks that resulted from them. When I tried to post something, a window would pop up saying that I was postblocked and there would be a button saying something like “Something’s Wrong”, but even after I clicked on it, nothing ever resulted from it. I would have been postblocked for 30 days or even deplatformed if he didn’t agree to rescind his reports after I called him out on his bullshit again. I’ve also heard of other cases where people’s appeals don’t seem to do anything or only make the problem worse.

Prevent abuse of DMCAs and reporting systems: Adding onto my previous point, there needs to be a way for people to say “these people are trying to get me deplatformed even though I did nothing wrong”. On one hand, I think there should be a limit on how many times people can report a particular page per week, while on the other hand, people need to be told to grow a spine and stop being crybabies over content that they shouldn’t be affected by (in most cases). In regards to DMCAs, I’ve found that some people abuse the system to get any criticisms of them taken down. Criticism is covered under fair use, but there needs to be a distinction between creative content and things that people say on social media.

Rely less on AI moderation and more on human moderation: During the Tumblr NSFW ban, they decided to ban “female-presenting nipples” except in contexts such as breastfeeding or surgery. However, the AI they used caught male nipples and female nipples that fit the exceptions for that ban. Social media relies too much on AI for the moderation of their content because they don’t want to expose human moderators to that stuff, even though that is technically part of their job. The content bots on YouTube make this worse with things like ContentID, COPPA or even the automatic detection of age-restricted videos. I’m convinced that AI alone cannot moderate content fairly; there should be another level of moderation where humans judge the moderation of the AI. For the past year, I’ve been doing a work-from-home thing where I assess Google search queries to see which results satisfy the needs of the user making the search. Having something like that for Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and the like would be good, but the only problem is ensuring that they have a diverse range of political standings and interests in the moderator pool.

Finally, there are a few things I would like to clarify. Firstly, when I say “censor”, I don’t mean putting content warnings on things (in fact I’m all for them because some people might not like certain types of content), but I mean outright deleting them and/or punishing the users for posting them. Secondly, when it comes to NSFW content, I believe that “either all of it is okay or none of it is okay”, particularly when AI moderation can’t tell things apart most of the time. Thirdly, I make exceptions when it comes to things like rape, trafficking and child porn because they are exploitative and non-consensual. Fourthly, I believe that fan art and artworks, including hentai and Rule 34 (while contentious at times), should be treated differently to real life and live-action because while it is a subjective debate, there are generally no victims in the former.

Of course, those are just some of my suggestions for reforming censorship; there may be some that I haven’t brought up. My point is that knee-jerk reactions can end up hurting more people than they benefit.

There was another suggestion brought up by the owner of the website I mentioned earlier. He believes that the solution to fixing censorship is to make banks and payment networks like utilities (gas, electricity, phone, internet), meaning that they can’t blacklist anyone unless they have actually been convicted of financial crime (or sanctioned by other countries). When I first read it, I couldn’t figure out how to connect the two, but now that I know the circumstances behind the Pornhub purge, I realise that all these companies really care about isn’t just money, but whether they can be paid by conventional means. Small sites can afford to use alternate means such as cryptocurrency, but big sites have to cater to the mainstream. There’s a difference between being banned from a business because you’re being belligerent and being banned from a business because you’re a controversial figure who has said some controversial stuff online, particularly in the past. I’d also suggest that social media be considered an utility as well, but compared to the examples I’ve given, it’s pretty much a non-essential service.

In my first suggestion, I named some alternative social media platforms that people have been using in recent years. I don’t really intend to sign up for those platforms because a) I don’t post contentious stuff all the time and even when I do, it either follows the community guidelines or flies under the radar (with the exception of petty snitches and bitches) and b) I don’t have a strong enough fanbase nor do I have enough fans who are willing to follow me to wherever I decide to migrate to. After cutting off other social media platforms like Twitter or Pinterest due to lack of use, the only platforms I have left are Facebook and Tumblr. Various factors have kept me from posting as often as I have done in the past; I’m struggling to find enough things to post per month just for the sake of it.

Even if you follow the rules, you should still be worried about censorship, because before you know it, you might be the next one on the chopping block.

Political correctness

I’ve been as tolerant as I can be about changing the way we say or do things because of political correctness, but some of the changes I’ve seen, particularly in the past year in response to Black Lives Matter, has me questioning why. I mean, yes, of course the answer is about racism, but my main question with it is that if people had a problem with something, why didn’t they say something earlier? Why did it take the death of a black drug user who was arrested for using counterfeit bills for people to do something instead of all the other black people whose deaths led to similar protests in the past? Why didn’t black people say anything when they began to be treated fairly following the Civil Rights Movement?

Some people have said that removing monuments and memorials of figures related to Confederacy or slavery is destroying or censoring history. I think that a better idea would be to keep them, but teach people why those figures should or should not be revered.

As for casting changes, it seems that the trend is to have characters of marginalised demographics being portrayed by people from those demographics; black characters being portrayed by black actors, transgender characters being portrayed by transgender actors and autistic characters being portrayed by autistic actors. On one hand, I can kind of understand, particularly when it comes to live-action works, but on the other hand, they’re just actors and it’s in their profession to portray different characters as the job requires. In animation, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell who’s the voice behind the character if you don’t bother researching the actors in the credits. I get the idea of diversity and casting the right person based on talent, but sometimes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I don’t understand the motivation behind political correctness sometimes. Either that or I just don’t like things changing so drastically (when there’s very little problem with it in the first place).

On another note, check out my Red Pill Year post to see why I prefer to use the term “coronavirus” over “COVID-19″.

Cancel culture

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again. Cancel culture is just people overreacting to things people did, particularly in the past which nobody should be caring about anymore. This then leads to censorship and arguments about political correctness.

Personally, cancel culture should be more like iDubbbz’s Content Cops; someone does an exposé on a problematic figure, they get a chance to respond and the rest of us either accept their response or mock them for their shit response or lack thereof. Such a shame that iDubbbz has fallen so low after the RiceGum Content Cop though...

In any case, people need to learn how to think critically and stop being so petty over trivial things. Also, getting someone fired just for something they said or did outside of their workplace is just as petty. People need to learn to separate the internet from real life and about what professionalism is.

Other miscellaneous stuff

A few more things before I finish up.

Between publishing the Red Pill Year post and this one, some mutant strains of the coronavirus, originating in the UK and South Africa, have begun spreading all over the world along with some new cases and clusters in Australia. Hopefully we’ll be able to contain these new cases like we did with all the other ones, but some blame still needs to be put on governments for allowing the pandemic to get this far and people for not following social distancing guidelines.

I decided to randomly search my Tumblr blog in the Wayback Archive recently. There’s not a lot of stuff there, but one thing that alarmed me was that two posts from 2017, namely my Content Cop parody and my rant about Facebook pages, were archived more than 20 times. I don’t know who initiated it or whatever, but if it is who I think it is, then I would have thought that archiving the post forever would be the last thing they wanted.

In a way, I’ve begun to understand why the right tends to say “All Lives Matter” in response to “Black Lives Matter”. They think we already live in an utopia where racism is all but eradicated, so they think that the movement is merely attention seeking, virtue signalling and so on. Would we be complaining if there wasn’t any injustice in our society? The same question could be said for Hong Kong and any other place where there is injustice.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to realise that corporations are not our friends. If my time writing English dub rants has taught me anything, it’s that corporations rarely listen to their customers; the only reason why shills and cucks support anything corporations do is because their interests happen to align with whatever they’re doing. It’s the same logic as corporations supporting Black Lives Matter. The main objective of a company isn’t to virtue signal because they have very little or no place to do so. They should just give us customers what we want, take our money and fuck off.

And if you thought that last line sounded familiar, that’s because it’s from Ricky Gervais’ monologue at the 2020 Golden Globes in January. How good was that? Anyone who disagrees with what he said is, knowingly or unknowingly, defending the kind of culture he is criticising.

Lockdowns aside, the time has come for me to resume my transition into society, but not without precautions. Of course, I’ll still be around, but I’ll probably be posting less in 2021 compared to 2020, not that it really matters anyway.

Before I go, I’d like to leave you with some final words.

Black lives matter and Hongkonger lives matter.

All cops are bastards.

Corporations are not your friends, even if they make something you like.

Stay safe, practice social distancing and wear a face mask when going out.

願榮光歸香港 (May glory return to Hong Kong.)

Happy New Year everyone. I wish you peace as we move from a very turbulent 2020 to what could possibly be an even more turbulent 2021.

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vignaniasacademy · 4 years ago

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26-05-2020 Current affairs & Daily News Analysis

BALBIR SINGH DOSANJH Balbir Singh Senior, the three-time Olympic gold medal-winning hockey legend passed away. He was 95. About: Balbir Singh Dosanjh (1923 – 2020) was an Indian hockey player. He was often called Balbir Singh Senior to distinguish him from other Indian hockey players named Balbir Singh. He was a three-time Olympic gold medallist, having played a key role in India's wins in London (1948), Helsinki (1952) (as vice captain), and Melbourne (1956) (as captain) Olympics. His Olympic record for most goals scored by an individual in an Olympic men's hockey final remains unbeaten. Singh set this record when he scored five goals in India's 6–1 victory over the Netherlands in the gold medal game of the 1952 Olympic Games. One of the country's greatest athletes, Balbir Senior was the only Indian among 16 legends chosen by the International Olympic Committee across modern Olympic history. Singh was the first sports personality to be honoured with the Padma Shri award, in 1957. Source : All India Radio ( Sports ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy PUNTIUS SANCTUS Velankanni in Tamil Nadu has thrown up a new species of small freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae. The silver-hued fish has been christened Puntius sanctus — ‘sanctus’ is Latin for holy — after the popular pilgrim town. About: Encountered in a small waterbody in Velankanni, Puntius sanctusgrows to a length of 7 cm. It is used both as food and as an aquarium draw The Puntius species are known locally as ‘Paral’ in Kerala and ‘Kende’ in Tamil Nadu. They are purely freshwater fishes. While the genus shows great species richness in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the specimen from Velankanni bears “distinct differences” from its Puntius cousins. Its physical characteristics included a protractible mouth, a pair of maxillary barbels (a sensory organ near the snout), 24-25 lateral line scales and 10 pre-dorsal scales. Source : The Hindu ( Environment ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy NUMBER-18 - FLYING BULLETS The Indian Air Force (IAF) is set to operationalize its squadron called the Number-18 - Flying Bullets with a fleet of the Light Combat Aircraft, LCA Tejas at its Sulur base near Coimbatore. It will be launched by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria on May 27, 2020. About: It will be the second Indian Air Force squadron to operate with the modern multi-role light fighter aircraft. The No.18 Squadron was formed in 1965 and has the distinction of being the first to land and operate from Srinagar. It has also produced a Param Veer Chakra awardee during the 1971 war with Pakistan. It has been revived on the 1st April this year at the Sulur base. The LCA Tejas is a tailless, fourth generation, compound delta-wing aircraft developed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The supersonic combat aircraft is considered the lightest and the smallest of its kind. Source : All India Radio ( Defence & Security ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy CICADAS A brood of periodical cicadas, noisy insects that breed underground for as long as 13-17 years are expected to emerge into some states on the east coast of the US this year. About: Cicadas are insects that spend most of their lives underground and emerge from the soil mainly to mate. Once out of the ground, their life span is fairly short, somewhere between two-four weeks. The insects are found in the America’s as well as New Zealand and Australia. There will be major outbreaks of periodical cicadas in 2020 and 2021. There are three species of 17-year cicadas and three species of 13-year cicadas. The name 13 and 17 year refers to the number of years that cicada nymphs take to reach adulthood. It is not clear why their development period is so long. After emerging from the ground in billions, the cicadas shed their exoskeletons or outer skins to take their winged form. The lifespan of adult cicadas is short, about two to four weeks during which time they feed relatively little and mate. This year, the grouping dubbed Brood IX will emerge after spending 17 years underground, into states including Southwest Virginia, parts of North Carolina and West Virginia. The emergence of over 1.5 million cicadas per acre is expected. Source : Indian Express (Environment ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy PURANDARA DASA Department of Archaeology in Karnataka will soon commence field research work to explore archaeological evidences that may put an end to speculations regarding the birthplace of Purandara Dasa. Though it was widely believed that the mystic poet was born in Purandharagad, Maharashtra, many in Malnad claim that he hailed from the region. About: Purandara Dāsa (1484 – 1565) of Haridasa movement, was a renowned composer of Carnatic music, a Vaishnava poet, a saint and a social reformer. He was a disciple of the Dvaita philosopher-saint Vyasatirtha. His guru, Vyasatirtha, glorified Purandara Dasa in a song thus: Dāsarendare purandara dāsarayya. Purandara Dasa was a wealthy merchant of gold, silver and other miscellaneous jewellery from Karnataka, who gave away all his material riches to become a Haridasa (literally meaning a servant of Lord Hari or Lord Krishna). As a devotional singer who made the difficult Sanskrit tenets of Srimad Bhagavatam available to everyone in simple and melodious songs. He formulated the basic lessons of teaching Carnatic music by structuring graded exercises known as Svaravalis and Alankaras, and at the same time, he introduced the raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by beginners in the field – a practice that is still followed today. In honour of his significant contributions to Carnatic music, he is widely referred to as the "father" of Carnatic music. Purandara Dasa is noted for composing Dasa Sahithya, as a Bhakti movement vocalist, and a music scholar. Source : The Hindu ( Culture ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD WEAKENS As per the reports, the magnetic field around the earth, on an average, has lost almost 10% of its strength over the last two centuries. The magnetic field of the earth protects us from the solar radiation. South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA): However, a rapid shrink has been observed in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), a stretch between Africa and South America. It is an area where the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 kilometres. This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of radiation. The effect is caused by the non-concentricity of the Earth and its magnetic dipole. The SAA is the near-Earth region where the Earth's magnetic field is weakest relative to an idealized Earth-centered dipole field. Pole reversal: One most speculated reason behind this is that there is a chance that the time for Earth's pole reversal is coming near. Pole reversal is when the north and south magnetic poles flip. While this flip will not occur immediately or suddenly, and will happen over centuries, there would be multiple north and south magnetic poles during this period, all around the planet. This is definitely not the first time that pole reversal will be happening on the Earth. This event has occurred few times in the history of our planet, as per the scientists and we are long overdue by the average rate at which these reversals take place (roughly every 250,000 years). Impact: This is not going to affect or alarm the general public to a huge extent. But it is causing technical difficulties for various satellites and spacecrafts, as the magnetic field getting weaker, charged particles from the cosmos can penetrate through to the altitudes that low-Earth orbiting satellites fly at. Source : News18 ( Science & Technology ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy CoAST India India Observatory, an open-source database, has come up with a GIS-enabled dashboard that includes an India map reflecting the movement of migrants in real time on their long journeys, along with facilities and relief organisations on their routes. About: The platform, a collaboration with Anand-based Forest Ecological Security (FES) as its main nodal point, is called CoAST India (Collaboration/Covid Action Support Group). It draws information from 55 organisations on the ground, mostly in villages, and aims to make such data available so that it would enable governments and small local civil society groups to be of assistance. The map matches “time and spatial data, on administrative facilities in the area, transportation and healthcare facilities of an area and summaries, on the fly, in real time of people passing by. India Observatory was set up in December 2019, with FES focused on ecological issues about forests, water bodies, conservation, etc. that needed “a bird’s eye view or a satellite’s vision”. Source : Indian Express ( Social Issues ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy INDIA-CHINA BORDER DISPUTE The India-China border has been witnessing tensions over the past month, with incidents reported in at least four different locations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). About: The border is not fully demarcated and the LAC is neither clarified nor confirmed by the two countries. India-China border is divided into three sectors:The LAC in the western sector falls in the union territory of Ladakh and is 1597 km long, The middle sector of 545 km length falls in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and The 1346 km long eastern sector falls in the states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The main differences are in the Western and Eastern sectors. India sees China as occupying 38,000 sq km in Aksai Chin. In the east, China claims as much as 90,000 sq km, extending all across Arunachal Pradesh. The middle sector is the least disputed sector, while the western sector witnesses the highest transgressions between the two sides. Source : The Hindu ( International ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy ACHARYA JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE INDIAN BOTANIC GARDEN Cyclone Amphan has caused massive damage to the trees in the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden. About: The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden was previously known as Indian Botanic Garden and the Calcutta Botanic Garden. It is situated in Shibpur, Howrah near Kolkata. The gardens exhibit a wide variety of rare plants and a total collection of over 12,000 specimens spread over 109 hectares. It is under Botanical Survey of India (BSI) of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. The gardens were founded in 1786. Source : The Hindu ( Environment ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy JIOMART Reliance Industries (RIL) has taken its e-commerce platform JioMart live in an attempt to take on rivals Amazon and Flipkart. Pilots were carried out in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan. About: Jiomart, an online-offline model that combines the strengths of Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, has started offering products at a minimum 5% discount to the maximum retail price on select products. JioMart has started offering more than 50,000 products in the fruits and vegetables, dairy and bakery, staples, snacks and branded foods, beverages, personal care, home care and baby care categories. Customers can get free home delivery on no minimum-order value, with a no-questions-asked-return policy. Facebook and WhatsApp had signed a commercial agreement with Reliance Jio over JioMart so that the online venture’s customers can place order through the social media platforms. Source : The Hindu ( Economy ) Read UPSC Current affairs and Daily News Analysis from Best IAS Coaching Institute in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Daily Current affairs and News Analysis Best IAS Coaching institutes in Bangalore Vignan IAS Academy Contact Vignan IAS Academy Enroll For IAS Foundation Course from Best IFS Academy in Bangalore Read the full article

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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Trump Escalates War on Government Watchdogs

The shock firing of the State Department’s top watchdog is raising fears that diplomats won’t be protected against political retaliation.

“We are all pissed,” said one State Department official, who questioned how the office could maintain its power and independence following the sacking of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.

— By Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch | May 16, 2020 | Foreign Policy

U.S. State Department Inspector General Steve Linick departs the U.S. Capitol in in Washington on Oct. 2, 2019.

President Donald Trump continued his post-impeachment purge of the U.S. government’s top independent watchdogs, telling Congress on Friday night that he was sacking the State Department inspector general.

Steve Linick, who has been the top State Department watchdog since 2013, was fired after launching an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo himself, according to Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, raising immediate questions to lawmakers about whether the decision was legal or not. He will be replaced in the interim by a political appointee at the State Department close to Vice President Mike Pence.

With Linick’s ouster, some State Department officials felt Pompeo had effectively kneecapped the power and independence of the Office of Inspector General (OIG). “We are all pissed,” said one State Department official, who questioned how the office could maintain its political independence and impartiality in future investigations. “Without someone nonpolitical, what hope is there for us to go to OIG and use this tool? How can I feel comfortable calling even the anonymous tip line to report waste fraud and abuse?”

“It seems like a lot of people are getting fired for doing their job,” another official said. “It just makes me afraid.”

The move also infuriated Democratic lawmakers sitting on the committee that oversees the State Department. “This firing is the outrageous act of a President trying to protect one of his most loyal supporters, the Secretary of State, from accountability,” Engel, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “I have learned that the Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into Secretary Pompeo. Mr. Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation.”

A State Department spokesperson confirmed to Foreign Policy that Linick was fired but did not give any indications or justification for his firing. His replacement, Stephen Akard, served as a foreign service officer from 1997 to 2005. He is an ally of Pence and currently holds the position of State Department director of the Office of Foreign Missions.

The State Department watchdog was looking into Pompeo’s “misuse of a political appointee at the Department to perform personal tasks” for himself and his wife, a Democratic congressional aide told Foreign Policy. The State Department did not respond to additional requests for comment or confirm whether Pompeo was the subject of an inspector general investigation.

Linick’s dismissal represents the latest move by Trump to fire federal watchdogs deemed insufficiently loyal to the administration. In early April, the president sacked the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community, who drew the president’s ire after receiving a whistleblower complaint that kick-started the impeachment process against the president for unduly pressuring the Ukrainian government into investigating his Democratic rival. Days later, he fired the Defense Department’s acting inspector general, who was tasked with overseeing the administration’s $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package on a federal panel established by Congress. He then removed a senior watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services, Christi Grimm, shortly after her office issued an unflattering report on how ill-prepared the United States was in its coronavirus response.

“That failure to pushback means the president feels untethered,” said Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower protection group. “The president doesn’t have to provide any added explanation when he removes an [inspector general] because he doesn’t feel the pressure when he does.”

Linick’s firing was met with a mixture of anger, shock, and fear from the State Department’s diplomatic corps, according to four State Department officials. All expressed fear that the department would be put through a new wave of politicization just months after the diplomatic corps was dragged into a nationwide scandal with the impeachment trial.

“[We] rely on offices like this to protect us,” one State Department official said. “That’s clearly not happening.”

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ibilenews · 5 years ago

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China's coronavirus diplomacy has finally pushed Europe too far

BRUSSELS (BLOOMBERG) - With a series of high-level summits culminating in a visit to Germany in autumn by Chinese President Xi Jinping, this was supposed to be the year of Europe-China diplomacy. Instead, Europeans are warning of a damaging rift.

Diplomats talk of mounting anger over China's behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic, including claims of price gouging by Chinese suppliers of medical equipment and a blindness to how its actions are perceived.

The upshot is that Beijing's handling of the crisis has eroded trust just when it had a chance to demonstrate global leadership.

"Over these months, China has lost Europe," said Mr Reinhard Buetikofer, a German Green party lawmaker who chairs the European Parliament's delegation for relations with China.

He cited concerns from China's "truth management" in the early stages of the virus to an "extremely aggressive" stance by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing and "hard line propaganda" that champions the superiority of Communist Party rule over democracy.

Rather than any single act responsible for the breakdown, he said "it's the pervasiveness of an attitude that does not purvey the will to create partnerships, but the will to tell people what to do".

While the Trump administration has resumed its swipes at China, European officials are traditionally less willing to be openly critical, in part for fear of retribution.

The fact that politicians in Berlin, Paris, London and Brussels are expressing concern over Beijing's narrative on Covid-19 hints at a deeper resentment with wide-ranging consequences.

Already some European Union members are pursuing policies to reduce their dependence on China and keep potential predatory investments in check, defensive measures that risk hurting China-EU trade worth almost US$750 billion (S$1.07 trillion) last year.

It's a turnaround from just a few weeks ago, when China emerged from the worst of its own outbreak to offer Web seminars on best practice gained from tackling the virus where it first emerged.

It also airlifted medical supplies including protective equipment, testing kits and ventilators to the worst-hit countries in Europe and elsewhere, in a show of aid-giving that contrasted with America's international absence.

The pandemic offered a chance for mutual solidarity. But it didn't last.

"Now the atmosphere in Europe is rather toxic when it comes to China," said Mr Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

BELT AND ROAD

Concerns were aired during a March 25 call of Group of Seven (G-7) foreign ministers about how China would proceed during the crisis and once it subsided.

Ministers were told that Europe and the G-7 must be on guard, as Beijing was likely to move "more self confidently, more powerfully" and in a way that exploits its leverage when other nations were still in lockdown, according to a European official familiar with the call.

In public, Chinese officials have struck a conciliatory tone.

"When people's lives are at stake, nothing matters more than saving lives. It is useless to argue over the merits of different social systems or models," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference on April 17.

China, he said, is ready to work with the international community, including European countries, to "jointly safeguard the health and safety of all mankind".

Yet, China's means of going about it has backfired in much of Europe.

An anonymously authored text posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in France this month falsely accused French retirement home staff of leaving old people to die.

It was "an incredible accusation on one of the most sensitive and tragic aspects" of the crisis in France, Dr Mathieu Duchatel of the Institut Montaigne wrote on Twitter.

The embassy website comments rang alarm bells for the needless offence caused.

China underestimated the reaction to its conspiracy theories amplified by propaganda outlets, according to two European officials in Beijing.

What's more, China's insistence that aid be accompanied by public thanks and praise has undercut the goodwill it might otherwise have gained, they said.

VULNERABLE COMPANIES

European governments have become more wary of China over the past two years as Mr Xi's Belt and Road Initiative on trade and infrastructure expanded across the continent, snapping up strategic assets including ports, power utilities and robotics firms from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea.

While some nations including Italy and Portugal have been enthusiastic backers of Belt and Road, another programme known as Made in China 2025, whereby Beijing seeks to become the world leader in key technologies, is seen in many quarters as a further threat to European industry.

With stock prices tumbling on the coronavirus crisis, countries including Germany that have investment screening regulations have tightened them and extended their scope in response to concerns that China, among others, could take controlling stakes in companies suddenly made vulnerable.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager suggested in a Financial Times interview that governments go further and buy stakes in companies themselves to stave off the threat of Chinese takeovers.

More far-reaching still are proposals to curb dependence on China, not just for medical supplies but in areas such as battery technology for electric vehicles.

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said last week that there's a need for a discussion "on what it means to be strategically autonomous", including building "resilient supply chains, based on diversification, acknowledging the simple fact that we will not be able to manufacture everything locally".

Japan already earmarked US$2.2 billion from its US$1 trillion stimulus package to help its manufacturers shift production away from China.

Without mentioning China, EU trade ministers agreed in an April 16 call on the importance of diversifying to "reduce the reliance on individual countries of supply".

As a first step, Berlin plans state funds and purchase guarantees to start industrial production of millions of surgical and face masks by late summer. China currently exports 25 per cent of the world's face masks.

Mr Wuttke of the EU trade chambers said the discussion on supply chains began when Beijing shut its ports earlier this year, prompting fears that pharmaceutical ingredients produced in China would not reach Europe, and causing policymakers to realise that strategic products had to be secured.

According to another European official, even official suppliers were breaking contracts for items such as ventilators and scamming people, burning bridges along the way.

"People want to have their eggs in more baskets," said Mr Wuttke.

BURNING BRIDGES

Certainly, the tenor of the political debate in Europe has shifted since.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Bild newspaper that China's revising up of the death toll last week was "alarming", while French President Emmanuel Macron said in an FT interview there were "clearly things that have happened that we don't know about".

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said it can't be "business as usual" with China once the pandemic is over.

Spain's Health Ministry has cancelled an order of antigen test kits from Chinese company Bioeasy after sending back a previous batch, the country's El Pais reported. Health authorities found that both sets of kits were faulty, it said.

As a result of the Covid-19 crisis, pressure is growing on Britain to reverse its decision to allow Huawei Technologies a limited role in its fifth-generation mobile networks, while France may be less inclined to give Huawei a chunk of its 5G contracts after the embassy spat.

Germany must make a decision by around mid-year on Chinese involvement in its 5G networks.

In the battle of narratives, Germany is key, according to Dr Janka Oertel, director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

Besides being Europe's dominant economy, its trade ties to China dwarf those of its neighbours: German exports to China in 2019 were higher than Britain, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands combined.

It will assume the EU's rotating presidency on July 1, giving it the chance to turn the debate in Europe.

China could still win back favour and help secure a greater global role by acceding to demands to open up its markets and introduce a more level playing field for international business, said Dr Oertel.

"That would be something that the Europeans would very much appreciate," she said.

All the same, she added: "I don't think it's very likely."

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pragnyaiasacademy-blog · 5 years ago

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Following an infructuous spell of looking east, India’s Act East Policy (AEP) is hobbled by snags in connectivity, continuing insurgencies, agitations, blockades and extortion in the North-east and replication of some of these very problems, especially insurgencies and snarls, in decision-making in Myanmar, the launchpad and fulcrum of AEP. Last month, the visit of Myanmar President, U Win Myint, to India reminded us of AEP anew.

The open-door policy is intended to usher in development in the North-east, which could in turn facilitate the closure of insurgencies. For the Look East Policy to work, it was necessary to press the “pause” button on democracy and, instead, support the ruling military junta. Reversion to democracy, albeit partial, has been achieved as I discovered last month in Yangon through a joint civil military leadership, with the Army having the last word.

At the core of AEP is connectivity — by road, rail, sea, inland waterways and air. The strategic geography in the North-east channelises this outreach through the narrow and sensitive Siliguri corridor, the vulnerable chicken’s neck of the region. Choices for bypassing the Siliguri constriction were to transit through Bangladesh and/or use the sea route to reach insurgency-free Mizoram on the Myanmar border — from Kolkata to Sittwe Port in Myanmar and upto Mizoram.

Earlier, Bangladesh had rejected Indian requests to connect Myanmar through the Port of Chittagong upto Agartala and thence to the Myanmar border. What is being operationalised now is the costly and delayed Kaladan multi-modal access from Sittwe to Myanmar/Mizoram through Rakhine and Chin States, currently beset with insurgencies by the Arakam Army. Therefore, instead of working this project south-north, it has been reversed, starting from Mizoram to Sittwe, which will have a 1,000 km special economic zone (SEZ) and a gas land pipeline from its gasfields to Gaya in Bihar. A number of roads to and through Myanmar to the east are under construction and completion, thus enhancing the AEP connectivity grid.

Unique to Myanmar is the civil-Army joint leadership arrangement under an Army-dictated constitution of 2011, which ensures that 25 per cent of the elected seats in Parliament is reserved for the Army. As the Constitution forbids Myanmar’s popular leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League of Democracy (NLD) from holding office, she is a State Councillor in the improvised system, which allows her the number three position in the State hierarchy after the President and Vice President; whereas the “C” in C Senior General Aung Hlaing, who calls the shots, is at number five. The Constitution reserves the posts of defence, home and border affairs Ministers for the Army.

The NLD wants to change the Constitution, which requires an unachievable two-thirds majority in Parliament. Last week, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi unsuccessfully tried to pass the Constitutional amendment. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is in his second term, which will end in April 2021, and efforts are on to accommodate him as the Vice President. This may introduce a modicum of civilian control over the military. While the Army is popular in the countryside, it is disliked by the urban elite. It disapproves of the overwhelming Chinese presence and meddling in Myanmar’s internal affairs. But others don’t mind them as they have the money to invest and develop the country.

Another historical challenge facing Myanmar is its myriad insurgencies, which like the cluster on the Indian side, is a hurdle for AEP. At the time of independence, many States in the erstwhile Burma had sought self-determination and separation but the Panglong Agreement of 1947 promised to settle Centre-State relations even as the Communists and Karens favoured independence. Today, there are more than two dozen active and dormant insurgencies, the active ones in border States like Shan, Kachin, Chin and Rakhine. The world’s most complex but elaborate peace process is in Myanmar and it consists of unilateral, bilateral and a nationwide cease fire agreements, prone to violations and formal and informal dialogues backed by the international community, prominently by China.

The year 2019 was bad for the peace process. The 21st century Panglong Union Peace Conference with 10 nation-wide ceasefire signatories and the high-level Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting could not be held, though the Union Peace Dialogue took place in July. Both the failed meetings are likely to be held after the national elections later this year, which the Lady — reference to NLD leader Daw Suu Kyi — is expected to win but with a reduced majority. For various reasons, her popularity has waned but there is no alternative leader.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar this January and signed 33 agreements, of which the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (like the economic corridors with Pakistan and Nepal) was the centre piece. All three strategic corridors seek access to markets but two have an eye on warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Surpassing India’s port potential at Sittwe is Kyakpyu, the deep-water port coupled with SEZ and ultimately road, rail, oil and gas pipelines radiating through Myanmar north of China’s Yunnan province. China’s footprint is enormous: There are hordes of Chinese in the north. Though the controversial $3.6 billion hydel dam at Myitsone has been put on hold, bilateral trade stands at $17 billion and China holds 40 per cent of Myanmar’s foreign debt of $5 billion. Xi signed separate agreements with the Senior General and State Councillor while hailing the new blueprint for comprehensive strategic cooperation and the new 2+2 strategic dialogue, Myanmar’s first with any country.

India, though with good intentions and now sizeable civil and defence cooperation, is no match for China’s deep pockets and outreach to play the role of a regional equaliser. Still, its impressive infrastructure and capacity-building programmes have been appreciated.

Japan will team up in improving quality and quick delivery of projects. While the two million, mostly Indian Tamil, diaspora is no asset, the Buddhism connect has not been tested even as Indian tourists are thronging Myanmar. India has transferred a Russian kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine and may soon sell Brahmos missiles against the $1.5 billion line of credit, of which $300 million is left. Border trade — within 16 km — is a paltry $25 million, though overall trade is around $2.5 billion, far below potential.

The flowering of bilateral relations is stalled in part by the complexity of joint leadership and the unstoppable rise of China. While Beijing has cast a string of pearls along India’s periphery, it has placed in Myanmar, an arrestor wire system of an aircraft carrier to blunt the take-off of AEP towards Asean, where China is also the dominant influencer. Myanmar’s full transition to democracy depends on progress in ethnic reconciliation and resolving civil-military tensions through Constitutional reform. Till then, AEP will remain constrained.

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Why Do Democrats And Republicans Disagree

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-democrats-and-republicans-disagree/

Why Do Democrats And Republicans Disagree

Both Republicans And Democrats Cite Masks As A Negative Effect Of Covid

Patrick van KesselDennis Quinn

To gain further insights into these differences, researchers examined each of the nearly 1,000 open-ended responses that mentioned the term mask.

Despite The State Of Our Politics Hope For America Is Rising And So Is Youths Faith In Their Fellow Americans

History Of The Republican Party

Famous Republican Vs Democratic Presidents

To compare the two parties’ presidential candidates in the 2020 elections, see Donald Trump vs Joe Biden.

The Divide Between Political Parties Feels Big Fortunately Its Smaller Than We Think

Image adapted from: Ben Sweet/Unsplash

Why do these misperceptions matter?

Majority Say Climate Change Is Real

Americans who say climate change is real and agree with at least some methods of addressing it whatever their political affiliation have always been in the majority.

He attributes the strength of the hard-line dismissives in part to fossil fuel interests putting money into delaying carbon reduction policies for as long as possible.

According to Yale survey data released Jan. 16, the proportion of Americans who are either dismissive or doubtful about climate change has decreased to 20%, down 5 percentage points since 2014.

The dismissives, people firmly convinced this is a hoax, are the smallest theyve ever been, Leiserowitz said.

Arizona Republicans Enact Sweeping Changes To State’s Early Voting List

What supporters say: It’s meant to cut down on fraud

“In my district over in East Texas, I have a county commissioner under felony indictment … over mail ballot fraud from the 2018 election cycle,” Hughes told Amarillo TV station ABC 7.

“That case in Gregg County involved 38 ballots” that were questioned, the station’s Morgan Duerden noted.

What critics say: There is no widespread fraud

What supporters say:It’s meant to inspire confidence in the voting process

Coronavirus Likely To Supercharge Election

Voter rolls are often the focus of disputes for these reasons.

Likewise with voter identification documents.

Which Party Is Better For The Economy

History Of The Democratic Party

We’re Less Far Apart Politically Than We Think Why Can’t We All Get Along

What’s the solution? More information? More political engagement? More ?

Here Are The Texas Gop’s Reasons For Voting Restrictions And Why Critics Disagree

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“Election integrity legislation will pass during the special session. Period,” House Speaker Dade Phelan said late Monday.

Regulating The Economy Republican Style

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

The Institute Of Politics At Harvard University

April 23, 2021

Top findings of this survey, the 41st in a biannual series, include the following:

Young Americans Are Significantly More Likely To Be Politically Engaged Than They Were A Decade Ago; A Sharp Increase In Progressive Political Values Marked Since 2016

A 19-point increase in agreement with the statement Qualified minorities should be given special preferences in hiring and education .

An 18-point increase in agreement with the statement Government should do more to curb change, even at the expense of economic growth .

A 16-point increase since 2016 in agreement with The government should spend more to reduce .

A 16-point increase in Basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it .

An 8-point increase in agreement with Recent into this country has done more good than harm .

Actually Republicans Do Believe In Climate Change

Dr. Van Boven and Dr. Sherman are social psychologists.

July 28, 2018

It is widely believed that most Republicans are skeptical about human-caused climate change. But is this belief correct?

This raises a question: If Democrats and Republicans agree about climate change, why do they disagree about climate policy?

Red States And Blue States List

Due to the TV coverage during some of the presidential elections in the past, the color Red has become associated with the Republicans and Blue is associated with the Democrats.

Political Party Platforms And The Death Penalty

Reasserts 2016 platforms call for the abolition of the death penalty.

The Republican National Committees Executive Committee voted on June 10, 2020, to adopt the same platform the party used in 2016.

For relevant excerpts of the , see below.

Regulating The Economy Democratic Style

Huge Differences Between Democratic And Republican Platforms

Gallery: Monday night at the DNC 2016 convention in Philadelphia

This post originally ran on July 28, 2016. For the latest on the 2018 Midterm Election, check out our voters’ guide or the on the Menendez vs Hugin race.

— It’s hard to say you don’t have a clear choice this presidential election year.

The and show views of world 180 degrees apart.

At 55 pages, the Democratic document is 11 pages shorter than the GOP platform and mentioned Trump 29 times compared with just one of Clinton in the Republican document.

Here are 10 huge differences in the party platforms:

1. ABORTION

Democrats:“We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.”

Republicans: Abortion should be illegal in all cases and the Constitution should ve amended to ban the procedure.

“We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the platform said.

The GOP argued that supporting the constitutional right to abortion was the “extreme” position.

2. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

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