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Session VII: Strengthening Pan-African Mechanisms and synergies for Monitoring and Reporting on Safety of Journalists.
5:15 - 5:45 pm. International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists 2024.
- Mr. Issaka Garba Abdou (TBC), Head, Governance and Human Rights Division, African Union
- Mr. Omar Faruk Osman, President, Federation of African Journalists (FAJ)
- Mr. Churchill Otieno, President, The African Editors Forum (TAEF)
è Ms. Rachel Nakitare, International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IWRT)
- Ms. Nompilo Simanje, Africa Advocacy and Partnership Lead, International Press Institute (IPI)
#African Editors Forum#unesco#endimpunityday#journalists#reporters#International Association of Women in Radio and Television#media professional#International Press Institute#pan african mechanisms#panel discussion#african union commission
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Bullied over a Freedom of Information request for environmental data
As data reporter, I'm used to working with databases, not being the subject of one.
But following an aggressive episode to persuade me to give up on an FOI request pursuing government transparency sent to the Romanian Environment Ministry, I ended up in a database.
In particular, a map of media freedom abuses, which I warmly recommend to any journalist who has ever faced harassment, threats, humiliation or abuse of any kind in pursuit of transparency.
Media Freedom Map features the particulars of this case, currently under investigation at the Romanian Ministry of Environment - https://lnkd.in/ek9ikRH6.
The International Press Institute has expressed “concern over major obstruction facing journalists in accessing public data on illegal logging and deforestation”.
Difficult access to environmental data is part of EU’s logging infringement against Romania, currently unfolding.
#foi#freedom of information#harassment#bullying#Transparency#government transparency#data journalism#sumal#Environment#logging#logging data#Romania#databases#media freedom#abuse of power#abuse#ipi#international press institute
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#youtube#militarytraining#State Department#Brookings Institution#Diplomatic Relations#Interview#Secretary of State Blinken#International Relations#Top News#Politics#United States#Diplomacy#America#Speech#Global Politics#Current Events#Global Affairs#Government#Foreign Policy#Discussion#Foreign Affairs#World Events#News#Press conference#Blinken#International relations#Secretary of State#World news#U.S. foreign policy#Current events
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Further reading:
HKFP: Overseas Hongkongers, mainland Chinese hold Tiananmen crackdown vigils as city’s tribute suppressed, June 5, 2023
HKFP: Hong Kong police urged to give explanation after journalist taken away on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, June 6, 2023
HKFP: Hong Kong police remove ‘seditious’ Tiananmen crackdown candle banner from Sai Kung shop, June 6, 2023
HKFP: Hong Kong law is ‘clearly stated,’ John Lee says when asked about arrests over Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, June 6, 2023
HKFP: Hong Kong pollster axes release of Tiananmen anniversary survey results, citing gov’t ‘suggestions’, June 6, 2023
#police#Victoria Park#hong kong#hong kong free press#tiananmen vigil#Causeway Bay#Tsui Hon Kwong#Leo Tang#Clement So#UN Human Rights Office#United Nations#Lau Ka Yee#Tiananmen Mothers#activism#tiananmen square massacre#National Taiwan University#NTU Graduate Student Association#International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights#Debby Chan#Mak Yin Ting#Hong Kong Journalists Association#Chan Po Ming#Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute#八九民運#六四事件#Tiananmen Square#天安門事件#八九六四#1989 Tiananmen Square protests#8964
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harry's girl // any!peter parker -- non powered!au/virgin!peter
and she's loving him with that body, i just know it.
❥ you're dating Harry Osborne, Peter's best friend since kindergarten. And that should be totally fine... except Peter can't stop thinking about you. ((NSFW)) ib: jessie's girl by rick springfield.
wc: 6k - should be more, imo but, whatever, i'm lazy.
navigation — mit!au
Peter Parker and Harry Osborne had been inseparable since, basically, birth. Well, except for the four years of high school that Harry's dad had sent him away to private school.
Both boys had tried to stay in touch, but with the distance, and honors classes, and clubs it was difficult.
After high school, both Peter and Harry ended up at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Elated to see one another, Harry had invited Peter to a beginning of the year party being hosted by one of his friends.
Peter tentatively accepted.
He had walked into this house expecting something not completely unlike the grandeur he found. Marble floors, giant windows, and authentic art adorning the magnificence of the estate.
A home so nice, Peter never believed he'd ever step foot in one. Classical music was flowing from all corners of the manor, bringing Peter out of his daze.
I mean, who plays Mozart at a college party?
Except; this isn't college, it's an institute. And this is no mere party, it was a gathering of some of the richest and smartest twenty-something's in the country to drink expensive booze, or liquor rather, and have sex.
A lot of which was already taking place around him.
Peter found an antique looking loveseat in the corner of the drawing room and slunk into it.
He opened his phone, scrolling through a random social feed and allowing his mind to go numb.
"Parker!" A tall, thin boy emerged through the crowd of bodies, smiling from ear to ear.
"Osborne." Peter smiles back, standing to greet his friend.
"I'm glad you made it! I didn't know if it was your scene or not, but I hope you enjoy it all the same."
Peter nodded, looking to Harry's side and making eye contact with one of the most beautiful people he's ever seen. "Oh. Hello," His voice is small.
"Hi," you smile at the charming boy in front of you.
Peter feels himself internally retreat back, instantly self conscious of what you think of him. Was he weird for being on his phone at a party? Were the clothes he picked out wrong? Did he seem uninteresting?
"Ah, Peter. This is my girl," Harry squeezes you closer to him and you both smile as he gives Peter your name.
Having his fear confirmed, Peter gives a tight smile.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter didn't care much for the party. The drinks were nice, but he'd honestly rather be home.
He found himself outside on the porch, propped on the railing and watching his sigh disappear in the cold night air.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Days turned into weeks of school, studying, reluctantly being drug off to parties, and staring at a wall - trying not to notice you and Harry in the corner, making out.
Every now and then, Peter would watch Harry drag you off to one of the bedrooms, trying to ignore the pit in his stomach.
Most often, though, Peter would hide in the bathroom. He was trying to avoid the sight altogether.
That's where he is now. Sat on the edge of the tub, head rested in his hands as he internally screams at himself.
You can't have a crush on your best friend's girlfriend! That's the biggest rule in bro-code! What the fuck is wrong with me?
Peter rubbed his hands down his face. Sighing. His rumination broken by the sudden slam of a door. Giggling and shuffling.
Peter hadn't given much thought to choosing a bathroom that was connected to a bedroom. Until now.
He cracked the door open and the sight before him made his mouth dry. You were pushing Harry onto the bed, scooting your dress down your body.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Peter quickly, but quietly shut the door. Heart pounding, he slides down the wall.
"God, you're so beautiful," Harry sighed.
Peter pressed a fist to his eye. God I'm an idiot.
It wasn't long before he heard moaning, damn near screaming, and dirty talk he'd rather have never heard from his best friend.
"Such a good girl... just like that... fuck."
Peter would cover his ears but it'd do no good. Instead he covers his face, ignoring the twitch in his pants at every single noise you make. He tries not to think about what's going on behind that door.
But his mind keeps flowing back. To you. To your body, your moans. It's not long before Peter is hard and imagining how good it'd feel to be inside you.
He can hear everything. Every time you cum, which has been many. Every time the position changes. Even every time Harry puts his hand around your throat.
It's everything Peter can do to not touch himself right there in the bathroom. He's gripping at the sides of his pants, trying - desperately - to hold out.
Finally, he can hear Harry finish. All three of you out of breath. A kiss. And what sounds like clothes being put back on.
"I gotta go, baby. The boys are wanting me to do a final round of shots with them."
"I gotta go too, my roommate wants me to bring take-out on my way back."
With that, silence follows for the first time in what felt to Peter like hours.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
When Peter got home he ran a cold shower instantly. Scrubbing his body raw and pushing his mind away from anything to do with you.
Harsh indeed, but necessary.
And as he laid down in bed, he tossed and turned all night. The only dreams and thoughts he had were of you.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter Parker awoke the next morning more erect than the night before. He had his subconscious to thank for that.
This began a series of sleepless nights for Peter. Each night restless, and each morning flustered.
He had opted out of the last three parties Harry had invited him to. All being on a Friday night, Peter lied and said he had a weekend full of studying to do.
"Always the most dedicated student, even in your twenties, I see," Harry had mused this afternoon.
Peter gave an awkward nod of his head and walked away.
Later in the evening, Harry had texted Peter.
I know you said you're busy this weekend, but you should drop by my place for some lunch tomorrow.
Peter flopped his phone beside him on the couch, sighing. He hated what his feelings had made of him. He was avoiding his best friend of years all because of a stupid crush.
He picked his phone back up.
I'm sure I can squeeze in a lunch. It better not be that pizza from last time though.
Peter smiled at the memory of the burnt pizza Harry had attempted to make, turning his head back to the tv.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter walked into Harry's apartment, following the information given to him the night prior about the door being unlocked.
He looked around, admiring Harry's decorations. His friend is nowhere to be found. Peter called out,
"Hey, Harry?"
Silence.
Maybe he's getting changed or something.
Peter makes his way back to what he assumes to be the bedroom. He freezes about a foot away from the door. It's wide open. And he can see the whole room.
To put it gently, you and Harry seemed to be having a great time.
You were on top of him, blanket wrapped around your waist with your bare back showing. Soft moans flowing down the hallway.
Peter couldn't take his eyes away from the indents Harry's fingertips were making in your lower back.
Shit.
Peter's pants tightened. He couldn't look away. The way you were slowly rising and falling onto Harry's lap instantly being etched into Peter's mind.
"Fuck... Harry... m'gonna..." you threw your head back.
He had never heard such an angelic sound in his life. Poor Peter believed he might have a heart attack at the sight before him. All he could do was blink.
The echo of your climax rattled its way through the apartment. And finally, Peter came back to earth.
Fuck. Fuck, what if they see me? God, it's gonna look so weird.
A split-second decision had Peter quietly scurrying to the door. How do I keep ending up in these situations? He stepped out into the hallway, catching his breath. Peter tugged his phone out of his pocket, and messaging his friend.
Hey, I'm here.
In a moment Harry was opening the door, sleep shorts the only clothing on his thin frame. He was smiling.
"Peter! I told you the door would be unlocked."
"Yeah," Peter gave a sheepish smile. "I was just nervous."
You and Peter ended up sitting together at a small table in the kitchen while Harry stayed around the stove, cooking.
"Hope you don't mind her joining us, Peter."
Peter feels a pit in his stomach surrounded by the both of you. Too many conflicting emotions swirling in the room for him.
"No problem," he waves his hand. "Only gives me more of a chance to learn about my best friend's girlfriend."
You giggle and give Harry a look only you two understand. Peter looks confused.
"What? I thought you two were... but you said...?"
"Harry and I aren't exactly dating, Peter."
God, his name sounded like heaven coming off your lips. So much so he almost didn't render what you'd said.
"Oh," was all he could allow out without sounding too excited.
"We just enjoy each other's company," you smile.
"And if one of us finds something more permanent, no one's hurt," Harry shrugs.
"Got it," Peter's heart skipped a beat.
So maybe he had a shot after all.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
After brunch you and Peter ended up on the couch, chatting while Harry cleaned the dishes. He had insisted.
Peter had a question long held in his throat. One making his heart pound, no matter the fact that it was a simple question. It was still a question to you, nonetheless.
"So," Peter rubbed his hands on his jeans. "The thing about you and Harry...." God. It was such a simple question. Why couldn't he get it out?
You looked at him, smiling. His mind went blank. Any question he had was forgot.
"What about it?"
Peter scrambled to finish his question. "Uh, do you like it? Him?"
"Most of the time."
"Most of the time?"
"Yeah, it's just-" you pause yourself, finding the right words. "Because of our... arrangement, Harry only focuses on what he needs. Which, I can't complain too much, I do the same. But-" you twitch your mouth from side to side.
"But, I enjoy caring for my partner. And when my partner does the same."
Peter is taking mental notes. He nods his head, ignoring the ache in his crotch at details you give.
"Yeah, I get that."
"Right? And - I enjoy my time with Harry, but he really isn't the kind of man I prefer in bed."
Peter's heart races.
"What kind of man do you prefer?" He pushes.
"Well, Harry's very assertive. And I really like a man to let me do the work. Someone more submissive," Peter please get the hint. You pray.
"Oh." Peter, being as inexperienced as he could possibly be, was confused. He made a mental note to figure out what you were talking about.
You had known the moment you'd met Peter that he was the exact kind of man you needed. Sweet disposition seeping into every facet of him. He was everything you'd been craving for months, if not your whole life, really.
You study Peter, seeing him squirm slightly under your gaze. You scoot closer, pressing your thigh to his. Peter feels a tingle down his back at the warmth you spread to him.
You prop a hand on the back of the couch, toying with the hair at the nape of Peter's neck. He stiffens, then relaxes into your touch. "What do you think, Peter?"
He snaps from his daze. "Uh... about what?"
"Y'know... what would you prefer, with whoever you're with." God, I hope this isn't too forward.
"Oh," he's quiet. Too quiet. You wait with bated breath. "Well, I uh, actually don't know..."
"What do you mean you don't know? A man's gotta know what he likes!" You smile, moving your fingers along his scalp momentarily.
"I, well," Fuck, Peter, just spit it out. But really how is he supposed to tell the woman of his dreams, best friend's girl, the most amazing person he's ever met; that he's never done anything more than kiss a woman? And it wasn't more than a peck at that.
You wait, staring at him with wide eyes. You hope he feels the same as you. About a lot of things, really. But especially this.
"I wouldn't really know. Because," he takes a breath, eyes anywhere but you. "I've never really done anything to be able to learn what I like."
You smile. Not a malicious nor mocking smile, but a genuine, heartfelt, earnest smile. "Peter," it almost sounds chastising. "You don't need to do anything with anyone else to know. You just need to know what turns you on the most."
"Hm?" Peter's lips are pressed tight as he moves his honeyed-brown eyes back to yours.
"What can you think about, or watch, that gets you off the quickest?" You let your nails lightly drag across the back of Peter's neck, watching as he shivers from your touch.
He shifts uncomfortably, feeling your eyes on him. How the hell did he get himself in this situation? Beginnings of a hard-on in his pants, your fingers dancing on his skin, and mind a mess of any thoughts other than the one he needs to be having.
Peter never really watches porn. He's heard of it, of course. He's seen the memes about the websites, screenshots of funny faces - but when he's alone with himself, he usually just closes his eyes and waits for it to be over. How does he tell a woman like you that? Without sounding like the weirdest person ever?
"I, uh... don't know..."
You huff a laugh through your nose. "Well if you ever figure it out, I'm curious to know what gets a cute boy like you off," you smile and stand, ruffing Peter's hair as you walk towards the kitchen.
'She called me cute. She wants to know what gets me off. Maybe I have way more of a shot than I thought.'
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Later that night, Peter rested against the headboard of his bed. He stared at the search bar on his phone, a familiar orange and black logo in the top corner.
Peter wracked his brain, trying to figure out what to look up to understand what you meant.
And I really like a man to let me do the work. Someone more submissive.
Peter sighs, typing 'submissive man' and holding his breath as he hits enter.
The videos the boy is left to find stir something deep in his stomach. The leashes, the ropes, the positions, the words.
It's not long before Peter's hand makes its way into his pants. He's pumping himself breathlessly, struggling to keep his phone steady. He's imagining you. You doing exactly to him what they're doing in the videos.
God, it's perverse. It's depraved and even a little bit carnal. It doesn't take long for beads of white ejaculate to roll onto Peter's hand. He trembles and whines.
Shame washes over Peter like a hot wave upon the sand. Fuck. He's so stupid. So gross. Thinking of his best friend's girlfriend like this. Peter drops his phone beside him, rubbing his face with his undefiled hand
Technically they aren't really 'together'. Says the sanguine voice in the depths of Peter's mind. But wouldn't it still be weird? Obviously not to Peter if this is how he thinks of you in his spare time.
Regarding his thoughts of you; his mind dances back to before, imagining how your lips would feel on his neck, hand around his cock, whispering sweet praises and he begs you to let him cum. He's definitely hard again.
"Fuck," he whines. Peter's hand returns to his cock, throbbing in his fist. He bites down on his shirt collar to keep from whimpering too loud and begins to fuck into his hand again. This time more forceful than the last. He's squirming under your imagined touch, shaking as his mind races to fantasize about you holding him down, having your way with him.
And there he goes again, bursting at the seams with his desire for his best friend's girl.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter finds himself over at Harry's place more frequently than before. The lie he tells is that he hates being home. Not a complete lie, but not a complete truth either. The thought at the forefront of Peter's mind: how can I spend more time around her?
And it works. You and Harry believe him, though anything that keeps Peter around you won't look into too much. Harry makes or orders food, he stops asking Peter out to parties - inferring his best friend's aversion for them.
Sometimes, late at night, you and Harry talk about him.
"So what do you think of Peter?" He'll ask.
Your hand dances on Harry's chest, swirling circles and stars. "I think he's cute," you'll admit. "He's very sweet, and shy. It's endearing."
Harry will nod his head along. "I think he likes you," said nonchalant because it is. Harry always is. "Have you noticed?"
"Do you think so?" Risking sounding too eager is an irrelevance.
"Sweetheart, if you could see the way he looks at you, you wouldn't be questioning me right now."
You smile to yourself before pausing. "Would that be weird for you? Seeing your best friend with someone you've fucked?"
He smiles down at you. "If they looked at each other the way you two do, not at all. I'd wish them the best."
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Somehow, you ended up with Peter's number. Somehow, you ended up texting him all night, every night. And somehow, neither of you minded.
Endless conversations about mindless nothings. Just getting to know each other. There were plenty of times where Peter would worry about Harry. He'd reassure himself that his best friend said he wouldn't care and either way, there was nothing going on between the two of you.
And then, you'd send a goodnight text with a kiss beside it. Or a good morning text with a pet name in it. And Peter's heart would flutter.
You often discussed school and home lives. That's how Peter found out that you attends MIT as well, and that you live in an apartment with a roommate who chews too loud but is otherwise fine. And, more importantly, how he found out that you don't spend as much time with Harry as Peter's past predicaments would make it seem.
This is how you find out Peter lives alone in a tiny apartment near the university, that he has a tendency to stress himself to death, and that he's more lonely than he seems.
Leading you to the text you'll send today.
I've heard rumors of an amazing coffee shop near your place. Wanna come with?
Sent at the perfect time for him to have just gotten home from his last class. You knew he needed a break, he was working himself too hard on one class alone.
Absolutely! Meet you there?
Peter's chest tingled and he responded. A date? No. But almost.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter made it to Mug & Meadow about four minutes before you, waiting by the door.
When you arrived, he held the door for you. Ever the gentleman.
A wave of warm air washes over you. The scent of espresso mingling with burnt vanilla. You step onto the dark wood floor, taking in your surroundings while Peter lets the door swing closed.
Dark, chocolate colored walls matching the wooden floors, except, around the counter has a black and white, diamond-tiled design. Arched windows across the front of the store. Warm lighting pieces scattered about the ceiling.
Light jazz dancing through hidden speakers, soft chatter melding with the beats. Wow. You smile and turn back to Peter, seeing him taking in the surroundings as well. He looks to you, smiling back.
After ordering, Peter tells you to find a seat while he waits on the drinks. You choose a two seated table off to the side. A window to one side and the rest of the store to the other. A nearby bookshelf calls your name.
Peter finds you with your nose off in a leather-bound collection of Robert Frost works. "This place is nice," he sets the cups down on the provided coasters.
You place the book down on the hardwood table, old wax sticking to your fingers ever-so-slightly.
"Yeah," you give your breathless response. "I love it."
"Already? But you just met it," Peter jokes.
"When you know, you know," you sip from your steaming cup. "Who says I don't believe in love at first sight?" You give Peter a knowing look.
He falters. "Uh, well, I was talking to the barista and he said this place is also a library. Which is super cool," He's redirecting.
"Really? That's awesome."
"Yeah, it's something to do with the fact that the owner is like a simi-famous author with the last name Meadow, hence the name," Peter waves a hand up, referring to the shop.
"We definitely have to come back here forever," You take another sip of your drink.
Already booking our next almost-date.
⡠﹞⚘﹝⠢
Peter's stomach swirled, heart beating fast. He was pacing around his living room. A small space, albeit well decorated thanks to May's input and Christmas presents from last year.
"When you have girls over, you'll thank me for helping," And here he is now, mentally thanking her.
You'd asked Peter when the three of you were hanging out at Harry's place last weekend if you could come over. Just you. No Harry this time. A simple question. 'I just wanna hang out with you," it was all you'd given as a reason and it was more than Peter needed to say yes to you.
He's started to say yes before you even explained, not needing a reason more than just seeing you. But the nerves from being alone with you had started to get to him.
Maybe I should've said no. What if she thinks im weird? Especially without the cover of Harry's coolness, Peter felt almost naked. He checked his phone as it chimed.
Google maps says I'm a block away!
Peter nearly chokes on his tongue. Shit, shit, fuck. Okay, how does everything look? There's no messes, no gross smells? Oh, god, how do I look? He ran back to the mirror in his bedroom, double checking his whole outfit.
A simple look. Jeans, sneakers, and a black hoodie layered with a red flannel over it to combat the mid-fall/early winter Massachusetts weather.
Peter brushed his dark curls into place with his fingers, tucking any loose hairs away. He cups a hand over his mouth, letting out hot breath. He brushed his not even five minutes ago, but let his anxiety get the better of him.
A knock on the door and the ding of his phone send his mind flying. Peter takes a deep breath and checks his phone as he walks to the door.
37D right? If so, I'm here!
He slips the phone into the pocket of his jeans and calms himself, reaching for the door handle. "Hey," he smiles wide, happy to see you despite his nerves.
"Hello," you smile back, nearly losing yourself in his warmth. Late November on a cloudy day indoors, and you feel you might get a sunburn. "I brought the takeout we talked about!" You shake the bag excitedly.
"Did you get the egg rolls? It's the only way I can grant you admittance into my abode, I fear."
"I have, although I'm sure you wouldn't leave a fair maiden out in the cold, would you?" You laugh.
"Never one so pretty," Peter steps to the side, guiding you into his apartment. He shuts the door behind you, offering to take your coat, hanging it on the rack beside his door.
"So what movies did you pick? Only the best I'm sure."
"What makes you say that? I could have a real shit taste in movies you know. What if I only watched the Shrek movies?"
"Oh no!" You giggle. "I gotta go."
So far, Peter feels like he's doing great. He's got you to laugh twice and the smile on your face has yet to falter.
You set the takeout on the coffee table and Peter helps you set everything up, begging you to let him do it because you're the guest. You insist on your help.
Within minutes; your laying with your legs over Peter's lap, throw blanket over your legs, plates of food in hand and the movie's starting.
"Can I know what movie this is?"
"Shh, it's starting," Peter squeezes your leg, spreading warmth throughout your body. "And no, it's a secret."
For the duration of the movie you find yourself scooting closer and closer to Peter. Eventually, both your hearts are pounding in your throats as Peter wraps his arm around you, pulling you tight against his side. You wrap your arm around Peter's waist.
He's trying not to breathe too quickly. Efforts fail when you bury your face in his neck, hot breath fanning across his skin. He stiffens slightly. You notice.
You glide your hand from where it rests around his waist to his thigh, rubbing lightly. Peter is trying his best to focus on the movie and definitely not the growing ache in his pants.
You nuzzle your nose below his jaw, purposely breathing against his neck again. Peter lets out a sigh, not a negative one, more so a breath he'd been keeping in. Perhaps for as long as he's known you.
Peter finds himself stretching his hips forward. More subconsciously than anything. You take the chance, heart in your throat, and slide your hand over Peter's crotch.
God, is this actually happening? Peter's mind is trying to find any way he could be misreading this. Oh, shit. You press your palm into Peter's lap.
He looks down at you, a new emotion in his eyes. You share the same look in yours. A beat of a moment passes and you're sending Peter's head reeling and you slowly move closer. Sharing breath and keeping his eyes locked with yours all the way up until you close your eyes and press your lips against his.
With a body full of confidence and a mind full of you, Peter kisses back. It's sweet and gentle like him, yet as needy and passionate as you. He hums and you melt at the sound.
You feel his bulge grow under your hand and you keep your movements soft. Earning whines from him kissed into your mouth. You hold his crotch tight and rub your thumb up and down. Peter huffs into you and pushes his hips against your hand. He's never experienced as much pleasure in his life as he has right now and yet, he finds himself nearly begging for more.
You oblige to his unspoken request and straddle his hips. The broken kiss causing a fleeting warmth between you. "And this is okay?" Your words are sincere and nearly concerned.
"Nothing has ever been more okay than this," Peter puts a hand on the back of your neck, pulling you to kiss him. You both smile.
You press your hips into him, earning the cutest whimper you've ever heard in your life. You grind yourself into Peter's growing bulge and he rests his head against the back of the couch, moaning loud.
The boy in front of you looks like a dream. Face flushed, dark ochre curls a mess, lips parted as his head lay back. You use the opening to kiss at his throat, leaving marks you know won't fade anytime soon.
With each rock of your hips Peter moans louder. Having never had a man as vocal as him, you drink up all he'll offer. You have that pretty bulge of his trapped right against your hips, exactly as you want him.
Your movements are getting faster, as are Peter's moans. Whimpers only increasing your need for him.
Peter can hardly stand it. He's gripping your hips about as tight as he can, trying to hold himself back but fuck the pressure feels so good, and you look so hot right now. Your kisses are sending chills down his spine.
He pulls you to kiss him on the mouth, needy and fervent. Your mouths move in unison, an unspoken rhythm known only to the two of you.
You grab his hair and pull his head back. "Fuck," he chokes, looking down at where your grinding against him.
You feel his cock twitch inside his pants, begging to be touched, pleading to be sucked off. You switch your pace to an even tempo with hard pushes and watch as Peter's eyes darken under you.
Peter grabs your hips tighter, and goes still. He lets out a low whine. You feel his hips jolt beneath you and you pause. His face is flushed a deep rose all the way to his neck.
You stare in disbelief. Peter hides his face in your neck, holding your body close. You look beneath you, seeing a dark spot form in Peter's jeans.
"Aw, baby," you pull his face from your neck, looking him in the eyes. "Don't be embarrassed, that's so fucking hot."
It's Peter's turn to hold the look of disbelief. "Really?" Every ounce of shame draining from his body by the look on your face alone.
"Absolutely. I've never made a man cum from so little before."
Peter's sigh of relief doesn't go unnoticed. You smile and kiss his cheek, loving and kind, same as him. You quickly kiss down his neck, making way towards his pants. You slide onto your knees on the floor between Peter's legs.
He's breathing fast again. Fingers restlessly fidgeting beside him. He's not sure he believes what's happening is real. There's no way you're between his knees right now, looking at him like that.
Peter holds a breath as your fingers move to the button on his pants. His zipper deafening in the surrounding silence. You press a kiss to the wet spot in Peter's boxers, looking him directly in the eyes as you do. You feel him twitch against your lips.
There's no way...
You gently pull him out of his underwear, shock evident in your eyes when you see he's hard again, cock covered in his own cum. Peter twitches at the contact, more sensitive than ever.
"Fuck, Pete... that's so hot."
Never in his life. Never did Peter believe he'd ever experience anything like this. To be honest, he'd convinced himself he'd die a virgin. Sad, true, but a reality to him all the same.
You slowly, teasingly, stroke Peter's length and watch as his hips shake. "F-f-fuck..." You run your thumb over the tip of his cock, biting your lip with anticipation.
You can't help yourself, can't stand it any longer. You wrap your mouth around the head of Peter's dick, the taste of his cum has you rolling your eyes back into your head. Peter whines and you take him in, all you can fit.
His strangled moans fill the room as you work him up. Peter can hardly breathe, swapping between looking at the ceiling and you.
The noises from you are lewd. That alone would have Peter finishing faster than ever if not for his sheer determination to experience this pleasure for as long as he can. That said, he's still not going to last long. You can tell.
You pull off of him with a pop, watching the mixture of cum and saliva flow down his shaft.
"Fuck, that was-- you're amazing," Peter's dopey smile stretches his cheeks.
"Just wait until you're inside me, Peter."
Peter chokes at the implication. His dick twitches on his lap. An aching boner growing once more.
He watches as You begin to undress yourself, slowly, in front of him. Taunting his erection with each piece of exposed skin. Your shirt is the first to go, immediately exposing your hardened nipples.
Peter's struggling to keep himself together.
You slip your jeans down your legs, giving Peter a show with each fabric gone.
Instinctually, Peter wraps a large hand around his aching, sensitive cock. He slowly pumps himself.
You grab his wrist, grip firm. "Did I say you could touch yourself?" You're completely naked, eyes stern as they look into Peter's.
"No..."
You raise an eyebrow, silently asking.
"No, ma'am," Peter is so unbelievably turned on right now.
"Good boy," you smile, releasing his wrist and kissing his cheek.
God.
You step close to Peter, grabbing his hand. "Feel how wet I am for you," Peter feels he might faint before even touching you. He presses a finger between your folds. Fuck, you're soaked. "That's what you do to me."
He looks up at you, pleading. He nearly whispers your name. "I need you."
Those words are all you need to plant your legs on either side of his hips. You reach between your bodies and wrap your hand around Peter's length. He moans. You glide his tip along your slit, soaking him in your arousal.
Peter violently grabs the arm of the couch, white-knuckling the fabric. You slide his cock inside you and you lower your hips. Moaning loud at the sensation of him filling you up. Peter's panting, staring between the two of you in disbelief.
No way this is actually happening right now. Fuck, she's so tight. So warm, so amazing...
You slowly begin to bounce on Peter's lap, loving the way his eyes and head roll back. "Fuck, Pete."
You place your hands on his shoulders, picking up a pace near intense. Your lips find his in a heated embrace. Moans slipping from both your mouths like a symphony of pleasure.
Your body squeezes around Peter's cock and he's brought to the edge all too quickly. You wrap a hand around his throat, squeezing the pulse points. He grabs your hips so tight you're sure you'll have marks left. You don't mind at all.
"God, you're so good. So, fucking, good. Please... don't stop," he's panting, out of breath and dizzy from pleasure. Peter never believed this would be his first time. Not with you. Not like this. Not this amazing. It's the most euphoric sensation he's ever felt in his whole life.
"I want you to cum inside me, Pete, please," your voice is pleading, needy.
"But--"
"--I'm on the pill. Peter. Please. Cum inside me."
Never needing to be told more than twice; Peter pulls your hips down against his own, holding you hard against him. He cums deep inside you, shaky whine echoing throughout the apartment.
He rests his head against your chest, huffing. You tangle your fingers into the hair on the back of his head. He kisses between your breasts, slowly moving to your neck. "Fuck, you're amazing," Peter pants between kisses to your hot skin.
You hum, kissing the top of his head. "I take it you enjoyed your first time?"
Peter's head snaps back up to you. "How did you--"
"--Peter..." Please don't make me tell you how obvious it is. He turns red, hiding his face in your neck.
"God, that's so embarrassing."
"Not at all, it's actually really hot."
"Really?" His eyes shine beneath you.
"I've always wanted to be someone's first. And the fact that it was you, Peter...."
Peter kisses at your chest again, moving to leave matching marks to his own on your neck. You let out a small, yet heavenly, moan. When he feels the way your body squeezes around his, he whines and presses an embarrassed face into your neck. His arms wrapping tightly around you.
You feel him harden inside you, gasping. "Peter."
This is going to be an amazingly long night.
i will most definitely be reusing that coffee shop description in future fics - i love it!
very proud of this one - please remember likes are appreciated but comments and reblogs mean the most <3
#𝙢𝙞𝙩!𝙖𝙪 ⋆˚࿔#parker#peter parker x reader#pete#tasm peter parker#peter parker smut#peter parker fanfiction#peter parker fic#peter parker#peter parker x dom!reader#peter parker x reader smut#tasm peter x reader#tasm peter parker x reader#tasm!peter parker#tasm peter parker imagine#tasm x reader#tasm spiderman#tasm!peter x reader#tasm!peter x you#tom!peter parker x reader#tom peter parker#mcu!peter parker x reader
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“The Israeli military has a history of attacks on media structures,” Carlos Martinez de la Serna explained. In May 2021, a tower housing the Qatari media organization Al Jazeera and the American news agency The Associated Press (AP) was destroyed by three missiles, on the basis, the Israeli military claimed, of an imminent threat posed by Hamas’s presence in the building. When questioned publicly, Israel provided no evidence to support this claim. Since October 7, 2023, the phenomenon has taken on unprecedented proportions. In response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli soil, the Israeli military has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip, a 365-square-kilometer territory barely larger than Malta. News coverage in the Gaza Strip has become extremely limited. “When you look at the conflicts around the world … you would usually have the international media on the ground,” said Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “None of them have been allowed access. Or they’re embedded within the IDF.” Only Gazan journalists can report on what is happening in the Gaza Strip. They struggle daily to survive and find places to take refuge. In many cases, their places of work no longer exist. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), around 70 press organizations, including local radio stations, news agencies, transmission towers, and journalist training institutes, have been partially or completely destroyed since the start of the war. Forbidden Stories has carried out this investigation in collaboration with AFP, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, Le Monde, Paper Trail Media and other international media outlets as part of the Gaza Project. Supported by the analyses of experts in ballistics and audio, it illustrates one of the many strategies used by the Israeli military to stifle information in Gaza: the destruction of press infrastructure.
25 June 2024
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How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth
It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.
The field of International Relations has studied the enemies of the Klept in detail: the Transnational Activist Network is a well-documented phenomenon. But far more poorly understood is the Transnational Uncivil Society Network, who will polish any turd of sufficient wealth to a high, professional gloss.
These TUSNs are the subject of a new, timely scholarly paper by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw and Ricard Soares de Oliveira: "Transnational Uncivil Society Networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism," published in last month's European Journal of International Relations:
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e5a3052-c693-4991-a7cc-bc2b47134467/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cooley_et_al_2023_transnational_uncivil_society.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article
The authors document how a collection of institutions – some coercive, others organized around good works – allow kleptocrats to take power, keep power, and use power. This includes "wealth managers, company providers, accounting firms, and international bankers" who create the complex financial structures that obscure the klept's wealth. It also includes "second citizenship managers and lawyers" that facilitate the klept's transnational nature, both to provide access to un-looted, prosperous places to visit, and boltholes to escape to in the face of coup or reform. It includes the real-estate brokers and other asset facilitators, who turn whole precincts of the world's greatest cities into empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while ensuring that footlose criminal elites always have a penthouse to perch in when they take a break from the desiccated husks they've drained dry back home.
Of course, it also includes the PR managers and philanthropic ventures that allow the klept to launder their reputation, to make themselves synonymous with good deeds rather than mass murder. Think here of how the Sacklers used charity to turn their family name into a synonym for culture and fine art, rather than death by opioid overdose:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed
Beyond providing comfort to "Politically Exposed Persons" and "High Net-Worth Individuals," TUSNs are concerned with neutralizing TANs. Activists in these transnational networks play an inside-outside game: in-country activists will recruit peers abroad to bring attention to the crimes of their local kleptocrats. These overseas partners target the klept in the places they go to play and spend, spoiling their fun – and if they succeed in getting corrupt leaders censured abroad, then in-country activists can leverage that bad press to fight the klept at home.
To fight this "Boomerang Effect," TUSNs seek to burnish corrupt officials' reputations abroad, getting their names on humanitarian prizes, beloved sports teams, cultural institutions and great universities. They seek to capture international governance institutions that might wrong-foot kleptocrats, co-opting them to enable and even celebrate looters.
When it comes to elite philanthropy, TUSNs are necessarily selective. Kleptocrats' foundations don't fund anti-kleptocratic groups – they stick to "education, public health, the environment and the arts." These domains steer clear of human rights questions that might implicate their benefactors. Russian oligarchs love children's charities and disability rights – provided they don't target the Russian state.
If charitable giving is reputation laundering's carrot, then "reputation management" is the laundry's stick. Think of organized copyfraudsters who clone websites that have criticized their clients, then backdate the articles, then accuse the originals of infringing copyright in order to get them de-listed from Google or taken offline altogether:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops
Reputation managers also spend a lot of time in court. In the UK – the world's leader in libel tourism, thanks to a legal system designed to let posh monsters sue muckraking journalists into silence – Russian oligarchs have perfected the art of forcing their critics to shut up and go away:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/04/londongrad/#enablers
Indeed, London is a one-stop shop for the global klept, a place were forelock-tugging Renfields will buy you a Mayfair mansion under cover of a numbered company, sue your critics into silence, funnel your money into an anonymous Channel Islands account:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/07/the-klept/#pep
They'll sell you whole galleriesworth of "fine art" that you can have relocated to a climate-controlled container in a Swiss or Irish freeport:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#moneylab
They'll give your thick-as-pigshit progeny a PhD and never check to see whether he wrote his thesis himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE%E2%80%93Gaddafi_affair
Then they'll hook you up with a cyber-arms dealer to hunt your enemies by capturing their devices:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas
But don't let Brexit stop you from shopping for bargains on the continent. The Golden Passports of the EU – available in a variety of flavors, from Maltese to Cypriot to Portuguese – offer the discerning failson access to the luxury good shops and fleshpots of 27 advanced economies, making it a favorite of the Khmer Riche – the junior klept of Cambodia's ruling faction:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/
But golden passports are for amateurs. Skilled klepts travel on diplomatic passports, which offer the twin benefits of free movement and consequence-free criminality, thanks to diplomatic immunity. The former Kazakh dictator's son-in-law enjoyed a freewheeling diplomatic life in Vienna; one daughters of the dictator of Tajikistan had a jolly time as an envoy to DC; another, to London (where else?).
All this globetrotting serves a second purpose: when rival elites seize power back home and force the old guard into exile, those ex-monsters can show up in the lands they called their second homes and apply for asylum. It turns out that even bomb-the-boats UK will welcome any asylum seeker who enters via the private jet terminal at City Airport (to be fair, these "refugees" have extensive properties in Zone 1 and country places in the Home Counties, so they won't need housing).
This stuff works. After Kazakh state goons murdered at least 14 protesters at a Zhanaozen oil facility in 2011, human rights groups around the world took up the cause. But they were effectively neutralized by TUSNs, with former UK PM Tony Blair writing on behalf of the Kazakh government to the EU condemning any kind of international investigation into the mass killings (add "former Prime Ministers" to the list of commodities for sale in the UK to sufficiently well-resourced murderer).
The authors close their paper with two case-studies. The first is of the daughters of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, Gulnara and Lola. And President Karimov was indeed a dictator: he trapped his population within his borders, forced them to use unconvertible scrip in place of money, and ordered the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, plunging the country into international isolation.
But while Uzbeks were sealed within their borders, Gulnara Karimov became an international player, running a complex network of businesses that mixed the products of the nation's oilfields with her family's fortune. She solicited – and received – bribes from Teliasonera, MTS and Vimpelcom, who were all vying for the contract to provide service in Uzbekistan. All told, she extracted more than $1b in bribes, laundering them through Latvia, Hong Kong and New York. She acquired real-estate in France and Switzerland, and her spree continued until her father collaborated with Uzbek security to seize her assets and place her under house-arrest.
Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was Gulnara's estranged younger sister. She and her husband Timur Tillyaev ran the Dubai-based SecureTrade, which did extensive business with "opaque Scottish Limited Partnerships," laundering more than $127m in a single year to offshore accounts in the UAE and Switzerland. They acquired many luxe assets – a jet, a Californian villa, and an LA perfumier.
Lola styled herself as the face of the Karimovas abroad, a "philanthropist and cultural ambassador." She was a UNESCO ambassador and commissioned works of monumental art – and also sued the shit out of news outlets that reported factual matters about her family repressive activity at home. She organized AIDS charities in the name of Uzbekistan – even as her father was imprisoning a writer for publishing a book explaining how to have safer sex.
The second case-study is on Isabel dos Santos, "Africa's richest woman," daughter of Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Isabel's vast fortune stemmed from her personal capture of vast swathes of the third-largest economy in Africa: "telecommunications, banking, diamonds, real estate and cement, among many others." Isabel enjoyed seemingly limitless access to state credit and co-investment, and was given first crack at newly deregulated industries. Foreign firms that invested in Angola were required to "partner" with Isabel's businesses.
Isabel claimed to be a "self-made woman" – a claim credulously parroted by the western press, including the FT. She used her homegrown fortune to become a major player abroad, especially in Portugal, where she was represented by the leading Portuguese law-firm PLMJ. Her enablers are who's who of corruption-loving lickspittles: McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Boston Consulting Group, and the Spanish BigLaw firm Uri Menendez.
Isabel cultivated a public facade of philanthropic giving and public spirited activism, serving as head of the Angolan Red Cross. She attended Davos and spoke at the LSE (she was also invited to Oxford, but her invitation was subsequently rescinded). On social media, she dismissed critics of her wealth and corruption as "colonialists," decrying their "racism" and "prejudice."
Isabel dos Santos's corrupt sources of wealth were finally, irrefutably exposed through the Luanda Leaks, in which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists mapped the network of "top banks, management consultants and legal firms that were central to dos Santos’s operations."
Both case studies shed light on the network of brilliant, driven enablers and procurers without whom the world's greatest monsters would falter. It's a rare window on a secretive world, one that is poorly understood even by its inhabitants. As Michael Mechanic wrote in Jackpot, his 2021 book on vast, intergenerational fortunes, the winners of the lucky orifice lottery often lack any real understanding of how The Money is structured, grown and protected:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza
This point was reiterated by Abigail Disney, in a brave piece on what it's like to grow up subject to the oversight of these millionaires who babysit the children of billionaires:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste
This is an important contribution to the literature. We naturally focus on the ultrawealthy individuals whose reputations and fortunes are the subject of so much attention, but without the TUSNs, they would be largely helpless.
Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.
On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.
On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/24/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers
Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/
CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
--
Colin (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Westminster_from_the_dome_on_Methodist_Central_Hall_(cropped).jpg
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
#international relations#ir#enablers#consiglieri#lickspittles#plutes#guillotine watch#politically exposed persons#peps#high net work individuals#hnwis#oligarchs#reputation laundering#spyware#renfields#big law#uk#kleptocrats#transnational activist networks#tans#civil society#ngos#transnational uncivil society networks#tusns#slapps#Uzbekistan#Gulnara Karimova#Isabel dos Santos#angola#corruption
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Indigenous People's Day
DR. HENRIETTA MANN Cheyenne
On this Indigenous Peoples' Day, we are featuring Matika Wilbur’s recent publication Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America, published by Ten Speed Press in 2023. Wilbur (b. 1984) is a visual storyteller and member of the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington. She holds a degree from the Brooks Institute of Photography alongside a teaching certificate that has shaped her style of educating through narrative portraits.
Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America, a book born from a documentary project of the same name, resolves to share contemporary Native issues and culture. In 2012 Wilbur set out from Seattle to visit and photograph all 562 plus Native American sovereign territories in the United States.
Wilbur’s engagement with the communities she visited resulted in the creation of hundreds of dynamic portraits and documentation of conversations about “tribal sovereignty, self-determination, wellness, recovery from historical trauma, decolonization of the mind, and revitalization of culture.” She refers to her portraiture approach as “an indigenous photography method” that includes several hours and sometimes days of interaction with the participants, an exchange of energy and gifts, and asking sitters to choose their portrait location. The outcome is a stunning collection of Native narratives and portraits.
GREG BISKAKONE JOHNSON Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians
HOLLY MITITQUQ NORDLUM Iñupiaq
J. MIKO THOMAS Chickasaw Nation
MOIRA REDCORN Osage, Caddo
HELENA and PRESTON ARROW-WEED Taos Pueblo/Kwaatsaan, Kamia
STEPHEN YELLOWTAIL Apsáalooke (Crow Nation)
LEI'OHU and LA'AKEA CHUN Kānaka Maoli
ORLANDO BEGAY Diné
KALE NISSEN Colville Tribes
GRACE ROMERO PACHECO Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
ISABELLA and ALYSSA KLAIN Diné
NANCY WILBUR Swinomish
DR. JEREMIAH "JERRY" WOLFE Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
RUTH DEMMERT Tlingit
MARVA SII~XUUTESNA JONES Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation, Yurok, Karuk, Wintu
Matika Wilbur will be speaking on UW-Milwaukee's campus Thursday, November 16 from 6-7p.m. in conjunction with her exhibition Seeds of Culture: The Portraits and Voices of Native American Women on view at the Union Art Gallery November 16 through December 15, 2023.
-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern
We acknowledge that in Milwaukee we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee homelands along the southwest shores of Michigami, part of North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida, and Mohican nations remain present.
#indigenous peoples' day#matika wilbur#project 562#Ten Speed Press#Native Americans#holidays#UWM Native American Literature Collecton
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So I have to write a press release about a crisis for a fictional organization and I'm allowed to be as unrealistic as I want so long as its in AP format and I show off my crisis communication skills. I am basically treating this as a chance to write fanfic but I don't know what organization to chose so Tumblr gets to pick
#ducktales 2017#fantastic four#scrooge mcduck#tony stark#flintheart glomgold#mark beaks#Norman Osborne#disney#bill cipher#jurrassicpark#monsters inc#disney pixar#pixar#Lex Luther#bruce wayne#batman#Feel free to tell me what crisis ideas you have in mind!#lex luthor#Public relations#pr agency#I thought about doing the company from the rampage video game#I just wanna have fun as the world burns down#freakazoid
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I would like to know more about pup history!
Well, hello, and thanks for asking! Sorry it took a while to respond.
Pup Play as we know it today got its start in 1986 at the International Mr. Leather gathering in Chicago when the partner of a leather artist at the Vendor Market, who showed up in a full-body leather pup suit and a mask crafted by a saddlemaker, started bouncing around the place barking and howling and humping the leather guys as they browsed the whips and chains on display-
-as a protest against the hardcore stoic impenetrable macho attitude that was prevalent among leathermen in those days - the standing joke was that "S&M" stood for "Stand & Model" - breaking through their poser facade, forcing them to interact and engage in a way that was just too cute and endearing to ignore or resist.
Pup Play began as an act of protest at the biggest leather gathering of the year against a cultural and institutional barrier to communication and connection. One guy - one dog - broke through that barrier, and nearly four decades later there are thousands of people around the world who pull on a pup hood and hit the ground or the mats or the dance floor barking up a storm, expressing ourselves in ways that are free and full, in a spirit of joy that at its best can transcend roleplay and allow us to experience, however briefly, "the time when the divorce between human and animal was not yet complete." (Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press, 1972)
That guy, "Ranger", who's a good friend and a real sweetheart, is still active in the scene here in San Francisco and is our "First Pup", the original (and best!). A year later, almost to the day, I came out as a gay man - and when I came out, I came out barking. The man who put me on all fours for the first time was the man who brought me out, my first and only Leather Daddy who set me on this wild path that became a life's work.
I'm Pup Number Two, 37 years on all fours. I taught the first Pup Play workshop on record (San Francisco, August 1997), where I presented the first Trainer/Handler curriculum to a leather audience for use and adaptation, conducted numerous clinics, demos, and performances for groups and clubs across the United States, and showed hundreds of kinksters of all ages and genders how they could find, embrace, and express their "inner canine." Over the past year, I've been giving my presentation/lecture on Pup History online and IRL for pup-and-handler groups; it's been well received and is being expanded with new research from the field for 2025.
For several years Ranger and I were the only ones doing this radical fringe weird thing that was viewed as disgusting and sick and immoral by the leather and kink community, vilified so strongly that for the first decade those of us who practiced this kink did so mostly underground, communicating through word-of-mouth and personal ads in magazines, because if it got around that we liked to bark in the sack we'd have been thrown out of the community as sickos who were barely a step above actual bestialists (a slur that has never been true of our practice or those who practice it).
In the US and Canada from 1986 to 1997, there were only about a dozen known pup players - researchers including myself are actively searching for others from that long-ago time if they even existed - and we had to fight like hell for years to be open about the kink that we loved and to be able to express ourselves openly in this way. That's surprising to many given the popularity of Pup Play today, but it took a lot of hardcore commitment in the face of opposition to get us out from the shadows and into the light of day.
I hope this is a good introduction to our history and that I've expressed it well enough to satisfy your initial curiosity! There's much more, of course, so if there are any particular areas you're curious about, let me know, awoo!
Thank you for asking. "Beast wishes" to you for a happy and humpy New Year!
Woofs + wags, Alpha Pup Bruzr
#information gladly given#animal j. smith#pup play#gay pup#pup history#pup play community#san francisco pup scene#ranger dawg#pup as protest
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baby, you and me are a twisted fantasy
Characters: marine biologist intern!Leehan & siren!female reader
Setting & genre: dark urban fantasy au, angst
Summary: Donghyun finds a captured siren in the basement of the oceanology institute he works for and falls more in love with the sea while you learn that maybe not all humans are all bad.
Warnings: birth name used, blood, needles, cut wounds, captivity, unethical experiments, mentions of unorthodox surgical procedures, bodily alterations (MC’s scales are removed), starvation, drowning, crying, ideation about killing and dying, minor character deaths, lip-to-lip contact that’s not really a kiss? (this gets pretty dark ngl sorry)
Words: 4k
Author’s note: title from aespa - hold on tight. @restlessmaknae, you wanted angst, so i deliver… with love tho! see you in a few hours! <3
Donghyun was in love with the ocean before he was in love with you.
You hated him and everything he stood for before you even met him.
Physical pain was one thing. The way you could feel your lungs collapse, the thirst for just one drop of water before you suffocate, the blood dripping down when one by one your scales were torn out, the burn in your sea-soaked skin drying up…
Being a lab rat was another. It was white coats, needles and gloved fingers prodding into your slippery skin, touching places they shouldn’t with no questions asked. You wished you had enough power to fight back. To scratch, to bite, to kill.
But a bathtub worth of chlorine water was only enough to keep you alive, just barely. You knew they were doing it on purpose, they were smart enough to figure out that they couldn’t keep you locked down if you were stronger. They knew it when they fished you out of the ocean and let you starve, let your skin turn dry and warm. When the first fever hit and your scales started turning stone-like, they finally put you into water from your humid prison just so they could keep experimenting.
You had your eyes closed, too exhausted to move, to react, but you heard their whispers in the white of the room. Human language wasn’t that hard to understand, not with their greed and cruelty. You swore to yourself you would hurt as much as you could at the first chance. You would leave as much damage as you could before ending it all. You would rather have it your way then letting them cast you away like a used toy when they finished taking you apart.
The ocean didn’t forget after all.
Something cold touched your perched lips and your tired eyes fluttered open, waking from your dreamless sleep.
It was his eyes, the first thing you saw. They were the color of wet sand at sunset. They were gentle and kind with the warmth of the Sun. You flinched away nevertheless because you knew this dance, you knew this trick and you wouldn’t fall for it.
Even if every fiber in your body screamed for the water in the glass the boy brought, you turned your head away, letting your long, air-dried hair cover your face. Your cheek pressed against the cold tiles, a little comfort as you ignored the pain of moving with not enough water in your body. You breathed through your mouth harshly, something that didn’t come naturally but you had to learn to do anyway with the poisoned tap water barely reaching your waist in the small space you could call yours.
“You should drink.” Kind Eyes said and even his voice was gentle despite being deep like ocean waves. Humans were so two-faced. How could they lie with not only their words but with their voice too?
“I promise it’s just water,” he added cautiously and anger flared in you.
He knew then. Of course, he knew. That the water they brought you was not to help you but to make you less of a trouble when they unchained you. It made you drowsy, you couldn’t control your own body and dulled your senses. At least it paled the pain too, so when you were lying on their operation tables, you saw the wounds more than you felt them. You were full of zigzag white scars, healed only by water because you were the ocean’s daughter. Such a disappointing one, fallen into the trap of humans.
“Please,” the boy’s voice trembled and it was the last straw because he didn’t get to do that. He had no right to plead when he acted like he was doing you a favour and you were saying no.
You leaped towards him as fast and as hard as you could, your elbow knocking the glass out of his hand that went flying to the ground, leaving shreds of glass and water puddles all over. The metal dug into your wrists as the chains harshly kept you back, your face merely a few inches from the boy’s as you glared at him.
He didn’t even flinch nor did he pull away at the closeness. The other white collared men all looked at you with either disgust or with very human hunger in their eyes. But all of them were afraid of you. They all had their little needles prepared in case you attacked, in case you bared your canines like the predator you were.
This one, he seemed more fascinated than anything. He looked at you like you were a wonder and maybe that was the worst. You wished you could scare him. You wished you could taste his blood to have these humans taste their own medicine. You wished you could drown him in the chlorine of your poor excuse of a bathtub. You wished he stopped looking at you like that.
Because you didn’t know what to do with that.
Somewhere further down the hall of the basement a door opened and closed.
The boy with honey brown hair and doe eyes snapped out of his stupor and quickly stood up, looking around. He looked at the broken pieces of glass on the ground, quickly swept them under the sink with his shoes before looking down at you. His eyes were full of something you couldn’t name. You didn’t see this look on any human before him. It made you hate him even more.
The boy didn’t come back again after that. Not alone at least.
There were footsteps of four people. You could tell with your eyes closed. One of them was the bearded older man who ordered everybody around. He always talked about you like you were his trophy in a fatherly tone yet he treated you like a ragdoll. His voice alone made you want to tear his skin with your nails until he bled, preferably from his artery.
“What you will see, Donghyun-ah, is strictly classified. You cannot tell anybody about this. It could be the discovery of the century. Our institute would be the first to…”
The man kept talking but you tuned out his voice. You became good at that: pretending not to feel, not to hurt. You kept your eyes strictly locked on at one point while the man whom the others referred to as senior doctor touched your turquoise scale-covered fin. You kept your mouth in a firm line when he pressed down hard enough to hurt. You clenched your teeth, breathing through your nose, willing yourself not to move while he grabbed your hair roughly to push it aside, revealing the gills at your neck. You stayed still like a statue, your eyes straight on the boy and his eyes full of horror. You could hear his heartbeat pick up like whispers of the ocean in a shell but you couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or dread, fear or something else. You kept eye contact nevertheless because you wanted him to see it: that you weren’t afraid, that you weren’t there to humor them. You were a survivor, a force of nature, you were the ocean itself and you would have your vengeance one day.
It hurt. Breathing.
The scales on your chest, just above your breasts were still healing from the metal digging into your skin where it was the softest. At weak moments like this, you just wanted to sleep, sleep forever. Become one with the water and the stars.
Sounds of approaching steps alerted you and you braced yourself for one more round of unwelcomed sterile touches and pain. You didn’t let your guards down even when it was the boy with the soft eyes. He might not have been the one cutting and pulling out scales from your skin one by one but he could as well have been. One day he would be.
He approached you slowly but not out of fear. He moved deliberately as if he didn’t want to scare you. He had a cloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. You eyed him warily as he sat down at the edge of the tub.
“I’m going to pour it on you. It might be cold,” he whispered and something deep inside you wanted to snort because this boy clearly had no idea how cold the deepest parts of the ocean were. But you kept silent, gritting your teeth, mentally preparing yourself for the burn, for a trick, for anything other than ease for the pain.
But then the water touched your skin, familiar and ocean-scented, dribbling down from your shoulders across the valley of your chest to your turquoise scaled tail and you felt a little bit more alive. You felt like you could finally breathe and your scales shone just a bit brighter and the angry red scars faded. You didn’t intend to let it show but your shoulders shrugged in relief. Maybe that gave the boy the courage or maybe he was reckless by nature but he moved closer.
“Your wrists,” he explained and before you could have protested, he lightly dabbed over the wet cloth along your metal-cut wrists tied to the not working tap, helping them heal too.
For the first time, it was you who studied him. The way he leaned over you to reach your arm. The concentration on his pretty face. The way his fringe fell over his honey eyes. He was beautiful in his fragile human way. Centuries ago he could have been a prince or a sailor you would have seduced into the waters.
He was so close you could hear his heartbeat clearly like the little chimes on fishing boats. Water was filling up your veins but you could still feel your hunger grow. It would have been so easy. He made himself an easy prey. It made you wonder whether it was just a ploy, whether they were testing you, whether he wanted something in exchange. He must have had some ulterior motives because humans were selfish creatures. Even if he wasn't, his death would have been a small price to pay for freedom.
You didn’t move even when the boy pulled slightly back to check on his work. Not when his gaze lowered to your face and your eyes met. He was so close you could feel his breath on your lips and you would have had to barely push yourself up to meet his. You imagined kissing him until all oxygen left his lungs, leaving his lips chapped and bloody.
You could have drowned him. Right there. In the water of his own body.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?”
You barely recognized your own voice. It had been so long since you had sung, even longer than you had spoken a human language. It surprised the boy too. His eyes widened and he blinked in confusion, but didn’t pull back.
“I could kill you now. I want to kill you,” you told him coldly because he was one of them and they deserved it.
The boy didn’t even flinch.
“Why aren’t you then?” He asked simply, so calm as if he knew no tidal wave came crashing.
“I don’t know,” you admitted because your only explanation was that he was an odd one. “Why are you helping me?”
You weren’t naive enough to expect the truth but you weren’t sure if a lie or pity was more humiliating.
“Nobody would deserve this,” came the answer as if he wasn’t one of the white coated people, as if he didn’t see you as a mere test subject.
“Not even a monster?” You asked with a tilt of your head because you had heard what they said about you, about your kind. You knew the tales mothers used to tell their sons about the beautiful, dangerous beasts of the sea in order to keep them from wandering around. You weren’t more of a monster than those men though. Not even with sharpened teeth and claws.
“You’re the farthest thing from one.” Doe Eyes spoke in the softest tone like he really believed what he was saying. Like he didn’t see your anatomy on a blueprint in those white walled operating rooms. Like he didn’t hear the rumors about you spilling the blood of his peers on capture day. Like the only thing keeping you back from tearing him apart wasn’t hanging on a loose thread.
So this time, you did snort.
“You have no idea.”
They starved you for two whole weeks. You could only keep track of days due to the unexpected daily visits and yet, they would have never guessed that your condition wasn’t worsening rapidly thanks to one of their own.
“I’m sorry,” the boy apologized in his honey voice after the sea water he brought healed the newest puncture wounds on your bare shoulder and you looked up at him in question, confused. “That I can’t do more.”
You couldn’t say you understood him. He was on neither side. He wasn’t with those men who just took and took and took nor was he brave enough to go against them and let you go. He was neither good nor bad yet he was doing more for you than anybody had ever done. You weren’t used to kindness like this, neither from humans, nor from your own kind, so you were wary of him and his apologies. If you had been meaner though, you would have told him that it wasn’t that he couldn’t, it was that he didn’t want to. But you weren’t the type to bite the hand that fed you. And who were you to blame him for his selfishness when you were the same? You both just wanted to survive in a harsh world.
His name was Donghyun, you finally remembered. It burned into your brain cells as clear as the scalper’s cut was into your tender skin when they forced the surgical tool into his trembling hands.
You saw the tears pooling in his eyes and you really didn’t understand why he was crying. You were used to the pain. You were used to being hurt.
Maybe he wasn’t used to being the one to do the hurting but his hands were at least kinder than anybody else’s.
Donghyun sat on the edge of your bathtub when you awoke. The first thing you noticed was that his hands were still shaking. The second was that one of his cheeks reddened in the form of a palm and something heavy and angry pressed down on your chest seeing him hurt.
Comfort didn’t come naturally to you, it wasn’t in your nature yet looking at him then you wished it was. You wanted to reach out to touch, to hold, which was so unlike you catching yourself doing so hit you like a heavy wave. For once, you were relieved that the chains held you back and you couldn’t move. It would have been a mistake to start caring now.
Yet, you started humming an old sea melody, the rhythm of waves washing up the shore on beautiful, calm mornings to fill the silence. It wasn’t enchanted like your singing but this was the most you could do. It wasn’t comfort, it wasn’t care, just to fill the silence, you told yourself.
Still, Donghyun looked at you in awe, his gaze mellow like you were a miracle and not just something broken. It somehow made you feel worse. He wasn’t supposed to look at you like that. Not without glamour.
The next day you carved four lines like a sculptor into the doctor’s old face. His blood was still under your nails when they dumped you in the damp metal cage with no water at all as a punishment. Your tail laid uselessly on the ground and your scales felt heavy on your body. Like this you really felt like a fish out of the water.
Time went differently without having Donghyun around. You didn't even notice how much you got used to his presence until you started missing it. You replayed his voice, gentle and deep, imagined his eyes on you, kind and free of judgement, naive, over and over again.
“Do you miss it? The ocean?” Donghyun had once asked.
It had been a stupid question. It was like asking if you were missing the oxygen but you answered nevertheless. If he wanted to make small talk so bad, you might let it just to hear his voice.
“Every breath.”
“How is it? Tell me about it,” he had prompted softly and you soon learned that he was fascinated by everything you told him about your home, a safe haven and a doom all the same. You had thousands of stories about how vicious the sea could be, how cold and unforgiving, but just as much about its beauty and Donghyun drank them all in. When he told you about the time he learned to swim or when he saved a turtle, you realized: he was nothing like the other white coated men who just wanted to take and take from the waters until they could. Until they drained it from its wonders… and horrors, like you. Donghyun was different, he just wanted to observe and understand. Not that you needed or wanted his sympathy. Or so you told yourself.
When Donghyun held your hand for the first time, you thought you were dreaming. It didn’t seem real. His touch was feather-like, butterfly wing touches against your dry skin. He was so careful as if you could crumble just from his fingertips.
“Hey.”
When you heard his voice, you wondered whether your mind was playing games with you. Whether the lack of water was starting to drive you to insanity finally.
You opened your tired eyes slowly and in the dimly lit basement room, Donghyun’s elegant features came out a little hazy. Or were you dizzy just from the thirst?
“I’m getting you out,” the boy said so confidently as if it was the easiest thing to do. If it wasn’t too exhausting to move an inch of muscle you would have laughed at him. Without the sea, you were nothing. You were less than a pretty shell.
In that state of yours, barely conscious, you couldn’t tell how he managed it: how he got you into a wheelchair or where he got the key to your chains or the card that opened every door but the next thing you knew was rain and wind hitting you in the face, sand and sea on the horizon. The salty air made breathing easier.
It was a typhoon, you could tell. It was the sky’s wraith and oh there was a reason why storms were named after women.
You were halfway down the beach right next to the research institute when the white coated monsters noticed your absence amid the chaos the typhoon caused.
“Stop! Kim Donghyun, don’t you dare!” The doctor’s voice boomed like thunder then it was followed by bitter disappointment when Donghyun didn’t even falter. “I knew she put you under her spell, you stupid child.”
Two long sentences full of curses later the ocean welcomed you in her waves like a benevolent mother welcoming her ungrateful child back in her embrace.
It was like food for the starving, like a drug for an addict in rehab. Being back in the waters made you feel a heady kind of powerful, like you could do anything. You could feel the waves coming, you could taste the salt on your chapped lips, you could feel the hunger and anger come back in full force. You could have just left. Now being able to swim freely without chains, without anybody holding you back, you could have just headed towards the deepest part of the ocean and never look back but you didn’t even think about leaving like that. Not when you could finally sing.
You will drown them all, you thought, a little wicked, because wasn’t it cosmic justice? Letting the sea take them after they had taken you from your motherland?
You could feel the enchantment building up around you, its sound was carried through waves and thunder, the storm helping you make a symphony. Surrounded by the water and its fury you felt power surge through your veins and just like that your siren song filled the air. It really was a bit like a spell, just as much you were a sea witch.
You watched with a content smile as the old senior doctor and all his followers struggled to get to you in the water, getting deeper and deeper. You let them drown one by one as they couldn’t keep up with the storm brewing and the heavy waves took them under. You didn’t pay much attention to most of them, your focus was on your main torturer, the old man, the doctor. You swam up to him with a sweet smile watching his face morph into a blissful grin at your closeness, then you grabbed him by the collar and dragged him underwater. You pierced your sharpened teeth through his wrinkly skin and bled him out like it was poison. You wanted him to suffer like he had done to you. Like they deserved.
Vengeance never tasted so sweet.
It was like waking up from a long slumber when you came to consciousness. Rage and adrenaline had left your body by then, leaving you exhausted in the calm after the storm. The beach was left in ruins all around and that was when you realized that something was wrong. Something was missing. Or rather, somebody.
Donghyun.
In your haste and delirious state, you forgot that even though he helped you, he was human too. That if he stayed close, he was just as affected by your song as all those sailors over the years. Him of all people, the only one who thought you weren’t a monster.
“No,” you whimpered when the realization hit you. “No, please.”
Frantically you looked around, swimming towards the part of the beach where the wheelchair was left, broken. That’s where you found him, near the rocks, lying in the sand, unconscious. Even as you got closer, you couldn’t hear his heartbeat and it was your fault.
You crawled over the sand, right to his side. Even in this state, soaked and pale, sand sticking to his skin and hair, he looked like an angel. But he had water in his lungs and a barely beating heart.
You could have left him there and nobody would have batted an eye, nobody would have even known that you killed one more but the thing was: your kind might have been selfish but you were loyal too. He had saved your life, so now you owed him.
“Come back,” you whispered as you leaned over him, watching his pretty, calm features before pressing your lips to his, evaporating the water from his body just enough to let him breathe. When you pulled back, you could still feel the soft tingle of his lips on yours and you waited until a flutter of his eyelashes showed that he would awake. Then you slipped back into the sea, out of sight, as if you hadn’t even been there in the first place.
You watched from a distance as he was found by an elderly couple and he looked around confused. You watched as he was treated with the kind of care and kindness you could have never given him because you belonged to the cold deep ocean sea and he belonged to the warm soiled land. You had no future together, nothing but a fever dream fantasy.
And if he heard your humming at night when he walked on the beach, some would have called it haunting but some would have called it a confession.
Because you weren’t made for love but he was. He deserved it all and this was the most you could give him. The love of the ocean, untouchable but always present.
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couldn’t find anything about the murdochs suppressing press freedom would you mind sharing links please
ooooooft okay. i do forget that not everyone is aware of these things. but!! if you wanna know why dominant news media in the global north sucks / wanna be more aware of media influence on politics / wanna appreciate succession more - here is a 'fuck the murdochs' reading list
a recent article on the current court case between Fox News (founded by Rupert Murdoch) and Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is claiming defamation after Fox News pushed the lie the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, which led to the Jan 6 riots.
Opinion piece by former Aus PM Malcolm Turnball on why he's leading a campaign requesting a Royal Commission into Murdoch's monopoly over Australia's press and Murdoch's unjust influence on Australian politics
here is a podcast breaking down how Lachlan Murdoch (irl Kendall) is suing an independent paper here in Aus for connecting the Jan 6 insurrection to fearmongering of Murdoch press in the States. like, he is literally suing journalists for accurate reporting. that *is* suppressing freedom of the press by definition.
The Murdochs: Empire of Influence (2022). 6 part documentary featuring historians, journalists, ex-employees etc. covers everything there is to know about the family's role in press and politics from world war 1 up to 2022.
Book: Breaking News: Sex, Lies and the Murdoch Succession by veteran anti-Murdoch journalist Paul Barry. The book is from 2013, but is a thoroughly accessible analysis of on the family's rise
Vanity Fair also recently published this hugeeeeee investigation: Inside Rupert Murdoch's Succession Drama
The official Succession podcast is free and discusses the show's influences pretty openly. it doesn't go super in-depth (probably because they don't want to be sued) but it makes mention and discussion of real events and people that influence the show.
just for good measure: here is a list of every news outlet and publisher and media outlet the Murdoch family own across the US, UK, Europe and Asia. handy for when you do your own research, which you should so you're not reading from *their* sources. The whole reason you have trouble finding this kind of information on them is because they suppress it, or make it hard to find.
like... i know a lot of people don't know this, but Succession is a political satire and is about a very specific group of people who are actively shaping the world for the worst so they can become rich and never live with the consequences. the majority of Jesse Armstrong's work is about how internal dynamics between people in powerful institutions literally shape society. if you don't understand that's what Succession is then you're actually missing a huge part of it. so i hope you, and anyone else who needs it, take a gander at these resources because you won't only understand Succession more, but the state of your local politics and media too.
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If you like Moo Deng please read this:
Disclaimer: Animal Abuse
As I have seen the famous Hippo gaining some popularity I’d like to speak up about the story of Gustavito, the Salvadorean Hippo. This is hard for me to tell as it still haunts me and makes me cry, but I think his story must be told. One day, a group ofn entered his space at the national zoo and violently attacked him with metal sticks and wooden sticks, then hit him several times. The reason? Political reasons. This makes no sense at all, the institutions that were supposed to take care of him failed them and they all gave wrong information and changed his autopsy every god damn time, so to the date, there has been 0 acknowledge, 0 people signaled as the culprits, and 0 statements from the government. International institutions did not care to speak about this matter, but thankfully it was all documented by the press. You can look online: Muerte de Gustavito el Hipopotamo Salvadoreño, if you desire to obtain more information about this matter.
Please share so we cannot forget that zoos in third world countries do not protect the animals and that the government and politics are capable of literally anything in order to obtain fame and pretend they are heroes. Who paid this people to hurt a sleeping and sick Hippo at night? How is it possible that no one looked at any of the faces of whoever entered the zoo? Gustavito made us happy, gustavito had no guilt whatsoever to live in this Shithole country.
Raise awareness and please pray for his soul ♡︎ no matter if you are religious or not, i believe that gustavito meant no harm for this world and that he deserves to be remembered as a sweet boy ♡︎
#moo deng#moodeng#hippo#cute animals#หมูเด้ง#el salvador#tw: animal death#tw: animal abuse#i love moo deng
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of antisemitism after claiming that “ethnic Jews” are seeking to “tear apart” the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian leader’s controversial statements, which came during his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, were the latest in a series of similar outbursts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that have either directly or indirectly targeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.
“These are people without any beliefs, godless people. They’re ethnic Jews, but has anyone seen them in a synagogue? I don’t think so,” Putin stated during the flagship event, which is broadcast live on Russian state television and traditionally runs for hours. “These are people without kin or memory, with no roots. They don’t cherish what we cherish and what the majority of the Ukrainian people cherish as well.”
Putin’s comments came as the Ukrainian authorities seek to limit the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which is seen as closely tied to the Kremlin. Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill has emerged since 2022 as an outspoken supporter of the invasion, which he has sought to defend on spiritual grounds. His backing for the war has shocked many and sparked international criticism, with Pope Francis warning him not to become “Putin’s altar boy.”
Many commentators have noted the similarity between Putin’s recent attack on people “with no roots” and Stalin’s earlier Soviet era persecution of Jews as “rootless cosmopolitans.” The Kremlin leader’s comments also offered alarming echoes of Russia’s most notorious antisemitic fake, the early twentieth century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which alleged a Jewish plot to take over the world by infiltrating and destroying Western institutions.
Putin and his Kremlin colleagues have faced multiple accusations of antisemitism since 2022 as they have sought to defend Moscow’s claims to be “denazifying” Ukraine despite the country’s popularly-elected Jewish president and its role as a prominent destination for Jewish pilgrimages. This toxic trend has included frequent attacks on Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage. “I have a lot of Jewish friends,” Putin stated in June 2023. “They say that Zelenskyy is not Jewish, that he is a disgrace to the Jewish people. I’m not joking.”
Following these comments, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum accused the Russian leader of repeatedly employing “antisemitic lies” to justify the invasion of Ukraine. US officials have been similarly critical. “President Zelenskyy’s Jewishness has nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine and Putin’s continued focus on this topic and “denazification” narrative is clearly intended to distract from Russia’s war of aggression against the Ukrainian people,” commented US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt in 2023.
Similar slurs feature regularly in the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media, with leading propagandists such as Vladimir Solovyov known for questioning the authenticity of Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity. Meanwhile, during the initial months of the invasion in spring 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to a question about the absurdity of “denazifying” a country with a Jewish leader by claiming that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.” Lavrov’s remarks sparked outrage and were branded “unforgivable” by Israeli officials.
Many within the Jewish community see Putin’s most recent inflammatory comments as part of a broader trend that is legitimizing antisemitic tropes and raising serious safety concerns. “This is just one example of his regime’s explicit and virulent antisemitism, which has intensified following his 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” commented Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis and former Chief Rabbi of Moscow, who fled Russia following the attack on Ukraine after coming under pressure to publicly endorse the invasion. In December 2022, Goldschmidt warned of rising antisemitism in Putin’s Russia and advised Jews to leave the country.
Goldschmidt is now appealing to the international community to address the antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin. “As a representative of Jewish communities across Europe, and someone who was forced to flee my home and community in Moscow, I call on Europe and the free world to unequivocally condemn President Putin’s dangerous propaganda before it spreads further,” he stated.
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Italy: Public service RAI becomes a “megaphone” of the government
Public service broadcaster RAI has decided to grant ministers and undersecretaries unrestricted airtime on its programs when referring to institutional matters. On 11 April, journalists and news hosts on the main channels of RAI interrupted news programs to read a statement from the Rai Union of Journalists (USIGRai) statement explaining RAI’s new policy, and condemning it, comparing RAI to the government’s “megaphone”. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) together with their affiliate the Federazione Nazionale Stampa Italiana (FNSI) condemn this further attempt to politicise public information services for propaganda purposes and demand that RAI respects fundamental journalistic principles.
“The government majority has decided to transform RAI into its own megaphone,” so began the speech of USIGrai journalists in the aftermath of the policies announced by RAI’s Supervisory Commission. This approved a rule allowing government representatives to “speak in talks without time constraints and cross-examination”.
The statement continued: “This is not our idea of public service broadcasting. Journalists’ work should be central, where they ask questions, even uncomfortable ones, verify what has been said, and point out inconsistencies. For this reason, dear viewers, we inform you that we are ready to mobilise to guarantee you independent, balanced and plural information."
Another rule will allow Rai News to broadcast political rallies at any time, and in full, announced only by a short introduction and without journalistic mediation
RAI’s decision illustrates once again Italy’s government's attempts to make use of public service for personal and propagandistic purposes, and in contravention of the main pillars of journalists' work.
President of FNSI, Vittorio di Trapanisaid: “RAI News risks becoming a deluge of electoral rallies, trampling on the editorial autonomy of its journalists and its editorial team.”
The IFJ/EFJ stated: “We stand in full solidarity with RAI journalists, whose press freedom and ethical principles are being undermined by the Italian government. We remind RAI of its need to respect fundamental journalistic principles as they are stated in the IFJ Global Charter of Ethics for journalists. We ask the Supervisory Commission to review its decision and to allow transparent and pluralistic information in compliance with the principles of cross-examination and the public interest.”l
Source: IFJ
#italy#italia#politics#protest#journalism#journalists#public service#fascism#censorship#april 2024#2024#giorgia meloni#governo meloni#press#italian press#rai news#rai#rai 1#rai 2#rai 3#right wing extremism#right wing#right wing politics
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Israeli soldiers are no longer shooting and crying. They are shooting and dancing, shooting and grilling, shooting and praying, or just shooting and mutilating. Soldiers post TikTok reels from the frontlines filled with laughter, celebratory songs, prayers, and inspirational messages. Prominent politicians and thousands of regular users respond with exclamation points and flame emojis in widespread demonstrations of support. The posts contrast grimly with the destruction in the background. But in a war of retribution, destruction is the point.
[...]
Some international outlets claim most Israelis are not privy to the suffering in Gaza due to empathy fatigue, confirmation bias, or stringent military censorship of local press. Others report that algorithmically determined news feeds have prevented many Israelis from seeing images of Palestinian suffering. But to say, “If only Israelis could see what is happening in Gaza, they would demand an end to the violence” ignores the political reality and majority. This is arguably one of the most documented wars in history. Accounts of the humanitarian catastrophe and mass death in Gaza saturate foreign press and the social media feeds of people worldwide. The inconvenient truth is decades of war and dehumanization—tacitly supported by the United States and Israel’s other staunch allies—have largely closed one side off to the other’s suffering. In 2002, amid the height of the second intifada—a bloody five-year period marked by suicide bombings in Israeli cities and military raids on Palestinian communities—the critic Susan Sontag observed, “[To] those who in a given situation see no alternative to armed struggle, violence can exalt someone subjected to it into a martyr or a hero.” As 75 years of photographs attest, this has long been the case in Israel. But the sentiment may be more popular than ever: According to a survey by the Jerusalem-based think tank the Israel Democracy Institute, as of December 2023, 75 percent of Jewish Israelis opposed agreeing to the U.S. demand that Israel decrease the intense bombing of heavily populated areas in Gaza. Only 1.8 percent viewed Israel’s use of force as disproportionate.
20 Mar 2024
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