#international transfer

[merchantservices444]

International Payment Transfer

[satorugojowidow]

"Cacerolazos" Spontaneous protests in Argentina after the decree announced by President Milei that cuts rights and makes the economy more flexible, allowing a transfer of wealth from the working class to concentrated capital, in the context of a very serious income crisis for the middle and lower sectors. The decree is illegal and undemocratic.

It happens on another anniversary of the social outbreak of 2001 in the midst of the worst economic crisis in our history. Those responsible for the 2001 crises now constitute the Milei government: Patricia Bullrich, who was minister of social security in 2001 and who cut 13% of pension for retirees, is now minister of security with an anti-protest protocol that is unconstitutional for not guaranteeing constitutional rights of protest and freedom of expression. Federico Sturzenegger, secretary of economic policies in 2001, advisor and main person responsible for the design of the decree that repeals and modifies more than 300 laws announced yesterday by Milei.

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[eriyu]

WoL question!

Are there parts of the game's story that your WoL didn't understand? Aetherology, time travel, clones? Politics? Other characters' motivations? Have they come to understand any of it better in retrospect?

[spacefrontier]

The Japanese Kounotori H-II Transfer Vehicle, HTV-4, approaches the International Space Station. August 9, 2013.

HTV-4 carried 11,900 pounds of cargo to the ISS. 8,600 pounds of that cargo was in the pressurized segment, while the remaining 3,300 pounds were in the unpressurized compartment.

Pressurized cargo consisted of four CubeSats (which would be launched from the Kibo laboratory's Small Satellite Orbital Deployer), a cryogenic experiment storage box, and a robot companion for JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Unpressurized cargo included ISS system spare parts, and a combination of experiments called STP-H4 that would be installed outside of the ISS.

NASA 1, 2

[tributary]

which horrible man deserves to have my period pain today

[coochiequeens]

Even advocates of surrogacy should agree that regulations are needed

BY Samuel Burke August 16, 2024

In Europe, commercial surrogacy is largely banned and seen as a form of body commodification, similar to organ trafficking. Only a few countries permit highly regulated altruistic surrogacy, which limits reimbursement to just expenses and no additional compensation—resulting in limited participation. Demand for surrogacy, however, is soaring due to delayed childbearing, increasing medical challenges, and the growth of LGBTQ+ family-building. The surrogacy market, valued at $14 billion in 2022, is projected to skyrocket to $129 billion by 2032, according to Global Market Insights.

Currently, only a few European countries, such as Ukraine and Greece, permit commercial surrogacy. These nations operate in a legal gray area with minimal oversight, leading to a largely unregulated industry fraught with issues like trafficking women, falsified documents and sham embryo transfers.

Before the 2022 invasion, Ukraine was a global surrogacy hub estimated to have 2,000-2,500 surrogacy contracts annually. Despite the ongoing conflict, the industry continues, with some women still carrying pregnancies in war-torn Ukraine. Controversially, Ukrainian surrogates now leave their families behind and travel to places like Greece and Northern Cyprus (recognized only by Turkey) to complete pregnancies. The women often live with multiple surrogates in the same dwellings while they wait to give birth.

Advocates for reform argue that current practices neglect the welfare of surrogates. Wes Johnson-Ellis, co-founder of the U.K. non-profit My Surrogacy Journey (MSJ), asserts that surrogates should not have to leave their families to move to another country for the pregnancy to help others build theirs.

Pregnancy and birth are vulnerable times for surrogates. They need their support network and family close by to ensure they are fully supported,” Johnson-Ellis says.

MSJ frequently assists families who’ve faced trying circumstances with other agencies. One couple pursuing surrogacy in Cyprus believed their surrogate was Cypriot. However, she was actually from Eastern Europe and returned to her native country, where she gave birth prematurely according to Johnson-Ellis. Tragically, the baby did not survive.

“They are still fighting to have the baby’s body exhumed and sent back to their home country for a proper burial,” says Johnson-Ellis.

Last August, Greek authorities raided the Mediterranean Fertility Institute in Crete and arrested staff amid allegations of trafficking nearly 100 women from Eastern Europe to act as surrogates. Officials also accused the company of falsifying adoption papers for clients from countries where surrogacy is illegal. The institute is now closed and has not responded to inquiries about these allegations. Advocates for affected families, many from Australia, claim they paid for a surrogacy program that was never fulfilled.

The Republic of Georgia had also emerged as a popular surrogacy destination in Europe, but last year, the Georgian prime minister announced that commercial surrogacy would be restricted to Georgian citizens only. This has left the legality of programs in Georgia in limbo, affecting intended parents from around the world who had turned to the country for surrogacy.

Scandals and swiftly shifting surrogacy laws have sent intended parents in Europe scrambling to relocate their embryos to countries with more stable or established surrogacy frameworks, primarily in the Americas. 

The United States is the top destination for commercial surrogacy due to its well-established legal framework and advanced medical care. However, it is also the most expensive, with total costs for IVF and surrogacy—including medical, legal, and agency fees—averaging $190,000 to $230,000.

Those high costs have traditionally made Canada a more affordable surrogacy option, with costs for IVF and surrogacy averaging $60,000 to $100,000. Although commercial surrogacy is banned, Canadian law permits altruistic surrogacy, similar to the U.K., Denmark, and the Netherlands. This lower cost has dramatically increased demand, leading to average wait times of 10 to 18 months and driving hopeful parents to seek commercial surrogates in Latin America.

Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico are attracting intended parents as alternatives to Europe, with costs typically under $80,000. Mexico City, in particular, has become a popular choice due to its low costs and progressive surrogacy laws.

“Confidence in Mexico is shifting,” says Johnson-Ellis of My Surrogacy Journey, which has launched a service guiding families there. “Mexico actually has more guardrails and regulations in place than the U.S. and has even had the support of the Mexican Supreme Court since 2021.” He points to Mexico City’s practice of issuing pre-birth orders that recognize the intended parents as the legal parents and even list the surrogate as the gestational carrier, not the biological mother when she’s used donor eggs. 

The surrogacy boom in the Americas is coming at Europe’s expense. Advocates argue that Europe’s ban on commercial surrogacy limits access to services and, ironically, increases the exploitation and coercion of women.

“With a commercial model, everyone knows where they stand,” Johnson-Ellis says. “There’s no gray. It’s very black and white. And I think with surrogacy, you need black and white.”

[feloire]

[dandelion-wings]

On thing about Mondstadt’s government that bothers me is that everybody boils it down to just the Knights on one side, and the Church on the other. Which, sure, they’re what we know the most about…

But it completely ignores the ‘Community Representative’. Considering their signature is one of three needed to (legally) make use of the Holy Lyre, alongside the Grandmaster and the Seneschal, they must be pretty damn important. So assuming they have equal power to those positions, which are at the head of the Knights and the Church respectively, what actually is that power? Presumably it’s an elected position (the title is that of a ‘representative’, plus I would be severely disappointed if there wasn’t even a hint of democracy in the Nation of Freedom), but is there a structure under it similar to the Knights and Church? Is there a completely separate civilian, secular government that for some reason just barely comes up? If it is elected, how is that handled? If both Grandmaster Varka and the Seneschal are on expedition, does that mean they hold more authority than Acting Grandmaster Jean and whoever is Acting Seneschal (assuming an acting-title’s authority, though still above everything else below the proper-title, is still considered secondary to that of said proper-title)? But if so, why hasn’t it come up? Or is it just some guy elected to act as a more expedient alternative to something like a full referendum?

God, I have an education in history and political science that is just begging for some damn answers!

I mean, I don't have an education in those things and am not real good at working those things out myself, so I don't know that I can provide you too much useful commentary here. XD;; But while I'd love if Mondstadt did have some democracy, I... am pretty convinced that it's a theocracy, actually. The Knights and the Church (which tbh seems to exist under the overall umbrella of the Ordo, given that Jean says in her voiceline about Barbara that "the order also manages the Church") fulfill pretty much all the governmental functions we actually see happening at all, including the whole thing in Jean's quest where Charles expects tax forms from her.

I'll admit I also lean that way because I read into Mondstadt as a whole (its history but also our introduction to it, where Amber initially nabs us for unauthorized entry and then there's a whole early section about gliding regulations) a theme of humans repeatedly being given freedom, and gradually rebuilding restrictions upon themselves. Which I don't think is entirely a bad thing, in that I do think communities generally function better with organization and administration and such, but, like, Mondstadt has gone all the way into tyranny before and could again. Mondstadt building itself an increasingly restrictive theocracy feeds into the theme I like drawing from it, so of course that's the reading I tend towards! But, still, that's where I'm at about it.

(I draw a lot of my read of this national theme from the line, "Mondstadt is the City of Freedom, but unchecked freedom without any kind of rules only invites chaos and anxiety," in Jean's character details, and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it, ever, so it's entirely possible this is actually character brainrot I'm projecting onto the city as a whole. I'm fine with that.)

Presumably there is a further government apparatus, but I tend to believe it's probably under the higher authority of the Ordo. Maybe with checks and balances, maybe not (exactly how I arrange the setup for fic where it's needed is specific to individual fic, because the openness of canon leaves the kind of room that makes it easiest to go with what works for the plot). "Community Representative" on its own is very vague; looking at the line where it actually appears, it's talking about the Holy Lyre in the context of the Ludi Harpastrum, so it could even be a role specific to the yearly organization of that particular festival! That said, it does sound a bit more like it's a regular thing, and given my presumption of theocracy above, I think this:

Or is it just some guy elected to act as a more expedient alternative to something like a full referendum?

honestly is the most likely possibility. It would make sense given Mondstadt's ethos and history--you have a representative of the community to sign off on certain decisions (hopefully elected, as you said, but who knows exactly how it happens), like that one about the Lyre, to show that the people agree. Possibly it's a triangle with the Grand Master at the top and the Seneschal (given the above "manages the Church" line) and Community Representative as equals who have input but not ultimate power on the next level down, possibly they both exist largely to rubberstamp the Grand Master and Seneshal's decisions, possibly it's an area-of-authority divide. Regardless of the exact divisions, Jean does seem to have some fairly unilateral powers in the areas of domestic defense and peacekeeping, but that's... something you do want the head of your military-and-police order to have, generally, so who knows how broad her powers actually are to act without the Seneschal and Representative's approval in other areas. The game is, as always, frustratingly uninformative.

Anyway, tl;dr: my personal reading of Mondstadt tends to render the Community Representative as relatively unimportant, despite the equal billing in that quest, because over and over again in quests and lore and voicelines we don't see anything but "the Ordo handles things," and Mondstadt honestly makes most sense to me as a theocratic city-state. I think they're more likely a representative "voice" in the government than a significant power, and I don't think they represent any significant "third branch" other than possibly, given Mondstadt's history, a symbolic reminder that its people have toppled tyrants before and can do so again.

[chimchiri]

I think I might have deleted the post about the interview but - I did get the job! :''') <3

[chelseajackarmy]

International break means reminiscing the Mason Mount Chelsea era

[agentfascinateur]

Israelis using weapons in Gaza that melt body parts...WT*!?!?

Whenever you think it can't get any lower.

[deus-ex-mona]

farewell, my idiot son…

[melljam]

auuuuggh just read 517 … why did the best chapter ever release while i was conked out after a very looooong flight …. very exhausted… but happy … very happy …. cant believe This chapter also coincidentally featured airplanes and travel …

[balu8]

moebius

[i3utterflyeffect]

Does Vira-Dark get free reign of the house or does Chosen mostly try to supervise it? And does it require, like, a defrag time to simulate sleep? I can't imagine it would be pleasant to be awake all the time if their robot body doesn't allow any form of sleep.

dark really does whatever they want! Chosen used to supervise them but after a while sort of figured out it isn't actually severely destructive so much as just actively mischievous, and they don't always have the energy to watch dark with how much they're going through, so they decide they can clean up a few broken cups later if it means they get some time to just dissociate because goddamn they need it

as for sleep, i do like the idea of them having a defrag time! had to search up what that means but it definitely makes sense, especially since that's essentially what it is for a human and presumably a stick as well!

it probably makes sense for them to need to rest due to a much larger system strain as well! whereas a virabot may be able to run 24/7 with a conciousness more similar to a cat, a whole person being in there is gonna put a big strain on the system.

in conclusion: probably yes bc it makes sense and i like it <3