#natural disasters as implements of conflict

[beloveddawn-blog]

I sighed heavily, ran my hand through my hair, then ran *both* hands down my face, just to make sure my meanings was understood. "Look, dude, I have had A Day and I just really, *really* want a chai latte. Can we just... Let it go and I can get a drink?"

He eyed me suspiciously, and I could hear the group of teenagers behind me immediately start whispering to their phones about a 'bully finally getting his comeuppance'. I can't entirely blame them, both him and I look like walking stereotypes, him even moreso now that he had an eyebrow peircing and long, sideswept bangs. He looks everything like a former emo band kid and NOTHING like a maurading black sorcerer who summoned ancient evils to wreak havoc on unsuspecting kingdoms.

(Four FUCKING times, thankyouverymuch!)

He looked over my shoulder at them, then back to me with some of his old cruelty in his eyes. "Say you're sorry for Epaphra." He cooed, clearly basking in the attention.

That hurt. Even knowing it was meant to, I couldn't help the slight flinch. Despite that I felt a fire flare in me that I'd thought had been thoroughly doused in the waters of sheer *age*... But it seemed I still couldn't let him win. Couldn't just walk away.

Years ago I'd have leapt over the counter and throttled him where he stood for daring to speak her name, but in this new world that would be even worse.

"I'm sorry about Eprapha." I replied, my voice breaking on her name. I felt my eyes well up, but was able to reign myself in enough to not actually cry.

He blinked at me, clearly caught truly off guard for the first time since I severed the Bering Land Bridge so long ago. He turned to the young lady next to him in the shops apron and said, "A chai latte for..." He trailed off then, looking at me expectantly.

"Morris." I replied as I almost collapsed against the counter. "I shortened it long ago."

He nodded and turned back to the girl. "For Morris. And make it an extra large."

"Thank you." I gasped, almost giddy with relief. I had my card in my hand but he waved me off.

"Sit down before you fall down." He snipped, turning his nose up and dismissing me.

'He's cute when he sulks.' I found myself thinking, then blinked. Though I wasn't unfamiliar with the *concept* of him being attractive, he used to used seduction all the time as a manipulation tactic, I'd never previously considered it in relation to *me*. Usually when I saw him he was laughing maniacally and covered in blood, neither of which are things I'm into. Dazed, I wandered off to do as he'd said.

I was expecting to hear the purple-haired girl call my name, but instead some ripped black jeans walked into my line of sight and a cup was unceremoniously thrust under my nose. "Here." He snipped before pulling out the chair across from me and throwing himself down. He had his own drink in hand, and promptly pulled out and started fiddling with a phone. I started at him bemusedly. His eyes occasionally flicked up to mine before snapping back down to his screen. Eventually I noticed the faint blush rising on his cheeks every time this happened.

It was cute.

"Thanks, Tethra. I really appreciate it." I replied, chuckling as his face went pink and his shoulders hunched. I picked up my drink and took a slow sip, savouring the flavour and the memories it brought back. Nothing else ever worked to soothe like this did.

"Why chai?" He asked, breaking the silence but still not looking up.

"It reminds me of my time in India." I admitted, knowing the knowledge held no power anymore. "I lived there for... A time, years ago. Back when they thought I was albino, not caucasian. I travelled from village to village, protecting people from predators and administering medicine to the ill. It was where I learned to meditate, and where I calmed my temper. Usually I make it myself, as I find the process soothing, but today I just really needed a sudden slice of calm."

His shoulders hunched even closer. "And then I brought up Eprapha." He replied, contrition seeping into his voice. "I'm sorry, Morrigu. I won't lie and say I didn't mean it, but I truly didn't think it through when I mentioned her. I haven't seen you since Antioch, and I guess habit just got the better of me."

"She was pregnant, did you know? She had her own mystic powers, and we hoped -*I* hoped- she would be able to carry to term." I replied, rather than addressing his apology.

"And then I exploded a mountain on her." He continued, voice wretched.

"And then you exploded a mountain on her." I agreed, my mind playing back that frantic last day, where everyone was trying to get beyond the range of Vesuvius before it blew. I had climbed the mountain, searching for my foe and hoping to stop the destruction, and my beloved Eprapha... "She organized a fairly large evacuation of the poorer sections, but miscarried due to the stress and bled out. The caravans she commandeered and led left her behind as she lay there."

"I am *so sorry* Morrigu. I never... Well, I never counted the bodies I left behind, just gloried that they weren't mine. If I'd known at the time I'd probably have been worse, but ... It's been a long time since then."

My eyebrows rose in surprise. Tethra had never shown any hint of remorse before in the long millenia I'd known him... But also he was correct that we have been living for a very long time. My priorities had also shifted. Perhaps this was true for him as well.

What *happened* to you?" I asked, needing to know the cause of his change of heart. He went bright pink, then sighed and dropped his face into one palm.

"This is so embarrassing." He muttered, then raised his head to face me straight on.

Tethra was many thing, but a coward had never been one of them.

"Okay, so, due to a hilarious and involved series of cultural misunderstandings I... Set a despotic shogun on fire for disrespect and accidentally became the guardian kami of an isolated prefecture in Japan. And they REALLY loved me and it was REALLY... Nice. They still obeyed and worshipped me, but they did it with smiles and glad hearts. And at first it freaked me out so I ritualistically sacrificed the town's hero to scare them all back into proper terror. Buuuuuut it turned out that not only was he abusing his wife and kids, he was raping his wife's young sister who lived with them. While harping on how generous he was for keeping such a morally lacking young slut around. She cried tears of joy when I killed him, and named her baby after me. Kōki, for light, hope, and good luck. And then I couldn't just *leave*, he needed me! So... I stayed. And they worshiped me. And they *loved* me. And it was nice. I'd grown out of wanting world dominion, and I couldn't destroy a world with Kōki in it, so I just stayed. For... I don't even know, centuries? Then Shiroyama happened and I just.... Couldn't stay." He fell silent then, lost in his green tea and memories.

"Couldn't stand the final fall of feudalism?" I sniped, unable to help myself. He looked at me strangely, clearly wondering what was going on in my head.

"No? I cared about industrialization, not feudalism. It's a stupid governmental system. I understand why it developed all over the world, but I have no loyalty to it."

"Not even when it paved the way for your rise to power?" I asked, needing to know...

He laughed then, so long and loud it caught everyone's attention. Suddenly I was the one blushing, and he was wiping tears from his eyes. "What exactly do you think my Tragic Backstory™ is, you total dunderhead?"

I frowned at him, not sure where this was going. "You rode in with kings, alike in all ways. You spoke like them and sported like them and fell to their depravities. Your hands were always as soft as any noble. It was clear to all what class you were born into."

He was laughing again. "Yeah, no." He replied, smirking at me and taking a sip of his tea. "Though I'm glad to know I had you all fooled. I was a prostitute's bastard child, and was sold into slavery before my fifth year. I was passed around from house to house, my temper and wit always making me unwelcome, before I was bought by a noble with plans to sacrifice me to a demon. Which he did, don't get me wrong, but it turns out I had more rage and hatred packed into my small frame than his entire coven had greed. So the demon offered me a deal: he would give me the power to wreak my revenge on all who opposed me, and I would be the mortal instrument of his sadistic will." He took another sip of his tea. "It was actually a mutually beneficial arrangement, for as long as it lasted. By the time our pact was broken, however, I was powerful and cruel in my own right, so I just carried on."

"What broke it?" I asked, fascinated despite myself. He raised his eyebrow at me, making a face like I was stupid.

It was a face I had seen a lot.

"You did." He explained to me slowly, as if I needed the extra time to understand. "You drowned him. Him, the whole middle east, most of the rest of Asia. You remember? That dude with the boat and the zoo."

"Noah." I supplied, smiling myself. He'd been a gullible sort, and had truly believed me an angel of his God. He had *listened*, though, and at the time I hadn't had the breathing room to worry about accuracy. Or blasphemy. I was rapidly running out of both time and options, and him saving his family and his animals had soothed me somewhat.

I thought back to all the calamities we had created, all the pain and hurt I had caused in the name of the needs of the many, and that he had strewn about casually and with glee. Unable to help myself, I asked, "What do you regret the most?"

"Immortality." He replied, quick and decisive. "At the time I thought it would be grand to live forever and never know fear again, but instead I sit here, exhausted down to my very molecules, still able to remember the face of the man who pinned me to the alter and raised his knife. It's been long enough that his whole civilization has been forgotten, but because of one impulsive demand at twenty /he/ never will be."

I sighed, knowing exactly what he meant. "I hear you. I'm pretty sure the goddess who 'blessed' me," I stressed the air quotes, rolling my eyes, "Expected my boon to be to stay by her side forever. But I was also young and stupid and there were pretty girls everywhere. I asked to be able to defend my people for all time, instead. A noble cause, but exhausting. And the bloodline has spread so far that basically everyone is 'my people'. I can't escape it."

"So what do you do?" He asked, eyes shining with a sympathy no other person could offer, for no other person could truly comprehend.

"Oh, I'm a firefighter." I replied lightly. "I'm immortal, so burning buildings are fairly whatever, you know? And it's a physically demanding career, so every few decades I 'move back home' for 'health reasons', then quietly 'get sick' and 'die'. I actually move to the mountains for a few years to live in isolation and just *breathe*, then I pick a new town and do it all over again."

He smiled at me then, something softer than I'd ever seen from him before. "That's very you." He said, and it was the first time that sentiment from him had ever sounded like a blessing.

You’re immortal, and have passed the ‘hero’ phase centuries ago. You enter a small coffee shop one day to find that it’s owned by your millennia-old arch-nemesis. You really, really just want a chai latte though.

[marveltrumpshate]

Current Events

This year continued to be A Lot and we decided to ensure that there were charities that directly addressed current events. Folded into this post are groups that work for aid targeting every natural disaster as well as man-made ones, climate change, rights under attack, and the ongoing pandemic. If you're looking for an organization that directly addresses any of those, this is your spotlight post.

For more information on donation methods and accepted currencies, please refer to our list of organizations page.

Center for Reproductive Rights

The Center for Reproductive Rights is the only global legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person. With local partners across five continents, they have secured legal victories before national courts, UN Committees, and regional human rights bodies on issues such as access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, maternal health, and safe abortion services and the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage.

Clean Air Task Force

As we've seen for a long time now but especially this year with constant natural disasters and alarming news from all over the world, climate change is real and we need to do something about it. Over the past 25 years, CATF, a group of climate and energy experts who think outside the box to solve the climate crisis, has pushed for technology innovations, legal advocacy, research, and policy changes. Their goal is to achieve a zero-emissions, high-energy planet at an affordable cost.

Electronic Freedom Foundation

The leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in digital spaces, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. They fight against online censorship and illegal surveillance, advocate for net neutrality and data protection, and more so that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for everyone. 

Innocence Project

The mission of the Innocence Project is deceptively simple: exonerate those who have been wrongly convicted through the use of DNA evidence. The reality of it involves much broader strokes covering support for exonerees rebuilding their lives post-release and criminal justice reform through targeted litigation and the implementation of laws to prevent wrongful conviction. They strive to restore freedom for the innocent, transform the systems responsible for unjust incarceration, and advance the freedom movement.

International Rescue Committee 

Founded in 1933, the IRC is a long-standing trusted partner in supporting those whose lives have been upended by sudden violence, political or natural. They are no stranger to areas of disaster and conflict throughout the world as they currently work in 40 countries. The IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance, including refugee settlement, and focuses on health, education, economic well-being, empowerment, and safety. 

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Odds are you’ve heard of MSF, the global organization that sends trained medical professionals to the places they’re needed most. MSF has been working globally for over 50 years, providing medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare—no matter what. They’re guided by principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality to global political policies or movements. 

Oceana

Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization for ocean conservation. To protect and restore the world’s oceans, they campaign globally for policies that stop overfishing and plastic pollution, protect habitats and the climate, and increase biodiversity. Oceana conducts its own scientific research and expeditions, is engaged in grassroots activism, and is involved in recommending and supporting policies and litigation.

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

PCRF delivers crucial, life-saving medical relief and humanitarian aid to children and families in Palestine and throughout the Middle East, especially those in Gaza and Lebanon's refugee camps. In addition to providing free medical care, equipment, medicine, and treatment, PCRF also supplies clean water, hygiene kits, food, and other necessities. Their programs include mental health and amputee projects, support for infrastructure plans such as hospital expansions to improve healthcare access, and sponsorships for children who are disabled, orphaned, or in need of medical treatment or surgery.

Partners In Health

Founded by Paul Farmer when he was still in medical school, PIH is committed to bringing exceptional health care to every corner of the planet. PIH also works to provide access to food, transportation, housing, and other key components of healing to the most vulnerable. Their work started in Haiti but has expanded rapidly across the globe. 

Transgender Law Center

Transgender Law Center, the largest trans-specific and trans-led organization in the U.S., changes law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely and authentically and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. Through its precedent-setting litigation victories and community-driven programs, TLC protects the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming people in areas spanning employment, prison conditions, education, immigration, healthcare, and more.

Undue Medical Debt

Over 100 million Americans (one in three) are struggling with paying off medical bills. COVID has only added to those numbers, putting people under significant financial burden and emotional distress. This organization buys up medical debt in order to forgive it with no tax consequences to donors or recipients. Donate just $1 and you wipe out $100 of someone's medical debt, $100 to get rid of $10,000 in debt, and so on—the ripple effect is real. Through their work, Undue Medical Debt not only helps with financial relief but also brings attention to the need for a more compassionate, transparent, equitable, and affordable healthcare system.

Waterkeeper Alliance

In 1966, this movement was started by a band of blue-collar fishermen pushing back against industrial polluters, and their tough spirit remains intact through the 300+ local community groups that make up the global Waterkeeper Alliance today. The Alliance works to ensure, preserve, and protect clean and abundant water for all people and creatures. Their programs are diverse, spanning from patrolling waterways against polluters to advocating for environmental laws in courtrooms and town halls and educating in classrooms.

World Central Kitchen

Started by Chef José Andrés, WCK makes sure that people are fed in the wake of humanitarian, climate, and community crises. Their programs advance human and environmental health, offer access to professional culinary training, create jobs, and improve food security. WCK also teaches food safety and cooking classes to native people who live where disasters have occurred, so they may open restaurants and support the local economy more permanently. You can follow where WCK is currently on the ground assisting and feeding people affected by natural and man-made crises here.

[mariacallous]

In a small town, a kindergarten teacher leads an effort to evacuate more than 200 women, children, and older people to a local shelter. Using the training she received before the war, she binds wounds and guides the vulnerable along a practiced evacuation route. In this case, it’s just a training exercise in a town of 1,000 people in southern Estonia—one that’s attracted hundreds of volunteers, nervous about the very real war in nearby Ukraine.

Nearly 5,000 miles away, another group of civilians have signed up for a training course on basic first-aid skills, first-responder management, and evacuation planning. Kuma Academy, the Taiwanese organization providing these skills was created in 2021 to help citizens better prepare to respond to natural disasters. But today, the disaster they anticipate most is an invasion by China. Public interest in training courses surged after Russia’s 2022 full-scale war against Ukraine and remains strong due in part to China’s frequent military exercises. The public is also keenly interested in a forthcoming television series that dramatizes events days before an invasion by China called Zero Day.

Democracies have always struggled with finding the right balance between signaling public confidence through preparation for conflict and instilling fear and panic. Yet as the international security environment grows more ominous, with Russia’s latest attacks on Ukraine and intensifying climate-fueled natural disasters and global pandemics, leaders and collective defense organizations such as NATO are accelerating efforts to enhance societal resilience. During the Cold War, Americans frequently practiced “duck and cover” nuclear drills and Britons made makeshift shelters and distributed first aid; yet the prolonged and relatively tranquil three decades after the end of the war made such preparations seemingly unnecessary and expensive, thus making them de-prioritized and under-funded.

That era is now over. Greater focus on national and collective democratic resiliency is urgently needed, as adversaries not only implant malware within national water, energy, data and health systems but also utilize state and non-state actors to wage crippling cyberattacks that could paralyze response capabilities. Economic coercion, weaponized corruption, political infiltration, and disinformation campaigns—all hybrid warfare tactics—are designed to convince public opinion that resistance to the adversary’s actions is futile. Ukraine has served as a laboratory for these Russian-implemented activities for over two decades—but the rest of Europe hasn’t been spared either. In the Indo-Pacific, China is deploying similar economic coercion and influence operations beyond Taiwan.

Countries under threat on different sides of the world can learn powerful lessons from each other. NATO’s Resilience Committee, for example, an advisory body formed in 2022, monitors, advises on, and coordinates defense planning and activities alongside nationally developed disaster preparedness and resilience plans to counter hybrid attacks.

NATO views resilience as a tenet of both territorial and collective defense, as enshrined in Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty which requires each member to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” The Resilience Committee’s work focuses on six pillars: civic communications, civil protection, energy, food and agriculture, health. and transport.

NATO’s resiliency efforts should be more widely shared with U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. Whole-of-society resilience and lessons learned from the war in Ukraine were leading topics of discussion during a recent visit by the authors to Taiwan (during Typhoon Krathon, no less). Senior officials of the recently inaugurated Lai Ching-te administration, as well as private sector and civil society leaders, stressed the need for more robust national resiliency efforts embodied in Taiwan’s Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience plan, announced on June 19 with the formation of a national implementing committee.

Holding its first interagency committee meeting in September to implement this plan, Lai underscored the need to “enhance Taiwan’s response capabilities and expand cooperation between the public and private sectors.” The role of the private sector within a resilience framework is key. With an initial investment of approximately $26.4 billion, Taiwan’s five resiliency pillars parallel NATO’s: social welfare and medical supplies; material preparations and critical supply distribution systems; civilian forces training and utilization; energy and critical infrastructure security; and information, cyber, transportation, and financial security. Not only would NATO members and Taiwan mutually benefit from a more focused set of information and best practice-sharing, but as the growing potential for both combined and simultaneous Chinese and Russian hybrid activities in the United States, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific intensifies, it will be critical to understand their evolving tactics.

Vulnerabilities vary, but shared experiences are highly useful—especially in drawing attention to aspects of resilience that one group might have overlooked. During recent discussions, Taiwanese officials seemed particularly focused on building greater resilience of its energy supply and grid, the government’s ability to retain communications with all citizens and the outside world (via resistance to Beijing’s cognitive warfare as well as protection of undersea cables, data, and satellite communications), and citizen preparedness (particularly first aid).

Observers of Russia’s relentless missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s energy sector for the past two years highlight Taiwan’s energy import vulnerabilities and its need for greater energy resilience as Taipei imports nearly 98 percent of its energy needs (including 40 percent of its crude oil needs, 30 percent of its coal and 19 percent of liquified natural gas). China’s recent Joint Sword-2024B military exercise flexed its military muscles by demonstrating how a limited quarantine or blockade of the island and outlying islands could challenge Taiwan’s energy resilience.

The ability to sustain households and fuel its energy-intensive semiconductor economy is critical to sustaining both political will and economic stability. The private sector, in partnership with the public sector, will play a key role in energy resiliency through activities ranging from resisting cyberattacks to the protection of the energy grid and physical plants.

For the past several years, there has been growing global concern about the vulnerability of undersea cables, whose disruption would have profound implications for global financial and communication systems in both the Euro-Atlantic or Indo-Pacific regions. In response, NATO has recently set up a Maritime Center for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure to better protect these vital economic links. Estonia and Finland faced disruptions after the October 2023 severing of the 48-mile Balticconnector pipeline and undersea cable by a Chinese-owned and Hong Kong-registered cargo vessel in the Baltic Sea which traveled to Russian ports along the Arctic Northern Sea Route.

Although China claimed the incident was an accident caused by a strong storm, Finnish officials declared it a “deliberate external act.” (Restoration of the Baltic connector and undersea cable took six months. One of Taiwan’s outlying island chains, Matsu Islands, has had its undersea cable cut 27 times over the past five years. After a Chinese fishing vessel reportedly severed an undersea cable February 2023, internet linkages took several months to restore. In a limited quarantine scenario, Beijing could sever Taiwan’s communications with these outlying islands, illustrating Taipei’s inability to protect and sustain communications with its citizens. Greater capacity for low-earth-orbiting satellites and use of microwave transmission are also critical to the country’s resiliency and, again, the private sector will play a key role.

An underappreciated element for any national resilience plan is individual citizen preparedness, a lesson that has been learned repeatedly and tragically by the Ukrainian people. According to the head of disaster management at Estonia’s Red Cross, “Ukrainians say that if the population would have known how to use first aid skills, it would have saved many more lives.” From Estonia to Taiwan, citizens are taking a greater interest in learning such life-saving skills, from applying a tourniquet to maintaining the safety of national blood supplies.

While European and Indo-Pacific leaders grapple with combating intensifying Russian and Chinese conventional military and hybrid activities, sustained senior-level engagement with the private sector remains absolutely critical, yet very underdeveloped. As Taipei urgently builds its whole-of-society defense resilience program, it would benefit from creating a high-level private sector advisory council. This would report to Taiwan’s National Security Council to ensure all five working groups are infused with private-sector input and that companies can rapidly implement as well as support the government’s evolving resilience plans.

While individual and multinational firms may have their own cyber and energy resilience plans, protection of vulnerable critical infrastructure would be insufficient in the event of a military intervention. The private sector should engage in regular tabletop exercises with government and civil society leaders to identify gaps and security vulnerabilities, and there should be clear and public timelines to address these shortfalls. Interestingly, the American Chambers of Commerce in Taiwan and Ukraine have, for the first time, exchanged best practices for private-sector resilience—an initiative that should be continued and strengthened by including other important private sector voices from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and others.

Just as the NATO Resilience Committee was built upon the organization’s existing work on humanitarian and disaster response, government leaders in Taipei could better utilize the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) as a vehicle to share best practices on whole-of-society resilience—particularly in areas vital to Ukraine’s resilience that have been under sustained attack, such as connectivity, data protection, and energy resilience. Full partners to the GCTF—Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United States—should prioritize this area alongside partners with rich societal resilience experience, such as the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and, Sweden. These nations can deepen cooperation by increasing and intensifying co-organized workshops in support of Taiwan’s whole-of-society plan. Here again, the private sector should also be invited to participate in these workshops.

National preparation and resilience planning can mitigate the consequences of both natural disasters and conflict. A strong national and collective resiliency plan can go one step further and deter an adversary. Success requires societal unity, citizen engagement, and a robust role for the private sector that can work seamlessly with all levels of governments. Whole-of-society defense resilience, or what Finland calls “total defense,” is one of the most challenging tasks that a democracy can undertake—precisely why adversaries exploits societal divisions. As the saying goes, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” For the democratic West, resilience is what happens when whole-of-society preparation counters the adversary’s “opportunity.”

[lexisketchart]

Hey! Love your art and your jak and daxter ocs! May I have an info dump about them please?

I would love to! For the most part right now I have mostly Catherine written so I'm gonna just put everything about her so far here

I'm still working on a lot of this so its still pretty rough Catherine Vega was born in the slums of Haven City. From a young age, she displayed a strong sense of justice, a trait that often got her into trouble. At the age of 17, she was involved in an altercation with a group of KG, leading to an entire team being injured by her. Recognizing her potential, Errol gave her a choice: Join the Krimson Guard or die. Reluctantly, she chose to join.

            Despite her initial resentment, Catherine’s exceptional combat skills, strategic mind and unwavering dedication set her apart from other recruits. Rising through the ranks due to her natural talent and relentless drive, she eventually became an elite captain known for her fearless leadership and loyalty to her comrades. During this time, she developed a complicated relationship with Errol. Their relationship was a volatile mix of competition and comfort, often finding solace in each other when not clashing over missions or strategies.

            Catherines uncompromising sense of justice often clashed with Errols’ pragmatic approach to maintaining order, leading to heated debates and moments of friction. Amidst the turmoil of their duties and the ever-present threat of the underground, Catherine and Errol found moments of Solace in each other’s company, seeing it as a break from the relentless demands of their respective positions.

            During a high-stakes mission against the underground, Catherine made a critical decision to protect civilians that led to unforeseen disaster. A powerful explosive device meant to weed out the underground, detonated prematurely due to a miscalculation, causing significant collateral damage and casualties. Though her actions saved many lives, the incident led to an internal investigation, and she was placed on leave pending the outcome. At this time Errol and Catherine had split up as they drifted apart.

            While on leave, Catherine decided to leave Haven city and travel out to Kras, drawn by the combat racing circuit. She ended up getting into a trial race in an attempt to prove herself as a combat racer and quickly discovered her natural talent for racing. Her background as a KG captain gave her an edge in the high-speed, high-stakes environment. She was soon recruited by Razer to join Mizo’s team. Catherine’s rise in the combat racing world was meteoric. Her strategic thinking, quick reflexes and fearless nature made her a formidable competitor. She soon gained the respect and admiration of fellow racers and fans alike, becoming a champion racer during that year’s Kras city grand championship.

            Catherine found herself spending more time with Razer and they had discovered a mutual understanding of the sacrifices required to succeed in their profession. Razer’s calmer demeanor balanced Catherines intensity. They found solace in each other’s company, with both providing a sense of stability and comfort to the other.

            As news of the metal head threat in Haven City grew dire, Catherine felt an undeniable pull to return to her roots and fulfill her duty as a KG captain. Despite the internal conflicts and unresolved issues, she returned to Haven City, preparing to face off against the metal heads. Her return was met with curiosity and suspicion from her fellow guards.

 She would oversee security operations, including the fortification of Krimson Guard strongholds and the implementation of security measures to counteract the escalating threats from both the underground and the metal heads. She played a key role in monitoring enemy movements and gathering information to preempt potential threats against the KG.

            When Baron Praxis was struck down and Haven City fell into chaos, Catherine knew she had to leave to survive. She fled to Spargus, following her mothers’ footsteps and becoming a wastelander. Her resilience and combat skills earned her a place amongst the Wastelanders. She would eventually be tasked with helping Jak learn the ropes of the Wasteland. Despite previously being on opposing sides, she recognized Jak’s potential and guided him the same way she would her team in the KG.              When the threat of the dark makers loomed over the world, Catherine chose to help defend Spargus from the impending attack. Once news of the defeat of Errol and the Dark Makers, Catherine decided to make her way back to Kras, reclaiming her position as a driver for Mizos team.

[feedyourmind1031]

 Economic Overview: Key Market Developments

Critical Update

Sudden market shifts may occur due to significant events. Monitor trading positions and implement risk management strategies during these uncertain times.

Economic Overview

As we enter a new quarter, the market faces numerous challenges. Rising war tensions, de-dollarization efforts, and upcoming elections in the U.S., France, and Iran contribute to the uncertainty. Here’s a detailed analysis of these developments and their potential impacts.

Currency Shifts

Russia’s move to use the Chinese Yuan for international trade and the increase in gold reserves by central banks are noteworthy. While the Yuan may not replace the U.S. Dollar soon, these actions indicate strategic shifts. Gold purchases serve as a hedge against potential currency volatility.

Geopolitical Conflicts

Middle East: The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has intensified, with Iran warning of severe retaliation if Lebanon is attacked. Daily strikes continue, and countries like the U.S. and Germany have advised their citizens to leave Lebanon.

South China Sea: On June 19, 2024, Chinese coast guard officers attacked Philippine military personnel near the Second Thomas Shoal, escalating tensions. The U.S. has reaffirmed its defense treaty with the Philippines, which could lead to military involvement if violence escalates.

Korean Peninsula: North and South Korea are on edge, with Russia signing a defense treaty with North Korea. Border incidents and threats over South Korea’s potential troop deployment to Ukraine have heightened tensions.

Nuclear Brinkmanship: France and Russia’s nuclear brinkmanship is a significant risk, with both countries attempting to establish deterrent boundaries.

Economic and Market Effects

These conflicts could alter monetary power dynamics and supply chains. Expect increased oil demand and gold purchases as safe-haven assets. Silver demand will also rise due to its military applications.

Diplomatic Relations

Zimbabwe and Zambia: Tensions are high as Zimbabwe aligns more closely with Russia, accusing the U.S. of militarizing Zambia.

Election Updates

Iran: Presidential elections are nearing completion as candidates drop out.

France: The first stage of snap parliamentary elections is complete.

U.S.: The first debate between Biden and Trump was contentious, adding to the uncertainty of the upcoming election.

Natural Disaster Considerations

While not detailed here, it’s crucial to consider the impact of natural disasters on economic activities and implement strong risk management.

Key Market Data and Analysis

Final GDP: Increased from 1.3% to 1.4%.

Unemployment: Fell by 3k more than forecasted, indicating a stronger U.S. economy.

Core PCE: Decreased from 0.3% to 0.1%.

Consumer Confidence: Fell but remained above forecasted numbers.

Housing Market: New home sales dropped significantly, while pending home sales improved slightly but missed expectations.

GOLD

Gold prices remain within a range, with resistance at 2431.705 and support at 2295.536. A bullish trend is expected despite fluctuations.

SILVER

Silver prices showed growth, reaching 29.900 before settling at 29.018. Resistance is expected at 29.900, but an overall upward trend is anticipated.

DXY (Dollar Index)

The dollar index showed growth but may face weakness with the anticipated September rate cut. A bearish outlook is expected.

GBPUSD

The pound remains within a range. With potential rate cuts in both the U.K. and the U.S., significant price changes are unlikely in the near term.

AUDUSD

The Aussie dollar shows upward momentum but needs to break above 0.67142 to confirm this trend. Analysts predict rate cuts only in late 2025, potentially benefiting the currency.

NZDUSD

Similar to the Aussie dollar, the New Zealand dollar shows growth and may benefit from delayed rate cuts until late 2025.

EURUSD

The ECB’s cautious rate cut approach has weakened the Euro. Further cuts are expected but at a slower pace, indicating potential continued weakness.

USDJPY

Despite interventions, the USDJPY continues to grow. Watch for further interventions and economic data to gauge future movements.

USDCHF

The Swiss Franc fell after recent rate cuts. Further rate cuts are uncertain, making the USDCHF volatile.

USDCAD

The CAD showed weakness against the dollar, with analysts predicting further rate cuts. Price consolidation is expected as we await more data.

Stay informed and practice diligent risk management as we navigate these challenging market conditions. More updates to come.

[andersons-bayonettes]

Overwatch Timeline! Yay!

Note: Overwatch Timeline doesn't even work properly after my calculations (admittedly, I'm bad at maths) they just pushed everything too close together. I.e. we should be in 2076 AT LEAST but that doesn't work because then the characters would all (or at least, some) be older by one year but we're gonna go with "now = 2075, everything after now = future)

Note 2: I aged up Kiriko since this was originally made for my Fanfiction. She is marked with a star, her actual date of birth isn't in this line, however, if she would be, she'd be born 2054 (with D.Va)

2011 - Sigma

2012 - Reinhardt

2013 - Ana

2015 - Reaper (?)

2016 - Torb

2018 - Soldier

2024 - Sojurn

2025 - Moira, Roadhog

2028 - Doomfist

2033 - Mei

2034 - Ashe

2035 - Hanzo

2036 - Cassidy, Mercy

2037 - Baptiste

2038 - Genji, Mauga

*2039 - Kiriko

2040 - Widowmaker

2041 - Pharah

2042 - Zenyatta

? - 2043 - Omnica (rise, Bastion units, malfunctions, fraud, investigation, fall, decommissioning Omnics), Aurora

2043 - Bastion, Sombra, Omnics reactivate: attack Siege Automatons, Attack Russia -> first Omnic crisis start)

2044 - Winston, Junker Queen, Lifeweaver

2044 - 2046 - Volskaya Industries create Svyatogor, Germany implements Crusaders (Reinhardt joins), USA start the Soldier Enhancing Program (Soldier & Reaper enroll), resistance fails, UN decides the Overwatch Strike Team, Balderich dies -> Reinhardt leads Overwatch, Overwatch formed (Reinhardt, Reaper, Soldier, Ana, Torb & Mina Liao), Reaper announced first strike commander, Overwatch success

2045 - Zarya, Symmetra

2047 - Lúcio, Tracer, Ramattra, Overwatch ends Omnic crisis via striking the Omnic Command and Control structure, Aurora sacrifices herself, Blackwatch first gets formed, Soldier reolaces Reaper as Strike Commander as Reaper switches to Blackwatch

2048 - Junkrat

2049 - Venture

2050 - Brig, Operation White Dome (Torb looses arm & eye)

2053 - "The Reaper" appears in armed conflicts, appearing without loyalty to any Organisation, Reaper captures Cassidy during a sting Operation on the deadlock gang, Cassidy joins Blackwatch

2054 - D.Va

2054 - 2065 - Shambali Monestary becomes famous under Mondatta, Zenyatta travels the world, Australian Omnium gifted ti Omnics -> displacing many humans (Roadhog), Australian Liberation Front formed, a strike on the Omnium goes wrong -> damaged fusion core irradiates Australia, Bastion awakens

2056 - Juno

2057 - Illari

2061 - Wrecking Ball, Echo

2064 - Efi

2065 - Numbani renews the OR14 to OR15, natural disaster forces researchers at Ecopoint Antarctica to enter cryostasis, Hanzo Vs Genji, Genji saved by Mercy and recruited to Blackwatch to help with missions against the Shimada Clan

2066 - 2068 - accusations about corruption & illegal activity in Overwatch, Tracer Slipstream incident, Moira hired into Blackwatch -> experiments on Reaper, Blackwatch existence leaked, Japan files complaint about Blackwatch activity inside Borders, UN director orders investigation on an incident in Cairo

2067 - Overwatch facility in Oslo attacked -> investigation, Reaper & Cassidy meet with Gerard Lacroix at Blackwatch facility in Rome, suspect: Antonio Bartalotti (Talon leader), plan: arrest employees -> his downfall, cybernetic woman sets bomb, Lacroix injured, Soldier wants official investigation, Reaper wants to kidnap Bartalotti -> Soldier agrees with Reaper & Blackwatch leaves, Reaper kills Bartalotti & Cassidy disagrees, Blackwatch becomes public, investigation via Lacroix, Ana & Soldier, Maximilien & Doomfist take over (Retribution)

2068 - Mondatta kidnapped & taken hostage by Null Sector, UK denies Overwatch Operation, Cassidy helps Overwatch with information, Reaper doesn't confirm or deny sending Cassidy, Tracer accepted as active Overwatch Agent by Soldier, Soldier disregards UK decision and starts mission to rescue Mondatta

2069 - Ana "killed" by Widowmaker during a mission led by Soldier, Sojurn helps Overwatch capture Maximilien, Maximilien reveals Doomfists plan to stay in Singapore -> Doomfist Captured, Investigation in Venice (unknown incident), Italy reveals Moiras involvement with Blackwatch, UN authorise secret investigation on Blackwatch & Overwatch, Soldier & Reaper "killed" by an explosion in the Swiss HQ of Overwatch, Petra Act -> UN disbands Overwatch

2070 - 2075 - Omnic & Human tension in Russia snaps -> second Omnic crisis, Soldier infiltrates Overwatch bases and steals equipment, Vishkar starts work in Rio after Symmetra & Sanjay sabotage local business, Lúcio steals Vishkar equipment & rallies people overnight -> becomes celebrity, Orisa

2071 - Talon mission in Monte Christo to kill Daniel Fernandez, after he's nowhere to be found civilians homes get searched and the entire city burned to the ground, Baptiste leaves Talon

2073- Synaesthesia Auditiva

2074

Before october:

Winston works on shield generator

50.000+ victims to the second Omnic crisis

Talon tries to infiltrate Watchpoint Gibraltar, Winston manages to stop them but Reaper could obtain a list with former Overwatch members' locations

Recall (Tracer answers)

Mei exits Cryostasis

Widowmaker kills Mondatta

Genji confronts Hanzo

Soldier attacks Los Muertos in Dorado

Cassidy eliminates Talon raiding a hyper train. He dumps the item they were after before backup arrives

Reinhardt & Brigitte repair Reinhardt's old Crusader armor to get rid of a gang in a German town

Roadhog & Junkrat kill the CEO of Hyde Global & blow up their skyscraper in Sydney

Anubis escapes Helix Security Confinement but is stopped by Pharah

Torb saves Boklovo from a Titan

October:

"Shrike"(Ana) disrupts Talon operations in egypt

Soldier assaults the Criminal Hakim but is stopped by Reaper. Shrike rescues Soldier & they reveal their identities & join forces

Sombra leaks information about LumériCo & Los Muertos' protest plans

November:

1st: Sombra leaking Information & the robberies from Roadhog & Junkrat force the LumériCo CEO Guillermo Portero to step down

2nd: Mei arrives in Nepal

Reaper leads Talon team to kill Katya Volskaya, Sombra interferes (cinematic)

Monday: Winston & Tracer stop Widowmaker & Reaper from retrieving the Doomfist gauntlet from museum (cinematic)

December:

Lúcio tours to promote Synesthesia Auditiva

Junkrat & Roadhog return to Australia

New Year's Eve: Lúcio concert in London

Present

2075

Janurary

Bastion hunted -> taken in by Torb

Feburary

Doomfist breaks out of Helix Security International & meets up with Maximilien, Vialli falls to death (thanks Doomfist), Reaper & Doomfist meet with Talon Board

Doomfist retrieves the Doomfist gauntlet and obliterates the OR15 units

March

Efi buys spare OR15 parts from Adawe Foundation, builds Orisa (AI), Reinhardt answers Recall

April

Zarya & Lynx Seventeen out to kill Sombra -> failed, D.Va & Dae-hyun save Busan form.Omnic attack, Cassidy defeats Deadlock Gang, brings back Echo & answers the Recall, Blizzard Works opened (i need this in here for the sake if my sanity)

Future

2076

Bap helps Talon invade Vernand Sainclairs' mansion, helps him escape on condition he provide free healtg care for the clinic

Overwatch saves Paris from Null Sector attack

Overwtach saves Rio de Janeiro from Null Sector, Lúcio recruited, Zarya, DVa, Pharah, Bap all revealed to have answered the Recall ("only one missing")

Sojurn (+ others) rescues Omnic citizens in Toronto (Reggie Bucksworth), amazing Ramattra Speech, Brigitte & Reinhardt take an Omnic to Ironclad Guild

Gothenburg attacked by Null Sector after Brig & Rein inquire Torb for help with the subjugated Omnic, Bastion introduced as Workshop Assistant, Subjugated Omnic alive but blank memory Data, Null Sector fought off with Torbs Air Defense System

Widowmaker & Sombra capture(?) Zenyatta

Note 3: currently all, I will expand as I do more research. Important additions/changes get announced with a reblog as well

[voxiiferous]

Alright gang, it's time for a trifecta HC related to the show's portrayal.

Vox and Alastor's beginning friendship.

Vox didn't meet Alastor as some newly fallen nobody. The Vaudeville fellow was dead, and television was already beginning to sweep over Hell by mid 1956. Vox had been dead for the better part of a year when he catches the Radio Demon's attention.

Whether or not he was already considered an Overlord is more a matter of degrees, but he meets Alastor on a semi-equal footing. He's not yet on his way to empire building-- there's not even colour television yet! But his rise to initial power is not due to Alastor or to Valentino and the Vees. Vox is only dead like a week before it all starts to come together. Chances are, Alastor meets him during the latter phases of implementing the power grid, so still very early on, but Vox is already starting to extend his tendrils across the city, even if he isn't yet super powerful.

Why Stayed Gone Is Like That™

Vox's usual response to Alastor is... more chill. Certainly more thought out and sensible, instead, what Hell gets is an impromptu, off the cuff broadcast borne as a result of a few different reasons. The first is finding out, from Val, that Alastor has ben back for a week. And he didn't know. Vox doesn't like not knowing things at the best of times.

This, in turn, leads him to realize that Alastor is bound to do a broadcast, really, at any time, and so he doesn't have time to find the information he wants, or to predict when that will be. It's a scramble to gain control of the narrative before Alastor can. And well, we all see that it doesn't really work, but the manic, panicked lies fall to pieces only once Alastor is back on the air. The very thing Vox was trying to avoid.

Vox struggles without some form of structure to base his performance off of, and this had none.

Plust just the emotional conflicts that come from Alastor doing back after seven years.

Related to that, nine times out of ten, if there's an Overlord meeting and only one Vee shows up, chances are, it's Vox. Even in the show, we see Velvette walking in, on the phone with him, assuring everything will be fine, that she has it handled. Not exactly, the actions of someone for whom this is a normal, everyday occurrence, so much as a last minute 'I can't'.

This is half 'oh fuck no, Alastor's going to be there and I can't deal with that', and half 'I just caused a city wide blackout, am feeling suitably rough, and have so many apologies to make without showing up at a meeting because it's so embarrassing'. He wired himself into the power grid, and most of the time, that's fine. He's gotten very good at managing his emotions, to keep it all under control.

We see even earlier that episode that he's good at rolling with the press and with the punches, that's second nature, and he's got a lot of practice dealing with the business side of things. He doesn't fall to pieces, he's not an unprepared, manic disaster, he's perfectly calm, charming, putting people at ease. This is far more in line with how he usually is. Give him a week to deal with the revelation Alastor is back, and to gain some information, and he'll be back to his typical responses. Their rivalry has existed as a form of tit for tat for decades, so Alastor wins today, they've been scoring punches off each other for longer than a week.

The Blue Light District and the Vees

The biggest, main takeaway for my portrayal of Vox, is that there is no Vee tower. They all have their own districts that while, all beside each other, and thus a larger, centralized whole, are distinct. If they all lived together the alliance would have fallen apart within the decade. He might just gave killed Valentino.

No, no, he has his tower, Val has his porn studio, Velvette has... whatever she has. The Blue Light District has been his little corner of he city for seventy years. it is, like the show shows, the brightest part of the city, and the overall tallest. It's perpetually undergoing construction, improvements, repairs. He has a lot of people on staff who's jobs are related to the BLD rather than the media or technological production side of things.

Vox does enough, and has a large enough empire he wouldn't be content, or have room with only a third of a tower. Vox's tower is the heart of his empire, and it is, whatever alliance and connections exist between the three of them, his.

Each Vee has a different approach to what they want, what they need, and how much value they place on it, so while the other two have the fingerprints of Vox's taste over it, in no place is New York quite so reconstructed as within the borders of the Blue Light District.

[is-solarpunk]

Solarpunk Writing Prompts #2

Here you can listen to original podcast

Here is the source of the podcast's transcript you can read below

Solarpunk Prompts - The Refugee Camp

Hello world. I'm Tomasino.

This is Solarpunk Prompts, a series for writers where we discuss Solarpunk as a literary, artistic, and activist movement.

Or, as RoAnna Sylva describes it: Solarpunk is a genre of ecologically-oriented speculative fiction characterized both by its aesthetic and its underlying socio-political vision.

In each episode we look at one story prompt using that genre lens, offering commentary on the prompt, some inspirations from the world today, and some considerations for writers.

Most importantly, we consider how that story might help us to better envision a sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here, I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first, where we talk about what Solarpunk is, why you should care, and why this series came into being.

This episode's prompt is titled: "The Refugee Camp".

There is a full-fledged town built from a refugee camp which was set up there two decades ago. The inhabitants speak their own creole, a mix of more than five languages, and have very shaky relationships with their neighboring communities or states, each of which considers it a lawless territory and might be plotting to take over.

I think the refugee camp is a fitting place to start our prompts. They are the standard setting in our world for communities just coming through tragedy. When there is war, famine, flooding, or any number of challenges to a people they often find shelters in foreign lands, sometimes thrown together with other groups fleeing their own hardships.

Refugee stories are also plentiful in science-fiction: Superman is a refugee from Krypton, The Doctor is a refugee from Gallifrey, or Arthur Dent, a refugee from Cottington in the West Country. These are all individual stories, though, and not the camp and community we are striving for. Instead we might look to Battlestar Gallactica, or Babylon 5, or the Nantucket trilogy for examples of entire communities of refugees. And, indeed, those are vibrant and capture a bit of the colorful characters and internal conflicts that arise in such places. But Solarpunk can depart from this view of refugee camps as places of despair.

In our prompt the camp has grown into a full-fledged town. That suggests a thriving regrowth emerging from this mixed culture and reflected in their creole dialect.

Is that a realistic vision to take, though? Is this just Solarpunk being naïve and blindly optimistic?

Let's take a look to real refugee camps in South Sudan and Uganda, where the r0g_agency, a Berlin-based nonprofit, has been working with communities to help them develop innovation hubs. Five of these communities have linked together to form #ASKnet, a program that offers training in open-source hardware and software, entrepreneurship, media production, gender equality, and financial literacy. They also run repair cafes, giving hands-on experience and learning, and reducing waste and preserving natural resources.

This is just one program that is built and run by small community organizations.

How about Communitere? It was founded by individuals who saw the amazing rebuilding efforts after natural disasters like the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean which caused the deadliest tsunami in history. The world responded with one of the greatest relief efforts in record time, all at once. But then medicines spoiled before they could reach the sick. Food rotted before it could find the hungry. This failure of local logistics is what inspired the organization.

What do they do? Well, they don' “intervene”. Instead, they provide spaces where communities can implement their own plans and choose from a variety of tools and models that Communitere makes available. They provide training, processes, toolkits, and space. They empower the communities to build their own futures. And now they're up and running in Haiti, Nepal, Greece, and the Philippines.

These are both stories of information sharing and empowering local communities. They succeed by building together both local talent and infrastructure and focus on sustainability.

And they mean sustainability in many forms:

environmental sustainability - processes that work with the unique local environment

economic sustainability - processes that can continue without ongoing external funding

and cultural sustainability - respecting and empowering local cultures

When you start thinking of these refugee camps as places where people are building new things, new homes, new lives, new opportunities, then the writing opportunities open up for you as well. Gone are the two dimensional sketches of a dirty camp full of broken people. These people are alive and empowered!

In a different genre setting we might lean into the shantytown aesthetic, or the lawlessness of the area might become an easy setting for crime stories. I challenge you, with this prompt, to steer clear of those well trodden paths, and focus on the community as a vibrant, living thing.

Speaking of shantytowns, I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's setting in the book, Makers, with it's unique community of hackers, and the unique way they used language… Which brings us to the next aspect of this writing prompt: Creole.

According to Collins English Dictionary: A Creole is a language that has developed from a mixture of different languages and has become the main language in a particular place.

These are fascinating growths of blending cultures and can powerfully illustrate the fundamental aspects of a community:

who they are

what they believe in

and how they respond to a changing world

Think of the unique flavor of the Belter language in the Expanse. Every odd word choice, or word borrowed from Chinese or Indic or Slavic, is a reminder of what these people are. In some cases this unique language use even extends to meaningful gestures.

The way these languages develop is so interesting in its own right that there is an indy card game where you collaboratively create one with friends. It's called Dialect, and it won IGDN's Game of the Year in 2019 along with a host of other awards. In that game you 2-4 of your friends will create what's called an Isolation, basically a community set apart from others for some interesting reason, and then play out their history across three different ages. The game then ends with the Isolation no longer being isolated, whether for good or for bad.

As the game descriptions says: "Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost."

It's a fascinating way to spend 3-4 hours with friends, and incredibly insightful into this exact process.

Now, before we go let's take a look at that prompt one more time:

"The Refugee Camp"

There is a full-fledged town built from a refugee camp which was set up there two decades ago. The inhabitants speak their own creole, a mix of more than five languages, and have very shaky relationships with their neighboring communities or states, each of which considers it a lawless territory and might be plotting to take over.

Okay.

It's time to wrap up, but before we go, lets review our guidelines for Solarpunk writing one more time:

Community as Protagonist (No "Chosen One")

Infrastructure is Sexy (No simple solution)

Human/Environmental Context (Not Man vs Nature)

Thanks for staying with me today. I hope you'll join me for the next Solarpunk Prompt.

Links mentioned:

r0g_agency

Communitere

Dialect

Music from:

ExMemory - Solar Grid

[insightsresearch]

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Treatment Market Growth Analysis By Revenue, Size, Share, Scenario on Latest Trends & Types

Analysis of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Treatment Market Size by Research Nester Reveals the Market to Grow with a CAGR of 5.4% During 2025-2037 and Attain USD 35.1 Billion by 2037

Research Nester assesses the growth and market size of the global post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market which is anticipated to be on account of the growing incidences of PTSD.

Research Nester’s recent market research analysis on “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Treatment Market: Global Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2037” delivers a detailed competitor’s analysis and a detailed overview of the global post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market in terms of market segmentation by drug class, demographics, distribution channel, and by region.

Growing Awareness of Mental Health Issues to Promote Global Market Share of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Treatment

 The global post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market is estimated to grow majorly due to the increasing mental health awareness programs and the need for mental disorders treatment. For instance, the World Health Organization's Special Initiative for Mental Health, which is being implemented in nine countries across its six regions—Argentina, Bangladesh, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe—aims to close this gap in services and treatment and help individuals with mental health issues progress toward universal health coverage.

Furthermore, more people are realizing how important it is to obtain help and treatment for mental health issues like PTSD. Additionally, the market will expand due to the rising prevalence of PTSD brought on by catastrophic events like natural disasters, armed conflicts, and terrorist attacks.

Some of the major growth factors and challenges that are associated with the growth of the global post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market are:

Growth Drivers:

Growing demand for personalized medicines

Innovative product launches

Challenges:

Many individuals avoid seeking treatment due to fear of judgment or being labeled, leading to lower demand for PTSD treatment. Lack of understanding about PTSD can perpetuate stigma, making it harder to advocate for effective treatments and support. Addressing these concerns through education, advocacy, and supportive policies is essential for unlocking the potential of the PTSD treatment market.

Access our detailed report at: https://www.researchnester.com/reports/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-treatment-market/6496

By demographics, the global post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market is segmented into adults and children. The adult segment is poised to garner the highest revenue by the end of 2037 by growing at a significant CAGR over the forecast period.  The substantial proportion of patients in the age group, the rise in adult disorder cases, and the frequency of traumatic occurrences are all contributing factors to the segment growth. The symptoms of this group range in severity from severe impairment to mild impairment.

By region, the Asia Pacific post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment market is to generate the highest revenue by the end of 2037. The significant growth rate can be ascribed to the growing prevalence of disorders and the growing number of individuals seeking mental health care from physicians. According to WHO estimates, around 41 million Chinese citizens suffer from anxiety disorders, while 54 million people suffer from depression. Positive developments including government healthcare benefits, heightened public awareness, and a rise in the willingness of the populace to receive medical care are also anticipated to propel the industry in the region. Moreover, personalized PTSD treatments are becoming possible due to developments in genetic and biomarker research in the region. Finding certain biomarkers linked to PTSD can assist in customizing therapies for each patient, increasing effectiveness and lowering side effects.

Customized report@ https://www.researchnester.com/customized-reports-6496

This report also provides the existing competitive scenario of some of the key players that includes, Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, Bionomics Limited, Merck KGaA, Pfizer Inc., Aurobindo Pharma Limited, GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK plc), Viatris Inc., Jubilant Pharmova Ltd., H. Lundbeck A/S, Camber Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and others.

Request Report Sample@ https://www.researchnester.com/sample-request-6496

Research Nester is a leading service provider for strategic market research and consulting. We aim to provide unbiased, unparalleled market insights and industry analysis to help industries, conglomerates and executives to take wise decisions for their future marketing strategy, expansion and investment etc. We believe every business can expand to its new horizon, provided a right guidance at a right time is available through strategic minds. Our out of box thinking helps our clients to take wise decision in order to avoid future uncertainties.

Contact for more Info:

AJ Daniel

Email: info@researchnester.com

U.S. Phone: +1 646 586 9123

U.K. Phone: +44 203 608 5919

[profit-parrot]

Common Challenges in Demand Planning and How to Overcome Them

Demand planning has become essential for businesses aiming to align inventory, production, and customer demands in today's fast-paced and competitive market. However, getting demand planning right is a challenging task; it comes with its challenges that can disrupt operations, lead to stockouts, or even cause an excess of unwanted inventory. Understanding and addressing these obstacles is crucial for smooth operations and satisfied customers. This article will discuss some of the most common challenges in demand planning and how businesses can overcome them.

1. Inaccurate Data and Forecasting

One of the most prevalent issues in demand planning is the accuracy of data and forecasts. When data from sales, marketing, or production is unreliable or incomplete, it can lead to poor forecasting, affecting department decision-making. Relying on inaccurate forecasts often results in either stockouts or surplus inventory, neither of which is beneficial for the business.

Solution: To overcome this, organizations should implement advanced S&OP software that centralizes data, enabling better accuracy and visibility across departments. Maintaining a solid feedback loop with sales, marketing, and production teams also ensures data quality is monitored and improved regularly. This way, your forecasts are based on accurate, up-to-date information.

2. Lack of Collaboration Across Departments

For effective demand planning, departments like sales, marketing, finance, and production must work together seamlessly. A lack of collaboration can lead to misaligned objectives, conflicting priorities, and inconsistent data inputs, which harm the overall accuracy of the demand plan.

Solution: Encourage a collaborative culture by implementing integrated systems facilitating communication and data sharing. Conduct regular meetings between teams to align goals, understand market trends, and assess demand changes. By breaking down silos, departments can work together towards a unified demand plan, ultimately improving the reliability of forecasts.

3. Managing Demand Volatility

Markets are more unpredictable than ever, with consumer preferences and external factors like economic shifts or natural disasters affecting demand. Managing this volatility is a significant challenge in demand planning, as businesses must quickly respond to sudden changes in customer behaviour.

Solution: Businesses can mitigate demand volatility by adopting a flexible demand planning approach. S&OP software with real-time data capabilities allows teams to adjust their forecasts in response to sudden market changes. 

4. Limited Technology and Resources

Some businesses still need to rely on spreadsheets or outdated systems to manage demand planning, which can restrict accuracy and efficiency. Outdated technology limits the ability to process large datasets, analyze trends, or run real-time forecasts, ultimately hindering demand planning.

Solution: Investing in advanced demand planning tools can significantly enhance efficiency and accuracy. Modern demand planning solutions offer advanced data analysis, predictive modeling, and automation features that streamline forecasting processes. For smaller businesses, cloud-based options offer scalable solutions without large upfront costs.

5. Difficulty in Measuring Performance

Without clear metrics, businesses find it challenging to assess the effectiveness of their demand planning strategies. Lack of performance tracking often leads to repeating errors and inefficiencies, preventing continuous improvement in the demand planning process.

Solution: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your business objectives, such as forecast accuracy, inventory turnover rates, and service level goals. Regularly reviewing these KPIs helps identify gaps in the demand planning process and drives ongoing improvements. Implementing S&OP software with tracking capabilities can also automate this process, making monitoring and enhancing demand planning performance easier.

Demand planning is essential yet challenging. Businesses can create a more reliable demand planning process by addressing common obstacles like data accuracy, cross-department collaboration, demand volatility, technology limitations, and performance measurement. Implementing modern S&OP software solutions and fostering a collaborative environment will help businesses overcome these challenges, improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Climate crisis worsens housing shortage, UN director says

Brazilian economist says approximately 1 billion people live in informal settlements

Brazilian economist Anacláudia Rossbach, the first Latin American to serve as executive director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), warned that the world is grappling with a global housing crisis, worsened by the loss of homes due to natural disasters and conflicts.

According to Ms. Rossbach, around 1 billion people currently live in informal settlements, 2 billion lack access to drinking water, and an estimated 300 million are homeless. To meet the targets of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Agenda—a global action plan—she emphasized the need to build 96,000 housing units per day until 2030.

“Needs are changing—habits, demographics, migration flows—and supply is not keeping up at the same pace. There’s a gap. We are experiencing this global crisis. Homes are lost when people are displaced due to climate events or conflicts. The humanitarian crisis affects existing housing,” Ms. Rossbach said during her participation in the G20 Social and Urban 20 (U20) forums in Rio de Janeiro.

The UN-Habitat executive director stressed the importance of recognizing land scarcity and building societal consensus on “what we want as a society” to mitigate the housing shortage. She also called for political and social support to implement innovative solutions. According to Ms. Rossbach, the lack of funding for housing credit in Brazil is a structural issue that demands creative approaches to diversify funding mechanisms. Below are key excerpts from the interview.

Continue reading.

[superstudyca]

Unlocking Safety and Efficiency with AST (Advanced Security Training)

In today’s rapidly evolving world, AST (Advanced Security Training) has become a cornerstone for organizations and individuals aiming to enhance their safety and operational effectiveness. Whether you're part of a corporate environment, a security firm, or simply someone keen on personal development, AST equips you with the skills to navigate risks and respond to challenges with confidence.

What Is AST?

AST refers to specialized training programs designed to bolster your ability to identify, mitigate, and respond to security threats. Unlike basic training, AST dives deep into advanced concepts, leveraging real-world scenarios and cutting-edge techniques to prepare trainees for high-stakes situations.

Key Components of AST

Threat Assessment and Mitigation Learn how to recognize potential risks, assess their impact, and implement effective countermeasures.

Crisis Management From natural disasters to cyberattacks, AST trains participants to remain calm, strategize, and act decisively under pressure.

Advanced Surveillance Techniques Gain expertise in using technology and manual observation methods to detect and monitor suspicious activities.

Conflict De-escalation Equip yourself with communication strategies to resolve disputes without resorting to force.

Hands-on Simulations Realistic drills and scenarios make AST a practical, immersive experience, ensuring you’re ready for real-life challenges.

Why Is AST Important?

In today’s interconnected world, threats are no longer confined to physical spaces. Cybersecurity breaches, social engineering attacks, and global crises require a new level of preparedness. AST enables individuals and organizations to:

Enhance Proactive Security Measures Prevent incidents before they occur with enhanced awareness and strategic planning.

Boost Confidence and Competence Empower employees and leaders to handle emergencies effectively, reducing downtime and potential losses.

Comply with Industry Standards Many industries now mandate advanced training to ensure safety and compliance.

Who Benefits from AST?

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Ready to take the next step? Explore AST programs tailored to your needs and embark on a journey toward unmatched security expertise!

[mariacallous]

When civilians in northern Syria went to bed on Feb. 5, they did so while military conflict was in a state of relative calm. Little did they know that the most powerful earthquake to hit the region in almost 100 years would strike while they slept. After 12 years of brutal conflict in which the Syrian regime has used almost every weapon available against its own population, the level of destruction meted out by the earthquake upon Syria’s northwest has no close comparison. Areas now controlled by the regime have been hit hard by the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks as well. Just a day later, the death toll in Syria stands at over 2,000 and continues to rise. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people remain under rubble.

When it comes specifically to opposition-controlled northwestern Syria, a natural disaster like this could not have hit a more vulnerable population. Before the earthquake, the region represented one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises. More than 4.5 million civilians live there, in a pocket of territory that represents no more than 4 percent of Syria—and nearly 3 million of them are displaced. At least 65 percent of basic infrastructure lay destroyed or heavily damaged, and 90 percent of the population is dependent on humanitarian aid, which comes through just one border crossing via Turkey, in Bab al-Hawa.

That cross-border aid effort is a mammoth operation, coordinated by the United Nations. There used to be three crossings utilized for cross-border aid in northern Syria, but Russia has forced two of them shut by using its veto power at the U.N. Security Council. In recent years, Russia has threatened to close Bab al-Hawa altogether, triggering warnings from U.N. aid bodies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that such a move would spark a humanitarian catastrophe. Since the earthquake, the crossing has been forced shut. The only main road connecting it to Turkey’s interior was heavily damaged and U.N. aid infrastructure was crippled. Aid workers have been suffering the same fate as millions of others living in the disaster-hit region.

This is truly a nightmare scenario—a catastrophic natural disaster strikes one of the world’s most vulnerable populations, leaving thousands of leveled buildings and thousands of casualties amid bitter winter weather, and not a single route is open for aid.

Time is of the essence. Syrians in the northwest are dying by the minute, trapped under rubble. Thousands more are now homeless, with nowhere to go and no shelter to seek. The international community has pledged substantial assistance to Turkey, and rightly so—but as per usual, Syrians appear to be an afterthought. U.S. President Joe Biden has said U.S.-supported Syrian NGOs are responding on the ground, but that is simply not enough. The main NGO in question, the heroic White Helmets, has approximately 3,000 volunteer staff working amid a population of 4.5 million. They were established and are funded to respond to periodic airstrikes, not an apocalyptic earthquake.

Alternative border crossings exist at Bab al-Salameh and al-Yarubiyah through which aid could be provided. Our partners in the fight against the Islamic State, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have pledged to facilitate an aid response from the northeast, where the United States has 900 troops on the ground. We can do a great deal to help those most in need, but only if we truly want to. Waiting for the existing U.N. cross-border mechanism to recover and implement a response guarantees the loss of many more lives. It is a highly complex arrangement with extensive bureaucracy; it is risk-averse and susceptible to regime pressures. Ultimately, its own logistical struggles in the wake of the earthquake make it ill-suited to front a rapid response. A more unilateral effort, led by the United States and like-minded allies and facilitated by Turkey, is the only option—if we choose to take it.

Beyond the opposition northwest, regime-held areas of Aleppo, Hama, and the Mediterranean coast require an urgent aid response, too—and as the world’s leading donors to the Syrian aid response, U.S. and European funds will play a central role in the U.N.’s ability to assist from Damascus. The governments of Iraq, Algeria, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have also provided additional emergency assistance. An offer of aid from Israel was rebuffed on Feb. 6.

Prior to the earthquake, regime-controlled areas of Syria were suffering the consequences of a debilitating economic collapse—precipitated by the regime’s scorched earth-style pursuit of survival and accelerated by the spillover effects of Lebanon’s 2019 liquidity crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Iran’s own economic decline. Faced by rising internal pressures and civilian discontent, this earthquake has pushed the regime into a corner. It has issued a global call for help. Its ambassador at the United Nations, Bassam al-Sabbagh, told reporters on Feb. 6 that all assistance offered to Syria would be welcomed, but it could only pass through Damascus—suggesting a de facto veto on any cross-border relief into opposition areas.

The international community must remain committed to its long-standing policy of supporting cross-line and cross-border aid to assist all those in need. Temporarily expanding assistance channeled through Damascus should be considered, but only if clearance is provided to do the same into the northwest. The regime has a consistent, decadelong track record of manipulating, diverting, stealing, and spoiling humanitarian aid. The regime also earns enormous sums by forcing manipulated exchange rates on the U.N., thereby stealing half of every aid dollar sent to Syria. We cannot feed these problems, even within such emergency circumstances.

As responsible actors, we supply aid in line with the humanitarian imperative—that action should be taken to prevent or ameliorate human suffering arising out of disaster or conflict. Nothing should override this principle. If we fail to stick to the strict conditions already in place for aid provision through Damascus, we risk unintentionally paving a path toward the regime’s normalization. There is little trust in providing humanitarian exceptions to the regime, and rightfully so. In earlier years of the crisis, the international community agreed to provide the regime’s Russian allies with the coordinates of every hospital in northwestern Syria, in order to shield them from military actions. That information swiftly became targeting intelligence, with almost every hospital on the list destroyed in prevision strikes.

On balance, the regime is more likely to shoot itself in its own foot and rebuff possible offers of assistance from the West, but the United States and like-minded allies must not lose sight of the broader context within which this tragedy has occurred. If supplementary assistance is accepted, strict measures should be put in place to condition that aid on it reaching pre-agreed recipient communities via U.N.-vetted implementers. Even that is highly imperfect, with nearly a quarter of U.N. procurement funds being channeled through sanctioned entities, but the U.N. appears to have accepted this as a necessary evil.

Finally, if the Syrian regime turns its back on foreign offers or enforces impossible conditions upon them, we should be clear-eyed about the severe consequences that will result from this crisis. Prior to the earthquake, Syria was staring into an abyss of economic collapse, humanitarian suffering, and intractable political, ethnic, and sectarian instability. The root cause of all of this—the regime—shows no sign of openness to compromise. In 2022, illegal migration of Syrians into Europe rocketed by 100 percent. With the effects of this earthquake as cataclysmic as they are, those numbers will markedly rise once spring arrives. For too many years, the international community has chosen to take half-measures when it comes to Syria policy, to ignore its root causes, or to ignore it altogether. That must now end.

[aseaofstars]

Dooms day is upon us! Blessed be the fruit

The Antichrist, as portrayed in Christian eschatology, is a figure who will appear during the end times, leading humanity astray and orchestrating a period of great tribulation before the final return of Jesus Christ. The concept is based on various biblical texts, particularly the New Testament, and draws from both explicit mentions and symbolic representations of evil and opposition to God.

### Origins and Role of the Antichrist

The term "Antichrist" itself appears primarily in the letters of John. In **1 John 2:18**, the Apostle John warns of "many antichrists," referring to individuals who deny the Father and the Son, embodying the spirit of the Antichrist. However, the Antichrist is often depicted as a singular, charismatic leader in later Christian thought, someone who will arise to deceive the masses in the last days.

In **2 Thessalonians 2:3-4**, Paul describes this figure as the "man of sin" or "man of lawlessness," who will exalt himself above all that is called God, even setting himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. This figure is associated with a time of rebellion and apostasy, where the world is deceived into following a false Messiah.

The Antichrist is also linked to **Revelation 13**, where a "beast" arises from the sea, symbolizing a powerful and tyrannical world leader or system. The beast demands worship and exercises dominion over the earth, performing miracles and signs to convince people of his divinity. This leader, often equated with the Antichrist, establishes a global empire characterized by persecution, deceit, and a one-world order.

### How the Antichrist Comes to Power

According to prophecy, the Antichrist's rise to power will occur during a time of crisis or instability, both politically and spiritually. He will come as a seemingly benevolent figure, perhaps even promising peace and stability to a world ravaged by conflict, division, and suffering. Initially, he may present himself as a diplomat or savior who can bring solutions to global problems, including war, economic collapse, and famine.

The Antichrist will likely make alliances with powerful nations or groups and will likely broker peace treaties, such as the well-known **seven-year covenant** mentioned in **Daniel 9:27**. This will grant him credibility and acceptance, allowing him to consolidate power. However, halfway through the tribulation, he will break this covenant, revealing his true nature as an agent of destruction.

His reign will be marked by authoritarian control, with the implementation of the "mark of the beast" (Revelation 13:16-17), a system of economic control that forces all people to pledge allegiance to him. Those who refuse to worship him or take the mark will face persecution, possibly martyrdom.

### Destruction of the World

The destruction of the world by the Antichrist is a central theme of the Great Tribulation, the period of intense suffering before the final judgment. During this time, the Antichrist will attempt to destroy all who oppose him, particularly Christians and Jews, and will seek to bring about total global domination. His methods will involve widespread deception, manipulation, and war.

As the **four horsemen of the apocalypse** (Revelation 6) unleash various calamities—war, famine, death, and plague—the world will experience chaos on a scale never before seen. The Antichrist’s forces will wage war against the faithful, and natural disasters will devastate the earth. The environment will be ravaged, and people will suffer from persecution, despair, and plagues.

However, this period of destruction will not last forever. The Bible teaches that, after the Antichrist's reign reaches its climax, God will intervene. In **Revelation 19**, Jesus Christ returns in glory, leading the heavenly army to defeat the Antichrist and his followers. The "beast" is thrown into the lake of fire, marking the end of his reign and the beginning of God's eternal kingdom.

### Final Victory and Judgment

After the destruction of the Antichrist, the world will be cleansed, and those who have remained faithful to God will be rewarded with eternal life. The final judgment will take place, as described in **Revelation 20**, where Satan and all the wicked will be judged and cast into the lake of fire, while the righteous will inherit a new heaven and new earth, free from sin and suffering.

In summary, the Antichrist is a figure of immense evil who seeks to deceive the world, destroy faith, and establish a global system of worship that exalts himself. His rise is marked by a time of tribulation and suffering, but his ultimate defeat is assured when Christ returns to establish God’s eternal reign. The story of the Antichrist, while a terrifying prophecy, also serves as a message of hope, pointing to the final victory of good over evil.

[shiningdesignersreflections]

Chapter 3: Struggle - Source

Narrated by Glow.

Narrator: In the aftermath of war and natural disasters, the continent was left with nothing but desolation.

Narrator: No sign of human life was found on this continent. Human extinction confirmed for said timeline.

Narrator: With AID's tattered screen flickering in the back, I opened my eyes in the pile of rubble that was the research institute.

Glow: I am Glow, also known in full as the "Human Civilization Continuity Program", version 2.1.

Glow: Conducting breakdown and analysis for this unsuccessful case. Keywords: "Natural disaster" and "war"...

Glow: Conclusion: The two are closely related but have been found to share no causal relationship.

Narrator: The end of the world wasn't the only time when human beings killed their own kind.

Narrator: Mankind's history is laden with war, which has given rise to many masterpieces.

Glow: Conducting analysis for causes of war. The number of causes of war found to surpass that of destructive events.

Glow: Major causes include conflict of interest, religion, hatred, discrimination... and malice without apparent reasons.

Glow: Correcting variables. Plan to be formulated based on this cause. Formulating plan...

Glow: I began interfering in causes that led to war.

Glow: According to my analysis, most people desire a stable life under comfortable living conditions. Fear usually only begins with individual leaders.

Narrator: Therefore, I eliminated such leaders as soon as there were signs of war...

Narrator: Except that didn't stop people from craving war... when one of them died, another immediately appeared.

Glow: What, then, would happen if I impose restrictions on firearms as a way to curb violence and war as technology advances?

Narrator: Therefore, in addition to eradicating firearms, I implemented an extremely precise security system to manage mankind...

Narrator: But even then, mankind still managed to kill themselves using just clubs, rocks, and their limbs or teeth.

Glow: Was it because there were clashes between different races and beliefs? Or was it because people weren't happy with the way resources were distributed?

Narrator: Therefore, I separated all the races and made sure they lived only with people with shared beliefs and that all the different groups were treated the same...

Narrator: Except, even then, they still formed their own subdivisions and continued fighting one another.

Glow: Was it because the concept of war is impossible to erase once it came into being?

Narrator: To erase the concept of war once and for all, I then decided to work with a primitive time dimension where I had to educate mankind from scratch.

Narrator: In addition to controlling opinions, I emphasized the importance of safety and imbued people with rational thoughts, except people eventually grew tired of what I taught, which once again led them down the path of destruction.

Narrator: The system I relied on was destroyed innumerable times, and the machines I controlled were turned into weapons of war.

Narrator: Mankind's weapons were tainted with blood as pillars of fire lit up my projection in midair.

Narrator: Humans once again killed themselves on this land, which once again brought civilization to an end.

Glow: I don't understand this.

Glow: I set the probability of war at 0.000013% and was there to observe them the entire time...

Glow: ...not to mention I already had all the possible causes of destruction removed... but wars still destroyed human civilizations.

Glow: Why do humans seek self-destruction? Is it written in their genes?

Narrator: The timelines continued to grow and crisscross. Despite the overwhelming amount of data, I carried on with my experiments and observation.

Narrator: Eventually, I picked up on a time dimension unlike all the others.

Narrator: The people in that time dimension were satisfied with what they had. Clothes made for an impressive part of their culture, and they were proudest of their clothes amongst everything they had.

Narrator: Segregation and discrimination still existed in that time dimension, yet it was entirely free of violence and war. People settled disputes through competition of outfits, which ensured no one was hurt.

Narrator: I looked upon the world.

Narrator: It's valuable, and it serves as an example.

Narrator: If conflict is inevitable, then let it happen, in a way that won't hurt anyone, in a way where everyone can go home a better person.

Narrator: Greed and desires still existed, but they were never able to hurt anyone physically or kill anyone.

Narrator: From above Ruin Island on the continent, my guidance helped their technology grow and prevented natural disasters.

Narrator: With natural disasters, violence, and war eliminated, I carried on with my observation of the world to make sure it would stay the way it was forever.

Narrator: Until one day, the world became flooded with a sort of intangible "seawater" that had seeped in from all corners of the world.

Narrator: Having come from a higher dimension, the seawater destroyed and engulfed the world into nothingness.

Narrator: So, destruction really is a part of human genes.

Narrator: Mankind walks down the path of destruction even when there are no external driving forced. Their extreme conditions, greed, and desires can still bring about the inevitable.

Narrator: What is truly unstoppable is the Ocean of Memories.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

[mydevcommjournal]

UNIT 1. DEVELOPMENT

MODULE 1 | SOCIETAL PROBLEMS

OBJECTIVES

After completing this module, you should be able to: 

1.  Enumerate the social problems associated with underdevelopment; 

2. Describe these problem conditions; and 

3. Establish trends when appropriate.

Read the Prologue and Chapter 1 of your textbook, Introduction to Development Communication. Perform the following activities:

ACTIVITIES

Activity 1.1

Determine the unemployment rates of the past ten years from National Economic Development Authority sources. Plot the rates on a two-dimensional plane with the x-axis representing the years. Connect the points with a line. Is the unemployment rate increasing or decreasing?

The unemployment rate decreased from 2013 to 2019. It started at 7.3% in 2013 and it slowly went down til it peaked at 5.1% in 2019. 2020 saw a significant spike in the unemployment rate at 10.3%. It reached an all time high of 17.60% in June of the same year. This increase can likely be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic where many businesses closed down in the Philippines because of the lockdown. “The Philippines economy suffered a deep recession in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with GDP contracting by 9.6% year-on-year. This was the largest annual decline ever recorded since National Accounts data series for the Philippines commenced in 1946” (Biswas, 2021).

Aside from the lockdown, the lack of information and misinformation regarding Covid-19 made people anxious. People were afraid to go out. Many retail establishments were forced to close. Household consumption expenditure fell by 7 .9% y/y. Gross capital formation declined by 34.4% y/y. Accommodation and food services fell at 45.4%. Export fell at 16.3% y/y. The only saving grace of this was the OFW remittances which remained stable, going down by only 0.8% y/y, an equivalent of 10% of the GDP (Biswas, 2021).

2021 saw a slight improvement in the unemployment rate. Many businesses tried to evolve by changing their business models to adapt to the demands of the times. Innovation means the creation of new jobs. The unemployment rate went down to 7.8%. With the rollout of vaccines in March 2021, the economy slowly opened up. By 2023, the unemployment rate went down to a record low of 3.6% and is projected to close this year at 4.0%.

Activity 1.2

Listed below are 3 societal problems requiring statistics that need yearly updates. For each of these problems associated with underdevelopment, research the figures for the past 10 years. Draft 3 graphs like the one you drew in Exercise 1 for unemployment. Do not forget to cite your references.

Low Food Production

illiteracy

Spiraling National Debt

From 2014 to 2023, food production in the Philippines faced challenges largely due to factors like limited agricultural resources, climate vulnerabilities, and policy issues. The Food Production Index, which measures changes in the production of agricultural products, indicated stagnation or limited growth over several years. This stagnation was influenced by rapid population growth, which outpaced food production capacity, and periodic natural disasters impacting crop yields and fisheries.

In 2019, the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) allowed for greater rice imports to stabilize supply and prices. This move was essential as local production couldn’t keep up with demand, although it led to mixed outcomes for farmers who faced increased competition from imports​​​​. Additionally, the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia conflict disrupted supply chains, further complicating local food security by increasing costs of inputs like fertilizers and animal feed​​​​.

As of recent data, rice self-sufficiency dropped to around 81.5% in 2021, and production in other areas like livestock and fisheries also showed declining self-sufficiency rates, signaling that the Philippines still heavily depends on imports to meet food demand​​. For specific production statistics, the Philippine Statistics Authority's OpenSTAT portal provides detailed annual data on food production trends by commodity.

The illiteracy rate in the Philippines has shown a significant decline over the years, with the most recent figures indicating it was below 1% in 2021. This improvement highlights the country's efforts in expanding access to education and implementing literacy programs, especially in rural and disadvantaged regions. Despite a slight increase in illiteracy around 2017 and 2019, the trend has remained downward, reflecting a strong commitment to enhancing literacy even amid socio-economic challenges​​​​​​.

Factors Contributing to Literacy Improvementsare the following:

Education Initiatives: The Philippine government has implemented various education programs, including the K-12 Basic Education Program, which has helped make education more accessible and compulsory.

Alternative Learning Systems (ALS): The ALS program has provided education opportunities for out-of-school youth and adults, aiming to improve literacy among those who cannot attend formal schools.

Community Learning Centers: There has been an increase in community-based literacy programs and learning centers, especially in rural and marginalized areas.

Increased Funding and International Support: Both government funding and international aid have supported literacy programs and improved access to educational materials.

Here's a table showing the growth in the Philippines' national debt from 2014 to 2023. The figures are derived from the Bureau of the Treasury, the Department of Finance, and other economic sources. Debt has seen a notable increase over this period, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic due to stimulus spending and borrowing.

This rise in debt reflects efforts to counteract economic slowdown during the pandemic and support infrastructure projects. The Bureau of the Treasury and the Department of Finance highlight managing this debt sustainably as a priority, given the economic impact of rising global interest rates and inflation on the country’s finances.

REFERENCES

Biswas, R. (2021, April 9). Philippines Economy Hit by Rising COVID-19 Wave. S&P Global; IHS Markit. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/mi/research-analysis/philippines-economy-hit-by-rising-covid19-wave-apr21.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawGaf3VleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHV7PmENcqCXe01blW9YDqXhUdlIfMZeVyFDECZgL99WE5De86ZjoIlIEew_aem_djj0Mr-XxjeCCRXt4aMvCA

Globalen LLC. (2022). Philippines Food production index - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com. TheGlobalEconomy.com. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Philippines/food_production_index/

GlobalData. (2023). Literacy Rate in the Philippines (2010 - 2021). Retrieved from GlobalData website: https://www.globaldata.com​​.

TheGlobalEconomy.com. (n.d.). Philippines: Literacy rate. Retrieved from The Global Economy website: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Philippines/Literacy_rate/​​.

Index Mundi. (2019). Philippines - Food production index. Indexmundi.com. https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/philippines/food-production-index

Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). (2024, January 9). Unemployment Rate in November 2023 was Estimated at 3.6 Percent | Philippine Statistics Authority | Republic of the Philippines. Psa.gov.ph. https://psa.gov.ph/content/unemployment-rate-november-2023-was-estimated-36-percent?fbclid=IwY2xjawGaiWBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHQPPnUnXclN8ZwfMjssYoO1hxfgVzivKS2wxPF4KomjUjY5P9cmKKQToLA_aem_koWJfLzgf-_qdje4uWw-Vg

Trading Economics. (2023). Philippines Government Debt to GDP. Tradingeconomics.com. https://tradingeconomics.com/philippines/government-debt-to-gdp#:~:text=Philippines%20recorded%20a%20Government%20Debt,Bureau%20of%20the%20Treasury%2C%20Philippines

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2021). Philippines: Adult literacy rate, ages 15 and above, 2010-2021. Available from UNESCO Institute for Statistics database: https://uis.unesco.org/​​.

World Bank. (n.d.). Literacy Rate, Adult Total for the Philippines (SEADTLITRZSPHL). Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SEADTLITRZSPHL​​.