#partly because I have only lived through seven prime ministers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

quantomeno · 13 hours ago

Text

There is a long (long) list of wacky and corrupt Australian politicians (not always both, but often)

I kept adding more to this list so I'm putting it under the break

Prime Ministers:

Alfred Deakin, our second prime minister, who returned to office twice later, was "a mystic and spiritualist who was obsessed with signs and prophecies ... Put simply, Deakin believed he had a divine destiny to create a nation for whites only." (source) His spiritualism wasn't widely known at the time though. He was also one of the chief architects of the White Australia Policy which limited immigration of non-British people to Australia (and was only fully repealed in 1973!!!) and he also really believed Aboriginal Australians would die out and wanted that to happen.

Billy Hughes, another racist but let's focus instead on his wackiness: he famously changed party while PM to join the opposition. After he ended his time as PM, he was expelled from that party and then expelled from the party he joined after that (twice). A famous story goes "Prime Minister Robert Menzies remarked that at one time or another, Hughes had been a member of every party. 'Not the Country Party!' interjected Arthur Fadden, that party’s leader. 'No,' replied Hughes, 'I had to draw the line somewhere.'" The joke being that the Country Party were c.... you get the idea.

It's more an oddity than anything else, but Harold Holt famously disappeared while going for a swim down at Point Nepean (if you've seen a map of greater Melbourne, it's the tip of the right peninsula, he swam on the ocean side). His body was never found which led to a bunch of conspiracy theories (including, but not limited to, him being kidnapped by a Japanese submarine). Obligatory 'they named a pool after him after he died' (he was a famously big fan of swimming and the pool was in his electorate so it made sense it's not that they were trying to be darkly humorous).

Gough Whitlam: I'm a big fan of the guy. He bought Pollocks' 'Blue Poles' for the national gallery and was ridiculed for this, but it's now worth 100-350 times the price he bought it. His real wackiness though came from the fact he was fired by the Governor General. This is notable because this has never happened before or since and the GG is otherwise a pretty boring and forgettable person. There are rumours (only rumours, mind you, and a lot of academic debate) that Queen Elizabeth II was in on it. Also maybe the CIA. Whitlam was a big reformist and had a lot of progressive policies that ruffled feathers to say the least.

Bob Hawke. I want to say he is the Australian version of Bill Clinton except better. He set a world record for skolling a yard of ale while he was at Oxford. He was a womaniser and later divorced his wife and remarried (this was a big scandal at the time). When an Australian yacht won the America's Cup for the first time, he famously declared “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.” He was a great Prime Minister and I am very fond of him. They don't make PMs like they used to.

Paul Keating! The only PM to have a musical written about him, fitting for the man known as the Placido Domingo of Australian politics. A master of epic put-downs. When asked by the opposition leader John Hewson why he wouldn't call an early election, he replied 'because I wanna do you slowly'. He also called Hewson "a feral abacus". He called Liberal party treasurer Peter Costello "all tip and no iceberg" and had previously responded to an attack by Costello as "like being flogged with a warm lettuce". He called John Howard "The little desiccated coconut" and (on a separate occasion) "the greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague". He called the senate "unrepresentative swill". He was also a really good PM but he was probably a tad too intellectual for the average Australian. Also there was the 'recession we had to have' quote that didn't win him any favours.

Little Johnnie Howard. He will forever be known as having the bushiest eyebrows of any Australian PM, possibly of any world leader, of all time. Howard has a lot of little weird things so I'll be quick and say the time he claimed it "was not his experience" that Australia was a racist country. Also the time he refused to let a freighter carrying hundreds of refugees to enter Australian waters. He then claimed the people on the boat were throwing children overboard in a bid to force the government to rescue them (there was as much evidence of this as there was of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Howard was also the PM who got us to follow the US into Iraq, by the way).

Tony Abbott. The most gaffe-prone Australian PM ever. Unless you include acting PMs but we won't (yes I'm referring to Barnaby; yes I'll get to him later). He once ate a raw onion skin and all while visiting an onion farm. He claimed he would 'shirtfront' Putin over the MH17 disaster and to this day no one knows what exactly he meant by that. He had a penchant for wearing red budgie smugglers and it was not easy on the eyes to say the least. He got Prince Phillip an Australian knighthood. When an Australian soldier died in Afghanistan, he commented 'shit happens' and when later asked about this comment by a reporter he nodded blankly in complete silence for 28 seconds while the reporter tried to ask him questions ("you're not saying anything Tony"). He called the British colonisation of Australia "a form of foreign investment by the British government". He once said that "no one is the suppository of all wisdom" (if you don't get the blunder, look up what a suppository is). There was also the weird influence his chief of staff Peta Credlin had over him (this irritated his colleagues more than anyone else). Abbott was an unpleasant man and a shambling PM. Oh I forgot the budget!!!!!!!! The Abbott government's first budget! I'll save that for Joe Hockey's entry. He also was a massive proponent of offshore processing of refugees which was so great that Rishi Sunak decided to copy it with his plan to send refugees to Rwanda (it is still a blight on this nation but I digress). Oh yeah and he also made himself minister for women.

Scott Morrison: oh. oh... was he worse than Abbott? is it possible? At least Abbott had a vision, even if it was a bad one, Morrison just bumbled along and if we hadn't had a pandemic I don't think he'd rate a mention. The rumours he cacked his dacks in a Maccas in Engadine are (apparently) false. He does have a weird love of curries, but I like curry too so who am I to throw stones. There was the time he told protesters they should be grateful they don't live in a country where protesters get shot at. During the 2019-2020 bushfires he was found to have snuck off to Hawaii on holiday and rushed back to try to do some damage control. He then said "I don't hold a hose, mate", which went down poorly. He then visited victims and tried to shake their hands but had to forcefully take their hands and shake them. After he was booted out of office he was found to have secretly appointed himself to five ministerial positions during the pandemic without telling anyone except the governor general. He only used this power one time to override the resource minister. It was weird and no one quite knew what to make of it but the consensus we reached was it was bad. There was also the time he tackled a child while playing a friendly game of soccer during his attempted re-election campaign. I mean like full on knocked him to the ground. He also really loved sticking his thumbs up and tried to act like a loveable, daggy dad but in reality he was not so friendly to say the least. Oh and he was the guy who approved the 'Where the bloody hell are you?' ad when he was head of Tourism Australia, leading to him losing his job (this was before he became PM and it's why he's called Scotty from Marketing).

Non-PMs:

Joh Bjelke-Petersen: a really corrupt Queensland premier from the late 60s to late 80s. He was authoritarian, racist, homophobic, anti-environment (he supported oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef), moralistic, anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-taxation... etc. He was in many, many respects like the current US president-elect. He also had a role in the Whitlam Dismissal. When people protested the South African rugby team playing in Brisbane (because of the apartheid), he declared a state of emergency and sent in the police who attacked the protesters. He is a very strong contender for my least favourite politician in Australian history.

Joe Hockey: Abbott's treasurer. In an attempt to cut down on debt, the Abbott government announced a very, very austere budget in 2014. Cruelly austere. Hockey was then spotted smoking cigars with the finance minister in 'celebration' of a successful budget. This was not good for his reputation as he was living it up while poor Australians were struggling. He went on to eventually become our ambassador to the US during their administration of 2016-2020 and I think that was actually a good job for him considering the guy in charge of the US at the time.

Pauline Hanson: From humble beginnings running a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Hanson rose to become one of Australia's most hated and most controversial politicians. She is famous for her maiden speech in 1996 when she said Australia was at risk of being "swamped by Asians", her speech 20 years later when she said we were at risk of being "swamped by Muslims", the time she went into parliament wearing a burqa as some sort of stunt, the time she walked out of parliament during the Welcome to Country, the time she climbed Uluru after it was announced climbing it was going to be prohibited (out of respect for the Indigenous people who regard it as sacred) and later she claimed she was 'indigenous' to the land because she was born in Australia, the time she blamed Indigenous Australians for their own problems, and, most famously, the time a reporter asked her if she was xenophobic and she replied 'please explain'. She is a remarkably poor orator and has a tendency to waffle. She's also homophobic and anti-renewable energy and so on and so forth.

Sam Dastyari: he took bribes from Chinese companies with links to the Chinese government and was essentially working for China and advocating their interests. I'm not sure he was that 'weird' but he was definitely corrupt.

Bob Katter: The crazy independent member of parliament from Far North Queensland. He is the current Father of the House, being as he is the longest current serving member of parliament. He has an obsession with crocodiles (he wants to cull them) and has floated the idea of giving rifles to all children. He once promised to walk "backwards from Bourke" if homosexuals made up so much as 0.001% of the population of North Queensland (claiming that there were none there). He didn't want to waste time talking about same-sex marriage because the crocodiles killing people in Queensland was more important. He's also rather racist.

George Christensen: Sex holidays in the Philippines. He was in Manila more often than he was in Parliament House. He's also Islamophobic, doesn't believe in climate change, and believes in other conspiracy theories particularly those around COVID-19.

Fraser Anning: this guy is kind of a Nazi and I do not throw that term around lightly. He used the phrase 'final solution' with reference to 'the immigration problem' (i.e. the 'swamping by Asians/Muslims' Hanson was going on about. Oh yeah, forgot to say he was a member her party but then defected to Katter's party). Even Pauline Hanson said it was 'straight from Goebbels' handbook'. Later, a boy famously hit an egg onto his head. He then slapped the boy on the face twice. This boy (William Connolly) became known as Egg Boy and was a national hero for a brief time.

Stuart Robert: this guy was the minister involved in Robodebt: the government implemented this automated debt collection thing which incorrectly calculated a lot of people's debts for government payments (e.g. for unemployment, disability etc). Essentially the government was robbing the poor and suffering in the name of tackling 'dole bludgers'. There were a number of other corruption allegations against him too.

Richard Colbeck: Aged care minister during the pandemic.... oh did he stuff it up big time. Just general incompetency during a time when elderly Australians were most vulnerable (the pandemic). It was appalling.

Michaelia Cash: famous for her marching, her odd enunciation, her oddly high intensity and her hairstyle. There was also the time she threatened "name every young woman" in the opposition who was the subject of rumours. This came off the back of when she sent the police to raid union offices. Then after the threats she hid behind a whiteboard to avoid having to talk to the press. There was also the time she got Scott Cam (host of the reality TV show 'The Block') to be 'National Careers Ambassador', for which he was paid almost $350,000 AUD and he didn't do much in that role.

Bridget McKenzie: colour-coded spreadsheets! Sports rorts! Sorry, this was a big event at the time. Essentially the government was found to have funded sports grants in marginal seats to try to help win the election, and in doing so they ignored other, more worthwhile, requests for funding. Bridget was left holding the can for this. There were found to be spreadsheets colour-coded by who held what electorate to decide which marginal seats should be targeted. She also was found to have given funds to help a rifle shooting club she was a member of.

Angus Taylor: this guy just seems to make things up a lot. He once presented a document detailing the Lord Mayor of Melbourne's air travel to try to paint her as a hypocrite on environmentalist issues. But the documents were complete bunkum and to this day no one knows where they came from. He also claimed in his maiden speech to have argued with Naomi Wolf about Christmas trees (it was a political correctness thing) while they were at Oxford together. Naomi Wolf was not actually at Oxford at the time in question.

Clive Palmer: he is a mining magnate who is trying to rebuild the titanic. He has a theme park filled with replica dinosaurs at a resort he owns. He made a political party called the Palmer United Party which was rather disunited (more on that later). He ended up losing at the following election but then spent $123 million AUD on election spending (all those ugly yellow signs.....) and won one (1) seat in the senate (for a member of his party, not himself). He also once likened himself to Gandhi.

Craig Kelly: ugh….. him… a former Coalition member, he defected and joined up with Clive Palmer on his attempted return to Australian politics. He was a big believer of COVID conspiracy theories and the like.

Jaquie Lambie: the senator from Tasmania who tells it like it is. Jaquie was originally a Palmer United member until she split from the party and became and independent. She was incredibly Islamophobic and anti-refugee. Then she went on a TV show where they got famous people to see what it's like to be in the shoes of refugees and she had a change of heart. She is famously foul mouthed. Almost any sentence she says will have the word bloody in it. She also got found out to be a dual citizen and so lost her seat and then had to regain it. The time in the wilderness only sharpened her. I actually think I like her now. She fights for the little guy, but in an honest and actually good way, not like just channelling their rage (though she does definitely do that, I mean it in the sense doesn't just use it to feather her own nest). She's proof politicians can become better people.

Barnaby Joyce: I've saved one of the bests till last. Where to start? He tried to euthanise Johnny Depp's dogs, he lived rent-free in the house of a millionaire, he was found to be (unbeknownst to literally everyone including apparently himself) a New Zealand citizen and thus ineligible for parliament (he got re-elected after he renounced the NZ citizenship), he got a $40,000 award from the richest person in Australia for being a 'champion of industry', he had an affair with a staffer which led to the PM of the time creating what became known as the 'Bonk Ban'. He also looks like a tomato when he gets angry. He also cannot string two words together. He once said a massive flood was a 'once-in-3,500-year event'. He was also our deputy prime minister for an embarrassingly long stretch. Which meant that when the PM was out of the country, he was acting PM. Which is just... yeah

I’m from the US and I have a few friends here from India and recently one of them told me “You know, we also have corrupt politicians in India but they’re not nearly as wacky as the ones you have here.”

#australian politics #I've barely delved into state politics #and the senators and ministers I've mentioned are largely from the last decade or so #partly because I have only lived through seven prime ministers #so pre-Howard is also pre-my birth #but also because I need to stop somewhere #Australia has had a lot of dud politicians #some people on this list were actually really really good Prime Ministers #like I think 3 of my top 5 are on this list #but even they had odd moments and funny stories

429 notes · View notes

doopcafe · 4 years ago

Text

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Seasons 1--6), Final Analysis

Well, I made it through.

Let’s be absolutely clear: The Clone Wars (TCW) is not good television. For the most part, it’s not even watchable television. The show suffers from serious fundamental issues in nearly every aspect of storytelling. Characters are underdeveloped and inconsistent; the dialogue is expository and contradictory; the tone is disjoint and jarring; and most episodes serve no greater purpose than to be a twenty-minute vessel to house lightsaber fights.

So I want to put this part of the show to rest before I move on to Star Wars: Rebels (and before returning to watch season 7).

With two exceptions, the show poorly handles twists and reveals. In the earlier seasons, reveals were spoiled mostly due to telegraphing: Captain Sleaze in Cloak of Darkness, Senator Clovis in Senate Spy, and Yolo (?) in Senate Murders come to mind, but there were others. In later seasons, telegraphing was supplanted by “small universe syndrome” as the primary cause of spoiled reveals. In The Academy, a cloaked figure was seen doing shady, back-alley deals, but his identity could only have been the Prime Minister. During the “Ahsoka framed” series, Barriss was obviously the traitor, simply because her character suddenly reappeared after four seasons and there were no other candidates.

Probably the most successfully executed reveal was that of Krell, as his assholeness was at least initially masked as military rigidity. But even so, it was so over-the-top that when the reveal finally came to light, it felt more like an overdue disclosure than a dramatic twist. It didn’t help that, by that point in the show, the format of “asshole = upcoming reveal” had been firmly entrenched into the show’s DNA.

I would argue that the most effective plot twist of the entire show was when the dancer/singer girl shot and killed Ziro the Hutt in Hunt for Ziro. Although irrelevant to the greater story, it was an actual twist because it was strongly implied the opposite would happen (i.e., Ziro would betray the girl). If there is to be a second place, that award would go to Ahsoka’s decision to leave the Jedi Order at the conclusion of The Wrong Jedi. But this leads me into my next point...

Who was the main character of The Clone Wars? If we go by the logic that whoever had the most screen time was the main character, then Anakin probably wins over Ahsoka. But if we go by the logic that the most developed character was the “main character,” then this is a show about Ahsoka. Ahsoka---more than any other character---grows in a noticeable way (from impatient, violent child to impatient, slightly less violent teenager). In contrast, Anakin in Rising Malevolence is the same character as Anakin in Voices (only a little more violent and angry for some reason).

It’s unfortunate that her major character moments were never capitalized on. Intentionally sacrificing herself for the greater good in Weapons Factory apparently led to no lasting repercussions on her character. Her impatience and disobedience led to the deaths of thousands in Storm over Ryloth, but was similarly forgotten immediately afterwards. Even Ahsoka’s major character moment at the end of The Wrong Jedi resulted in her walking away from the show, never to address the implications of that decisions (although I suppose that’s the subject of Season 7).

On a different note, the show was riddled by a shameful amount of “references” and fan service, for reasons exclusively external to the story. These “nods” ranged from the obvious “Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” (or whatever Senator Jimmy Smits says in Cat and Mouse) to the innocuous design of a droid or background device.

These “references” are objectively problematic for at least a few reasons. (1) They contribute to the sense that the universe is a really, really small place. Is the Mos Eisley cantina really the only place in the Outer Rim where shady deals go down? Is carbon freezing really the only way to store a person in stasis for transport? How long do Rodians live for anyways? Greedo’s gotta be what, like 80 when Han shoots him in A New Hope? It’s ironic that ultimately, this incomprehensibly large, diverse galaxy actually feels much smaller after watching this series because we keep going to the same twelve places...

(2) “Fan service” is tricky to get right because different people have different memories and impressions of the source material. In result, copying material will oftentimes comes across as a blatant misunderstanding of the original content. For example, to me, Vader put Solo into carbon freeze because it’s what Lando had lying around. It’s not a galactically established method of transporting people. Obi-Wan trained Luke with those laser balls aboard the Falcon because Han had them lying around and Obi-Wan needed to improvise a training exercise to kill time.

(3) "References” and “nods” usually are just a band-aid for a lack of creativity. Some of the better episodes in the initial seasons were just direct rehashes of famous movies. Seven Samurai, Godzilla, Stray Dog, The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong... I mean, it’d be pretty impressive to mess-up stories like these, but it’s concerning that there were just so many episodes made from other people’s stories.

These “references” even seep into the most innocuous of scenes. When Prequel!Wan lands on Mandalore to attempt a rescue of Satine from Darth Maul, one of the Mandalorians takes aim at him, only to have their blaster pushed down by their companion who’s shaking their head. This is a direct reference o the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine when Luke went after R2 in the desert. Even if this scene served an important plot purpose (it didn’t), there’s undoubtedly a multitude of ways to communicate the same thing. Instead, a small reference to the OT is interjected into the show, deimmersing the audience from the events shown. Unfortunately, this is just one (very small) example of hundreds over the whole show.

Let me say something positive. The episodes that worked best (especially early in the show's run) were ones that focused on mortal people, usually the clones. Innocents of Ryloth was one of the first watchable episodes, simply because we didn't have to sit through twenty minutes of unlikable, unrelatable “Jedi” and instead followed around a pair of troopers helping a little girl using their limited abilities. Likewise, Pursuit of Peace was way more enjoyable than it probably should have been, simply because the story was understandable, the consequences clear, and the drama real. Plan of Dissent (when the clones actively rebel against Krell) was also noteworthy for similar reasons: clones we liked must subdue a “Jedi” we’ve learned to hate.

This isn’t to say that episodes focused on the major characters were inherently unenjoyable, it’s just that none of these characters had any room to grow (with the exception of Ahsoka). Dooku, Grievous, Anakin, Prequel!Wan... They were the same characters as portrayed in Episode II and III. As presented, there was nowhere for these characters to go. Dooku was literally identical at the beginning of the series as he was at the end, and the same can be said about the others.

But these are false constraints the writers imposed upon themselves. Grievous was not in Episode II and was introduced in Episode III. TCW could have started him however they wanted and then illustrated his change into the character he later becomes. Who was he? What was his motivation? Why did he hate Jedi so much? The show was handed a completely clean slate to deliver a character from scratch, but instead we were immediately shown “Episode III General Grievous” with zero introduction because fans were expected to already know who he was.

This is partly why the backstory episode to Grievous was so compelling, at least in premise: viewing his home was personal to his story and it represented a chance to learn a bit more about the character and where he came from. Of course, it was mostly mishandled by a reliance on meaningless action, but the high ratings of that particular episode suggest there was room for quality television here, it just was never capitalized on.

Instead, we have completely static caricatures, especially for minor characters from the movies. Admiral Tarkin, Admiral Ackbar, Greedo (among others) were written out of cardboard and their roles in the plot could have just as easily been played by anyone else (there was nothing unique about their roles that required them to be these characters).

This is a shame because a lot could have been done with the established premise to really focus on Anakin, his motivations, and his relationship to his Padawan. I would have been okay with a lot of backtracking if it meant I could begin to grasp his “fall” to the Dark Side. Instead, I’m honestly more confused than ever about his motivation.

One argument is that Anakin joins the Dark Side because he like, “loves” Padme (or whatever). However, what we’re shown in this show---consistently, clearly---is that Padme and Anakin have a toxic, dysfunctional relationship. He is uncomfortably jealous and rarely trusts her. They argue nearly every time they’re together. Their “love” (or whatever) must remain secret, equating their relationship to something “wrong” or even “illegal” that must be kept secret, even on the verge of death. In a later episode, Anakin orders Padme to listen to him because he’s the “man” and, as his wife, she doesn’t have a say in the matter. This is clearly a broken relationship and the best result is the one that actually happens: They stop seeing each other. Anakin wants to save this woman from a vision? Why?

This brings up a second point, which is that Anakin can’t stand the pain of losing someone. His desire to protect those close to him may be Anakin’s only redeeming trait. He has a single selfless scene (in the entire show) during the opening of Jedi Crash where he sacrifices himself to delay an explosion and save his companions. I want to stress that any other scene where Anakin saves or helps someone isn’t done because he’s a good person, it’s done because he’s a broken person. It’s done because he, personally, would struggle with the emotional toll of knowing he allowed someone close to him to be hurt or die. In other words, he’s doing nice things for selfish reasons.

As far as I’m concerned, Anakin has always been Darth Vader. He is given choices between being a Jedi and allowing a lot of people to die, and he enjoys choosing the second. In Ghosts of Mortis, we’re shown that the threshold between “Anakin” and “Darth Vader” is disconcertingly low, requiring only a few choice words and less than a minute to convert him. In short, what I’ve learned from TCW regarding Anakin Skywalker is that he was an unlikable dick, and his “turn” to the Dark Side was just a long-overdue reveal.

While the later seasons worked towards the events in Episode III in a way that at least made a bit of sense, earlier seasons were focused on adult-themed wacky hijinks. In a way, the show almost would have worked better as a kid’s show, but this was clearly meant for adults: politics, war, slavery, and lots and lots of horrific violence. In comparison, the silly adventures of Star Wars: Resistance worked well because the show didn’t take itself too seriously. It was very clearly, from the start, a lighthearted show about kids going on fun adventures. In contrast, TCW suffered because its themes were adult in nature, but was portrayed as a Saturday morning cartoon show. The humor was misplaced, the tone disjointed from actual events, and the violence excessive.

Let me say a few words on the “Jedi.” Initially I labeled them as overpowered (OP), because in earlier episodes they seemed invincible and dissolved tension in every scene. Later, we see a slew of them get cut down as plot fodder, even against widely different situations. We see Luminara and others push through hoards of droids only to see “Jedi” Master Yoda-like dude get taken down by a dog. We watch as Fisto *heh* powers through entire battalions and the cone-head guy counting coup against an army, only to watch as pink girl gets shot in the face by a single clone who stands in front of her for several seconds before pulling the trigger.

It’s nearly impossible to feel tension in these scenes because the metrics for judging the true strength of a “Jedi” keep shifting as a function of the plot requirements. Anakin suddenly forgets how to use the Force when the plot needs his help to fake some drama. Prequel!Wan pointlessly fist fights with a slaver cat for an hour until the plot needs him to get back up again and OP everyone in the room. Even their ships are only as strong or weak as the plot needs them to be. Plo Koon’s fleet is devastated in seconds in order to portray the Malevolence as being a threat; Anakin’s fleet powers through a larger force three times its size because Anakin’s like, really mad about something.

Secondly, the “Jedi,” in general, were unlikable assholes. They were consistently portrayed as violent and ignorant and I struggled to understand them as real people. Frequently, we witnessed them torture victims, default to a lightsaber to solve problems, and enjoy death to the point of counting coup against sentient life forms defending their homes. Anakin threatened civilians with his lightsaber. Ahsoka was annoyed when she’s asked not to murder a defenseless creature in Jedi Crash. Prequel!Wan and Anakin team up to hurtle enormous rocks into a beaten monster in Dooku Captured. A trio of Jedi Masters mentally gang bang a shackled Cad Bane. They supported state terrorism when it suited their needs, but agreed to abandon their friends for political reasons.

I mean, these are not good people...

This is a shame, because my impression of true Jedi comes from Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan in the OT, as well as the expanded universe novels that take place afterwards. It always seemed to me that being a Jedi was about conquering oneself, one’s fears, and learning to use the Force to selflessly help others and let go of all worldly attachments. You know, like the Buddhists they were originally inspired by. I always had the impression that the Force was extremely powerful and that Yoda was only showing Luke a portion of what was possible. That the Emperor was only using Force lighting to toy with Luke. That Vader only Force choked his officers because it was visually intimidating and kept them in line.

Instead, we’re treated to some garbage about how a “Jedi” is nothing greater than an actuator to swing around a lightsaber. When Luke enters Jabba’s palace in Jedi to rescue his friends, it’s not with lightsaber swinging, cutting shit up, flipping around like an acrobatic monkey. Imagine Anakin and Ahsoka in the same scene. They’d blaze through the palace corridors before Force choking Jabba as the Darth Vader theme plays. Forget the rancor, these are demigods. They have lightsabers. Have you seen them? They go “woosh woosh.”

In short, there was little to look up to in terms of a “hero” character. I can see how children can look up to Luke as a role model, someone they want to emulate or play with as a toy, but looking up to Anakin? Ahsoka? Hey kids, wanna learn to become a psychopath? First, you use your power to abuse those who are weaker than you. Then you need to get really really angry and uncontrollably choke someone, preferably your sister or one of your cousins.

And so, for a Saturday morning cartoon show, it is very unclear who we’re supposed to care about. I liked when Ahsoka went against Anakin because I hated his character so much. I liked everything with Hondo, a pirate. I liked Ventress a little, because she was actively seeking to kill the main characters. I liked some of the clones, but I don’t know which ones because they all looked the same. I cared about Darth Maul because I’m honestly a little worried about him, especially after the loss of his brother. I kinda liked General Grievous just because he hates the “Jedi” and was therefore relatable (even though the reasoning was never explained). And... that’s it.

At no point did I ever “look forward” to the next episode. I painfully died a little on the inside hitting the “watch next” button every single time.

This “review” is already way too long, so let me summarize by applying my five-star rating system (developed for movies) to each episode. In review:

5. Amazing, classic, culturally important. Something everyone should watch. 4. Great; very well done, no significant flaws. 3: Entertaining with only minor gripes/criticisms. 2: “Watchable,” but suffers from flaws and has some poor parts. 1. Uncomfortably bad; suffers from serious flaws. 0. Painfully bad, would actively fight against being forced to watch a second time.

The 3-star episodes were:

Hostage Crisis

Lightsaber Lost

Pursuit of Peace

Carnage of Krell

The Wrong Jedi

Hostage Crisis was the introduction of Cad Bane, Lightsaber Lost was the remake of Stray Dog (and the only episode to include a real Jedi), Pursuit of Peace was the random Padme/politics episode that was strangely well-executed, Carnage of Krell was the reveal of Krell as a bad guy and his clones working to apprehend him, and The Wrong Jedi was Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order (and the only episode to include a true character moment).

Also, I scaled the IMDB ratings of each episode to my ratings and then detected outliers in their overlap. In other words, I wanted to answer the question, “which episodes did I rate the most differently from others?”

Turns out, I rated every single episode lower except for seven. Those seven were:

Mercy Mission (+1.853) - R2 and 3PO discover an underground world with ents. This one is universally panned by “fans,” but was a competently handled episode apart from the disappointing resolution.

Pursuit of Peace (+1.382) - Padme struggles to win support for a Senate bill. Another competently handled episode that focuses on Padme and politics and is ranked low by “fans.”

Lightsaber Lost (+0.6471)

Weapons Factory (+0.4118) - An average episode with a dramatic scene of sacrifice by Ahsoka and her “friend” Barriss.

Shadow Warrior (+0.3824) - Grievous is captured during some dramatic moments on Naboo.

Hostage Crisis (+0.3529)

Front Runners (+0.0882) - One of the rebels episodes, I don’t remember which.

In conclusion, Star Wars: Rebels is next and I am somehow still alive.

#pie211-tcw #tcw #clone wars #the clone wars #star wars

16 notes · View notes

betsypaige22 · 5 years ago

Text

This is such a great interview....god, I miss Bobby. I’ve posted this because otherwise you need to be a subscriber...

I have to be honest, picturing Bobby doing this particular yoga pose makes me need to take a cold shower, lol. The part about his kids asking if he’s going to leave them is heartbreaking ....😭😭. I do love that he’s still baking...

************************

Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

#robert carlyle

106 notes · View notes

pinchtheprincess · 5 years ago

Link

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

#robert carlyle #rc interviews #yoga #vancouver #family #rc photoshoots #GODS HE LOOKS SO GOOD #love that jacket

13 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 4 years ago

Text

Headlines

Trump Threatens to Send Federal Law Enforcement Forces to More Cities (NYT) President Trump plans to deploy federal law enforcement to Chicago and threatened on Monday to send agents to other major cities—all controlled by Democrats. Governors and other officials reacted angrily to the president’s move, calling it an election-year ploy as they squared off over crime, civil liberties and local control that has spread from Portland, Ore., across the country. With camouflage-clad agents already sweeping through the streets of Portland, more units were poised to head to Chicago, and Mr. Trump suggested that he would follow suit in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and other urban centers. Governors and other officials compared his actions to authoritarianism and vowed to pursue legislation or lawsuits to stop him. “I’m going to do something—that, I can tell you,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these—Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.”

Chicago restaurateur joins mission to feed America’s hungry (AP) Before coronavirus arrived, Manish Mallick’s trips to this city’s South Side had been limited to attending graduate classes at the University of Chicago. Now Mallick is a South Side regular—and a popular one. He regularly arrives bearing food for the hungry from his Indian restaurant several miles to the north, in the city’s downtown. “Thank you, sugar, for the meals. They’re so delicious!” one woman recently shouted to Mallick outside a South Side YWCA. “God bless you!” she added, raising her arms for emphasis. Mallick has personally delivered thousands of meals cooked and packed by his staff—among them, chickpea curry and tandoori chicken with roasted cottage cheese, sweet corn, peas and rice. Volunteers from neighborhood organizations then take them to children, retirees and the multitudes who’ve been laid off or sick during the pandemic. “We all need to help each other,” Mallick says. “That’s the best way to get through a crisis.”

American tourists are banned from the Bahamas as coronavirus cases spike (Washington Post) One of the few countries to welcome U.S. tourists has changed its mind, citing soaring infection numbers. The Bahamas will close its borders to most visitors from the United States starting Wednesday, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Sunday. While commercial flights from Canada, Britain and the European Union will still be allowed to land, all visitors must show proof that they tested negative for the coronavirus at an accredited lab in the past 10 days. Other international flights will be banned.

More and more countries are making masks mandatory (Washington Post) As countries around the world reopen their economies amid ongoing novel coronavirus outbreaks, governments are increasingly embracing what remains in some places a divisive public health measure: mandatory masks. In France, face coverings will be required in all public enclosed spaces as of Monday. England is set to begin enforcing new rules that make masks mandatory inside supermarkets and other shops, effective Friday. In the U.S., there is no national mask requirement. But at the state level, a growing number of mask requirements have come into force.

EU agrees on $2.1 trillion deal after marathon summit (AP) After four days and nights of wrangling, exhausted European Union leaders finally clinched a deal on an unprecedented 1.8 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery fund early Tuesday, after one of their longest summits ever. The 27 leaders grudgingly committed to a costly, massive aid package for those hit hardest by COVID-19, which has already killed 135,000 people within the bloc alone. “Extraordinary events, and this is the pandemic that has reached us all, also require extraordinary new methods,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. To confront the biggest recession in its history, the EU will establish a 750 billion-euro coronavirus fund, partly based on common borrowing, to be sent as loans and grants to the hardest-hit countries. That is in addition to the agreement on the seven-year, 1 trillion-euro EU budget that leaders had been haggling over for months even before the pandemic. “The consequences will be historic,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “We have created a possibility of taking up loans together, of setting up a recovery fund in the spirit of solidarity,” a sense of sharing debt that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

Breached levees trap thousands as flooding in China worsens (AP) Breached levees have trapped more than 10,000 people in an eastern Chinese town as flooding worsens across much of the country, local authorities said Tuesday. High waters overcame flood defenses protecting Guzhen, a town in Anhui province, on Sunday, the provincial government said on its official microblog. Flood waters rose as high as 3 meters (10 feet), the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Qingjun, Guzhen’s Communist Party secretary, as saying. About 1,500 firefighters were rushed to carry out rescues in the province, where weeks of heavy rains have disrupted the lives of more than 3 million people, Xinhua said.

Britain suspends extradition treaty with Hong Kong (NYT) Britain on Monday suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong amid worries about a new national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony. The suspension comes as London and Beijing find themselves at increasing odds over a variety of issues, including Britain’s move to bar Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G wireless networks and growing public anger in Britain over the treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in China.

Japan helps 87 companies to ‘exit China’ after pandemic exposed overreliance (Washington Post) Japan is paying 87 companies to shift production back home or into Southeast Asia after the novel coronavirus pandemic disrupted supply chains and exposed an overreliance on Chinese manufacturing. Alarm bells started ringing in Japanese boardrooms as soon as the virus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a major hub of the auto parts industry. Japanese automaker Nissan was forced to temporarily halt production at a plant in Japan in February over shortages of parts from China, while a Japanese consumer goods company, Iris Ohyama, found itself unable to meet surging local demand for masks after supplies to its factory in China were disrupted and export controls out of China were tightened. In March, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government wanted to bring production back home and diversify into Southeast Asia. The following month, the government set aside $2.2 billion in its coronavirus economic recovery package to subsidize that process. China is Japan’s largest trading partner, but Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been trying for several years to reduce the country’s dependence on its giant neighbor. The 2008 global financial crisis, the 2011 northeastern Japan earthquake and the coronavirus pandemic all disrupted supply chains, while U.S.-China trade tensions are also a factor.

Jordan to reopen airports to tourists in August (AP) The Jordanian government says it will begin reopening airports to international travelers in August after sealing its borders in March to help halt the spread of the coronavirus. Travelers from a list of approved, low-risk countries must pass a coronavirus test at least 72 hours before departure and will get a second test upon arrival in Jordan, Transportation Minister Khaled Saif says. Jordan will require incoming tourists to download Aman, the government’s contact-tracing mobile application, for the duration of their stay in the country.

Swapping the stage for a deli: Israel underemployment rises (AP) A year ago, Cijay Brightman was doing sound and lighting for a Madonna performance in Israel. Now, after the coronavirus wiped out live events, he’s making sandwiches, slicing cheese and serving customers at a Tel Aviv deli. Brightman spent the last 15 years perfecting his craft and doing what he loves as a stage technician. But in the wake of the pandemic, he has been forced to abandon his passion and profession—like thousands of others in Israel—and find any job that will pay the bills. Underemployment is plaguing workers around the world. Although there are no global statistics yet, the phenomenon is expected to grow as the economic crisis around the world deepens, said economist Roger Gomis of the International Labor Organization.

King Salman hospitalized (Foreign Policy) Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has been admitted to hospital with gallbladder problems, state media reported on Monday. The 84-year-old monarch is the second aging Gulf leader to seek medical attention recently, after 91-year-old Kuwaiti ruler Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah underwent surgery on Sunday for an as yet unnamed ailment.

Uganda’s Museveni seeks re-election to extend rule to four decades (Reuters) Uganda’s long-serving President Yoweri Museveni has collected papers to seek nomination as the ruling party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election, the party said on Tuesday. Securing a new term would potentially extend the 75-year-old former rebel fighter’s rule to four decades. Though no date has yet been fixed for the 2021 vote, it is typically held in February. The strongest opposition presidential aspirant is pop star and lawmaker Bobi Wine, 38, whose music endears him to the young. In power since 1986, Museveni’s tenure is only surpassed in Africa by Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, who has ruled since 1979 and Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982.

#headlines #news

1 note · View note

theuniversitychallengereview · 4 years ago

Text

UC 50.6 - Balliol, Ox vs Clare, Cam

Now, I’m no historian, but I am a sensationalist. So keep that in mind when I tell you the story of how John I de Balliol, the founder of Balliol College, is partly responsible for the half price Nandos you can now get as part of the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme. If that ain’t a prime piece of clickbait for y’all Millennial followers of this blog, then I don’t know what is.

Our tale begins at some point before the year 1208 (and I’m not being deliberately vague here. His Wikipedia - because you sure as hell know I was not going to do any research beyond that - says that that’s when he was born. That is, they know he wasn’t born in 1208, or any of the subsequent years - and certainly not after 1268, because that’s when he died. And they can probably rule out the years before like, 1168, given the unlikelihood of his having lived to a hundred years old in the thirteenth century. But apart from that they’d be guessing, which they are not wont to do because they, unlike me, are well-behaved historians) with the birth (as you probably guessed from the previous parenthesis) of John I de Balliol to Cecily de Fontaines and Hugh de Balliol, Lord of Balliol (damn those thirteenth century names hit different).

It continues in 1223, when John, aged at least fifteen but possibly forty three, or twenty seven, married Dervorguilla of Galloway (again, my lord what a name. I could do a whole five hundred words on that name alone, but I’ll spare you, because we’ve got a lot of other things to cover). By the mid-thirteenth century (I’m aware that’s the third time and this is the fourth that I’ve said thirteenth century so far, but there’s really no other way to say it, unless I went for 1200s, which I wouldn’t respect as a choice) his wife had become extremely rich (#GirlBoss) mainly as a result of inheritances from her family (um, generational wealth can still be feminist, still #GirlBoss?) and this big pile of Gold allowed Balliol to play a prominent role in public life (hang on, despite it being her money he was the one to reap the rewards of the money she herself hadn’t even earned? #ItTurnsOutTheConceptOfAGirlBoss WasADifficultOneForThirteenthCenturyElitesToGrasp)

Balliol would become mates with King Henry III, and he got up to loads of hijinks in his role as Special Advisor to the King, including being captured and then escaping at the Battle of Lewes. His Wikipedia for some reason then lists some random people who owed him large amounts of money, but he may or may not have used this money (some 123 marks from Thoma de Musgrave alone. Now how do they know that but they don’t know the year Balliol was born?) when, following a dispute with the Bishop of Durham, he agreed to set up a scholarship for people studying at Oxford. This would later result in the foundation of Balliol College, with Devorguilla (which is a Latinisation of the Gaelic Dearbhfhorghaill by the way. I’ll stop there, don’t worry) making further donations once he had died.

That’s all very well and good, I hear you say, but what on Earth has it got to do with my butterfly chicken? I’m getting there, don’t fret.

So, when John’s parents died, he inherited the family estate (he had quite a bit of generational wealth too, it turns out. Bloody generational wealth). His family estate happened to be one Barnard Castle. Now, Barnard Castle still stands today, although, following the death of King Richard III, who had inherited it through his wife (yass, Queen) it fell into ruin. Fastforward more than five hundred years and Barnard Castle is a popular beauty spot. During the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 (of which I am sure you are aware), Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, used Barnard Castle as the site for the most notorious eye test in known history (although, who knows whether John Balliol had an even more contentious one at some point prior to 1208).

Having already flouted the lockdown which he himself had imposed to travel across the country from London to Durham when he knew he was in possession of the virus, Cummings then endangered his wife and son by using a half hour cruise to Barnard Castle as a test-run for his vision, to check that he was safe to drive, much in the way that you check if it is safe to jump off of a cliff by jumping off of said cliff.

In order to distract the outraged public from his advisor’s biggest screw-up (yet), the Prime Minister (who, if you can believe it on top of the rest of these revelations went to Balliol himself) embarked on a series of attention-grabbing changes to public policy, which culminiated in the Chancellor announcing that if you want to personally save the economy all you had to do was to go and chow down on some half price poultry.

There you had it, irrefutable causal links proving my initial hypothesis. Although, don’t try and pick it apart, because it will collapse quicker than the Goverment’s grading algorithms.

Speaking of which, if I had my way there would have been no match for me to review tonight, because having analysed their previous appearances on the show, my algorithm told me that Balliol would win. They won the whole show a few years ago, didn’t they, and Clare have never made it past the quarter-finals with Paxman as host, so it simply wasn’t feasible that they would win (although they did once score 250 points in a loss, which was difficult to account for). Allowing the match to play out normally would have left the possibility that Clare could be over-promoted beyond their ability, so I felt there was no need to play.

However, and fortunately for everyone involved, neither I nor Gavin Williamson was in charge of this episode. Anyway, let’s not bother with the rules; here’s your first starter for ten in Cblliol vs Dlbrf.

First of all, I need to commend both teams on their overall aesthetic. All eight players arrived serving looks in the category of ‘University Challenge Contestant’. Balliol have a contestant called Solenne, which is a name I have only encountered once before, on my good friend (Solène) and Clare have turned up with two mascots, one of which I coudn’t properly make out, and one of which is a freaking green bunny.

Clare Captain Dunstone, sporting an excellent bubblegum bob, is also studying the first truly excellent subject of the series so far - Cancer Genomics (although its not as cool as when I’d initially thought it to be one, long, indecipherable word like cancegenomics. Who knows what that could be?)

Van Soest, studying Land Economy, which is also cool, but in a boring way, buzzes early on the opener to put the Green Rabbits in the lead. He would take two more impressive buzzes in the opening exchanges as Clare established a 60-35 lead following the first picture round, on trains. Choo Choo.

Balliol started proving my algorithm correct with a couple of starters in succession, and following the music round, in which we got an idea of what a Tchaikovsky diss track would sound like as Paxman read out quotes in which he slagged off his contemporary’s like a YouTube rapper (my favourite being, of Borodin, ‘his technique is so poor he cannot write a bar without assistance. Bars indeed).

The Oxonians relinquished the lead with a couple of interruption penalties, including one that seemed very harsh, although on rewatching Scholefeld did buzz in three words early. Clare couldn’t capitalise on these errors with enough vigour, and Balliol were soon back on top, though it remained incredibly close. Van Soest chipped in with his fourth ten pointer, but Scholefeld made up for her error and put Balliol twenty five clear with seconds remaining.

O’Connor guessed dendrite incorrectly on a question that was effectively asking for either a dendrite or an axon, and McKnight picked up the mistake somewhat surprisedly, but Clare couldn’t manage any of the DH LAwrence bonuses, and remained fifteen adrift at the gong.

Final Score: Balliol, Ox 150 - 135 Clare, Cam

A close game, but quite a low scoring one, though it seemed of a higher quality than the combined 285 suggests. I’ll see you next week for Bristol vs Corpus Christi.

If you enjoyed reading this, though that seems somewhat unlikely given the incoherent ahistory that makes up the introduction, then I have a Patreon here, where I’ll be doing retro reviews of old series if you like the sound of that.

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16447756&fan_landing=true

#university challenge #bbc2 #balliol #oxford #clare #cambridge #paxman #quizzy mondays

0 notes

toldnews-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/greeces-invisible-minority-the-macedonian-slavs/

Greece's invisible minority - the Macedonian Slavs

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Greeks protest in Thessaloniki against the agreement on the name North Macedonia

By ratifying an agreement with the newly renamed Republic of North Macedonia, Greece has implicitly recognised the existence of a Macedonian language and ethnicity. And yet it has denied the existence of its own Macedonian minority for decades, says Maria Margaronis. Will something now change?

Mr Fokas, 92, stands straight as a spear in his tan leather brogues and cream blazer, barely leaning on the ebony and ivory cane brought from Romania by his grandfather a century ago. His mind and his memory are as sharp as his outfit.

A retired lawyer, Mr Fokas speaks impeccable formal Greek with a distinctive lilt: his mother tongue is Macedonian, a Slavic language related to Bulgarian and spoken in this part of the Balkans for centuries. At his son’s modern house in a village in northern Greece, he takes me through the painful history of Greece’s unrecognised Slavic-speaking minority.

Mr Fokas takes care to emphasise from the start that he is both an ethnic Macedonian and a Greek patriot. He has good reason to underline his loyalty: for almost a century, ethnic Macedonians in Greece have been objects of suspicion and, at times, persecution, even as their presence has been denied by almost everyone.

Most are reluctant to speak to outsiders about their identity. To themselves and others, they’re known simply as “locals” (dopyi), who speak a language called “local” (dopya). They are entirely absent from school history textbooks, have not featured in censuses since 1951 (when they were only patchily recorded, and referred to simply as “Slavic-speakers”), and are barely mentioned in public. Most Greeks don’t even know that they exist.

That erasure was one reason for Greece’s long-running dispute with the former Yugoslav republic now officially called the Republic of North Macedonia. The dispute was finally resolved last month by a vote in the Greek parliament ratifying (by a majority of just seven) an agreement made last June by the countries’ two prime ministers. When the Greek Prime Minster, Alexis Tsipras, referred during the parliamentary debate to the existence of “Slavomacedonians” in Greece – at the time of World War Two – he was breaking a long-standing taboo.

The use of the name “Macedonia” by the neighbouring nation state implicitly acknowledges that Macedonians are a people in their own right, and opens the door to hard questions about the history of Greece’s own Macedonian minority.

When Mr Fokas was born, the northern Greek region of Macedonia had only recently been annexed by the Greek state. Until 1913 it was part of the Ottoman Empire, with Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia all wooing its Slavic-speaking inhabitants as a means to claiming the territory. It was partly in reaction to those competing forces that a distinctive Slav Macedonian identity emerged in the late 19th and early 20th Century. As Mr Fokas’s uncle used to say, the family was “neither Serb, nor Greek, nor Bulgarian, but Macedonian Orthodox”.

In the end, the Slav Macedonians found themselves divided between those three new states. In Greece, some were expelled; those who remained were pushed to assimilate. All villages and towns with non-Greek names were given new ones, chosen by a committee of scholars in the late 1920s, though almost a century later some “locals” still use the old ones.

In 1936, when Mr Fokas was nine years old, the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas (an admirer of Mussolini) banned the Macedonian language, and forced Macedonian-speakers to change their names to Greek ones.

Mr Fokas remembers policemen eavesdropping on mourners at funerals and listening at windows to catch anyone speaking or singing in the forbidden tongue. There were lawsuits, threats and beatings.

Women – who often spoke no Greek – would cover their mouths with their headscarves to muffle their speech, but Mr Fokas’s mother was arrested and fined 250 drachmas, a big sum back then.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Macedonian villagers in Greece in 1947

“Slavic-speakers suffered a lot from the Greeks under Metaxas,” he says. “Twenty people from this village, the heads of the big families, were exiled to the island of Chios. My father-in-law was one of them.” They were tortured by being forced to drink resin oil, a powerful laxative.

When Germany, Italy and Bulgaria invaded Greece in 1941, some Slavic-speakers welcomed the Bulgarians as potential liberators from Metaxas’s repressive regime. But many soon joined the resistance, led by the Communist Party (which at that time supported the Macedonian minority) and continued fighting with the Communists in the civil war that followed the Axis occupation. (Bulgaria annexed the eastern part of Greek Macedonia from 1941 to 1944, committing many atrocities; many Greeks wrongly attribute these to Macedonians, whom they identify as Bulgarians.)

When the Communists were finally defeated, severe reprisals followed for anyone associated with the resistance or the left.

“Macedonians paid more than anyone for the civil war,” Mr Fokas says. “Eight people were court-martialled and executed from this village, eight from the next village, 23 from the one opposite. They killed a grandfather and his grandson, just 18 years old.”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption A Greek protester wears a Balkan War uniform to oppose the agreement on “North Macedonia”

Mr Fokas was a student in Thessaloniki then – but he too was arrested and spent three years on the prison island of Makronisos, not because of anything he’d done but because his mother had helped her brother-in-law escape through the skylight of a cafe where he was being held.

Most of the prisoners on Makronisos were Greek leftists, and were pressed to sign declarations of repentance for their alleged Communist past. Those who refused were made to crawl under barbed wire, or beaten with thick bamboo canes. “Terrible things were done,” Mr Fokas says. “But we mustn’t talk about them. It’s an insult to Greek civilisation. It harms Greece’s good name.”

Find out more

Listen to, or download, the BBC World Service documentary Macedonia: What’s in a Name? (September 2018)

Tens of thousands of fighters with the Democratic Army, about half of them Slavic-speakers, went into exile in Eastern bloc countries during and after the civil war. About 20,000 children were taken across the border by the Communists, whether for their protection or as reserve troops for a future counter-attack.

Many Slavic-speaking civilians also went north for safety. Entire villages were left empty, like the old settlement of Krystallopigi (Smrdes in Macedonian) near the Albanian border, where only the imposing church of St George stands witness to a population that once numbered more than 1,500 souls.

In 1982, more than 30 years after the conflict’s end, Greece’s socialist government issued a decree allowing civil war refugees to return – but only those who were “of Greek ethnicity”. Ethnic Macedonians from Greece remained shut out of their country, their villages and their land; families separated by the war were never reunited.

Mr Fokas’s father-in-law and brother-in-law both died in Skopje. But, he points out, that decree tacitly recognised that there were ethnic Macedonians in Greece, even though the state never officially recognised their existence: “Those war refugees left children, grandchildren, fathers, mothers behind. What were they, if not Macedonians?”

It’s impossible accurately to calculate the number of Slavic-speakers or descendants of ethnic Macedonians in Greece. Historian Leonidas Embiricos estimates that more than 100,000 still live in the Greek region of Macedonia, though only 10,000 to 20,000 would identify openly as members of a minority – and many others are proud Greek nationalists.

The Macedonian language hasn’t officially been banned in Greece for decades, but the fear still lingers. A middle-aged man I met in a village near the reed beds of Lake Prespa, where the agreement between Greece and the North Macedonian republic was first signed last June, explained that this fear is passed down through the generations. “My parents didn’t speak the language at home in case I picked it up and spoke it in public. To protect me. We don’t even remember why we’re afraid any more,” he said. Slowly the language is dying. Years of repression pushed it indoors; assimilation is finishing the job.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The borders of Greece, North Macedonia and Albania meet in Lake Prespa

And yet speaking or singing in Macedonian can still be cause for harassment. Mr. Fokas’ son is a musician; he plays the haunting Macedonian flute for us as his own small son looks on. He and a group of friends used to host an international music festival in the village square, with bands from as far away as Brazil, Mexico and Russia.

“After those bands had played we’d have a party and play Macedonian songs,” he says. “None of them were nationalist or separatist songs – we would never allow that. But in 2008, just as we were expecting the foreign musicians to arrive, the local authority suddenly banned us from holding the festival in the square, even though other people – the very ones who wanted us banned – still hold their own events there.”

Greece’s position

The Greek government officially recognises only one minority – the Muslim minority of Thrace

It has historically regarded the Macedonian Slavs of Greek Macedonia as a linguistic rather than a national group, referring to them as Slavophone Greeks or bilingual Greeks – the agreement on the name of North Macedonia requires Skopje to change its constitution to remove references to a “minority” in Greece

A document issued in the early 1990s, says that “almost all the bilingual inhabitants of the area whose national consciousness was not Greek moved to neighbouring states” in the first half of the 20th Century – by implication, any bilingual people who remained possessed Greek national consciousness

At the last minute, the festival was moved to a field outside the village, among the reeds and marshes, without proper facilities – which, Mr Fokas’s son points out, only made Greece look bad.

“And do you know why the songs are banned in the square but not the fields outside?” his father adds. “Because around the square there are cafes, and local people could sit there and watch and listen secretly. But outside the village they were afraid to join in – they would have drawn attention to themselves by doing that.”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Protests against the agreement on the name of North Macedonia became violent

The ratification of Greece’s agreement with the Republic of North Macedonia – and its implicit recognition of a Macedonian language and ethnicity – is a major political breakthrough which should help to alleviate such fears. But the process has also sparked new waves of anger and anxiety, with large, sometimes violent protests opposing the agreement, supported by parts of the Orthodox church.

An election is due before the end of the year. Greece’s right-wing opposition has been quick to capitalise on nationalist sentiments, accusing the Syriza government of treason and betrayal. For Greece’s Slavic-speakers, who have long sought nothing more than the right to cultural expression, the time to emerge from the shadows may not quite yet have arrived.

Mr Fokas has been referred to by his first name to protect his identity

You may also be interested in:

Image copyright Getty Images

It’s more than 25 years since Yugoslavia broke into pieces and the republic of Macedonia came into being. Until a few weeks ago, the new country lacked an official, internationally agreed name, because of Greece’s objections to the name “Macedonia”. And for nearly all that time one man was working to solve the problem.

Read: The man who has focused on one word for 23 years (August 2017)

Join the conversation – find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

0 notes

mastcomm · 5 years ago

Text

Live Updates: Over 150 Million Chinese Are Under Coronavirus Lockdown

Half of China’s population is facing new travel restrictions.

At least 150 million people in China — over 10 percent of the country’s population — are living under government restrictions on how often they can leave their homes, The New York Times found in examining dozens of local government announcements and reports from state-run news outlets.

More than 760 million Chinese people live in communities that have imposed strictures of some sort on residents’ comings and goings, as officials try to contain the new coronavirus epidemic. That larger figure represents more than half of the country’s population, and roughly one in 10 people on the planet.

China’s restrictions vary widely in their strictness. Neighborhoods in some places require residents only to show ID, sign in and have their temperature checked when they enter. Others prohibit residents from bringing guests.

But in places with more stringent policies, only one person from each household is allowed to leave home at a time, and not necessarily every day. Many neighborhoods have issued paper passes to ensure that residents comply.

In one district in the city of Xi’an, the authorities have stipulated that residents may leave their homes only once every three days to shop for food and other essentials. They also specify that the shopping may not take longer than two hours.

Tens of millions of other people are living in places where local officials have “encouraged” but not ordered neighborhoods to restrict people’s ability to leave their homes.

And with many places deciding their own policies on residents’ movements, it is possible that the total number of affected people is even higher still.

Japan says 500 people will be released from cruise ship after more cases confirmed.

About 500 people will be released on Wednesday from a quarantined cruise ship that has been a hot spot of the outbreak, Japan’s health ministry said on Tuesday, but confusion about the release was widespread.

The ministry said 2,404 people on the ship had tested negative for the virus, but it did not say how it had decided who would be allowed to leave on Wednesday, or when others might be released. The ship, the Diamond Princess, has been moored off Yokohama since Feb. 4.

Earlier in the day, the ministry announced that 88 additional cases of coronavirus were confirmed on the ship, bringing the total to 542.

Australia plans to repatriate about 200 of its citizens aboard the ship on Wednesday, and other countries have similar plans, but Japanese officials did not say whether any of those people were among the 500 who would be allowed to disembark.

The release coincides with the expiration of a two-week quarantine imposed on the ship, but it was not clear if that was the reason for letting people go. More than 300 Americans were released this week before that period was completed.

Some public health experts say that the 14-day isolation period makes sense only if it begins with the most recent infection — in other words, new cases mean a continuing risk of exposure and should restart the quarantine clock.

In addition, many infected people have tested negative initially, only to test positive days later, after becoming sick. The Japanese announcement suggested that Japanese people who are released will not be isolated, a decision officials did not explain.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.

How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance.

What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights.

How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick.

The American passengers who were released were put into 14-day quarantine in the United States. Australia also plans to quarantine people it repatriates.

Britain prepares to evacuate citizens from cruise ship.

The British government is taking steps to evacuate its citizens who have been on the Diamond Princess.

Seventy-four British citizens are on the ship, according to the BBC, which said that they are expected to be flown home in the next two or three days. A statement from the Foreign Office on Tuesday suggested that those who have been infected will remain in Japan for treatment.

“Given the conditions on board, we are working to organize a flight back to the U.K. for British nationals on the Diamond Princess as soon as possible,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. “Our staff are contacting British nationals on board to make the necessary arrangements. We urge all those who have not yet responded to get in touch immediately.”

One Briton in particular has been the subject of more attention than most: David Abel, who has been posting updates on Facebook and YouTube while waiting things out in isolation with his wife, Sally.

They both tested positive for the virus and would be taken to the hospital, he has said. But his most recent Facebook post suggested that all was not as it seemed.

“Frankly I think this is a setup! We are NOT being taken to a hospital but a hostel,” He wrote. “No phone, no Wi-Fi and no medical facilities. I really am smelling a very big rat here!”

The new virus is deadlier than the one that causes the flu.

An analysis of 44,672 coronavirus patients in China whose diagnoses were confirmed by laboratory testing has found that 1,023 had died by Feb. 11 — a fatality rate of 2.3 percent. Figures released on a daily basis suggest the rate has increased in recent days.

That is far higher than the mortality rate of the seasonal flu, with which the new coronavirus has sometimes been compared. In the United States, seasonal flu fatality rates hover around 0.1 percent.

The new analysis was posted online by researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over all, about 81 percent of patients with confirmed diagnoses experienced mild illness, the researchers found. Nearly 14 percent had severe cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and about 5 percent had critical illnesses.

Thirty percent of those who died were in their 60s, 30 percent were in their 70s and 20 percent were age 80 or older. Though men and women were roughly equally represented among the confirmed cases, men made up nearly 64 percent of the deaths. Patients with underlying medical conditions, like cardiovascular disease or diabetes, died at higher rates.

The fatality rate among patients in Hubei Province, the center of China’s outbreak, was more than seven times higher than that of other provinces.

China on Tuesday announced new figures for the outbreak. The number of cases was put at 72,436 — up 1,888 from the day before — and the death toll now stands at 1,868, up 98, the authorities said.

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, told Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain in a phone call on Tuesday that China was making “visible progress” in containing the epidemic, according to Chinese state media.

The director of a hospital in Wuhan has died from the virus.

The director of a hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the epidemic, died on Tuesday after contracting the new coronavirus, the latest in a series of medical professionals to be killed in the epidemic.

Liu Zhiming, 51, a neurosurgeon and the director of the Wuchang Hospital in Wuhan, died shortly before 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the Wuhan health commission said.

“From the start of the outbreak, Comrade Liu Zhiming, without regard to his personal safety, led the medical staff of Wuchang Hospital at the front lines of the fight against the epidemic,” the commission said. Dr. Liu “made significant contributions to our city’s fight to prevent and control the novel coronavirus.”

Chinese medical workers at the forefront of the fight against the virus are often becoming its victims, partly because of government missteps and logistical hurdles. After the virus emerged in Wuhan late last year, city leaders played down its risks, and doctors did not take the strongest precautions.

Last week the Chinese government said that more than 1,700 medical workers had contracted the virus, and six had died.

The death nearly two weeks ago of Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist who was initially reprimanded for warning medical school classmates about the virus, stirred an outpouring of grief and anger. Dr. Li, 34, has emerged as a symbol of how the authorities controlled information and have moved to stifle online criticism and aggressive reporting on the outbreak.

Stigma surrounding virus impacts communities in Europe.

With just 42 cases of the coronavirus confirmed in Europe, the continent faces a far less serious outbreak than China, where tens of thousands have contracted the virus. But the people and places associated with the illness have faced a stigma as a result, and fear of the virus is, itself, proving contagious.

A British man who tested positive for coronavirus was branded a “super spreader,” his every movement detailed by the local media.

Business plummeted at a French ski resort identified as the scene of several transmissions of the virus.

And after some employees of a German car company were diagnosed with the virus, the children of other workers were turned away from schools, despite negative test results.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, warned last weekend of the dangers of letting fear outpace facts.

“We must be guided by solidarity, not stigma,” Dr. Tedros said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, adding that fear could hamper global efforts to combat the virus. “The greatest enemy we face is not the virus itself; it’s the stigma that turns us against each other.”

HSBC will cut 35,000 jobs amid virus and protests.

HSBC, one of Hong Kong’s most important banks, plans to cut 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it struggles to revive a business that has come to depend increasingly on China for growth.

The London-based bank said on Tuesday that it aimed to cut $4.5 billion in costs as it faces headwinds that include the coronavirus outbreak in China and months of political strife in Hong Kong, one of its most important markets.

The coronavirus is causing economic disruptions in Hong Kong and mainland China that could have a negative impact on performance this year, the bank warned. The bank lowered expectations for growth across Asia for this year but added that it expected to see some improvement once the virus was contained. Nearly half of the bank’s revenue comes from Asia.

HSBC shares trading in Hong Kong slumped by more than 3 percent.

It is the latest company to show the impact of a fast-moving virus that has gripped China over recent weeks and led to a near-nationwide economic standstill. While parts of the country are getting back to work, the reopening of business operations for many companies has been slow.

Domestic workers from the Philippines will be permitted to return to Hong Kong.

The Philippines has lifted its travel ban on citizens employed as domestic workers in Hong Kong and Macau, officials said Tuesday.

The nation had enacted a ban on Feb. 2 on travel to and from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, preventing workers from traveling to jobs in those places.

Hong Kong alone is home to about 390,000 migrant domestic workers, many of who are from the Philippines. The travel ban had left many anxious about the sudden loss of income, along with the risk of infection.

Also on Tuesday, the authorities in Hong Kong announced that a 32-year-old Filipino woman was the latest person in Hong Kong to have contracted the virus, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 61.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the woman was a domestic worker who was believed to have been infected at home. The government said that she was working in the home of an older person who was among the previously confirmed cases.

Salvador Panelo, a spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, said that workers returning to Hong Kong and Macau would have to “make a written declaration that they know the risk.”

South Korea’s leader warns of a dire impact on economy.

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea warned on Tuesday that the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, his country’s biggest trading partner, is creating an “emergency economic situation,” and ordered his government to take actions to limit the fallout.

“The current situation is much worse than we had thought,” Mr. Moon said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “If the Chinese economic situation aggravates, we will be one of the hardest-hit countries.”

Mr. Moon cited difficulties for South Korean companies in getting components from China, as well as sharp drops in exports to China, the destination for about a quarter of all South Korean exports. He also said travel restrictions hurt the South Korean tourism industry, which relies heavily on Chinese visitors.

“The government needs to take all special measures it can,” Mr. Moon said, ordering the allocation of financial aid and tax breaks to help shore up businesses hurt the most by the virus scare.

Also on Tuesday, a South Korean Air Force plane flew to Japan to evacuate four South Korean citizens stranded on the Diamond Princess, the quarantined cruise ship in Yokohama.

Cruise ship passengers blocked from leaving Cambodia.

Passengers from a cruise ship were turned away at an airport as they tried to leave Cambodia on Tuesday, amid fears that the country had been too lax in containing the new coronavirus.

The ship, the Westerdam, was turned away from five other ports over virus fears, but Cambodia allowed it to dock last Thursday. Prime Minister Hun Sen and other officials greeted and embraced passengers without wearing protective gear.

More than 1,000 people were allowed to disembark without wearing masks or being tested for the virus. Other countries have been far more cautious; it is not clear how long after infection people develop symptoms, and some people at first test negative for the virus, even after becoming sick.

Hundreds of passengers left Cambodia and others traveled to Phnom Penh, the capital, to wait for flights home.

But on Saturday, an American who left the ship tested positive on arrival in Malaysia. Health experts warned that others could have carried the virus from the ship, and passengers were barred from flights out of Cambodia.

On Monday, Cambodian officials said tests had cleared 406 passengers, and they looked forward to heading home to the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Hun Sen announced that passengers who were waiting in a hotel would be allowed home on flights through Dubai and Japan.

Orlando Ashford, the president of the cruise operator Holland America, who had traveled to Phnom Penh, told anxious passengers to keep their bags packed.

“Fingers crossed,” said Christina Kerby, an American who had boarded the ship in Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and was awaiting approval to depart. “We’ve been cheering as individuals begin to head to the airport.”

But a cohort of passengers who went to the airport later returned to their hotel. It was not clear if any passengers had been able to fly out.

“New fly in the ointment, the countries that the flights have to go through are not allowing us to fly,” Pad Rao, a retired American surgeon, wrote in a message sent from the Westerdam, where about 1,000 crew and passengers remain.

He said he had been tested for the virus on Monday and was awaiting results.

“We need all the help we can get!” he added.

Reporting and research were contributed by Austin Ramzy, Isabella Kwai, Alexandra Stevenson, Hannah Beech, Choe Sang-Hun, Raymond Zhong, Lin Qiqing, Wang Yiwei, Elaine Yu, Roni Caryn Rabin, Richard C. Paddock, Motoko Rich, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Megan Specia, Michael Wolgelenter, Richard Pérez-Peña and Michael Corkery.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/live-updates-over-150-million-chinese-are-under-coronavirus-lockdown/

#Event

0 notes

dani-qrt · 7 years ago

Text

Noted Humanitarian Charged With Child Rape in Nepal, Stunning a Village

KARTIKE, Nepal — When Peter Dalglish, a lauded humanitarian worker, built a sleek cabin near a Nepalese village of rutted roads and hills ribbed with rice paddies, locals knew virtually nothing about him.

But over several years, Mr. Dalglish, a Canadian, endeared himself to many in the community, greeting villagers in Nepali, offering chocolates from Thailand to children playing in the forest and helping people rebuild their homes destroyed by devastating earthquakes in 2015.

The good will was shattered last month when the police swarmed around Mr. Dalglish’s home, placed a gun to his head and arrested him on charges of raping at least two boys, 12 and 14.

Suddenly, villagers were on edge, worried about how far the betrayal — and abuse — may have stretched.

“We trusted him,” said Sher Bahadur Tamang, who said he received hundreds of dollars from Mr. Dalglish to pay for his child’s education. “He treated us so well. We never knew what was inside his mind.”

Mr. Dalglish’s downfall has been a shock partly because his work aiding street children around the world was so widely admired. In 2016, he was awarded the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.

Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries, and thousands of nongovernmental organizations operate with limited government oversight. The absence of strict regulations means aid groups can be used as a cover for human traffickers and predatory behavior by humanitarian workers, said Pushkar Karki, the head of Nepal’s Chief Investigation Bureau, the agency overseeing the case against Mr. Dalglish.

Earlier this year, the police arrested Hans Jürgen Gustav Dahm, 63, a German who was running a charity organization in Kathmandu that provided free lunches to children, many of whom accused him of sexual abuse.

In the last two years, five other foreign men, including Mr. Dalglish, 60, have been arrested on suspicion of pedophilia, Mr. Karki said. “There have been some instances where they were found working with charities,” he said, noting that several of the men informally offered money, food and clothing to children. “Our laws aren’t as strict as in foreign countries, and there is no social scrutiny like in developed countries.”

The arrest of such a notable humanitarian has added urgency to a new effort by aid workers around the world, who are saying it is now time to investigate themselves. Late last year, they started a #MeToo-like movement called #AidToo.

In February, Oxfam, one of Britain’s largest charities, fired four workers and accepted the resignations of three others after an investigation found that senior officials for the organization had hired prostitutes in Haiti, including for sex parties.

That same month, the BBC reported that men delivering aid on behalf of the United Nations and international charities had abused displaced women in Syria, trading food for sexual favors.

“Peter Dalglish’s arrest should be a ‘teachable moment’ for the humanitarian community to understand and recognize how predators exploit the cover of ‘heroism’ to commit crimes,” Lori Handrahan, a veteran humanitarian worker, wrote in an essay published on Medium. “Let’s be clear. Peter Dalglish is not a hero. He never was.”

Earlier this month, Mr. Dalglish was charged with pedophilia in a district court. He faces up to 13 years in prison.

“He sexually abused children after giving them the false hope that they would be taken to a foreign country,” said Jeevan Shrestha, a spokesman for Nepal’s Chief Investigation Bureau.

Over several decades, Mr. Dalglish, a lawyer from Ontario, built a reputation as a deeply committed advocate for children in war-torn corners of the globe.

In the 1980s, he was a co-founder of Street Kids International, an organization that has helped homeless youths around the world find jobs, and which was recently absorbed by Save the Children.

He also partnered with the American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk to empower children through sports, and worked with the United Nations in Liberian shantytowns after the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

But in Nepal, where he has lived off-and-on since 2002, some of those who knew him recalled unsettling requests.

In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, at a school which provides free education to children from mountain communities, Mr. Dalglish was a popular volunteer in the early 2000s until he asked administrators to change a rule barring students from staying overnight with teachers.

Soon after, the relationship between the school’s staff members and Mr. Dalglish soured, a senior administrator said, and he was banned from the campus.

The arrest of Mr. Dalglish was a shock because his work aiding street children around the world was so widely admired.

In an interview last month with The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, Mr. Dalglish spoke from behind the bars of a jail cell in Kathmandu, denying the charges against him and pointing out he had never before been the subject of a criminal investigation.

“But obviously, if you do the work that I do, with kids, you leave yourself open to criticism and suspicion,” he said. Mr. Dalglish declined further interview requests.

Rahul Chapagain, Mr. Dalglish’s lawyer, said that evidence collected by the police could belong to visitors who rented the home through Airbnb. “Whatever they found, it does not necessarily belong to Peter,” he said.

Mr. Dalglish markets his cabin online as a “Himalayan Hideaway,” equipped with a Bose sound system, German bathroom fixtures and a lush garden. In his profile’s display picture, a beaming Mr. Dalglish embraces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada.

On a recent day, the home was empty and locked, a ruffled comforter on the couch and board games tucked into an armoire visible through the windows. Around Kartike (pronounced kar-ti-kay), a sleepy village where farmers wield sickles in watery fields, many expressed horror that a possible predator had been living just up the hill.

At a restaurant in town, the father of one of the boys in the case said he had worked as a laborer on Mr. Dalglish’s property for half a decade and had formed a warm bond with his boss. The father, Mr. Tamang, identifying himself only by his common last name to protect his family’s privacy, said he let his son, 14, occasionally spend the night at Mr. Dalglish’s home.

On the morning of April 7, Mr. Tamang was jolted awake by nearly a dozen police officers, who escorted him up a snaking path of slate-colored tiles to Mr. Dalglish’s home, where his son was sleeping.

Inside the house, Mr. Dalglish spoke calmly to the police in English, a language Mr. Tamang did not understand.

Later, Mr. Tamang learned that plainclothes police officers had befriended his son, who told the authorities that he, his 12-year-old cousin and at least two other boys had been abused by Mr. Dalglish.

In an interview, Mr. Tamang’s son said Mr. Dalglish had sexually assaulted him over a period of seven years, promising him a better life abroad if he kept quiet.

“I think the police were following Peter for a long time,” Mr. Tamang said. “The boys said they were asked to sleep naked and were raped.”

Until the boys stepped forward, villagers said there had been no signs of improper behavior by Mr. Dalglish. He treated those who worked for him well and bought clothing, shoes and pencils for children in the village. It is unclear who initially tipped off the police about Mr. Dalglish.

A few days after the arrest, Mr. Tamang said he was summoned by the authorities to Mr. Dalglish’s home.

The police showed him a small, white box. Inside were dozens of photographs and film negatives of naked children, some of them playing in pools, Mr. Tamang said.

Mr. Chapagain, the lawyer, said Mr. Dalglish told him they were “pictures of poverty-stricken children and nothing sexually exploitative.”

But Mr. Tamang was unconvinced, characterizing the experience as a nightmarish episode in his family’s ordeal.

“I never imagined Peter would do such a thing,” he said.

The post Noted Humanitarian Charged With Child Rape in Nepal, Stunning a Village appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2rD5WDQ via Online News

#World News #Today News #Daily News #Breaking News #News Headline #Entertainment News #Sports news #Sci-Tech

0 notes

newestbalance · 7 years ago