#uganda news 2019

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #14

April 12-19 2024

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with Samsung to help bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing and research and development to Texas. The deal will bring 45 billion dollars of investment to Texas to help build a research center in Taylor Texas and expand Samsung's Austin, Texas, semiconductor facility. The Biden Administration estimates this will create 21,000 new jobs. Since 1990 America has fallen from making nearly 40% of the world's semiconductor to just over 10% in 2020.

The Department of Energy announced it granted New York State $158 million to help support people making their homes more energy efficient. This is the first payment out of a $8.8 billion dollar program with 11 other states having already applied. The program will rebate Americans for improvements on their homes to lower energy usage. Americans could get as much as $8,000 off for installing a heat pump, as well as for improvements in insulation, wiring, and electrical panel. The program is expected to help save Americans $1 billion in electoral costs, and help create 50,000 new jobs.

The Department of Education began the formal process to make President Biden's new Student Loan Debt relief plan a reality. The Department published the first set of draft rules for the program. The rules will face 30 days of public comment before a second draft can be released. The Administration hopes the process can be finished by the Fall to bring debt relief to 30 million Americans, and totally eliminate the debt of 4 million former students. The Administration has already wiped out the debt of 4.3 million borrowers so far.

The Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion dollar collaboration with USAID to buy American grown foods combat global hunger. Most of the money will go to traditional shelf stable goods distributed by USAID, like wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans, while $50 million will go to a pilot program to see if USAID can expand what it normally gives to new products. The food aid will help feed people in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen.

The Department of the Interior announced it's expanding four national wildlife refuges to protect 1.13 million wildlife habitat. The refuges are in New Mexico, North Carolina, and two in Texas. The Department also signed an order protecting parts of the Placitas area. The land is considered sacred by the Pueblos peoples of the area who have long lobbied for his protection. Security Deb Haaland the first Native American to serve as Interior Secretary and a Pueblo herself signed the order in her native New Mexico.

The Department of Labor announced new work place safety regulations about the safe amount of silica dust mine workers can be exposed to. The dust is known to cause scaring in the lungs often called black lung. It's estimated that the new regulations will save over 1,000 lives a year. The United Mine Workers have long fought for these changes and applauded the Biden Administration's actions.

The Biden Administration announced its progress in closing the racial wealth gap in America. Under President Biden the level of Black Unemployment is the lowest its ever been since it started being tracked in the 1970s, and the gap between white and black unemployment is the smallest its ever been as well. Black wealth is up 60% over where it was in 2019. The share of black owned businesses doubled between 2019 and 2022. New black businesses are being created at the fastest rate in 30 years. The Administration in 2021 Interagency Task Force to combat unfair house appraisals. Black homeowners regularly have their homes undervalued compared to whites who own comparable property. Since the Taskforce started the likelihood of such a gap has dropped by 40% and even disappeared in some states. 2023 represented a record breaking $76.2 billion in federal contracts going to small business owned by members of minority communities. This was 12% of federal contracts and the President aims to make it 15% for 2025.

The EPA announced (just now as I write this) that it plans to add PFAS, known as forever chemicals, to the Superfund law. This would require manufacturers to pay to clean up two PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. This move to force manufacturers to cover the costs of PFAS clean up comes after last week's new rule on drinking water which will remove PFAS from the nation's drinking water.

Bonus:

President Biden met a Senior named Bob in Pennsylvania who is personally benefiting from The President's capping the price of insulin for Seniors at $35, and Biden let Bob know about a cap on prosecution drug payments for seniors that will cut Bob's drug bills by more than half.

[reasonsforhope]

Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

[mariacallous]

Right-wing American Christian groups that oppose sexual and reproductive rights are significantly increasing their spending in Africa, according to a new data analysis published ahead of a U.S. election, which could prove pivotal to abortion access both inside and outside the country.

Research by the nonprofit Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found that 17 groups increased their Africa spending by 50% between 2019 and 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. The researchers say the data represents only a handful of Christian Right groups but indicates that they are making an increasingly concerted effort to influence abortion policy internationally as well as domestically.

A 2020 investigation by openDemocracy revealed that $54 million dollars flowed from mostly the same U.S. Christian Right organizations to Africa between 2008 and 2018. In Africa, their activities range from helping like-minded politicians obstruct key reproductive health legislation to supporting domestic groups in their fight against progressive abortion-related court rulings—tactics borrowed from the anti-abortion playbook in the United States.

While abortion laws have slowly liberalized across the continent, reproductive rights advocates say campaigning by American right-wing groups that brand themselves as “pro-family” could reverse those changes.

“The work of these groups has multifaceted effects on the continent,” said Martin Onyango, senior legal adviser for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a U.S.-based advocacy group. “We have seen a proliferation of anti-rights legislation on the continent of Africa, from Ghana to Uganda to Kenya to Malawi. We have groups that are now proposing legislation in parliament to take away fundamental rights—access to reproductive health care—that have been in place on the continents for decades.”

Many of the groups named in the report have close ties to former President Donald Trump and his administration and have influenced Trump on reproductive rights issues. Several are on the advisory board for Project 2025, a set of policy proposals seen the probable playbook for a second Trump term.

American anti-abortion groups have campaigned in Africa for decades in tandem with their fight at home. Bolstered by conservative Republican politicians, the 1973 Helms Amendment, which limits the use of U.S. foreign aid for abortion, was passed after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. President Ronald Reagan then enacted the Mexico City policy, known as the global gag rule, which restricts U.S. funding to any international organization that provides, or even counsels on, abortion. The U.S. Christian Right has found Africa, with its strong tradition of Evangelical Christianity, fertile ground for further promoting and spreading its ideology. The result is a global movement that unites anti-abortion groups, religious leaders, and politicians around a common goal: eliminating the right to safe, legal abortion services worldwide.

Despite some liberalization, abortion remains highly restricted in many African countries. As of 2022, abortion was essentially illegal in six African countries and permitted only to save the life of the mother in another 13 countries.

Research has shown that banning abortions increases maternal mortality due to unsafe abortions. As of 2019, sub-Saharan Africa had the highest abortion case-fatality rate of any world region, at roughly 185 deaths per 100,000 abortions, a total of 15,000 preventable deaths every year.

Uganda’s Penal Code prohibits abortion except to save the mother’s life. In 2015, the Ministry of Health approved standards and guidelines on the provision of safe abortion, but those were quickly withdrawn. Onyango says this was partly due to lobbying by right-wing groups, including Family Watch International (FWI), a fundamentalist Arizona-based Christian organization whose spending in Africa increased nearly five-fold from 2019 to 2022.

Court cases challenging the withdrawal of those guidelines have not yet been heard, says Onyango.

“When they’re set for hearing, the bench is quickly reconstituted and the exercise starts again from ground zero,” he said. “And it is not by default. It is by clear design that that conversation is not intended to be concluded.”

According to reproductive rights advocates, American right-wing groups are playing the long game in Africa.

“Kenya, Uganda, Ghana appear to be the epicenter of a lot of anti-rights action, and that is where they build a lot of their strategy before exporting them to other countries. … When they leave Kenya, they go down to Malawi, and they replicate the same actions,” said Onyango.

Abortion was illegal in Kenya until 2010, when a new constitution permitted the procedure in a handful of circumstances, including during emergencies or if the life or health of the mother is in danger. Subsequent court decisions allowed abortions in cases of rape and incest and expanded the definition of “health” to include mental health.

But access remains limited, and studies have shown that most Kenyans have limited or inaccurate knowledge of their country’s abortion laws and policies. The legal landscape is confusing, even for medical providers who hesitate to perform the procedure to avoid criminal prosecution.

Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States in 2022, reproductive rights advocates have worried that the same thing could happen in Kenya.

“We export a lot of our values and cultures from the United States, so the Roe v. Wade decision was completely misinterpreted here, because in our setting what we got was that abortion has been made illegal in the United States. That’s the message that we got because Roe was overturned,” said Dr. Ernest Nyamato, associate director of quality of care at the reproductive health care nonprofit IPAS.

In Kenya, a conservative group called the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF) is appealing two recent court decisions: one affirming that abortion is a fundamental constitutional right, making the arrest of patients and providers illegal, and a second upholding the constitutional right to access abortion when there is a risk to the pregnant person’s health.

The KCPF’s chairperson, Charles Kanjama, denies receiving funding from any American organizations. But its annual report shows that its parent organization, the African Christian Professionals Forum (ACPF), was sponsored in 2023 by FWI. That same year, FWI’s president, Sharon Slater, was a featured speaker at ACPF’s annual conference.

FWI said it was unable to provide comment on this story within the requested time frame.

Part of the challenge of tracking the funding flows is a lack of transparent documentation. “We’re treating what we found as the tip of the iceberg,” said Claire Provost, co-founder of the IJSC. “We didn’t capture all funding from U.S. anti-rights actors into Africa. It’s a diverse and evolving ecosystem, with new organizations being set up all the time.”

The influence of these groups is clearly visible. Their members share training materials with African organizations, travel to the continent for conferences, and sponsor events such as Kenya’s March for Life, an annual demonstration against abortion, says Saoyo Tabitha Griffith, a Kenyan lawyer and women’s rights advocate.

In 2019, Nairobi hosted the ICPD25, a global population and development conference. Across the street from the venue, a few hundred people gathered in opposition to sexual and reproductive rights, including several groups tracked by the IJSC.

Former Trump administration delegates, including Valerie Huber, who was U.S. special representative for Global Women’s Health, were also there. Huber was a chief architect of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a document submitted by the United States to the United Nations that encourages governments to improve women’s health care without abortion. She now travels across Africa promoting anti-abortion ideology for her nonprofit, the Institute for Women’s Health (IWH), another Project 2025 sponsor.

In a statement, an IWH spokesperson wrote that no IWH funds had been spent in Africa, other than for routine travel expenses, and that IHC has not provided any grants to African groups or individuals, is not partnering in Kenya, and has no plans to increase spending in Africa.

Huber hopes “to improve health and thriving for women, their children, their families, and their communities through high-quality, research-based policy guidance to nations,” the spokesperson wrote.

America’s global abortion policy seesaws back and forth depending on which party holds office, and Griffith said she witnessed years of damaging changes during Trump’s presidency. “I do not think I want to even imagine what a Trump reelection would mean for the women of Kenya,” she said.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 1 March 1968, the racist Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 came into force in the UK. In Britain's East African colonies after independence, like Uganda and Kenya, the new governments were pursuing various policies to Africanise, which threatened tens of thousands of South Asian settlers: mostly British passport-holders. So the Labour government passed the act to prevent them coming to Britain, despite the fact that the country had net emigration at that time. Labour claimed that the law wasn't racial, but secret papers released decades later showed that it purposely targeted "coloured immigrants," and cabinet was even advised that the bill would breach international law. A confidential memo to prime minister Harold Wilson said that they could argue "the Asian community in East Africa are not nationals of this country in any racial sense and that the obligations imposed, for example, by the European Convention on Human Rights do not therefore apply." Though most Conservative MPs voted for the law, even the conservative Times newspaper described it as "probably the most shameful measure that Labour members have ever been asked by their whips to support." Tory Lord Ian Gilmour, who opposed the bill, described its purpose very straightforwardly to journalist Mark Lattimer: “to keep the Blacks out." (At the time in the UK all people of colour were considered "Black.") In our podcast episodes 33-34 we talk about the experiences of Asian migrants in Britain and how they fought against racism: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/09/18/e28-29-asian-youth-movements-in-bradford/ Pictured: Kenyan Asian refugees at this time https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2220765034775301/?type=3

[coochiequeens]

This December 3rd remember that one in every five women is likely to experience disability in her life

The classroom in the Kamurasi Demonstration School in Masindi Municipality, Uganda, with the Ugandan Sign language alphabet drawn on the wall.

PHOTO:UNICEF/Uganda/Barbeyrac

United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities

Given the multiple crises we are facing today, the world is not on track to reach numerous Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets by 2030. Preliminary findings from the forthcoming UN Disability and Development Report 2023 indicate that the world is even more off-track in meeting several SDGs for persons with disabilities.

Our efforts to rescue the SDGs for, with, and by persons with disabilities, need to be intensified and accelerated, given that persons with disabilities have historically been marginalized and have often been among those left furthest behind.

A fundamental shift in commitment, solidarity, financing and action is critical. Encouragingly, with the adoption of the Political Declaration of the recent SDG Summit, world leaders have recommitted themselves to achieving sustainable development and shared prosperity for all, by focusing on policies and actions that target the poorest and most vulnerable, including persons with disabilities.

The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy

When launching the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy in June 2019, the Secretary-General stated that the United Nations should lead by example and raise the Organization’s standards and performance on disability inclusion—across all pillars of work, from headquarters to the field.  

The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy provides the foundation for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through all pillars of the work of the United Nations. Through the Strategy, the United Nations system reaffirms that the full and complete realization of the human rights of all persons with disabilities is an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

In August 2023, the Secretary-General submitted his fourth report on steps taken by the UN system to  implement the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy in 2022.

Commemorative Event : UNHQ, 1 December 2023, 10am-1pm (New York Time)

The discussion will be structured around five pillars of sustainable development – People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships – with a special focus on the priority areas identified in the SDG Progress Report of 2023, in the outcome document of the recent SDG Summit, in policy briefs prepared for the Summit for the Future and in the forthcoming UN Disability and Development Report 2023. For purposes of this discussion, the priority areas can be identified as gender equality (People), climate action (Planet), financing for development (Prosperity), a new agenda for peace (Peace) and strengthening multilateralism (Partnerships).

Concept note [PDF]

Did you know? 

Of the one billion population of persons with disabilities, 80% live in developing countries.

An estimated 46% of older people aged 60 years and over are people with disabilities.

One in every five women is likely to experience disability in her life, while one in every ten children is a child with a disability.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

“We are here to break male dominance in the field of birding,” says Judith Mirembe, the chair of the Uganda Women Birders Club, as the group reaches the botanical gardens on a day where the weather cannot decide between light rain and sunshine.

Mirembe, in the check shirt, with other female birders, using their phones to find out details about a bird they’ve spotted.

“There are very few female birders in Uganda. The tourism industry in general is yet to fully appreciate women,” she adds.

Two dozen women follow Mirembe in silence, hoping to spot a “lifer” – a bird on their wishlist. “Everyone has a different lifer,” says Linda Nakalema, one of the club’s 80 members. “We see the red-chested cuckoo all the time in Uganda but people from South Africa are very excited when they see it because it only migrates there seasonally. It is their lifer. For others it is the marabou stork that we see scavenging through our rubbish every day. It looks so elegant when it flies.”

Tour companies describe Uganda as a paradise for birdwatchers. About 50% of Africa’s bird species, and 11% of the world’s, are found here. Uganda has the highest concentration of birds in Africa. The country’s birders have an ambitious target of bringing in an annual $700m in tourist revenue by 2030. In 2019, tourism in Uganda generated about $1.37bn, about 3.6% of total GDP.

Mirembe believes that female birders are entitled to a share of these earnings. At the International Conference for Women Birders the club hosted in Uganda earlier this month, female enthusiasts from all over the world met to discuss their unique challenges and discuss how, together, they can bring more money to women in the sector.

“Birding is expensive and many Ugandan women are struggling to meet costs such as buying binoculars, telescopes and cameras to record and share the birds they sight with other people,” she says, adding that cultural expectations of women as caregivers mean their spouses may not let them go for week-long birdwatching tours. “This is our reality. Even tourist operators do not take women seriously and we know that we must work twice as hard as men to get the same respect.”

Members of Uganda’s Women Birders Club, which started in 2013, meet in Entebbe every Sunday. It is a training ground and a support network. Many of the women already have careers in tourism and wildlife. Others join to make new friends and learn.

After the satisfaction of spending hours looking for birds and the joy that reverberates through the group when someone sights, accurately names and describes a bird, the women sit down for lunch in a restaurant. Over smoked beef and matooke (mashed green bananas), they speak of a time when birding could be a hazardous pursuit for women.

People would see women with binoculars, accuse them of trying to steal land and beat them up. Others could be hostile to the women because they wore trousers – a taboo in some Ugandan cultures. They recall tour operators who would send them to the field with drivers who’d sexually harass them and tourist accommodation where the women would be put in a shared room with men.

Miremebe watches the younger enthusiasts with pride as she tells them how Uganda was the first country in Africa to start a female birders’ club, and how there are now similar associations in Rwanda and Kenya.

“We must not let fear hold us back from opportunity. We need to keep it going against all odds,” is Mirembe’s farewell cry, as the women leave the restaurant and head back into Entebbe alongside the tired beachgoers and weary market-sellers.

[yonadave]

“I’m Not Anti-Mutant Just Anti-Krakoa '' - Why We Should Compare Krakoa to Israel.

When HoX\PoX came out in 2019 I was living in Jerusalem and talking to a friend about it and eventually the question went up “Do we want to talk about Krakoa and Israel?” The answer was a resounding no. Unfortunately for me, some of the latest issues of X-Men titles made the connection between my actual homeland and my fictional favorite Island-state clearer and clearer. I don’t know if the writers meant to make the connections I see, but they are there and in order to truly understand what we’ve seen as the road to Fall of X is being published we need to look at the triangle of Israel, Anti-Zionism, and Anti-Semitism in real life. 

Since we are talking about a volatile subject we do need to put on some very basic ground rules. Many critics of Israel claim Zionist would use the Anti-Semitisim card in order to ignore valid criticism. While my side of the issue needs to understand that not every criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the other side needs to understand that not all Anti-Zionism is automatically not Anti-Semitic. Anti-Semites also use criticism of Israel to ignore criticism of their own anti-semitism. In my opinion, both sides of this equation are not opinions rather basic recognition of reality needed to talk about this issue. The point of this article is not to prove that Israel is the source of all evil or to justify its existence/importance. This is about understanding what the plot of a comic book means to readers living in the real world and vice versa.

The Naive - Krakoa as Ugande.

While I decided to write this specifically during my reading of Duggan’s X-Men issue 23, I think it is best to start at House of X issue 1. It’s hard to ignore the parallels between Krakoa and Israel when Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, is hosting foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem. The new mutant nation was showing what Krakoa is, and what it has to offer to other nations. Host of the Cerebro podcast, Connor Goldsmith, brought up Krakoa as Israel without the Palestinian Issue. Since Krakoa is a newly formed island it can represent the good in the Zionist project without the bad - the fact that the country was formed in a land that was already populated. As an Israeli who is temporarily living in the US, this seems to be a desire shared by many left wing jews who want to love Israel but feel like they cannot due to the plight of the Palesstinians. Jonathan Hickman himself, while being a guest on said podcast, said that Magneto represented a form of politics evolved and better than humanity’s politics.

This aspiration, formed out of both of these hopes, reminded me of two Zionist naive works. The first one is a parody song by the Israeli comedic trio “Ma Ka’shur” - Why Not Ugande. The song, released in 2008 celebrating the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, claims that Theodore Hertzel, as a symbol for the entirety of the Zionist leadership, was wrong to decline the British Uganda Scheme to create a Jewish national home in Uganda instead of our ancestral homeland. The chorus of the song begins with the words “Why not Uganda, why not Uganda, we do not go on busses” refering to the waves of suicide bombers who bombed Israeli busses during the time of the Oslo Agreement and during the first couple of years of the second Initifada. This naive view of the early days of the Zionist movement assumes that the Zionist project would not be opposed in Uganda. 

The other work is from the writings of Rav Avraham Issac Kook, a rabbi who’s writing would eventually be the basis of the contemporary Religious Zionisim movement in Israel. Rav Kook was heavily influenced by European philosophers who believed that WWI was the last war in history. In his most famous book “Orot” (Lights in Hebrew) he writes “We have left the global political stage [after the destruction of the second temple and the beginning of the Diaspora YT] due to an external source forcing us, in a way that also reflected our inner wishes. Until that glorious time where a kingdom can be run without wickedness and cruelty.” (Orot, Lights out of Darkness, War, Passage 3) 

Thinking that if only Zionism went a few dozen miles to the side everything would be perfect is as silly as saying that WWI is the last war in history and that’s why the Zionist project is going to be perfect. But this silly naivety can also become insidious. Krakoa started out as a perfect nation, harming no one while helping everyone. But that wasn’t enough. Setting the bar for what humanity expects of Krakoa so high that no other country could ever pass it, while expecting the mutant nation to do it is a ruse. Even when they ran a seemingly perfect country it wasn’t enough because Krakao’s actions were never the issue. Not when Krakoa is morally wrong, not when it is morally right. From its birth, Krakoa could never be accepted by those who prosecuted mutants. The problem would always be the existence of Krakoa because the world that hates and fears mutants cannot accept that they would have control over their own future. 

The Good - Krakoan Pharmawashing

Since its inception the island nation of Krakoa has performed many outreach programs. The krakoan miracle drugs were the big opener of the nation’s international activities, the X-Men team built and lived in the tree house to help people outside of the island and now we’ve also seen Mutant First Strike, a team meant to act as disaster relief. It would be one thing if those efforts would simply fail to move the needle of public opinion towards mutants, but we see how these efforts are being used in anti mutant/Krakoa propaganda. 

The mutant medicines are seen in the pages of X-Force and Wolverine to be a point of contention by those who oppose the island nation. In X-Men 22 we even see that Orchis are blaming mutants for poisoning their medicines. Sure, the lie is because Orchis are the ones who put the poison in, but all I could see is Krakoa being blamed for poisoning wells. Israel was also accused several times in poisoning wells, but the source for these rumors seem to come not out of fact, since those haven’t been presented, but out of the centuries old antisemitic trope of Jews poisoning wells. 

In the real world, Israel is being blamed for “Pinkwashing the Occupation”; later on it also evolved to other issues like Veganwashing. The pinkwashing campaign does not mean that the good Israel does can not cancel out its wrongs, which is an actual critique. It started, back in 2010 as a critique saying the Israeli government uses its LGBT community to hide our atrocities. It also evolved, and today, in its extreme form Israel is blamed that many of the good we do (such as promoting green energy and vegan products) are only done in order that we can continue and oppress the Palestinian people. Every other country has done both good and evil, and reasonable people can see that a country, or people, can be both at the same time. But if you view a group as demonic then even its best qualities must be viewed in that light.  

The Bad - Why Is It always Sentinels

I started writing this after reading X-Men 23. In this issue, Orchis, a global union of many anti-mutant groups, use of a sentinel as a proposed vehicle for peace and feint of ignorance made my blood boil. Orchis propaganda claims they “do not know” why the X-Men decided to attack a sentinel. The intentional use of Sentinels, the most recognized symbol of mutant oppression, is not foreign to me. While being accused of being a Nazi is pretty common for most people on the internet, it’s different when it’s used against the victims of that regime. When Roger Waters wanted to ‘criticize’ Israel he chose to do so wearing Nazi uniforms. Many Arab countries who ethnically cleansed their Jewish population blame Israel for committing that act, without an inch of recognition for what they did to the ancient Jewish Communities they used to have. The choice of Sentinels was not meant only to bait a response from the X-Men, it was meant to hurt them by reminding them all of their shared trauma. 

The only thing I was missing in the issue was the claim that Orchis isn’t Anti Mutant, it is simply Anti-Krakoa. But Duggan already wrote that scene in his original Marauders run at the Dawn of X. And while it is not said explicitly here, Orchis are asking us to believe that the use of sentinels is not out of mutant hatred but due to something else. The idea that mutants shouldn’t attack a sentinel is absurd, but claiming that mutants are not allowed to defend themselves in face of clear aggression actually does makes sense. Because even after Israel spent decades developing a defensive technology that doesn’t hurt any Palestinian, we are still being blamed for using it, as famously seen made by Jon Oliver regarding the Iron Dome. In the last year we have seen so much bad spewing out of Krakoa, but the hatred came before all of that. Krakoa is primed to be a quick excuse for mutant hating bigots, just like Israel is used by many anti-semites regardless of all the bad and good that comes out of my country. 

One of the common conceptions surrounding X-Men comics is that the mutant metaphor is problematic since minorities are in a position of weakness while mutants have super powers. But while Jews and Israelis do not shoot lasers from the eyes we are at the bottom of every conspiracy theory. From space lasers from the right to being blamed for American police brutality on the left, we are attributed fictional powers and being blamed for them long before the forming of Zionism as a modern political movement in 1840. Krakoa isn’t Israel, it is better than we could ever hope to be and it is worse than we will be able to become. Krakoa is mostly a fictional state, something that we will never be again. So the answer to Israel-Palestinian conflict would not be found in the Fall of X, but looking at the hatred, be it justified or Antisemitic, surrounding Israel is a great way to write visceral scenes that sticks with the reader. Especially now as things are about to take a turn for the worse for my favorite made up nation. 

I do not know what the Fall of X has in store for us. I truly hope we are not about to witness the end of Krakoa, but I know it’s a possible outcome. Both from watsonian and the doylist perspective Krakoa was always going to fail. In the pages of Powers Of X issue 6 we learned that Xavier, Magneto, and Moira , the founders of Krakoa, knew the threats that are facing this miracle island and are not sure they will make it in the long run. From an industry perspective, many fans simply assume that Krakoa can’t last since every big change in comics gets pushed back eventually into the status quo. Not to mention that no one thinks that the MCU is going to let Krakoa in. 

Even if Krakoa doesn’t fall, the threat of the destruction of the nation is on full display in previews we’ve seen. And that’s the point, most countries in the world are not under constant threat of complete annihilation, but Krakoa and Israel are. When we criticize most nation we demand a regime change, not promoting relocating millions of people, but that is always the explicit goal of anti Krakoa and Anti-Zionist campaigns. You do not have to support Israel in order to be a “true” X-Men fan, but it is my opinion that the best way to understand this age of comics, and the best way to write it, is to lean in on the Israel metaphor.

[usafphantom2]

China releases new images of its next-generation aircraft carrier

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 04/01/2024 - 11:00 in Military

Chinese state media released new images of China's most advanced aircraft carrier to date, including next-generation launchpads that can catapult a wider range of aircraft from its deck.

First displayed to the public in June 2022, the Fujian was entirely designed and built in-house.

However, to carry out its first tests at sea, the aircraft carrier is larger and technologically more advanced than the Shandong, commissioned in 2019, and the Liaoning, which China bought second hand from Ukraine in 1998 and remodeled internally.

On state television on Tuesday night, the Fujian was seen being towed by a smaller vessel with all three rails of its electromagnetic catapult system visible on its deck.

“In the new year, we will take advantage of every minute, work with determination and strive to be ready for combat as soon as possible,” state television said, citing a Fujian official.

Fujian has been conducting tests, including mooring tests, before the tests at sea, which some observers expected to take place until 2023. The aircraft carrier began the launch tests of its electromagnetic catapult system in November, according to the state-controlled Chinese newspaper, Global Times.

In addition to the Ford Class aircraft carriers, a new class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that is being developed for the U.S. Navy, the Fujian will be the only aircraft carrier in the world equipped with the latest Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). The new images also show a model of the Shenyang J-15 fighter on the back of the flight deck.

The Chinese version of EMALS can launch more types of aircraft than Shandong or Liaoning, and will also be more reliable and energy efficient, a milestone in the modernization of the Chinese armed forces.

President Xi Jinping repeatedly called for greater combat readiness and technological advances before the 100º anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (ELP) in 2027. Some senior U.S. military officials previously said that China would launch a military takeover of Taiwan during that year.

TAP ARROW BUTTON TO VIEW VIDEO ☝️

In the run-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections of January 13, Taiwan reported that China continued its daily military activities in the Taiwan Strait and around the democratically governed island.

Chinese fighters also occasionally crossed the midline of the strait, which previously served as an unofficial barrier, but which Beijing says it does not recognize.

Source: Reuters

Tags: Military AviationChinaFujianPLAN - People's Liberation Army Navy / People's Liberation Army Navyaircraft carrier

Sharing

tweet

Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

Related news

MILITARY

Indonesia plans to modernize its fleet of Su-30 and F-16 aircraft

04/01/2024 - 08:40

MILITARY

US and allies warn Houthis of "consequences" if attacks on ships continue

03/01/2024 - 23:58

AERONAUTICAL ACCIDENTS

Uganda loses one of its new Mi-28 helicopters in an accident

03/01/2024 - 18:20

MILITARY

Norway will send its F-16 fighters to Denmark to train Ukrainian pilots

03/01/2024 - 16:00

COMMERCIAL

Boeing announces full return of the 737 MAX to the Chinese skies

03/01/2024 - 10:00

MILITARY

Aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford will return from mission in defense of Israel

03/01/2024 - 08:27

[greaterpaladin]

man. like it just kinda sucks. i used to love pride but now i have to brace for corporations trying to be hip whilst trying to fuck over our rights, bigots feeling like hunting season and getting extra aggro, and people who just want to be in a community that isn't theirs overriding the actual members and alienating us

i just wanna vibe with my bi buds. fuck around with my trans bros and sisters. share a drink with my gay dudes and lesbians. why is our solidarity, our protest, warped like this?

we have discourse about kids at pride, kids transitioning, do adults even really consent to hormones? this character is trans but it's in the most offensive way imaginable but fake trans people lap it up so here's more! more money thrown into transphobic protest groups. uganda passes an even stricter law on murdering us. here, get your rainbow mickey ice cream!

i think the push to make your gender/sexuality a political stance- in the sense that the online left embraced it, rather than it being a foisted on idea by the right- really fucked a lot up. i wrote my dissertation on identity and as a trans bi dude, i talked a lot about those things. i made it clear, in 2019, that it was not my entirety. a radical thing back in the day, screaming from the rootops i am gay but it is not all of me, i am multitudes and you cannot confine me just to that; and now people introduce themselves gender first, person second

i hate it. i don't want to talk about this. i hate arguing with people, i want so badly to let things lie. but i have seen firsthand the damage to our community and our message in the past few years. i have seen so many of my trans brothers be berated, belittled, their manhood bemoaned as not woke enough and not manly enough all at once, by people who have never suffered as we have and want our meagre resources so their new hot take has more clout- and our opponents use them, new piping hot reasons to hate us

it's taken me a very long time to get to where i am, in every sense of the word. i am very lucky and blessed to live my life as a man- mostly stealth, and when not, by choice. and then i watch as a woman who calls herself he they buys harry potter merch, puts money and influence in the pocket of the richest terf in england, and claims they are superior to me. and i also watch as our rights are stripped by cruel bigots who can scapegoat these very people.

i always wanted to say: they'll always hate us. let people do what they want. and that's true, in some ways. they will. but letting everyone who wants to be different instead of is different in has only hurt those who have always been here. because those who want to be here for clout can always leave. but i can't.

[beardedmrbean]

Kenyan authorities were wrong to ban the gay community from registering a rights organisation, the country's Supreme Court has ruled.

Yet at the same time it stressed that gay sex remains illegal.

The judges ruled three-to-two that the country's NGO board was wrong to stop the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) from registering in 2013.

As Kenya's highest court, the Supreme Court's ruling cannot be overturned.

In their judgment, the judges ruled that "it would be unconstitutional to limit the right to associate, through denial of registration of an association, purely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the applicants".

Nevertheless, the ruling is bitter-sweet for Kenya's gay community. Laws which were introduced under British colonial rule mean that it is criminal to have sex that "is against the order of nature", which can result in up to 14 years in prison.

In May 2019, Kenya's high court rejected an attempt to overturn these laws.

Africa Live: Latest update from around the continent

'Why our fight for gay rights in Kenya isn't over'

Where it's illegal to be gay

Friday's judgement ends a 10-year legal battle which began in 2013 when Eric Gitari, the former executive director of the NGLHRC, challenged the head of Kenya NGO Coordination Board's refusal to permit him to apply to register an NGO under a name containing the words gay or lesbian.

The judges ruled in his favour at the High Court in 2015, again at the Court of Appeal in 2019 and finally in 2023.

Speaking after the ruling, Njeri Gateru, the current executive director of the NGLHRC, said: "The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the lower courts' rulings is a triumph for justice and human rights.

"At a time where the Kenyan LGBTIQ+ community is decrying the increased targeting and violence; this decision affirms the spirit and intention of the Constitution to protect all Kenyans and guarantee their rights."

The ruling comes at a time when homophobic rhetoric has been rising in Kenya.

Members of the LGBTQI+ community have been harassed by police, subjected to body examinations to "prove" gay sex, and openly insulted on social media and in public spaces. Some say they have even been denied healthcare and thrown out of rental houses for being gay.

On the day of the judgement, Member of Parliament George Peter Kaluma filed an official notice that he intended to introduce a bill which would jail for life people convicted of homosexuality or the promotion of it.

While Friday's Supreme Court ruling arguably torpedoes any attempts to legally harass openly gay people with new laws, Mr Kaluma can still rally MPs to increase jail terms for gay sex.

It is also illegal to have gay sex in neighbouring Uganda, where Muslim leaders used Friday prayers to preach against homosexuality.

The head of the country's Muslims, Mufti Sheikh Ramathan Mubajje, called on the authorities to enact even tougher laws against same-sex relations.

He was speaking at the Old Kampala mosque in the capital, Kampala, where hundreds had gathered for Friday prayers.

Earlier in the week, the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council circulated a letter to all clerics under its association gazetting Friday as the day to carry out peaceful protests against homosexuality in Uganda.

The clerics were asked to prepare sermons condemning same-sex relations and extend the same message to the media and schools.

In the event, the protests were only held in the eastern city of Jinja.

Gay rights activist Frank Mugisha described the protests as dangerous, saying they could increase cases of violence against those who identify as LGBT.

There has been a recent surge in homophobic sentiment in the country.

Last week, President Yoweri Museveni said Uganda would not embrace homosexuality and that the West should stop trying to impose its views and "normalise" what he called "deviations".

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.25 (after 1940)

1941 – Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. 1942 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom. 1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends. 1946 – The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor. 1946 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 1 relating to Military Staff Committee is adopted. 1947 – Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device", the first ever electronic game. 1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented in the United States; the venue is the Hollywood Athletic Club. 1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States reacts to the "payola" scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records. 1961 – In Washington, D.C., US President John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference. 1964 – Blue Ribbon Sports, which would later become Nike, is founded by University of Oregon track and field athletes. 1967 – South Vietnamese junta leader and Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky fires rival, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Nguyen Huu Co, while the latter is overseas on a diplomatic visit. 1969 – Brazilian Army captain Carlos Lamarca deserts in order to fight against the military dictatorship, taking with him ten machine guns and 63 rifles. 1971 – Charles Manson and four "Family" members (three of them female) are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders. 1971 – Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president. 1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official papal visits outside Italy to The Bahamas, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. 1980 – Mother Teresa is honored with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. 1986 – The National Resistance Movement topples the government of Tito Okello in Uganda. 1990 – Avianca Flight 052 crashes in Cove Neck, New York, killing 73. 1993 – Five people are shot outside the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two are killed and three wounded. 1994 – The spacecraft Clementine by BMDO and NASA is launched. 1995 – The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile. 1996 – Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be hanged in the United States. 1998 – During a historic visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II demands political reforms and the release of political prisoners while condemning US attempts to isolate the country. 1998 – A suicide attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth kills eight and injures 25 others. 1999 – A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000. 2003 – Invasion of Iraq: A group of people leave London, England, for Baghdad, Iraq, to serve as human shields, intending to prevent the U.S.-led coalition troops from bombing certain locations. 2005 – A stampede at the Mandhradevi temple in Maharashtra, India kills at least 258. 2006 – Mexican professional wrestler Juana Barraza is arrested in connection with the serial killing of at least ten elderly women. 2010 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Na'ameh, Lebanon, killing 90. 2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution begins throughout the country, marked by street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labour strikes, and violent clashes. 2013 – At least 50 people are killed and 120 people are injured in a prison riot in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. 2015 – A clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao in the Philippines kills 44 members of Special Action Force (SAF), at least 18 from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and five from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. 2019 – A mining company's dam collapses in Brumadinho, Brazil, a south-eastern city, killing 270 people.

[sociologyontherock]

Sexuality amid Globalization and Nationalism:

A Model based on China

By Jian Fu

The relationships between globalization, nationalism, and LGBTQ+ human rights create a complex landscape for discussions of sexuality. On one hand, the norms of LGBTQ+ rights have been disseminating globally, as evidenced by the legalization of marriage equality in 36 countries by 2024. On the other hand, right-wing populists and nationalists opposing LGBTQ+ rights are on the rise globally. For example, countries like Russia and Uganda not only refuse to safeguard these rights but actively persecute LGBTQ+ communities. Even in Canada, which was recognized as the most LGBTQ+-friendly country by Equaldex (2023), anti-LGBTQ+ movements like the “1 Million March 4 Children” have emerged. In this intricate context, how should we navigate the interplay between sexuality, globalization, and nationalism?

My Memorial University Ph.D. dissertation uses China as a case study to explore these intersections. China, deeply embedded in the global economic system while promoting patriotism through its authoritarian regime, provides a quintessential example of how sexuality in the Global South intersects with globalization and nationalism. To explore these intersections, I conducted four months of fieldwork in 2019 across four cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Lanzhou) in China. With the help of local LGBTQ+ non-governmental organizations, particularly Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) China, I recruited a total of 43 participants and participated in 26 activities organized by various LGBTQ+ non-governmental organizations. Additionally, I conducted document analysis, news media research, and social media research. My data also includes one online survey, conducted in collaboration with PFLAG China’s Beijing Branch. This survey incorporated a scale designed to measure the attitudes of sexual minorities in China towards nationalism. The results indicated that 47.6% of respondents (1760) maintained a neutral stance on patriotism, while 15.7% identified as nationalists, and 1.0% as highly nationalist. Those opposed to nationalism within the Chinese LGBTQ+ community accounted for 35.8% of the survey sample.

The Canadian and Rainbow Flags. Photograph by Stephen Harold Riggins.

This data allowed me to address three key research questions. First, regarding the intersection of sexuality, nationalism, and globalization in public discourse, my findings reveal that while external entities have pressured China on LGBTQ+ rights through naming, shaming, and direct advocacy, these external pressures encounter two significant dilemmas due to the principles of noninterference and particularism. The principle of noninterference requires the protection of national sovereignty, the promotion of self-determination, and refraining from interfering in the internal affairs of states. However, international human rights pressure on domestic policy changes inevitably raises the dilemma of potential interference in a nation’s internal affairs. The principle of particularism faces the challenge of promoting cross-border “universal” human rights standards while respecting regional, cultural, and religious differences.

Chinese nationalist discourse utilizes particularism to emphasize distinctive and authentic sexual traditions and values, and noninterference to frame external LGBTQ+ rights advocacy as interference from hostile foreign forces. However, Chinese nationalists exhibit a divided response to the definition of authentic Chinese sexuality, resulting in the coexistence of conflicting sexual nationalism discourses – namely, homophobic nationalism and homonationalism. Specifically, homophobic nationalists emphasize heterosexuality as authentic Chinese sexual values, while they consider homosexuality to be “abnormal” or “degraded.” Chinese homonationalists, on the other hand, argue that homosexuality is a prevalent phenomenon in Chinese history and literature and that there has been no historical or current systematic persecution of homosexuals in China, which distinguishes it from Western societies. Homonationalists frequently cite Chinese “male love/porn (男风/男色)” idioms such as “long yang (龙阳)” and “broken sleeve (断袖)” and intimacies between two women, such as “jinlan qi (金兰契)” or “self-combing (自梳),” which are recorded in Chinese history. Homonationalists selectively overlook or deny the unfriendly conditions for the Chinese LGBTQ+ community while arguing that the homophobia present in China has been imported from the West.

Regarding how individuals within the Chinese LGBTQ+ community navigate their sexual identity amidst the complex interplay of nationalism and globalization, I developed an ideal typology categorizing them into three groups: Nationalists, Liberals, and Avoidants. Nationalist-leaning LGBTQ+ individuals in China, often referred to as “Pink Gays” (a combination of “little pinks (小粉红)” and “gays”) by their opponents, represent a unique phenomenon within the Chinese context. 

The term “little pinks” originally referred to fans of the Boys’ Love (BL) subculture on Jinjiang Literature City, an online literature platform (Fang & Repnikova, 2018, “Demystifying ‘Little Pink’: The Creation and Evolution of a Gendered Label for Nationalistic Activists in China”). BL subculture fans typically discuss or write about romantic and sometimes sexual relationships between male characters on Jinjiang. A small group of these fans, known as the “Jinjiang girls who are worried about the country (晋江忧国少女团),” often wrote about patriotism and nationalism on the forum. In 2015, these nationalist BL fans engaged in an online scolding war with liberal public opinion leader Daguguji (@大咕咕鸡), which led to the term “little pinks” coming to refer to young nationalist girls. While the nationalist BL fans called Daguguji “chicken shit,” Daguguji referred to them as ugly “little pinks,” suggesting they were blindly supportive of the government. The 2016 “Diba Crusade Incident (帝吧出征)” further popularized the term “little pinks” on the Chinese internet, where it has been appropriated by liberals to mock nationalist young people as ideologically regressive and emotionally zealous, likening them to the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution (Fang & Repnikova, 2018). My social media research finds that since 2017, the term “Pink Gay” has emerged, targeting pro-regime and patriotic gay individuals who are criticized by LGBTQ+ liberals for supporting a government that suppresses their rights.

The most notable characteristic of nationalist-leaning (Pink) LGBTQ+ individuals is their adoption of a pro-regime stance and their belief that showcasing “positive energy” is the correct approach to advancing LGBTQ+ rights. Despite the government’s suppression of the LGBTQ+ community, Pink Gays support and even praise the Chinese government. Their logic, though controversial, is based on several strategies. They employ victim/LGBTQ+ blaming and public blaming to separate the state from the social suffering and individual difficulties experienced by the LGBTQ+ community, such as by criticizing HIV/AIDS issues as the result of a lack of self-discipline among gay men. And they use downward comparison, highlighting that LGBTQ+ rights in China are relatively better than in other countries where LGBTQ+ people face more severe persecution or that the general heterosexual population in China also faces numerous challenges. Moreover, they establish patriotism as a salient identity, prioritizing their identity as patriotic Chinese citizens over their LGBTQ+ identity, which they are willing to sacrifice for national pride.

In contrast, Chinese LGBTQ+ Liberals represent the opposite group, associating LGBTQ+ suffering directly with the Chinese state. Unlike Pink Gays, who use downward comparison, Liberals employ upward comparison, emphasizing the disparity between LGBTQ+ rights in China and more progressive countries. Moreover, while Pink Gays prioritize patriotism, Liberals decouple their “love for the country” from state-sponsored patriotism, expressing love for the land and people rather than the Chinese government or Communist Party.

LGBTQ+ Avoidants, in contrast to both Pink Gays and LGBTQ+ Liberals, choose to navigate the contradictions of sexuality, nationalism, and globalization by avoiding them altogether. Their logic is rooted in pragmatism: they prioritize survival over LGBTQ+ rights, fearing punishment and lacking the means or willingness to leave China. Consequently, they marginalize their LGBTQ+ identity to avoid potential risks.

Finally, regarding the strategies of Chinese LGBTQ+ activists, my findings reveal that they are both creative and pragmatic. For example, PFLAG China strategically utilizes filial nationalism – a state-led ideology that encourages loyalty to the nation akin to filial piety towards one’s parents. By framing its discourse within family values, PFLAG China mitigates risks when communicating with families, the public, and the government. Parents and families thus act as crucial intermediaries, mediating the power dynamics between sexual minorities and the state.

Moreover, despite rising nationalism, China’s deep integration into globalization –  particularly within the neoliberal world economic system – creates paradoxical opportunities for LGBTQ+ activism. For instance, foreigners and foreign companies in China often enjoy certain privileges, which Chinese LGBTQ+ activists have leveraged. Examples include Shanghai Pride, which benefitted from the privileged status of foreigners, and internal equal policies implemented by transnational corporations such as IBM China. Additionally, some embassies (e.g., those of the U.S., EU, Netherlands, and Canada) and the United Nations’ human rights system have provided support to LGBTQ+ activism in China. However, these strategies carry risks, as seen in the closures of pioneering LGBTQ+ organizations like Shanghai Pride in 2020, LGBTQ+ Rights Advocacy China in 2021, and Beijing LGBTQ+ Center in 2023.

In conclusion, my research illuminates the interplay and operational mechanisms of sexuality, nationalism, and globalization within public discourse, individual experiences, and social movements. It contributes to a deeper understanding of intersectionality, diversity, and heterogeneity within the Chinese LGBTQ+ community. Furthermore, it sheds light on the internal heterogeneity of nationalism, the dynamic state-society relations in authoritarian regimes, and the geopolitics of LGBTQ+ human rights.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

The NY Times

By Selam GebrekidanJustin ScheckSarah Hurtes and Pete McKenzie

Nov. 30, 2024

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in the next Trump administration, is well-known for promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism in the United States.

But Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has also spent years working abroad to undermine policies that have been pillars of global health policy for a half-century, records show.

He has done this by lending his celebrity, and the name of his nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, to a network of overseas chapters that sow distrust in vaccine safety and spread misinformation far and wide.

He, his organizations and their officials have interfered with vaccination efforts, undermined sex education campaigns meant to stem the spread of AIDS in Africa, and railed against global organizations like the World Health Organization that are in charge of health initiatives.

Along the way, Mr. Kennedy has partnered with, financed or promoted fringe figures — people who claim that 5G cellphone towers cause cancer, that homosexuality and contraceptive education are part of a global conspiracy to reduce African fertility and that the World Health Organization is trying to steal countries’ sovereignty.

One of his group’s advisers, in Uganda, suggested using “supernatural insight” and a man she calls Prophet Elvis to guide policymaking. “We do well to embrace ethereal means to get ahead as a nation,” she wrote on a Ugandan news site this year.

These people, more than leading scientists and experienced public health professionals, have existed in Mr. Kennedy’s orbit for years. The ideas spread by him and his associates abroad highlight the unorthodox, sometimes conspiratorial nature of the world occupied by a man who stands to lead America’s health department, its 80,000 employees and its $1.8 trillion budget.

Mr. Kennedy did not respond to a list of questions about his organization’s work abroad. His personal email automatically replied with a link to a Google form for people to apply to work with him in government — and name their own job titles. Mary Holland, the chief executive of Children’s Health Defense, said that Mr. Kennedy was the group’s “chairman on leave” and had not been involved in the day-to-day operations in over a year.

As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy would have the opportunity to reshape health policy. The department has a hand in negotiations for an international pandemic-response treaty, is the parent agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and finances global projects like vaccine campaigns.

He undermined confidence in the measles vaccine ahead of a deadly outbreak in Samoa.

Mr. Kennedy visited the Pacific isl

and of Samoa in June 2019 in the aftermath of a public health tragedy.

During routine measles immunizations a year earlier, nurses had mistakenly mixed the vaccine with a muscle relaxant, leading to the death of two infants.

Measles, a highly contagious disease, is preventable, thanks to vaccines that have been proven safe since the 1960s.

But vaccine skeptics seized on the death of the two children as evidence that the vaccines should not be trusted. The Samoan government temporarily suspended its immunization program.

Mr. Kennedy arrived in Samoa, on the invitation of a local anti-vaccine activist, and amplified doubts about the vaccine’s safety. It was a crucial moment. Vaccination rates had plummeted, and the World Health Organization called for Samoa to ramp up immunization as soon as possible.

Mr. Kennedy met with the prime minister and other officials. He told activists that vaccines shipped to Samoa might be of a lower quality than those sent to developed countries.

“With his last name, and the status attached to it, people will believe him,” said Dr. Take Naseri, who met with Mr. Kennedy at the time as Samoa’s director general of health.

A measles outbreak began a few months after his visit. Eighty-three people died, most of them children, a staggering loss in a nation of about 200,000 people.

During the outbreak, Mr. Kennedy falsely suggested that defective vaccines could have caused the deaths. He later dismissed the outbreak as “mild” and denied any connection to it. “I never told anybody not to vaccinate,” he said last year.

When Edwin Tamasese, the anti-vaccine campaigner who arranged Mr. Kennedy’s visit, was arrested and charged with incitement for interfering with vaccinations, Children’s Health Defense helped him obtain legal advice and paid for his lawyers, according to Mr. Tamasese.

The measles outbreak in Samoa ended after 95 percent of the eligible population received vaccinations, according to the W.H.O.

He and his organization promote AIDS falsehoods.

Sex education has been central to the global fight against the spread of AIDS in Africa for decades.

But officials with Children’s Health Defense Africa, one of Mr. Kennedy’s nonprofit groups, see a conspiracy at play.

Wahome Ngare, a Kenyan physician who sits on the group’s advisory board, argued at a conference in Uganda this year that contraception and health education were part of a global plot to reduce Africans’ fertility. He attended the conference alongside the head of the Children’s Health Defense Africa, who presented slides bearing the organization’s logo and web address.

Mr. Kennedy himself has questioned the accepted science behind AIDS. He falsely said that AIDS may have been caused by the recreational use among gay people of the drug amyl nitrite. It is caused by the virus H.I.V.

Last year, Children’s Health Defense posted a video promoting a book that questions the link between H.I.V. and AIDS. Another of the group’s interview subjects this year said that the former U.S. government scientist Anthony Fauci should be imprisoned or “taken off this Earth.”

Dr. Ngare is among the many people in Mr. Kennedy’s orbit whose views conflict sharply with those of the health agency that Mr. Kennedy stands to lead.

In an interview with NPR in 2015 before joining Children’s Health Defense Africa, Dr. Ngare mused about stories that “vaccines have been used for spread of H.I.V.” and called for a boycott of polio vaccines. The U.S. government is a major sponsor of polio vaccine campaigns worldwide. Dr. Ngare did not respond to requests for comment.

Ms. Holland, the chief executive of Children’s Health Defense, said those were Dr. Ngare’s personal views, not those of Mr. Kennedy’s organization.

At the conference in Uganda, Dr. Ngare spoke to far-right lawmakers and activists who support draconian punishments, including life in prison, for people convicted of having gay sex.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Ugandan officials over that law.

He aligned himself with fringe figures, including people who ended up on German security watch lists.

When Mr. Kennedy started his nonprofit group’s European chapter in August 2020, he floated questions about whether the Covid-19 pandemic was part of “a sinister game” played by governments to control people.

“A lot of it feels very planned to me,” he said in Berlin.

The next day, he rallied about 38,000 people at a protest over Covid-19 measures. The protest was organized by a German group called Querdenken. Its leaders have since ended up on a government watch list for fomenting antigovernment sentiment.

Promoters used Mr. Kennedy’s name to drum up attendance, saying that he personally wanted people to take to the streets and fight back. After the event, hundreds of protesters tried to storm the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament.

Mr. Kennedy was not in attendance at the Parliament. “That whole Reichstag thing was completely unrelated to the demonstration,” Ms. Holland said.

Mr. Kennedy’s influence in Germany lives on, at least in online forums. Recent data from CeMAS, a research group that monitors conspiracy movements, shows that his name is often invoked on conspiracy-focused German Telegram channels, coming up more than 6,000 times this year alone.

His European chapter paid a British lawmaker to speak at a conference promoting vaccine skepticism.

Children’s Health Defense’s chapter in Europe has cultivated relationships with members of the European Parliament.

In January 2022, the organization held a news conference in Brussels demanding a “moratorium on health restrictions.” An anti-vaccine rally that followed the event turned violent, with protesters smashing windows at the European Union’s diplomatic headquarters.

In April 2023, Children’s Health Defense Europe helped organize a conference on the grounds of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. At the conference, lawmakers criticized a proposed pandemic treaty being considered at the World Health Organization.

The chapter has hosted press events with European lawmakers and encouraged Parliament to reject vaccination certificate rules.

In 2023, the European chapter paid a member of Britain’s Parliament, Andrew Bridgen, to speak at a conference it had helped organize. The conference discussed opposition to government pandemic measures and promoted vaccine skepticism. The sum was small, at just under $800, according to Mr. Bridgen’s financial disclosures. Such payments are legal in Britain.

Mr. Bridgen has repeatedly compared the Covid-19 vaccine rollout to the Holocaust, including in an interview with the Children’s Health Defense online television station.

Children’s Health Defense spent $315,000 in Europe last year, including in Iceland and Greenland, its U.S. tax filings show. Ms. Holland said that as of this year, the European chapter was run by volunteers and no longer funded by the U.S. operation.

His Africa chapter pushes measles misinformation and risky remedies.

In 2021, a South African herbalist named Toren Wing reached out to Mr. Kennedy about his effort to ban 5G cellphone towers over health concerns.

In an email, Mr. Wing recalled in an interview, he invoked a rousing speech about liberty that Mr. Kennedy’s father had delivered as a senator visiting apartheid South Africa in 1966.

“This is so cool,” Mr. Kennedy responded, according to a copy of the email. He looped in a Children’s Health Defense lawyer. The anti-5G effort fizzled, Mr. Wing said, but it laid the groundwork for a Children’s Health Defense chapter in Africa.

At the chapter’s launch, Mr. Kennedy said the continent was “a testing and clinical trial laboratory for multinational pharmaceutical companies that see African people as commodities.” His group sent just over $15,000 for “setup expenses” in 2022, U.S. tax filings show.

Shabnam Palesa Mohamed, who leads the chapter, is a frequent host of the nonprofit’s online show. She interviews doctors promoting unproven Covid-19 remedies and rails against vaccines.

After a measles outbreak started in Cape Town, Ms. Mohamed appeared in a video discussing supposed negative effects of “alleged measles injections” in South Africa.

⁠In 2023, Unicef reported a 30 percent decline in confidence in childhood vaccines in South Africa after the Covid-19 pandemic, coming amid the world’s “largest sustained backslide in childhood immunization in 30 years.” The group cited factors including “growing access to misleading information.”

Ms. Mohamed and others affiliated with Children’s Health Defense Africa pushed the discredited theory that the drug ivermectin will treat Covid-19. They also sued the South African government, unsuccessfully, to stop Covid-19 vaccinations. Ms. Mohamed thanked Children’s Health Defense for supporting the case.

Ms. Mohamed has promoted conspiracy theories against the World Health Organization, Bill Gates and two of the world’s biggest money managers, BlackRock and Vanguard. Ms. Mohamed declined to answer questions about her work.

“I don’t think she was speaking on behalf of C.H.D.,” said Ms. Holland, who said the Africa chapter was a volunteer organization. “She’s an individual. She has her own views.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/30/world/africa/rfk-jr-kennedy-international-work-public-health-policies.html

[moochilatv]

Riverwoods and Jeanette Bengtsson presents: When We Were Small

In the childhood everything it's magic

"When We Were Small" reminisces snowy childhood winters and fun times together. The song has vocals by Swedish singer Jeanette Bengtsson, who has performed with the ABBA tribute band "Arrival From Sweden" in California and Poland during their New Year's Eve celebration watched by approximately five million people on TV.

The song is written by Johannes Kotschy, Andreas Aleman and Christoffer Olsson with English lyrics by Jimmy Granstrom and Robert Gould.

Listen the single When We Were Small in Spotify:

Riverwoods consists of Swedish songwriter Jimmy Granstrom and invited collaborator(s), which will vary for different songs.

Jimmy's songs have received airplay in Sweden and Portland Radio Project (PRP) 99.1FM in Oregon, USA, including Project Earthbridge's "2019 Again" which was in rotation on PRP for more than a year since its release in March 2021. Subsequent Project Earthbridge singles "Alicia" and "Made Of Stars" were selected for P4 Sörmland, which is a major Swedish radio channel equivalent to a regional BBC radio station in the United Kingdom. Jimmy also co-wrote the song "Stranger With My Face" with composer Omri Lahav. "Stranger With My Face" has been played on the radio in Sweden, England, Mexico, Brazil, Uganda and on PRP. Other collaborators include composer/singer/producer Filip von Uexkull and co-lyricist Robert Gould on "You And Me Against The World", which has been played on the radio in Peru, Mexico, Uganda, Sweden and Namibia. More recently, "When We Were Small" was in rotation on P4 Halland (another major Swedish radio station equivalent to a regional BBC station) as well as in Namibia and played on the radio in Uganda, Mexico and England.

[icymusicdiary]

daily song rec 16

Bamanya is responsible for building Africa's first DIY modular synthesizer, a huge wall of home-made modules and FX units that he dubbed, fittingly, The Afrorack. His reason for embarking on this difficult project was simple: as he began to investigate the world of modular synthesizers, he realized it would be difficult to acquire the technology in Uganda. Not only were there relatively few retailers across the whole of Africa, but the modules were often prohibitively expensive. After quick search online, Bamanya realized he could easily download circuit diagrams and buy the required parts locally, so he taught himself electronics and constructed a CV-controlled system that's been evolving ever since. "The Afrorack" is Bamanya's debut album and displays the producer's untethered creativity and restless energy. He's all too aware that these modules were developed with European and American musical styles in mind, so developed his own musical methodology and language to coax the system into suiting his needs. His starting points are often abstractions of acid and techno, but Bamanya curves East African rhythms and different scales into these familiar structures, splintering them into fractal shards. "I believe Africa is at that point where people are getting new tools which were not available to them, and then experimenting with them in a different context, because Africa has its own traditional music," he told Pan African Music back in 2019.

[loud-queer-diversity13]

Step Two Key Issues on International LGBTQIA

The Ugandan Parliament passed the Sexual Offenses Bill, further criminalizing same-sex sexual acts.

The Ugandan Parliament passed the definition of Sexual Offenses, making same-sex sexual acts even more illegal. Laws and the overall attitude of government officials in Uganda have remained steadfastly homophobic. Uganda receives a score of 11% on the Franklin & Marshall Global Barometer of Gay Rights, which assesses how well nations defend the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens. This indicates that the country persecutes individuals based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. How can the Sexual Offenses Bill, which further criminalizes same-sex sexual conduct, be enacted by the Ugandan Parliament? The 2019 Sexual Offenses Bill, which upholds the prohibition of same-sex relationships and sex work while ostensibly bolstering safeguards against sexualized violence, was approved by the Ugandan Parliament on May 3. What resources are available to assist with this new law? For this reason, we are also sponsoring the Human Dignity Trust, the only global organization dedicated to the abolition of laws that penalize individuals based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Supporting strategic litigation and legislative reform, they collaborate with attorneys, community-based organizations, and activists globally. Our collaboration is centered on getting rid of detrimental legislation in ten nations across three important regions: Asia Pacific, East and West Africa, and Southern Africa. The Human Dignity Trust was instrumental in the decriminalization of same-sex relationships between males in Mauritius earlier this month, thanks to our continued support. This has allowed thousands of people to love without fear.