Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Xi Jinping Could Fall Like A House Of Cards



Xi's Iron Grip Tested As Covid Lockdown Protests Rage In Chinese Cities China's hardline virus strategy is stoking public frustration, with many growing weary of snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns .

China’s zero-Covid policy comes under fire, but experts don’t expect big changes any time soon Social media post questioning basis for epidemic-control restrictions goes viral ...... Sporadic protests seen in streets of cities across country as dissatisfaction mounts .

Videos Show How Covid Protests Are Spreading Across China
Shanghai protesters, police jostle as anger over China's COVID curbs mounts . Wave of civil disobedience unprecedented under President Xi ..... Rising frustration over Xi's zero-COVID policy ...... Apartment fire in Urumqi last Thursday killed 10 ...... Vigils turn to protests in cities including Beijing, Shanghai ...... Prestigious Beijing university students stage protest .......... The wave of civil disobedience, which has spread to other cities including Beijing, is unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago and comes amid mounting frustration over his signature zero-COVID policy. ....... China has spent nearly three years living with some of the strictest COVID curbs in the world. ....... Many of Urumqi's 4 million residents have been under some of the country's longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days. ...... Another protestor, Shaun Xiao, said: "I’m here because I love my country, but I don’t love my government...I want to be able to go out freely, but I can’t. Our COVID-19 policy is a game and is not based on science or reality." ....... "Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping", according to witnesses and videos posted on social media, in a rare public protest against the country's leadership. ........ China has stuck with Xi's zero-COVID policy even as much of the world has lifted most restrictions. While low by global standards, China's cases have hit record highs for days, with nearly 40,000 new infections on Saturday. ......... China defends the policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting economic toll. ........ The world's second-largest economy is also facing other headwinds including a global recession risks and a property downturn. ........ Widespread public protest is extremely rare in China, where room for dissent has been all but eliminated under Xi, forcing citizens mostly to vent on social media, where they play cat-and-mouse with censors. ........ the unrest is far from that seen in 1989, when protests culminated in the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square. He added that as long as Xi had China's elite and the military on his side, he would not face any meaningful risk to his hold on power. ......... This weekend, Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui called for the region to step up security maintenance and curb the "illegal violent rejection of COVID-prevention measures".

Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy

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Sunday, July 31, 2022

Sanctions On Russia

The Russia sanctions bite Sanctions have been effective at crippling the Russian economy. That's the conclusion of a new 118-page paper from Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and 18 c0-authors. ....... "Russian imports have largely collapsed," the paper says — creating massive supply shortages and denying the country crucial parts and technologies. ....... "Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill." ....... Foreign companies that have left Russia account for 40% of Russian GDP, the author wrote, almost none of which is going to come back any time soon. ......... "Looking ahead, there is no path out of economic oblivion for Russia as long as the allied countries remain unified in maintaining and increasing sanctions pressure." ....... Russia needs Europe to buy its natural gas more than Europe needs Russian natural gas to buy. ........ Because natural gas is "a highly non-fungible commodity," delivered through pipes that take decades to build, Russia has very few alternative export markets for its gas, and 83% of its natural gas exports go to Europe. ...... The economic repercussions of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine are being felt in all countries. But they're particularly devastating in Russia — with little, if any, future upside so long as sanctions remain in place.

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

21: Arab Superpower



Facebook unveils TikTok-like update



आरजु र प्रचण्डबीचको चार बुँदे सहमति बाहिरिएपछि अन्तिम समयमा मोदीद्धारा भेट नै रद्ध !

Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save the World? To fight climate change, companies and nonprofits have been promoting worldwide planting campaigns. Getting to a trillion is easier said than done. ....... the nonprofit was paying residents of Engenho to plant trees because individual and corporate donors, especially in the United States and Europe, wanted people in other parts of the world to plant trees. ....... Many of the companies offer trees at prices well within the reach of the average American or European consumer. One Tree Planted promises to plant one tree for each dollar it receives in donation. So do Earth Day; the National Forest Foundation; Grow Clean Air; ReTree; #TeamTrees; One Dollar, One Tree; and Trees4Trees. Plant-for-the-Planet has 1-euro trees. Just One Tree and (more:trees) each offer 1-pound trees. Trees for the Future will plant a tree for 25 cents, on average. Eden will do it in most places for as little as 15 cents. (The trees being planted in Engenho cost 33 cents apiece.) ......... Then, last year, Eden arrived, offering to pay villagers to plant trees. “It seemed like a dream,” Santos said. “I even joked with them that it sounds too good to be true.” ........

In a world of grasshopperish myopia, planting trees has long been a symbol of antlike forethought.

........... Chinese proverb: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second-best time is today.” ......... These forest-based credits allowed companies to offset their emissions and provided a continuous revenue stream to the holders of the credits, so long as the carbon remained locked away. ............. the Trillion Tree Campaign. ........ Using a blend of satellite images, artificial intelligence and extrapolation, they estimated that Earth held roughly three trillion trees, about half its total when people first began practicing agriculture, about 10,000 years ago. Furthermore, they concluded something like 15 billion trees were still being cleared each year, for a net loss of about 10 billion trees annually. .

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Sunday, May 22, 2022

Putin Is Scheduled To Vacate Ukraine Tail Between Legs



We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.

It is fair to say it is for the president of Ukraine to decide when and how he will engage in peace talks with his madman adversary. Supplying aid and weapons is one thing. But actually fighting is quite another. And, remember, America offered to fly Zelensky out of the country. Do you want to go? No, I want to stay and fight. Send me some ammo.

Where things stand right now, if we stay on that trajectory, Putin vacates Ukraine tail between legs. And that will be a good outcome. It is in the very nature of dictatorships that when Putin sees military defeat in Ukraine, he will lose support in his inner circles in Moscow. Putin's inner circles function like a prison yard. You watch your back, I will watch mine.

Zelensky is a hero for democracy.

A middle point can be that the Russian army vacates all of Ukraine and there is an internationally supervised referendum in Crimea to decide its final status. If that will get Putin out of the backyard, and we can stop playing will he, will he not about his possible use of nuclear weapons, that middle ground is worth the price for peace. And, of course, he pays for the rebuidling of Ukraine. He has plenty of money in western banks.

There is always a political solution. Just wars are also about arriving at peaceful, political solutions. The contours of a political solution must be explored.

It is moral clarity that sees you through.

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Monday, April 18, 2022

Putin, A War Criminal, In Chechnya, In Georgia, In Crimea, In Syria, And Now Ukraine

Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go



Go Putin Go

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