I thought I’d introduce something different to the blog where I take a look at the news and perhaps give a bit of my opinion or thoughts on it, you know one of those typical things so many do, but I also want to give it a try because the news such as world affairs and all that are one of my big interests. So, I am going to try this out and see how it goes. I will pick several news topics to go over on each of these posts and whether I keep doing it or not will depend on how well it does and if I feel it is the right thing for me to be doing on here.
Note that this is typed up a week in advance so news topics will tend to be from the week before unless I make some last-minute change, also I will update any areas as needed on the lead up to the release. Next time I plan to write these kinds of blogposts up on the exact day and release them that day, so the news isn’t a week behind.
Obviously one of the continuing biggest topics is coronavirus but I am going to try and go around that as much as possible and look for other news, unless something in relation to coronavirus is more interesting or unique.
I will start this off by picking a topic from each continent/region.
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Europe
So right now, one of the top news pieces in Europe is about the former Spanish King Juan Carlos leaving Spain to an unknown destination during the midst of a long ongoing financial corruption probe, although the former King has said he would return if prosecutors required him to answer questions.
The former King is accused of money laundering and possible illegal commissions for a rail project in Saudi Arabia. The former King had abdicated in 2014 due to growing pressures from various scandals and with his immunity gone from that point onwards there have been anti-corruption investigations in both Spain and Switzerland against the former King.
This clearly will not do any favours for the monarchy as Carlos son Felipe also has possible connections to such laundered money with it being revealed that Felipe was the beneficiary to inherit the Lucum and Zagatka funds, both of which were offshore accounts that may have been involved with money laundering and were connected with people close to the former King and received large funds from Saudi royalty, Felipe announced that he would not accept any such money but the damage may already be done.
Carlos was originally seen as a great King for steering the country away from fascist dictatorship and towards democracy after the death of the dictator Franco, but it now appears that the financial corruption in the latter part of his rule may be what he will come to be known for most presently. I think that it could also do irrevocable damage to the monarchy which hangs on a knife-edge popularity with the general public in Spain. Felipe will likely need to do more to cut himself away from his father’s corruption.
All of this may also lead to reform of the monarchy such as the removal of immunity for Heads of State. So far, the Spanish parliament has voted against holding its own probe into the King and with the King’s immunity still in effect from his time as King prior to 2014 he may be able to escape charges in Spain, but he may still be charged from Switzerland as he has no immunity there.
Africa
In Africa I wanted to take a look at Zimbabwe. As you may or may not know they had a coup some time ago that led to the former long-time leader Robert Mugabe being overthrown from power, Mugabe was seen by many as a ruthless dictator who crushed any dissent against him, but at the same time he was also seen by many as a hero who played a pivotal role in freeing the country from being a colony.
Many had hoped that the new leader Emmerson Mnangagwa would be a better leader and drive the country towards a more free and fair democracy without political intimidation of opponents, despite the leader being from the same party that has ruled the country since its independence.
But now it appears that Mnangagwa may not be such a hope as opposition still appears to be facing a crackdown, one such recent incident was reported by rights groups in the country saying that military and police forces continue to arrest dozens of opposition supporters and activists in an attempt to silence criticism of the government. The country’s main opposition party has also said dozens of its members have been arrested and many have gone into hiding.
There is evidence of heavy handed and brutal tactics being carried out by the police and military forces in the streets against protesters, such as which has been captured and published by Sky News. High-profile figures such as Jacob Ngarivhume, who helped organise the protests, have been detained and face charges. Journalists who do expose against the government and any protesting on the streets even if it isn’t violent are unsafe from being arrested, with the President also having imposed a national shutdown – not due to coronavirus… but due to the opposition mounting against him and the government.
There is a growing realization also not only nationally in the country but internationally that human rights abuses are continuing under Mnangagwa’s watch. There have been calls to have the country removed from organisations such as the African Union. It would appear that after all Mnangagwa isn’t going to be much of a change from the previous leader and perhaps it will take removing the entire party from power rather than just a single person to change things for the better.
Asia
Islamic State doesn’t have the international ramifications that it once did, but they are still regionally active and a continuing threat over in countries such as Afghanistan and there is always the continuing worry that they will once again rebuild and have the power to launch devastating attacks in the West once again, particularly if they manage to get footholds again in Iraq and Syria. But it is as always, a tricky situation to handle with multiple spheres of influence wanting to handle these civil wars and areas of unrest in their own ways.
But enough of that, my post in this section is simply highlighting an attack claimed by Islamic State taking place in Afghanistan, there are many that don’t take note of these attacks as they see it as normality in these countries, which sadly can be considered indeed the norm for now. But it is still important in the fact that innocent lives are being lost and that IS in some form is still active and alive.
A prison was targeted in Jalalabad by a number of IS militants that also included car bombs to breach into the building. The prison is significant as many of its inmates were Taliban and IS fighters which may well rejoin the effort of these extremist groups given the chance to escape, especially considering that prisons are known to be a breeding ground for extremism itself, with these captured fighters radicalizing other inmates. The majority of those that escaped were returned but there are as many as 300 of these inmates still believed to be on the run after escaping during the attack.
It isn’t exactly known if the reason for the attack was to free such extremist fighters, but even if it wasn’t it still presents that kind of danger anyway. 29 were killed in the attack and over 50 were injured.
Although Afghanistan has claimed the group’s defeat it is believed by many that sleeper cells still exist and the defeat could very well have been exaggerated, this attack can be some proof of that and a wakeup call that the group is still a major danger to the region and if given the chance, the world. It is of particular note that this attack came only a day after a major IS commander, Assadullah Orakzai, had been killed near Jalalabad.
Oceania
I think when it comes to this section there won’t always be big news, but I can try to find some kind of interesting news from time to time. But for this time, I will briefly come back to the coronavirus. As may have been heard by many the country is facing some new localized outbreaks of the coronavirus with a state of disaster also having been declared in Victoria state, just showing that complacency cannot be tolerated under any circumstances when it comes to this virus.
This lockdown being reintroduced though has seen spikes also in public dissatisfaction against authorities with particular note to the city of Melbourne where an increase of violence from the public against authorities trying to implement lockdown measures has been recorded.
The authorities are concerned at what are called sovereign citizens who want to ignore rules laid forth by the government or who will elevate themselves above it for the interests of securing their own freedoms and rights against the government, despite states of disaster being rare and extreme measures required to bring situations under control for the good of all, the point of them are to temporarily restrict certain guarantees and rights for this purpose, because if the freedom to move about wherever one pleases was allowed during the outbreak it would soon get out of control and also endanger many vulnerable people.
The authorities have had to deal with some pretty violent incidents as well, including one such uncooperative citizen smashing a policewoman’s head into the ground and police have had to even smash the windows of cars and drag people out at checkpoints to get the information required out of them. It is unfortunate that such selfish people cannot act responsibly during this pandemic under many of these cases and that in turn it is having to lead to heavy-handed tactics, all they are doing is endangering the lives of others just because they think their personal rights outmatch others.
The only way that this virus will be effectively controlled is if people come together and follow scientific advice on curbing the coronavirus.
Latin America
Over in Latin America I want to talk about the Amazon rainforest and the danger that is posed to it. It is one of the greatest areas of biodiversity in the world but it is facing problems from logging, which seems to have had a big spike under controversial President Bolsonaro, who has also encouraged mining and agricultural activities within the Amazon, the rainforest is also at the mercy of climate change in general.
One of the recent problems now facing the forest is the presence of forest fires starting that is causing great damage to wildlife and integrity of the forest and ultimately harming the biodiversity, this is despite Bolsonaro moving to ban people starting fires in the forest which he only did due to being under pressure, but despite this the country’s environmental agency has faced pressure from Bolsonaro on handing out an “excessive amount of fines” for environmental violations and on top of that the agency also faces problems with lack of funds and being short staffed.
The simple fact of the matter is that Bolsonaro likely has very little interest in protecting the forest and is more interested in exploiting it for economic gain through business and corporations. It is a continuing worry for all those concerned for the state of the world’s climate and wildlife.
North America
So, is Donald Trump banning TikTok? Seems like he isn’t yet doing that, but the threat remains and it appears that there is an attempt to have Microsoft, an American company, buy out the app to enable it to operate within the US. Trump has signed an executive order that sets a limit for the app in the country to just over a month unless its US section is bought out by an American company, Twitter and Apple have also expressed interest in a possible purchase.
Now this is a tough one to go over as there are two controversial sides to this story. One is that Donald Trump himself is seen as a controversial self-serving leader while the other is the Chinese Communist Party possibly having backdoor access to all of TikTok’s user data that can potentially compromise national security. India themselves have already banned the app due to tensions with China.
The backlash against Donald Trump is obviously quite large as would be expected as many contributors are worried about their livelihoods being wrecked from this decision, moving over to another platform isn’t just as easy as done and there will be a noticeable interruption to livelihood for many, and it may totally wipeout small creators on the app in totality who don’t have the sort of strong user base that would follow them over, at least in enough of a way to keep them going.
But it is important to remember that the CCP possibly having access to user’s data on the app is a massive danger. I think it is though a good move not to ban it right out and that moves are being made to try and shift the US operations of the app over. At the same time though one would likely not be surprised at finding US agencies probably farming data from US owned apps anyway, one only has to remember the major NSA global surveillance scandal, no one government is likely innocent of collecting data on its citizens in some kind of way and also on citizens of other countries.
But if it is a present danger, it does need to be dealt with, especially with tensions rising between China and the US, them having data access to millions of US citizens can easily undermine the US. At the same time just simply banning an app probably isn’t enough to stop people from accessing it through VPNs and therefore deeper thought will need to be put into any kind of ban, or otherwise it may just be ineffective. For now China denies it has access to the apps user data and investigation by US intelligence agencies has not yet found any evidence that user data has been accessed by China, although that doesn’t rule out the possibility it may happen in the future.
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