The Sarah Everard Vigil Handling
- A vigil was held for Sarah Everard in Clapham Common
- Sarah Everard went missing while walking home and was later found to have been murdered
- A serving Metropolitan Police Officer was charged with her kidnapping and murder
- This followed after the finding of human remains in an Ashford field that were later identified as Everard’s
- The events served to bring renewed public awareness of woman’s safety in public
- A movement called reclaim the streets organised vigils and marches for remembrance and boosting of awareness
- Police would not allow the events to go ahead due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions, despite organisers promising the event would be socially distanced.
- Organisers later cancelled the event, but people still turned up to the originally planned vigil in Clapham Common
- The vigil attracted a police presence and eventually scuffles broke out and several woman were pinned down and arrested by the police, stoking further outrage.
My view
This is one of those incredibly tough situations that are highly emotionally charged and what makes it even worse is the distrust of the police due to a Metropolitan Police officer having been charged for Everard’s kidnapping and murder. For many it would have felt like an insult to be told by police that they could not go out to participate in events organised by Reclaim the Streets, a movement literally designed for woman to show their strength and presence on the streets together.
It is very unfortunate that the organisers could not reach an agreement with authorities to hold socially distanced vigils, I really do think authorities should have done more to try and sanction such events to avoid making things worse. Instead, the events were entirely blocked which led to the holding of an unauthorized vigil that although at first started out socially distanced ended up becoming more crowded due to lack of organisation – again perhaps if authorities had allowed a vigil to go ahead with social distancing rules in place, they could have been much better handled with organisers present.
Instead, what happened was rising tensions between the crowd and ever-growing numbers of police who begun kettling them in, rising tensions further until things hit a boiling point. It really was awful handling on the side of authorities and has produced enraging and distressing content that spread across social media that is only going to deepen divisions between the two sides. It was really, really poorly handled.
I do hope authorities learn from this in the future and make better decisions next time. I support the independent investigation that has been opened up into what happened and I hope that it comes to some satisfying outcomes for use in the future by authorities. Awareness for woman’s safety on the streets is always important, no matter what, and so government needs to make sure it does not forget to keep a focus on this.
I do also think there should be an inquiry into how the Metropolitan Police and other policing organisations hire police, and if anything needs to be changed or strengthened and to also look into the hiring of Wayne Couzens who went on to kidnap and murder Everard.
It is of note that authorities did not make similar mistakes on protests that followed the Clapham vigil.
China-Russia Joint Moon Base
- China and Russia announced intentions to build a lunar research station together.
- Information on the China National Space Administration website claims the station would be open to use by other countries
- The research station may either be constructed on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit
- It would conduct operations such as scientific research activities, lunar exploration and utilisation, lunar-based observation, basic scientific experiments, and technical verification.
- The joint announcement comes as US Congress has prohibited almost all contact between the China space agency and NASA due to technology theft concerns and secrecy and military links of China’s space agency
My view
I always like to hear some exciting news about space no matter what country it comes from. I think Space should be a shared human cooperative zone and not a place for competition and combat between nations. So, I do very much like the idea of the Russia-China Moon base allowing other countries to make use of it.
It will be very interesting to see what kind of discoveries and interesting findings are made using such a base whenever it is constructed, it seems like it may be some time away yet but I do not think such a plan is going to be shelved, like so many NASA plans that often get shelved or pushed back. It is a great shame that NASA has been prohibited from largely working in cooperation with China’s space agency as I only see this limiting the human race as a whole when it comes to Space.
Space should be for all and we should not project archaic activities of the past into it – such as colonising areas and claiming them only for one nation. Space should be handled differently and we also must have a strong understanding of environmental impacts and strong implementation of environmental policies before even thinking about setting up any colonies out there.
I do think that colonies in the archaic sense aren’t anywhere near to something that should even be considered. For now, any colonies that do get set up in space should be purely for cooperative scientific reasoning.
Just like the exciting missions that have been launched by NASA, the United Arab Emirates, and China to Mars, I am very excited for this joint scientific base as well.
AstraZeneca Vaccine Blood Clot Fears
- Almost a dozen countries in Europe have temporarily halted the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine over blood clot fears
- It comes after a number of individuals with blood clots, such as DVT’s and PE’s, were identified some of which were fatal, after having taken the vaccine
- The UK Medicines regulator, the European Medicines Agency, and the WHO, as well as AstraZeneca themselves have said there is no evidence of a link between the vaccine and blood clots and urged for use to continue
- Nonetheless experts from the World Health Organsation and the European Medicines Agency will be holding meetings to review the AstraZeneca vaccine concerns.
- Altogether over 17 million people in the UK and EU have received a dose of vaccine, with fewer than 40 cases of blood clots reported in the previous week
My view
It is really unfortunate that this situation has come about. For myself it is really scary as I do suffer from health anxiety which can be really bad at times, and this news is not helping me at all. Even with expert assurances saying there is no link and that such cases are very low and extremely unlikely my health anxiety is still in overdrive.
I have a strong fear of blood clots, especially deep-vein thrombosis, and one of my worst ever periods of health anxiety took place over a month as I was terrified at the thought that I may have a DVT and that I was going to die at any moment. I did eventually get myself out of that hole, but it was a dark and horrible month that I suffered through thinking I was going to die.
So now all of this has brought those horrible memories back to my mind and I absolutely hate it. For people with health anxiety this is the worst possible thing that they could hear about a vaccine they are likely going to be taking. And no matter how much you tell us that it is extremely unlikely, anxiety does not care. Anxiety always makes you believe you’ll be the unlucky one. And anxiety is also terribly good at creating phantom symptoms, as I know all too well. Not cool.
EU Legal Action against UK over BREXIT protocol Breach
- European Commission accused thr UK of breaching international law on movement of goods and pet travel between GB and NI
- The EC says the UK unilaterally changed parts of the BREXIT Deal to better suit British businesses earlier this month.
- It came as the UK announced it was going to extend grace periods that relax procedures and checks on British supermarket suppliers and businesses trading in NI until October.
- The Northern Ireland Protocol, a part of the BREXIT Deal, avoids a hard-border on the island of Ireland, keeping NI a part of the EU single market.
- This means goods from the UK mainland arriving in NI need to be checked under EU import procedures.
- The protocol has created controversy including loyalist tensions in NI and concerns businesses and supermarkets won’t be able to keep up, leading to shortages
- The UK Government maintains that changing the grace period length was lawful
My View
This was probably going to be inevitable with a protocol that is highly subject to differing opinions on how it should be handled on both sides, which is probably why there needs to be some renewed dialogue between the UK and the EU over this protocol, especially after loyalists pulled their support for the Good Friday Agreement over the protocol, which shows its intention of protecting the Good Friday Agreement seems to be failing.
It’s clear that this is the first major challenge of the post-BREXIT period and we need to show we are able to deal with our first major challenge. Political fighting and court battles between the EU and UK will very likely just worsen the already fragile situation. I believe compromises are going to be required for the protocol to ever work out, otherwise things can quickly spiral.
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