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International Events 5, "As the World Turns"


DireWolfSpirit

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The way he's being paraded around with his bruises barely covered up with makeup forced to lie on national television is sickening and grotesque. Lukashenko knows that nobody buys his lies and now is milking it for all the horror he can get, given how there was never much he could get from the plane hijacking except causing an international outcry anyway. Makes me think that man is a lot weaker and more desperate than we initially assumed.

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1 minute ago, HoodedCrow said:

Putin supports him.

I'm... not so sure actually. I have read some think pieces that muse that Lukashenko is shitting bricks about the level of dependency he now has on Putin's good graces. Putin might decide that he isn't worth keeping around and just annex Belarus. To begin with, Putin presses for the establishment of Russian military bases in Belarus in order to encircle Ukraine as well as wanting it to join an economic union. Somewhere down the road Putin probably hopes he can peacefully 'integrate' it into the Russian Federation.

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Putin and Lukashenko have never got on. Putin only actually supports the principle of dictators not being overthrown by people  who don’t understand the true purpose of elections. If he could find someone else who could be trusted to do what they’re told, and he has tried, he’d give the go ahead for the “Belarusian security forces” to overthrow him in a second.

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If Putin wanted to set up an annexation, quiet journalists, and intimidate opposition, isn’t this how he’d do it? Go to one of your puppets and tell them what to do. 45 wasn’t ideal because he can’t shut up? You don’t need to help them after they are compromised. Also, hack ‘em and set up troll armies for the long term and keep the money flowing to the compliant politicians. Easy, no. Doable? Toth, you tell me:)

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GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRat news about Cuba: Havana expects to be fully vaccinated by the end of August.  Health teams are spreading out across the island doing vaccinations.

Additionally, at some point, the government is allowing privatization of a long list of small businesses, though exactly when that kicks in nobody knows yet, but it won't be too long.

This is terrific, the vaccination / vaccine most of all. It is Cuba's. They created it, manufactured it and all the rest. By themselves. No help coming from anywhere, as far as we can tell, other than some humanitarian-cultural groups from the US, Canada and a very few other locations getting syringes into the country.  Cuba's been working on their own syringes too.  What one does when denied the global market place for everything.

BTW -- LIVE MUSIC IN NEW ORLEANS IS BACK EVERYWHERE THIS WEEKEND. Listen to WWOZ' The Live Wire run-down of what's going on right now, and hear the ecstasy.  This is -- amazing.

For once, good news. And New Orleans music is international.

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Voluntary ex-patriots -- these aren't government employees, as at embassies, military bases and so on, but retirees, presumably employees of corporations, Peace Corps personnel, teachers (many education professionals have taken positions in Asian and middle eastern countries because they get paid so much better, this includes teachers at every level, not just universities) and others -- lobby for US to provide them with vaccination in situ. This is something I hadn't thought about before -- didn't even know there was such an organization as "Democrats Abroad, the Democratic Party’s official arm for American expatriates...".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/06/americans-abroad-vaccines/

Quote

 

...The lobbying campaign by U.S. expats has raised larger questions about what the U.S. government owes to its citizens in a global health emergency — and in a phase of the pandemic increasingly defined by vaccine equity, what it owes to the world....

....Skeptics of the expatriates’ proposal warn that giving priority access to Americans would create a two-tiered system and heighten tensions over vaccine disparities.

“In the countries that are suffering major problems in terms of affordable access to vaccines and which are angry and resentful of the Western countries that have vast stockpiles,” Morrison said, “I would think that a program that was specifically targeted at American citizens could prove to be pretty problematic diplomatically.”....

 

 

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Hey! I know! Let's git ur freedum like Mirrornmirrer, and then we gits ur vax or we don't git ur vax ur whatever it is we are supposed to want or not want today fer USA.

 

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On 6/7/2021 at 10:55 PM, Zorral said:

didn't even know there was such an organization as "Democrats Abroad, the Democratic Party’s official arm for American expatriates...".

I was planning on going to their caucus event in Beijing pre-covid. I'm surprised the Chinese government allows American political activity of any type to take place here. I was wondering if i'd see security people lurking about. I'm on their mailing list and if they offer me the vaccine I'll take it. I've had the Chinese one but the vaccines that would come from the US are a lot more effective.

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On 6/7/2021 at 10:55 AM, Zorral said:

This is something I hadn't thought about before -- didn't even know there was such an organization as "Democrats Abroad, the Democratic Party’s official arm for American expatriates...".

They’re active in Canada too. Members get interviewed on the CBC fairly regularly, but especially at election time. There’s also a Republicans abroad association.

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6 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

There’s also a Republicans abroad association.

There is but they don't get a primary. Democrats abroad get to send delegates to the convention. 

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On 6/7/2021 at 9:55 AM, Zorral said:

Voluntary ex-patriots -- these aren't government employees, as at embassies, military bases and so on, but retirees, presumably employees of corporations, Peace Corps personnel, teachers (many education professionals have taken positions in Asian and middle eastern countries because they get paid so much better, this includes teachers at every level, not just universities) and others -- lobby for US to provide them with vaccination in situ. This is something I hadn't thought about before -- didn't even know there was such an organization as "Democrats Abroad, the Democratic Party’s official arm for American expatriates...".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/06/americans-abroad-vaccines/

 

This was frustrating. Most local people I interacted with assumed my friends and I were getting vaccines through our embassies. Multiple governments told friends and I that we should arrange vaccines through our embassies. Most of my and my friends' experiences were getting put at the bottom of lists of targets for vaccinations.

Basically, we were assumed to be a different "tier" without actually being so and were largely ignored or put at the very end of the line by our the governments we lived under, even when there were mass vaccine drives.*

 

*Not all governments approached it this way. Five did so, one did not (of countries where I have friends living long-term), anecdotal, YMMV, etc. Anecdotal evidence exclusively from educators.

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Luckily I got vaccinated with the rest of the teachers at my school and wasn't treated differently. Anecdotally with other teachers in China it seems to be the same, but China is not recognizing non-Chinese vaccines so it makes sense they want everyone to have the Chinese one. 

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China is the "one" in my "one did not."

I didn't realize that China was not recognizing non-Chinese vaccines. Any idea if that policy is permanent? Hard to imagine international travel to China recovering while they deny all other vaccinations.

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22 hours ago, Darzin said:

Luckily I got vaccinated with the rest of the teachers at my school and wasn't treated differently. Anecdotaly with other teachers in China it seems to be the same, but China is not recognizing non-Chinese vaccines so it makes sense they want everyone to have the Chinese one. 

 

12 minutes ago, Lightning Lord said:

China is the "one" in my "one did not."

I didn't realize that China was not recognizing non-Chinese vaccines. Any idea if that policy is permanent? Hard to imagine international travel to China recovering while they deny all other vaccinations.

Tit-for-tat. Western countries are also reluctant to accept non western vaccines.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

 

 

Tit-for-tat. Western countries are also reluctant to accept non western vaccines.

 

 

I realize the WHO doesn't exactly equal Western countries but it does accept the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.

 

International politics really shouldn't enter into this equation. I wish it were otherwise but you are doubtless right that some/many governments are pulling this same crap.

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1 hour ago, Lightning Lord said:

Hard to imagine international travel to China recovering while they deny all other vaccinations.

I'm pretty sure that's intentionally. Even my wife, who's from Beijing basically can't go to China right now because it would waste too much time to be allowed in. They are even harder on foreign nationals at the same time they are starting to blame foreignerers, foreign companies etc for basically everything including spreading covid. They are building a narrative now.

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