In more than nine months of community quarantine in the country, law enforcers have warned, given tickets to, and arrested about 598,000 persons, whom they call “pasaway,” for allegedly violating quarantine and health protocols meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (...)
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Philippines: The two faces of COVID-19 lockdown in the Philippines United States: Towards a Year of Crisis and Uncertainty As the country awaits the inauguration of President Joseph Biden on January 20, Washington, D.C. has been turned into a fortress, protected by tens of thousands of police, National Guard, and Army Reserve troops, streets blocked by tall fences, and check-points.
All of this is the result of (...)The Legacy of Millbank: How Britain’s student revolt changed radical politics Today marks the ten-year anniversary of one of the most important demonstrations in British political history. The occupation of Millbank Tower during a major fifty-thousand person demonstration organised by the NUS to contest the tripling of tuition fees and cuts to student grants kickstarted (...)
United States – What if Black insurrectionists said: ‘We’re taking over the Capitol to end racism’? The question answers itself. African Americans would have been arrested at their homes, and if they made it to the Capitol would have been met by armed police and National Guard units. Blood would have flowed on the streets even without violence from the protesters.
Everyone knows this truth — (...)Iconoclastic Ruptures: Black Lives Matter and the cleansing of colonial memory in the West The removal of racist and oppressive pasts through the toppling of monuments standing in the epicentres of colonial and slave dominions, the US, UK and across Europe, has ruffled the feathers of leading conservative politicians, historians and even some ‘liberal’ thinkers and representatives, who (...)
Pakistan failing to improve labour rights despite GSP+ ISLAMABAD: The representatives of international bodies on Wednesday decried that Pakistan is failing to improve human rights and workers conditions despite availing the benefits of GSP+ facility provide by the European Union (EU).
Speaking at a national multi-stakeholder consultation on GSP+ (...)Pakistan: Lahore’s metro line opened to fanfare – but what is the real cost of China’s ’gift’? The Pakistani city’s railway is a hit with passengers, but critics say worker deaths and huge debt are too high a price to pay
In a global pandemic, people across the world have avoided public transport systems where they can. But last week the Pakistani city of Lahore unveiled its “gift from (...)Malaysia lockdown: 10 percent of families need urgent assistance The vast majority of Malaysians agree that the movement control order (MCO) declared by the prime minister last week is necessary to curb the dangerous spike in new Covid cases. However, we have to recognise that around 10 -15 percent of the families in KL, Selangor, Johor and Sabah are (...)
India: How the BJP Tried to Manipulate Public Opinion on Social Media in Favour of the CAA Those behind the #IndiaSupportsCAA campaign, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, pumped huge sums of money online to gather support for the government as anti-CAA protests swept across the country.
Social media today has gained significance as a ‘leader’ in leaderless movements. (...)Bolivia’s Elections: The Return of Democracy and an Uncertain Future Bolivia has given the world an impressive lesson in democracy, but reactionary sectors of the country are once again revealing their anti-democratic impulse.
On October 18, 2020, the country went to the polls for the second time in a year. Despite the pandemic and intense polarization, they (...)Peoples’ Rights Matter! Peace and Human Rights Advocates Call for a Democratic, Moral and Inclusive Peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Philippines We, peace and human rights advocates, strongly condemn the recurring violence and displacements caused by various armed confrontations that have aggravated the sufferings of several Tri-People communities (Bangsamoro, Indigenous Peoples and migrant settlers) within and outside of the Bangsamoro (...)
Pakistan: Disappearances: a festering sore THE latest (for November 2020) monthly press release of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances offers us sufficient information to show that enforced disappearances should continue to attract the attention of the government and civil society as one of the topmost matters of (...)
Philippines: 6 in 10 Filipinos say quality of life got worse in 2020 – SWS Metro Manila and Visayas residents report more dismal figures than their Balance Luzon and Mindanao counterparts
Six in 10 or 62% of Filipinos said their quality of life got worse this year, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.
In the face-to-face interviews, which were (...)Sri Lanka: Keenie Meenie – Britain’s Private Army This Thursday will see the launch of my documentary Keenie Meenie – Britain’s Private Army.
It investigates the shadowy mercenary group Keenie Meenie Services (KMS), which secretly helped Sri Lanka’s military to suppress the Tamil independence struggle during the 1980s.The film accompanies my (...)Media, social media: Trump, Big Tech, and Free Speech Dave Kellaway looks at the implications of Big Tech banning Trump and his supporters.
The decision of Big Tech (Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter) to block Trump from its platforms probably got more attention among the public than all the intricacies of the impeachment proceedings.
Social (...)In Puerto Rico, the 2019 Uprising Produces an Electoral Opening Toward the Left As the eyes of the world remain fixated on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico produced a more satisfying and historic outcome for the Puerto Rican left after its local election on November 3, 2020. Puerto Rico’s vote is historic (a claim that should (...)
Brazil – Bolsonaro is breaking the country: 200,000 dead, unemployment and poverty President Jair Bolsonaro’s remarks to one of his supporters, saying that “the country is bankrupt” and that there is nothing he can do, have been widely debated. But the public accounts do not confirm what he said, even with a global economic crisis that has been dragging on for several years and (...)
Notes From The Gender Republic: The Curious Case Of Translating Gender In Bulgarian “Gender” has become a highly contentious word in Bulgarian. After a carefully staged moral panic around the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in 2018, it has been appropriated as a term of abuse by politicians and other actors. This has served not only to undermine women’s and LGBTQ rights. (...)
How Opposition to Gender and Feminism Emerged in Spain From Catholic fundamentalism to the far right, a diverse and loosely connected network of anti-gender movements is growing in the country and creating new challenges.
In 2004, Spain witnessed some of the earliest mass demonstrations in Europe against the same-sex marriage law, which passed (...)Pakistan: Last decade to fix climate issues, say activists LAHORE: The city’s smog levels reached extremely high levels on Friday, as had been forecast.
A reading of 506 AQI was recorded at 2pm. The Met department said that visibility was so bad that the minimum reading was 600 metres only, while maximum visibility was 1,200 metres, whereas in normal (...)