Editor Paul Collier

See Your Unborn Baby in 3D Virtual Reality

Paul Collier September 1, 2021

A new device that’s billed as a tool to help Mothers bond with their unborn babies is promising to deliver a virtual reality encounter with a pregnant woman’s unborn child. The tool will also allow you to create 3D models of the unborn child, but, more impactfully, it will allow you to virtually interact with your child in physical space, and you can watch your child grow and change inside you week to week.

But the tool will also have another impact, one that many will have already figured out before they read a word I am writing here right now. This tool will disarm the efforts by pro-choice advocates to dehumanize the unborn, to make of them something that can be disposed for any reason, any reason whatsoever, up to and including even birth. A tool like this, if it spreads, and more and more people share their experiences on social media, the humanization of the unborn will become more and more apparent, and harder and harder to ignore.

The necessity to subhumanize is required in a land where the aborting of life is not only legal, but the corporate powers that be overwhelmingly assumes should be the moral right of the land, a moral right that might even be worth protecting from dissenting views alone.

Pregnant women can soon use Virtual Reality to ‘meet’ their unborn babies

From www.mother.ly
2021-08-31 15:05:06

Excerpt:

Meet baby via VR: A virtual reality rendering of your unborn baby from Motherly on Vimeo.

Using a VR headset, (did Santa bring you one this year?), you can hear your baby’s heartbeat and, by moving your head, study the baby’s anatomy—examining whether your little one has your eyes, dad’s lips, or grandma’s cute nose.

Here’s how the RSNA describes the technology’s capabilities—

Researchers in Brazil created virtual reality 3-D models based on fetal MRI results. Sequentially-mounted MRI slices are used to begin construction of the model. A segmentation process follows in which the physician selects the body parts to be reconstructed in 3-D. Once an accurate 3-D model is created—including the womb, umbilical cord, placenta and fetus—the virtual reality device can be programmed to incorporate the model.

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DNC House Targets CCP Corps on US Exchanges

DNC House Targets CCP Corps on US Exchanges

Paul Collier September 1, 2021

In the complicated relationship that is the DNC and the CCP, the frenemies that have, until recently, been more friend than enemy, the methods of shifting the balance of power to favor this or that side when it comes to the hardball negotiating can become ultimately sabotaging to the ability of two camps that, at least for now and the near-foreseeable future, kind of both need each other to make the others’ dreams come true.

The US Hoouuse, led by the Democrats, in the case, the direct party that finds itself in that frenemy space with the CCP, is seeking to perhaps either clip some of the wings of their CCP counterparts, or maybe only bluster just to show that, if they wanted, they could clip those wings. They are conducting investigations into the listing of some Chinese companies on their US exchanges, which follows the announcement by China that many American “data-driven” mega-corps might find themselves de-listed on their exchanges, or more, facing draconian regulations that mgiht all-but cut off that fat Chinese markets from the corporations in America that desperately need that Chinese revenue if they are to continue to use their platforms to adviance ideology and not serve diverse pluralistic cultures and beliefs that we Americans represent.

If the corporations must actually produce products the plurality of Americans, across our diverse divides, likes, then they cannot continue to advance their current chosen vehicle of power to hopefully cut off competition from the poors for generations to come. But, to make that transition, to end the Bill of Rights constructs of the land and to replace it with a return to a sort of priest-king model of the Bronze Age, the mega-corps, the corpo-nations, maybe, nations into themselves, with budgets that many actual nation-states would love to have, must have a source for revenue

That’s where China comes in. But China herself still needs America, the America the DNC offers, and still needs the DNC to finish off the Bill of Rights constructs of the land, to end the more fundamental threat to their plans, not the people in this land, but the ideas in the Bill of Rights that many poors, including their own, would quickly recognize as giving them protection against the tyranny of the majority, be it the numerical or by measures of power.

My bet is China will have to walk back some of their restrictions newly placed on America to gain access to her fatty markets and the DNC will produce a little pony show to send a message to the Chinese that they have teeth as well, and also to keep people off their trail when it comes to their alliance with the CCP itself. How can you say they are allied with the CCP when they are investigating their companies that are listed on our exchanges?

Of course, at least in this article, I think I’ve already explained how I can say that. This type of working for and against other parties is not even new, nor unique to our current age, when we can just look at the relationship betwen Russia and Turkey to see how it is that two “allies” can also be enemies in other spheres. There are times when some Turkish military assets are being assisted by Russian military assets while in another part of the world Russian drones and Turkish drones are battling each other over another poor nation that finds itself being used as a war games proving ground for the world powers’ new toys, especially those drones.

And so it is with the DNC and the CCP, frenemies, and the DNC is sending a message to its frenemy, we can do this to your companies as well, so back off.

U.S. House panel targets Chinese listings on U.S. exchanges

From finance.yahoo.com
2021-08-31 15:22:40

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives panel focused on protecting investors will hold a hearing on Sept. 22 about risks related to Chinese stock market listings on American exchanges.

The Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets hearing will take place among growing concerns about recent Chinese government actions that spurred sudden and unexpected swings in share prices of Chinese shares listed on U.S. exchanges.

Earlier this week, for example, China forbade under-18s from playing video games https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rolls-out-new-rules-minors-online-gaming-xinhua-2021-08-30 for more than three hours a week, hitting shares of some Chinese gaming companies traded in the United States.

U.S. lawmakers have also complained about Chinese corporate accounting practices and alleged ties between some Chinese companies and the military. (Reporting by Chris Sanders; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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The Power of Big Social to Control Your Religious Beliefs

The Power of Big Social to Control Your Religious Beliefs

Paul Collier August 31, 2021

Christian groups around the world are beginning to wonder if the international monopolies on social media might just be used as filters to prevent their worldviews from gaining access to the public stage, which is, de facto, social media overwhelmingly.

They’re not the only groups complaining or worrying about this type of control being placed in the hands of a few billionaires. Other groups are also finding it difficult to get through the filters imposed from on high, and this experience only promises to repeat itself for an increasing range of groups that hold beliefs outside the accepted orthodoxy of the state and the corporation (and where the one begins and the other hands, who knows, the lines at this time are very blurred, if they exist at all).

The question is, what can be done about this? Should we use the state to resuce us from corporate tyranny, and thus empower the state to control the de facto public square, social media? That’s already happpening in many countries, with others also choosing to attempt to build their own nationalist social media platforms safe from the prying filters and promotions of the corpostates within them that are increasingly being thought of as being de facto states that maybe, at some point, should be dealt with as such.

Big Tech might very well find itself hoisted on its own success, and its willingness to spend that success so recklessly to serve the agenda of a petty party, the DNC, because orange man bad or conservatives are evil or whatever other cartoon villain narrative you’d like to choose. But it pushed too far, and now, people are starting to realize how much power it is, and some of those people have real power, government gun power, and they will soon be using it, even as some already have.

‘Big Tech’ censorship of religion is real and deserves an effective response, critics say

From angelusnews.com
2021-08-31 16:40:37

Excerpt:

The power of major internet companies like Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter over public life is a particular threat to religious groups that focus on controversial issues like abortion, marriage, and sexuality, several commentators said at a roundtable last week. These groups should prepare for the possibility of censorship and organize effective countermeasures, they said.

“You might not know the hour nor the day you will be censored,” Joshua D. Holdenreid, vice president and executive director of the California-based Napa Legal Institute, said at a roundtable on internet censorship.

Holdenreid said those involved in public debates “need to plan ahead and assume that if they are a religious organization or faith-based organization operating in the public square and focused on an issue that’s related to pro-life (topics), marriage, sexuality, Christian anthropology, they should just assume that they will eventually run afoul of these vague and arbitrary terms and…

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CCP Does Cancel Culture On Its own Entertainment Industry

CCP Cancel Culture Is The Envy Of The DNC

Freedomist Editor August 30, 2021

The Chinese are about to show the Americans how you do Cancel Culture like a house on fire like only China can, given the fact that it is a lot further along in the “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” evolutionary timeline than the American DNC currently is (though they are hoping to catch up as soon as possible and China is their model).

In America, for instance, the police are not called Uncle and Chairman Xi cannot on a whim decide to totally revamp the state education curriculum to reflect his socio-cultural will. We have pesky Constitutional restrictions that, while never fully stopping the state from abusing our rights, slows it down and forces it to do so more covertly than China needs to worry about.

Chairman Xi is working to cut off the power from all of his potential rivals from within, and that means making sure all centers of power in his land gravitate around his specifical regulatory will. The entertainment industry is seeing some of its stars now randomly disappear, and even less visibly, so too are its fans disappearing as Chairman Xi attempts to reconfigure the power of entertinament to gravitate around his very immediately felt power.

How envious must be the DNC to see their inspiration, the CCP, working so efficiently to sanitize life to fit within the dreams of one central head? How ambitious must be the most powerful in that group imagining maybe someday THEY will be the last head floating in the Game of Thrones Highlander Series known as American politics in current year?

The only thing missing from the DNC operation to transform the US into a China is a strong leader who isn’t distracted by sniffing the hair of young people.

See below for the “model” soon to be used here if the DNC totalitarians get their way…

Celebrity Culture “Clean Up” Campaign Targets Stars and Fans Alike

From chinadigitaltimes.net
2021-08-28 05:52:57
Joseph Brouwer
Excerpt:

One of China’s most famous actresses has been summarily wiped from the internet as part of a “clean up” campaign aimed at celebrity culture. Zhao Wei, who starred in the über-popular TV drama “My Fair Princess,” became a billionaire through investing in Alibaba, and was the face of Italian high fashion brand Fendi in China, was digitally disappeared overnight without explanation. Her erasure happened in the middle of a Cyberspace Administration of China “special operation” against celebrity worship, which has both targeted celebrity misbehavior and imposed strict new controls on fan interaction with “idols”:

In June the office of the central cyberspace affairs commission announced a two-month special operation targeting fanclub culture, known as fan quan, which it said negatively affected the mental health of children.

[…] The 10-point list “to rectify chaos in the fan community” also included an order to “strictly regulate” celebrity managers and firms…

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Now Taliban Will Let Afghanis Leave, US, Uk Claim

Western Powers Justify Stranding People In Afghanistan With Empty Taliban Promises

Paul Collier August 30, 2021

After declaring they would not let any more Afghanis leave Afghanistan, after threatening America for encouraging Afghanis to leave, the Taliban have reversed course and announced they WILL let the Afghanis leave that want to leave. This announcement came in the form of a joint statement by multiple nations, including the United States and the UK. The veracity thereof, in terms of its fulfillment, remains uncertain and, frankly, is a weak hook upon which to hang your hat.

Basically, those invoking this guarantee to justify the cut-and-run strategy that has stranded thousands are likely whistling past the graveyard of their own political fortunes. The likelihood the Taliban will genuinely fulfill this is just not great and the politicos invoking this empty promise know that full well.

Taliban Will Let Afghans Leave, Say US, UK, Other Countries In Statement

From www.ndtv.com
2021-08-29 18:18:31

Excerpt:

“We have received assurances from the Taliban,” the joint statement said

aLondon:

The Taliban will allow all foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with travel authorisation from another country to leave Afghanistan, according to a joint statement issued by Britain, the United States and other countries.

“We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country,” they said in the statement.

The statement said the countries, which also included Australia, Japan, France, Spain and many others, would continue to issue travel documents to designated Afghans.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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North Carolina One Step Closer to Joining States Banning CRT

North Carolina One Step Closer to Joining States Banning CRT

Paul Collier August 30, 2021

On a mostly partisan vote of 25-17, the North Carolina Senate passed new rules that would seek to limit race relations lessions from schools. The billis called the Ensuring Dignity & Nondiscrimination/Schools. Act.

The key red flag in this bill from a Bill of Rights standpoint is this, (7) the belief that the United States is a meritocracy is racist or sexist or was created by members of a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex.

For a school to teach that particular perspective as objective fact might be highly problematic to a pluralistic Democratic-Republic bounded by a Bill of Rights based Constitution. But for a school to teach that particular perspective as a perspective, and not fact, seems to go beyond protecting the rights of children to not be discriminated against because of their gender, their sexual orientation, their race, their religion, or even their political views.

For the most part, this bill seems to mostly do just that.

Here is the key summary from that act:
Prohibits public school units from promoting seven specified belief concepts as follows: (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (3) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (4) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (5) an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (6) any individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress; and (7) the belief that the United States is a meritocracy is racist or sexist or was created by members of a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex. Defines promote to include three types of actions: (1) compelling students or school employees to affirm or profess the seven described belief concepts; (2) including the described belief concepts in educational or professional settings in a way that reasonably appears to sponsor, approve or endorse them; or (3) contracting, hiring, or engaging persons for the purpose of advocating the described belief concepts. Specifies that the statute does not prohibit constitutionally protected speech; individually accessing materials that advocate the described belief concepts for research or independent study; or stating the described belief concepts or assigning materials that incorporate such concepts for educational purposes in contexts that make clear the public school unit does not sponsor, approve, or endorse such concepts or work.

Read the full bill here.

But this last part might even assuage some of the fears I expressed above, “Specifies that the statute does not prohibit constitutionally protected speech; individually accessing materials that advocate the described belief concepts for research or independent study; or stating the described belief concepts or assigning materials that incorporate such concepts for educational purposes in contexts that make clear the public school unit does not sponsor, approve, or endorse such concepts or work.”

Here, it seems the bill is careful to alllow for the expression of opinion and the introduction of ideas that might reflect even some of the beliefs this bill is specifically targeting the schools not to teach kids.

This bill seems to be as good a faith an effort as you can make to trying to walk the line between assuring government-run schools are not fundamentally violating the rights of its students and their parents by teaching children ideas that are violations in and of themselves of our Bill of Rights foundation as a people, as Americans.

As I’ve said many times before, we are a pluralistic land, in point of fact, and we need, as a people who are here, who can exchange value with one another across multiple political, religious, philosophical divides, so long as we share the same civic governance standards, and for this nation, those standards are the Bill of Rights. These are the only remaining standards that make us American at all. Without them, no one is American anymore.

And for me, America is worth attempting to hold on to, at her core, if not her outward veneer, the most recent one of the past, and certainly not the one we have today, a new veneer, where the Bill of Rights values are extended not just in governmental halls, but in public squares and marketplaces as well, for all who interact in those spaces, the owners, the workers, the customers, etc.

Of course, the devil is in the details, and it remains to be seen what final form this bill will take, but, for now, while I do not believe they need item seven, I think the ‘does not prohibit’ clause leaves plenty of room to express a multiplicities of perspectives on what was, what is, and might be, in an American context, respecting the Bills of Rights of the students and the parents regpardless of your personal beliefs as an agent of the government.

I think this is a reasonable request.

Will the Myanmar Junta Reboot the Country?

Will the Myanmar Junta Reboot the Country?

Paul Collier August 27, 2021

This is a headlines report on the continued crisis in Myanmar, following the February 21 coup by the military that has launched the nation into civil war. The junta is attempting to transition to a legitimate permanent status as the reality of govoernment in Myanmar, a reality that kills any semblance of a democratic-republican form of government. Myanmar would be a military government going forward, with the military not promising to even consider elections for at least two more years.

The question is, has the Junta won the hearts and minds of enough people to help them coercive the few who are not won over? By the headlines you will see in this report, I think it might be fair to say signs point to no on that front. Myanmar is of particular interest to me because of its testing of a theory that the technological is on the side of the small scale. Where ideational conviction meats physiological reality, will a people who reject fundamentally the authority imposed on them be able to resist the advantage of death force that near-monpolistic powers can exert against their ‘citizens?’

Myanmar is a key bellweather for the reality of power of tech. Does it still favor centralized large-scale systems, or can large-scale systems no longer prevent small-scale systems from, in a sense, offer a better product, be it less restricted governance that offers reasonable security and pluralistic equality or a neighborhood factory that prints you an open-sourced video console that plays open source video games for a quarter of the cost of the large-scale systems but with the same, if not more, quality.

That’s quite a leap from Myanmar to Video Gaming, and I don’t mean to undermine the tragedy befallen in Myanmar and the real cost of life and quality of living so many in that nation are suffering today. But the connections are relevant, as I see them, and speak to the signficance of this moment in human history unfolding in Myanmar. You have a highly developed people, where even the lower middle class has access to high quality, low-cost tech, and many people in that country who know already how to create self-sustainability, from defense to farming are emerging and leading even as we speak.

They have the theoretical physiological means to overcome the Junta. They have the social constructs that make it easy for them to sustain the moral undergirding such defiant social acts require. They are used to not being under so much control. They have the means to convert material to self-sustaining use being a highly technologically-developed country. Thus, they are the perfect storm for a people who dissent from being controlled by a centralized authority that commands large-scale advantages over what might resist them.

Junta attempts to reopen steel mill once dismissed as debt trap

From www.myanmar-now.org
2021-08-26 11:57:50

Excerpt:

Myanmar’s army chief said on Monday that he is considering changing the country’s electoral system from the existing majoritarian model and toward a form of Proportional Representation (PR).

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, who ousted the country’s elected civilian administration in a coup on February 1, made the remarks during a meeting in Naypyitaw with members of his military council, according to state-run media.

In accordance with the country’s military-drafted 2008 Constitution, Myanmar currently uses First Past the Post (FPTP), a system in which the candidate who receives the most votes is the winner of the parliamentary seat in question.

Min Aung Hlaing said that the PR system would be “all-inclusive” and allow for constituents’ voices to be better represented.

“It is necessary to consider the Proportional Representation—PR—system with all participants. It is necessary to amend the way representatives are elected and the election system….

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More on Myanmar

Myanmar: The woman who jumped to her death while fleeing police

From www.bbc.com
2021-08-14 07:00:00

Excerpt:

But she was kind-hearted, he says, and became upset when the first protester to die, a young woman called Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing, was fatally shot in the capital Nyapyitaw a week after the coup. Her death was widely mourned and triggered further anger against authorities.

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The Kachin Insurgency Could Deal a Heavy Blow to Myanmar’s Military Junta – The Diplomat

From thediplomat.com
2021-08-21 11:24:42

Excerpt:

With the February 1 coup, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, sought to turn back the clock on the country’s nascent democratization. They opened Pandora’s box instead. Between the nationwide protest movement paralyzing the economy and the entrenched insurgencies, challenges mount against the military.

Analyses so far have considered the likelihood of Tatmadaw defeat in the context of a united front of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs). However, an underexamined element of the Myanmar crisis is how individual EAOs can exploit the chaos to inflict asymmetrical damage on the Tatmadaw. Nowhere is this more apparent than the military successes that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has achieved under the coup, and the KIA’s potential to…

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More than 1,000 civilians have died in Myanmar unrest, say activists | Myanmar

From www.theguardian.com
2021-08-19 14:50:00

Excerpt:

Myanmar’s security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi from power six months ago, according to an advocacy group.

The country has been in turmoil since 1 February, when the armed forces seized power in a lightning coup, triggering dissent as protesters demanded a return to democracy.

Security forces responded with bloody crackdowns, using live rounds against civilians. But anti-junta mobs – some of whom have formed self-defence groups – are still taking to the streets daily in flash marches.

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – an activist group that verifies the deaths and mass arrests under the regime – said the number of people killed by security forces reached 1,006 on Wednesday.

“As long as the military is in power they will continue to kill youths, professionals like doctors and teachers, men, women and children,” said Ko Bo Gyi, AAPP’s joint secretary.

“They are not only killing our lives but the…

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‘I am crying inside a lot’: Myanmar’s man at the UN defies the junta

From www.ft.com
2021-08-14 07:00:00

Excerpt:

On August 3, Myanmar’s UN representative received an alarming tip-off from one of his New York-based countrymen, who has been acting as a volunteer bodyguard: there was a plot against his life.

“I received information that someone was being paid to injure or kill me,” Kyaw Moe Tun, who denounced his country’s junta after it carried out a coup in February, told the Financial Times in a video interview.

The 52-year-old diplomat alerted the US mission to the UN and the FBI. Within three days, US authorities had arrested Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw, two Myanmar citizens and charged them with conspiracy to attack a foreign official.

The FBI claim the men were working with two unnamed co-conspirators, one in Thailand and one in the US, to hire and pay hitmen to attack Kyaw Moe Tun to force him to resign. The assassins were to “finish him off” if he resisted.

According to Phyo Hein Htut’s indictment, the Thailand-based co-conspirator, an arms dealer,…

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Myanmar military arrests more journalists

From www.reuters.com
2021-08-22 06:42:00

Excerpt:

Aug 21 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government has arrested two more local journalists, army-owned television reported on Saturday, the latest among dozens of detentions in a sweeping crackdown on the media since a Feb. 1 coup.

Sithu Aung Myint, a columnist for news site Frontier Myanmar and commentator with Voice of America radio, and Htet Htet Khine, a freelance producer for BBC Media Action, were arrested on Aug. 15, Myawaddy TV reported.

Sithu Aung Myint was charged with sedition and spreading false information that Myawaddy said was critical of the junta and had urged people to join strikes and back outlawed opposition groups.

Htet Htet Khine was accused of harbouring Sithu Aung Myint, a criminal suspect, and working for and supporting a shadow National Unity Government.

BBC Media Action said in a statement it was concerned about…

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How Myanmar’s military terrorized its people

From www.washingtonpost.com
2021-08-25 15:33:06

Excerpt:

Noise from the nearby pagoda roused Aung and his family before dawn on April 9. Peering out his window, he saw dozens of soldiers shouting and cursing as they streamed onto trucks, rifles slung across their chests. It was barely 4 a.m.

The engines of dozens of vehicles revved to a start and took off, with soldiers following on foot. Suddenly, Aung’s power cut out, plunging his neighborhood in the city of Bago into darkness. Aung tried to check Facebook and WhatsApp, hoping others would know what was going on, but mobile Internet was down, too.

He hurried his wife and two young sons into a small bedroom where they huddled together, determined not to be seen or heard. The sound of gunshots pierced the silence. The family emerged briefly some 14 hours later, peeking out their windows when they heard the rowdy chatter and din of the engines return.

The soldiers were back. With them were dozens of limp, bloodied bodies, piled up on the flatbed trucks.

Aung and his sons watched as the…

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Coup, COVID take toll on young people’s mental health in Myanmar | Coronavirus pandemic News

From www.aljazeera.com
2021-08-25 02:31:09

Excerpt:

Van Thawng Thawng’s phone buzzed as a series of notifications lit up the screen.

“Has anyone spoken to Ezekiel?” someone was asking in the Chin Student Union Facebook group, an organisation representing students from Myanmar’s northwestern Chin state. But no one had heard from the 20-year-old union leader.

A week later, on April 14, a friend called Van Thawng Thawng to tell him that Ezekiel’s body had been found.

They believed he had been beaten to death by security forces. Van Thawng Thawng was devastated.

“I just feel really stressed and angry, especially towards the military. Because Ezekiel is not the only one,” said Van Thawng Thawng, a former Chin student who serves as the general secretary of the same union. “One of my classmates was detained and another was killed trying to save his sister at a protest, and my mom, uncle and grandmother have all died in the last few months.”

While Van Thawng Thawng’s mom passed away from a long battle with cancer, he…

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Hollow Diplomacy: Backlash at ASEAN’s Response to the Myanmar Crisis

From globalriskinsights.com
2021-08-16 07:00:00

Excerpt:

The regional organisation, ASEAN, comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Myanmar, promotes economic, political, and security cooperation among members. The ASEAN charter includes democracy, good governance, and human rights, which theoretically opposes the values of the military regime. However, ASEAN also prizes their characteristic policy of non-interference into domestic politics.

The bloc is not monolithic, and so is often divided on issues, especially regarding internal issues of member states. Therefore, while well situated in the eyes of foreign nations, their structure and competencies limit their capacity to intervene directly. They may only take action if decisions are unanimous; even a view held by a majority grouping is not actionable. However, a solution is imperative as prolonged violence may spillover and thus, ASEAN’s reputation for maintaining regional peace and security.

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America Abandons All Hope in Afghanistan for Those Left Behind

Paul Collier August 26, 2021

The DNC-led American military has declared its intentions to switch the bulk of its efforts in Afghanistan to troop withdrawal rather than rescue of allies and American citizens in the last few days before the Taliban-imposed August 31st deadline occurs. The move is being met with cries of indignation from the many Americans who have ties to American citizens and allies still trapped in Taliban hell.

The move makes it clear to those still trapped in Afghanistan that if they want to get out, American soldiers might no longer be there to help them.

Whatever the DNC-led American military says, it is doubtful that many more Americans or allies will be evacuated over the last few days barring a massive overrun of the airport by desperate humans hoping to avoid being murdered, raped, or enslaved by the Taliban, the poster children for Islamo-fascism.

US to prioritise troop evacuation in last two days of Kabul operation

From www.news24.com
2021-08-25 21:46:47

Excerpt:

The US troops will be prioritised in the evacuation from Kabul while evacuations will continue for people from the area.
The roughly 5 400 troops at the airport will be brought to zero by 31 August.
More than 10 000 people were at Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated.

The US military will continue evacuating people from Kabul airport until a 31 August deadline if needed, but will prioritise the removal of US troops and military equipment on the last couple of days, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

There are about 5 400 troops at the airport, a number that President Joe Biden says is set to go down to zero by the end of the month, depending on cooperation from the Taliban.

Army Major General William Taylor, with the US…

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EU to Make Sure Bitcoin Transactions Are Traceable

EU to Make Sure Bitcoin Transactions Are Traceable

Paul Collier August 26, 2021

We have said it before and we’lll say it again, the top two threats to state power are anonymity in value exchange and self-sufficiency among its citizens. Anonymous cryptocurrencies offer opportunites for both such threats to state power, but the second part of that potential to undermine state power is based on the first part, anonymous value exchange.

The EU is fully aware of this and, using scapegoating to justify tyranny once again, is using the narrative that the state must know every value transaction in its lands else mobsters and terrorists can exchange wealth without being found out by the state. Certainly this is true, ‘criminals’ will benefit from anonymous exchange of value but, perhaps, the self-sufficiency among the vast majority of non-criminals will lead to a neutralization of the potential ways in which these same criminals can attack the non-criminals.

The creation of absolute state monitoring of value exchange, however, only creates more opportunities for the same ‘criminals’ to hurt non-criminals by making people dependent on centralized systems that are far easier to disrupt than non-centralized systems are.

The EU is now prepared to make sure that all cryptocurrency exchanges are traceable, starting with the still biggest one, Bitcoin.

EU will make Bitcoin traceable and ban anonymous crypto wallets in anti-money laundering drive : Futurology

From uronews.com

Excerpt:

Cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and Kraken could be forced to collect the details of people sending and receiving crypto under new rules proposed by the European Commission.

The EU’s executive branch announced the potential change on Tuesday as part of a package of reforms aimed at tackling financial crime within the bloc.

“The aim of this package is to improve the detection of suspicious transactions and activities, and to close loopholes used by criminals to launder illicit proceeds or finance terrorist activities through the financial system,” the Commission said in a statement.

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Political Executions Have Already Begun Under the Taliban

Political Executions Have Already Begun Under the Taliban

Paul Collier August 26, 2021

The American media, aka DNC Pravda, are trying to convince you that the Taliban are reformed, that you should give them a chance to prove they’ve grown up, and anyone who doesn’t see this racist and/or bigoted. Yet, while they pontificate on the benevolence of the Taliban, with one Canadian official referring to the Taliban as their brothers, the killings of people who don’t believe the Taliban way have already begun, and our American media, DNC Pravda, is silent.

Taliban LIVE: Regime sets up civilian executions but makes bizarre climate change pitch | World | News

From feedproxy.google.com
2021-08-25 11:29:00

Excerpt:

The Taliban has vowed to play a global role in tackling climate change and world security, despite their shocking track record of orchestrating civilian executions and eroding the rights of women and minorities.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a member of the Taliban’s Cultural Commission, told Newsweek: “We believe the world has a unique opportunity of rapprochement and coming together to tackle the challenges not only facing us but the entire humanity.

“These challenges ranging from world security and climate change need the collective efforts of all, and cannot be achieved if we exclude or ignore an entire people who have been devastated by imposed wars for the past four decades.”

This bizarre attempt to rebrand comes a day after UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, cited multiple credible reports of serious human rights violations committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan including “summary executions” of civilians and Afghan security forces who had surrendered.

Since declaring victory…

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