#Support for developing nations post-COVID

[greenthestral]

From Triumph to Tragedy: COVID-19's Devastating Blow on Poverty Eradication

The year 2020 will forever be remembered as a time of unparalleled upheaval, as the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake. Beyond the tragic loss of lives, the pandemic also unleashed a devastating blow on the global economy and disrupted social systems, derailing the remarkable progress made against poverty over the past four years. The journey towards eradicating poverty that had shown promising strides now stands overshadowed by a daunting reality. This article delves into the impact of COVID-19 on poverty eradication efforts, examining the setbacks, challenges, and potential pathways to recovery.

The Pre-COVID Progress

Before the pandemic struck, significant strides had been made in the battle against poverty. Numerous developing countries had reported declining poverty rates, improvements in education, and better access to healthcare. Global organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations were optimistic that we were moving closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030.

Governments, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations were working together, implementing targeted interventions to lift millions out of poverty. Investments were being made in education and vocational training, empowering individuals with skills to secure better-paying jobs. Microfinance initiatives provided small loans to entrepreneurs, fostering local economic growth and self-sustainability. Moreover, access to healthcare has improved through the expansion of health facilities and immunization programs.

The Unforeseen Blow of COVID-19

Enter COVID-19, and the world witnessed an unprecedented human and economic crisis. Lockdowns, travel restrictions, and social distancing measures were put in place to curb the spread of the virus, leading to the shutdown of businesses, the loss of jobs, and disruptions in supply chains. The most vulnerable segments of society were hit hardest, plunging many back into poverty.

Informal workers, day laborers, and those in the gig economy were left without job security or access to social safety nets. Women, who had made significant strides in the workforce, faced a disproportionate burden as they juggled work, childcare, and household responsibilities during the lockdowns.

The Toll on Global Poverty

According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed an estimated 100 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, erasing more than four years of progress against poverty eradication. The setback was particularly severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where poverty rates surged due to the combined impact of health and economic crises.

School closures further exacerbated the situation, with millions of children unable to access education. This could have far-reaching consequences, as education is a crucial pathway to breaking the cycle of poverty. The disruption in education has the potential to create a lost generation of children who are deprived of the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the future.

The Hidden Toll on Women

COVID-19 also exposed and amplified existing gender inequalities. Women, who often bear the brunt of poverty, found themselves at the frontline of the pandemic response, comprising the majority of healthcare workers and caregivers. Simultaneously, job losses and economic hardships disproportionately affected women, pushing them deeper into poverty.

Moreover, there was a surge in gender-based violence during lockdowns, as victims were confined with their abusers and faced barriers to seeking help. The pandemic further underscored the urgency of addressing gender disparities and promoting women's empowerment as critical components of poverty eradication efforts.

The Struggle for Access to Healthcare

The pandemic highlighted the glaring gaps in healthcare access and infrastructure in many developing countries. Overwhelmed healthcare systems struggled to provide adequate care to COVID-19 patients while maintaining essential health services for other diseases. This left millions without access to basic healthcare and life-saving treatments.

The economic fallout from the pandemic also affected funding for healthcare, diverting resources away from vital health initiatives. Immunization programs suffered, leading to potential outbreaks of preventable diseases that could disproportionately impact vulnerable communities already reeling from the pandemic's effects.

Climate Change and Poverty: A Two-Front Battle

As if battling a global pandemic was not challenging enough, countries also faced the looming threat of climate change. Climate-related disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires increased in frequency and intensity, exacerbating poverty and displacing communities.

Vulnerable populations living in low-lying coastal regions or arid areas faced the brunt of climate change impacts, losing their homes and livelihoods. The dual challenges of climate change and poverty necessitate urgent and integrated efforts to build resilience and reduce vulnerability.

A Call for a Resilient Recovery

While the road to recovery may seem daunting, there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Governments, international organizations, and civil society have an opportunity to build back better, ensuring that the recovery from the pandemic is sustainable, inclusive, and resilient.

Investments in healthcare and social safety nets are crucial to ensure that vulnerable communities are better prepared to weather future crises. Rebuilding livelihoods through job creation, vocational training, and microfinance initiatives can empower individuals to lift themselves out of poverty.

Harnessing Technology and Innovation

The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, showcasing their potential to bridge gaps in education, healthcare, and financial services. Leveraging technology and innovation can play a pivotal role in reaching marginalized populations and addressing systemic inequalities.

Mobile banking, telemedicine, and e-learning platforms can enhance access to essential services, particularly in remote areas. Moreover, investments in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure can create jobs while combating climate change, fostering a greener and more inclusive economy.

Global Solidarity for Lasting Change

COVID-19 has underscored the interdependence of nations and the need for global solidarity in addressing poverty and other global challenges. It is essential for developed nations to support developing countries through financial aid, debt relief, and technology transfer to ensure an equitable recovery.

By collaborating on research, sharing best practices, and working towards common goals, the world can emerge from this crisis stronger and more prepared to confront future challenges. International cooperation is key to ensuring that the progress against poverty does not suffer further setbacks in the face of unforeseen adversities.

Conclusion

The impact of COVID-19 on poverty eradication has been nothing short of devastating. More than four years of hard-won progress has been erased, leaving millions trapped in the cycle of poverty once again. However, the pandemic has also shown the resilience of individuals, communities, and nations in the face of adversity.

As we navigate the uncertain terrain ahead, it is crucial for us to learn from the lessons of the pandemic and forge a path towards a more inclusive and sustainable future. By addressing the underlying issues of poverty, inequality, and climate change, we can build a world that is better equipped to withstand and overcome future challenges, ensuring that the progress against poverty is not only restored but accelerated. Together, we can rise from the ashes of this crisis and create a world where no one is left behind.

What's In It For Me? (WIIFM)

In this eye-opening blog article, you'll discover the harsh reality of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on poverty eradication efforts. Learn about the setbacks, challenges, and potential pathways to recovery, while gaining insights into the global response and initiatives being taken to build a resilient future. Understand how this crisis affects you, your community, and the world at large, and find inspiration in the call for solidarity and global cooperation. Join us on this journey as we delve into the importance of collective action in ensuring progress against poverty is not only restored but accelerated, creating a world where no one is left behind.

Call to Action (CTA)

Let's stand together and take action against the devastating impact of COVID-19 on poverty eradication. Share this article with your friends, family, and social networks to spread awareness about the challenges faced by vulnerable communities. Engage in discussions, explore ways to support local and global initiatives, and volunteer your time or resources to help those in need. Together, we can make a difference and work towards creating a more equitable and sustainable world for everyone.

Blog Excerpt

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to the progress made against poverty in recent years. The article sheds light on the unprecedented challenges faced by marginalized communities, the toll on global economies, and the alarming rise in extreme poverty. However, amidst the grim reality, glimmers of hope emerge as we explore potential pathways to recovery. From harnessing technology and innovation to fostering global solidarity, there are ways we can build back better and ensure a more inclusive and resilient future for all.

Meta description in 320 characters to appear in the Google Search Engine

Discover the devastating impact of COVID-19 on poverty eradication efforts. Uncover challenges, pathways to recovery, and calls for global solidarity in this enlightening blog article.

#COVID-19's impact on poverty eradication #Progress against poverty during COVID-19 #Global poverty setbacks due to pandemic #Resilience in the face of poverty challenges #Building back better after COVID-19 #Poverty eradication and the pandemic #COVID-19's toll on vulnerable communities #Challenges in poverty eradication post-COVID #Pathways to recover from COVID-19's impact #Addressing poverty in a pandemic-hit world #Rebuilding livelihoods after COVID-19 #Role of technology in poverty eradication #COVID-19's lasting impact on the poor #Global cooperation for poverty alleviation #Women and poverty during the pandemic #Education setbacks amidst COVID-19 #Climate change and poverty during COVID-19 #Inequality and COVID-19's toll on poverty #Health crisis worsens poverty #Support for developing nations post-COVID #Opportunities for poverty eradication post-pandemic #Lessons from COVID-19 for poverty efforts #Social safety nets and poverty recovery #Microfinance impact during the pandemic #Sustainable development goals post-COVID #COVID-19's impact on vulnerable children #Gender disparities in pandemic poverty #Addressing the poverty pandemic nexus #A resilient future against poverty and COVID-19 #Taking action against poverty post-COVID

[zvaigzdelasas]

The Los Angeles Unified School District and union leaders said Friday that they reached a deal on pay raises for bus drivers, custodians and other support staff after a three-day strike that shut down the nation's second-largest school system. The deal includes a series of retroactive raises going back to 2021 as well as pay bumps in July, as well as January 2024, that will collectively hike worker pay by about 30%, said Max Arias, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 99. The deal also sets the district's minimum wage at $22.52; provides a one-time $1,000 raise for any worker who was employed in 2020 in appreciation of their work during the covid-19 pandemic; and creates a $3 million educational and professional development fund for union members, district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a news conference.

Free health care will be provided for any employee working at least four hours a day and their families, he added. "This agreement's going to make a lot of superintendents very nervous," he said. "That's a good thing."

26 Mar 23

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday! Ways to Give: Anon linked to a fundraiser for a family member who has developed increasingly severe allergies; her insurance won't cover a food allergy test to figure out what's causing the sudden reactions, so they're fundraising to cover the cost. You can read more and support the fundraiser here. audkitty's close friend just found out he has a tumor at the base of his skull; he needs to have it removed ASAP, but health insurance won't cover the full procedure, and he needs to raise about $8.2K to cover bills. You can read more and support the fundraiser here. mamajosrefuge is finally funding their top surgery, and needs help with funds; you can read more and support the fundraiser here. kirkfanatic linked to a fundraiser for a good friend's husband, who is funding his top surgery after getting a job that will allow him recovery time; you can read more and support the fundraiser here. Anon linked to a fundraiser for maximumsunshine, who will be returning to work in August after life-saving surgery but is behind on rent, bills, and food until their first paycheck comes in at the end of next month. You can read more and reblog here, or support them via patreon or via paypal. Anon linked to a fundraiser for thebisexualmandalorian, a trans person raising funds to move themself and their cat away from abusive family members and out of a state that is becoming increasingly hostile and dangerous for trans people. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here. theleakypen linked to a fundraiser for friends Kayti and Eli, who have been living precariously since leaving an abusive housing situation; they now have some stability with a new roommate and chosen family member, but still need help with household expenses and car maintenance, especially since the household has multiple disabilities. You can read more and support the fundraiser here. songspinner9's kid Wren, age 23, had their e-bike stolen this week; Wren's disabilities mean they can't safely drive, and have limited energy, so the bike was a necessary mobility aid and tool for independence, particularly in commuting to their work at a local youth center. They are raising funds for a refurbished replacement that meets their needs; you can read more and support the fundraiser here. Anon linked to a fundraiser for rosietwiggs, whose family was hit hard by COVID and is dealing with an ongoing lawsuit against insurance; she's fundraising for school supplies and also summer activity stuff for her kids, who are all at home during the summer. You can read more and reblog here or give via ko-fi here. Buy Stuff, Help Out: queerdo-mcjewface is selling corsets that no longer fit on eBay; 100% of proceeds benefit the National Lawyers' Guild (which provides legal aid to activists) and the Entertainment Community Fund (which helps striking show business workers). The auctions are for 24" and 26" corsets and run through Sunday, July 30th. You can see and purchase them here. Recurring Needs: Anon linked to a fundraiser for littlefluffbutt, who is facing homelessness with two daughters due to a predatory loan and support falling through; you can read more and reblog here or support the fundraiser here. And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

#radio free monday #charity #philanthropy #fannish community

[lookingforcactus]

Non-paywall version here.

"Shawna Freeman Lane, 34, continued to teach college-level business by laptop after she gave birth by C-section in 2017. Her husband, Eric Lane, was home with her in Fircrest, Wash., for three weeks. The same thing happened in 2018, when their second child was born—except this time, Mr. Lane only got two weeks at home.

Having to leave his still-healing wife in the lurch was hard for Mr. Lane, as was tracking his children’s development via text messages while at work. But when their third was born last May, things were different. In 2020, Washington state had passed a new law entitling working parents to 12 weeks of paid leave, to bond with their newborn.

“It felt like winning the lottery, honestly,” said Mr. Lane, who stayed home for six weeks after their son was born, then another six weeks when Ms. Freeman Lane went back to work.

They are part of an explosion in the number of workers taking parental leave. In the 12 months through February [2023], a monthly 406,000 workers were absent on average due to paid or unpaid parental leave, up 13.5% from 2021, according to Labor Department data. The 478,000 working parents absent in January was the most since records began in 1994.

One driver behind the upswing is likely the increase in births in the past two years versus the prepandemic trend. The pandemic itself may also be a factor, as lockdowns and Covid kept many workers home.

But the main factor appears to be government and employer policies. While the U.S. remains the only advanced economy without nationally mandated paid parental leave, the share of workers with access to leave is growing, to 25% in March last year versus 19% in 2019, according to the Labor Department. Seven states plus the District of Columbia now require employers to provide paid leave, up from four in 2018, while private employers are also expanding the benefit. Four more states will require paid parental leave by 2026.

“As the state laws have passed, there has been a culture change, and more awareness and support for mothers and—especially—fathers around taking leave,” said Jane Waldfogel, a public affairs professor at Columbia University.

A greater propensity by fathers to take leave is an important contributor. The number of men on parental leave tripled to an average of 76,500 in the six months ended in February [2023] from five years earlier, whereas the number of women rose 11% to 336,000, according to census data.

More parental leave-taking benefits the economy in the impact on families’ well-being, said Emily Oster, economics professor at Brown University—ranging from near-term outcomes such as infant mortality rates to longer-term measures, including child test scores and adult earnings. “In this sense, leave now is an investment in the economic future,” Ms. Oster said...

Leave policies are a small but increasingly key way that firms compete for workers, according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. About 3% of currently active online job postings nationwide explicitly advertise parental leave, about a fivefold increase from before the pandemic, ZipRecruiter data show.

Industries seeing the biggest increase are retail, and transportation and warehousing, said Ms. Pollak—something she calls the “Amazon effect.” The e-commerce giant was at the forefront of offering parental-leave benefits, prompting competitors to do the same...

Parents are also taking longer leaves. The typical mother now takes 120 days of bonding leave, up from 110 in 2019, and the median father is out for 60 days, a 15-day increase, according to Sparrow, a leave-management platform. New York state family bonding claims data show a similar trend, with moms claiming 9.9 weeks in 2021, a three-week gain from 2018, and dads extending their average leave by 2.3 weeks, to 6.9...

“My son is so much fun now. He’s getting to the stage where he’s his own human,” [Jonathan Leslie, a 36-year-old software engineer] said. “Having the open-ended play with him—that opportunity won’t come again.”

-via The Wall Street Journal, 4/8/23. Non-paywall version via ProgramBusiness, 4/10/23.

#parental leave #labor rights #paid leave #pto #parenting #child development #infants and toddlers #united states #us politics #washington state #good news #hope

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada's privatised shadow civil service

PJ O’Rourke once quipped that “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.” But conservative parties have unlikely allies in the project to discredit public service: neoliberal “centrist” parties, like Canada’s Liberal Party.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

The Liberals have become embroiled in a series of scandals over the explosion of lucrative, secretive private contracts awarded to high-flying consultancy firms who charge hundreds of times more than public sector employees to do laughably bad work.

Front and centre in the scandal, is, of course, McKinsey, consligieri to opioid barons, murdering Saudi princes, and other unsavoury types. McKinsey was brought in to “consult” on strategy for the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), a Crown corporation that gives loans to Canadian businesses.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/business-development-bank-canada-hudon-mckinsey-1.6720914

While there, McKinsey performed as per usual, veering from the farcical to the grotesquely wasteful. Most visible was the decision to spend $320,000 on a livecast fireside chat between BDC president Isabelle Hudon and a former Muchmusic VJ that was transmitted to all BDC employees, which featured Hudon and the host discussing a shopping trip they’d taken together in Paris.

Meanwhile, BDC has been hemorrhaging top people, which leaving the organisation with many holes in its leadership — the kind of thing that would pose an impediment to its lofty goals of substantially increasing the support it gives to businesses run by women, First Nations people and people of color.

Hudon — a Trudeau appointee — vowed to “start from scratch” when she took over the organisation, but then went ahead and did what her predecessors had done: hired outside consultants who billed outrageous sums to repurpose anodyne slide-decks full of useless, generic advice, or unrealistic advice that no one could turn into actual policy. They also sucked up BDC employees’ time with endless interviews.

The BDC has (reluctantly) disclosed $4.9m in contracts to McKinsey. The CBC also learned that Hudon parachuted several cronies from her previous job at Sun Life into top roles in the organisation, and that BDC had reneged on promised promotions for many long-term staffers. Hudon also repeatedly flew a chauffeur across the country from Montreal to BC to drive her around.

In Quebec, premier François Legault hired an army of McKinsey consultants at $35,000 per day to advise him on covid strategy, for a total bill of $8.6m. McKinsey’s contract with the province stipulated that they wouldn’t have to disclose their other clients, even in the event that they had conflicts of interest:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/caq-legault-mckinsey-pandemic-consulting-1.6602374

The contract was kept secret, as was the long-running, $38m contract between McKinsey and the Hydro Quebec power authority:

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1927738/mckinsey-hydro-quebec-consultants-barrages-affaires

Most of the bad press McKinsey gets revolves around the evil advice it gives — like when it advised opioid companies to pay cash bonuses to pharma distributors for every death-by-overdose in their territory (no, I’m not making this up):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/30/mckinsey-mafia/#everybody-must-get-stoned

But these rare moments of competence should be understood in the broader context in which McKinsey isn’t evil, they are merely utterly, totally fucking useless. The 2022 French Senate report on McKinsey really digs into this:

http://www.senat.fr/commission/enquete/2021_influence_des_cabinets_de_conseil_prives.html

They find that a quarter of the work McKinsey turned in was “unacceptable or barely acceptable in quality.” This is in line with the overall tenor of work performed by consultants. For example, when it came to giant Capgemini, the French Senate found that the work it provided was “of near-zero added value, indeed sometimes counterproductive.”

And yet, despite the expense and “near-zero added value,” hiring outside consultants is a reflex for neoliberal centrist leaders. Trudeau has presided over a massive expansion of the Canadian government’s reliance on outside consultants:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberals-spend-billions-more-on-outsourced-contracts-since-taking/

After campaigning on a promise to reduce outside consultancy, the Trudeau administration increased consultant spending by 40%, to $11.8 billion. This shadow civil service is not just more expensive and less competent that the real civil service — it is also far more opaque, able to fend off open records requests with vague gestures towards “trade secrecy.”

Since 2015, McKinsey has raked in $101.4m in federal contracts, even as the civil service has been starved of pay. Meanwhile, federal departments insist that they need to “protect Canada’s economic interests” by not disclosing outside contracts, and list their total spend at $0.00.

https://nationalpost.com/news/outsourcing-contracts-mckinsey-billions

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada estimates that between 2011–21, the Canadian government squandered $18b on outside IT contracting that could have been performed by public servants. In 2022, the Government of Canada spent $2.3b on outsource IT contracts, while the wage bill for its own IT staff came in at $1.85b.

It’s not like these outside IT contractors are good at their jobs, either. The most notorious example is the ArriveCAN covid-tracking app for travellers, the contract for which was awarded to GCstrategies, a two-person shop in Ottawa, who promptly turned around and outsourced it to KPMG and other contractors, whom they billed to the government at $1,000–1,500/day, raking off 15–30% in commissions.

For months, the origins of the ArriveCAN app were a mystery, with the government insisting that the details of the contractors involved were “confidential.” But ArriveCAN was such a steaming pile of shit, and so many travellers (a population more likely to be well-off and politically connected than the median Canadian) had to deal with it, that eventually the truth came out.

The ArriveCAN scandal is ongoing — just last year, it cost the Canadian public $54m:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-arrivecan-subcontractors-multinationals/

Trudeau’s Liberals didn’t invent outsourcing high-stakes IT projects to incompetent grifters. Under Conservative PM Stephen Harper, Canada paid IBM to build Phoenix, an utterly defective payroll system for federal employees that stole millions from civil servants, bringing government to a virtual standstill. Thus far, the Government of Canada — which paid IBM $309m to develop Phoenix, as a “cost savings measure” — has paid $506m in damages to make good on Phoenix’s errors:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-paid-out-400-million-in-phoenix-pay-compensation-to-federal/

The Liberals didn’t invent Phoenix — but they did deploy it, after campaigning on the wastefulness and incompetence of the Tories’ outsourcing bonanza. And after Phoenix crashed and burned, the Liberals increased outsourcing spending.

All of this is well-crystallized in last week’s Canadaland discussion between Jesse Brown and Nora Loreto:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/853-the-indulgent-consultant/

And on his Substack, Paul Wells proposes that the Senate — a largely ornamental institution in Canadian politics — is the unlikely check of last resort on the Liberals’ fetish for outsourcing:

There are former deputy ministers at the federal and provincial levels, secretaries to cabinet, a former Clerk of the Privy Council, a former chief of staff to a prime minister. A lot of them can remember the days when big decisions weren’t farmed out to firms that make their founders rich and are spared the rigours of accountability for their counsel. Surely some of them would like to shine a light?

https://paulwells.substack.com/p/shine-a-brighter-light-on-contract?

Image: Sam (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Canadian_House_of_Commons.jpg

Presidencia de la República Mexicana (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justin_Trudeau_June_2016.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: The legislative chamber of Canada's House of Commons; behind the speaker's chair, the back wall has been replaced by an enormous $100 bill. The portrait on the $100 bill has been replaced with an unflattering, braying picture of Justin Trudeau. The Bank of Canada legend across the top of the note has been replaced by the McKinsey and Company wordmark.]

#pluralistic #canada #cdnpoli #neoliberalism #consultancy #opacity #impunity #hollow government #mckinsey #justin trudeau #liberal party #covid #quebec #profiteers

[czenvs3000f23]

Unit 1 Blog Post

Prompt: Describe your current relationship with nature. How was this developed/evolved? Who offered you "a sense of place," as described in our textbook?

For practically all my life, I've lived in the suburbs of Southern Ontario. I would go to school which was flanked by busy roads and intersections that would support the constant stream of cars going 70 km/hr. I would eat lunch under the glass ceiling of the mall, where I could still see the white, puffy clouds overhead. Most of my time was spent within the walls of my house, which looked identical to the others that spotted the neighborhood.

Despite this, I knew from a very young age that I wanted my career to do something with the environment. I'm not exactly sure where this stemmed from. I might've always had an intrinsic interest in biology or inherited my mom's passions, but I think most of it had to do with the programming that I was exposed to. I spent many days after school watching TVO Kids, which had a heavy emphasis on environmental education as a part of their broadcasting. I devoured the content supplied by The Wild Kratts, Dino Dan, and many others. I also got really invested in National Geographic Kids. I remember when I would get so excited to receive my monthly subscription to the magazine, and proudly showed them off to my classmates the next day at school.

Still, I hadn't racked up many hours outdoors hiking or going on other excursions. I used to be so insecure about this fact. Did it diminish my passion for the subject? Do I really belong in this field?

I think this really changed once I was in my first year. It was during the height of COVID and I was living on residence during the winter semester. The transition from high school to university was challenging as I suddenly had to be responsible for a whole slew of things. I was meeting new people from all different walks of life, adjusting to living on my own for the first time, and learning what it meant to be a student at a university. All while navigating the pandemic. Suffice it to say that in some moments it was really hard. I remember distinctly after I learned that I failed the CHEM1050 midterm, I headed straight to the arboretum. At this point I'd be going there on daily walks to get out of my stuffy dorm but this time I went to clear my head.

There's something about walking through the trails of the arboretum at the end of winter and the beginning of spring. It's almost indescribable what I felt during that time in my life. Seeing the snow melt, and the little buds poking out from the soil stirred something within me. I would stare at the pond at Wild Goose Woods for a long time, just thinking. And suddenly, I would feel better. Being part of nature puts things into perspective. Deadlines don't matter. Petty dramas don't matter. It matters that I am alive in this moment, bearing witness to incredible ecological interactions that underpin the very fabric of society.

Since then, I'm still learning to appreciate the little things. I take joy in Ontario's natural heritage and am proud of the fact that I get to live in such a place where we experience four seasons. This past summer I had the opportunity to work at a farm as a camp counselor, where I was outside 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and despite the hard work, I genuinely loved it. I'm excited to continue to grow and experience how rich and diverse our planet is.

[lcblog121]

Media, politics, citizenship

Media, politics and citizenship.  

Counter Protesting: Julian Batchelor

This social media post created by Tamaki Anti-Fascist action shows a call for a counter-protest to Julian Batchelor’s ‘Anti co-governance' tour. I believe that the message in the social media post is the correct response to Batchelor’s actions and beliefs, here’s why.  

Anti – co-governance is a large issue in today's media and political sphere. Since the creation of the Three Waters Act, disinformation has led to a large and misinformed political movement. Historically anti-Māori and anti-treaty actors have reemerged as the leaders of this new movement with Julian Batchelor being at the forefront. Through uninformed rhetoric pushed by Aotearoa’s big right-wing parties (National, Act and New Zealand First) and the accompanying media outlets (Newstalk ZB and The Platform etc.) the public reaction has been skewed. Adding to the conspiratorial confusion in the wake of the COVID response, a movement of right-wing paranoia has emerged. Julian Batchelor organised a tour of the nation, travelling to all lengths of the country to spread his message. This message is calling for intervention in mild treaty support policies that he believes will turn New Zealand into an ‘apartheid, tribal rule state’.  

Julian Batchelor is a Kenyan born, New Zealand evangelist who has made a living from church donations and his large property portfolio amassed largely during his time as a real-estate agent. Batchelor, a born-again Christian, developed his theological model on the idea that humans either have a light or dark soul and are battling for power. His theological theories relate highly to his political platform based around anti co-governance. Batchelor has been campaigning on the idea that having Māori representation in the form of co-governance equates to apartheid that was seen in South Africa.  

Despite the tour's occasionally substantial support, the opposition to the tour has brought left-wing, anti-fascist and revolutionary socialist organisations together with the public masses to organise counter-protests. The social media post we are analysing comes from the recent counter-protest organised in coalition between ‘Tamaki Anti-Fascist Action (TAFA)’ and ‘Organise Aotearoa (OA)’. To round-up his tour, Batchelor decided to march up Queen St in Tamaki Makaurau where many organisations on the right joined up under his banner. Amongst these groups was NZ neo-Nazi's ‘Action Zealandia’ and Brian Tamaki’s ‘Freedoms coalition’.  

The social media post here was created by TAFA to organise and share the message that they were going to counter protest. This is an example of DIY citizenship as they are trying to create a grassroots event in reaction to an opposing political movement. On the day, counter-protesters from Auckland gathered in a noise protest designed to disrupt and drown out Batchelor’s speeches. At the front line of Batchelor’s protest were five Action Zealandia members shouting racial abuse at the more diverse group of counter-protesters including, “go home savages, go home”, as a part of their chant. After a couple of hours, they moved on and the counter-protesters were stopped by police from advancing further.  

This social media post aligns with my beliefs as I was there as a member of one of the organisations. I believe that DIY citizenship is important to create an opposition to racist movements and disseminate the disinformation that they share. In this example, we managed to get a small interview with newshub in which it was pointed out that there were neo-Nazis amongst their protest which shows where they truly stand. It was important to get some kind of media to cover the issue as without it you are only left with a public reaction which may be interpreted any way without context. On the opposing side they had their own internal media in the form of mana news. I reviewed the footage taken by mana news during the protest and it was evident that they had no idea what we represented or that they had Nazi’s on their front line. 

As an extension of grassroots movements, media is an important addition to DIY citizenship. The form of media taken to provide information about a movement against Batchelor’s anti co-governance tour is social media. Accessible to most people, grassroots movements have begun to rely on social media’s reach and accessibility to create effective movements. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook (events), Telegram and Discord are now key platforms for organising DIY citizenship events and movements. Although traditional media often takes interest at the peak of conflict through DIY movements, they often come in late, use little context and provide a bad take on what is happening and has been happening on the ground. Despite the positivity of getting to talk to mainstream media which sometimes does not happen, Newshub reduced the event to a ‘major shouting match’ without giving much time to explain the conflict or write a meaningful analysis. Without these more diverse forms of media, DIY citizenship would be far more challenging to practice. 

In conclusion, I believe that the social media post and action taken were a correct response to the issue we were facing. Anti co-governance is fundamentally a continuation of settler colonialism and racist policy that will only benefit wealthy settlers under the current capitalist system (like Julian Batchelor). In times where DIY citizenship is needed and required to hit the streets, social media can be very effective in assuring that people are informed and prepared to take part.  

Ariel Bogle. Far-right voice opponents Co-opt comments from controversial New Zealand speaker. (2023, August 22). the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/23/who-is-julian-batchellor-stop-co-governance-new-zealand-far-right-speaker-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-no-campaign 

Julian Batchelor. (2023, October 25). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved October 27, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Batchelor  

Jessica (no last name given). Where the parties stand on Co-governance. (9/9/2023). Democracy Action. https://www.democracyaction.org.nz/where_the_parties_stand_on_co_governance  

Perry Wilton. (23/9/2023). Newshub, https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/09/major-shouting-match-in-auckland-as-stop-co-governance-movement-clashes-with-counter-protesters.html 

Blog 2

This article published by New Zealand doctor describes the sacrifices that the National party will make to public services, in particular healthcare, in order to fund their tax cut policy. I believe that the argument made in this article is correct and here’s why.

The article published September 13, 2023, describes the worries held by healthcare professionals after an interview Christopher Luxon did with the morning report. The article follows the response from the Public Service Association in reaction to Luxon’s comments. What they are saying is that National’s fiscal policy looks to defund or refuse to increase funding of backstaff healthcare work as they do not see it as being important in comparison to frontline health work. The PSA argues that without funding for all of the other parts of healthcare, frontline workers will not have the necessary funds to do their job correctly or efficiently. They continue to say, “Mr Luxon is either ignorant of how health services are delivered, or he is deliberately misleading New Zealanders”. Added on to this, National’s healthcare policy shows that they still want to increase vaccination rates which is contradictory to their policy of defunding the public sector. 

National’s tax cut policy, as with dozens they’ve had before this election, always looks good on the outside. In reality, the National party needs to find $8 billion in order to fund the policy. Until as recently as the opening of voting, Luxon refused to answer (among other things) where they would get the money from. After some time of deflecting the question they finally said what everyone had expected, that the money would come from defunding the public sector. As a right-wing party, it is always going to be in the corporate interest to privitise public services in favour of private corporations and contractors so that they can make essential industries profitable. The obvious downside to this is that the only people who ever benefit are the extremely wealthy business owning class. Luxon’s career as a CEO in major international corporations only shows his further commitment to helping exclusively his rich friends, donors and those of the same class. Healthcare workers for as long as neoliberalism has existed have been the first to bare the brunt of neoliberal privitisation and destruction of the public sector. With Labour, few to no concessions were made in regards to helping healthcare workers, however, National’s plan will explicitly hurt their funding more. 

The article does a good job of showing healthcare professionals reaction to the issue. Many other workers in public industry are currently feeling the same about the immenent drop in quality of their working conditions and pay. As well as healthcare, National plans to cut public transport (including the Auckland light rail project) in favour of building roads, bring back prescription fees, destroy Fair Pay Agreements, bring back no-cause evictions, get rid of the maori health authority, clean car discount, funding for education and welfare. In contradistinction to their claim that they are ‘working for all New Zealanders’, National’s tax cut plan is specifically designed to get rid of any union power, concessions to the working class and accessible public services. 

This article shows the importance of having forms of industry related media. NZ Doctor focuses on industry related stories and information, providing good journalism written by people in the industry or who have worked in the industry. Mainstream media generally fails to capture industry perspectives on issues until union struggle or public outcry becomes vocal on an industry problem. In this particular case, National party is breaking the healthcare workers political citizenship by banning free pay agreements which remain one of the only measures that healthcare workers have been able to use to gain industry concessions. Free pay agreements were one of the surviving union and industry tools since unions were stripped of their power through neoliberalism. Essentially what they allow is industry wide union strikes and industry wide policies rather than making a union struggle that only caters for a single business. With National party’s imminent FPA ban coming, the strikes by healthcare workers, teacher etc. will be forced to stop on a legal basis. This ban gives much more power to corporations who strive to make profit at all costs over the welfare of their workers. The less a corporation has to pay to it’s workers and facilities in order to run, the more profit they will make - and that is exactly what National party and their capitalist donors want. 

This article aligns with my beliefs as I stand by workers in all industries and believe that corporations and capitalist politicians should not be in power of a functioning democracy. The history of the destruction of Unions and public sector industries is a travesty for the working class in NZ and world-wide. I believe it is important for industries to not only have strong unions, but also have their own media like the healthcare industry does. Ultimately I, as do the Public Service Association, think that the cutting of public sector funding as well as their ability to fight for conditions works only in the interest of the ruling minority of our country and against the interest of the working majority.

In conclusion, I agree with the sentiment of this article. They have done a good job of portraying the injustices done upon their rights as an industry and as citizens by National Party policies. It is important to have media that is industry focused and believes in doing the right thing for the public and for their workers. 

Media Release from the Public Service Association. (2023, September 13). Watch out New Zealand, cuts to health spending coming under a national-led government. New Zealand Doctor. https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/undoctored/watch-out-new-zealand-cuts-health-spending-coming-under-national-led-government 

Michael Neilson. National's focus on benefit sanctions goes against evidence - expert. (2023, September 26). NZ Herald. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-national-party-sanctions-benefit-policy-goes-against-evidence-expert-weag-says/DS552SZZURFCZK3IXKWK4MYZLY/

[coochiequeens]

Ladies pleas share are to raise awareness for an issue that impacts new mothers and leaves them even more vulnerable.

“20 years on – progress but not enough! Act now to end fistula by 2030!”

Obstetric fistula is a hole between the birth canal and bladder or rectum, caused by prolonged, obstructed labour without access to timely, high-quality medical treatment. It leaves women and girls leaking urine, faeces or both, and often leads to chronic medical problems, depression, social isolation and deepening poverty. Ninety percent of pregnancies involving fistula end in stillbirth.

Health systems and communities are falling short in ending obstetric fistula. Gender discrimination and social marginalization create additional risks, resulting in fistula disproportionately occurring among impoverished, underserved and marginalized women and girls.

Three cost-effective solutions can prevent fistula: timely access to high-quality emergency obstetric and newborn care, trained professionals with midwifery skills at childbirth, and universal access to modern contraception. Health systems can reduce fistula by tracking prevalence, correcting gaps in care and ensuring universal access to a competent health workforce. National health plans must also address gender discrimination and other factors making women and girls more vulnerable to maternal mortality and disease.

Bold political leadership and investment could eradicate fistula. Ambitious partnerships and scaled-up investments are imperative to ending fistula by 2030 – our global target under the Sustainable Development Goals. 

UNFPA leads the global Campaign to End Fistula, a drive to transform the lives of vulnerable women and girls. The 20-year-old campaign represents a global commitment to fistula prevention and holistic treatment, including surgical repair and social reintegration and rehabilitation. Despite progress, elimination by 2030 demands accelerated action, starting now. To that end, the theme for the international day this year is “20 years on – progress but not enough! Act now to end fistula by 2030!”

Ending obstetric fistula by 2030

2020 marked the count-down towards the goal of ending the problem of obstetric fistula by 2030, according to the last report of the Secretary General.  

Obstetric fistula is preventable; it can largely be avoided by delaying the age of first pregnancy; the cessation of harmful traditional practices; and timely access to obstetric care.

Besides, it is expected that 13 million more child marriages could take place by 2030 than would have otherwise. Families are more likely to marry off daughters to alleviate the perceived burden of caring for them, especially in the anticipated economic fallout of the pandemic.

Due to all these reasons an increase in cases might occur and new strategies will be required in the post-COVID-19 recovery period to address the expected backlog of cases.

With this possible future scenario of preventive measures in danger, now more than ever, it is important to call on the international community to use the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula to significantly raise awareness and intensify actions towards ending obstetric fistula, as well as urging post-surgery follow-up and tracking of fistula patients.

Related links

Campaign to end Fistula

UN Population Fund (UNFPA)

Nairobi Summit Commitments on ICPD25

World Health Organization - 10 facts about obstetric fistula 

WHO: End fistula. Restore Women's Dignity  

Related documents

UN Secretary General’s Report

Resolution on supporting efforts to end obstetric fistula (2012)

Resolutions on intensification of efforts to end obstetric fistula (2014 and 2018)

#May 23 #International day to end obstetric fistula #Maternal health #infant mortality rate #Child marriage increases health risks from pregnancy

[marveltrumpshate]

This year continued to be A Lot and we decided to ensure that there were charities that directly addressed current events. Folded into this post are groups that work for aid targeting every natural disaster and man-made one, climate change, the ongoing COVID pandemic, and more. If you're looking for an organization that directly addresses any of those, this is your spotlight post.

For more information on donation methods and accepted currencies, please refer to our list of organizations page.

Center for Reproductive Rights

The Center for Reproductive Rights is the only global legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person. With local partners across five continents, they have secured legal victories before national courts, UN Committees, and regional human rights bodies on issues such as access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, maternal health, and safe abortion services and the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage.

Clean Air Task Force

As we've seen for a long time now but especially this year with constant natural disasters and alarming news from all over the world, climate change is real and we need to do something about it. Over the past 25 years, CATF, a group of climate and energy experts who think outside the box to solve the climate crisis, has pushed for technology innovations, legal advocacy, research, and policy changes. Their goal is to achieve a zero-emissions, high-energy planet at an affordable cost.

Coalition for Rainforest Nations

Boasting a voluntary membership of over 50 rainforest nations, CORN provides a single voice to countries that didn’t cause the climate emergency but nevertheless feel the brunt of it daily. CORN originated the global conservation mechanism Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) to stop deforestation. REDD+ was successfully mandated in the Paris Climate Agreement (2015) and covers 90% of the world’s tropical rainforests.

International Rescue Committee

Founded in 1933, the IRC is a long-standing trusted partner in supporting those whose lives have been upended by sudden violence, political or natural. Their main fundraising focuses right now are Pakistan and Ukraine, but they are no stranger to areas of disaster throughout the world as they currently work in 40 countries. The IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance, including refugee settlement, and focuses on health, education, economic well-being, empowerment, and safety.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Odds are you’ve heard of MSF, the global organization that sends trained medical professionals to the places they’re needed most. MSF has been working globally for nearly 40 years, providing medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare—no matter what. They’re guided by principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality to global political policies or movements.

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

NAPAWF is the only organization focused on building a movement for social, political, and economic change for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls. Their work focuses on policy and structural change, organizing and civic engagement, and legal advocacy and judicial strategy. They also tackle reproductive health and rights, economic justice, and immigration and racial justice.

National Network of Abortion Funds

The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice. They provide their grassroots base of over 80 autonomous, diverse organizations/abortion funds with leadership development, infrastructure support, and technical assistance. Some fund procedures while others cover abortion pills, transportation, lodging, childcare, doula services, and other forms of support.

National Resource Defense Council

"We believe the world’s children should inherit a planet that will sustain them as it has sustained us. NRDC works to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water and the wild, and to prevent special interests from undermining public interests." Since 1970, the NRDC has been a leader in legal advocacy for climate justice. They work with a staff of about 700 lawyers, scientists, and policy experts to reduce pollution and protect natural resources nationally and internationally.

Partners In Health

Founded by Paul Farmer when he was still in medical school, PIH is committed to bringing exceptional health care to every corner of the planet. PIH also works to provide access to food, transportation, housing, and other key components of healing to the most vulnerable. Their work started in Haiti but has expanded rapidly across the globe.

RIP Medical Debt

Over 100 million Americans (one in three) are struggling with paying off medical bills. COVID has only added to those numbers, putting people under significant financial burden and emotional distress. This organization buys up medical debt in order to forgive it with no tax consequences to donors or recipients. Donate just $1 and you wipe out $100 of someone's medical debt, $100 to get rid of $10,000 in debt, and so on—the ripple effect is real. Through their work, RIP Medical Help not only helps with financial relief but also brings attention to the need for a more compassionate, transparent, equitable, and affordable healthcare system.

The Solutions Project

Using grants and donations, The Solutions Project empowers grassroots leaders to build solutions, funding, and influence for the communities most affected by the climate crisis. They also provide media training and networking and leverage influencer and media relationships for their grantees. Due to the lack of representation of communities directly impacted by climate change, they aim to invest 95% of their resources to front line leaders of color and at least 80% to organizations led by women and gender nonconforming people. If The Solutions Project sounds familiar to you, it might be because Mark Ruffalo is one of the founders and he and Don Cheadle are among the board of directors!

World Central Kitchen

Started by Chef José Andrés, WCK makes sure that people are fed in the wake of natural disasters. Their programs advance human and environmental health, offer access to professional culinary training, create jobs, and improve food security. WCK also teaches food safety and cooking classes to native people who live where disasters have occurred, so they may open restaurants and support the local economy more permanently. Their current focuses are partnering with restaurants, one of the hardest-hit industries, through the pandemic (here and here) and assisting those affected by Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Fiona, floods in Pakistan, and the war in Ukraine.

#marvel trumps hate #mth 2022 #charity spotlight

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies :: [@MatttDavies]

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 13, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Russian president Vladimir Putin met with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un today in Russia’s far east. His need to turn to North Korea’s isolated leader is a dramatic fall for Putin, who just four years ago was hobnobbing with then-president Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Now, thanks to his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin, too, is isolated, charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and under an arrest warrant. 

It is no wonder that shortly before he met with Kim, Putin said of Trump’s 2024 presidential run: “We surely hear that Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.” Trump has said he will end the war in a day if he’s reelected, and has called for withholding funds to Ukraine until the Department of Justice and the FBI investigate President Joe Biden. 

At the meeting, Putin and Kim vowed to strengthen the ties between the two countries, and Kim expressed total support for Putin as Russia’s isolation grows, calling their stance a “fight against imperialism” and saying at a state dinner that he is “certain that the Russian people and its military will emerge victorious in the fight to punish the evil forces that ambitiously pursues hegemony and expansion.” 

And yet it is Russia that is attacking other nations, including the U.S.: on September 7 the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 11 Russian men for their participation in cyberattacks against governments, businesses, and major hospital chains around the world. The U.S. Treasury Department and the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency say the hackers are associated with Russian intelligence services.

Russia is looking for artillery munitions from North Korea to continue its war against Ukraine; North Korea wants ballistic missile technology from Russia to develop its space and satellite program. Kim cannot get that technology elsewhere because of sanctions intended to keep him from developing nuclear weapons. Sergey Radchenko, a senior professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who studies Russian and Chinese national security, concluded that we might be seeing an alliance between North Korea and Russia that, among other things, is likely to increase North Korea’s assertiveness.

That Putin feels the need to cozy up to Kim indicates the war is not going as he would like. Indeed, last night Ukraine hit the main base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea, destroying two vessels and the port infrastructure. The Ukrainian military claimed responsibility for the strike, underlining its growing strength in Russian-occupied areas.. 

In a major speech today at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained the place at which the United States finds itself in both foreign and domestic affairs. He told the audience that the end of the Cold War, a period of competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies, ushered in “the promise of an inexorable march toward greater peace and stability, international cooperation, economic interdependence, political liberalization, human rights.” That postwar period did, indeed, lift more than a billion people from poverty, eliminate deadly diseases, and usher in a period of historically low conflicts between nations, despite challenges such as the 2008 global financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and regional conflicts like those in Rwanda and Iraq.

“But,” Blinken said, “what we’re experiencing now is more than a test of the post–Cold War order. It’s the end of it.”

The relative geopolitical stability of the post–World War II years has given way to the rise of authoritarian powers, he said. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is the most immediate threat to “the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence for nations, and universal indivisible human rights for individuals.” But the People’s Republic of China “poses the most significant long-term challenge,” he said, “because it not only aspires to reshape the international order, it increasingly has the economic, the diplomatic, the military, the technological power to do just that.”

As partners, “Beijing and Moscow are working together to make the world safe for autocracy,” Blinken warned.

As the competition between the two systems ramps up, many countries are hedging their bets, while the influence of nonstate actors—international corporations, public service nongovernmental organizations, international terrorists, transnational criminal organizations—is growing. At the same time, the sheer scale of global problems like climate change and mass migration is making cooperation across borders more difficult.

The international economic order of the past several decades is flawed in ways that have caused people to lose faith in it, Blinken explained. Technology and globalization have hollowed out entire industries and weakened workers, while laws protected property. Inequality grew dramatically between 1980 and 2020, with the richest 0.1% accumulating the same wealth as the poorest 50%. “The longer these disparities persist,” Blinken pointed out, “the more distrust and disillusionment they fuel in people who feel the system is not giving them a fair shake. And the more they exacerbate other drivers of political polarization, amplified by algorithms that reinforce our biases rather than allowing the best ideas to rise to the top.”

Democracies are under threat, Blinken said. “Challenged from the inside by elected leaders who exploit resentments and stoke fears; erode independent judiciaries and the media; enrich cronies; crack down on civil society and political opposition. And challenged from the outside, by autocrats who spread disinformation, who weaponize corruption, who meddle in elections.” 

The post–Cold War order is over, Blinken said. “One era is ending, a new one is beginning, and the decisions that we make now will shape the future for decades to come.” 

The U.S. is in a position of strength from which it seeks to reinforce a rules-based international order in which “goods, ideas, and individuals can flow freely and lawfully across land, sea, sky, and cyberspace, where technology is used to empower people—not to divide, surveil, and repress them,” where the global economy is defined by fair competition and widespread prosperity, and where “international law and the core principles of the UN Charter are upheld, and where universal human rights are respected.” Such a world would serve humanity’s interests, as well as our own, Blinken said; its principles are universal.  

“[O]ur competitors have a fundamentally different vision,” he said. “They see a world defined by a single imperative: regime preservation and enrichment. A world where authoritarians are free to control, coerce, and crush their people, their neighbors, and anyone else standing in the way of this all-consuming goal.”

They claim that the norms and values that anchor the rules-based international order are imposed by Western nations, that human rights are up to nations themselves, and that big countries should be allowed to dictate to their smaller neighbors. 

“The contrast between these two visions could not be clearer. And the stakes of the competition we face could not be higher—for the world, and for the American people.”

Blinken explained that the Biden administration has deliberately integrated domestic and foreign policy, crafting industrial strategy to rebuild the U.S. and to address the wealth disparities that create deep political resentment, while aligning that domestic strength to foreign policy. That foreign policy has depended on strengthening alliances and partnerships, building regional integration so that regions address their own interests as communities, closing the infrastructure gap between nations, and strengthening international institutions—rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization, working to expand the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and so on.

Blinken said that such investments will lead nations to stand up to “the Beijings and Moscows of the world” when they claim this system serves the West and try to tear it down, and answer back: “No, the system you are trying to change is our system; it serves our interests.” At the same time, such investments will offer new markets for American workers and businesses, more affordable goods for American consumers, more reliable food and energy supplies, more robust health systems to stop deadly disease, more allies to address global challenges. 

Looking back from the future, Blinken said, “the right decisions tend to look obvious, the end results almost inevitable. They never are. In real time, it’s a fog.”

“We must put our hand on the rudder of history and chart a path forward, guided by the things that are certain even in uncertain times—our principles, our partners, our vision for where we want to go,” Blinken said, “so that, when the fog lifts, the world that emerges tilts toward freedom, toward peace, toward an international community capable of rising to the challenges of its time.” 

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Russia #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #war in Ukraine #world politics #Blinken #foreign policy #Matt Davies #Vision for America

[theculturedmarxist]

Postacute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), often referred to as Long COVID, has had a substantial and growing impact on the global population. Recent prevalence studies from the United States and the United Kingdom found that the complication has affected, on average, around 45 percent of survivors, regardless of hospitalization status. 

No accurate tally of the number of people affected and its real global impact has yet been made, but conservative estimates of several hundred million and trillions in economic devastation would hardly be an exaggeration. Even in China, after the lifting of the Zero COVID policy late last fall and the tsunami of infections that followed, social media threads are now widespread with people complaining of chronic debilitating fatigue, heart palpitations and brain fog.

Yet, more than three years into the “forever” COVID pandemic, with Long COVID producing more than 200 symptoms, impacting nearly every organ system and causing such vast health problems for a significant population across the globe, it remains undefined and somewhat arbitrary in the clinical diagnosis. Additionally, the assurances given to study potential therapeutic agents have remained unfulfilled.

In this regard, a new Long COVID observational study called the “RECOVER [researching COVID to enhance recovery] initiative,” was published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, with almost 10,000 participants across the US. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it attempts to provide a working definition for Long COVID (PASC). 

While the study represents an advance from the standpoint of assessing the impact of Long COVID, and has been celebrated in media coverage, it must be viewed with several reservations and caveats. It is exclusively focused on describing the disease, rather than supporting efforts to alleviate its impact, let alone find a cure. And its definition, however preliminary, could well be misused by insurance companies and other profit-driven entities in the healthcare system to restrict diagnosis and care.

Comments by Dr. Leora Horwitz, one of the study authors and director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at New York University, give some sense of the misgivings felt by serious scientists. Horwitz stated, “This study is an important step toward defining Long COVID beyond any one individual symptom. This definition—which may evolve over time—will serve as a critical foundation for scientific discovery and treatment design.” 

Certainly, a working definition that medical communities can agree on is critical. But after three years and nearly all the $1.2 billion given to the NIH already spent, one must ask how much another observational study contributes to answering pressing questions affecting patients that have not already been addressed in more than 13,000 previous reports, as tallied by the LitCOVID search engine? 

Why have there been so many delays in conducting clinical trials studying potential treatments and preventative strategies in the acute phase of infection that could reduce or eliminate the post-acute sequelae? Where is the urgency at the NIH and in the Biden administration to expand funding and initiate an all-out drive to develop treatments for Long COVID like the $12.4 billion spent on the COVID vaccines? 

Scoring post-acute symptoms

The findings in the recent study, published on May 25, 2023, in JAMA, titled, “Development of a Definition of Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection,” are somewhat limited and problematic in their current formulation. The authors have identified 12 primary symptoms that distinguish COVID survivors with Long COVID from those without those aftereffects. These include loss of smell or taste (8 points), post-exertional malaise (7 points), chronic cough (4 points), brain fog (3 points), thirst, (3 points), heart palpitations (2 points), chest pain (2 points), fatigue (1 point), dizziness (1 point), gastrointestinal symptoms (1 point), issues with sexual desire or capacity (1 point), and abnormal movements (1 point).

Assigning points to each of the 12 symptoms and adding them up gives a cumulative total for each patient. Anyone scoring 12 or higher would be diagnosed as afflicted with PASC, accounting for 23 percent of the total. In general, the higher the score, the greater the disability in performing daily activities. 

The researchers also noted that certain symptom combinations occurred at higher rates in certain groups, leading to identifying four clusters of Long COVID based on symptomology patterns, ranging from least severe to most severe in terms of impact on quality of life. Why such clusters were seen remains uncertain.

Some symptoms were more common than others, and this did not correspond to the severity of the symptoms as measured approximately by the points. Symptoms of post-exertional malaise (87 percent), brain fog (64 percent), palpitations (57 percent), fatigue (85 percent), dizziness (62 percent), and gastrointestinal disturbances (59 percent) were most common.

The study’s lead author, Tanayott Thaweethai from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, explained, “This offers a unifying framework for thinking about Long COVID, and it gives us a quantitative score we can use to understand whether people get better or worse over time.”

Andrea Foulkes, the corresponding author and principal investigator of the RECOVER Data Resource Core and professor at Harvard Medical School, said, “Now that we’re able to identify people with Long COVID, we can begin doing more in-depth studies to understand the mechanisms at play. These findings set the stage for identifying effective treatment strategies for people with Long COVID—understanding the biological underpinnings is going to be critical to that endeavor.”

The currently evolving definition could have significant implications, and not just medically. For instance, if people suffer only brain fog and post-exertional malaise and score less than 12 on their symptomology, they would not be construed as having PASC. Under such a construct, the definition could be used by employers and health insurers to deny compensation or treatment by telling people they don’t have a recognized Long COVID complication. Additionally, it is not clear how long these symptoms have to be present before the diagnosis is accepted.

Lisa McCorkell, one of the authors of the study, explained on her social media account, “If people didn’t meet the scoring threshold for PASC+, that doesn’t mean they don’t have PASC! It means they are unspecified. Unspecified includes people with Long COVID. Future iterations of the model will aim to refine this—that will include doing analysis using the updated RECOVER symptoms survey, adding in tests/clinical features and ultimately biomarkers. That is also why this isn’t meant to be an official prevalence study. The sample is not fully representative, but also, we know that there are people in the unspecified groups that have PASC.”

She continued, “It is very clear throughout the paper that in order for this to be actionable at all, iterative refinement is needed. In presenting this to NIH leadership, they are fully aware of that. But the press is not fully understanding the paper which could have dangerous downstream effects. Since the beginning of working on this paper I’ve done everything I could to ensure the model presented in this paper is not used clinically.” 

Unfortunately, in the world of capitalism, such things take on a life of their own. The definitions will influence how health systems will choose to view these patients and demand their clinicians abide by prescribed diagnostic codes. This has the potential to dismiss millions with Long COVID symptoms and deny them access to potential treatments if and when they materialize. 

The concerns of Elisa Perego

Dr. Elisa Perego, who suffers from Long COVID and coined the term, offered the following important observations. 

In response to the publication, she wrote, “Presenting a salad of 12 symptoms, (many of which many patients might not even experience) as the most significant in #LongCOVID is also detrimental to new patients, who might be joining the community now, and might not recognize themselves in the symptom list.”

She added, “We are also in 2023. There are thousands and thousands of publications from across the world that discuss imaging, tests, clinical signs (=objective measurements), biomarkers, etc. related to acute and #LongCOVID. We have many insights into the pathophysiology already. The #LongCOVID and chronic illness community deserve more. Other diseases, including diseases linked to infections, have sadly been reduced to a checklist of symptoms in the past. This has made research, recognition, and a quest for treatment much more difficult.”

There are additional findings in the report worth underscoring as they provide a glimpse into the ever-growing crisis caused by forcing the world’s population to “live with the virus.”

Hannah Davis, a Long COVID advocate and researcher, with Dr. Eric Topol, Lisa McCorkell, and Julia Moore Vogel, wrote an important review on Long COVID in March, which was published in Nature. She said of the RECOVER study, “The overall prevalence of #LongCOVID is ten percent at six months. The prevalence for those who got Omicron (or later) AND were vaccinated is also ten percent … [However] reinfections had significantly higher levels of #LongCOVID. Even in those who had Omicron (or later) as their first infection, 9.7 percent with those infected once, but 20 percent of those who were reinfected had Long COVID at six months after infection.”

Furthermore, she said, “Reinfections also increased the severity of #LongCOVID. Twenty-seven percent of first infections were in cluster four (worst) versus 31 percent of reinfections.” These facts have considerable implications. 

Immunologist and COVID advocate Dr. Anthony Leonardi wrote on these findings, “If Omicron reinfections average six months [based on current global patterns of infection], and Long COVID rates for reinfection remain 10 to 20 percent, the rate of long COVID in the USA per lifetime will be over 99.9 percent. In fact, the average person would have different manifestations of Long COVID at different times many times over. Some things reverse—like anosmia [loss of smell]. Others, like [lung] fibrosis don’t reverse so well.”

The work done by these authors deserves credit and support. Every effort to bring answers to these critical questions is vital. The criticism to be made is not directed at the researchers who work diligently putting in overtime to see the research is conducted with the utmost care and obligation it merits. Rather, it should be directed at the very institutions that have adopted “living with the virus” as a positive good for of public health.

The Biden administration neglects Long COVID

In a recent scathing critique of the Biden administration and the NIH by STAT News, Rachel Cohrs and Betsy Ladyzhets place the issue front and center. In their opening remarks, they write, “The federal government has burned through more than $1 billion to study Long COVID, an effort to help the millions of Americans who experience brain fog, fatigue, and other symptoms after recovering from a coronavirus infection. There’s basically nothing to show for it.”

They continue, “The NIH hasn’t signed up a single patient to test any potential treatments—despite a clear mandate from Congress to study them. And the few trials it is planning have already drawn a firestorm of criticism, especially one intervention that experts and advocates say may actually make some patients’ Long COVID symptoms worse.” This is in reference to a planned study where Long COVID patients would be asked to exercise as much as possible, when it has clearly been shown that such activities have exacerbated the symptoms of Long COVID patients. 

As the report in STAT News explains, there has been a complete lack of accountability in how the NIH funds were used. Much of the work to run the RECOVER trial has been outsourced to major universities. 

Michael Sieverts, a member of the Long COVID Patient-led Research Collaborative with expertise in federal budgeting for scientific research, told STAT, “Many of the research projects associated with RECOVER have been funded through these organizations rather than directly from the NIH. This process makes it hard to track how decisions are made or how money is spent through public databases.” 

In April the Biden administration announced they were launching “Project Next Gen,” which is like the Trump-era COVID vaccine “Warp Speed Operation.” It has promised $5 billion to fund the development of the next iteration of vaccines through partnership with private-sector companies, monies freed up from prior coronavirus aid packages. Incredibly, it has left Long COVID out of the plan.  

Indeed, this diverting of money back into the hands of the pharmaceuticals and selling it as the Biden administration’s continued proactive response to the ongoing pandemic, while divesting all interest in preventing or curing Long COVID, is on par with every effort the administration has made to peddle the myth that “the pandemic is really over.” Long COVID is one of the central elements of the worst public health threat in a century, in a pandemic that is far from ended. 

#long covid #recover study #covid pandemic #project next gen #biden administration

[paracosmhq]

Recovery and Moving Forward

Hello everyone!! First of all, a warmest thank-you to all the wonderful people who shared messages of support with me during my health leave this year. They made for some bright moments in an otherwise very difficult time. ❤️

It turns out that my hands’ recovery was significantly slowed by post-COVID complications, which I’m sure many folks can relate to these days. I’m relieved to say that I'm healing, slowly but surely! I’ve started to be able to make some art and do a little programming again and it feels great.

As I mentioned in my last post, I knew that a break would give me time to reflect. One thing I was well aware of before my injury is that progress on a huge project like Lumen moves too slowly with a one-person team. My strategy to get around this was to power through developing a few more big Lumen updates on my own (HD, Audio-Reactivity, and a Windows version), hoping that these features would increase Lumen sales enough that I could hire collaborators and grow the team from there.

Looking back on the previous couple years has made it crystal clear to me that this strategy is not working out. A different approach is necessary in order to grow the business sustainably - and honestly, to live my life sustainably in good physical and mental health. I don’t think I realized how burnt out I had become until circumstances forced me to stop. So now that I’m recovering, it’s time to try something different.

My new strategy will be to focus on smaller and more manageable projects in order to grow a larger and more capable company. Unfortunately, this means a pause on Lumen feature development for the time being. I will continue supporting Lumen as it exists today, working on bug fixes, documentation, and keeping it compatible with the latest Macs and macOS versions.

To all those who have been waiting so patiently for these big features: I’m truly sorry that the original strategy didn’t work out. I know it’s super frustrating. But the reality is that I need to build a business that can sustain a project of Lumen’s size and then work on those big features, not the other way around. So this isn’t the end for Lumen, it’s just a different path forward.

With limited energy and resources, I'm going to streamline and focus on sustainability first. To that end, I’ll be retiring the Lumen Nation Facebook and Paracosm Slack groups. There are many other excellent places online to discuss video synthesis (check out scanlines or the LZX Community!), and I hope you’ll connect with fellow Lumen users there. And while I’ll no longer be posting regular Lumen Development Updates on this blog, you can keep up with me/Paracosm via Twitter, Instagram, the mailing list, or as always, drop me a line anytime at support (at) paracosm.us ❤️

Wishing you happiness and good health,

-Jason

[sataniccapitalist]

[lyndztanica]

In Lieu of Twitter Going Dark Pt. 4

I wasn’t intending on doing this again on Tumblr, but given what could happen with Twitter, and people’s interests, I figured I would do a big charity thread for as much as I can fit in a post. I may have to split them into multiples, at which point I will edit this one to provide links to the others.

If you find this type of information important and want to learn about new charities (or submit others) I have a discord server that I will also link to in this to join. As always, the goal of this is to showcase places to donate your money or other resources to. Again, they might need more than money! Maybe they need a social media manager. Maybe they need someone else to offer rides or information. If you find yourself in a position to do something but you’re broke don’t let the money stop you.

Mutual Aid

Austin Area Urban League :: https://aaul.org/ - [Austin-centric] Local affiliate of the National Urban League, they provide a variety of services to underserved communities in Austin and the Central Texas Region. These include Education, Youth Development, Workforce and Career Development, Healthcare, Housing, and Justice and Advocacy.

Corpus Christi Democratic Socialists of America Mutual Aid :: http://www.corpuschristidsa.org/mutual-aid.html - [Corpus Christi-centric] One of the working groups of the DSA, they cover expenses of people in need with the funds which covers everything from groceries to rent to medical expenses. 

DFW Mutual Aid :: https://www.facebook.com/DFWMutualAid/ - [Dallas/Forth Worth-centric] Mutual aid collective that provides financial support and online resources. 

Houston Houseless Organizing Coalition :: https://linktr.ee/htx.hoc - [Houston-centric] Mutual aid group that provides meals, clothing, hygiene products, and financial support to help people stay housed or get housing.

STRIVE :: https://strive.org/ - [US-centric] Black-led organization that helps unemployed Black members of their community find job training and new, better employment to escape poverty. 

For Our Farmers :: https://forourfarmers.com/ - [Philippines-centric] organization formed in response to Covid-19 to help rural farmers and their families to have enough to eat and have other important needs met. 

Emergency Workplace Organization :: https://workerorganizing.org/ - [US-centric] organization that gives workers the knowledge and resources to organize and advocate for a safe working environment for them and their coworkers. 

Asian Pacific Labor Alliance :: https://www.apalanet.org/ - [US-centric] Labor organization formed by and for Asian and Pacific Islander workers in the United States. 

Freedom Community Clinic :: https://www.freedomcommunityclinic.org/ - [Oakland, CA-centric] clinic that operates out of Oakland, CA to serve communities typically left underserved or mistreated by the medical industry. 

National Alliance on Mental Illness :: https://www.nami.org/home - [US-centric] non-profit organization that provides education, support groups, a help line, and advocates for people with mental illness and their caregivers (should they have caregivers). 

Water Mission :: https://watermission.org/ - International group that works to provide accessible clean water for drinking and sanitation to communities in need due to inequality or disaster. 

International Relief Teams :: https://www.irteams.org/ - International group that strives to restore infrastructure and provide supplies to communities in need. 

RIP Medical Debt :: https://ripmedicaldebt.org/ - [US-centric] Founded by two debt collectors, RIP Medical Debt is the organization used by John Oliver to buy up $15 million dollars of medical debt and clear it. 

Humanity First :: https://usa.humanityfirst.org/ - International organization dedicated to alleviating human suffering where and how a community needs it most. This leads to a variety of efforts -- digging water wells, aid in the wake of natural disasters, etc. 

World Food Program USA :: https://www.wfpusa.org/ - International organization dedicated to alleviating hunger in times of crisis and working to solve world hunger in the long run. 

Take This :: https://www.takethis.org/ - [US-centric] organization that provides resources and help for members of the game industry, which is infamous for its slew of mental health problems. 

Islamic Relief Pakistan :: https://islamic-relief.org.pk/ - [Pakistan-centric] organization dedicated to aiding citizens of Pakistan in the wake of any disaster that strikes the country. 

Post One. Post Two. Post Three.

#text post #charity #mutual aid #signal boost

[mariacallous]

Reports about the crisis facing public school teachers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, though a parallel crisis among the ranks of school leadership has also been quietly unfolding. While staffing has always been an uphill battle in high-need settings, challenges have been exacerbated in recent years. According to a report from the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), the principal workforce is potentially facing a retention crisis, with large spikes in reported extra work and intentions to leave the workforce raising red flags about the sustainability of the status quo. And with the teacher labor market simultaneously under historic stress, unstable leadership could compound the problem by making retention worse.

Beyond turnover, the principal workforce’s lack of racial diversity has become a prominent issue. Similar to patterns among teachers, diversity gaps between students and principals have been growing. In 2000, 39% of students identified as non-white while 18% of principals identified as non-white; by 2017, these numbers among students surged to 52%, but only grew to 22% among principals, widening the gap by nine percentage points. Though current circumstances are challenging, a period of high turnover among school leaders also presents a unique window of opportunity to move the needle on principal diversity.

In recent years, “Grow Your Own” (GYO) teacher programs have become a popular option for improving retention and diversity in the teacher workforce, with a growing body of research and policies encouraging the adoption of these programs by districts. Yet, this type of preparation pipeline as a means of bolstering school administrator ranks remains underexplored and underutilized. In this post, we look at principal diversity gaps on a geographic level, consider GYO pipeline programs, and speculate about how GYO programs and policies could support the development of a more stable, diverse principal workforce.

The geography of principal diversity

Developing principal pipelines that create a systemic pathway for more diverse leadership could benefit schools and districts. For students of color, research suggests having a same-race administrator results in higher test scores, improved attendance, and a higher likelihood of gifted program placement. Principals of color also contribute to a more diverse teacher workforce via more inclusive teacher hiring practices, lower teacher turnover for same-race teachers, and higher job satisfaction for teachers with a same-race principal. Plus, teachers of color are more likely to be encouraged into administrative positions with a same-race supervisor, creating a virtuous loop. This suggests that principal pipelines that prioritize principal diversity could simultaneously address teacher diversity and help narrow various race-based achievement gaps for students.

Recognizing the localized nature of educator diversity, we explored how principal and student representation differs by state using data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Figure 1 illustrates estimates of state-level principal-to-student diversity gaps as measured by the percentage point difference between non-white student representation and non-white principal representation (larger values represent greater differences in disparity).

Most states have large gaps, hovering within the 20-30 percentage-point range. A few states’ gaps are exceptionally large, including Nevada at 48 percentage points (68% nonwhite students – 20% nonwhite principals), California at 43 percentage points (77% – 34%), and Washington at 40 percentage points (46% – 6%). These gaps roughly mirror prior Brookings research examining teacher-student diversity gaps, and confirms a clear representation issue within the principal workforce in nearly all states.

Since the principal pipeline relies heavily on the teacher workforce, it’s also useful to compare racial representation between principals and teachers. Figure 2 illustrates principal-to-teacher diversity gaps in the U.S. by state as measured by the percentage-point difference between the share of non-white teachers and non-white principals. A positive (negative) diversity gap, represented in shades of orange (blue), means that principals are less (more) racially representative than teachers.

Overall, the teacher and principal workforces of each state are relatively similar in racial composition, with 34 states falling within just five percentage points of parity between teachers and principals. But the real insight here is that 14 states have a substantially more diverse principal workforce than teacher workforce, where principals are five or more percentage points more racially diverse than teachers. Though this analysis cannot identify what these states might be doing differently to create this result, it shows more representative school leadership ranks are possible and points to places we can start looking for ideas.

Grow Your Own Principal Pipeline Programs

GYO programs are increasingly popular strategies to build out more diverse teacher pipelines. However, GYOs focused on developing school leadership are less common. Outlining teacher GYO programs can provide helpful context for understanding principal GYO programs.

Teacher GYO programs are partnerships between a school system (often districts) and teacher preparation programs (typically colleges or universities) that create a coordinated pathway to recruit, prepare, and then place teachers in schools within their communities. Some programs have specific preparation targets, such as special education teacher capacity for rural schools and indigenous language preservation. As of 2020, 47 states had some type of teacher GYO program and over half of states had a statewide policy to enable GYO pathways. The empirical literature evaluating these programs is quite slim, though the studies that do exist indicate positive outcomes, from high teacher retention rates for GYO teacher graduates to increasing the supply of teachers of color.

Principal GYO programs are similar in structure to teacher GYO programs. Principal GYO programs are partnerships between school systems and universities that create a pathway for individuals to enter school leadership. The motivation behind principal GYO programs is that, like teacher GYO programs, these pipelines will result in a supply of homegrown school leaders with increased diversity and targeted preparation.

GYO principal programs, however, are far less prevalent than their teacher-focused counterparts. Multiple localities, including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Kansas City, Missouri, partnered with TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) as a part of their Pathway to Leadership in Urban Schools (PLUS) program. The findings of an evaluation of one district that implemented this PLUS program suggested that leaders who participated in the program may have contributed to improvements in student learning and to more selective teacher retention, with lower retention among lower-performing teachers.

Another principal pipeline approach by Dallas Independent School District (ISD) explicitly prioritizes diversity. Dallas ISD launched its Leader Excellence, Advancement and Development (LEAD) Department which has since created multiple programs as a part of its focus to attract diverse, high-quality principal candidates. While the Dallas ISD programs haven’t been evaluated directly, they align with what research suggests an effective principal preparation pipeline program would entail, including mentoring and working with external university programs to strengthen preparation in a way that meets the unique needs of their districts. Additionally, there are many other districts that have made it a goal to increase the proportion of administrators of color, even if they don’t yet have a formalized GYO program.

Developing GYO principal pipelines should help promote improved stability among principals. Prior research points to a link between principal effectiveness and lower principal turnover. Evidence suggests that school leaders who partake in the mentoring and coaching with current principals that GYO leader pipelines often provide report feeling more prepared for the responsibilities of school leadership. Further, recognizing the potential impact school leaders can have on outcomes from student attendance to teacher retention, efforts to develop these pipelines could have a multiplying effect on many important outcomes.

Conclusion

Though the current moment requires quick action to bolster school leadership ranks, we cannot overlook long-term strategies. Building out principal pipelines with an eye toward principal diversity in districts around the nation will be a key strategy in creating a sustainable pool of school leaders and strengthening school leadership.

Implementation of GYO principal pipeline programs could be pursued by local, state, and federal policymakers. Locally, school districts and superintendents could deepen partnerships with universities and organizations to develop GYO principal pipeline programs within their respective school districts, which could range in design to meet district-specific needs. At the state level, policymakers could support statewide GYO principal policies and funding programs, as they have done for teacher GYO programs and diversity efforts. At the federal level, policymakers could draft legislation for GYO principal pipeline competitive grant funding to support districts in their efforts to build partnerships and pipelines. Similar federal legislation addressing teachers includes House Bill 5839, Senate Bill 2367, and Senate Bill 2887. This type of federal funding could support evaluation so that the body of research and evidence regarding principal GYO programs and their impact on principal effectiveness and diversity can grow.

[usafphantom2]

China will deploy J-10C and JH-7A jets in war games with Thailand

Thailand will fly with Gripen fighters in the exercise

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/13/2022 - 11:21 AM in Military

The Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will deploy a variety of aircraft, including J-10C and JH-7A fighter jets, in the joint "Falcon Strike 2022" exercises with Thai military personnel from August 14.

The Ministry of National Defense of China (MND) announced the holding of these exercises on Friday, amid the regional chaos caused by external interference in the Asia-Pacific region.

To be held by Ward 23 of the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF), based in Udon Thani, Thailand, the 10-day exercise reflects the deepening of military exchanges and mutual trust between the PLA and the RTAF, Chinese experts told the Global Times.

This edition of "Falcon Strike" will be the first to present PLA's JH-7A fighter-bomber in an exercise in Thailand.

According to the MND, the main issues of this year's exercise include air support, ground assault and force operation. The Chinese Air Force will send fighters, destroyers and early warning aircraft.

Citing a source, the Bangkok Post, based in Thailand, previously disclosed that the PLA must send six J-10C/S fighters, a JH-7AI fighter-bomber and a Shaanxi KJ-500 control and early warning aircraft to participate in the exercise. While Thailand is expected to deploy five Gripen aircraft, three Alphajet attack aircraft and one SAAB 340 AEW alert and control aircraft.

The exercise is the fifth of its kind since 2015, and the last exercise was held in 2019, also in Udon Thani, the media reported. The annual hunting exercise has been suspended in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The joint exercise aims to increase mutual trust and friendship between the air forces of the two countries, deepening practical cooperation and promoting the continuous development of the China-Thailand comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership, the MND said.

Chinese military expert Song Zhongping told the Global Times on Friday that the next exercise is one of the few large-scale joint exercises in the history of the two countries, with complex training subjects and complete military equipment.

The JH-7A fighter-bomber has a combat radius of about 1,500 km and is mainly for conducting long-range air-to-ground attacks with self-defense combat capability, Fu said. The participation of the Shaanxi KJ-500 would allow RTAF to see closely the role of China's early warning and control aircraft and their ability to find long-distance air targets.

Song said that, in the past, there have been more confrontation exercises between China and Thailand involving mainly the Air Force, rather than integrated air-to-ground exercises.

As Thailand mainly buys weapons and equipment from the West and adopts Western training methods, the exercises would help China have a deeper understanding of the performance of Western weapons equipment and tactics, Song said. "It is also a process of mutual learning. The RTAF can experience the changes of the PLA Air Force in recent years closely, and also make new ideas and choices for its future military development needs."

However, experts have stressed that the annual exercise should be viewed normally, because its main objective, counterterrorism, should not be ignored, especially when terrorism is still growing around the world, which is why it strengthens military cooperation between China and Thailand.

RTAF did not buy fighters from China, but as far as I know, they were very impressed with China's J-10C/S fighters during the last joint exercise in 2019, noted Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation specialist.

Tags: Military AviationPLAAF - China Air ForceRTAF - Royal Thai Air Force/Royal Thai Air ForceXi'an JH-7

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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