Welcome to an all day open thread hosted by “Foreign Policy and International Events Group”. Drop by to share links and stories or for commentary. (or just play peekaboo and say look what I found). Who are we and what we are trying do → Launching A Dailykos Discussions and Republishing Group For International or Foreign Policy Stuff
Let’s begin with an event that is very special to me. On Friday, April 30, International Jazz Day is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Here is a press release from UNESCO which is sponsoring the event along with the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz.
As the great Nina Simone said, "Jazz is not just music, it is a way of life, it is a way of being, a way of thinking". The story of Jazz is written into the quest for human dignity, democracy and civil rights. It has given strength to the struggle against discrimination and racism. UNESCO believes in the power of Jazz as a force for peace, dialogue and mutual understanding and this is why in November 2011, the UNESCO General Conference proclaimed 30 April as “International Jazz Day.”
This Day is intended to raise awareness of the virtues of jazz as an educational tool, and a force for empathy, dialogue and enhanced cooperation among people. Many governments, civil society organizations, educational institutions, and private citizens currently engaged in the promotion of jazz music will embrace the opportunity to foster greater appreciation not only for the music but also for the contribution it can make to building more inclusive societies.
- Jazz breaks down barriers and creates opportunities for mutual understanding and tolerance;
- Jazz is a vector of freedom of expression;
- Jazz reduces tensions between individuals, groups, and communities;
- Jazz encourages artistic innovation, improvisation, new forms of expression, and inclusion of traditional music forms into new ones;
- Jazz stimulates intercultural dialogue and empowers young people from marginalized societies.
. International Jazz Day 2021 will feature performances, educational workshops, community service projects and virtual gatherings in all 50 U.S. states and more than 190 countries.
The day will be capped by a virtual All-Star Global Concert from New York, Los Angeles, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Cape Town, Moscow, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and other cities around the world. Oscar-winner Michael Douglas will serve as host and Herbie Hancock as Artistic Director.
The concert starting at 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT) will be presented as a live webcast via YouTube, Facebook, jazzday.com, UN Web TV, UNESCO and U.S. State Department outlets.
At 9 p.m. EDT, PBS stations will broadcast the “International Jazz Day 10th Anniversary Celebration with highlights from past IJD gala concerts at the United Nations, White House, Istanbul, Osaka, Paris, Havana and other cities.
“Our International Jazz Day community has displayed incredible resilience, creativity, ingenuity and compassion throughout the immense challenges of the past year,” Hancock said in a news release. “While the global pandemic continues to make life difficult for so many around the world, the example of organizers from Nepal to Mexico to Cameroon inspires us to greet this historic 10th Anniversary milestone with joy, courage and hope for the future of jazz.”
For more information: www.jazzday.com or www.unesco.org/jazzday
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
And now some news reports from around the world.
The Reuters news agency is reporting on a European Union study that has found Russian and Chinese media are spreading disinformation about Western COVID-19 vaccines.
Russia, China sow disinformation to undermine trust in Western vaccines: EU
Russian and Chinese media are systematically seeking to sow mistrust in Western COVID-19 vaccines in their latest disinformation campaigns aimed at dividing the West, a European report said on Wednesday.
From December to April, the two countries' state media outlets pushed fake news online in multiple languages sensationalising vaccine safety concerns, making unfounded links between jabs and deaths in Europe and promoting Russian and Chinese vaccines as superior, the EU study said.
The Kremlin and Beijing deny all disinformation allegations by the EU, which produces regular reports and seeks to work with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft to limit the spread of fake news.
Russian and Chinese vaccine diplomacy "follows a zero-sum game logic and is combined with disinformation and manipulation efforts to undermine trust in Western-made vaccines," said the EU study released by the bloc's disinformation unit, part of its EEAS foreign policy arm.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MercoPress, the South Atlantic News Agency, looks at the implementation of a tax on the very wealthy in Bolivia. The Biden administration is also considering a similar measure.
Wealth tax returns twice as much as expected in Bolivia
Bolivian President Luis Arce announced on Tuesday his country's tax bureau had collected twice as much as originally estimated through the “very rich tax.”
In his Twitter account, Arce explained that days before the deadline, collection exceeded 224.1 million bolivianos (more than 32 million dollars) from 203 millionaires, residents in Bolivia or abroad, with assets over 30 million bolivianos (almost 4.3 million dollars).
Arce underscored the new tax is part of the “dismantling of neoliberalism to resume the Productive Community Social-Economic Model to get out of the crisis,” as the income generated will contribute to the redistribution of resources.
This tax is similar to one already enacted in Argentina and which has also been encouraged by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a fortnight ago.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In an opinion piece in the independent Moscow Times, Konstantin Simonov says Russia’s future green policy will likely turn into a corrupt struggle for government funds at the environment's expense.
A Newer, Greener Putin?
President Vladimir Putin recently delivered two speeches with enough climate-related content to prompt Russia’s clean energy proponents to begin speaking of a “new, green Putin”.
The first was an address to the Federal Assembly that carried an important message on the climate and environment. The next day, Putin spoke at the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate in Washington.
In fact, this was not the first time Putin had joined the Western climate mainstream. After all, he was the one who authorized Russia’s participation in the Paris Agreement (even if it was done strangely — by decision of the prime minister without ratification by parliament).
Still, Putin’s rhetoric has changed since then.
To compare, consider Putin’s speech at the Valdai Club in the fall of 2019. The gist of it was this: Although the anthropogenic factor of global warming is very doubtful, we’ll play along because the West is serious about these climate issues. For us, it’s easy because all of our natural gas, hydro and atomic resources make the Russian energy sector very green.
The main idea was not to cause any harm to business or let it fall victim to carbon taxes and the like.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Guardian has an opinion column by Joel Popoola spotlighting the contrast between Nigeria’s old-fashioned democratic institutions in a country that has seen a recent explosion in the use of electronic payments.
The woman selling garri down your street takes payment by phone – so why is Nigerian democracy still so old-fashioned?
An unprecedented number of Nigerians are making the change to paying for everyday goods and services using electronic devices – using their mobile phones in particular.
According to figures from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, nearly ₦59 trillion worth of payments were made electronically in the first quarter of 2021. This is a rise of 88% when compared to the first quarter of 2020!
It is almost a decade since the Central Bank of Nigeria launched a cashless policy aiming to modernise the way our nation pays for goods and services, with the aim of creating a more inclusive and efficient system, which is cheaper to use, more transparent and less open to corruption. ...
As financial technology expert Sola Fanawopo has noticed, however, this move to electronic payments has been led by citizens – not by the government. …
In terms of technology, the people of Nigerian have entered the age of the car. But our government keeps acting like horses and carts are here to stay. …
Not only can we not go back to outdated systems, but our politicians also need to be as transparent and as accountable as these governmental bodies.
That is the goal of the digital democracy campaign I head. Our campaign is determined to improve accountability and transparency in Nigerian politics. And this is why we created the free Rate Your Leader app.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other General Open Threads That Run In Daily Kos. They are handy for connecting with Kossacks who are likely to be awake and online at the same time as you. So pop in and say hello.
If we’re missing an open thread, please leave a note in Comments and we’ll add it in.
Open threads are also handy place to ask questions about features and how to or anything else about Daily Kos.
📱PS. You will probably bump into at least half the editors from here in those places too.
Current schedule for daily thread hosting. If you have some links / articles to be featured in the next day’s daily then send a kosmail to the host
Rest is all free → (Maybe you might want to do one)
FP&IE Support tools and links
|
📚✒ 💻 ⌨ 📙📒 📱 🔊 💿🎧 🙏🏽💯 🤗😎😍🤷🏻♀️😱 💥 😳 🤗🌞 🌈❓ ✂️ ↪️ ↩️ 🥘 🚰 💡🍷☕️😊👍🌟💕🌺🦋🐝 ☮️🌷🐾🌏💫📌🦠
Meanwhile, anyone who would like to host an open thread as a one off (or even regular weekly/fortnightly/monthly) , please leave a note in the comments or get in touch with an admin or Torilahure via Kosmail. You do not have to be awake when the open thread goes live
|
This is an open thread. All Topics welcome. Share your links and thoughts.