Welcome to Litsy!

"Information is the raw material for society. It is information that turns us from individuals operating in isolation into communities... Authoritarians know this. That's why they spend so much time and energy trying to control the media and our ability to connect with each other. The more we know the less likely we are to tolerate tyranny."
- Editorial, Nanjala Nyabola, #NewInternationalist #552

The concluding article in #NewInternationalist #551 is investigative journalist Matt Kennard's look at the USA's interference in the politics of other countries to further its own agenda. Knowing of the CIA's meddling with the politics of its traditional enemies, I was shocked to read of its propaganda tactics to undermine left-wing UK politicians from at least the end of WWII, most recently JC.
Reading of the UK as a vassal state to the USA is ⬇️

An article in #NewInternationalist #551 on press freedom led me to the website of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontiers), where there is an index ranking each country. While it could certainly be worse, it's depressing to find the UK at 23/180 given our national pride in freedom of speech. Still, we're better than the USA at 55th, despite the vaunted First Amendment.
Another reason to emigrate to Scandinavia!
https://rsf.org/en/index

"If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly." ☠️

Sir Eric Newton Griffith-Jones, attorney-general of Kenya, 1955-61 in a memo to the British governor of Kenya regarding the suppression of information about and the "plausible deniability" of, the illegal treatment of "Mau Mau rebels", detained in concentration camps built by the UK colonial government within 10 years of the liberation of the WWII nazi death camps.
#NewInternationalist #551

"By December, half of the world's population will have had the opportunity to cast a vote this year."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

#551 of #NewInternationalist Magazine focuses on party politics, which doesn't sound riveting (to me, at least), but it's important as it's how most politics is organised, so I guess I'll have things to learn.

#NewInternaionalist #550 had abortion rights as its Big Issue, examining the global trend of liberalisation of laws & attitudes, against a right-wing patriarchal pushback, with the USA being one of 4 countries that have regressed. Which isn't to say that there aren't countries with more oppressive legislation.
I was interested to learn that abortion laws are relatively recent, being introduced about 1840 in USA to prevent enslaved people from ⬇️

NI #550 has a feature on the album "Pasya", recorded 2021 to raise awareness & funds for the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), a #Philippines based NGO seeking change in the country's ban on abortion unless it is to "save the woman's life", despite the fact that lack of abortion services leads to thousands more deaths of pregnant people.
The album is a mix of female Filipino artists "offering danceable hip-hop, stunning ⬇️

The arrival today of the latest #NewInternationalist magazine (#550, Abortion: Why is Your Body Still a Battleground?) reminded me that I have a year's backlog to read! 😳
I do enjoy NI, it's not a chore, but it can be heavy.
I missed one, and then they just accumulated. We're on holiday next week, so while I definitely won't read them all, I'll try to read a couple, at least. Probably start with the latest, then the oldest and work through. 📚

#LitsyLoveBingo Since most of my LitsyLove Friends are international, this one was easy
I have two written today ready to go. @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @TieDyeDude @Read4life @julieclair

The latest edition of #NewInternationalist magazine, #540, has global land rights as its Big Story.
One of the general articles is about the Ukrainian government's attacks on unions, which prior to and since the Russian invasion, have led to widespread strikes in protest of Zelensky's legislative attempts to undermine worker's rights. The British government's UK Aid Agency has supported the anti-union crackdown, which perhaps partly explains ⬇️

"At Ivangorod on Russia's border with Estonia, several years ago, I was unceremoniously booted off a train and frogmarched down the tracks."

I thought I'd add another #FirstLineFridays as my other one was a bit boring! This is from #NewInternationalist #539, "Whose Railway is it Anyway?" ????

@ShyBookOwl

The latest issue of #NewInternationalist, #539, focuses on railways, how they can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their potential to ease cross-border travel, and their role in anti-capitalism, all relevant as a wave of strikes, including rail workers, sweeps the UK as the cost of living crises deepens and our government is ripping itself apart. Other stories include a cartoon history of Thomas Paine, and Palestinian skateboard resistance.

"Big Oil has had decades to do the right thing - it can't, and it won't." - #NewInternationalist #537, "Beyond Big Oil"

"Scary Monsters and Super-Creeps
Keep me running,
Running scared" - David Bowie

When reading and listening align ??
#BooksandBowie

This issue's cover of #NewInternationalist Magazine #537 is striking: "Silhouetted against a gas flare, a woman sets tapioca out to dry, in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria. Warri is a port city and an oil hub."
The Big Story is How We Stop Big Oil.
Other features include The Perils of Child Sponsorship; Is Ethical Tax Avoidance Possible? (I'm guessing, no); Dispatch from Kyiv, and; Turkey's LGBTQI+ community.
Lots of articles for #ReadingAfrica2022

"When we find market solutions to problems caused by the market economy, these solutions merely create new market problems that will require new market solutions."
This article from NI #536 has introduced me to the term "buycott", if not the practice. The idea of buying ethically as a means of fostering a "more just" economy is appealing, but still sits in a capitalist system. What ya gonna do? Hopefully, some ideas by the end of the article.

The January '22 edition of #NewInternationalist focused on the discrimination against & oppression of Romani people, timely considering the current (or has the news cycle already moved on?) furore regarding Jimmy Carr's "joke" about the Porajmos, the Nazi genocide of Roma people during the Holocaust.
The March '22 edition focuses on the prison abolition movement & what justice might look like in a world without police & an incarceration state.

"This edition's Big Story inspects how workers the world over are being squeezed. There is no shortage of ideas that envisage a future where we reorganize society in such a way that work becomes at most a part-time adjunct in a world of shared plenty. We look at some of those. But in the short-term, the changes are age-old - struggles for greater autonomy, dignity and fairness".

"10 Steps to End World Hunger:
No. 3: There are now 2,700 billionaires in the world with a combined wealth of $13 trillion. The International Monetary Fund puts the annual financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (including No 2, Zero Hunger) at $300-$400 billion. So, just tax and distribute wealth fairly."
- #NewInternationalist Magazine #533