The unrest has put mounting pressure on Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbai Jeenbekov to resign. Under his watch, Kyrgyz troops and police backed by military vehicles such as armored personnel carriers gathered on the capital Bishkek’s main square.
Jeenbekov declared a state of emergency as he wants troops and other security forces to patrol Bishkek’s streets. A 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. curfew is in place until October 21.
The move is in response to violent protests that erupted following the October 4 parliamentary elections. Demonstrators and opposition parties claim the ballot was tainted by vote-buying and fraud to benefit parties loyal to the president.
Official results showed that only four out of 16 parties passed the 7 percent threshold to enter Parliament. Three of the parties who received seats have close ties to President Jeenbekov.
However, he told the nation in a televised address: “Some political forces attempted to overthrow the government illegally. They used the elections, as an excuse and severely violated public order. They did not leave the people in peace.”
But his measures did little to end publicly expressed outrage over the elections outcome and other unrest. Under pressure from protesters, the Central Election Commission has overturned the parliamentary vote results. Protest leaders have moved quickly to form a new government.
An emergency parliament session on Tuesday nominated lawmaker Sadyr Zhaparov as the new prime minister. But that move was immediately contested by other protest groups.
The demonstrators also freed former President Almazbek Atambayev. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in June on charges of corruption and abuse of office.
But Atambayev and his supporters described it as a political witch-hunt by the current president. On Friday, Zhaparov supporters attacked pro-Atambayev demonstrators on Bishkek’s central square, hurling stones and bottles.
A man with a pistol fired several shots at Atambayev’s car as it sped away, but the former president was unhurt. He was, however, detained again and send to jail.
Party officials said two other politicians affiliated with Atambayev also had their cars shot as they left the square. They, too, weren’t injured. Amid the escalating unrest, legislators voted Saturday again to seal Zhaparov’s appointment as prime minister. Only 51 members in the 120-seat parliament were present.
President to resign?
However, the deputy speaker of parliament said a quorum of 62 deputies was reached after individuals obtained power-of-attorney documents to vote on behalf of absent lawmakers.
After his appointment, Zhaparov said he expected President Jeenbekov to honor his pledge to resign once a government had been formed. The president made that promise as clashes between rival groups escalated earlier in the week.
But incoming Prime Minister Zhaparov is also a controversial figure. Until supporters broke him out of jail on October 6, he served an 11.5-year sentence after being convicted in 2017 of taking a government official hostage and other crimes.
In an unexpected move, a court struck down the verdict this week during the unrest.
The turmoil marks a third time in 15 years that protesters moved to topple a government in Kyrgyzstan that once belonged to the then Soviet Union. The nation of 6.5 million people is one of the poorest former Soviet republics.
… painful day in her new book, Chasing My Son Across Heaven … , he would draw little picture books of super hero exploits. He … Son Across Heaven.” The book was released in late August …
Searching for a unique, local gift for the holidays?
Orders are now being taken for “Forever Friends,” which chronicles the story behind the Curran Apple Orchard Park and its stunning new horse sculpture.
Forever Friends at the Curran Apple Orchard Park
This beautiful hard cover book features a detailed history regarding Charles and Mary Curran’s creation of an incredible apple orchard in University Place as well as the story of a real horse named Brewster who inspired the “Forever Friends” sculpture. Wonderful historical Curran family pictures are included along with gorgeous full color photos detailing the process to bring “Brewster” back to University Place.
This wonderful book is a must for anyone interested in the orchard or the history of University Place.
Each book is $25 including tax. Additional shipping fees will apply for any books that cannot be delivered in University Place. Book orders placed before Oct. 30 will be available before Christmas.
Moving forward requires focus. Mashable’s Social Good Series is dedicated to exploring pathways to a greater good, spotlighting issues that are essential to making the world a better place.
Women are still passionately fighting for their rights in 2020, which is why it’s so crucial for parents, educators, and caregivers to teach kids about the importance of gender equality.
If you’re searching for some resources to help educate young kids on respect, empathy, resilience, and self-esteem, we’ve complied a list of informative, inspiring, and engaging children’s books that all touch on the subject of gender equality.
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From adorably illustrated board books for babies to more advanced, in-depth stories that are based on real women who’ve changed the world, here are 11 children’s books that will help teach your kids about gender equality.
Image: Walter Foster Jr.
ABC for Me: ABC What Can She Be? is a colorful board book that teaches young girls they can be anything they set out to be in life. The book simultaneously teaches career ambitions and the alphabet. While going through each letter — A to Z — Ford identifies 26 possible career paths for girls. From astronaut to zoologist, the book highlights a variety of creative, cool, and impactful careers that girls can aspire to pursue.
Image: Downtown Bookworks
It’s never too early to teach boys about gender equality, and if you’re searching for the perfect intro to feminism for your toddler, My First Book of Feminism (for Boys) is a great choice. Julie Merberg strives to teach young boys the importance of respecting girls and women, fighting for their rights, and respecting their boundaries. The book, which touches on topics like equal pay, consent, and gender stereotypes, is ideal reading material for inspiring young allies.
Image: FEIWEL & FRIENDS
If you’re looking for another way to simultaneously teach your child about the alphabet and accomplished women in history, A Is for Awesome! is a great resource. Eva Chen’s book educates kids on 23 exceptionally talented women who’ve made history, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Malala Yousafzai. The book, which features absolutely delightful illustrations by Derek Desierto, is sure to encourage your little one to try and change the world.
Image: Educate2Empower Publishing
Jess and Ben, the two main characters in Jayneen Sanders’ No Difference Between Us, are twins who are learning that the similarities between boys and girls far outweigh the differences. Sure everyone has different appearances, taste in food, and hobbies, but at the end of the day we’re all human beings with feelings and aspirations. The book teaches lessons on empathy, gender equality, respect, acceptance, and self-esteem. And it includes open-ended questions throughout to encourage discussion between kids and adults. There are also more in-depth discussion questions at the end of the book to keep the learning going.
Andrea Beaty has mastered the art of lifting up young girls through her stories. Ada Twist, Scientist, which was inspired by mathematician Ada Lovelace and physicist Marie Curie, tells the tale of a curious young girl named Ada with big ambitions and a love of problem solving. If you’re a fan of Ada’s journey, we also encourage you to check out some of Beaty’s other books, such as Rosie Revere, Engineerand Sofia Valdez, Future Prez.
“If you believe it, and work hard for it, anything is possible.” That’s what Little Mae’s mom told Mae when she expressed her dreams of becoming an astronaut as a child. That message stuck with Mae and encouraged her to follow her dreams. Mae Among the Stars was inspired by the real-life journey of Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel to space. It’s a touching, inspiring tale that will remind young girls they can achieve their ambition with hard work and support.
Image: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Nobel Prize-winning activist Malala Yousafzai shares her wisdom with kids in Malala’s Magic Pencil. The book was inspired by a time in Malala’s childhood in Pakistan when she wished for a magic pencil that could fix the world’s problems. Though she never obtained a super-powered writing utensil, she realized that she could work to identify and solve problems herself. So that’s what she did. Malala’s Magic Pencil takes young kids on an enlightening journey of self-discovery. And kids can also enjoy Malala: My Story of Standing up for Girls’ Rights.
Image: HarperCollins
If you’re looking to shake things up a bit, this book of poems by Susan Hood is a perfect investment. The unique book shares stories of 14 noteworthy women — including paleontologist Mary Anning, painter Frida Kahlo, and civil rights activist Ruby Bridges — who all began making invaluable impacts in the world when they were young. In addition to being written and edited by women, 13 women provided illustrations for the book. What better way to show children that women have the power to do whatever they set their minds to?
Image: LITTLE, BROWN BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
A Computer Called Katherine tells the true story of Katherine Johnson, the masterful mathematician whose brilliant mind and determination helped America reach outer space and put a man on the moon. You may know Katherine from the popular Hidden Figuresbooks or movie, but before she was helping make history at NASA she was a kid. A Computer Called Katherine depicts Johnson’s childhood and follows her educational journey all the way to NASA. The book teaches kids about racial and gender equality while enforcing the importance of overcoming gender stereotypes, fighting for your rights, and pursuing knowledge and subjects you’re passionate about.
Covid-19 infection rates in Mexico and Brazil aren’t diminishing, and the official figures are far apart from government estimates.
In Mexico, health chiefs estimate there are close to a million cases, with almost one hundred thousand people already dead. But with virtually no testing it’s almost certain to be many times higher.
Deputy Health Minister and Covid Spokesman Hugo Lopez Gatell has damaged his credibility by saying the peak has been reached, only for it to rise yet higher time and again.
He blames the media for a campaign against him, but now concedes that it’ll be some years before the true extent of the pandemic’s reach and devastating capacity will be finally known.
While further south in Brazil, as many as two million infected with over 150,000 dead.
A system to provide monthly payments to more than forty percent of the population is due to be terminated in December.
Without being able to track the progress, epicenters, and causes of the largely unchecked spread, there is no effective way to combat and isolate it.
Flattened economy
A high proportion of both populations work forces survive, but little better, via the informal economy which has been decimated by the pandemic.
Even in the formal economy, thousands of businesses have gone to the wall, with rows of empty shops in the major cities.
Mexico’s government has just announced a 14-billion-dollar boost, mostly via private enterprise. But that’s nowhere near sufficient to bounce back a pancake-flat economy, which could shrink by more than ten percent in just one year.
Difficult to rebound
Latin America whose economies are fragile, just doesn’t have the capacity to rebound like the United States and Europe, no matter what is attempted or done.
Access to an effective vaccine is the only answer, but many here worry that this part of the world will be low down on the list when it comes to receiving it.
The result will be millions more slipping back into extreme poverty, with no real or practical alternatives for at least a generation.
Blessed Carlo Acutis was beatified in the Italian town of Assisi on Saturday during Mass celebrated by Cardinal Agostino Vallini.
Pope Francis recalled the 15-year-old Italian teenager as “a young man in love with the Eucharist.”
“He did not rest in comfortable immobility,” said the Pope. “He grasped the needs of his time, because he saw the face of Christ in the weakest.”
Blessed Carlo Acutis’ example, he added, shows young people that “true happiness is found in putting God in the first place and serving Him in our brothers and sisters.”
Children praying for peace
Pope Francis also looked ahead to an initiative promoted by the Pontifical Foundation “Aid to the Church in Need”.
The Catholic aid organization, which seeks to assist persecuted Christians, is hosting an event on Sunday, 18 October, called “One million children praying the Rosary”.
“I encourage this beautiful initiative which involves children throughout the world, who will pray especially for difficult situation caused by the pandemic.”
This year, Temasek expanded its agri-food investments by partnering with Bayer to set up a company, Unfold, to sell genetically modified seeds to vertical farms.
Merged with Monsanto, Bayer-Monsanto is one of the largest agri-food conglomerates supplying most of the world’s seeds and agrichemicals, controlling 30 per cent share of the world’s proprietary seed genetic material and agrichemicals. This means that many farmers are at the mercy of seed-agrichemical pairings made by a limited number of agribusiness companies.
Bayer-Monsanto’s investment decisions actively create a world of petrochemical and genetic dependence. Their products narrow the range of genetic resources, and make resources that exist in the commons into commodities we have to pay for.
This is done in the name of food security. But in practice, these companies drive capital towards commodity production lines that require scale and homogenisation. Their work strips smallholders of land, knowledge and agri-cultures, and propagates the inequalities that took root in the Green Revolution, the era after World War II when synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides were used to boost production, causing long-term chemical-based soil degradation.
While the Green Revolution is said to have lifted smallholders out of hunger and poverty, in practice it was a war on smallholders across the world, orchestrated over half a century by companies in Western Europe and the United States. Temasek’s choices indicate the state’s investment in dependence on big agritech at a time when global agriculture needs to be nourished and our knowledge capacities rebuilt, and its protective and regenerative functions renewed.
Seed laws, genetic diversity and organic farming
Seed laws
Many seed laws such as the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) define seeds as a “creation and invention” belonging solely to seed corporations.
This effectively prohibits farmers from the free breeding and exchange of certain seeds.
Dietary diversity
Currently no more than 120 cultivated species provide for 90 per cent of human food supplied by plants, and 12 plant species and five animal species alone provide for more than 70 per cent of all human food. Seed laws, which are generally used to develop standardised, homogenous crops to meet the demand of urban populations, have the effect of limiting genetic diversity in farmed crops. This negatively impacts the range of foods in our diets.
Crop uniformity
Seed corporations have asserted the need for crop homogeneity in response to industrial agriculture’s application of chemicals to control pests, diseases, weeds, or to fertilisers. This makes them less able to cope with continuously evolving pests and diseases. Organic farmers, however, tend to grow diversified crops as a way to adapt to the same challenges, but which do not threaten food resilience.
The global political economy of food
It’s clear that food security cannot be achieved though production alone. What is more important is the continued viability of our living environments to sustain and renew themselves. A political economy is needed that supports regenative agriculture, and ensures the fair distribution and management of resources—including financial capital.
Financial support for a narrow range ofcompanies will create a market where people will eventually depend on a particular brand of farm, and increasingly that will meanindoor, ‘hi-tech’ vertical farms.
The global indoor farming market size was worth US$100 billion in 2018. By 2030, innovation in food and agriculture could be worth $700 billion. Hi-tech farms designed to grow a single crop will guzzle energy for air-conditioning, use up land, and give up on the land’s ability to be restored. Even with the new jobs high tech farming will create, workers will have no real power to disengage from a system that narrows the planet’s genetic seed stocks, land and knowledge resources.
In Asia, where so much of the future of food is at stake, we need to have public conversations about agritech to get greater clarity and transparency about the impact of new farming models on people and the planet, and how to create socially responsible products.
Companies can either increase social inequality and environmental degradation, or join a global community working to increase our shared human access to land, knowledge, food resources and peace. Agritech firms play an important role in shaping where investors put their money, and if 2020 makes anything clear, it is that neither business-as-normal nor the new normal can achieve food long-term security and sustainable agriculture.
Agritech’s climate responsibilities
Businesses have always had the power to look after the needs of people—and they are under more pressure than ever to do so today.
This decade will see more transboundary environmental disasters. Agritech and its funders would be wise to consider how their investments shape greater transboundary resource renewal, including the regeneration of lands and waters.
What agritech can do
There are five things agritech and agrifinance can do to redistribute equity in the food system:
1) Invest in solutions that increase the amount of arable non-monocrop food forest and arable land that commits to using regenerative multi-cropping techniques
2) Commit to working with national or regional seed banks to increase genetic diversity, encouraging clients and customers to use saved, native, and heirloom seed varieties in gardens and urban farms
4) Ensure food is grown with the principles of nutrition, diversity and equity in mind, by bringing the food insecure into the conversation, ensuing profits are redistributed among local communities to develop relationships in neighbourhoods, workplaces, and schools.
5) Begin real dialogues with food sovereignty organisations and networks.
Seeds produced for vertical farms are highly profitable for the companies that produce them. But it is not in these companies’ business interests to replenish the arable land and water resources that we need to live on this planet.
We need to invest in practices that renew agricultural knowledge across our generations, reforest degraded and degrading lands, and redistribute resources that have been taken from elsewhere.
And we need to invest in technologies that support seed banks, enable innovation in the use of available low-carbon resources, and help people make the right choices about what to plant locally.
Now is the time to create the pathways that will afford us better solutions for planet, not profit—and these solutions need to bear fruit within our lifetimes. Let’s invest appropriately.
Huiying Ng is partnerships and research lead at the Soil Regeneration Project. The sidebar was written by Edmil Chue and Amanda Foo from Project Rewild.
“None of us was baptized a priest or bishop: we were all baptized as lay people, men and women. We are protagonists of the Church.”
Pope Francis made that remark on Sunday after the recitation of the Angelus prayer.
In his prayer intention for October, the Pope says, “We pray that the laity, especially women, may participate more in areas of responsibility in the Church.”
Incisive feminine presence
At the Angelus, Pope Francis highlighted the contribution that lay women can make.
“Today we still need to make greater space for a more incisive feminine presence in the Church – I mean a lay presence – but underlining the feminine aspect, because women are often put to one side.”
The Pope also encouraged the integration of women in places where important decisions are made.
And, as in his video message accompanying his prayer intention, he warned against falling into clericalism, which “diminishes the lay charism and even ruins the face of Holy Mother Church.”
Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. (Credit: Eleanor P. Labrozzi Photo)
Tomorrow, Monday, the Better World Book Club will meet at 3 p.m. in Fellowship Hall of the SI Presbyterian Church. Sponsored by the Church’s Mission Team, the club welcomes folks from all religious and spiritual backgrounds to read and discuss selected books that deal with profound subjects especially meaningful to current world challenges. The club has been in existence since February of 2019, according to club member Marilynn Pysher, and they meet every several months for lively discussions facilitated by group leader Lynn Franklin. Attendees, male and female, come from all over the East End as well as Shelter Island. Since COVID, attendees are asked to bring their own chairs and mask up.
The title for Monday’s meeting, “Everyday Ubuntu, Living Better the African Way,” written by Mungi Ngomae, Archbishop Tutu’s granddaughter, gives examples and suggestions on how to overcome division and be stronger together. All are encouraged to attend Monday, Oct. 12 even if they haven’t yet read the book.
Some of the books that have been discussed at previous meetings are:
“Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending people on death row.
“The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World” by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
“Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life” by David Brooks.
“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin Diangelo.
When Donald Trump’s latest supreme court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, arrives before the Senate judiciary committee for her confirmation hearings on Monday, Democrats will be out to raise an alarm that Barrett could help strike down the Affordable Care Act in the very first case she hears.
But in the weeks leading up to the hearings, Republicans have been out for something else entirely: a holy war.
The future of the supreme court hinges on the Barrett hearings. But the hearings will be backgrounded by a political fight over religion that is potentially as important as the question of whether Barrett replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late liberal justice, on the court.
If Republicans can make it look like Democrats are attacking Barrett, a conservative Catholic, for her religious views, they believe, that could stir enough political anger to rescue a couple of tight Senate races in the elections on 3 November – and potentially save the teetering Republican Senate majority.
Democrats hope to defeat the Barrett nomination on the merits.
But they also hope to take control of the Senate next month, claim the White House, and then pass a bulwark of laws on key issues – healthcare, reproductive rights, marriage equality, voting rights, the climate emergency – to withstand what could be decades of tendentious rulings by a supreme court with as many as three Trump-appointed justices on it.
The current Senate judiciary committee chair, Lindsey Graham, who happens to be among the most endangered Republican incumbents, explained the Republican strategy last month on Fox News, saying Democratic protests over credible sexual assault allegations against Trump’s supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh helped Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.
“Kavanaugh really did help Republicans pick up Senate seats because they went too far,” Graham said.
In a transparent attempt to whip up a comparable spectacle around the Barrett nomination, Senate Republicans have produced an ominous video featuring tense footage from the Kavanaugh hearings and accusing Democrats of a “radical power plot” to attack Barrett over her religious beliefs.
But prominent Democrats have urged a minimum of pageantry during the Barrett hearings and a focus on Barrett’s views on the healthcare law, abortion, same-sex marriage and other issues.
“It is going to be really important to not give Lindsey Graham and the rest of the Republicans a moment of righteous vindication over a circus-like atmosphere,” the former Democratic senator Claire McCaskill said on a popular politics podcast this week.
“So I just think this is one of those times when some of our most passionate supporters that are so angry on behalf of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that they’ve got to realize that there is a better way than flooding the halls with women in handmaid costumes.”
To protest against the Barrett nomination earlier this month, activists stood outside the supreme court wearing red robes and white bonnets, recognizable from the TV series based on the Margaret Atwood novel of female subjugation, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Democrats should focus on the threat posed to healthcare by Barrett, who in 2017 published a critique of Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2012 ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act, said Ben Jealous, president of the progressive People for the American Way group. On 10 November, just one week after the election, the supreme court is scheduled to hear a separate case that could vacate the law.
“The confirmation hearings have to be all about what the nomination is about: destroying healthcare for millions of Americans,” Jealous said. “Anybody who wants to make this about a nominee’s personality, or even the life they’ve lived so far, is missing the point.”
Democrats on the committee acknowledge they do not currently have the votes to stop the nomination from moving forward, and Senator Cory Booker said last week that procedural stalling measures would not work – because the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, could merely change the rules to keep the nomination on track.
Progressives must not write off the Ginsburg seat as lost, however, said Neil Sroka of the progressive Democracy for America group.
The former Democratic senator Claire MacCaskill chided progressives that ‘they’ve got to realize that there is a better way than flooding the halls with women in handmaid costumes’. Photograph: Alex Edelman/EPA
“America elected Democrats to fight for a bolder progressive vision for the future of the country,” he said. “And sometimes fighting means taking on difficult battles even if you’re not sure if it’s possible that you can win.”
Sroka said it was “appalling” and “laughable” that after having stood behind Trump’s Muslim bans, Republicans would accuse Democrats of elevating religious prejudice.
“Religious tests have no place in public life, and Democrats are the one party in the country right now that have been consistent on that,” Sroka said.
Throughout the Trump presidency, McConnell has prioritized the confirmation of conservative judges. But the measures he has taken to confirm Barrett in what could be the waning days of the Trump administration, which to movement conservatives would represent the culmination of a decades-long design on the supreme court, were seen as extraordinary even for him.
All other business in the Senate has adjourned for two weeks over health concerns following an outbreak on Capitol Hill of Covid-19 – but the Barrett hearing will proceed “full steam ahead”, McConnell announced.
Two of the Republican senators on the committee, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, announced last week that they had tested positive for Covid-19 after attending a White House event to celebrate the Barrett nomination. Many others who attended the event also later tested positive, including the president and first lady, leading to whispers in Washington of a new nickname for the nominee: Amy “Covid” Barrett.
Graham, who has refused to be tested for coronavirus himself, has said that recuperating senators could attend committee hearings virtually, in an unusual arrangement that Booker said was inappropriate for the consideration of a lifetime supreme court appointment.
“We now have members of our committee who have fallen ill, and I pray for their wellbeing, but this just further highlights that this process is just wrong,” Booker told the Pod Save America podcast.
Jealous said it was ironic that the Republicans were taking health risks to secure the confirmation of a nominee who could, within weeks, begin dismantling a crucial healthcare law.
“Literally you have senators who are exposed to Covid because of a super-spreader event, refusing to get tested, so that they don’t have to quarantine, so that they can make a vote to appoint a judge who will take away healthcare from their neighbors in the midst of a pandemic,” said Jealous.
The Republican rush to confirm Barrett, Sroka said, betrayed their awareness that neither the nominee nor the confirmation process has the support of the American people.
“If they knew that the American people were on their side, and they knew that they had the support of the public on the issues that they’re trying to force through this court, they wouldn’t need to do what they’re doing right now,” Sroka said.
“But they know that they can’t win a fair fight, so they’re going to use every bit of power they have to force this agenda on us for a generation, while they still have it.”
