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Being Gay in Russia Just Got Tougher 2013 Ban Strengthened

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Being Gay in Russia Just Got Tougher

Being gay in Russia just got tougher as Russian lawmakers gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that significantly expands restrictions on activities promoting gay rights in the country.

The bill marks another step in the country’s embattled LGBTQ community’s years-long crackdown.

The new bill broadens a prohibition on what authorities call “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, established by legislation known as the “gay propaganda” law. The Kremlin adopted it in 2013 to promote “traditional values” in Russia.

This year, lawmakers introduced legislation prohibiting the dissemination of such information to people aged 18 and up.

The State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, approved the bill in its third and final reading on Thursday. It will then be sent to the Federation Council and finally to President Vladimir Putin, whose signature will give it legal force.

The new bill outlaws all advertising, media, and online resources, as well as books, films, and theatre productions deemed to contain such “propaganda,” a term defined loosely in the bill.

The 2013 ban on depictions of same-sex unions was frequently enacted and used to crack down on LGBTQ rights groups and activists.

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Offenders Expelled from Russia

Fines are imposed for violations. Non-residents who commit these offences may be expelled from Russia. The fines range between 100,000 and 2 million rubles (US$1,660 and US$33,000).

Foreigners may be detained for 15 days before being expelled for certain violations.

Violations are not made a crime under the bill. According to Russian law, the criminal code can only be amended through an independent bill. Some lawmakers have expressed support for such legislation.

Russia explicitly prohibited same-sex marriages in 2020 by amending the country’s Constitution, which stated, among other things, that the “institution of marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”

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Putin slams ‘cancel culture and trans rights

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has lashed out at Western liberalism, condemning “cancel culture” and advances in gay and transgender rights.

Putin said at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that his country should adhere to its own “spiritual values and historical traditions” while avoiding “sociocultural disturbances” in the West.

Some Westerners believe “aggressive deletion of entire pages of their history, reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities… constitute movement toward public renewal,” according to Putin. “It’s their right, but we’d like them to stay away from our house.” We have a different point of view.”

Putin, who told the Financial Times of London in 2019 that liberalism had become “obsolete,” has been a vocal supporter of traditional family values. In his remarks on Thursday, he called it “monstrous” and “on the verge of a crime against humanity” to teach children that “a boy can become a girl and vice versa.”

He also implied that supporters of transgender rights were calling for an end to “basic things like mother, father, family, or gender differences.”

While ramping up a state-led pressure campaign against sexual minorities in Russia, the authoritarian leader has sought to portray himself as a symbol of virile masculinity, for example, by being photographed shirtless on horseback.

Putin rules a country where there have been numerous credible reports of gay men being tortured and imprisoned. In 2013, he signed an anti-“gay propaganda” law, which Human Rights Watch said increased hostility toward LGBTQ communities and made it more difficult for children to learn about nontraditional relationships.

The impact has been especially strong in schools, where some Russian teachers describe LGBTQ people as “a symptom of perversion imported from Western Europe or North America.”

Putin is attempting to demonstrate that he “stands for values that will not divide society and throw it into chaos,” according to Matthew Sussex, an Australian National University Russia expert. “On the one hand, it’s a message of unity. However, it does affect the transgender and gay communities, which the Russian government has continued to target.”

Despite the attack on liberal values, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the speech should not impact Russia’s relations with Western countries.

“Russia has been, is, and will continue to be an integral part of Europe,” he declared.

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United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

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United Airlines is attempting to reassure passengers following a spate of accidents on its Boeing jets this year. In a statement to customers, the airline states that safety is “at the center of everything that we do.”

“While they are all unrelated, I want you to know that these incidents have captured our attention and sharpened our focus,” CEO Scott Kirby wrote in a Monday morning statement to customers.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

On Friday, a United Boeing 737-800 landed in Medford, Oregon, missing an underside fuselage panel.

Earlier this month, United experienced four mishaps, all involving Boeing jets. A United Boeing 737-900ER blew flames from its engine after takeoff from Houston, a Boeing 777 lost a wheel during takeoff from San Francisco, a Boeing 737 Max slipped off a runway in Houston, and a United Boeing 777 trailed hydraulic fluid as it left Sydney.

“Our team is reviewing the details of each case to understand what happened and using those insights to inform our safety training and procedures across all employee groups,” Kirby continued.

The airline is extending pilot training by one day, retooling training for new mechanics, and “dedicating more resources to supplier network management.”

Passengers witnessing a run of negative articles about the airline and its Boeing jets may consider booking elsewhere. In its letter, the airline is attempting to keep consumers from departing. As of the end of last year, 81% of the jets used on United’s mainline operations were manufactured by Boeing, compared to little more than half of the jets in rivals Delta and American Airlines’ mainline fleets.

Aside from the problems on  flights, the most dramatic Boeing incident this year featured an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9, which lost a door stopper on a January 5 flight, resulting in a gaping hole in the plane’s side. And last week, a Latam Airlines flight from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, fell unexpectedly, throwing some passengers to the cabin ceiling.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

Investigators are still investigating the causes of both events, but a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board showed Boeing left the bolts required to keep the door plug in place on the 10-week-old Alaska Air jet. Boeing asserted that an incident in the cockpit rather than a problem with the aircraft’s systems may have caused the Latam accident.

The age of the aircraft in the United incidents suggests that the problem could be with their staff rather than Boeing’s well-documented quality faults. For example, Boeing purchased the jet that lost its panel on a Friday trip in 1998. So, Boeing’s quality difficulties are likely unrelated to that occurrence.

However, Boeing’s issues have impeded United’s operations. Due to the FAA’s production slowdown, it has halted hiring a new class of pilots since it will receive fewer new planes from Boeing this year, as previously promised. In January, the Alaska Air incident grounded its 737 Max 9 jets for three weeks.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

Furthermore, approval of a new generation of Boeing jets, the 737 Max 10, ordered by United, has been delayed due to the company’s quality and safety issues.

Kirby told investors last week that United is considering purchasing more jets from Boeing competitor Airbus. He also stated earlier this year that the Alaska Air incident was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” on United’s plans to receive deliveries of the Max 10 in the near future.’

SOURCE – (CNN)

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For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

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According to new data, the world’s oceans have now been subjected to an unprecedented year of heat, with new temperature records being smashed every day.

Global water surface temperatures began breaking daily records in mid-March last year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, raising fears about marine life and extreme weather worldwide.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

“The amplitude by which previous sea surface temperature records were beaten in 2023, and now again in 2024, is remarkable,” said Joel Hirschi, associate head of marine systems modelling at the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom.

Gregory C. Johnson, a NOAA oceanographer, reported that the global average ocean temperature in 2023 was 0.25 degrees Celsius higher than the previous year. That increase “is equivalent to about two decades’ worth of warming in a single year,” he told CNN. “So it is quite large, quite significant, and a bit surprising.”

According to scientists, human-caused global warming, along with El Niño, a natural climate trend characterized by higher-than-average water temperatures, is accelerating  heat.

The biggest repercussions are for marine life and global weather. As the global waterwarms, hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomena, such as blistering heat waves and heavy rains, may gain more force.

High temperatures are already wreaking havoc on coral. In March, based on aerial observations, authorities declared that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is witnessing its seventh mass bleaching episode.

Bleaching happens when heat-stressed corals release the algae that dwell in their tissue and serve as a food supply. If water temperatures continue too high for too long, corals will starve and die.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

Data from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program suggest that the crisis extends far beyond Australia, with the world potentially facing a fourth worldwide mass coral bleaching event in the coming months.

Ocean heat creates the conditions for more powerful hurricanes. “The warmer the ocean, the more energy to fuel storms is available,” said Karina von Schuckmann, an oceanographer at Mercator Ocean International in France.

Temperatures in the North Atlantic, an water area important for storm generation, have been unusual, startling some scientists who are still investigating the specific causes.

“At times, the records (in the North Atlantic) have been broken by margins that are virtually statistically impossible,” Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, said to CNN.

If water temperatures remain high in the second half of 2024 and a La Niña event intensifies the Atlantic hurricane season, “this would increase the risk of a very active hurricane season,” Hirschi explained.

The oceans contain around 90% of the world’s excess heat generated by burning planet-heating fossil fuels. “Measuring water warming allows us to track the status and evolution of planetary warming,” Schuckmann stated in an interview with CNN. “The ocean is the sentinel for global warming.”

El Niño is expected to weaken and fade in the coming months, perhaps reducing record water temperatures if La Niña replaces it.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

“In the past, surface temperature values have decreased after the passage of El Niño,” Schuckmann said. However, she cautioned that it is now hard to forecast when water temperatures will fall below record levels.

While natural climatic variability will cause water temperatures to vary, NOAA’s Johnson predicts that in the long run, they will “continue to break records as long as greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere rise.”

SOURCE – (CNN)

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Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

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putin charged with war crimes

Vladimir Putin won a historic fifth term as Russia’s president on Monday, as the electoral commission announced the results of a referendum in which he faced no serious challenges and took place amid the toughest crackdown on dissent and free speech since Soviet times.

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Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

Putin claimed that the landslide majority demonstrated Russians’ “trust” and “hopes” in him, while lawmakers throughout Europe blasted the vote as a hoax and Russia’s efforts to conduct elections in seized portions of Ukraine that it claims as its territory.

Here’s what Putin, European leaders, and others say:

“Of course, we have a lot of work ahead. But I’d like to clarify one thing: no one has ever been able to intimidate or stifle our will or self-conscience since our consolidation. They have failed in the past and will fail in the future. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

“The elections took place in an ever-shrinking political space, which has resulted in an alarming increase of violations of civil and political rights, and precluded many candidates from running, including all those opposed to Russia’s illegal war of aggression.” – Statement from the European Union.

“These Russian elections highlight the intensity of repression under President Putin’s administration, which tries to stifle all dissent to his illegal war. Putin eliminates his political opponents, controls the media, and declares himself the winner. “This is not a democracy.” — David Cameron, UK Foreign Secretary.

putin

Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

“Searches at voting stations’ entrances, attempts to examine ballots before voters place them in ballot boxes, and detentions of voters who arrived at noon. According to reports, at one voting location in Moscow, police asked that the chairman of a commission (of poll workers) unlock a ballot box and hand them a ballot with anything inscribed on it. This is the first time in my life that I have witnessed such ridiculousness.” — Stanislav Andreychuk, co-chair of Golos, the independent election watchdog, on Telegram.

putin

Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

“The Russian election was one without a choice. Holding so-called elections in portions of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia violates international law. It is all the more amazing that so many Russians made it known over the weekend that they do not agree with this Russian president. That you go to a polling station even if you’re surrounded by military earns me the highest respect.” — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

SOURCE – (AP)

 

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