China and Russia climb to top of UN
Despite their appalling human rights records, China and Russia have won seats at the UN’s premiere human rights body, while Saudi Arabia was unable to obtain a seat. Saudi Arabia’s loss is a hard blow to the nation in an effort to recuperate from the murder of reporter Jamal Khashoggi. The win for the other two countries has been hugely criticized given China’s genocide of the Uighur minority and Russia’s most recent alleged murder of a critic named Alexander Navalny. Putin has been accused of using a military grade nerve agent to poison this critic and leader of the opposition. The hypocrisy of these nations having a major role in the council to protect human rights has led to their representatives releasing statements to assure the public: “the promotion and protection of human rights is an absolute priority” from Russia, and “guarantees the freedom of all ethnic groups to use and develop their own spoken and written languages” from China. If these declarations are true, we could witness an improvement in these nation’s human rights policies. However, if these are simply tokenistic statements for the press, it is likely to result in both China and Russia being held less accountable for their various violations of human rights.
China prepares for battle
After visiting a marine base in Guangdong earlier this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his troops to “put all (their) minds and energy on preparing for war”. The war that he is referring to is his efforts to capture the self-governing country Taiwan. Following this, the President’s foreign minister demanded the US to “immediately cancel any arms sales plans to Taiwan”. Under the Trump administration, these tensions have run particularly high given Trump’s close alliance with the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-Wen. Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan is a part of Chinese territory, and therefore will not refrain from using military to capture even if that involves a proxy war with the US. The pressure on the Washington to settle the dispute is high, while Beijing is continues to increase military drills in Taiwan to raise pressure.
IPhone 12 stock backlash
On Tuesday of this week, Apple released its latest model, the IPhone 12, which is the first 5G-capable iPhone. This release was followed by a nearly 3% slide in Apple’s stock and a subsequent $81 billion loss in their market- the tech giant is facing its worst one-day reaction. This drop is likely related to the model being highly anticipated, and yet not having overwhelming innovation. Data revealing the number of models, color and sizes had already been leaked prior to this week, leading the consumer reaction to be less enthusiastic. Apple is expected to quickly recuperate their loss.
England’s ‘tier’ system begins
Earlier this week, our PM Boris Johnson has confirmed England’s new ‘three tier system’ that will be applied to local lockdowns. These tiers are categorized by Local COVID alert levels which will fluctuate depending on the location’s infection rates: “medium”, “high” and “very high”. The government hopes that this system will facilitate the public to follow regulations that have not been very clear during the first wave, ahead of the likely second wave during the winter of 2020. After Johnson’s local initiative, Northern Ireland seems to be in the “high” tier, leading to its closing of schools and the hospitality sector for 14 days, and stricter restrictions in particularly concentrated cities. Liverpool is also in the 3rd tier and has faced lockdown. Some analysts fear that this system will not be enough to tackle the second wave, and view the system as too little, too late.
Thai protesters in Bangkok
Pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok marched across the city during the passing of a royal motorcade to apply pressure on their demand for the resignation of their Prime Minister and reforms to their traditionalist monarchy. Their three-finger salute and the slogan “Long live the people” have become symbols of the movement. The movement is particularly controversial in a country like Thailand, where criticism of monarchs is punishable by lengthy sentences or worse. Despite this risk and the violent tensions, majority of the protesters have come forward to media outlets to clarify their incentives against the monarchy. One protester commented: “We’re not asking them to be toppled, forgotten, or not to be respected…We’re just asking them to change with us”. The uprise this week of over 18,000 protesters has been triggered by many recent events. In 2019, the Future Forward Party (FFP) which formed an opposition to the monarchy won a huge majority in the March election, and was fuelled mainly by young, democratic voters. An even more recent trigger in June of this year was the scandal of the pro-democracy advocate Wanchalearm Satsaksit going missing in Cambodia, after going into exile a few years ago. Protesters accuse the Thai state of murdering Satsaksit and call this is a violation to democracy. Consequentially, demonstrators have demanded that the current government be dissolved and that Thai authorities refrain from prosecuting political opposition. These student-lead protests are expected to continue for the ensuing months.
