Just leave it in the background and know that number trends up.

Also, shows for infants are either on trackers I don’t have access to or just thoroughly under-provided through torrents.

I mean, you did say it but… damn that’s a mangled and misued quote.

It is a total cluster fuck.

And siccing Carter-Fuck on TES isn’t a good look.

That it became a mainstream media circus focused on sensationalism made it all harder to dig to the truth.

Hopefully people (or at least the left and left adjacent folk) can approach it as a non-partisan issue.

He was investingated for plagiarism by Liverpool University, where the degree in question was from, and they found his work flawed in attributions and references, but not full on plagiarism.

The current media storm came from a self a owed race realist who says “in a meritocracy there’d be no black people at university” stirring it up repeating the claims he was found innocent of until he quit his job and killed himself.

Not to say he’s blameless, the errors and failings in attribution and referencing are not the be all and end all, but a lot of the other claims about things he made up - raising money for charity, running the marathons - this article fact checks and comes down on more likely true, or closer to true than not.

He was investingated for plagiarism by Liverpool University, where the degree in question was from, and they found his work flawed in attributions and references, but not full on plagiarism.

The current media storm came from a self a owed race realist who says “in a meritocracy there’d be no black people at university” stirring it up repeating the claims he was found innocent of until he quit his job and killed himself.

Not to say he’s blameless, the errors and failings in attribution and referencing are not the be all and end all, but a lot of the other claims about things he made up - raising money for charity, running the marathons - this article fact checks and comes down on more likely true, or closer to true than not.

I agree that one needs to read past the red scare. The PRC, despite what the US says, is a rational actor not a boogeyman. Sadly, news sources for Myanmar are scarce, so I try to remove the editorialising and focus on the factual events - since editorialising and red scare aside, the Irrawaddy has enough of a good reputation to not make up events wholesale.

And there it comes down to, sadly, that the PRC’s “we don’t meddle” line is sadly untrue. And while I do think that so far the evidence is that the PRC is not as destabilising and destructive for others as the US, there is no sign that a rise in the influence of the PRC will help much - instead we’ll see more of what there has been in Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, and others on a wider scale.
An entrenching of existing inequality, and helping the current dominant factions to cement their place in return for resources and Chinese capital getting to accumulate.

Chinese arms in Myanmar- but be aware that the United Wa Army are allies of and get their weapons from the PRC.
A longer opinion piece from the same paper on China’s meddling in the ongoing civil war, and earlier parts of history.

I was sure I had found a PRC diplomatic statement about the Sri Lankan Civil War and China’s aid for legitimate governments opposing separatism, but my 百度夫 is weak today - or I need to VPN into China to get better search results. I’ll try to find time to dig it up, but some poking about will find plenty on Chinese aid to Sri Lanka in the first two decades of the 21st century while the war was ongoing.

Oh, a lot of people know nothing about the PRC or China in general. It’s infuriating.
Often either a utopia or the most evil and terrible distopia, blergh. It’s a place, full of myriad people, ideas, ways of being, and their own contradictions.

I’m used to people assuming I’m at the other extreme pole, when really I’m just trying to complicate the picture and share a bit of what I learnt and saw while living in the PRC for several years - where I found something much more interesting than either idealised extreme.

Edit: and in answer to your question: of course the CCP can’t do whatever it pleases without a care for anything. It’s too faction ridden, broad, and worried about 3rd roads, dissent, and popular unrest for that. It values stability, peaceful day to day living, and being able to return its side of the social contract. But that also means that small factions that could upset or displace the sense of harmony, such as traditional ethnic minority ways of life, habits, etc. are not given much time. They need to Modernise and Develop, like the rest regardless of what those people actually think, do, or want.
Having spent a lot of time in Yunnan and Guizhou, I’ve seen enough of it myself, sadly.

… Why would massively face conscious culture China care about face?

You’ve got so much irony I can’t even tell what point you’re trying to make.

China (PRC) kinda already is - but it’s not supporting rebels.

Its crushing rebels to secure the incumbent government’s assistance to ensure they keep their investment/get to get it all.

• Mining in Myanmar. (Arming and assisting Tatmydaw in the ongoing civil war)
• Ports and crops, and probably gems, in Sri Lanka (Weapons, Intel, training, and possible boots on the ground killing off Tamil Leadership).
• Pakistani marble, ports, (and oil iirc). (with PMCs in Balochistan, and arms sales to Pakistan, plus the anti-India (fuck Modi) alliance).

I assume similar things in bits of Africa, but I’m sadly ignorant of much there. (I’d put money on Chinese support of Ethiopiab government during the ethnic cleansing and nigh on civil war a few years back though).

Other examples , though much less blatant are the ways that the PRC won the Sri Lankan civil war and led to the total massacre of the Tamil Tigers, and the PRC’s ongoing support for the Tatmydaw in Myanmar - pulling lots of levers and helping keep the aircraft bombing rebel population centres going.

You can be an imperialist by supporting other nation’s governments to get your own benefit.

You do realise that documents like that are used to stop discussion, and are pointed to by people saying “look, we HAVE equality so stop making a fuss”.

China has a lot of that, and things like bonus 高考 points for ethnic minorities are an often used rallying cry by the Han suoremists as an example of how things have gone too far (and unlike the coming one, this one is allowed to be broadcast on B站 and other sites and doesn’t get pulled down).
Then you’ve got huge amounts of prejudice against ethnic groups, with negative stereotypes of them as thieves, or violent.
And a two tier policing system, where ethnic minority folks in Yunnan and Guizhou, for example, feel that they can’t hunt or forage in traditional styles because it’s in violation of the law, but Han people in the same towns do it (and you can see/find them flogging poached wildlife in the town market) without a care.

Meanwhile the “economic development” of ethnic tourism primarily leads to people from 东北 moving in and buying up land and making the profits, while local Han get middle management positions, and the ethnic minority folks get to be the side show, singers, or worst I’ve seen - dancing girls who are chastised for trying to get the Han 叔叔 to leave them alone.

Most people don’t pay a huge amount of attention to things that aren’t in the top few news items.

Sadly, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Myanmar, and even Afghanistan and Syria and others are not. So most people do know or think much on them.

That said, the leftist folks I know who were "River to the Sea"ing back in 2016 are also the people who talk about those other countries.
They tend not to have social media channels, let alone newspapers or 24 hour news channels though.

I think the floatilla activists take more umbrage with the deliberate killing of Palestinian children, doctors, reporters, and anyone who might be intelligensia. Plus the starvation and massive overwhelming firepower - it’s not that they forget, it’s that Hamas being Iran backed and talking about making Jews extinct isn’t as pressing an issue as Israel actually making Palestinians extinct.

Israel complaining about Active Slaughter is quite ironic.

Uncertain, as no one knows about the causes or condition before it.

That’s the nice thing about science, it just says what the evidence shows and is happy to label the rest: TBC.

It’s not that it’s more volatile, but that the volatility is coming closer to home (and 24 hour news amplifies it).

South America is at its most peaceful in about 100 years, South East Asia currently only has 1 war ongoing, while slightly up from 0 in 2010, is still lower than most of the last 100 years.

Africa is more stable overall and developing better for most people, with some exceptions.

Although if you mean volatile as “the US is no longer sure it can curbstomp any likely military opposition”, then yes. That is now true due to other nations’ improvement, and changes to asymmetrical warfare capabilities.

Only parts of southern China, and parts of Korea eat dog. (Might be some other regions I’m unaware of. More freaky, and looked down on for it by the rest of China is Guangdong’s eating of monkey brains).

“Shadow” means you had the role for the opposition.

So she was the Attorney General for the opposition party, rather than the incumbent.

Former means she is now no longer an attorney general of any sort.

Yes, it is a great title and apologies if explaining it lessens the magic.