Monthly Archives: April 2022

The risk in a Biden reversal of medical conscience protections – The Week

Posted: April 20, 2022 at 10:09 am

"The Biden administration is preparing to scrap aTrump-era rulethat allows medical workers to refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs," Politico reported Tuesday, citing "three people familiar with the deliberations." The exact scope of the prospective update isn't clear, but the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it's coming.

In one sense, the change is irrelevant. Introduced in 2019, the rulein question would have denied federal funding to health-care organizations that don't allow staff to opt out of participation in abortions, procedures related to gender transition, assisted suicide, and the like. But it was blocked in federal court before it took effect and so has never been implemented. The Biden administration's "change" would merely confirm the status quo. Moreover, cases where health-care workers are forced to perform services they believe to be immoral (or fired for refusing to do so) seem to be relatively rare. They do happen, but most states already have laws on the books providing at least some conscience protections for medical professionals.

Still, the federal reversal is a step in the wrong direction on two counts. One is a matter of principle: The government technically isn't forcing doctors who believe abortion is murder to perform abortions. This isn't a straightforward mandate, because the doctors can, of course, quit their jobs instead. But federal endorsement of organizational policies that require employees to choose between conscience and livelihood does not exactly evince a civil libertarian spirit. It isn't a clear-cut state violation of freedom of conscience or religious liberty, yet it does give the government's blessing (and dollars) to private rejection of very serious claims of conscience.

Then there's the practical side of things. Politico quotes Jacqueline Ayers of Planned Parenthood, who says the change would "help ensure people can access the health care and information they need when they need it." If this revocation of a rule, again, that never took effect and is already broadly echoed at the state level changes anything, I suspect the opposite would be true.

Were medical professionals widely required to work in violation of their consciences, many would leave their fields, change their specialties, or outright refuse to take on certain patients something doctors, in particular, will always be able to do by citing facially neutral concerns like workload. In the worst case, I can imagine situations where a medical worker forced to act against conscience would deliberately misdiagnose or mistreat a patient, rationalizing that this is the lesser sin.

Compelling any violation of conscience is a very grave proposal. Compelling it of medical staff is uniquely risky, too.

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What Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and Others Are Learning From Curtis Yarvin and the New Right – Vanity Fair

Posted: at 10:09 am

Despair, he signed off, serves the regime.

Part of why people have trouble describing this New Right is because its a bunch of people who believe that the system that organizes our society and government, which most of us think of as normal, is actually bizarre and insane. Which naturally makes them look bizarre and insane to people who think this system is normal. Youll hear these people talk about our globalized consumerist society as clown world. Youll often hear the worldview expressed by our media and intellectual class described as the matrix or the Ministry of Truth, as Thiel described it in his opening keynote speech to NatCon. It can be confusing to turn on something like the influential underground podcast Good Ol Boyz and hear a figure like Anton talk to two autodidact Southern gamers about the makeup of the regime, if only because most people reading this probably dont think of America as the kind of place that has a regime at all. But thats because, as many people in this world would argue, weve been so effectively propagandized that we cant see how the system of power around us really works.

This is not a conspiracy theory like QAnon, which presupposes that there are systems of power at work that normal people dont see. This is an idea that the people who work in our systems of power are so obtuse that they cant even see that theyre part of a conspiracy.

The fundamental premise of liberalism, Yarvin told me, is that there is this inexorable march toward progress. I disagree with that premise. He believes that this premise underpins a massive framework of power. My job, as he puts it, is to wake people up from the Truman Show.

We spoke sharing a bench outside in the dark one evening, a few days into the conference. Yarvin is friendly and solicitous in person, despite the fact that he tends to think and talk so fast that he can start unspooling, reworking baroque metaphors to explain ideas to listeners who have heard them many times before.

Strange things can happen when you meet him. Id gotten in touch with him through a mutual friend, a journalist I knew from New York who once had a big magazine assignment to write about him. The piece never came out. They wanted him to say I was really evil and all that, Yarvin told me. He wouldnt do it and pulled the piece. And I thought, Okay, thats a cool guy. This friend has now made a bunch of money in crypto, works on a project Yarvin helped launch to build a decentralized internet, and lives hours out into the desert in Utah, where hell occasionally call in to New Rightish podcasts. He recently had dinner with Thiel and Mastersboth Masters and Vance have raised money by offering donors a chance to dine with Thiel and the candidate.

Yarvin has a pretty condescending view of the mainstream media: Theyre just predators, he has said, who have to make a living attacking people like him. They just need to eat. He doesnt usually deal with mainstream magazines and wrote that hed been ambushed at the last NatCon, in 2019, by a reporter for Harperswhere I also writewho made him out to be a bit of a loon and predicted that the NatCons populist program would soon be stripped of its parts by the corporate-minded Republican establishment.

But the winds are shifting. He told me about how hed gone to read poetry in New York recently, at the Thiel-funded NPC fest. A bunch of lit kids showed up, he said, grinning. I had grown into adulthood in the New York lit-kid world; even a few years ago, there was no question that anything like this could have happened. But now Yarvin is a cult hero to many in the ultrahip crowd that youll often hear referred to as the downtown scene. I dont even think antifa bothered showing up, Yarvin said. What would they do? It was an art party.

Yarvin had asked his new girlfriend, Lydia Laurenson, a 37-year-old founder of a progressive magazine, to vet me. The radical right turn her life had taken created complications.

One of my housemates was likeI dont know if I want Curtis in our house, she told me. And Im like, Okay, that makes sense. I understand why youre saying that.

Laurenson had been a well-known blogger and activist in the BDSM scene back when Yarvin was the central early figure in a world of neo-reactionary writers, publishing his poetry and political theory on the Blogger site under the name Mencius Moldbug.

As Moldbug, Yarvin wrote about race-based IQ differences, and in an early post, titled Why I Am Not a White Nationalist, he defended reading and linking to white nationalist writing. He told me hed pursued those early writings in a spirit of open inquiry, though Yarvin also openly acknowledged in the post that some of his readers seemed to be white nationalists. Some of Yarvins writing from then is so radically right wing that it almost has to be read to be believed, like the time he critiqued the attacks by the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivikwho killed 77 people, including dozens of children at a youth campnot on the grounds that terrorism is wrong but because the killings wouldnt do anything effective to overthrow what Yarvin called Norways communist government. He argued that Nelson Mandela, once head of the military wing of the African National Congress, had endorsed terror tactics and political murder against opponents, and said anyone who claimed St. Mandela was more innocent than Breivik might have a mother youd like to fuck.

Hes tempered himself in middle agehe now says he has a rule never to say anything unnecessarily controversial, or go out of my way to be provocative for no reason. Many liberals who hear him talk would probably question how strictly he follows this rule, but even in his Moldbug days, most of his controversial writings were couched in thickets of irony and metaphor, a mode of speech that younger podcasters and Twitter personalities on the highly online right have adopteda way to avoid getting kicked off tech platforms or having their words quoted by liberal journalists.

He considers himself a reactionary, not just a conservativehe thinks it is impossible for an Ivy Leagueeducated person to really be a conservative. He has consistently argued that conservatives waste their time and political energy on fights over issues like gay marriage or critical race theory, because liberal ideology holds sway in the important institutions of prestige media and academiaan intertwined nexus he calls the Cathedral. He developed a theory to explain the fact that America has lost its so-called state capacity, his explanation for why it so often seems that it is not actually capable of governing anymore: The power of the executive branch has slowly devolved to an oligarchy of the educated who care more about competing for status within the system than they do about Americas national interest.

One man raised his hand to ask how Masters planned to DRAIN THE SWAMP. He gave me a sly look. Well, one of my friends has this acronym he calls RAGE, he said. Retire All Government Employees.

No one directs this system, and hardly anyone who participates in it believes that its a system at all. Someone like me who has made a career of writing about militias and extremist groups might go about my work thinking that all I do is try to tell important stories and honestly describe political upheaval. But within the Cathedral, the best way for me to get big assignments and win attention is to identify and attack what seem like threats against the established order, which includes nationalists, antigovernment types, or people who refuse to obey the opinions of the Cathedrals experts on issues like vaccine mandates, in as alarming a way as I possibly can. This cycle becomes self-reinforcing and has been sent into hyperdrive by Twitter and Facebook, because the stuff that compels people to click on articles or share clips of a professor tends to affirm their worldview, or frighten them, or both at the same time. The more attention you gain in the Cathedral system, the more you can influence opinion and government policy. Journalists and academics and thinkers of any kind now live in a desperate race for attentionand in Yarvins view, this is all really a never-ending bid for influence, serving the interests of our oligarchical regime. So I may think I write for a living. But to Yarvin, what I actually do is more like a weird combination of intelligence-gathering and propagandizing. Which is why no one I was talking to at NatCon really thought it would be possible for me to write a fair piece about them.

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Hello Kitty-themed amusement park once touted for Macau to be built in Hainan – Macau Business

Posted: at 10:07 am

A Hello Kitty-themed amusement park and resort a project once proposed by Legislator and businesswoman Angela Leong On Kei for Macau will be built in the Haitang Bay area of Hainan island, Allin Media reported.

The project will be developed by Hong Kong group Keyestone Group and will spread over 52 acres and include a 250-room luxury hotel, for an estimated cost RMB4 billion (US$620 million) when completed.

Construction was already initiated started last month and the park is set to open in the second half of 2024.

If completed it will be the second in China after Anji in eastern Zhejiang province, which opened in 2015.

Legislator and businesswoman Angela Leong On Kei was the first to propose the development of a MOP10 billionHello Kitty Theme Parkin Macau, via its company Macau Theme Park and Resorts.

However, the project faced development snags after first applying for a license in 2014 due to changes in the local Land Law, and after being projected to be completed in 2018, the current Lisboeta resort ended up being developed on the land plot initially earmarked for the project instead.

Hos son and head of Macau Theme Park and Resorts, Arnaldo Ho Yau Heng, later revealed that the proposed Hello Kitty theme park project was repeatedly delayed due to a lack of government approvals.

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Macau to allow entry of Filipino non-resident workers in first easing of international border restrictions – IAG – Inside Asian Gaming

Posted: at 10:07 am

Macau has announced a pilot scheme to allow the entry of Filipino non-resident workers in order to refill domestic helper positions, a first step towards allowing foreigners back into the city.

The scheme is aimed at providing assistance in the care of those aged 65-years or above, children aged 3 or below or those with illness. Applications must be submitted to the Labour Affairs Bureau which will check the applicants needs and provide a list of eligible employers to the Public Security Force.

Eligible workers as well as those receiving care must have received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine and if the second dose was administered more than seven months ago, a third dose is required.

Health officials explained that the pilot scheme was approved due to the Philippines ability to provide clear vaccination records for its citizens.

Aside from Filipino non-resident workers, Macau is also easing restrictions on the entry of foreign teaching staff such as Portuguese teachers, management staff of educational institutions and foreign university students.

All foreigners must still undergo 14-days of quarantine in a designated hotel plus another 7 days self-health management.

The policy comes as mainland China revealed it is reducing the quarantine period for international arrivals into eight cities Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Dalian, Suzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen and Qingdao from 14 days to 10 in an encouraging sign that its strict border restrictions could gradually be eased in the coming months.

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Gov’t to resume ‘Macao weeks’ on the mainland in H2 – Macau Daily Times

Posted: at 10:07 am

The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) is planning to resume its promotional campaigns for Macau as a tourism destination, known as Macao weeks, in several mainland cities and provinces, the MGTO director said yesterday in reply to a media question on the sidelines of the press conference of the Light Up Macao Drone Gala 2022.

We hope that in the second half (H2) of this year we can resume our promotion with the Macao Weeks in different provinces. We have been forced to push the promotion events back a little due to the Covid-19 situation in several provinces on the mainland but we hope to get back on track soon, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes said.

Also questioned on the cooperation between Macau and the mainland in regards to some of the events being hosted in Macau, she added that Macau has been in constant communication with mainland companies.

The Drone Gala is a case in point, since the drone team running all the performances comes from the neighboring city of Shenzhen. Senna Fernandes added that more cooperation is expected for the Macao Light Festival at the end of the year.

For the Light Festival, we are planning to partner with some Hengqin companies. We believe there is more room for cooperation with mainland companies, she concluded.

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Nearly RM10mil lost to Macau scams in Johor this year so far – The Star Online

Posted: at 10:07 am

JOHOR BARU: Johor police recorded a spike in Macau scam cases with losses amounting to almost RM10mil within the first four months of this year.

State commercial crime chief Asst Comm Amran Md Jusin said from Jan 1 this year until Monday (April 18), there have already been 209 cases recorded compared to 90 cases in 2021, which is an increase of 119 cases.

The value of losses involved within the first four months of this year is RM9.5mil compared to RM2.8mil in 2021, which shows a spike of RM6.6mil, he said in a statement here Tuesday (April 19).

ACP Amran urged the public to always be vigilant and wary of receiving phone calls from an unknown number that would request personal information.

Usually, Macau scam syndicate members will disguise themselves as policemen, Inland Revenue Board officers or insurance agents.

"In this regard, the public is asked to be vigilant with the modus operandi used by the syndicate, which is to call the victim directly using an unknown telephone number or through an operator, he added.

ACP Amran said the victim would then be told to have tax arrears, before being instructed to call another number allegedly to speak to an enforcement officer before being asked to provide details regarding the victims account and the TAC number the transfer was made to the victim.

"All the money transferred by the victim will then be withdrawn through internet banking without the victim's knowledge," he said.

He advised the community to follow some tips provided to avoid becoming a victim of this Macau Scam syndicate.

Among the things that can be done is to ignore and not entertain anonymous individual phone calls, dont disclose banking information to any party and do not panic.

"This is because the police do not conduct investigations through phone calls. Apart from that, the public can also get relevant information by contacting any police channel provided," he said.

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Finnish MPs begin deciding whether to join NATO – Macau Business

Posted: at 10:07 am

Finlands parliament Wednesday starts debating whether to seek NATO membership, after Russias invasion of Ukraine sparked a surge in political and public support for joining the bloc.

Despite Russia warning of a nuclear build-up in the Baltic should Finland and neighbouring Sweden join the military alliance, Finlands prime minister said that her country would now decide quickly on whether to apply for membership.

I think it will happen quite fast. Within weeks, not within months, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said last week.

Sweden is also discussing whether to submit a membership bid following Russias February 24 invasion.

The 200 MPs in Finlands Eduskunta last week received a government-commissioned white paper that assessed the implications of NATO membership alongside other security options, such as increased bilateral defence agreements.

The report did not make recommendations but stressed that without NATO membership Finland enjoys no security guarantees, despite currently being a partner to the alliance.

It said the deterrent effect on Finlands defence would be considerably greater inside the bloc, while noting that membership also carried obligations for Finland to assist other NATO states.

After two decades of public support for NATO membership remaining steady at 20-30 percent, the war caused a surge in those in favour to over 60 percent, according to opinion polls.

Public statements gathered by Finnish media suggest half of Finlands 200 MPs now support membership while only around 12 oppose.

Others say they will announce a position after detailed discussions.

The Finnish government said it hopes to build a parliamentary consensus over the coming weeks, with MPs due to hear from a number of security experts.

On Saturday, Finlands European Affairs Minister Tytti Tuppurainen said she believed a Finnish application was highly likely.

But the decision is not yet made, she told Britains Sky News.

However, the Finns seem to have already made up their mind and there is a huge majority for the NATO membership.

Many analysts predict Finland could submit a bid in time for a NATO summit in June.

Any membership bid must be accepted by all 30 NATO states, a process that could take four months to a year.

Finland has so far received public assurances from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that NATOs door remains open, and support from several members.

President Sauli Niinisto saidRussias response could include airspace, territorial violations and hybrid attacks, which Finnish NATO proponents believe the country is well prepared to withstand.

Finland declared independence in 1917 after 150 years of Russian rule.

During World War II, its vastly outnumbered army fought off a Soviet invasion, before a peace deal saw it cede several border areas to Moscow.

The Nordic nation remained neutral during the Cold War in exchange for Soviet guarantees not to invade.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Finland firmly aligned itself with the West, by joining the EU and becoming a close partner of NATO.

Successive Finnish leaders shied away from full membership believing that military non-alignment was the best way to maintain working relations with the Kremlin.

by Sam KINGSLEY

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Ukraine says received 76 prisoners of war in swap with Russia – Macau Business

Posted: at 10:07 am

Ukraine said Tuesday it had got back 60 soldiers and 16 civilians in a prisoner swap with Moscow, without giving details on how many Russians went home in the exchange.

Today we exchanged 60 servicemen, including ten officers. Sixteen civilians are also returning home, Kyivs deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.

She said it was the fifth prisoner exchange between the two countries since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.

As in previous prisoner swaps, she gave no details on how many Russians were exchanged.

The prisoner swap came as Ukraine says Russia has launched a major fresh offensive in the east of the country.

Last week Kyiv said it had returned 30 prisoners of war by an order of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky has offered to swap pro-Kremlin tycoon Viktor Medvedchuk, arrested by Kyiv after escaping house arrest, for Ukrainians captured in Russia.

On Monday Kyivs security services aired a video of Medvedchuk asking his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Zelensky to exchange him in return for an evacuation of civilians and troops from the besieged port city of Mariupol.

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Liaison Office: Macau has effective measures to ensure safeguarding national security – Macau Daily Times

Posted: at 10:07 am

Director of the Liaison Office of the Central Peoples Government in the SAR, Fu Ziying, has said that Macau has seen progress and effective measures put in place to ensure its part in safeguarding national security.

Fu, also the National Security Affairs Adviser of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, called on the Macau public to adhere to bottom-line thinking, [and to] fully implement the holistic view of national security, consistently carry out national security education, and diligently fulfil its constitutional responsibility in relation to safeguarding national security.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the National Security Education Exhibition last week, Fu said that Macau residents should fully grasp the significance of safeguarding national security; strengthen the citys legal and implementation mechanisms for safeguarding national security; and pass on the core value of loyalty to the country and to Macau.

The Liaison Office would spare no effort in supporting the MSARs work in safeguarding national security and in promotion of national security, he said.

Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng also delivered a speech at the opening ceremony, pledging that the government would spare no effort in adhering to the holistic view of national security; and safeguarding the countrys sovereignty, security and development interests, with a view to continuing the successful implementation of the One country, two systems principle with Macau characteristics.

He also remarked that Macau had been able to attain progress in safeguarding national security, while keeping in place regular Covid-19 pandemic prevention and control measures. Such progress included ensuring the fundamental principle of patriots governing Macau; strengthening the basis in society and the political system of the One Country, Two Systems principle; optimising the work-, legal-, and implementation-related systems for safeguarding national security; and stepping up promotion and education effort.

This years National Security Education Exhibition features more than 420 images and a number of videos. It has six sections, each with its own theme. They include: great achievements in the countrys development; adherence to the holistic view of national security and continuous optimisation of the national security system; and remarkable achievements of national security in the new era, with a focus on preventing and solving major risks.

Other themes include the promotion of steady progress in the implementation of the One country, two systems principle with a spirit of strengthening the foundation for consolidation thereof, and of tackling challenges head on; and the work of forging ahead diligently for further contribution to overall national development. The work of passing on to new generations the torch of patriotism for the country and for Macau and the advancement of a unified effort to safeguard national security are also included.

The exhibition at the China-Portuguese-speaking Countries Commercial and Trade Service Platform Complex is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, until May 15.

Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak has said that stipulations regarding criminal procedures should be expected in the review of the National Security Law, for which the public consultation should be expected by the end of this year. Wong added that the current version promulgated in year 2009 is quite simple due to the social conditions of the time. Procedural stipulations are crucial in the perspective of law-enforcement, Wong remarked. The government has repeatedly warned of national security risks to the city. When asked for an explanation, Wong reiterated that risks do exist, but that no disclosure of them can be made due to confidentiality factors.

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Portugal; IMF growth outlook revised down to 4 pct this year – Macau Business

Posted: at 10:07 am

The growth of the Portuguese economy is expected to slow to 4% this year and 2.1% in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which in the World Economic Outlookreleased on Tuesday, cut its outlook for Portugal.

According to the updated world economic forecasts, the IMF lowered its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth outlook for Portugal by 1.1 percentage points (pp) this year, to 4%, from the 5.1%forecast in October.

The institution, chaired by Kristalina Georgieva,also cut its growth projection for 2023 to 2.1%, from 2.5% in October.

The IMFis nowthe most pessimistic institution among the main national and international institutions about Portuguese GDP expansion this year.

The Portuguese government predicts growth of 4.9%, as does the Bank of Portugal, while the Public Finance Council estimates an expansion of 4.8%.

The European Commission sees Portuguese GDPclimbingby 5.5% and the OECD by 5.8%.

According to the forecasts published today, the IMF also expects the Portuguese current account balance to rise from -1.1% of GDP in 2021 to -2.6% in 2022, dropping to -1.4% in 2023.

The IMF also forecasts that the unemployment rate will be 6.5% this year andfall slightly to 6.4% in 2023.

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