Category Archives: Euthanasia

Euthanasia as an option for Canadian nursing home patients who are sick of lockdowns

A final family get-together with Nancy Russell /ctvnews.ca

This is just one story amongst many but it raises serious questions. A 90-year-old woman, Nancy Russell, chose euthanasia last month in Toronto. She was not suffering unbearable pain. She was just sick and tired of lockdown isolation in her nursing home.

According to a report in CTVNews, Residents eat meals in their rooms, have activities and social gatherings cancelled, family visits curtailed or eliminated. Sometimes they are in isolation in their small rooms for days. These measures, aimed at saving lives, can sometimes be detrimental enough to the overall health of residents that they find themselves looking into other options.

She, almost overnight, went from a very active lifestyle to a very limited life, and they had, very early on, a complete two-week confinement just to her room, said her daughter. She was just drooping. It was contact with people that was like food to her, it was like, oxygen. She would be just tired all the time because she was under-stimulated.

Ms Russell supported Canadas medically assisted dying but the first doctor to whom she applied refused because she had too much to live for. She applied again after more concrete medical health issues emerged. This time, the doctors gave her the tick of approval.

She just truly did not believe that she wanted to try another one of those two-week confinements into her room, her daughter said.

When you stick someone alone and deprive them of the usual things that bring them interest in joy, that can be an incredibly isolating, lonely, depressing experience, Samir Sinha, a geriatric specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital told CTV News.

And frankly, when you can't look forward to getting out of your room, to having meals or doing activities with others, to even seeing your own families and loved ones, you can imagine for a person in the last few years of their life where these are the basic things that actually bring them joy and really defined what they would call their own quality of life, when you actually deprive a human being of these things, you can imagine that that can have significant psychological consequences that can really give people no real will to live anymore.

Even to die, Ms Russell had to leave her nursing home. She spent a week with one of her children before she was given a lethal injection surrounded by her relatives on October 20. She was able to direct a peaceful, pain free death on her own time and avoid a great fear of hers, which was to endure winter and lockdowns, her daughter said.

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

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Euthanasia as an option for Canadian nursing home patients who are sick of lockdowns - BioEdge

Memories on the net are written in indelible ink. However much you want to forget and move on, even with laws permitting it, data is always available in some corner on the Internet, waiting to do damage.

By Sujit Bhar

To forget is an intellectual probability, as much as it is a legal improbability. Even restricting the debate to the cyber world, it becomes highly improbable that a person wanting all references of him or her, in pictures, writings, or in documents to be removed from the internet could ever achieve that.

The Orissa High Court, during a recent judgment, suggested that that there should be a provision for the right to permanently remove objectionable content, photos or videos from the internet. This means that if a wrong picture or video has been posted on the Internet, then the victim should have the right to demand that it be removed forever.

This would be the elusive Right to be Forgotten.

Why elusive? The Right to be Forgotten is possibly as, if not more, contentious than the controversial right to euthanasia. The right to euthanasia is unlikely to become law in India, ever, depending mostly on case-by-case judgments by the courts as was in the case of nurse Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug, where the Supreme Court allowed passive euthanasia which was carried out on May 18, 2015. If the Right to be Forgotten is a Human Right too, then finding a way to implement it is a Himalayan task.

The court observed that there is no law in the country regarding this right. So the court suggested that it can be included under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court said that many European countries have given this right to their citizens and the Orissa High Court is the first constitutional institution which has deemed the need of Indians to get this right.

Before venturing beyond the boundaries of the country, one should look at the intended legislations in India. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 has a section Right to be Forgotten. However, the bill itself is in limbo. It was first tabled before Parliament by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is also the minster here) on December 11, 2019.

It was sent back to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for a detailed analysis, in consultation with experts and stakeholders. The committee, headed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi, was tasked with finalising it on a short deadline. Probably the Covid intervened, but the Bill is pending, still.

As per the Bills section 27, Right to be Forgotten:

(1) The data principal shall have the right to restrict or prevent continuing disclosure of personal data by a data fiduciary related to the data principal where such disclosure:

(a) has served the purpose for which it was made or is no longer necessary;

(b) was made on the basis of consent under section 12 and such consent has since been withdrawn; or

(c) was made contrary to the provisions of this Act or any other law made by Parliament or any State Legislature.

Following caveats in sub-section 2, sub-section 3 clarifies methodology as follows:

(3) In determining whether the condition in sub-section (2) is satisfied, the Adjudicating Officer shall have regard to

(a) the sensitivity of the personal data;

(b) the scale of disclosure and the degree of accessibility sought to be restricted or prevented;

(c) the role of the data principal in public life;

(d) the relevance of the personal data to the public; and

(e) the nature of the disclosure and of the activities of the data fiduciary, particularly whether the data fiduciary systematically facilitates access to personal data and whether the activities would be significantly impeded if disclosures of the relevant nature were to be restricted or prevented.

Technically, if its not the Licence Raj, there is a distinct possibility of it becoming an Adjudicating Officer Raj. Technically, your personal right isnt for you to decide, it seems.

One hopes these rough edges are sandpapered while deciding on the final format of the Bill before it is again put before Parliament.

That, though, is the part where legal apathy and government eagerness to maintain oversight on your personal affairs is predominant. That is a political fight, and should be fought, tooth and nail.

There are improbabilities hindering progress of this thought, though. It is the reign of international laws, business interests and technology. It also has reference to Indias claim of localising data and its possible benefits.

The broader canvas

Yes, the EU has a good right to be forgotten law. But the grass on that side isnt as green as it seems from here. That law, as a recent court ruling has pointed out, has its limitations. According to a BBC report of September 24, 2019, the EUs top court ruled that Google does not have to apply the right to be forgotten globally. What does that mean? The ruling meant that Google only needs to remove links from its search results in Europe, following a request to the effect. It has no obligation to remove the links from anywhere else. This was the outcome of a French privacy regulator suing Google.

It started in 2015, when CNIL ordered Google to remove search result listings to pages containing damaging or false information about a person. And this should be done globally, it demanded.

To that Google created a technical solution. It introduced a geoblocking feature which prevented European users from being able to see delisted links. However, users elsewhere had no problem accessing those links.

This is an aberration of the right to be forgotten rule in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), also known as the right to erasure, which gives a EU citizen the right and the power to demand that data about him/her be deleted.

Here, too, there seems to be a Controller Raj in place. This is evident in the following guidelines incorporated in the GDPR: Anybody can request any organisation to remove data related to him/her. This request can be verbal, or in writing. The organisation has been given a month to respond.

There is where the complications begin.

In the case in question, Google argued that the obligation could be abused by authoritarian governments trying to cover up human rights abuses, if they were to be applied universally, which is beyond European borders.

What Google explained was this: Since 2014, weve worked hard to implement the right to be forgotten in Europe, and to strike a sensible balance between peoples rights of access to information and privacy. This was the companys statement, issued after the ECJ ruling. Then, quite like a snide aside, it added: Its good to see that the court agreed with our arguments.

What all this means that link to, say, an objectionable photograph, outlawed and obfuscated by Google in Europe, could be accessed across The Atlantic and immediately relayed back to websites in Europe, making the original ruling of any court a joke.

In its decision to not allow obfuscation outside Europe, Google had on its side other tech giants, such as Microsoft, Wikipedias owner the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the UK freedom of expression campaign group Article 19, etc.

Even ECJ adviser Maciej Szpunar had surmised that this right (the Right to be Forgotten) should be limited to Europe.

There are benefits of this ruling and Googles decision. There are negatives too. The negatives are being overruled by a demand for transparency of information. The problem is that this strikes at the root of privacy laws around the world. When a non-profit reporters committee joins hands with the tech giants, there is need to introspect. How would an attempt at creating an unbiased piece of legislation based on the Orissa High Courts recommendation look like on the world stage, or even across the country? Would such a move enable a terror organisation to forcefully remove all data related to their activities from the Internet?

The accepted policy and methodology in a terror group or drug cartel tracing is scrutinising money trails. A Right to be Forgotten, if universally applied, will stymie this effort.

On the other hand, illegal references on the net to a rape victim, her pictures and identity, should be wiped clean from all databases. Thus, yes, it will be a case-by-case reference, in which case the universality of the law would be in doubt. It will be a Controller Raj and open to the inherent corrupt practises that most Indians have been known to perpetrate.

That leaves us with the other option: end-to-end encryption, technologies that apps such as WhatsApp employ.

What is end-to-end encryption? An article in CNBC explains this well:

End-to-end encryption is a security tool used by some apps and services including WhatsApp, Signal and Facebook Messenger to provide a greater level of privacy. Messages sent using this tool are encrypted before they leave the senders phone or computer, with a key unique to the devices at either end of an exchange. Even if they are intercepted during transmission by a hacker or a government agency, the messages are unreadable, since the only devices able to decode them are those belonging to the sender and the intended recipient.

Hacking of messages encrypted end-to-end is very difficult. The only way such a message can come out into the open is through active participation of one of the participants. That leaves little option for unauthorised grabbing of data and uploading of such data out into the open.

What is encryption? This is a very ancient technique, widely used and developed into an art form during the World Wars, in which data, or a message, is turned into an undecipherable format. The format accepts a logic that a key can provide at the other end. Encryption has progressed beyond simple symbols of old and is generally computer generated. There is little a third party can do in this.

There is normal (or link) encryption, in which data from sender can be deciphered by a middle party such as a social media operator and then encrypted again for the receiver. In this case, the deciphered data remains available with the middle party.

For end-to-end encryption, this middle party accepts no role and the cipher remains undisturbed.

As in every coin, the flip side of end-to-end encryption is that it creates a safe space for criminals. Hence investigating agencies such as Interpol, who look into money transfer trails, will face a wall.

The encryption part

However, all this may hit yet another legal wall soon. Encryption, in India, is not illegal so far. There is no bar on anybody encrypting any message or data for storage or transfer via any means.

But if a study published in a Carnegie Endowment journal of May 2019 is to be believed, some legislation regulating encryption based on its perceived hindrance of lawful data collection is imminent.

The article studies different statuses of privacy-related legislations in India and finds that the atmosphere is right (within the government) for such a legislation. It says: The exact nature of the regulation remains undecided because of a need to balance law enforcement needs, apprehensions about the proliferation of unsecured devices, concerns about the security of digital payments and freedom of expression. Whatever the outcome of this debate, it will significantly affect Indias newly recognized fundamental right to privacy, burgeoning economic activity in cyberspace, and security architecture as a whole.

The author of the article tries to look into government activities in cyberspace in arriving at such conclusions. He writes: The Indian governments present adversarial posture toward regulating online content primarily stems from a lack of capacity to address cyber and cyber-enabled offenses. This is compounded by an inability, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), to systemically gain access to electronic evidence stored abroad. For example, encryption has often been at the core of the confrontation between Indian law enforcement and U.S. technology companies. Indian laws, especially the Information Technology Act 2000, bestow wide powers on law enforcement agencies to intercept and decrypt communications, but these powers are rarely exercised to gather electronic evidence. Instead, agencies rely on legacy search-and-seizure provisions like Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973, when seeking access to electronic communications.

The author brings in the Blackberry incident, where the Indian government was trying to force the company to decrypt its internal, encrypted free messaging system. That, probably, showed the way for things to come soon.

The outcome

The Orissa High Courts judgment, in the face of it, should hugely benefit any free-thinking member of the public. However, achieving a balanced legislation on this would be a Herculean task.

The problems, as discussed above, would be the objections that can, and will, be raised by investigation agencies, especially the NIA and the NCB in India, claiming that this would corrupt efforts to track terror funding and drug cartel money movements. This is a legitimate claim.

There will also be problems in the search for missing children. This database especially facial recognition data is one that needs sharing among different police forces. But a privacy law can infringe on rights of policemen to deal with minor girls photos and identities. How that can be handled could end in a new chapter.

The issues involved in writing a new legislation in this regard, thus, are humongous. While the intent of the Orissa High Court is commendable, any attempt at implementation may result in having to open a Pandoras Box of troubles.

Read Also: Governor signs UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance 2020

Read more from the original source:

A Right to be Forgotten law will be almost impossible to implement - India Legal

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Mobile, AL (WALA) Biologists said the sperm whale spotted in Mobile Bay for nearly a week was euthanized Wednesday morning.

Dr. Ruth Carmichael with the Dauphin Island Sea Labs Marine Mammal Research Program said the whale was just too sick to survive.

The euthanasia was deemed the best option for this animal who was suffering and unable to swim and survive any longer in the wild, said Dr. Carmichael.

Boaters first spotted the 36-foot long sperm whale in the bay on Thursday. Researchers with the sea lab said it was the first time a sperm whale had been seen in Alabama.

A necropsy will be performed to find out what caused the whale to venture into the shallow waters of Mobile Bay.

Its a deep water species, so whatever it is that affected it there is a chance that it could be affecting other animals that are out that might wash up in other locations, said Dr. Carmichael.

The necropsy should be completed by Thursday, but it could take weeks before researchers get test results back to determine what was wrong with the whale.

Carmichael said the whale weighs about 30,000 pounds and is either a fully grown female, or a young adult male.

Biologists estimate there is a population of 1,000 sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

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Biologists euthanize sperm whale in Mobile Bay deemed too sick to survive - KTVZ

In George Boardmans column of Nov. 17, he talked about winners and losers resulting from the recent election. He wrote: LOSERS: Evangelicals who are dismayed that the next president actually takes religion seriously and practices his faith. But Protestant fundamentalists never much liked Catholics anyway. Worded as such it is offensive to both religious communities. Evangelicals and Catholics are Christians.

I take issue with Boardman regarding Biden taking his Catholic identity as being serious. Its anything but. The only thing serious was him trying to please Catholics into voting for him. Joe Biden is a CINO (Catholic in name only) as he does not believe in, or practice, what the church teaches. I dont know what he takes seriously, but its not religion or practicing his faith. Youll never hear Sen. Feinstein saying to Biden the dogma lives loudly within you.

Biden uses the old Im personally opposed, but excuse while beholding to the Democratic Partys platform of abortion for all who want it, any time, for any reason up to birth, I believe. He supports euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, artificial contraception, as well as same-sex marriage. These all are intrinsic evils in Catholic teaching.

Dennis Babson

Grass Valley

Excerpt from:

Dennis Babson: Biden and religion - The Union of Grass Valley

BTS, "Be" (Big Hit Entertainment)

February seems like an unfathomable lifetime ago. That's when BTS' "Map of the Soul: 7" which trails only Taylor Swift's "Folklore" for the year's bestselling album debuted at No. 1 around the globe.

This trim, eight-song album often slower, more reflective and refined than its last marks the coronation of the South Korean group as not just a commercial juggernaut but a driving force in American pop culture.

Without a worldwide stadium tour, BTS had much more time on its hands. That meant more original songwriting and production work from the band members. "Dynamite," the breakout single on "Be," has already topped the Billboard Hot 100 with its fizzy, throwback disco vibes. "Stay" and "Telepathy" are right in line with it, heavy on the post-EDM sizzle and funk bass driving hits like Dua Lipa's "Break My Heart."

But new songs like "Life Goes On" and "Dis-ease" each driven by slow-rolling retro hip-hop beats acknowledge the grind of the COVID-19 world while trying to keep fans resolved that better days are ahead. "Blue & Grey" is beautifully harmonized bedroom emo, and like Swift's "Folklore," a document of this homebound, lonely era of music where we're making the most with the tools we have at hand.

August Brown, Los Angeles Times

Nick Cave, "Idiot Prayer" (Bad Seeds Ltd.)

On the heels of last year's excellent album "Ghosteen," Cave had scheduled a tour with the Bad Seeds that got scuttled. Instead, we have a solo performance he filmed last June, seated at a grand piano in London's cavernous, empty Alexandra Palace.

This 85-minute soundtrack album serves as a toned-down Cave retrospective, including early Bad Seeds songs such as "Stranger Than Kindness" and "The Mercy Seat," Grinderman songs including "Palaces of Montezuma," such recent works as "Galleon Ship" and one new song, the brief "Euthanasia." Somber and stately, it highlights his thoughtful voice, romantic piano playing and poetic lyrics.

Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

New Releases

Billie Joe Armstrong, "No Fun Mondays"

Hatebreed, "Weight of the False Self"

Miley Cyrus, "Plastic Hearts"

Smashing Pumpkins, "Cyr"

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Album reviews: BTS lets it 'Be' while Nick Cave offers an 'Idiot Prayer' - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Vets are experiencing a mental health crisis after being targeted on social media, a survey has found, revealing it is no longer an idyllic career.

Some 74 per cent of 565 respondents said they were "very or quite concerned" about stress and burnout as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, according to research by the British Veterinary Association.

They are being bombarded with messages by demanding clients who chastise them if they fail to reply quickly, putting them at higher risk of psychological distress and suicide, it is claimed.

Vets are used to dealing with the death or euthanasia of animals, which means they are more likely to turn to self-harm compared with many other professions, said Lucy Grieve, president of the British Equine Veterinary Association.

As we are expected to deal with death regularly, with euthanising animals being a unique way of having to deal with death, were quite familiar with it and some have argued suicide becomes an easier option as a result, she said.

That sounds raw, but the concept of euthanasia is part of our job so one could argue its not too big a step if youre in a very dark place.

Mrs Grieve said one of the biggest problems facing vets is their inability to "switch off" after finishing their working day.

It can subtly chip away at you if in your spare time youre getting bombarded with messages. But were responsible for our own boundaries so vets should equally say Ill get back to you tomorrow, or not reply until the next day.

Graham Hunter, a veterinary advisor at IVC Evidensia, agreed that mental health is a huge issue in the industry.

Vets are often working alone, in the middle of the night, and these are huge pressures," he said. "If youre sensitive, and out in this world where people can be brutal, you can see why people sometimes struggle."

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Vets in mental health crisis, survey finds - The Telegraph

Every day volunteers go to a little pink house in Uptown New Orleans to do life-saving work.

They arrive bringing clean laundry or folded newspapers. Some bring cat food or litter. Most pick up cat traps to trap the multitude of unfixed cats in New Orleans that are breeding prolifically.

These heroes trap 50 to 60 cats a week and get them spayed and neutered via the Louisiana SPCA and Dr. Antoine Saacks.

Most of the cats that are trapped have dedicated "feeders" who start feeding one or two cats then over the course of a few months have a proliferation of breeding cats to feed. They realize that if something isn't done they will soon have 20 mouths to feed.

Some start calling local veterinarians and learn that spaying and neutering can cost $300 or more. Eventually, they find "Trap Dat Cat," a New Orleans Cat Trapping group. Our phones ring constantly for help with getting the cats spayed or neutered for a reasonable fee. If people can't pay for the service we will pay to get the cats altered so no more cats are born on the streets to suffer.

We need the help of the veterinary community to assist in offering reasonable spay-neuter pricing to stop the overpopulation of cats. We need volunteers to help trap cats. We need donations to help pay for the surgeries.

If you love cats help us reduce shelter euthanasia and intake of cats and kittens into our shelters and rescues. No one likes seeing tiny kittens on the streets.

NITA HEMETER

volunteer cat trapper

New Orleans

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Letters: Help needed for spay-neuter services to limit unwanted cat population - The Advocate

economic crisis diagram

Open source

Any real reform should set itself a quite tangible goal to achieve a new format of social welfare. But how to improve people's lives in comparison with the reality that must be replaced in the process of reform. Indeed, if living standards deteriorate as a result of the deconstruction of existing development mechanisms, then this is not a reform at all, but utilization, liquidation, restructuring and/or soft "euthanasia of society."

A priori reform cannot worsen people's lives, even the so-called "shock reform." Ukraine, in this regard, has a complete annihilation of meanings. We have not one structural reform, but "144" (that is, none). Every reformer in power tries to explain to ordinary citizens why the planned changes will make life worse and why it is "good" for them. We were caught in the trap of a whole heap of system errors. Let's list some of the most obvious ones.

Long-term "belt-tightening" is presented as an inevitable stage on the path to prosperity. Any sane economist understands that a long-term drop in the effective demand of the population is fraught with the same long-term crisis and that in no other country in the world has total economy led to prosperity (proven by the experience of Romania during the time of the dictator Ceausescu). The lack of capital in the country leads to low productivity of the national economy, which, in turn, causes low labor incomes of the population.

Hence the insufficient level of savings and consumer spending of the citizens of the country. Low motivation to invest, and as a result - a capital deficit. The vicious circle of poverty (formulated by the American economist, a native of the Russian Empire, Ragnar Nurkse), which is easier to get into than to get out of it and in which our economy has been floundering for many years. It is still being saved by the dualistic nature (according to Lewis): the capital deficit is compensated by the surplus of the labor force, which goes abroad and supports the economy thanks to labor transfers (the economy is a "sleeping area"). Plus the export of agricultural raw materials (the economy is a "cornfield").

Such a model still has potential, while the agricultural sector frees up capital from industry, cities absorb the resources of the countryside, and the capital - the provinces. But this parasitism is not endless. As a result of the "reforms" according to the IMF templates, we have formed an economic "pattern" in the form of a primitive unprocessed "casing": more than 50% of exports are represented by agricultural raw materials, corn, grain, and sunflower oil.

Or the myth of "shock therapy" as an inevitable evil that must be endured. But the whole irony of this thesis lies in the fact that "shock therapy" takes place at the breakdown of economic models, as a rule, during the transition from one type (planned) to a conceptually different (market) one. "Shock therapy" is not used to make everyone feel bad, but to keep things from getting worse. "Shock therapy" cannot last for years, like any resuscitation. And it cannot be applied in the absence of a basic development model, especially when it has not been proven that the previous model was significantly worse.

The roadmap for modern development is the movement of investments in accordance with the road signs displayed. The outstanding Soviet semioticist Yuri Lotman formed his theory on the basis of sign systems, many of which have an "iconic character." Signs streamline the transmission of information and indicate real processes and objects.

Each state has a "text" in the form of laws, "discourse" in the form of an internal discussion of development models, and a "narrative" - a story told to the world based on the first two actions.

Lee Kuan Yew carried out systemic reforms in Singapore, as a result of which a new social benefit appeared in this country, which is easy to measure - more than 65,000 dollars of GDP per capita per year. Let's compare with 3,500-4,000 dollars in our country. How did the country manage to make such an impressive spurt, which did not even have its own freshwater, which it imported from neighboring Malaysia? It all started with a national discourse on the development model (and without the participation of the IMF).

At one time, Gene Sharp wrote a number of "manuals" on the non-violent change of power. Now his name is certainly associated with all the "color" revolutions, although this is unfair. After all, Sharp's "Gandhism" as a methodology ended in 2010 with the beginning of the "Arab Spring". Now "color" revolutions are not so peaceful and often end in bloodshed and civil war, and also create preconditions for external aggression.

Gene Sharp formulated the technology of nonviolent resistance to power in the form of three key sections:

Just a few hundred rules: picketing; pseudo-elections; hanging flags, using symbolic colors; wearing symbols; prayers and worship; symbolic lighting of lights (torches, lanterns, candles); installation of new street signs and names; fraternization with law enforcement officers; singing; convoys; symbolic and demonstrative funerals; worship in burial places; ostracism of individuals and social boycott; refusal to communicate; public disobedience; double sovereignty, the creation of a parallel government and even the issuance of counterfeit money...

But as a result of the loss of the ability for evolutionary movement forward, society generally loses the opportunity to develop as such: ideologized "norms" are formed in its inner space - myths, sacred themes, and semantic clichs that can either be accepted or be in the camp of the discriminated part of the expert community, the camp of outcasts or internal emigrants.

It is being replaced by an imposed external discourse, which, as a smokescreen, helps political elites remove the usual corruption rent from the economy. The economy dries up, but the rent remains constant. It is collected at the expense of social discrimination against broad strata of the population: first, the middle class, and then the poorest social groups.

How do countries live after the color revolutions? Three main groups of states can be distinguished:

The first type includes Georgia, until recently Armenia, Tunisia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia; to the second Ukraine, Syria, Libya; to the third Belarus. Yes, we traditionally believe that the northern neighbor is an exception to the rule, where the political regime has retained power, and the opposition has failed to gain the upper hand. In fact, since 2006, Belarus has also been a country living in the regime of a permanent "color" revolution. This is how it is viewed by its geopolitical partners and assessed by potential investors.

We have been listening to stories about the Georgian economic "miracle" for a long time. It would seem that there is some reason for this statement: from 2003 to 2018, the country's GDP grew from $ 4 billion to $ 17.6 billion. But the whole veil of reforms dissipates when comparing this indicator with the growth dynamics of the same small countries of the post-Soviet space... Let's take the multiplication indicator, that is, how many times the economy of a particular country has grown over a specified period.

In Georgia, this indicator was 4.4. But in neighboring Armenia, where until recently no "great reforms" were carried out, this figure is also 4.4. And Moldova, which is usually called an economic outsider, has 6! Azerbaijan has 6.4, under a seemingly authoritarian rule. The great Georgian myth is debunked by a simple regional comparison. The entire growth of these countries is due to the conjunctural factors of external markets, the growth of debts, the growth in the value of domestic assets as a result of the disclosure of national economies and, most importantly, thanks to transfers of labor migrants, which account for 15-20% in the structure of the economies of Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia.

The trajectories of the GDP curves of "reformed" Ukraine and "authoritarian" Belarus surprisingly coincide in terms of minimum and maximum extremes and in general dynamics: by 2019, Ukraine reached 85% of the 2013 level, and Belarus - 84%. By the way, the trajectories of the GDP curves of "reformed" Serbia and neighboring Croatia, which has become an EU member, also roughly coincide. This proves once again that opportunistic and regionally dependent growth practically does not correlate in any way with the nature of the "reforms." But the mechanism of distribution of GDP within the country correlates. If in Belarus these are social projects, then in Ukraine this growth goes into the pockets of external creditors and the largest financial and industrial groups.

Tunisia's GDP, which became the starting point of the Arab Spring, has been balancing since 2010 at almost the same level - in the range of $ 43-39 billion with a downward trend.

Egypt has experienced not only a revolution but also the rise to power of Islamists (elected in a general election), a military coup, and the establishment of an authoritarian rule by the army elites. As a result, the same treadmill, like that of Tunisia, and GDP at the level of 240-250 billion dollars. Well, the GDP of Syria during the civil war fell from 67 billion to 17 billion dollars, the average rate of economic decline was -18% in a year. The war led to the migration of 2.6 million inhabitants of the country. Every year the country lost about $ 7 billion of its economic growth potential.

Here are several conclusions on the situation:

After the color revolutions, small countries enter a state of economic homeostasis and soft sleep very quickly: their inhabitants go abroad in search of work, the domestic economy acquires a service character, and national assets are bought up by foreign capital. These are no longer countries, but territories whose existence is the result of the geopolitical consensus of the larger world players. True, the consensus sometimes has the ability to reboot, as happened in Armenia. As a result, a service country with a weak economy and massive labor migration was unable to defend itself and faced the threat of occupation.

Countries with active military conflicts are gradually burning out along with their economic potential.

Medium and large states, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Ukraine, which cannot stretch their economies through labor migration and service specialization, are actually marking time they practically do not develop while the whole world is moving forward.

In this regard, the desocialization of states is a direct consequence of the deindustrialization of national economies. And stimulating labor migration is not only a chaotic process but also an element of "controlled chaos", the purpose of which is to bring one or another economy into a state of dynamic equilibrium at a lower point of development when the population size and social burden on the budget correlate with a simplified economic profile. countries, and the process of the primary redistribution of capital to domestic assets, including land, is completed with the alienation of the population from these.

"Economically justified" population size, control over assets, and the leveling of elective mechanisms for governing the country, replaced by "technocratic" ones this is the goal of Ukraines 144 reforms, and not at all the creation of a new social good.

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Economy after Euromaidan: How Ukraine and other countries survive after color revolutions - 112 International

Q: I agree with human euthanasia. It is to make people or animals die without pain. In japan, only passive euthanasia which is based on the indication of clear intention of the patient is allowed. But I think active euthanasia should be also allowed because there are many cases in which the patient suffers serious pain and there is no way to avoid death or relieve pain.There have been a lot of patients and their family who asked for euthanasia so far. Thus, I agree with human euthanasia. does this sound natural?

A:Looks good so far. I just wanted to make some minor corrections to help the flow and fix some grammar mistakes:I agree with human euthanasia. It allows people or animals to die without pain. In Japan, only passive euthanasia - which is based on the indication of clear intention of the patient - is allowed. But I think active euthanasia should also be allowed because there are many cases where patients either suffer severe pain without the opportunity for relief or face death. Many patients and their families have pleaded for euthanasia. Thus, I agree with human euthanasia.

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We have known for a long time that those who describe themselves as pro-choice when it comes to abortion are in fact deeply anti-choice. While they wax lyrical about the right to choose, they do nothing to provide support for those women who want to keep their baby, either during or after pregnancy.

If they were authentically and consistently pro-choice, then the same people men and women who hold placards at pro-abortion rallies would also be volunteering for pregnancy counselling services or donating to providers of the same, but it doesnt routinely happen, if at all.

Similarly, the MPs who last year stood up in NSW Parliament and claimed that their pro-abortion vote was about a womans right to choose should be just as vocal and heartfelt in their pleas for the provision of services for families. But there has been no evidence of that.

The irony of the self-proclaimed pro-choicers is that they are thoroughly anti-choice.

This is true at the start of life and it is also true at the end of life.

Those who push for euthanasia and assisted suicide to be made legal describe their campaign as being one about end-of-life choices, but they also are completely disinterested in advocating for, or providing choice to, those who are nearing the end of life.

Instead, and just like the abortion advocates, they frame their campaign in terms of choice to make it more palatable to the public and the politicians.

In particular, those who argue for assisted suicide and euthanasia will say that its legalisation is not about diminishing the quality of or access to palliative care. Instead, they argue, it is an option for people for whom palliative care does not work, and who would be left to die in agony.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Australia has some of the highest quality palliative care in the world, and those who offer it say that for the two per cent of patients for whom it does not work, palliative sedation is offered so that they are not in any pain or distress as they reach the end of their lives.

All they really need is the resources to educate more doctors and patients about it, and to ensure it is affordable for everyone.

But euthanasia and assisted suicide advocates are not interested in that type of choice.

Remember that when Victoria conducted its inquiry into end-of-life choices, 30 of the 49 recommendations that the committee made related to the improvement of palliative care, and only one had to do with the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Palliative Care Victoria requested an additional $65 million in annual funding in order to meet the requirements, but they were given nothing.

The government instead put all its attention on pushing euthanasia laws through parliament, and it wasnt till after they were accepted that palliative care funding was considered.

Even then, the amount given was minimal. At a commitment of $62 million over a five-year period, the government was offering less than 20 per cent of what Palliative Care Victoria had told them was needed.

And its not like Victorian palliative care services didnt need the help.

Statistics released just last week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that Victoria has been woefully below the national average for Medicare-subsidised palliative care services since the time euthanasia was legalised.

In Australia, an average of 58 people in every 100,000 receive Medicare-subsidised palliative care visits, either in their home or in the hospital.

Despite being one of Australias most populated states, in Victoria, these Medicare-subsidised visits are available to only 41.6 people per 100,000.

This isnt because fewer people are using the same amount of services.

Victoria is also below the national average in relation to the number of services provided.

Around the country, states average 316.4 Medicare -subsidised palliative care visits per 100,000 people; in Victoria, this number is 234.6.

While it might be cynical to suggest that the lethal cocktail provided for assisted suicide is a lot cheaper than providing quality palliative care, it is also true. If Victoria was serious about providing end-of-life choices, then the number of Medicare-subsidised palliative care services it provides to its citizens should be the highest in Australia.

Unfortunately, there is about as much chance of that as there is a pro-abortionist offering pregnancy support.

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Experts back KPMG report on palliative careFederal grant for Sydney palliative expertsMonica Doumit: From bad to worse on euthanasia

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