India reported 76,472 new coronavirus cases on Saturday (Aug 29), slightly lower than the record-breaking numbers of the past couple of days, but extending a run that has made the country’s outbreak currently the world’s worst.
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Thailand’s straight-talking youth protesters gather momentum

BANGKOK – Activist lawyer Arnon Nampa sang a medley of folk songs at a Bangkok police station on Friday (Aug 28).
Holding a cordless microphone connected to a loudspeaker, he serenaded a row of mask-wearing policemen who were keeping protesters away from 15 activists who were inside the station hearing charges for their anti-government protests.
The crowd outside kept vigil until those charged were released.
A week before, Bangkok’s skytrain stations went mysteriously silent at 6pm, when all commuters usually stand at attention for the national anthem. That was the day a tweet surfaced asking commuters to flash a three-finger salute during the anthem – a trademark of the nationwide youth-driven protests.
Alarmed at the wave of students doing this salute during morning assemblies, the director of a private school in Bangkok banned political expression on campus. The girls turned up anyway with schoolbags knotted with white ribbons – another symbol of the movement.
The defiance has been contagious. One year after an election re-installed leaders of the 2014 military coup, Thailand is seeing a swell of protests from people demanding the democracy they felt robbed of.
At least 60 protests have sprung up since May after restrictions to curb the pandemic were eased, according to the monitoring website Mob Data Thailand. They were held mostly in Bangkok but also as far as Chiang Mai, Pattani, Khon Kaen and Kanchanaburi provinces.
Loosely structured, mobilised swiftly with trending hashtags and often livestreamed, the protests have latched onto public disillusion about an economy projected to shrink by 8.1 per cent this year.
Protesters have mustered both flash mobs and hours-long extravaganzas, but stayed away from the protracted sit-ins that paralysed Bangkok in Thailand’s turbulent past. Along the way, groups allied with the movement have injected their causes in its slipstream: Labour and gay rights, school reform and – more contentiously – monarchy reform.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha warned on Wednesday that the nation would be “engulfed in flames” if the students go too far.
But government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri says it is not dismissing their demands. “We are thinking of doing something but we want to do it the proper way,” he told The Straits Times. “Because there are so many groups, we have to identify what each is asking for.”
Ask Mr Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, the 23-year-old secretary-general of the main protest organising group Free People, and he would say it’s all quite simple.
Free People demands the government stop harassing its critics, amend the military-backed Constitution and dissolve the House of Representatives for fresh elections. It also has what it calls a “dream” of a democracy with the monarch under the Constitution.
The carefully worded statement has put the spotlight on King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who since ascending the throne in 2016 has taken personal control of the multi-billion-dollar assets of the Crown Property Bureau and two army units.
Groups allied with Free People support its three basic demands, said the baby-faced Mr Tattep. “You can demand many things, but whatever problems you have – be they related to the environment, the military or the monarchy – they can only be solved by first unlocking the Constitution.”
Mr Tattep’s father, widowed six years ago, works as a Grab delivery rider. Mr Tattep supported himself while reading politics at Chulalongkorn University by giving tuition.
“I initially wanted to live the midde-class dream, find a good job and have a good life,” he told ST in between sips of chocolate frappe at a Bangkok cafe.
“But my partner said we can hardly achieve this dream under the current power structure,” he said, shifting closer to his partner and fellow protest organiser Panumas Singprom in the next chair.
Generation Z, having come of age under a royalist military government that leaned on the country’s oligopolistic conglomerates, blame their bleak future on the state of Thai politics.
They are frustrated about the longstanding political and economic suppression, said Mr Tattep. “They cannot see what their future will be like. That’s why they have come out.”
Amid the pandemic-induced austerity, which forced the government to cut each agency’s budget by 10 per cent, even once taboo subjects have gained traction.
On Aug 10, before a crowd of thousands at Thammasat University in Pathum Thani province, 22-year-old sociology and anthropology student Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul read out a list of 10 demands for monarchy reform. It included reducing the budget allocated to the palace according to economic conditions and ceasing publicity that praised the monarchy excessively.
The uproar it caused among royalists forced the deputy rector of Thammasat University to apologise. But it proved impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
A week or so later, 21-year-old Jutatip Sirikhan, president of the Student Union of Thailand, went on stage at a labour rights event in Pathum Thani to try to suggest that the budget for the palace should be redirected to social security. Guards hired by the protest organisers themselves tried to bundle her off stage.
Ms Jutatip is unapologetic. “I spoke about the reality, using public information,” said the Thammasat University student. “Social sentiments have changed. People can now speak the truth.”
Not everybody agrees: Outgoing army chief Apirat Kongsompong has alluded to the protesters as “nation haters”.
Mr Anucha says legislators are drafting amendments to the Constitution which will be forwarded to the Speaker this coming week. But he declined to comment when asked about monarchy reform: “We have to be very careful about how to proceed.”
Thailand has a lese majeste law which punishes those who insult or defame the monarchy with up to 15 years in jail. While this has not been used against the protesters yet, several activists, including Mr Arnon, Mr Tattep and popular underground rapper Dechathorn Bamrungmuang, have been charged with sedition and other offences.
Anti-monarchy activists in recent years have met grimmer fates. Last year, the bodies of two such exiles washed up on the banks of the Mekong River. They had been disembowelled and stuffed with concrete.
Asked about the possible dangers ahead, Ms Panusaya, the leader of a group called United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, told the ST: “I’m prepared. I’ve told my colleagues what to do if I die, and how they can contact my family.”
Critics allege the protests are backed by a third party. Students say they are funded by huge sales of T-shirts and public donations.
Free People will disband when Thailand achieves true democracy, says Mr Tattep. But the journey will likely be long.
In the meantime, activists have been briefing foreign diplomats.
A viral anti-dictatorship rap released in 2018 called Prathet Ku Mee, roughly translated to “My country’s got”, has become an anthem of sorts for the disaffected. According to Mr Dechathorn, a new rap will soon be introduced.
Ms Panusaya says she will not leave politics: “I have been talking to my friends, and we may start a political party. Regardless of whether we are inside the political system or outside it, we will fight.”
Her group will hold another rally at the Bangkok campus of Thammasat University on Sept 19 while a high school group called Bad Student, which shared the stage at a recent Free People protest, will hold a demonstration at the Ministry of Education in Bangkok on Sept 5.
Its hashtag: #IKnowIAmBad
Judge orders Texas to allow online voter registration with driver’s license renewal
A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the state was violating federal law by not allowing Texans to register to vote when renewing their driver’s license online.

A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the state was violating federal law by not allowing Texans to register to vote when renewing their driver’s license online.In a lengthy …
Wastewater Testing Prevents COVID-19 Outbreak at University of Arizona : US News : Latin Post – Latin news, immigration, politics, culture
Wastewater testing samples from the dorms on the University of Arizona campus came back positive for COVID-19, said university president, Dr. Robert Robbins.
The University of Arizona is regularly testing wastewater from each dorm, searching for traces of COVID-19. Officials said the techniques worked and possibly prevented a COVID-19 outbreak at the University of Arizona.
According to the school officials, when wastewater testing samples came back positive, the school quickly tested all 311 people who live and work there. By testing, they found two asymptomatic students who tested positive for COVID-19.
The students were quickly quarantined. Richard Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general directing the school’s reentry task force, said that they have managed to jump on it right away with the early detection. He added that they got them the appropriate isolation where they needed to be.
spark — . . .
art inherits itself, to all those, that it considers beautiful the art to one, at times shines much brighter than all the rest, that may be beautiful to them. for one’s passion towards something is rather scarce to witness these days. art etches themselves to all those who dare to create. the mere introduction to […]
spark — . . .
EU-UK trade agreement on rocks — EUROPE DIPLOMATIC

The EU officials have informed the UK goverment that the Primie Minister Boris Johnson has less than two weeks to save the agreement on post-Brexit trade and security, according to senior European Union sources. (Image above: archive). The heads of the delegations Michel Barnier and David Frost will hold emergency talks next week in an […]
EU-UK trade agreement on rocks — EUROPE DIPLOMATIC
#blunderBoris
RNC airs video clip of ‘Biden’s America’ — it was actually Barcelona
The Republican National Convention aired a video on its first night decrying protests in the United States and citing potential chaos in the streets if Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected president.
One problem with the video? One part showed a different protest, in a different country, in a different year.
NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team was able to identify that a portion of the video was in fact taken during Catalonia independence protests in Spain in October 2019 and not during recent protests in the United States over racial injustice and police brutality. Catalonian public broadcaster, CCA, was first to report on the misinformation on Aug. 25.
Source: RNC airs video clip of ‘Biden’s America’ — it was actually Barcelona
The White House Is Openly Threatening a Journalist With a ‘Dossier’
While reporting a story on how the Secret Service has been a “captive customer” in spending the public’s money on Trump Organization properties while protecting the president, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold and his colleagues submitted questions to the White House. In response, White House spokesman Judd Deere told reporters that the administration was targeting him.
“The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop,” Deere wrote in a statement to the Washington Post. “Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”
Source: The White House Is Openly Threatening a Journalist With a ‘Dossier’
Father of fallen SEAL: ‘Don’t trust Donald Trump with your kid’s life’

“Just five days into his presidency, Trump ordered Ryan’s SEAL team into Yemen, not in the situation room with all the intelligence assembled, but sitting across a dinner table from Steve Bannon,” Owens tells viewers as the narrator of the ad. “There was no vital interest at play, just Donald Trump playing big man going to war.” He concludes, “If you hear one thing, let it be this: Don’t trust Donald Trump with your kid’s life — or your own.”
In fact, U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved the raid — the first operation he approved as president — “without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.” He green-lit the mission over dinner at the White House residence, and while the raid was underway, Trump reportedly did not go to the Situation Room and did not monitor the developments in real time.
Source: Father of fallen SEAL: ‘Don’t trust Donald Trump with your kid’s life’
Jacob Blake’s father says his conversation with Biden and Harris was like ‘speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters’ – CNNPolitics
The father of Jacob Blake said Friday that his hourlong conversation earlier this week with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris was akin to “speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters.” “They were so comforting that you almost forgot how the situation was really playing out,” Jacob Blake Sr. told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day,” referring to Biden and Harris. “It was like I was speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters — literally, literally.”
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