Abused and infected with COVID-19, Nigerian domestic workers are stranded in Beirut · Global Voices

Even before the explosion, many African domestic workers were dumped on the streets of Lebanon by employers following an economic recession, aggravated by COVID-19. Without money and passports, some of the ladies were sexually exploited.

Under the Kafala sponsorship system, the immigration status of foreign domestic workers in Lebanon is tied to their employers. This slave-like labour law perpetuates exploitation and abuse.

 

Source: Abused and infected with COVID-19, Nigerian domestic workers are stranded in Beirut · Global Voices

Trump: USPS lacks funds for mail-in votes, but opposes more funding – Business Insider – (forget your by-mail prescriptions too)

  • President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that the US Postal Service did not have the funds to cope with increased mail-in voting.
  • “They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess,” Trump said.
  • There are proposals to better fund the service, but they are being blocked by Republicans in Congress. Trump attacked Democrats for seeking more money for the USPS.

Source: Trump: USPS lacks funds for mail-in votes, but opposes more funding – Business Insider

LibreOffice 7 Released: New Look, Several Improvements

Wouldn’t be without it – marvelous choice

LibreOffice7

LibreOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office, has released version 7 with a new look and some significant improvements.

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite that is compatible with other major office suites, and is available on all operating systems. The new release has several improvements in appearance and compatibility.

What’s new:

· New icon theme Sakapura (the default on macOS)

· LibreOffice 7’s DOCX is now saved in native 2013/2016/2019 mode, instead of 2007 compatibility mode.

· New shapes galleries: arrows, diagrams, icons and effects

· New accessibility check tool

· Support for Open Document Foundation (ODF)

· Navigator is easier to use and has more context menu entries

· Semi-transparent text is now supported

· PDFs larger than 500 cm can now be generated

· XLSX sheet names with more than 31 characters are also now supported

For a complete list of improvements see the Release Notes .

If you haven’t used LibreOffice and are looking for an Office alternative that’s free and isn’t based in the cloud, LibreOffice is a good choice.

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Trump Makes It Official: He’s Sabotaging the Post Office to Rig the Election

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The outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States has devastated the Postal Service. But as the threat of bankruptcy looms over one of the country’s most critical institutions—a crisis that has already sparked widespread delays and deep concerns that mail-in voting will be jeopardized in November—President Trump is exacerbating the issue in an effort to increase his odds of reelection. If earlier in the pandemic that strategy seemed a bit abstract, this week, we’ve seen him repeatedly admit to it.

“They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So, therefore, they can’t do it, I guess,” Trump said at his daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday, where he, once again, embraced the false narrative that mail-in voting leads to voter fraud.

Now here he is this morning on Fox Business. “Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion dollars for the post office,” he said, referring to Democrats, who have increasingly expressed alarm that the new head of the Postal Service, a major Trump donor, seems to be carrying out the president’s plans to sabotage the agency.

“They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take these millions and millions of ballots. But if they don’t get those two items,” Trump added, also referencing Democrats’ proposal for $3.6 billion for mail-in voting, “that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

These are extraordinary admissions. During a pandemic that he and his administration have badly mismanaged, the president is refusing to restart congressional negotiations for coronavirus relief if the legislation includes emergency funding for a service that, in addition to helping society function normally, would make voting safer and more accessible at the exact moment when requests for absentee ballots are soaring. And as my colleague Pema Levy explained, when it comes to absentee ballots, the importance of timing can’t be overstated:

The number of mail-in ballots used this year will be magnitudes higher than in 2016, which puts millions of ballots at risk of not being counted. In 34 states, ballots received after Election Day—which falls on November 3, 2020—are not counted. In others, ballots need to be postmarked by Election Day, but a crippled Postal Service often fails to apply the postmark, which could result in more ballots being rejected. 

“You’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said back in March while discussing voting reforms aimed at expanding access to the ballot. Here at least we get to the core rationale that’s likely governing Republican silence on the issue. They, like this president, worry that if more people are able to vote, Republicans will be less likely to win. And they’ll let Trump manipulate the post office with impunity—even if it means blocking financial relief during the worst economic climate since the Great Depression—because they believe it’ll rig their elections, too.

Lebanon parliament approves Beirut state of emergency, grants military power

Shame on non-leaders – peace does not come from beating and shooting people who want peace and an end to public corruption!

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Convening for the first time since Beirut’s devastating explosion, Lebanese MPs have approved a two-week state of emergency. The law would give extensive power to the military to suppress resurging protests.

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