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HFT Newsletter #2

Welcome to the second newsletter of Hummus For Thought, a monthly collection of thoughts and recommendations, curated by Joey Ayoub (hello) from Geneva, Switzerland. It comes out on every first Sunday of the month, 8:00 am Central European Time/West Africa Time.

If you’re getting this by email, please open this page on your browser as some of my design choices get lost in the e-mail format. To support this and other projects, click here.


The James Baldwin Corner

Readers of the first newsletter know by now that each newsletter will start by something related to James Baldwin. They will also know that I am wildly inconsistent so here are two things on James Baldwin.

The first is a journal, one which I hope to get published in one day. It is called the James Baldwin Review. Yes really, it’s a thing. It is published by Manchester University Press and it comes out every year. I have the first four issues (2015-2018). You can buy the print copies or just read them online.

As for my own essay, they had already accepted it last year (for the 2020 issue) but I wasn’t able to meet the deadline due to my then-heavy depression. The essay is an extension of what I wrote for Al Jumhuriya last year entited Lebanon’s “Others,” Part 1: Palestinians and Syrians. I never wrote parts II or III so the chapter I’m writing for the James Baldwin Review will be all three together. Part II focuses on migrant domestic workers and part III is a sort of synthesis, a “Baldwinian reading of Lebanese-ness” through its ‘Others’.

The second is a very moving conversation between James Baldwin and Mavis Nicholson on her show Mavis on Four. This was shown on television the day after Baldwin’s death on December 1st 1987 and was one of his last interviews.


I’ll bring your attention to two things James Baldwin said. The first is “we are not talking about racial prejudices, we are talking about the structure of power.” We’d call this structural racism today to emphasise the structural component and the power dynamics that ultimately victimise/scapegoat those being racialised in a given society.

The second quote refers to his decision to move to France in 1948: “I was invisible in France, and that was what I needed.” This is why I moved to London in 2015. Incidentally, London is also where I properly discovered James Baldwin. My partner and I took a class organised by Black History Walks at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, South London in 2017. (They still give those by the way, if you want to check them out. This year’s was done online due to COVID-19.)


What I’ve Written

I’m happy to announce that the book chapter I co-wrote with Jade Saab has been published as part of the book A region in revolt: Mapping the recent uprisings in North Africa and West Asia, also edited by Jade. Our chapter is on the Lebanon uprising of October 2019.

Here’s the summary:

A wave of mass protest movements has spread across North Africa and West Asia, including Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. The mass protests have much in common, from opposing authoritarian regimes and worsening economic situations to demanding radical changes in social relations. Despite their similarities, each protest movement operates under different conditions that cannot be ignored. The specific historic, political and economic contexts of each country have determined who the key actors of the uprisings are and their location across old and new divides. This book elaborates on these similarities and differences to paint a clearer picture of these movements and draw out lessons to inform future struggles.

Edited by Jade Saab, a Lebanese/Canadian Researcher at the University of Glasgow, the contributors include Azza Mustafa and Sara Abbas (on Sudan); Hamza Hamouchene and Selma Oumari (on Algeria); Zeidon Alkinani (on Iraq); Jade Saab and Joey Ayoub (on Lebanon); and Frieda Afary (on Iran).

Insightful, timely analysis of the uprisings in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. The book  … demonstrates that the uprisings…carry the unyielding spirit of people’s resistance and struggle against both imperialism and local oppressive regimes.— Haifa Zangana, Iraqi novelist, author, artist, and political activist and author of Dreaming of Baghdad.

Whereas there is a plethora of books on the 2011 [Arab Spring] upsurge, this book is the only comprehensive overview of the second wave of revolt, which is here analysed from the standpoint of the popular struggle. —Gilbert Achcar, Professor at SOAS, University of London, author of The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising

A rich and informed account of the popular uprisings that have emerged across the Middle East in recent years. … [T]his book is a powerful testament to the new generation of activists who continue to seek long-term revolutionary change in the region. Adam Hanieh, author of Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East (CUP 2018).


I have also written a short piece for Waging Non-Violence in coordination with the War Resisters’ League on the principle of lesser evilism and why anti-authoritarians in the US must vote Trump out of office for everyone’s sake. If you’re an American right now, my sympathies go to your anxiety levels.

Finally, I have a long interview up on Asia Art Tours. I’ve been on their podcast a couple of times (see here and here) and had Matt Dagher-Margossian, the host, on Fire These Times in a two-parts episode (see here and here). The interview is the result of a back and forth between us on Lebanon, the US, trauma, world capitalism, the environmental crisis, and so much more.


Upcoming pieces

Well, I’m trying to write a ‘one year since the October revolution’ type of essay for Crimethinc but I honestly haven’t been managing that mental space all that well. It’s just very difficult for me to write on Lebanon these days as the August 4th explosion, symbolically perhaps, signaled to me that I am now in exile, something that I have been worrying about for years now. I’ll try and write it for November, but December seems more likely I think. In the meantime, here are the two pieces I’ve written for them:

I’m also still writing that anti-social media piece I mentioned in the 1st newsletter.


Miscellaneous

I’ve joined No Fly Climate Sci as part of my pledge to never use an airplane unless I absolutely have no other option. The idea is fairly straightforward: most of us fly when we don’t have to, and that is an expensive luxury that is doing environmental harm in the time of the climate emergency. This is especially true in Europe where train networks are far more developed than in most of the rest of the world. The fact that people still choose to take the plane for even short-distance travel is deeply immoral, and the EU must seriously adopt a Green New Deal of its own if we want to even have a fighting chance at ensuring a future on this planet. I now have a profile on their page explaining why I joined the initiative.

NoFlyClimateSci is an experiment in speaking #ClimateTruth. It was started by Dr. Peter Kalmus in 2017 for two reasons:

  1. To raise the public’s sense of climate urgency in order to accelerate large-scale political action;
  2. So that those who fly less would have a place to share their stories, and in so doing realize they weren’t alone in their climate urgency.

I had Dr Kalmus on The Fire These Times some weeks ago to talk about the climate emergency.


Lebanese Film of the Month

Before starting this section I’ll briefly mention that Netflix has a Made in Lebanon collection now!

I really appreciate that there are a number of Maroun Baghdadi movies in there. Whispers is my absolute favorite. In it, Baghdadi follows francophone Lebanese poet Nadia Tueni in the middle of the Lebanese wars. It’s also next month’s movie so more on that on December 1st! Besides Baghdadi’s films (Beirut Oh Beirut, Whispers, The Little Wars, All For The Fatherland) I recommend Panoptic, Zozo, Very Big Shot, Ghadi and of course last month’s recommendation: West Beirut.

So anyway: this month’s film is Waves ’98 (2015) by Ely Dagher, a short movie of 14:53 min and by far one of my favorite films to have come out of Lebanon in the past decade.

I interviewed Dagher two years ago on Hummus For Thought. You can read it here. This film is also the background of my upcoming project LebaneseCinema.com. More on that below.

You can watch it here:

One of the most fascinating aspects of this film is actually off-screen: Waves ’98 was released just before the 2015 waste crisis. Coincidentally, the film includes a newsreel mentioning a previous waste crisis, which so happens to be the precursor of the 2015 one. This gives added weight to the central character’s worry that he does not ‘want to end up like them’ (his parents’ generation).

You may have noticed me using this film from time to time, including with a screenshot in this recent conversation with the left-wing Hongkonger website Lausan. Waves ’98 features prominently in my own PhD research as well, in a chapter focusing on cyclical temporality in postwar Lebanon (basically, the feeling that time/history is repeating itself).


LebaneseCinema.com + more updates

I mean, I’m guessing the title is obvious right? This website will be dedicated to Lebanese Cinema. I will be posting essays on the topic (by myself and others), book recommendations (not just on cinema but on related topics like postwar Lebanon, art in Lebanon, Middle Eastern cinema etc) and a monthly movie recommendation. The latter is what you’ll already get in this newsletter, but probably longer when I have the time to write more.

It won’t just be on Lebanese Cinema, although that’ll be my focus. I’ll also include content on Syrian, Israeli, Palestinian, Iranian and Turkish cinema.

I’ve been studying Lebanese cinema for three years now as it’s a central component of my PhD at the University of Zurich. I’m fairly confident at this point that it’s something of an expertise of mine. I’ve been looking for ways to share that knowledge and a website felt like the obvious medium.

I should say here that I’m treating LebaneseCinema.com as the beginning of a project which will likely take some time to do. I want to start a video channel and upload video essays on Lebanese Cinema and related topics. By related topics, I mean basically everything I am concerned about: climate change, security, philosophy, mutual aid, gender studies, indigenous rights, the Syrian revolution, the Palestinian cause, transnational resilience, our digital world, and so on. Easy topics.

This costs quite a bit so I’ve been just trying to learn the skills myself, which is why I’m being slow. I really love channels like ContraPoints, Pop Culture Detective (who will probably be a guest on The Fire These Times soon), The Cold War, Kurzgesagt, Megaphone, Philosophy Tube and others. In terms of the style I’ll be aiming for, I think Pop Culture Detective is the closest.

Here’s a really good video of his. The topic of ‘adorkable misogyny’ will likely come up in our podcast conversation. Stay tuned.

If this is something you’d like to see happen, please know that I ask people to donate at the same links for all my projects to avoid any confusion (for myself first and foremost). So by donating to my Patreon (or BuyMeACoffee or Paypal), you’d not just be supporting The Fire These Times but also Hummus For Thought, Lebanese Cinema and so on.

More info here: hummusforthought.com/support

There’s even another project coming up soon on the intersection between the climate emergency and our digital lives. It’s a project I’m launching with my good friend Christophe Maroun and we’re looking for funding avenues for that too (if you have money, hello my friend). I’ll likely update you on that next month.


Podcast episodes I’ve listened to recently

You can find these podcasts on most podcast apps.

Anarchist Essays

This podcast by the Loughborough University’s Anarchism Research Group (ARG) “presents leading academics, activists, and intellectuals exploring themes in anarchist theory, history, and practice”.

I heard about this podcast through the ARG’s mailing list. If you’re interested in anarchist theory/history/practice you can subscribe to them here.

EdgeCast

“To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.”

Feeling Bookish

The Feeling Bookish Podcast is an ongoing literary conversation between the writers and old friends Robert Fay and Roman Tsivkin. It’s everything from Thomas Bernhard to Ursula K. Le Guin. Produced by Heston Hoffman.

Bulaq

BULAQ is a podcast about contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa.

Transtnational Solidarity Network

This is the inaugural episode of Transnational Solidarity Network’s podcast. In this episode, we introduce the Transnational Solidarity Network (TSN)–a group of anti-authoritarian anarchists, socialists, Marxists, and leftists of different backgrounds, coming together to fight all oppressive systems and uplift people’s movements for freedom and justice from around the world.


The Fire These Times episodes of October 2020

(I also update Patreon supporters every month on the previous month’s episodes.)

48. Our Climate Emergency Present

49. Moria Camp and the Deadly Cost of Fortress Europe

50. Golden Dawn: The Anatomy of a Nazi Party in 21st Century Europe


Book of the Month

I recently read Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European (Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers) and it’ll be my recommendation for November 2020.

Rather than tell you why you should read this book, I’ll link below a conversation with George Prochnik, author of “The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World”.


Articles I’ve read recently

Repeated Quick Pro-tip: I use Pocket to save and archive articles – no, I’m not being sponsored by them (if you work at Pocket and want to sponsor me I am, ahem, available) – and I had the amusing honor of reaching their top 1% of readers in 2018.
Repeated Disclaimer: me sharing an article does not mean I agree with everything that is written. It just means I find it interesting.

So before sharing the list, I want to recommend the English edition L’orient Le Jour, L’Orient Today. It’s quickly become my main anglophone source on Lebanese news. No one asked me to recommend them. I just like their work and will likely contribute with my own writing eventually.

Voila!

So this the second newsletter folks. The next one will be on the first Sunday of December. If you want to get in touch please send me an email to j [dot] ayoub26 [at] gmail [dot] com and we can exchange Signal/Whatsapp numbers or even schedule a call.

Last point and this is the bit that no one really likes doing, but: if you find any of my work useful, whether it be Hummus For Thought, The Fire These Times, my articles or even my archiving and commentary work on Twitter, please consider making a one-off or a recurring donation on Patreon, PayPal or BuyMeACoffee. If you can’t afford it, you can still help by leaving a review of The Fire These Times wherever you listen to podcasts and/or share with your friends and family.

Excess Deaths From Pandemic Higher Than Official Numbers

How many people have died in the US so far from the COVID-19 pandemic? It depends on how you count the numbers. The official count of US COVID-19 deaths is 214,000. This number is often reported as “at least” this amount, because this is a compilation of all deaths where COVID-19 was officially listed as a cause of death. Experts recognize that this is likely to be a gross underestimation, because people may die from the disease at home without ever being diagnosed.

In any such system, regardless of how careful you are, there are going to be false positives and false negatives. When it comes to the cause of death there are very specific coding guidelines. COVID-19 must have directly lead to the death of the individual. Laboratory confirmation is strongly encouraged, but doctors may code COVID-19 as a probable cause of, in their clinical judgement, the patient had COVID-19 and it fits the epidemiology, even if they did not get a test. When COVID-19 is severe enough to kill, it is a fairly recognizable clinical condition. This does open the door to other fatal viral respiratory infections to be coded as COVID, but these instances are likely to be rare.

States report their data differently. Some only report confirmed cases. Some report confirmed and probable. Some states get their numbers from death certificates, while others count deaths among diagnosed cases of COVID-19. Taking all of this into consideration, COVID-19 deaths are likely to be underestimated in the aggregate rather than overestimated. Some critics argue that allowing “probable” cases overestimates the total deaths from COVID, but if you look at the data state-by-state you will see that probable cases are small in number compared to confirmed. In Arizona, for example, probable cases are only about 5% of the total deaths reports, the vast majority of which are confirmed. So even in the very unlikely scenario that all probable cases are false positives, that only gives a 5% variance (and keep in mind, many states don’t report probable cases at all).

There is another way to get at the impact of the pandemic other than counting death certificates. Several researchers have looked at excess deaths during the pandemic, either regionally or nationally. The largest such study was just published in JAMA. The total number of deaths in the US is remarkably consistent year-to-year, so a dramatic change in this baseline must have a specific cause. The study found:

Between March 1 and August 1, 2020, 1,336,561 deaths occurred in the US, a 20% increase over expected deaths (1 ,111, 031 [95% CI, 1 110 364 to 1 111 697]).

That’s 225,530 excess deaths. However, only 67% of these excess deaths can be explained as official COVID-19 deaths. If we apply these ratios to the total pandemic, that means that there have been a total of 319,402 excess deaths total during the pandemic (214,000 is 67% of 319,402). This should put an end to any notion that the pandemic is a hoax or overblown or that the total deaths are somehow grossly overestimated. If anything, total COVID-19 deaths are likely underestimated.

Some of these uncounted excess deaths are likely to be missed cases of COVID-19, again most likely from people who died at home. Some are likely due to probable cases that are not reported in those states that only report confirmed cases. But this does not account for all the excess deaths. That data also shows that some of those deaths can be accounted for by increases in the baseline death rate from things like Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease. Such causes can be considered part of the disruption of normal health care. Some people have been delaying care or avoiding emergency departments for fear of catching COVID.

The authors warn that this disruption may cause excess deaths for years, from diabetics not taking care of themselves, disruptions in chemotherapy for cancer patients, and delays in testing such as mammograms. Another category of excess deaths is due to the emotional and economic stress caused by the pandemic, which has lead to an increase in suicides and overdoses.

The study also takes a more granular view of the data, looking state-by-state and showing that the excess deaths coincides with surges of reported cases of COVID-19, as we would expect if COVID was the primary cause.

What, then, is the death toll of the pandemic? Should we count deaths caused by the disruption in health care but not directly related to infection? There is no right or wrong answer here. We can say, neutrally, that the COVID-19 pandemic has directly caused at least 214,000 deaths, although this number is likely an underestimate. Further, it has caused another 100,000 deaths, some of which are likely to be uncounted direct deaths, but the rest are indirect deaths due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic.

Some may wish to focus on the excess deaths due to suicides and overdoses, arguing that these result from our reaction to the pandemic rather than the pandemic itself. This is reasonable, but we need to keep it in perspective. These deaths are a tiny percentage of total deaths. Further, the data also shows that the strongest predictor of deaths is the number of COVID cases. As one of the authors notes:

“We can’t prove causally that the early reopening of those states led to the summer surges. But it seems quite likely,” said Woolf. “And most models predict our country will have more excess deaths if states don’t take more assertive approaches in dealing with community spread. The enforcement of mask mandates and social distancing is really important if we are to avoid these surges and major loss of life.”

Of course we should fight the pandemic smartly and minimize unintended consequences. Mask mandates, for example, not only reduce spread of COVID they allow people to work and get out of the house. Shut downs should be a last resort, but they do work when necessary, and the alternative of letting the pandemic spread has proven the most deadly option.

The post Excess Deaths From Pandemic Higher Than Official Numbers first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

10,000 Vintage Recipe Books Are Now Digitized in The Internet Archive’s Cookbook & Home Economics Collection

“Early cookbooks were fit for kings,” writes Henry Notaker at The Atlantic. “The oldest published recipe collections” in the 15th and 16th centuries in Western Europe “emanated from the palaces of monarchs, princes, and grand señores.” Cookbooks were more than recipe collections—they were guides to court etiquette and sumptuous records of luxurious living. In ancient Rome, cookbooks functioned similarly, as the extravagant fourth century Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome demonstrates.

Written by Apicus, “Europe’s oldest [cookbook] and Rome’s only one in existence today”—as its first English translator described it—offers “a better way of knowing old Rome and antique private life.” It also offers keen insight into the development of heavily flavored dishes before the age of refrigeration. Apicus recommends that “cooks who needed to prepare birds with a ‘goatish smell’ should bathe them in a mixture of pepper, lovage, thyme, dry mint, sage, dates, honey, vinegar, broth, oil and mustard,” Melanie Radzicki McManus notes at How Stuff Works.


Early cookbooks communicated in “a folksy, imprecise manner until the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s,” when standard (or metric) measurement became de rigueur. The first cookbook by an American, Amelia Simmons’ 1796 American Cookery, placed British fine dining and lavish “Queen’s Cake” next to “johnny cake, federal pan cake, buckwheat cake, and Indian slapjack,” Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald writes at Smithsonian, all recipes symbolizing “the plain, but well-run and bountiful American home.” With this book, “a dialogue on how to balance the sumptuous with the simple in American life had begun.”

Cookbooks are windows into history—markers of class and caste, documents of daily life, and snapshots of regional and cultural identity at particular moments in time. In 1950, the first cookbook written by a fictional lifestyle celebrity, Betty Crocker, debuted. It became “a national best-seller,” McManus writes. “It even sold more copies that year than the Bible.” The image of the perfect Stepford housewife may have been bigger than Jesus in the 50s, but Crocker’s career was decades in the making. She debuted in 1921, the year of publication for another, more humble recipe book: the Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church Ladies’ Aid Society of Chicago’s Pilgrim Cook Book.

As Ayun Halliday noted in an earlier post, this charming collection features recipes for “Blitz Torte, Cough Syrup, and Sauerkraut Candy,” and it’s only one of thousands of such examples at the Internet Archive’s Cookbook and Home Economics Collection, drawn from digitized special collections at UCLA, Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library. When we last checked in, the collection featured 3,000 cookbooks. It has grown since 2016 to a library of 10,600 vintage examples of homespun Americana, fine dining, and mass marketing.

Laugh at gag-inducing recipes of old; cringe at the pious advice given to women ostensibly anxious to please their husbands; and marvel at how various international and regional cuisines have been represented to unsuspecting American home cooks. (It’s hard to say whether the cover or the contents of a Chinese Cook Book in Plain English from 1917 seem more offensive.) Cookbooks of recipes from the American South are popular, as are covers featuring stereotypical “mammy” characters. A more respectful international example, 1952’s Luchow’s German Cookbook gives us “the story and the favorite dishes of America’s most famous German restaurant.”

There are guides to mushrooms and “commoner fungi, with special emphasis on the edible varieties”; collections of “things mother used to make” and, most practically, a cookbook for leftovers. And there is every other sort of cookbook and home ec. manual you could imagine. The archive is stuffed with helpful hints, rare ingredients, unexpected regional cookeries, and millions of minute details about the habits of their first hungry readers.

Related Content:

The New York Times Makes 17,000 Tasty Recipes Available Online: Japanese, Italian, Thai & Much More

Archive of Handwritten Recipes (1600 – 1960) Will Teach You How to Stew a Calf’s Head and More

A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks–Covering 1,000 Years of Food History–Is Now Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

10,000 Vintage Recipe Books Are Now Digitized in The Internet Archive’s Cookbook & Home Economics Collection is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooksFree Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

Vietnamese activist and journalist Pham Doan Trang arrested for ‘anti-state propaganda’

‘Send me my guitar and try to have the wardens accept it’

A 2018 video interview with Pham Doan Trang. Source: Screenshot of YouTube video by Člověk v tísni

Prominent Vietnamese activist and journalist Pham Doan Trang was arrested by the police on October 6 for charges related to “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code, and “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code. She faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

Doan Trang is part of the editorial board of The Vietnamese Magazine. She founded the online legal magazine Luat Khoa. She was also one of the founders of the Liberal Publishing House whose books on democracy have been confiscated by authorities. She also co-founded the Vietnam Legal Initiative, a United States-based NGO working to promote human rights in Vietnam.

Doan Trang authored the following books: Politics for the Common People, A Handbook for Families of Prisoners, On Non-Violent Resistance Techniques, Politics of a Police State and Citizen Journalism.

Doan Trang was previously arrested by the police for her role in protests against China’s incursion into Vietnam’s maritime territories and a community action protesting environment pollution. In several interviews, she narrated the attacks and harassment she endured in the hands of the police.

Pham Doan Trang, the night she was arrested. (October 6, 2020) pic.twitter.com/4sCqNnH6fi

— Will Nguyen (阮英惟) (@will_nguyen_) October 9, 2020

It is not clearly stated what prompted her arrest. It could be related to articles she wrote about the government crackdown on land rights defenders or her work with the Liberal Publishing House. Another reason could be linked to security preparations for the plenum of the Communist Party this month since previous meetings were accompanied by similar arrests targeting dissidents and independent writers.

“Just In Case I Am Imprisoned”

Doan Trang, who faced constant threats and surveillance from the police, anticipated her arrest as early as May 2019. She instructed her friend to release a letter titled “Just In Case I Am Imprisoned” if ever she was arrested.

Pham Doan Trang left this letter with me, to publicize upon her arrest. Please share. pic.twitter.com/lVt52Kpkea

— Will Nguyen (阮英惟) (@will_nguyen_) October 7, 2020

In her letter, she asked those who will campaign for her freedom to prioritize other prisoners of conscience. She also wrote about the need to campaign for democratic reforms in Vietnam:

I don’t need freedom just for myself, that would be too easy. I want something much greater: freedom and democracy for all of Vietnam. It might see like some grand goal, but it’s totally possible, with your support.

She added that she will not “admit guilt, confess, or beg for leniency” because she is innocent. She has a personal appeal:

Send me my guitar and try to have the wardens accept it – For me, the guitar is like my Bible.

Several human rights advocates and media groups have issued statements in support of Doan Trang. Tran Quynh Vi, editor-in-chief of The Vietnamese Magazine, wrote about the importance of Doan Trang’s work as a journalist and activist:

Pham Doan Trang is a highly-respected journalist who has diligently expanded the political and legal information for the masses in Vietnam, encouraging people to practice the universal values of freedom and democracy that are stated clearly in Vietnam’s Constitution and which the government has also supported in many of the international treaties it has signed.

Hugo Setzer, president of the International Publishers Association, praised Doan Trang’s efforts to publish books on democratic reforms:

Pham Doan Trang took these risks knowingly in defence of freedom of expression. I salute her bravery and her strength of conviction. We hear her call for election reform in Vietnam, but we must also denounce her arrest and urge the Vietnamese authorities to release her.

As of this writing, Doan Trang’s family was already able to send some items for her personal needs but they have yet to see and talk to her in person.

Written by Mong Palatino

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Azerbaijan and Armenia reach a ceasefire agreement after 10-hour negotiations in Moscow

Russia, the peacekeeper – Trump too busy tweeting about non-issues to help.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced before dawn on October 10 that Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached a ceasefire agreement to halt the fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic that reignited on September 27. Both Baku and Yerevan sent their top diplomats to Moscow on Friday, October 9, for negotiations under Russian mediation. Foreign Minister Lavrov told the news agency RIA Novosti that the ceasefire talks lasted 10 hours.