Week 10 - 11/09/2020

Published on 11 September 2020 at 18:00

US Wildfire Causes Evacuation of 500,000 People

With wildfires raging in the US over 500,000 have been evacuated from their homes in Oregon as firefighters struggle to fight off the 900,000 acres of wildfires. The fires sprawling across California, Oregon and Washington have claimed 9 lives currently with officials saying the death toll could rise in the coming days. Governor for Oregon, Kate Brown stated in a press conference that “we have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across our state." Among the dead in Washington was a one-year-old child who perished in an inferno. Washington governor Jay Inslee said, “this child's family and community will never be the same”.

 

The US’ War on Terror has Produced 37 Million Refugees Since 2001

A new report by Brown University’s Costs of War project was released this week entitled ‘Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post-9/11 Wars’ showing that the 8 most violent wars that the US has created or participated in has resulted in a “very conservative estimate” of 37 million refugees. The figure surpasses any other conflict or disaster of the 20th century bar the second world war. The report estimates that 8 million people have been displaced along international borders and 29 million have been displaced internally.

 

Calls for Netflix to be Boycotted Over ‘Mignonnes’

There were numerous calls from people online to #CancelNetflix following the streaming of the French film “Mignonnes” directed by French-Senegalese director Maimouna Doucoure on September 9th. Many of the calls seemed to come from Republican politicians in the US with California Republican Beatrice Cardenas tweeting “as the mother of an 8-year-old girl, I STRONGLY support #CancelNetflix” along with fellow Republican Omar Navarro who tweeted “the hypersexualization of girls (and boys) is disgusting…. It is morally and ethically reprehensible”. The film in question which received a director’s award at the Sundance Film Festival tells the story of an 11-year-old Parisian girl Amy, who struggles to manage her Senegalese family’s strict rules while also adhering to social media’s emphasis on appearance. In a statement Netflix stated “Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualisation of young children…. It's an award-winning film and a powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up, and we'd encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie."

 

Martin has Little Faith in UK

Taoiseach Micheál Martin speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland said this week that he was not optimistic of a Brexit deal following the UK’s new domestic legislation which would undermine the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement. Mr Martin stated that he was in “outright opposition” to the move taken by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi reiterated that there would be no trade deal between the US and UK if the Northern Ireland peace process was “imperilled”.

 

Food Aid Supplies Hit in Beirut Port Fire

This week in Beirut a warehouse containing food aid went ablaze causing “thousands of food parcels and 0.5 million” litres of oil to be lost. The source of the fire is still unknown but what is known is that Lebanon has rejected an international investigation into the source of the explosion but are being aided by members for the American FBI and France.

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