The best way to counter Beijing’s attempts to shrink Taiwan’s international space is by demonstrating the world’s openness to Taiwan and that Taiwanese are welcome to participate in all kinds of activities, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) co-founder and executive director Luke de Pulford said.

[...]

Beijing is trying to restrict Taiwan’s international space, aiming its efforts not only at the government, but also at the Taiwanese people, he said.

Citing the abrupt cancelation of RightsCon — a global digital human rights conference originally scheduled to be held in Zambia early last month — as an example, de Pulford said no Taiwanese government officials were scheduled to attend the event.

While only Taiwanese civil society members had planned to participate, the event was still canceled under pressure from Beijing, he said.

The best way to counter Chinese pressure is to show that the world remains open to Taiwan, signaling a clear welcome for Taiwanese to participate in all kinds of events, de Pulford said, adding that gradual exclusion of Taiwanese from international conferences and the silencing of their voices cannot be tolerated.

[...]

The IPAC is an international organization composed of parliamentarians worldwide, and official admission into the alliance requires co-chairs from different political factions, so Taiwan could not join before 2024 as the opposition KMT and TPP had been unwilling to participate.

While goodwill has long been lacking between IPAC and the KMT, the group remains open to engaging with the party, de Pulford said.

Taiwan's presidential office condemned China on Sunday after the New York Times said one of its reporters was expelled from the country following an ​interview the newspaper did with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.

China views democratically governed ‌Taiwan as its own territory and Lai as a "separatist." He rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only the island's people can decide their future.

[...]

The New York Times said on Friday that its ​reporter Vivian Wang was expelled by China in February.

The paper cited an ​explanation from Chinese officials that it was in response to its ⁠DealBook summit's December video interview with Lai, and said Wang did not take ​part.

[...]

Taiwan's presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo said it was standard practice for Lai to ​take interviews and explain the government's stance to the world.

"China's use of groundless pretexts and crude methods to threaten the media and interfere with press freedom not only fails to improve its ​international image, but also highlights that today's China is indeed a source of instability," ​she said in a statement.

[...]

The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBT pride and LGBT social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBT pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBT rights events worldwide.

Originally devised by the artists Gilbert Baker, Lynn Segerblom, James McNamara and other activists, the design underwent several revisions after its debut in 1978, and continues to inspire variations. Although Baker's original rainbow flag had eight colors, from 1979 to the present day the most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically displayed horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.

LGBT people and allies currently use rainbow flags and many rainbow-themed items and color schemes as an outward symbol of their identity or support. There are derivations of the rainbow flag that are used to focus attention on specific causes or groups within the community (e.g. transgender people, fighting the AIDS epidemic, inclusion of LGBT people of color). In addition to the rainbow, many other flags and symbols are used to communicate specific identities within the LGBT community.

Variations:

Original Gilbert Baker Design

Inspired by the lyrics of Judy Garland’s Over the Rainbow, and the designs used by other social movements such as black civil rights groups from the 1960s, the Rainbow Flag was created. Baker hand-dyed and hand sewed this flag which flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day in June 1978.

Seven-color version due to unavailability of pink fabric

Following the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978, many people and organisations adopted the Pride flag that he helped to introduce to the community. The demand was so great for a rainbow striped flag, it was impossible for the 8-stripe design to be made in large quantities. Both Paramount and Baker struggled to obtain the hot pink fabric and so began manufacturing a 7-stripe version.

Traditional Gay Pride Flag

In 1979 the design was amended again. The community finalised this six-colour version and this is now the most familiar and recognisable design for the LGBT flag. Numerous complications over the odd number of stripes, including the desire to split the flag to decorate Pride parades, meant that one colour had to be dropped.

The turquoise and indigo stripes were combined to create a royal blue stripe and it was agreed that the flag should typically be flown horizontally, with red at the top, as it would be in a natural rainbow. This design continued to increase in popularity around the world, being a focal point of landmark decisions such as John Stout fighting for his right to fly the flag from his apartment balcony in 1989.

Progress Pride Flag

In June 2018, designer and activist Daniel Quasar released an updated version of the Pride flag. Combining the new elements of the Philadelphia design and the Transgender flag to bring focus on further inclusion and progress. This new flag added a chevron to the hoist of the traditional 6-colour flag which represents marginalised LGBTQ+ communities of colour, those living with HIV/AIDS and those who’ve been lost, and trans and non-binary persons.

This design went viral and was quickly adopted by people and pride parades across the world. The arrow of the chevron points to the right to show forward movement, while being on the left edge shows that progress still needs to be made for full equality, especially for the communities the chevron represents.

Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag

In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK adapted the Pride Progress flag design to incorporate the intersex flag, creating the Intersex-Inclusive Pride flag 2021.

The intersex community uses the colours purple and yellow as an intentional counterpoint to blue and pink, which have traditionally been seen as binary, gendered colours. The symbol of the circle represents the concept of being unbroken and being whole, symbolising the right of Intersex people to make decisions about their own bodies.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

• 🐻 Link to all Hexbear comms https://hexbear.net/post/1403966
• 🐼 Hexbear Matrix Chat https://matrix.to/#/#Hexbear:matrix.org
• 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube](https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies
• 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread https://hexbear.net/post/8466891
• ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread https://hexbear.net/post/8530168
• 🏳️‍⚧️ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread https://hexbear.net/post/8652602
• 👊 New Weekly Improvement thread https://hexbear.net/post/8648910
• 🧡 Disabled comm megathread https://hexbear.net/post/8652673
• ☕ Parenting Chat https://hexbear.net/post/8595169
• 🐉 Anime & Manga discussion thread https://hexbear.net/post/8650435
• 🎩Fashion megathread https://hexbear.net/post/7228810
• 🎨 Art & Drawings megathread https://hexbear.net/post/8430281

reminders:

• 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
• 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
• 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
• 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

• 🌈 LGBTQ+ Resource Post
• 🍉 Resources for Palestine
• 🐌☕ Zapatista Coffee

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays

Financial Support to the Bearsite

• 🇨🇳 https://liberapay.com/hexbear

• 🇷🇺 https://www.patreon.com/hexbear

I genuinely don’t understand how people see social interaction as something beautiful or natural. To me it feels like pure obligation.

Even at work you are not really yourself. You are adjusting how you speak, how you act, and how you respond just to fit the role, satisfy your employer, and keep things smooth with colleagues. That constant switching can be exhausting.

Outside of work it does not feel that different. Conversations, replying, small talk, making plans, it can all feel more like maintenance than real connection.

And yeah, I can agree that most people are not fully themselves in these situations. Everyone is performing to some extent depending on the setting. The difference is some people find it normal while others find it draining.

Sometimes it feels like people are not actually enjoying it as much as they say, they are just used to it being the default way to live.

Maybe I am missing something but I do not see the beautiful part everyone talks about.

Whenever you see the in page popup "Login to Some Website with Google" that is an iframe back to Google servers. The less Google knows about me, the happier I am.

Is there a reliable mechanism similar to UBlock where I can just block them?

Web search's have led to "guides" by Google on how to request they stop making it obvious they are tracking you.

Found a pair of Mourning Dove squab in a nest in a light sconce at a house I was at for an emergency service call this weekend. Dove almost always lay exactly two eggs. These two are really close to leaving the nest for good. You can kinda see some babby fuzz but they're fully feathered here so any day now.

I didn't want to get too close with them looking this close to leaving the nest, it might cause them to leave before they are quite ready to, and cause problems. Snapped photo w my cellular telephone.

Sauce: https://tokimaeki.tumblr.com/post/708456934711377920/happy-valentines-season-from-ccs

Shameless plugs

!wholesomeyuri@reddthat.com

!wholesomeyaoi@ani.social

RE: https://mastox.eu/@FranceskAlbs/116672303398205830

Petition: https://petition.qomon.org/0b54a0b8-demand-justice-defend-the-defenders/

#FrancescaAlbanese #EU #Europe #AmericanEmpire
#Palestine
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@fedibird.com

cross-posted from: https://feditown.com/post/3071906

cross-posted from: https://feditown.com/post/3071906

source

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54037304

The best way to counter Beijing’s attempts to shrink Taiwan’s international space is by demonstrating the world’s openness to Taiwan and that Taiwanese are welcome to participate in all kinds of activities, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) co-founder and executive director Luke de Pulford said.

[...]

Beijing is trying to restrict Taiwan’s international space, aiming its efforts not only at the government, but also at the Taiwanese people, he said.

Citing the abrupt cancelation of RightsCon — a global digital human rights conference originally scheduled to be held in Zambia early last month — as an example, de Pulford said no Taiwanese government officials were scheduled to attend the event.

While only Taiwanese civil society members had planned to participate, the event was still canceled under pressure from Beijing, he said.

The best way to counter Chinese pressure is to show that the world remains open to Taiwan, signaling a clear welcome for Taiwanese to participate in all kinds of events, de Pulford said, adding that gradual exclusion of Taiwanese from international conferences and the silencing of their voices cannot be tolerated.

[...]

The IPAC is an international organization composed of parliamentarians worldwide, and official admission into the alliance requires co-chairs from different political factions, so Taiwan could not join before 2024 as the opposition KMT and TPP had been unwilling to participate.

While goodwill has long been lacking between IPAC and the KMT, the group remains open to engaging with the party, de Pulford said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54037074

Taiwan's presidential office condemned China on Sunday after the New York Times said one of its reporters was expelled from the country following an ​interview the newspaper did with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.

China views democratically governed ‌Taiwan as its own territory and Lai as a "separatist." He rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only the island's people can decide their future.

[...]

The New York Times said on Friday that its ​reporter Vivian Wang was expelled by China in February.

The paper cited an ​explanation from Chinese officials that it was in response to its ⁠DealBook summit's December video interview with Lai, and said Wang did not take ​part.

[...]

Taiwan's presidential office spokesperson Karen Kuo said it was standard practice for Lai to ​take interviews and explain the government's stance to the world.

"China's use of groundless pretexts and crude methods to threaten the media and interfere with press freedom not only fails to improve its ​international image, but also highlights that today's China is indeed a source of instability," ​she said in a statement.

[...]

source

Ayham (Rouk) on Instagram shows scenes of Gazans collecting wreckage - including solar panels - attributed to the #GlobalSumudFlotilla

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZAaXmuK5hU/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZAXyc0qhiU/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZAdj23iny2/

💬
FYI: Alex Colston
@enoughformethx (bot mirroring X) observes as
“I can’t say for certain, but these are basically identical to the ones we put aft port and starboard on every boat.”

https://x.com/enoughformethx/status/2061249100649996635

#Gaza #palestine #BreakTheSiege
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@fedibird.com

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