Miscellaneous
On February 4th, China has stepped forward to make a statement in support of Russia as the U.S. and NATO continue to ratchet up tensions on the border of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping came together after a meeting and have announced a demand to end the expansion of NATO and a call for the U.S. to abandon it’s cold-war era ideological approaches. In similar news we are on the 60 year anniversary of the crippling blockade on Cuba. We take a look at the impact of sanctions on Cuba and other nations around the globe. Later in the show we turn our attention to the ongoing right-wing protests happening in Ottawa where truck drivers are clogging up downtown around their shared goals of opposing the vaccine mandates and lockdowns. They have raised more than $7.8 million on GoFundMe, one of the biggest campaigns in its history. Elon Musk, Donald Trump (whose flags they are waving), and others get behind to support these right-wing actions. We discuss how misinformation is legitimized and how not all protests are progressive. In our final segment, we discuss the recent report from Australia’s National Research Organization for Women’s Safety that found that during the pandemic Women experiencing high financial stress were three times as likely to experience physical or sexual abuse, and in particular women who were the breadwinners were 1.6 times more likely to face physical abuse. We dive into how these numbers legitimize what women on the ground already know.