United Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://fedinews.net/m/ImproveTheNews/t/6162

• According to research group Sapien Labs' annual Mental State of the World report, the UK is the second-most unhappy country globally. NDTV.com
• Based on surveys from over 400K people across 71 countries, the report indicates a decline in mental health worldwide since 2020 or the onset of the COVID pandemic. The Economic Times
• On the Mental Health Quotient scale, which ranged from negative−100 (very dissatisfied) to 200 (very satisfied), the UK registered 49 — just above Uzbekistan, the lowest-ranking country. Firstpost
• At least 35% of Britons reported feeling distressed and ranked last in the "percentage of people struggling mentally" category. Time Out United Kingdom
• The report revealed that access to smartphones at younger ages and consumption of ultra-processed food strongly impacted respondents' mental health. NZ Herald
• In addition, the report found that developing countries outperformed wealthier nations, including the US and the UK, in terms of mental well-being rankings. Daily Mail (LR: 5 CP: 5)

Narrative A:

• Reports like this show that poor mental health across Europe and North America is an indication that being rich or economically developed doesn't translate to greater life satisfaction. This report is a call to action to take greater care when exposing younger people to certain technologies and to strengthen social and family bonds in order to foster genuine happiness in wealthier countries.
  HUFFINGTON POST (LR: 1 CP: 4)

Narrative B:

• Conflating emotional health with happiness sometimes makes measuring the mental well-being of individuals worldwide tricky. As regards this report, while it shows a lack of recovery from the pandemic's initial mental health toll, there may have been a reporting bias, as only internet-connected populations could respond to the survey.
  THE TELEGRAPH

Nerd narrative:

• There's a 50% chance that the World Happiness Report will rank the US at least 18th in 2022-2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
  METACULUS (LR: 3 CP: 3)

"Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C"

"sorry lads, I am just rubbish at Photoshop"

Princess of Wales apologises for any confusion over Mother's Day family photo saying she "occasionally experiments with editing"

Apparently it has something to do with her left hand alignment and that she's not wearing any rings. But the odd thing was how Louis is crossing his fingers, middle on top of ring finger. You'd normally cross index on middle or middle on index.

Better image here.

"The BBC has been told that Mr Johnson received a briefing in the British Embassy residence in Caracas before his meeting, and that he then debriefed embassy officials afterwards."

At least he went through the debriefing process this time. Did he debrief after his visit to a villa owned by son of an ex-KBG spy whilst he was Foreign Secretary?

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9814393

As first reported in the Telegraph, FSU member and University College London (UCL) academic Michelle Shipworth has been banned from teaching her own course, after a Chinese student complained that discussing modern slavery in China was too “provocative”. Incredibly, UCL sided with students who said they were “distressed” by her handling of the topic, and imposed a raft of restrictions on Michelle in order to ensure their courses remained “commercially viable” to Chinese students.

FSU Director Dr Ben Jones spoke to Michelle about her ordeal, and the shocking extent to which UCL has now curtailed her academic freedom – the full interview is available below.

Michelle Shipworth is an Associate Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, and has taught at the institution since 2009.

Michelle found herself under investigation after a seminar last October examining data from the Global Slavery Index 2014. The seminar forms part of her ‘Data Detectives’ training module, and is designed to prepare students for an assignment which external examiners have described as “particularly innovative” and “excellent”, and her Faculty’s teaching lead has previously stated is worthy of a teaching award.

Gavin Bathurst-Shaw-Binning was jailed for six years

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9678117

Judge Silas Reid’s climate change scepticism came during an ongoing trial at Inner London Crown Court that began on Monday 19th February, regarding five women from Extinction Rebellion in the UK. Giving directions to the jury ahead of their deliberations, Reid said: “It is important to note that the circumstances which are relevant are those of the damage and not other circumstances… The circumstances of the damage do not include any climate crisis which may or may not exist in the world at the moment nor does it include whether nonviolent direct action can prompt change."

Judge Reid famously imprisoned one of the defendants currently on trial, Amy Pritchard, along with others, for mentioning the words ‘climate change’ whilst on trial last year. The report references UK courts’ attitudes to climate and environmental activists:: “They have forbidden protesters from mentioning climate change, thereby preventing them from explaining the reasons for their protest. Courts have held convicted environmental defenders who disregarded this prohibition in ‘contempt of court’ and imprisoned them for up to eight weeks.”

Judge Reid's newly expressed doubts about the reality came on the same day as the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Michel Forst, released his latest report claiming that "state repression of environmental protest and civil disobedience" would pose "a major threat to human rights and democracy."

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/4905287

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/12717592

TLDR

• From right now and until April 1st, discuss with your country's community on Lemmy about which song to send and share to the Fediverse.
• On April 1st, voting will begin, where you will rank your favourite songs. Any song not submitted by this date will not be featured.
• On April 8th, results of everyone's favourite songs will be published.
• Join us at [email protected] for any question, this will be the community for updates and results, make sure to subscribe if you'd like to stay in the loop.

Hey everyone!

I'm trying to launch Lemmyvision, a Eurovision-like Song Contest for Lemmy communities around the world ! I'd love for people across Lemmy to participate, I hope it will bring people together through our diverse taste of music, so join us if you'd like to discover new music and culture from around the world!

What is Lemmyvision?

• Lemmyvision is inspired from Eureddision (itself a reenactment of the Eurovision song contest) which was held on r/europe some years ago, and based on the participation of national communities / instances and the delicate musical taste of their members (you!).
• Every country is welcome to participate! The contest follows the rule of “national languages only”. The aim is to promote different languages and cultures from around the world, to share more between our online communities across Lemmy, and discover songs from lesser known artists. I hope to make it a regular event, so hopefully this works well for the first edition!

I'm going to try and share the word across Lemmy, don't hesitate if you want to crosspost to your country's community!

You can find more information on [email protected], don't hesitate if you have questions or suggestions, or would like to help!

See you soon! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍

The head of the German air force used a telephone line that was not encrypted to discuss highly sensitive military secrets including the use of British “people on the ground” who would be able to help Germany deploy cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Britain and other Nato allies will be dismayed at the security breach, described by Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, as “very serious”.

Russia intercepted talks between Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz and three senior Luftwaffe officers as they used standard off-the-shelf Webex video conference software, running on an office line, for top secret military planning.

Included was confirmation that the British military is deployed in Ukraine, and could be used for training to help prevent German political embarrassment, as well as important details on the deployment of British Storm Shadow missiles.

Archive (original article)

As Alexei Navalny was buried, the wife of Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was in London to challenge foreign secretary David Cameron.

"The overwhelmingly peaceful protests about mass atrocities in Gaza must not be conflated with extremism," says Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Director.

“People are protesting because of the terrifyingly high civilian death toll in Gaza, which is still mounting inexorably, and the Government’s lack of action for an immediate ceasefire to stem the unbearable suffering.

“The threat to impose yet more restrictions on people’s right to peacefully protest is deeply worrying and suggests the Government is determined to silence those who may disagree with its policies. This is entirely in line with the chaotic patchwork of legislation and sweeping policing powers we have seen introduced in recent years.

“By announcing more funding for the Prevent programme - in which Islamophobic stereotypes play a major role in referrals - the Prime Minister appears to be suggesting that Muslims will be targeted in this new Government crackdown, which is incredibly concerning and must be opposed.”