Assorted content to end your week.
- Reuters reports on research showing that public health measures implemented in response to COVID-19 also saved hundreds of thousands of lives by limiting the spread of dengue fever. Nadia A. Sam-Agudu, Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, Fredros Okumu, and Madhukar Pai discuss how wealthier countries are "moving on" from COVID with no regard for people or countries who can't escape its effects, while the World Health Organization highlights how the harm from the ongoing pandemic is falling disproportionately on women. And Bartley Kives reports on the recognition by public health experts that the premature elimination of even basic protections like self-isolation is foolish in Manitoba and other Canadian provinces.
- Gina Miller discusses how Russian money has corrupted the UK's political system - and the need for concerted action to re-empower citizens over oligarchs. And the International Energy Agency offers a ten-point plan to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian fossil fuels - with alternative sources of natural gas representing only a small part of the overall picture.
- Markham Hislop writes about that based on its contribution to carbon pollution and environmental destruction, Alberta's oil is anything but ethical by any reasonable measure. And Natasha Bulowski reports on Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux' recognition that the Trans Mountain pipeline is a money loser for the federal government rather than an investment to fund any transition to clean energy.
- Finally, Omayra Issa discusses how Saskatchewan's social support system falls far short of providing people with a reasonable standard of living - and is falling behind all the more as the Moe government refuses to index or update income levels.
The Miller article is piffle. The UK's political system hasn't been corrupted by Russian money, it has been corrupted by MONEY. Some of that money is Russian, to be sure. Much is British, some is American, some comes from drug smugglers and so on. Lots of it is laundered in various ways. But no solution dedicated just to screening out one country is going to solve the problem (or indeed, work very well even at what it's claiming to do, since if it doesn't tackle laundered money in general, Russian money will just get dressed up in freshly washed non-Russian clothes).
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