I talk about and give some opinions on some of the big news stories recently including the Lebanon explosion, the Belarus Protests against Lukashenko and the US mail-in ballots fiasco.

1. Post author By Charlie August 18, 2020
A Look at the News #2, Belarus Protests, US Mail-in
Ballots, Lebanon Explosion
theweeklyrambler.com/a-look-at-the-news-2-belarus-protests-us-mail-in-ballots-lebanon-explosion/
Here we go again. Same format as last time but I am aiming to make this one more
relevant to the week, although I am going to also include the Belarus and Lebanon news
stories that took place last week. I am hoping this is something that will continue to
work, I am still kind of unsure on it at the moment, but we shall see.
Note that this is an analysis of news as best I can and not just giving the news so my own
opinions will be inserted in certain parts.
Europe – Belarus Protests
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2. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Photo by Адміністрація Президента України.
CC BY 4.0. Source.
The Belarus presidential election took place on the 9th August and as expected the long-
time incumbent who is seen as an authoritarian dictator won in what appeared to be a
landslide victory with about 80% of the vote, which would be pretty unbelievable in even
an actual democracy.
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3. What was different this time was that the longtime leader Lukashenko faced a tougher
challenger than usual in Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, merely a school teacher and wife to
who was going to be the original candidate but due to being jailed, Tikhanovskaya took
his place. Belarus has long been known as Europe’s last dictatorship and human rights
abuses against political opponents and dissent is rife in the country, with such people
often being thrown in jail and political challengers and candidates are often either
arrested, made to flee or are heavily disrupted. Journalists are often also targeted and
like others may be beaten and jailed and threatened into silence.
In the run up to the election there were already several moves made by the president
seemingly to secure his victory such as deploying police and military forces to the
capital and polling stations and having police rush in and grab people off the streets
who have shown opposition to the government and who have also been protesting on
the streets in recent days and also the limiting or shutting down of the internet in a
number of areas.
After the inevitable election result was announced, apparent evidence of vote rigging
soon came to light such as pre-readied results sent to election commissioners, some of
which were leaked to the internet and a couple of electoral districts also appeared to
have more than 100% turnout, which obviously should not be possible and can be
common evidence of a botched rigging attempt. Nonetheless Lukashenko claimed
victory and soon after this, protests erupted on the streets in a number of cities and
towns including the capital Minsk, some of the protests turned into clashes with the
police, I saw a few videos posted by OSINT sources on Twitter showing riot police
getting overwhelmed, but overall they ended up maintaining control, including by usage
of heavy handed tactics and crowd control weapons that would in a sane democracy be
outlawed for being too dangerous to use for public control, many were injured including
one protester who was hit by a security force truck that rammed through a crowd which
was caught on video and shared, it is possible more unrest could follow in the coming
days.
It is quite amazing to see such direct protests and clashes against the authoritarian
government in a country so strict against its citizens and it can give hope that one day
Belarus will head towards democracy with so many willing to put their lives forward to
make a change for all.
What’s more is that the main opposition candidate Tikhanovskaya is actually
challenging the results of the election which could have a very interesting outcome. I am
eager to see how this continues to unfold.
Another interesting thing that has been going on lately is a spat between Belarus and
Russia, often close allies, over an alleged Russian plot to help the opposition in Belarus.
One may think that if this spat leads to Russia abandoning Belarus, that then maybe
things might start changing, but then again Russia may see keeping Belarus away from
what it sees as Western countries influence as more important, one only has to
remember their reaction to the government in Ukraine being overthrown in 2014.
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4. As I have continued to follow the ongoing opposition protests in the country through
OSINT sources on Twitter, over the last couple days (13th – 14th August) I have noticed
that security forces and police do not seem to be cracking down on the protests or the
current mass strike that is gripping the country, in the days previous to this as I had
noted they had been using some heavy-handed and brutal tactics to try and get
protesters off the streets, with a number of people bloodied – most arrested by
authorities have also been re-released. Some video footage has also showed security
force vans even driving about and supporting the protests, although this could all
merely be a new tactic to calm tensions.
It could be that the state is now having some sense not to make things worse and that
they hope by not intervening as much that perhaps the protests and strikes will
eventually dwindle out, the question is are they too late to prevent this becoming a
revolution?
Africa – South Sudan Ethnic Killings
Today in this section I thought I’d talk a little bit about an attack that happened in South
Sudan where 33 people were killed on an attack at a village church due to ever prevalent
ethnic tensions that exist within the country, which has killed many, many people
brutally, often in back and forth revenge attacks between the Murle, Dinka and Nuer
peoples that are a sad reality in the country.
The village of Makol Cuei, where the attack took place has been completely abandoned
as the attackers had also rampaged through it as well.
This one attack is just the tip of the iceberg though as many hundreds and thousands
have been killed over the year’s due to ethnic disputes in the country and is certainly
likely to continue on, a civil war in the country has only just ended in the country which
has not been helping the situation. All of it has led to a terrible humanitarian crisis
gripping the country, it is only hoped that the civil war will not renew so that more focus
can be put on ending ethnic genocide in the country.
Asia – Lebanon Explosion
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5. Photo by mehdi shojaeian from mehrnews. CC BY 4.0.Source.
As is quite known now a terrible explosion took place in a port in Lebanon’s capital of
Beirut wrecking massive damage to much of the city from the huge shockwave created,
with the explosion being so large that it even created its own mushroom cloud, leading
to some claiming it could be a nuclear weapon. In the end though the culprit was
ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored in the port, apparently close to fireworks (or
other materials that pose the danger of exploding) of which had caught fire and begun
exploding, eventually reaching the nitrate and causing the gigantic explosion that has
also completely totaled the port. At least 200 died and many thousands have been
injured across the city mostly due to the shockwave.
I remember when footage of it started coming in from OSINT sources on Twitter and it
was truly unbelievable to witness such a massive explosion, I am pretty sure I have not
witnessed such a large explosion of that in my lifetime. The level of incompetence that
had to come from this is immeasurable and it could not have come at a worse time for
the country, already having faced unrest in the previous year due to a financial crisis
and rampant government corruption and of course the ongoing coronavirus pandemic,
with the port having been a major economic producer and also storage of the countries
grain, which is now destroyed, many more hard times are in store and it could reach a
breaking point, not to mention many people now living in unsafe homes damaged by the
blast and 100s of thousands have been made homeless.
Already unrest has hit the streets again since the tragedy and it looks as though the
government may possibly soon collapse as ministers signal a desire to resign from their
position UPDATE: Which has now happened with the entire government having
resigned, announced by the Prime Minister, but the President remains, although many
also want to see him gone as well, at the same time though it is important for a Head of
State to remain in power until at least a new government is formed, but at the same
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6. time also he should pledge culpability and resign after the formation of a new
government for failing to act against rampant corruption, which is often part of the
Head of State’s role of duties. At this point it is going to require significant financial
foreign aid in my opinion for Lebanon not to fall into a failed state status due to the
damage caused and the key infrastructure and grain that has been destroyed even as
other crises in the country have continued on unresolved. Eventually though the terrible
tragedy may lead to new widespread change in the country from people who are fed up
with the corruption and incompetence of the current administration.
Latin America – US Oil Seizure
The US has continued its unofficial position as world police, this time related to the
Latin America region where they have seized over a million barrels of oil from what they
are calling Iranian tankers bound for Venezuela, a regime in which many democracies
across the world have denounced for human rights abuses and many of which no longer
recognise Maduro as the official President due to elections that are alleged to not be free
or fair.
At one point it did seem possible that Maduro might have been overthrown but it is
clear now that he continues to have the strong backing of his security and armed forces
allowing him to easily remain in power despite the country being in a severe economic
crisis, which is only being made worse by sanctions placed on the country by those who
are trying to force change.
The seizure by the US is one of the largest ever to have taken place and was ordered by a
US court due to violation of sanctions placed on the country by the US. I personally find
it rather odd that the US judiciary is able to overreach into international waters and
order such an action to take place.
Iran has claimed that the ships were not theirs. Although I do agree that Maduro is a
dictator-like figure and that elections were not free and fair, I do not feel actions being
taken by the international community, especially the United States, is responsible and is
only hurting the country’s people more than Maduro himself. Such sanctions are clearly
not driving Maduro out of power.
North America – Mail-In Ballot Panic
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7. Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
In the US as we all know there is an election coming up and I was going to talk on some
recent news about large delays to the US Postal Service in delivering mail-in ballots. As
one who has been following developments of the US election closely it is known that
Donald Trump is not too happy about widespread usage of mail-in ballots as he
insinuates that they can be easily manipulated and voter fraud is easier through its
usage.
The US Postal Service has said that it may have trouble delivering all of the postal
ballots on time for election day, with as many as 46 states possibly being affected by the
problem. Critics of Donald Trump have laid the blame on tampering by the new
postmaster general Louis DeJoy and the Majority Leader of the US House of
Representatives have recalled the house into session from its Summer vacation in an
attempt to deal with the problem.
It is especially worrisome as postal ballots will likely be important due to the ongoing
pandemic, which is still heavily gripping the US as it continues to remain in the lead
with the highest number of cases. It is worried that many who have chosen to vote by
mail due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic may no longer have a counting vote.
Donald Trump has denied additional funding to the postal service to deal with possible
election issues and private companies such as FedEx and UPS have refused to help
bring off some of the burden. It has also been reported that mail sorting machines in the
postal service are being dismantled, of which would be used to sort mail-in ballots,
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8. there isn’t currently a known reason for this, DeJoy has also made other questionable
changes such as ending late deliveries of mail, further slowing up the service, which
some are calling ploys to tamper with the election.
The new House session will attempt to come up with legislation to reverse changes
made to the postal service since the start of the year and also are planning to hold
committee-level hearings on US Postal Service officials, such as Louis DeJoy, for them
to testify.
Many states have laws where mail-in ballots arriving after election day are discarded
and not counted, meaning millions of votes could possibly be discarded if worse comes
to worse. Some lawsuits are being launched in some of these states in an attempt to
change these laws, such as allowing votes that arrive late to still be eligible for counting
for up to 3-days after election day.
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