Topic: Politics (Page 4)
You are looking at all articles with the topic "Politics". We found 127 matches.
Hint:
To view all topics, click here. Too see the most popular topics, click here instead.
๐ 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, also known as the June Fourth Incident (Chinese: ๅ ญๅไบไปถ; pinyin: liรนsรฌ shรฌjiร n) in China, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre (Chinese: ๅคฉๅฎ้จๅคงๅฑ ๆ; pinyin: Tiฤn'ฤnmรฉn dร tรบshฤ), troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: ๅ ซไนๆฐ่ฟ; pinyin: Bฤjiว mรญnyรนn) or the Tiananmen Square Incident (Chinese: ๅคฉๅฎ้จไบไปถ; pinyin: Tiฤn'ฤnmรฉn shรฌjiร n).
The protests were precipitated by the death of pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and political elite about the country's future. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy that benefited some people but seriously disadvantaged others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge to its legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. At the height of the protests, about oneย million people assembled in the Square.
As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support around the country for the demonstrators, and the protests spread to some 400 cities. Among the CCP's top leadership, Premier Li Peng and Party Elders Li Xiannian and Wang Zhen called for decisive action through violent suppression of the protesters, and ultimately managed to win over Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping and President Yang Shangkun to their side. On 20 May, the State Council declared martial law. They mobilized as many as ~300,000 troops to Beijing. The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city's major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June, killing both demonstrators and bystanders in the process. The military operations were under the overall command of General Yang Baibing, half-brother of President Yang Shangkun.
The international community, human rights organizations, and political analysts condemned the Chinese government for the massacre. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China. The Chinese government made widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, suppressed other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests. More broadly, the suppression ended the political reforms begun in 1986 and halted the policies of liberalization of the 1980s, which were only partly resumed after Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour in 1992. Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day. Remembering the protests is widely associated with questioning the legitimacy of CCP rule and remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.
Discussed on
- "1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre" | 2024-06-02 | 22 Upvotes 3 Comments
- "Tiananmen Square: Protests and Massacre (1989)" | 2022-11-27 | 39 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre" | 2022-06-04 | 52 Upvotes 8 Comments
๐ National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome. As of Marchย 2020, it has been adopted by fifteen states and the District of Columbia. Together, they have 196 electoral votes, which is 36% of the Electoral College and 73% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force. Certain legal questions, however, may affect implementation of the compact.
Discussed on
- "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" | 2024-08-12 | 38 Upvotes 63 Comments
- "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" | 2016-11-10 | 19 Upvotes 7 Comments
๐ Carthago delenda est
"Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", or "Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" (English: "Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to "Carthago delenda est" (English: "Carthage must be destroyed"), is a Latin oratorical phrase pronounced by Cato the Censor, a politician of the Roman Republic. The phrase originates from debates held in the Roman Senate prior to the Third Punic War (149โ146 BC) between Rome and Carthage, where Cato is said to have used it as the conclusion to all his speeches in order to push for the war.
Discussed on
- "Carthago delenda est" | 2019-07-21 | 64 Upvotes 62 Comments
๐ The Triple Revolution
"The Triple Revolution" was an open memorandum sent to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and other government figures on March 22, 1964. Drafted under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, it was signed by an array of noted social activists, professors, and technologists who identified themselves as the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution. The chief initiator of the proposal was W. H. "Ping" Ferry, at that time a vice-president of CSDI, basing it in large part on the ideas of the futurist Robert Theobald.
Discussed on
- "The Triple Revolution" | 2021-08-19 | 75 Upvotes 47 Comments
๐ Lie to Children
A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.
Discussed on
- "Lie to Children" | 2024-03-12 | 52 Upvotes 66 Comments
๐ Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian code of law of ancient Mesopotamia, dated to about 1754 BC (Middle Chronology). It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code. A partial copy exists on a 2.25-metre-tall (7.5ย ft) stone stele. It consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded based on social stratification depending on social status and gender, of slave versus free, man versus woman.
Nearly half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon for example. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and reproductive behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on a government official; this provision establishes that a judge who alters his decision after it is written down is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A few provisions address issues related to military service.
The code was discovered by modern archaeologists in 1901, and its editio princeps translation published in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. This nearly complete example of the code is carved into a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger, 2.25ย m (7.4ย ft) tall. The code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele. The material was imported into Sumeria from Magan - today the area covered by the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
It is currently on display in the Louvre, with replicas in numerous institutions, including the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, the Clendening History of Medicine Library & Museum at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the library of the Theological University of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, the Pergamon Museum of Berlin, the Arts Faculty of the University of Leuven in Belgium, the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Russia, the Prewitt-Allen Archaeological Museum at Corban University, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC.
Discussed on
- "Code of Hammurabi" | 2024-06-09 | 30 Upvotes 13 Comments
- "Code of Hammurabi" | 2020-04-08 | 50 Upvotes 23 Comments
๐ 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
"'No Way to Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" is the title of a series of articles perennially published by the American news satire organization The Onion satirizing the frequency of mass shootings in the United States and the lack of action taken in the wake of such incidents.
Each article is about 200 words long, detailing the location of the shooting and the number of victims, but otherwise remaining essentially the same. A fictitious residentโusually of a state in which the shooting did not take placeโis quoted as saying that the shooting was "a terrible tragedy", but "there's nothing anyone can do to stop them." The article ends by saying that the United States is the "only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years," and that Americans view themselves and the situation as "helpless".
Discussed on
- "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" | 2023-09-28 | 59 Upvotes 56 Comments
๐ List of school shootings in the United States
This chronological list of school shootings in the United States includes any school shootings that occurred at a K-12 public or private school, as well as at colleges and universities, and on school buses. Excluded from this list are the following:
- Incidents that occurred during wars
- Incidents that occurred as a result of police actions
- Murder-suicides by rejected suitors or estranged spouses
- Suicides or suicide attempts involving only one person.
Shootings by school staff, where the only victims are other employees, are covered at workplace killings.
Discussed on
- "List of school shootings in the United States" | 2022-05-25 | 46 Upvotes 68 Comments
๐ Z (Military Symbol)
"Z" is one of several symbols painted on military vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The symbol has been used in Russian popular culture as a sign of support for the invasion. Displaying any of the symbols on vehicles in public is illegal in Kazakhstan.
Discussed on
- "Z (Military Symbol)" | 2022-03-07 | 61 Upvotes 49 Comments
๐ State Capture
State capture is a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state's decision-making processes to their own advantage.
The term was first used by the World Bank in 2000 to describe certain Central Asian countries making the transition from Soviet communism, where small corrupt groups used their influence over government officials to appropriate government decision-making in order to strengthen their own economic positions.
Allegations of state capture have led to protests against the government in Bulgaria in 2013โ2014 and in 2020โ2021 and Romania in 2017, and have caused an ongoing controversy in South Africa beginning in 2016. Turkey is considered as a post-2002 example of state capture. The term has also been used against Elon Musk by critics of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Discussed on
- "State Capture" | 2025-02-14 | 67 Upvotes 41 Comments