Volodymyr Zelensky Slaps Vladimir Putin
Tag: Ukraine
St. Javelin, The Protector of Ukraine
Saw this on Twitter. For context,
The United States has given the green light for Baltic nations to rush US-made weapons to Ukraine. The exact amounts and types of weapons were not specified but the Baltic nations’ arsenals include Javelins — portable missiles capable of destroying tanks.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has approved $650 million in weapons to Ukraine since last year, $200 million of it last month amid fears of war.
Ukraine Tears Down Last Lenin Statue
On August 24, 1991, Ukraine officially declared its independence from the Soviet Union. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed, and then-president Petro Poroshenko signed a series of decommunization laws that, among other things, called for the removal of all remaining communist monuments in the country and the renaming of places with names related to Communism.
Russian-language Radio Svoboda reports that the last monument to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine–other than in territories currently occupied by Russian-backed separatists–had been removed.
Wikipedia notes that as of 1991, there were an estimated 5,500 monuments to Lenin in Ukraine, with 3,200 of those removed by November 2015.
UNICEF Highlights Global Increase In Measles Cases
From a March 1, 2019 press release,
NEW YORK, 1 March 2019 — UNICEF warned today that global cases of measles are surging to alarmingly high levels, led by ten countries accounting for more than 74 per cent of the total increase, and several others that had previously been declared measles free.Globally, 98 countries reported more cases of measles in 2018 compared to 2017, eroding progress against this highly preventable, but potentially deadly disease.
Ukraine, the Philippines and Brazil saw the largest increases in measles cases from 2017 to 2018. In Ukraine alone, there were 35,120 cases of measles in 2018. According to the government, another 24,042 people were infected just in the first two months of 2019. In the Philippines so far this year, there have been 12,736 measles cases and 203 deaths, compared to 15,599 cases in the whole of 2018.
. . .
Poor health infrastructure, civil strife, low community awareness, complacency and vaccine hesitancy in some cases have led to these outbreaks in both developed and developing countries. For example, in the United States, the number of measles cases increased six-fold between 2017 and 2018, reaching 791 cases. More recently, the U.S. has seen outbreaks in New York and Washington state.“Almost all of these cases are preventable, and yet children are getting infected even in places where there is simply no excuse,” said Fore. “Measles may be the disease, but, all too often, the real infection is misinformation, mistrust and complacency. We must do more to accurately inform every parent, to help us safely vaccinate every child.”