Quartz: White House chaos is the reason North Korea talks are faltering, not a fickle dictator

North Korea is reconsidering holding a summit with Donald Trump, a senior diplomat said May 14. Past deals with the West—in 1985, 1995, and 2005—have also fallen apart.  [...]

Soon after secretary of state Mike Pompeo returned from Pyongyang last week, it seemed clear that Kim had “made a commitment, in his mind, to get rid of part of his program in order to get sanctions relief and economic aid,” says Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at CNA, a Virginia research group, who has written three books on North Korean leadership. Indeed, on May 11, Pompeo said that conversations between him and Kim were “warm.” South Korea’s foreign minister said it had been “very clear that the sanctions [would] remain in place until and unless we see visible, meaningful action taken by North Korea on the denuclearization track.” [...]

But the US’s public demands quickly morphed. Two days after his post-Pyongyang presser, Pompeo said in an interview with CBS the the US expected “complete and total denuclearization of North Korea, and it is the President’s intention to achieve that.” He added that the US would lift sanctions and allow private US investors into the country “if we get denuclearization.” The same day, he told Fox News: “If we get what it is the President has demanded–the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea,” rewards could include electricity and infrastructure investment “in spades.”

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Political Critique: The illiberal tandem vs Europe

This process of awakening national pride goes hand in hand with euro-sceptic slogans, highlighting the cultural distance of the left-liberal West to Eastern Europe. Here, the Brussels-based dictate of European bureaucracy is invoked. The fight for economic independence and Christian values, especially in times of massive immigration to Europe, is its own moral imperative. [...]

Although there are many similarities to be found between Hungary in Poland, it is not justified to present these countries as mirror cases. It is often forgotten that despite pulling all strings, Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS party leader, is just an ordinary member of parliament, abstaining from taking any public offices. On the contrary, Viktor Orbán has held the PM position unchanged since 2010. This also tells us a lot about the leadership style of both gentlemen as well as about the structure of their parties: the hierarchical, commanding style of a single authority in PiS differs from the court united around Viktor Orbán. [...]

Fidesz and PiS are conservative in their mindset and therefore stand for traditional values. However, the Hungarian government seems to be more relaxed on minority rights. Unlike in Poland, same-sex partnerships have remained recognized in Hungary since 2009. No amendments around reproductive rights have been put in place either. Ever since PiS has taken over, Polish women regularly face the risk of restricting abortion laws. After all, it is not by accident that at the European level, Fidesz is affiliated with the European People’s Party (EPP), centre-right Christian-democrats, whereas PiS has joined the European Conservatives and Reformists, the Euro-sceptic right-wing of the European Parliament. [...]

Jarosław Kaczyński, usually not very keen on travelling, lately made his way to Budapest to manifest his support for the Hungarian ally shortly before elections. In his address after the successful vote, Orbán expressed his gratitude to the Polish leaders. And so, the illiberal affair in East-Central Europe continues. Nevertheless, its future depends now on the performance of the Polish partners in the parliamentary election in 2019. There, the results should not be taken for granted.  

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Aeon: Die like a dog

In human medicine, we’re used to implementing any and every life-saving intervention right up to the very end. As a medical intern 20 years ago, I remember thinking about the futility of that approach with patients in pain and suffering from multisystem organ failure, sustained only by machines and a regimen of some 30 or 40 medications, and unlikely to ever make it out of the hospital. What was the point? Whatever happened to quality of life? But those reservations be damned, we never gave up, and among the interns who transferred care to each other from shift to shift, the dictum of patients ‘not dying on my watch’ was something to which we all held fast. [...]

As a veterinarian, my wife viewed things altogether differently. To her, putting our dog to sleep didn’t represent throwing in the towel as it seemed to me, but a compassionate way to preempt unnecessary but inevitable pain and suffering down the line. As she saw it, we owe this option to our pets as stewards of their care, especially given that animals can’t understand pain or decide for themselves just how much suffering they are willing to tolerate. [...]

In 2009, US legislation that would have allowed physicians to be compensated by Medicare for providing voluntary counselling to patients about options for end-of-life care was defeated due to political uproar over ‘death panels’. And yet, as I discuss in the World Journal of Psychiatry in 2015, human euthanasia is being increasingly considered and sanctioned both in the US and abroad. As life-extending medical advances over the past 50 years have fuelled growing concerns about prolongation of suffering and loss of autonomy, the euthanasia movement of the 1930s has gained momentum, evolving into the modern ‘right to die’ and ‘death with dignity’ movements that challenge us to consider what constitutes a ‘good death’. Today, some form of voluntary active euthanasia – death by administration of a lethal dose of medication to avoid pain and suffering – is legal in several states in the US, as well as in Japan and parts of Europe including Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands.  

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Secretariat of Equinet: Rainbow Europe 2018 Is A Wake-Up Call For Anyone Who Cares About Lgbti Equality

“Against a backdrop of backlash on human rights across Europe, how can states possibly think the work on LGBTI equality is finished?” said ILGA-Europe Executive Director Evelyne Paradis. “The incredible achievements of the past decade are at stake. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that we have achieved equality. There are too many signs that trends like populism and nationalism aren’t political buzzwords – they can have a lasting impact on the lives of LGBTI people in Europe. There are too many signs around us that many of the recent wins are fragile. So let me say it again – we are nowhere near done.” [...]

For ILGA-Europe, this stagnation is a worrying picture considering the current political climate of rising levels of populism, nationalism and civil society scapegoating, which have a particularly high negative impact on more vulnerable groups, like LGBTI people.

Joyce Hamilton, co-chair of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board commented: “Our communities unfortunately know all too well how vulnerable we are to undemocratic tendencies. Law and policies are often the last line of defence for LGBTI people so that is why we insist on making sure our countries’ legislation explicitly protects our human rights.

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Slate: A Brief History of Fat, and Why We Hate It (Jan 29, 2018)