🗺️ Picks of the Week — April 23
🗺️ Picks of the Week — April 23
Derek Chauvin Verdict, Football Rejects ESL, Table Mountain Fires, Chad's President Dies, Cuba's Castro Reign Ends, Amnesty International Violates Human Rights
Helllllo folks, it’s Friday! Without sounding like our good friend Rebecca Black, we’ll get straight to this week’s round-up, which is a ‘bumper edition’ in its truest sense.
This week we visit Minneapolis and the explosive jury verdict that found former cop Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts for the brutal murder of George Floyd; Europe where football stakeholders at all levels unanimously rejected proposals for a European Super League; South Africa where historic fires broke out on Table Mountain; Chad whose president died from gunshot wounds on the battlefield; Cuba where the Castro leadership has officially ended after more than 60 years; and Amnesty International where the human rights organization is facing troubling accusations of human rights violations…
Be sure to check out this week’s jobs update where we added another 400 new jobs and internships taking our total active listings up to 1,900, and also yesterday’s Inside The Middle East where we dissected the news that 88 percent of the world’s executions last year occurred in the Middle East.
Jobs and data updates below, let’s do this thing!
Job Corner ✍️
More than 60 deadlines coming up until the end of the month, and we’ve included some below. If you’re a paying subscriber, be sure to send us your CV/resume and cover letters and we’ll have a look and provide some feedback.
A preview of some of this month’s deadlines… 👇
Data Corner 🧮
A few datasets referenced in today’s edition…
Fire Danger Index: Dataset on the likelihood of fires starting around the world, from NASA
U.S. Migrants: Dataset on number of people waiting in Mexico to enter the U.S., from Syracuse University
Mapping Police Violence: Map of where police have killed people in the U.S. so far in 2021, from Mapping Police Violence
Fatal Force: Dataset of all police killings in the U.S. since 2015, from The Washington Post
World’s Richest Clubs: Annual report of the revenues and finances of the worlds richest football clubs, from Deloitte
Forced Displacement: World refugee population database, from the UNHCR
Derek Chauvin Found Guilty of George Floyd Murder
We begin by revisiting one of the tragedies that defined 2020 and transformed the Black Lives Matter movement — the murder of George Floyd. This week, a Minneapolis jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, after pinning Floyd to the ground by the neck with his knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Chauvin will be sentenced in around two months and could face a maximum of 40 years in prison, but Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines for first-time criminals mean he could face far less time, with a similar case handing down a 12-and-a-half-year sentence. The three other former officers present at Floyd’s murder will face trial in August.
Crowds celebrated the verdict outside the courtroom, in the George Floyd square memorial in Minneapolis, and at the site where Floyd took his last breath. Darnella Frazier, the woman who recorded and posted the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck that went viral around the world, claimed “justice had been served.” U.S. President Joe Biden called the verdict a “step forward” in the march towards justice, and the DoJ announced it would investigate Minneapolis policing for similar cases of systemic racism.
Video: Derek Chauvin trial: Key moments from 14 days of testimony
World Football Says No to Billionaire Owners
To Europe next where virtually every stakeholder in football has united against plans for 12 of the top clubs to form their own competition, dubbed the European Super League, that would have seen them play each other each week alongside the current premier European football competition, the Champions League.
Sound like a good idea? Not so fast. Unlike the U.S. sports model where the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL’s closed system guarantees teams a spot regardless of where they finish, the European system is built differently. Football’s pyramid system means any team from any league can one day reach the pinnacle of European football, while hundreds of millions in funding gets passed down through the leagues to ensure the game's participation and engagement remains alive. If the ESL is allowed to happen, football across the continent, and possibly the world, would struggle to stay afloat in its existing form.
When fans in England got word of what was happening, they took to the streets to protest the greed from their club’s billionaire owners. Within 72 hours, all six English participants — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham — withdrew and offered half-hearted apologies with some clubs not saying sorry at all. Sorry really did seem to be the hardest word…
Meanwhile, UEFA managed to sneak through their own reforms that would see two clubs qualify for the competition each year based on their history, as opposed to actually earning a place through their domestic league performance, something they could be forced to change amid the backlash from fans over the ESL. The below video is an ABSOLUTE MUST WATCH…
Video: Garry Neville and Jamie Carragher on European Super League
Previous Picks of the Week 👀
🔎 Picks of the Week — April 19
🔎 Picks of the Week — April 12
🔎 Picks of the Week — March 19
🔎 Picks of the Week — March 12
Historic Fires Breakout on Table Mountain
Moving to South Africa next, where fires have burned out of control on Table Mountain due to low humidity, dry shrubbery, and strong winds, with some residents saying they’d never seen fires spread so fast. Multiple University of Cape Town buildings — including the historic library, home to more than 1,300 unique manuscript collections — were badly damaged, along with the country’s oldest surviving windmill, the Mostert Mill built in 1796.
The fires destroyed some 3,500 historic collections in the library’s Jagger Reading Room, including unique African books and archives. Thankfully, an automatically-closing door meant the library’s basement collections were saved. This isn’t the first time a blaze has destroyed irreplaceable historical archives around the world recently. In 2018, fires ripped through Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, destroying some 20 million artefacts from landmark collections, including the world’s oldest human fossil.
Video: Table Mountain fire erupts in Cape Town
Chad’s President Dies In Rebel Clashes
Now for some news from Central Africa, where President of Chad Idriss Déby has died from gunshot wounds following clashes with rebels in the north of the country. The 68-year-old trained military officer — who came to power via an uprising against dictator Hissène Habré in 1990 — would often venture onto the battlefield, and famously did so against Boko Haram insurgents last year. Déby will be succeeded by his son, 37-year-old Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who’ll lead for 18 months until the next general election.
Like other countries on the continent, oil-rich Chad has been fighting Islamist militants since 2011, which has cost more than 37,000 lives and displaced around 400,000 million people. Analysts predict the president’s death could bring even more uncertainty to a divided Chad, where the country’s largest workers’ union opposes military rule. Ironically, the younger Déby’s implementation as president has united thirty opposition parties, who called the family takeover an “institutional coup,” and called for a civilian-led transition.
Cuba’s Castro Era Comes to an End
We pit stop in Cuba next where Raul Castro, the brother of former Prime Minister Fidel Castro, has stepped down as chairman of the Communist Party, ending more than 60 years of Castro family leadership. The 89-year-old Raul claimed he had “fulfilled his mission” and is confident of the country’s future, with party leadership passed onto President Miguel Díaz-Canel. The Castro dominance of Cuba’s only political party began with the 1959 revolution and continued after Fidel’s death in 2016.
While Diaz-Canel has been loyal to his predecessors, it’s thought that he’ll be forced to liberalize the state economy in the future amid the pandemic’s economic fallout. Joe Biden has pledged to reverse Donald Trump’s sanctions, but much of Cuba’s tourism has been halted, which the fallout has led to several waves of emigration, making its citizens the third-largest group of migrants hoping to claim asylum to the U.S.
Meanwhile, counterrevolutionary groups calling for increased freedom in Cuba are gaining strength, many via social media, the use of which has increased since mobile phone internet access was legalized only in 2018.
Amnesty International Accused of Human Rights Violations
We end this week in the offices of human rights organization Amnesty International, where after the momentum Black Lives Matter gained globally last year, an internal review of its international secretariat to identify evidence of systemic racism was ordered. The report, published in October but not press released, confirmed a culture of white privilege, perpetuated by racist slurs, systemic bias against staff members of color, lack of awareness or sensitivity towards religious practices, and aggressive or dismissive behaviour toward staff in the global south.
The findings come as eight Amnesty International UK whistleblowers also accused the organization of bolstering the very human rights abuse they campaign against, calling for senior staff members to step down. In response to the report’s findings, Amnesty apologized, claiming it was “committed to actively and honestly tackling the root causes of these issues identified,” while acknowledging that quick-fix solutions are unrealistic. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen is due to retire later on this year.
See you next week for more jobs and global news!