Japan is suffering a wave of Covid-19 in Osaka which is overwhelming the medical system there.

I wonder why Japan has failed to apply the necessary discipline to suppress the disease. It seemed to do so effectively a year ago, though I don't recall details.

Could it be that the government has denied the severity so as to reduce pressure to cancel the Olympic games?

Belarus is choking off all avenues for independent reporting and trying to imprison all dissidents. Even dissidents in exile are not safe.

To avoid global heating disaster, we need to put an end to extractivism as the basis for our economy.

It is an error to suppose that local cultures of the past had an inherent understanding of sustainability. Some groups recognized problems and adopted ways of life to protect their environment. Others did not, and caused environmental crises that wiped them out.

In regard to our current situation, the problem that drives us to too much growth is partly in the desires of masses of people, and partly embedded in laws and institutions. For instance, the fairly new "principle" (adopted in the 1980s) that a corporation "must" maximize return to its investors regardless of all other values.

Ghana has arrested people for holding an event and "advocating LGBTQ activities", then held them incommunicado without access to lawyers.

The UK has punished Belarus for arresting Roman Protasevich by forbidding Belarus's airline from flying to the UK and ordering British planes not to fly over Belarus.

That is a substantial step, but I think it is inadequate. At the very least, other countries should ban any flights between their airports and Belarus — regardless of which airline — and ban flights from or to Belarus from crossing their airspace. This would cut off Belarus from air transportation with anywhere except Russia.

As a separate matter, they should to prohibit flights that have crossed Belarusian airspace from entering their airspace. That would would not punish Belarus any further, but it would make all flights avoid the territory of Belarus, and that would ensure the safety of passengers in those flights.

Belarus is not the only country which interfered with travel in foreign country's civilian aircraft. When Snowden was seeking a way to reach Ecuador, and the US wanted to keep him stuck in Russia, the plane of the president of Ecuador went to Europe. The US suspected it would bring Snowden to Ecuador on its return there, and had its allies compel the plane to land in a country which then forcibly searched it.

Fortunately, Snowden was not aboard.

They did not threaten violence against the Ecuadorian plane or order it to land at a specific place. But they did box it in by forbidding it to enter various countries' airspace. And they likewise compelled Ecuador to allow it to be searched.

It would be a mistake to draw blanket conclusions about the US government or the Belarus government from this. Each one is capable of doing evil. Lukashenko's regime is unremitting tyranny and unremitting evil; the US has some hope of being better.