One Piece’s pirate flag, a defining symbol of worldwide Gen Z resistance • FRANCE 24 English

One Piece’s pirate flag, a defining symbol of worldwide Gen Z resistance • FRANCE 24 English

One thing we’re not quite so sure about though isn’t a big event which is going to be happening over the weekend. This is the elections in Muldova. Citizens heading to the voting booths on Sunday, aren’t they deputy? Yeah, that’s right. It’s an election which will have enormous repercussions to it, not just in the region, but across Europe as well. Um, President Maandu’s uh pro-Uropean party is hoping to defend its parliamentary majority in what Politico calls here an existential election. uh she’s fighting to preserve her parliamentary uh majority in the wake of Russian interference. Uh and it’s this election will really decide the direction the political direction of the country whether they’ll stay pro- Europe or whether they’ll head into a euroskeepic pro-Russian direction. There have already been accusations of vote buying cyber attacks and social media accounts relaying false information uh to influence the vote. Those are accusations from Amaya Sandu’s government itself. And this journal, this newspaper here from Muldova, the journal of Muldova, talks about two instances, two concrete instances of Russian interference detected so far. The first one on the left, the dismantling of an illegal printing factory that was printing out pro-Russian flyers to hand out to prospective voters. Uh, and this article here talks about police having seized some 200 ballot papers, il il illegal ballot papers that had already been pre-stamped uh with uh in favor of the pro-Russian party. Um, both instances of course highlighting the lengths to which Russia will go to influence that vote there. D is still finding a lot of reaction to the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee. This was on highly skilled foreign workers, a visa. Yeah, that’s right. Business Insider is talking about it today. They’ve interviewed a whole bunch of business leaders and CEOs to see what their take on it is. Some of them quite favorable to it. A lot of others saying that it will impact uh hiring capacity of American companies, particularly for uh foreign talent. Now, that order, it was an executive order signed by Donald Trump nearly a week ago. Uh but the decision uh to uh impose a $100,000 fee on the H-1B visa uh is certainly gotten everyone rattled and especially the tech community uh talking about it because they hire a lot of Indians. In fact, Indians make up some 70 71% of that visa uh cohort according to figures from last year and that’s why uh Lemon calls it a direct attack by the Trump administration against India and in the Indian papers today this is business line uh you have this opinion piece here that says that the blow to the visa scheme will reshape uh tech hiring and in its article uh the writer uh says that however the hike will not really impact Indians too much because there are options elsewhere. China’s already announced a special visa for foreign talent while uh the Middle East also uh offers plenty full opportunities and indeed the closer ties between India and China featured in another article you found. This is in foreign affairs magazine. Yeah, that’s right. Foreign Affairs magazine today talking about uh India why India doesn’t want to need China but why US policy is forcing Delhi to turn to its rival. So it explains that the thaw in the icy relationship between Narendra Modi and uh Chinese President Xiinping first appeared a year ago when they had a bilateral meeting for the first time in 5 years. Uh but nonetheless, China is a rival. So uh what’s been happening is that uh they’ve seen closer ties between India and China. But the the magazine explains that it might be more of a strategic move. Indian policy makers may be threatened by what they see as a very coercive attitude towards New Delhi and a more uh gentle posture towards Beijing. So it’s possible that being more cordial with China for India at this moment might be a strategic move to mitigate these changing relationships. Something different for you now found an interesting article. It looks at why a um pirate flag from the Japanese manga series One Piece has become a symbol for Gen Z resistance. It’s really interesting. Well worth a a tour in the conversation on Australian academic website today uh that talks about this one piece flag that we’ve seen brandished in protests from Peru to Nepal to Indonesia recently, particularly Gen Z protests. Um, in Nepal, the flag became a defining image as the flames engulfed the P palace complex during anti-government protests. Now, the manga series itself is steeped in Gen Z symbolism. It arrived in 1997, which is a birth of the Gen Z movement. Uh, it’s follows Luffy and his crew of pirates who challenge a corrupt world government while seeking freedom and adventure, which sounds a little bit familiar, Stuart. Uh for that reason, the flag is not just a cool prop, the conversation says, but a symbol of defiance and perseverance. Uh the conversation explaining that the flag’s political life really took hold in uh protests in Indonesia a few months ago, uh where we saw a lot of young people voicing their anger over government corruption. And finally from Dipy, New York’s so-called Ratzar has, um quietly resigned apparently. That’s right. The city’s first ever ratzar Carolyn uh Kathleen Karate rather uh has indeed resigned. Uh she has left her $176,000 job. It’s not clear yet if she’ll be replaced over the last two years. She’s spearheaded a number of initiatives to battle New York City’s 3 million strong population. The biggest decision decision didn’t actually come from her directly. Uh but it was installing bins to oblige locals to put their trash bags in the bin instead of leaving it out in the street. Some some figures suggested that the rats were receding or at least they seem to be disappearing uh a little bit. But in any case, uh she’s now scared away after a quiet as a mouse resignation, the independent says, while Gizmodo says the rats have won this round at least. Yeah. off with the tail between her legs. She thinks a lot particular wrong there with the papers here on France 24.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, September 25: We look at reactions from the Indian press after Donald Trump hikes the price of highly skilled foreign worker visas in the US. Moldovans will head to the polls this weekend in an election tainted by Russian interference. Also: find out why One Piece’s pirate flag has become a symbol of Gen Z resistance and New York City’s so-called “rat czar” resigns. 
#manga #OnePiece #GenZ

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