A Nuclear Reactor, Ignoring Your Boss, & Meth In Your Produce

August 23, 2024

Hello, readers – happy Friday! Today, we’ll be talking about protests in Indonesia, Modi’s travels, a nuclear reactor, ignoring your boss, abortion in Arkansas, voting in Arizona, and meth produce.

Here’s some good news: the Nature Reserve in Lewes, England, is allowing people to bring their dogs for the first time ever – as long as the dogs wear backpacks filled with seeds to help replenish the plant life there. Also, nineteen female medical students banned from attending university in Afghanistan are getting the chance to finish their educations in Scotland.

Our publisher, Tim Hsia, has shared some of his thoughts over on LinkedIn about the dos and don’ts of building the career you want.

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

A Different Kind Of Storm In Indonesia

(Protesters by Firdaus Wajidi via Getty Images)

It’s getting stormy across the world thanks to typhoons and hurricanes, but in Indonesia, those storms are more about storming the capital. On Thursday, thousands of protesters in the country’s capital of Jakarta attempted to storm the Indonesian parliament building, though police were able to ward them off using tear gas and water cannons.

This was all a response to the legislature attempting to overturn multiple election laws certified by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court that ban people under 30 from running for regional governorships and also make it easier for smaller political parties to nominate candidates by weakening a requirement that they hold 20% of a local legislature.

Indonesia’s parliament is controlled by supporters of outgoing President Joko Widodo. His supporters want to overturn the former law because it bars Widodo’s 29-year-old son from running in an election in Central Java. The latter law would also allow a vocal critic of the current government to run in upcoming elections. Parliament’s attempt to change both of these rules was met with widespread opposition, both online and in person, and the legislative session was postponed.

Modi Plays It Down The Middle

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making the rounds in Europe, touching down in Warsaw earlier this week to meet with Polish leaders. The next stop on his Eurotrip will be a first-time visit to Ukraine. The diplomatic appearance will contrast Modi’s relative friendliness with Russia and comes a few weeks after he visited Moscow to talk with Vladimir Putin.

“India’s view is absolutely clear – this is not the era of war,” Modi said in Warsaw, adding that India is a “big advocate of permanent peace in this region.” India has called for a ceasefire in the Ukraine-Russia war since the conflict began but has yet to condemn Russia for its invasion – likely because New Delhi views Moscow as a key partner as it attempts to gain more global influence.

Modi touched down in Ukraine earlier today and is scheduled to discuss “the entire gamut of bilateral relations” with President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to India’s foreign ministry. While the two will talk about economic deals, infrastructure cooperation, and defense, one Indian official noted that “this landmark visit, of course, takes place against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which will also form part of discussions.”

Quick Reacting In The Reactor

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was hit by a tsunami and earthquake in 2011, was going to attempt to use a robot to remove a fragment of melted fuel from a wrecked reactor yesterday. The endeavor was halted, however, when workers noticed that five five-foot pipes that were used to move the robot were placed in the wrong order.
The pipes were to be used to push the robot inside and pull it back out when it finished – once inside the vessel, the robot would be operated remotely from a safer location, but the employees couldn’t fix the pipe issue within the time limit for their radiation exposure. The collection of a tiny sample of the debris inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel would start the fuel debris removal phase.

Good Night, And Good Luck

As of next week, Australians are getting a pretty cool work perk handed to them – a new law enshrines the “right to disconnect,” A.K.A. the right to ignore your boss after work hours, into law. The law passed in February, despite backlash from some employer groups.
The law acknowledges that there are circumstances where an employee’s right to disconnect is unreasonable, depending on their role, the reason for the contact, and how it is made, among other things. Similar laws are already in place in France and Germany.

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The Land Of Opportunity Limits Opportunities

Arkansans for Limited Government tried to get an abortion rights initiative on the ballot for November, but their attempt was blocked when election officials ruled that they failed to comply with state law. The initiative was denied primarily because the group submitted documentation regarding paid signature gatherers separately and not in a single bundle.
The group, unsurprisingly, appealed the decision, but yesterday, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the state’s rejection. The vote was 4-3, with a dissenting judge saying, “The majority has succeeded in its efforts to change the law in order to deprive the voters of the opportunity to vote on this issue, which is not the proper role of this court.”

Gosh, I Wonder Why They’d Want To Block Votes?

Speaking of Supreme Courts, yesterday, the even supreme-er court rejected an attempt by Republicans that would have prevented over 40,000 Arizonans from voting in November. National and state Republicans had asked the Supreme Court to get involved in a legal fight over voter registration restrictions that Republicans enacted in Arizona in 2022.
A lower court had previously blocked a requirement that called for state voter registration forms to be rejected if they are not accompanied by documents proving U.S. citizenship. A second measure, also not in effect, would have prohibited voting in presidential elections or by mail if registrants don’t prove they are U.S. citizens.

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When Is A Melon Not A Melon?

Today, we’ve got a pair of stories about massive shipments of meth being disguised as produce. The first story definitely looks like the perpetrators were breaking one of the cardinal rules of drug dealing and smoking their own supply. The smugglers in this story attempted to disguise 4,587 pounds of meth by making them look like watermelons – the issue is that, well, the watermelons were not watermeloning.
When drug enforcement officers working the U.S.-Mexico border pulled over the shipment of “melons” for inspection, they quickly realized something was off about the produce (probably once they got within about 10 feet of the plastic balls), and quickly seized and tested the meth melons. Please, we beg of you, click the article link to see how not-watermelon-like these things are.
In the second story, the drug dealers seemed to put a bit more effort into their project. About 600 pounds of meth ($755,000 worth) were found concealed in a shipment of (real) celery after officers pulled over a driver who claimed he was dropping off produce in the U.S. The drugs were sniffed out by a K-9 unit, and the driver has turned over to Homeland Security. Officials have attributed both of the seizings to Operation Apollo, which has expanded border patrol capabilities in southern California and Arizona.

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