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The next big challenge for activists is Polands presidential election, scheduled for May 10. With incumbent President Andrzej Duda, a PiS loyalist, riding high in the polls, PiS is keen to press ahead with the vote despite the pandemic.

After backing down from an initial plan to go ahead with the election as normal, PiS has offered the opposition two options: hold the vote entirely by post or change the constitution to extend Dudas term by another two years.

Although many Poles oppose the government and criticism has been rife about the risks of organising an election during a pandemic, activists are unsure if they will be able to put enough pressure on PiS to delay the poll.

Bogumil Kolmasiak, a new media specialist at Akcja Demokracja, a prominent campaigning organisation, said his team was exploring options.

On April 11, Akcja Demokracja asked Poles to take part in a Lets postpone elections event. People leant out of their windows or went out onto their balconies to play a synchronised alarm bell on their mobile phones. They also hung banners calling for the election to be postponed.

Kolmasiak declared the event a success. Some 5,000 people signed up to join the event and around 200 sent video clips or photos to Akcja Demokracja.

Kolmasiak said this type of protest under lockdown was uniquely challenging as it involved people being politically active from their homes, exposing their views to neighbours or passersby from what is usually a safe, intimate space.

This is the first time we organised an action exclusively online during the pandemic, and our actions usually combine online and offline activities. We treat this one as a dress rehearsal for what will come next, and we expect every further action to be bigger.

According to Kolmasiak, a recent Akcja Demokracja appeal to email lawmakers about the abortion draft law led to almost three million emails being sent, which pretty much crashed the website of the group.

With isolation measures in place, we have so many people simply sitting at home and hanging out online, and this is a huge potential that we are thinking a lot about how to best use, he said. This sad situation is also an opportunity to learn new forms of activism. There is lots of space for creativity.

This sad situation is also an opportunity to learn new forms of activism. There is lots of space for creativity.

Bogumil Kolmasiak, Akcja Demokracja

Obywatele RP, a civic group involved in pro-democracy protests since PiS came to power in 2015, has said that if the poll goes ahead by post in May, its members will publicly destroy their ballots.

We call on all those who plan to take part in the elections or their organisation, actively or passively, to boycott the poll, Obywatele RP said in an online statement. We warn the government to put an end to this farce and focus on the real management of this crisis.

Opposition parties are divided over how best to deal with the presidential election. On Monday, the main opposition force, Civic Coalition, proposed holding the vote next spring.

Meanwhile, anti-government voters are debating what to do if the election does go ahead by post in May. The question is whether to boycott the vote altogether, thus paving the way for a Duda victory, or take part despite profound misgivings about a pandemic election.

A possible strike by postal voters could prove a dealbreaker. Union representatives have expressed concerns about the extra risk posed to their workers, already on the frontlines, by having to deliver the ballots for the nationwide poll just as the epidemic reaches its peak.

The leader of the postal workers union told Polish media that workers were considering a go-slow strike on the day of the vote, with employees working to rule. Such a strike could cause severe disruptions to the election, which experts say is likely to be marred by logistical difficulties anyway.

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Poles Find Creative Ways to Protest Despite the Pandemic | Reporting Democracy - Balkan Insight

The next generation is slowly but surely beginning to make an impact on the world we are living in. They are proving to be intelligent, articulate, and passionate about their beliefs and future. Lets take a closer look at how this generation is standing out.

This generation is the first to grow up in an entirely digital world. They have always lived with the internet and many have even never lived without access to the internet in their home. Due to this, they are swiftly becoming much more comfortable with technology than their parents might ever be.

Coding is even taught in schools, and it might not be too long before we see the next big technological leap coming from young minds rather than industry experts. Investors and other interested parties are already on the hunt for leads like this. Tej Kohli, Sir Chris John, Steve Morgan and other prominent philanthropists want to help companies who are looking to better humanity overall. If they were to reach out to offer funding to a younger person with such an idea, it would give them the funding and platform needed to potentially work on a worldwide level.

Name a movement at the moment and you will find young people as the voices at the very heart of it. Be it gun control or climate change, it is the younger generations that are spearheading these important movements. It is incredibly easy to get involved in these movements yourself. Even joining in through social media can make a massive difference in the grand scheme of things, adding your voice to the others.

Just take a look at some of the young people who are already rising thanks to their activism. People like Malala Yousafzai and Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez are already showing that young people have a much-deserved voice when it comes to standing up for what they believe in.

This generation has some of the most tolerant and accepting individuals amongst it. While there are those who subscribe to more conservative values, there are also many accepting and celebrating liberalism.

More and more young people are claiming to fall somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. The conversation about trans and non-binary rights is also alive, with many exploring their sexualities and gender identity in a way that has not really been done so far. With them pushing the boundaries and encouraging conversations in older generations, there are so many things that can be learned from how they view the world.

While the stereotype definitely exists that the younger generations are immature and dont know what they are talking about, this generation is most definitely changing that. They are unafraid to go after what they want, and their vision of a better world is one that can most definitely be achieved. There is a long way to go to get all the generations in a conversation that works, but the youngest among us are going to be the ones to do it. They are already standing out amongst the population and they will no doubt change the world as we know it.

Image by Oleksy @Ohurtsov from Pixabay

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Making An Impact From A Young Age: How The Next Generation Stands Out - Shout Out UK

An $8 million fund launched by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will create more production opportunities in the coming months and in turn protect the jobs of media professionals.

The Public Service Content Fund is part of a series of initiatives introduced by the authority to tide Singapore's media sector over the Covid-19 pandemic.

Media firms can benefit from reduced operating costs and more project opportunities while practitioners, including freelancers, can tap subsidised training fees to sharpen their craft during the downtime, said IMDA yesterday.

Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran said these initiatives are part of the larger national effort to protect jobs and livelihoods.

"In the longer term, the Government will continue to build capabilities to better prepare our workers, businesses and people to seize opportunities. Working together, we will overcome this period of uncertainty and emerge stronger as one," he added.

Under the new fund initiative, media firms Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), Mediacorp and Viddsee will commission short-form content for their digital platforms through a call for proposals. Media firms and talent can take advantage of this circuit breaker period to put together their proposals and start production work when restrictions are lifted.

SPH deputy chief executive Anthony Tan said this initiative will encourage the local content production community during these trying times.

IMDA will extend its support for ground-up initiatives by media associations, by contributing to a Covid-19 relief fund set up by the Singapore Association of Motion Picture Professionals to support those affected by the cancellation and postponement of projects.

Half of the $40,000 fund will be contributed by the IMDA, and the rest by the association. Those affected can apply for grants of between $300 and $500. In addition, the authority is encouraging professionals to deepen their craft during this downtime.

It will support the upskilling of self-employed professionals by providing a grant of up to 90 per cent of course fees, capped at $3,000 per course under the Talent-Assistance scheme.

Media companies will also receive a waiver of the film exhibition and distribution licence fees from this Friday for both new licence applications and renewals of existing licences. Classification fees for films (public exhibition and video distribution) and video games as well as label fees will also be waived until further notice.

IMDA will also be helping media firms to boost their competitiveness by tapping the expertise of its international content partners.

It has worked with partners such as WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks APAC and ViacomCBS Networks Asia to bring forward the implementation of a capabilities partnership programme, which pairs media multinational corporations with local media firms to develop "Made in Singapore" content.

The programme is expected to benefit 80 to 100 local media companies over the next 12 months.

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Coronavirus: IMDA starts $8m fund to protect jobs of media professionals - The Straits Times

Callum Wilson has dealt with uncertainty for most of his career. The Biarritz Olympique centre and former England sevens player knows the life of a sportsman can change with the stroke of a pen on a contract without much notice. He once found out he was leaving a club over the loudspeakers of a stadium when the president addressed the fans after the final match of the season to tell them which players would be departing that summer. The coronavirus crisis has brought a different kind of uncertainty. The 29-year-old is currently locked down in his apartment aware that he may be out of contract by the end of the year.

Wilson is unable to leave his home in Bayonne without a note and can only exercise within one kilometre of the apartment. Every morning, he and his girlfriend prepare a detailed to-do list and work through it. His list contains exercises to keep his body in shape for the rigours of rugby and study for his preparations for life after rugby. His contract is winding down and Wilson is now unable to showcase his talent to interested clubs.

I dont know where Im playing rugby next year. Even with that hanging over me, Ive never been more productive. I want to play for at least another three years, but this period has forced me to think deeply about life after rugby and what I want to do with my life. Its a worrying time for so many people in sport and across the world, but I am trying to control what I can, which is preparing for my future.

Wilson is researching a career in executive coaching. He has an an eclectic rugby career, sharing changing rooms with players from all over the world, learning different languages and experiencing a variety of cultures. He has spent the last three years in France, initially at Soyaux Angouleme before stints with Bayonne and now Biarritz. He has grown to love life in France, but cautions against the rose-tinted vision that he is playing champagne rugby on sun-kissed turf.

When I arrived in Angouleme, I stood waiting for 45 minutes in the rain and eventually was taken to this little studio flat overlooking a prison. I live a simple life, so knew I would just have to get on with it. I didnt have a car, so even things like getting a bank account was a disaster. I had to walk 2km to the nearest bank and then I found out they werent open on Monday and didnt even have cash available if you didnt have a bank card. The simple things seemed impossible. I just needed to take any emotion out of it and seek the positive.

On his first morning at the club, he was told to strip down to his underwear for a fat test in front of the team as they enjoyed their breakfast. It was an unconventional induction but he gained respect for having learnt a modicum of French. I knew that language was going to be so crucial in how I settled in France. I had done around eight hours of private tuition before I arrived, but was keen to do more. The club helped me, of course, but I gained a higher level by getting to know some Mormons from Salt Lake City who were doing their mission here. I learned with them. They knew that I am not religious and didnt try to convert me. Helping me to learn French just gave them something to do. I recommend going to them to players in Biarritz now and I still visit them to practice.

During his time with the England sevens team, Wilson became accustomed to a structured approach to rugby. In France, he swapped the intricate gameplans that have made English rugby a muscular chessboard for the off-the-cuff game he had fallen in love with as a boy.

Many players come to France and they think its all jouez, jouez and a lighter training schedule. I had experienced the incredibly intensive cardio work with England sevens training, and I have never been run so hard in France. There wasnt the same scientific approach that I was used to in England. We were encouraged to play on instinct, which often made the game a lot more enjoyable, and you had to be ready to react to whatever happened and not just go to the pre-programmed gameplan.

Wilson became a crowd favourite in Angouleme, a town that has two great loves: comic books and rugby. He was asked for selfies in the local bakery and was pulled over by the police, not for speeding, but so they could ask him how his season was going. Wilson had played in front of 500 people on a good day in the Championship in England and was now entertaining crowds of 8,000 complete with brass bands, pyrotechnics and cheerleaders.

At home, every game is treated the same. In France, the home game takes a far greater significance. Believe it or not, some of this comes down to wine. Theres great pride in the quality of each regions soil and its ability to produce a specific type of wine. This gives a real connection to the terre, the earth. They want to defend the town at all costs and rugby allows these small communities to do that against big towns, or powerhouses. In England, rugby can have a reputation of being an upper-class game. In the south of France, its the peoples game no matter what background you come from you will support the local team.

Wilson understands that passion and his extremely aggressive brand of rugby suits it, yet his calm demeanour initially confused his coaches. At my first home games coaches were bollocking me for smiling in the changing room before we went out. I have always played my best rugby when I am enjoying myself and I like to be very calm before a game. Before home games, we would sit there for hours in silence, no talking, just getting up for the game. It means so much to them to win that game at home.

Wilson signed for Biarritz last year but has not been given as much time on the field as he would like. The restrictions on foreign players have been tightened and he has found his opportunities limited. Now that coronavirus has decimated the rugby season, he does not have a suitable shop window to show off his talents.

I believe that if youre in a situation of uncertainty, you have to grab control. Whatever control you can grasp, you have to do it. So what can I control? I can ensure that I eat healthily. I can ensure that I do as much exercise to keep my body ready and finally, I can be proactive and see what opportunities are out there for me. Im one of these people that is only happy when Ive given everything, as you get older winning and losing is part of life, its the effort that youve put in that counts in life.

Jonathan Drennan is on Twitter and you can read his interviews here.

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The English rugby player locked down in France near the end of his contract - The Guardian

Netflix and Stan could be forced to spend a share of their revenue on Australian content, under a proposal being considered by the recently installed minister for communications, Paul Fletcher.

On Wednesday Fletcher announced extra funding for regional news media to help it survive the coronavirus crisis emergency-inspired measures which may be too little too late, given that the virus disruption has already pushed teetering businesses over the edge.

But at the same time, Fletcher released an options paper examining the future of the screen industry, and that is a longer-term game.

While the release was given extra piquancy by the fact so many Australians are presently slumped in front of the box, it is a welcome sign that Fletcher, who replaced Mitch Fifield in the portfolio in May last year, is thinking strategically about longer-term media policy.

The options paper forms part of the governments response to the ACCC digital platforms inquiry report released last year and addresses one aspect of the legacy of decades in which Australia has not really had a media policy worthy of the name.

Successive governments have instead focused mostly on internet and telecommunications, while reacting knee-jerk to the shouts of media barons or freezing on the spot when those barons could not agree.

This options paper gives some cause for hope that those days may be over.

In a nutshell, the traditional free-to-air broadcasters are in decline, with revenue, influence and viewer numbers bleeding to new platforms. Streaming services the international behemoth Netflix and the locally owned Stan are increasingly dominating viewing habits.

Yet the traditional television broadcasters are loaded up with obligations, justified in previous times by the fact that they use a public asset, the broadcasting spectrum. These requirements have been out of date for at least a decade.

Specifically, traditional broadcasters must make and screen minimum amounts of Australian content, with additional quotas for local drama, documentary and childrens content. Netflix, Stan and the other streamers have no such obligations.

Its clearly unfair, and as the options paper spells out, is now so burdensome that it threatens the future of Australian stories which reflect who we are as a nation to ourselves and to the world ... The cultural significance of Australian content is not easily quantifiable, but it is highly recognisable. Three-quarters of Australians favour the government providing support to the Australian screen production industry, the paper says.

Australian screen content also contributes $5.34bn to the economy, and has knock-on positive effects on tourism and exports.

On the other side of the ledger, the government has traditionally provided both direct funding for Australian content and tax breaks for production.

Netflix and Stan have invested in Australian productions but not much and not many. Only 1.7% of Netflixs catalogue is Australian content, and even Stans offering is only 9% Australian.

Drama, documentary and childrens programming is cheap to buy overseas old foreign content can be imported for as little as $1,000 an hour, whereas making fresh programs costs between $500,000 to more than $1m an hour.

The options paper makes it clear that if the market was allowed to rip without government-set local content obligations, we would see next to no Australian drama and no Australian childrens content.

The options paper lays out four possible models and invites comment.

The first option is to do nothing.

Option two is to make minimal changes and seek to persuade streaming services to make Australian content on a voluntary basis (good luck with that), with some fine tuning to the existing regulations and some extra pressure on the ABC and SBS.

The third option and the one that seems to me best suited for the times is to put Netflix and Stan on the same footing as the traditional broadcasters.

All providers would be obliged to invest a percentage of their Australian revenue into new Australian content. This could be done either by making their own content or through contributions to an Australian production fund to be overseen by the existing federal government funding agency, Screen Australia.

There might also be extra tax breaks for childrens content and feature films, with a points system weighted to encourage local production and use of Australian talent.

There are some wriggles in here and some unanswered questions. For example, the ABC and SBS would be made to allocate funding specifically for Australian childrens programming. But the options paper doesnt say whether this would be additional funding or whether the ABC would have to find it from its already challenged budget.

So far, Fletcher has not addressed ABC funding a bitterly contested matter given how much some of his colleagues hate the national broadcaster. He has not responded to pleas for cuts to be reversed, reflecting the extra costs the ABC faced during the bushfire emergencies. Instead, he has encouraged the ABC to sell its Ultimo offices.

As it stands, if the ABC was faced with extra obligations for Australian childrens content, it would mean money would be bled from other areas, and would also represent a reduction in ABC independence and control over its own budget not good, at a time when journalism is so desperately challenged, as Fletchers support for regional journalism acknowledges.

The paper also doesnt address the issue of how Netflixs Australian revenue would be determined. As has been reported elsewhere, Netflix likes to pretend that its Australian operations dont really exist, thus avoiding tax.

Finally, the last option in the paper is complete deregulation, which as the paper makes clear would spell the near death of Australian stories on our screen. It seems this is not the favoured path.

Its a long way from an options paper to a media policy, but the evidence of strategic thought is welcome. What remains to be seen is how Fletcher will deal with the inevitable backlash, which this time will come not so much from the old media barons but from the new.

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Real long-term thinking on TV would mean Netflix and Stan are treated the same as free-to-air - The Guardian