Non-Americans of Internet — What are the biggest issues making headlines in your country that we Americans don’t know about?

A Kurdish man in Tokyo was recently stopped for a traffic violation he says he didn’t commit. After refusing for them to search his car, the police dragged him from the vehicle and started to choke him until one officer noticed bystanders filming the incident. 30 officers then arrived at the scene and searched his car without consent.

Yesterday there was a protest of 200+ people, lead by the victim through Shibuya – Tokyo, demanding more rights for foreigners and claiming the Police are racist.

NZ just had it’s 10th day with no new cases of COVID which is nice. Only one active currently

Tl;dr: government official broke lockdown rules while carrying corona virus, refuses to admit guilt and is defended by only the higher ups of government, and causing the entire country to turn against them.

In the uk an aid to the prime minister broke lockdown by driving 250 miles to his parents and back again. He and his wife both had corona virus, they claimed this was so his parents could look after his child. He also drove on a 30 mile trip to a local beauty spot, and when questioned about it, he said it was because he felt his eyesight was impaired and he wanted to see if he could still drive. (It was on his wife’s birthday btw)
His excuse for breaking lockdown was he needed to check his eyesight. By DRIVING.
He doubled down on his narrative, never apologised and was never fined.
The prime minister and many high ranking conservatives have defended him saying he did the right thing.

It has United the left wing, centres and right wing parties, the leaders of all other political parties co signed a letter to demand the aid’s resignation and many people have now lost faith in the government after obviously defending one of their own at the expense of their own credibility and with much damage to their political party.

So because he drove to his parents for “childcare reasons” and “following instinct”, his defenders say he did the right thing and shouldn’t be fined.
When confronted by critics saying in that case, are you refunding fines from people travelling for the exact same reason, the answer was, of course, no.

Best part is, his name is dominic Cummings, and people have referred to it as #cumgate

Is a happy news item okay? First ever reported humpback whale travelled up St Lawrence river from Atlantic Oean to frolic in fresh(ish) water by major city (Montreal) Amazing photos! Article here Look at him just chillin by the roller coaster and Molson brewery! Canadian af.

The week before July 1st, Russia is going to “vote” on amendments to the constitution, including such suggestions as:

1. Vladimir Putin getting two more terms (leaving him in office until 2036),

2. Former presidents getting immunity for life,

3. The president getting more power, including appointing the PM,

4. Marriage is only between a man and a woman,

5. Calls for separatism (saying Crimea is not Russian) being non-constitutional,

6. Russians are the state forming people (I don’t know WTF that is supposed to mean, but seems racist so yay?)

7. Faith in God is now going to be in the constitution.

We are also going to have some patriotic military parades to honour WWII which nobody can attend.

This is while the country is going bankrupt, people are dying, no doctors are getting paid or being given adequate protection gear, people are being laid off left and right, nobody can even access unemployment benefits, and nobody’s getting any sort of stimulus check or any kind of support.

A shaman who tried to perform an exorcism on the Kremlin got arrested a couple of times, then randomly forcibly institutionalised against his will because he’s “dangerous”.

Oh and the police killed a man once again and there were no protests. There were some protests over the wrongful imprisonment of a journalist, but they all got jailed looks like.

An American private company sending people to space also caused severe anal pain in most of the country, that shot straight to the heart. Apparently there were private companies trying to send people to space, too, and the people who had founded it got… arrested. Also lots of mentions of some guy named “Russian Elon Musk” who got raped to death in jail.

Guy who tried to work for Roscosmos reminisces about stuff like $100/month wages for engineers when the McDonald’s across the street was paying $250 to mop floors.