A peaceful protest opposing the election of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has turned violent, with videos published online depicting  police forcefully detaining  protesters.

Protesters and bystanders have taken to Twitter to expose the brutality demonstrated by police, describing  horrific cases of mass arrest and tear gassing.

This is the sixth week of the protests, with one hundred thousand Belarus citizens taking to the streets to oppose the reelection of Lukashenko, after it was speculated that his win was rigged. 

A recent survey conducted by Dementia Australia has found that 65 percent of those living with dementia feel that the people they know have been avoiding or excluding them. 

Furthermore, 81 percent of family members, friends. or carers who responded to the survey felt that people in public places treat people with dementia differently. 

The survey results have been released as part of Dementia Action Week 2020, and aim to bring to light the discrimination that many dementia patients experience. 

Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion are conducting a bicycle protest in Brisbane this morning, riding through the CBD in an attempt to disrupt peak hour traffic. 

The protesters, starting at the Kurilpa bridge, will slowly ride towards King George Square, passing through the Queensland Parliament Building.

The group declared on the Extinction Rebellion Brisbane Facebook page the protest aims to “bring attention to the climate and ecological crisis and one of its dire outcomes- social collapse.”

Footage has been released of the expanding Indonesian cemetery in East-Jakarta for COVID-19 deaths. The graveyard was designed as a burial ground for a temporary phase but is now expanding as Indonesia surpassed the expected threshold. The Pondok Ranggon cemetery is recorded to have conducted over 213 burials last week, with the previous weekly average sitting at 180. Monday past saw Jakarta record 1,410 COVID-19 fatalities and are expected to run out of available burial land in October.

Barbados’ Governor General Sandra Mason has announced the country is set to become a republic by the end of November 2021. The long-awaited news has been readily accepted by the country as they attained their independence over 25 years ago and are set on officially ridding themselves of ties to colonialism. The tipping point for this decision is said to have arisen from peaking political attention on race relations and the mass anti-racism protests in the United States.

New employment figures are sparking hope as over 100,000 new jobs have been created. Treasurer Josh Frydenburg has stated that more than 50% of new jobs have gone to women, with around 40% going to young people. Frydenberg also recognised that whilst there is good news in the unemployment rates dropping recently; the rates of employees who have seen their hours significantly reduced or have been made to leave the labour force is still too high. Frydenburg encouraged Australians saying the road to recovery will be long, hard, and bumpy despite the recent fall.

Education Spokeswoman for Labor, Tanya Plibersek, has condemned the federal government for not continuing higher education JobKeeper payments. National Tertiary Education Union national president Alison Barnes said the government has ‘abandoned’ the sector and has proposed a rescue package be designed amidst an underestimated job loss figure of greater than 11,000. Plibersek likened the higher education industry to that of coal or gas and claimed the current response to such a dramatic raise in voluntary redundancies to be of great detriment to our export industry.

Climate activist Miree Le Roy is still in the throes of fighting Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner’s ban on the Extinction Rebellion sub-group Grey Power, for allegedly inciting illegal activity in their council libraries. Ms Le Roy is claiming unlawful discrimination against the council after a stint of meetings in October last year were deemed unsuitable for activities advocating or inciting illegal action such as trespass, theft, or vandalism.