136 countries agree to minimum corporate tax rate after Ireland drops its opposition

London (CNN Business)A group of 136 countries have agreed to a global treaty that would tax large multinationals at a minimum rate of 15% and require companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business.

Estonia, Hungary and — most notably — Ireland joined the agreement Thursday. It is now supported by all nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the G20. The countries that signed on to the international treaty represent more than 90% of global GDP. Four countries that participated in the talks — Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — have not yet joined the agreement.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/08/business/ireland-global-tax-deal-oecd/index.html

Well that’s sounds like decent news.

Ireland, which had declined to join the initial agreement in July, has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% — a major factor in persuading companies such as Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOGL) to locate their European headquarters in the country.

Laugh Out Loud

SCIENCE said:

Ireland, which had declined to join the initial agreement in July, has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% — a major factor in persuading companies such as Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOGL) to locate their European headquarters in the country.

Laugh Out Loud

The new rate would apply to 1,556 multinationals based in Ireland, employing about 400,000 people. More than 160,000 businesses making less than €750 million ($867 million) in annual revenue and employing about 1.8 million people would still be taxed at 12.5%.

Laugh Out Louder

dv said:

136 countries agree to minimum corporate tax rate after Ireland drops its opposition

London (CNN Business)A group of 136 countries have agreed to a global treaty that would tax large multinationals at a minimum rate of 15% and require companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business.

Estonia, Hungary and — most notably — Ireland joined the agreement Thursday. It is now supported by all nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the G20. The countries that signed on to the international treaty represent more than 90% of global GDP. Four countries that participated in the talks — Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — have not yet joined the agreement.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/08/business/ireland-global-tax-deal-oecd/index.html

Sounds promising. I guess the Cayman Islands and the like did not not sign, even though they are British dependencies?

sorry, ASIA not global but a few interesting takes here

looks like we’re in for a bit of stagflation over the next year

Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigns over corruption probe to save coalition

SCIENCE said:

Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigns over corruption probe to save coalition

Hows that going to save the coalition, no one knows him.

> require companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business.

What!

Way to kill off international peace. ;-)

SCIENCE said:

Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigns over corruption probe to save coalition

Ooh so close

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigns over corruption probe to save coalition

Ooh so close

It’s like a parallel universe.

At least five people have been killed and two others were injured by a man using a bow and arrows to carry out attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg, local police say.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/19/americas/bolsonaro-homicide-covid-intl-latam/index.html

Leaked Covid-19 report calls for mass homicide charges against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro

dv said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/19/americas/bolsonaro-homicide-covid-intl-latam/index.html

Leaked Covid-19 report calls for mass homicide charges against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro

will they carry

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-22/watergate-journalist-bob-woodward-warns-democracy-is-fragile-aft/100559852

roughbarked said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-22/watergate-journalist-bob-woodward-warns-democracy-is-fragile-aft/100559852

“Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of all time, said, ‘never bet against America’, and I think that’s true.”
Reminds me of when;

Al Gore said, nevermind Trump, Never underestimate America.

roughbarked said:

roughbarked said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-22/watergate-journalist-bob-woodward-warns-democracy-is-fragile-aft/100559852

“Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of all time, said, ‘never bet against America’, and I think that’s true.”
Reminds me of when;

Al Gore said, nevermind Trump, Never underestimate America.

Mind you, neither of them got to be POTUS.

Communism Hard At Work

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-school-board-cuts-honours-program-1.6068578

Honours math and science will be cut from secondary schools this fall, and honours English has already been discontinued.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, a school board spokesperson said honours courses create inequities for students.

“By phasing out these courses, all students will have access to an inclusive model of education, and all students will be able to participate in the curriculum fulsomely,” the statement reads.

SCIENCE said:

Communism Hard At Work

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-school-board-cuts-honours-program-1.6068578

Honours math and science will be cut from secondary schools this fall, and honours English has already been discontinued.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, a school board spokesperson said honours courses create inequities for students.

“By phasing out these courses, all students will have access to an inclusive model of education, and all students will be able to participate in the curriculum fulsomely,” the statement reads.

Neither the very bright not the intellectually challenged will benefit from this model. And the teaching is made much more difficult.

I am very much in favour of streaming.

Um…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-28/us-milley-confirms-chinese-hypersonic-weapons-test/100576522

actually well yes, Sputnik, Space Bot, what’s the difference really

SCIENCE said:

Um…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-28/us-milley-confirms-chinese-hypersonic-weapons-test/100576522

actually well yes, Sputnik, Space Bot, what’s the difference really

Chinese rockets, Chinese space station, Chinese moon landing, Chinese space mining, Chinese supercomputers, Chinese aircraft carriers, Chinese stealth jets, Chinese submarines and Chinese supersonic torpedoes, TVs, smartphones, PCs, tablets, Stuff, Other stuff, lots of stuff, Yes, they make stuff, lots of stuff.

Indian fans are jailed for celebrating Pakistan’s win

SCIENCE said:

Indian fans are jailed for celebrating Pakistan’s win

India’s now Australia’s ally and I won’t have anything bad said about her.

Witty Rejoinder said:

SCIENCE said:

Indian fans are jailed for celebrating Pakistan’s win

India’s now Australia’s ally and I won’t have anything bad said about her.

perhaps they were implying that the fans were traitorous dogs

SCIENCE said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

SCIENCE said:

Indian fans are jailed for celebrating Pakistan’s win

India’s now Australia’s ally and I won’t have anything bad said about her.

perhaps they were implying that the fans were traitorous dogs

Not at all. Being Muslim is reason enough.

Witty Rejoinder said:

SCIENCE said:

Indian fans are jailed for celebrating Pakistan’s win

India’s now Australia’s ally and I won’t have anything bad said about her.

Do we have any multi billion dollar deals with her that we can get out of?

https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1456041945143382017

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/drone-attempt-on-iraq-pm-mustafa-al-kadhimi-fails/100601104

wonder how Qassem Soleimani would have felt about that

Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqXTCvDLeo

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi escaped an assassination attempt on Sunday after an explosive-laden drone targeted his residence, the country’s military said.

Al-Kadhimi went on to Twitter moments after the attack and called for “calm and restraint from everyone.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/06/middleeast/iraq-prime-minister-drone-attack-intl-hnk/index.html

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

Michael V said:

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

Because there’s another package that the progressives are also trying to get through and they were in a way holding the infrastructure bill to ransom.

Michael V said:

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-06/ocasio-cortez-signals-mistrust-as-reason-for-infrastructure-vote

Bogsnorkler said:

Michael V said:

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-06/ocasio-cortez-signals-mistrust-as-reason-for-infrastructure-vote

https://www.newsweek.com/ocasio-cortez-would-vote-against-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-over-climate-change-1643269

sibeen said:

Michael V said:

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

Because there’s another package that the progressives are also trying to get through and they were in a way holding the infrastructure bill to ransom.

Ta.

Michael V said:

sibeen said:

Michael V said:

Why did AO-C oppose this package?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/us-president-joe-biden-passes-infrastructure-package/100600830

Because there’s another package that the progressives are also trying to get through and they were in a way holding the infrastructure bill to ransom.

Ta.

so is the perfect the enemy of the good or is this simply reflective the problem of having massive occasional votes in hyperpartisan pseudodemocracy for matters that are more amenable to gradual improvement

good news for ProLiferation, may only the fittest survive

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/death-pregnant-woman-ignites-debate-abortion-ban-poland/100601190

Fuck CHINA

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-16/irresponsible-missile-test-debris-cloud-/100622942

two years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appeared on video from the frontline with the army fighting Tigrayan forces

SCIENCE said:

two years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appeared on video from the frontline with the army fighting Tigrayan forces

Its a peaceful war, after people die they rest in peace, after all the gunshots, everything peaceful again.

SCIENCE said:

two years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appeared on video from the frontline with the army fighting Tigrayan forces

That’s the best way to secure peace: kill all of your enemies.

captain_spalding said:

SCIENCE said:

two years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appeared on video from the frontline with the army fighting Tigrayan forces

That’s the best way to secure peace: kill all of your enemies.

Flock Immunity ¡

Xi Jinping’s New World Order
Can China Remake the International System?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-12-09/xi-jinpings-new-world-order?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-14/moscow-school-bombing-convent-orthodox/100697560

A teenager has allegedly detonated a homemade bomb at a school attached to an Orthodox convent near Moscow, wounding 12 people including a 15-year-old, Russian authorities say. Media reports suggest that the man may have been motivated by hatred of the students, teachers and nuns.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Xi Jinping’s New World Order
Can China Remake the International System?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-12-09/xi-jinpings-new-world-order ?

ah yes sure

many observers continue to question whether Beijing wants to shape a new international order or merely force some adjustments to the current one, advancing discrete interests and preferences without fundamentally transforming the global system. They argue that Beijing’s orientation is overwhelmingly defensive and designed only to protect itself from criticism of its political system and to realize a limited set of sovereignty claims

clearly not any observers allowed to contribute to an Australian medium

A leftist millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests has been elected Chile’s next president after a bruising campaign against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump.

dv said:

You’d have to say that the christian god is at least a wee bit homophobic.

dv said:

Can’t stand Owen Jones. Serial misogynist addicted to the most vacuous lefty virtue signalling.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/23/business/biden-bans-xinjiang-imports-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Biden signs bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang over forced labor

dv said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/23/business/biden-bans-xinjiang-imports-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Biden signs bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang over forced labor

And only a couple of days after Intel made a grovelling apology to China. Good on Joe, doing the right thing. Intel can go and get fucked.

sibeen said:

dv said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/23/business/biden-bans-xinjiang-imports-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Biden signs bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang over forced labor

And only a couple of days after Intel made a grovelling apology to China. Good on Joe, doing the right thing. Intel can go and get fucked.

the more preferable arrangement is if the Chinese Scumunist Party could GAGF instead….

(I am right-clicking and adding Scumunist to dictionary)

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

dv said:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/23/business/biden-bans-xinjiang-imports-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Biden signs bill banning goods from China’s Xinjiang over forced labor

And only a couple of days after Intel made a grovelling apology to China. Good on Joe, doing the right thing. Intel can go and get fucked.

the more preferable arrangement is if the Chinese Scumunist Party could GAGF instead….

(I am right-clicking and adding Scumunist to dictionary)

Do you not fear being tracked and hunted down by Chinese government agents?

Bubblecar said:

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

And only a couple of days after Intel made a grovelling apology to China. Good on Joe, doing the right thing. Intel can go and get fucked.

the more preferable arrangement is if the Chinese Scumunist Party could GAGF instead….

(I am right-clicking and adding Scumunist to dictionary)

Do you not fear being tracked and hunted down by Chinese government agents?

Not really. I can’t harm them in the ways I want to, so they probably won’t bother. If I was some maverick billionaire it would be a different story.

there’s something happening in North West Xinjiang and it’s like a peace of heaven

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-07/kazakhstan-president-orders-officers-to-fire-on-protesters/100745170

“This kind of story is too familiar to many, that people in power would use their power for coercing, but in this particular case, the sequence of actions is much more complex than what we usually hear,” she said. “So a lot of people didn’t read it carefully.”

SCIENCE said:

“This kind of story is too familiar to many, that people in power would use their power for coercing, but in this particular case, the sequence of actions is much more complex than what we usually hear,” she said. “So a lot of people didn’t read it carefully.”

Please provide context for this quote.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/01/08/finland-sweden-closer-has-ever-joining-nato-putins-threats-backfire/

Finland and Sweden ‘closer than ever’ to joining Nato after Putin’s threats backfire
A belligerent Kremlin threatening a possible invasion of Ukraine has given fresh impetus to the push to join Nato in the two countries

Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

we knew it, all those arguments against voluntary euthanasia because it was a slippery slope turned out to be completely valid after all

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-disabilities-nears-medically-assisted-death-after-futile-bid-for-affordable-housing-1.5882202

A 31-year-old Toronto woman who uses a wheelchair is nearing final approval for a medically assisted death request after a fruitless bid to secure an affordable apartment that doesn’t worsen her chronic illnesses.

SCIENCE said:

we knew it, all those arguments against voluntary euthanasia because it was a slippery slope turned out to be completely valid after all

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-disabilities-nears-medically-assisted-death-after-futile-bid-for-affordable-housing-1.5882202

A 31-year-old Toronto woman who uses a wheelchair is nearing final approval for a medically assisted death request after a fruitless bid to secure an affordable apartment that doesn’t worsen her chronic illnesses.

“She is at risk of anaphylactic shock and so has EpiPens at all times in case she has a life-threatening allergic attack.”

Umm… leave the epipen at home, problem solved…

Laugh Out Loud

Luckily, the developers of this technology are part of a research group, which was inspired by bird swarms flying through dense woods, and aims to use the technology for conservation and disaster relief work. Since human-operated drones are currently doing these tasks, one might argue the need for a swarm. The answer is simple: efficiency.

they said “for conservation and disaster relief” ahahahahahaha

good news, shoot and be shot

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

Murdoch press clearly backed a dud.

so how do we think they’re going to spin this fuck up in the coming days

like is there a sensible hope that this will cause their influence to wane more significantly

of course with the caution that NeoTrumpMusk is preparing to slide into the role

y’all think we’re b’s‘ing but

Analysis: Premier Li is back, and so is ‘Likonomics’
President Xi’s economic miscues pave way to sharing of power

KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer
MAY 19, 2022 04:01 JST

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff writer and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

Premier Li Keqiang’s recent sudden comeback to power is the talk of the town in China.

China’s premier is traditionally responsible for macroeconomic policies, as the head of the State Council, China’s government. But President Xi Jinping has concentrated power in his hands, and for the past nine years, Li’s authority was in name only.

But the dynamics have changed, dramatically, over the past month.

Members of the Chinese Communist Party were astonished on Saturday morning as they turned the pages of the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling party. On Page 2 was the full text of a speech delivered by Li three weeks prior.

The impact was not so much the content of the premier’s words at the April 25 conference on clean politics, but the 10,000-character space the speech was given in the official paper.

In terms of content, Li spoke of lean politics — in line with Xi’s major policy of eradicating corruption. But a careful look shows several interesting elements of Li’s speech.

Almost throughout his speech, Li spoke about the economy: measures to rebuild it, a commitment to market mechanisms, reducing tax burdens, supporting small and medium-size companies and creating jobs.

These were the pillars of “Likonomics,” the term created at the beginning of this regime to describe Li’s priorities. Since then, Likonomics had been in effect shelved as Xi took the reins of the economy. But the April 25 speech signaled that Li’s economic playbook was back in full swing.

Most notable was this sentence: “Advancing economic and social development is the basic responsibility of governments at all levels and also an essential requirement for improving party conduct and building a clean government.”

Li, the premier, was even talking about how to run the Communist Party. This was stepping into Xi’s prerogative.

“The premier stressed the need for greater efforts to oppose pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, with a particular focus on the first two problems,” Xinhua reported after the meeting.

Another noteworthy point in the speech is that Li made almost no mention of Xi’s signature zero-COVID policy despite it having been reaffirmed at a recent meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body.

That may be related to China’s economic performance in April, which was stunningly bad. Industrial production and retail sales both shrank on a year-on-year basis, not only due to zero-COVID, but also linked to the crackdown on tech enterprises, property-related companies and tutoring schools, which were launched one after another at Xi’s initiative.

If the recent series of developments is analyzed politically, it is natural to think that there have been some important changes within the party since April, when the Chinese economy clearly lost steam.

The People’s Daily’s coverage of Li hints at a shift in economic policymaking — from Xi’s one-man rule to one with the premier in the driver’s seat. At the least, it is safe to say that there will be more policy coordination in the future.

However, Xi is not stepping aside quietly. In what is widely seen as a counterattack, the National Development and Reform Commission, headed by one of Xi’s closet aides, He Lifeng, launched a new magazine titled “Study on Xi Jinping’s economic thought.”

By framing the economy as part of Xi’s “thought,” the NDRC is signaling that Xi is in control of the new era as a whole.

Meanwhile, Xi’s henchmen applied pressure on an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Communist Youth League, the power base of Li and his mentor, former President Hu Jintao.

The organization had its heyday in the Hu era. The former president served as first secretary of the Youth League, the league’s top post, as did Li several years later.

But the league’s fortunes took a turn for the worse and its darks days began when Xi became China’s top leader.

Symbolizing the league’s current misfortune was the lackluster atmosphere at the 100th anniversary event on May 10.

The 90th anniversary in May 2012 was held in the Great Auditorium of the Great Hall of the People. The 100th anniversary was held in the smaller Banquet Hall. The list of participants was significantly narrowed down.

Delivering a speech at the 100th anniversary, Xi stressed the importance of “struggle” in front of young participants and said, “The Communist Youth League would not have taken shape without the Communist Party of China.”

He Junke, the current first secretary of the Youth League, lavished praise on Xi, saying that China will continue to advance toward “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” as long as the country is steered by Xi.

The Youth League’s decline also appears in the numbers. Membership has fallen sharply after years of steady growth until the era of Hu Jintao.

The league boasted 89.9 million members at the end of 2012, more than the 85.12 million members of the Communist Party itself. But the number of members plunged to 73.71 million at the end of 2021.

The number of Communist Party members rose by a little more than 10 million during the same period.

The big drop is largely due to the strict application of a rule requiring those who have reached the age of 28 to leave the league, except for executive members.

Some Communist Youth League members had often stayed in the league until the age of 35. But either way, that itself does not explain the fall of as many as 16 million during the nine-year period.

The league’s influence has also declined. In 2016, the Xi administration announced severe reform plans for the Youth League’s Central Committee, slamming what it said were the committee’s four big problems, including being “aristocratic” and focusing on “entertainment.”

The expression “focusing on entertainment” meant that the league was not functioning properly as an organization.

The youth league alumni lost face, including Hu Chunhua, who later became vice premier.

For Xi, who is one of the “second-generation reds,” or children of revolutionary-era party leaders, the huge league is a rival group with political power.

Premier Li’s resurgence and the cold shoulder given to league’s centenary event are two conflicting tides within the party. They are thought to reflect the political tug-of-war taking place toward the Communist Party’s next national congress this autumn.

Li has publicly said this is his last year as premier. But there is a chance he will assume a considerably important post for five years after the party’s upcoming national congress. This is because Li, 66, will not have reached the retirement age of 68 by this autumn.

It will be a big deal for Xi, who has so far enjoyed unchallenged rule. He could technically remain the party’s general secretary but be leader in name only, if he plays his cards wrong.

For Xi to continue as an unrivaled leader, he has to win his political battles. History tells us that serious developments always happen in the run-up to the party congress.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-Premier-Li-is-back-and-so-is-Likonomics?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Analysis: Premier Li is back, and so is ‘Likonomics’
President Xi’s economic miscues pave way to sharing of power

For Xi, who is one of the “second-generation reds,” or children of revolutionary-era party leaders, the huge league is a rival group with political power.

Premier Li’s resurgence and the cold shoulder given to league’s centenary event are two conflicting tides within the party. They are thought to reflect the political tug-of-war taking place toward the Communist Party’s next national congress this autumn.

Li has publicly said this is his last year as premier. But there is a chance he will assume a considerably important post for five years after the party’s upcoming national congress. This is because Li, 66, will not have reached the retirement age of 68 by this autumn.

It will be a big deal for Xi, who has so far enjoyed unchallenged rule. He could technically remain the party’s general secretary but be leader in name only, if he plays his cards wrong.

For Xi to continue as an unrivaled leader, he has to win his political battles. History tells us that serious developments always happen in the run-up to the party congress.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-Premier-Li-is-back-and-so-is-Likonomics??

wait so these so-called Communists in CHINA actually do some political candidate selection stuff that involves voting and um what is it, it’s called something else when they want to make it sound popular

Witty Rejoinder said:

For Xi to continue as an unrivaled leader, he has to win his political battles.

Or Premier Li could meet with ‘an unfortunate accident’.

captain_spalding said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

For Xi to continue as an unrivaled leader, he has to win his political battles.

Or Premier Li could meet with ‘an unfortunate accident’.

President Vlad Putin has said the Russian Federation would intervene militarily if Ukraine were to invade Donbas

Diversity Is A Few Token Asians

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-05-28/racial-controversy-diversity-inclusion-science-plant-congress/101041288

Something Extraordinary Is Happening in France
June 16, 2022

By Cole Stangler

Mr. Stangler is a journalist based in France who writes about the country’s politics and culture.

MARSEILLE, France — For much of his presidency, Emmanuel Macron has focused on the far right. At every turn he sought to neutralize its threat, alternately prioritizing some of its preferred themes and presenting himself as the only possible bulwark against it.

Now he has something else to worry about. After the first round of the country’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, the biggest challenge to Mr. Macron’s power comes not from the right but from the left. Over the next few years, it’s the other side of the spectrum that could in large part determine the country’s political direction.

That’s the result of hard-nosed pragmatism. For the first time since 1997, France’s major left-wing parties put aside their differences and ran a single slate of candidates. The coalition, known as NUPES, for Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale, soared last week. By securing 26 percent of the vote, earning a virtual tie with Mr. Macron’s coalition, it has an outside chance of winning an outright majority in the National Assembly after the second round of voting this Sunday. Even if that proves out of reach, the left — under a shared banner — will become the major opposition force in Parliament.

The effects will be profound. In the first place, it’s likely to reorient the terms of the national debate, bringing renewed focus to issues like funding for public services, the fight against climate change and tax justice, and put pressure on Mr. Macron. Yet the left’s advance could do more still. By striking against France’s highly personalized presidential system and the European Union’s commitment to fiscal rectitude, the coalition could shake up politics in the country and across the continent. It is, quietly, an extraordinary development.

To be sure, a stronger presence in the National Assembly would be a major accomplishment on its own for the parties involved. Thanks to the agreement between them, they’re poised to expand their current share of just 60 seats, benefiting from scores of new lawmakers from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed Party and the Greens while ensuring the embattled Communists and Socialists live to see another day. Shrewdness and an instinct for self-preservation are two of the biggest factors making unity possible.

But as they conquer new ground in Parliament, the left parties may also deprive Mr. Macron of an absolute majority. If the president’s coalition is unable to capture at least 289 of the National Assembly’s 577 seats, it could be forced to govern with support from rival lawmakers — resulting in a fragile government whose fate would hinge on its ability to compromise. While Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is likely to boost its parliamentary weight, France’s winner-take-all system gives an advantage to the more mainstream Republicans, who would be more natural governing partners for Mr. Macron. In any case, NUPES would be the top opposition force in Parliament.

That would make for a dramatically different political landscape than today’s, where Mr. Macron’s agenda tends to breeze through a friendly National Assembly without much resistance. In a sense, the coalition would be taking the public opposition that already exists to much of the president’s agenda and bringing it into the halls of Parliament. Mr. Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age and overhaul a low-income aid program could become trickier to realize.

And yet the possibility of a NUPES parliamentary majority cannot be ruled out either. For this to happen, the coalition needs its base to turn out in much greater numbers than it did in the first round — which featured historically low participation across the board — but especially among low-income voters and young people. If these groups do deliver a majority to NUPES, the effects would be truly seismic.

Under pressure, Mr. Macron would be forced to nominate a prime minister backed by the left-wing majority, a situation known as “cohabitation,” which entails the sharing of executive power. The three previous times this has happened under France’s Fifth Republic — in place since 1958 — presidents have broadly controlled foreign policy, but the prime minister has overseen much of the domestic agenda. The left alliance already has their man for the job, Mr. Mélenchon.

Amid tight polling and mounting anxiety, Mr. Macron and his allies have sought to tap into fears of this very scenario, reverting to red-baiting. The finance minister has likened Mr. Mélenchon to a “Gallic Chavez” who would “collectivize” the economy and bankrupt France, while a leading lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party has warned of a “return to the Soviet era.” The chief of France’s top business lobby has said Mr. Mélenchon risks pushing the country “to the brink.”

In fact, the coalition’s actual platform is far from revolutionary. It’s inspired more by the golden days of European social democracy than by the Bolsheviks. The coalition’s two signature economic policy proposals — a hike in the minimum wage to 1,500 euros, or about $1,560, a month and a cap on the prices of essential goods — are modest measures at a time of rapidly rising inflation.

Plans to raise taxes on the superrich and boost investment in schools, hospitals and transport networks contrast with Mr. Macron’s embrace of the private sector, it’s true. Yet these are popular, standard-fare progressive policies in Europe. The alliance’s bold climate proposals — a five-year €200 billion, or nearly $209 billion, green investment plan driven by the principle of “ecological planning” — have led the ecology minister to accuse NUPES of “playing on young people’s fears.” But it’s hard to see the plans as anything other than an attempt to tackle the climate crisis head-on. The costs of inaction would be much greater, anyhow.

The scaremongers are right about one thing, perhaps: An empowered left in one of the world’s most influential countries would have ripple effects abroad. It would be a source of inspiration for ideologically similar parties in Europe, which have struggled to contest for power since the heydays of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. What’s more, a French government willing to push back forcefully against the European Union’s restrictions on public spending and state intervention in the economy could encourage Brussels to evolve. As Europe struggles with the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine, that could be a significant development.

Yet the election’s consequences will be more immediately visible within French borders. The coalition is calling for the creation of a Sixth Republic that would rein in presidential power and return France to a more standard parliamentary regime — and the first-round results show a big chunk of the electorate agrees. Even if a change of that scope appears unlikely for now, a failure for Mr. Macron to win a clear majority just months after re-election would be more than a personal setback. It would mark a substantial blow to the office of the presidency itself, which was initially designed for the national hero and strongman Charles de Gaulle. The very structure of the Fifth Republic could come under scrutiny.

That may ultimately be one of the most powerful and lasting messages sent by French voters. In a country as complex, large and diverse as theirs, a political system designed to concentrate authority in the hands of a single head of state maybe isn’t the best way of reflecting popular will. And perhaps, after 64 years, it’s time to try something new.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/opinion/france-elections-melenchon-macron.html?\

Witty Rejoinder said:

a political system designed to concentrate authority in the hands of a single head of state maybe isn’t the best way of reflecting popular will.

we get that yeah obviously USSAoles have to pretend that they’re special and their way is the perfect way but with regard to the above is there really any valid argument that authoritarianism is best for popular will

SCIENCE said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

a political system designed to concentrate authority in the hands of a single head of state maybe isn’t the best way of reflecting popular will.

we get that yeah obviously USSAoles have to pretend that they’re special and their way is the perfect way but with regard to the above is there really any valid argument that authoritarianism is best for popular will

We seem to want a higher authority. We have gods, kings, presidents and prime ministers, community leaders and etc.

How Good Are Hypocrisy And Privilege

Sydney’s morning commute descended into chaos after protesters blocked southbound lanes in the Harbour Tunnel, sparking major traffic jams. Spokeswoman for the climate activist group Sally-Anne Brown said the purpose of today’s rally was “to disrupt the economy.” A driver stuck in traffic caused by the Sydney Harbour Bridge tunnel closure said she would rather the climate protesters avoided peak hour. I can’t get to work on time, that’s really annoying isn’t it,” she said. The government said it did not intend to block legitimate community rallies but had to fight against “anarchist protesters” who shut down major economic activity.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-27/blockade-australia-protesters-close-sydney-harbour-tunnel/101185660

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-27/sri-lanka-sends-ministers-to-russia-for-oil-amid-crisis/101187450

Sri Lanka is sending two ministers to Russia to negotiate for fuel — one of the necessities the Indian Ocean island nation has almost run out of amid its ongoing economic crisis. Sri Lankans have had to queue for hours and sometimes days to get fuel, sometimes resorting to burning charcoal or palm fronds for cooking. The government has told employees to work from home until further notice, while schools have been shut for a week in the commercial capital of Colombo and surrounding areas. He said until the next shipments arrived, “public transport, power generators and industries will be given a priority”.

SCIENCE said:

Well making public transport free is certainly something to be supported, but just trains, and for just four months?

What’s the point of that?

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

Well making public transport free is certainly something to be supported, but just trains, and for just four months?

What’s the point of that?

Cost of living pressure and the demographics might mean it is targeted at those on low incomes.

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

Well making public transport free is certainly something to be supported, but just trains, and for just four months?

What’s the point of that?

Cost of living pressure and the demographics might mean it is targeted at those on low incomes.

How can limiting it to trains and four months be targeting low income people?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well making public transport free is certainly something to be supported, but just trains, and for just four months?

What’s the point of that?

Cost of living pressure and the demographics might mean it is targeted at those on low incomes.

How can limiting it to trains and four months be targeting low income people?

I dunno much about commuting in Spain but that’s my best guess.

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

Well making public transport free is certainly something to be supported, but just trains, and for just four months?

What’s the point of that?

Just trains, because they run on electricity which in Spain is mostly nuclear and renewables, so an uptick in demand won’t ping them too hard with the spikes in fossil fuel prices. If they made buses free it might cost them dearly.

Four months because this is considered a temporary cost of living crisis.

Almost all of the major emitters have agreed to net zero by 2050 , but the two largest emitting nations outside the OECD have plans for longer timelines: 2060 for China, 2070 for India.

https://youtu.be/XB-5miVUf3I
Interview with German’s Foreign Minister Baerbock on Germany’s new National Security Strategy

dv said:

https://youtu.be/XB-5miVUf3I
Interview with German’s Foreign Minister Baerbock on Germany’s new National Security Strategy

interesting comparison

136,616 views Jul 20, 2022 In a special interview with DW’s Richard Walker, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warns Beijing that she is “very serious” about reducing Germany’s economic dependency on China. Baerbock said Germany must ensure that it cannot again fall victim with blackmail — as it did over its dependence on Russian energy. Baerbock is currently masterminding Germany’s new national security strategy, and explains her priorities in developing the new plan. Is Germany doing enough to support Ukraine? Is it prepared for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? And does the West still have any moral high ground in the “systemic competition” between democracies and autocracies?

remember the One Ukraine policy and how Ukraine were conducting atrocity in renegade Donbas to force them to stay

dv said:

https://youtu.be/XB-5miVUf3I
Interview with German’s Foreign Minister Baerbock on Germany’s new National Security Strategy

Burn coal and firewood.

The Germans could break up their furniture and burn it this winter, at least it could be used twice and you’d reduce waste sent to the tip.

They could introduce soup kitchens in the warming areas, a watery cabbage soup would be just the ticket to give them vital sustenance – that will show putin who’s boss

dv said:

https://youtu.be/XB-5miVUf3I
Interview with German’s Foreign Minister Baerbock on Germany’s new National Security Strategy

She has an odd eye colour. Sort of grey-ish.

sibeen said:

dv said:

https://youtu.be/XB-5miVUf3I
Interview with German’s Foreign Minister Baerbock on Germany’s new National Security Strategy

Burn coal and firewood.

Build more NPPSs ver the border in France…

apparently Canadian Liberals are similar to Australian Liberals oh wait

Michael V said:

sibeen said:

Myanmar executions: US presses China to rein in junta, saying it cannot be ‘business as usual’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/myanmar-executions-us-presses-china-to-rein-in-junta-saying-it-cannot-be-business-as-usual

Isn’t that a bit of pot, kettle and black?

I’m not sure the USA executes people who oppose the government.

that we know of

Maybe what sibeen is saying, is that this is baton passing from one Team ‘i’a: World Police to another ¡

More than 75% of Maltese voters voted “Yes” in a 1956 Referendum to join the UK. But Malta did not join the UK. Find out why not…

https://youtu.be/6q3S7a4V7p0

Laugh Out Loud What Is This Shit

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-25/us-indonesia-partnership-china-aggression/101266264

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/china-indonesia-pledge-deeper-ties-after-rare-beijing-summit/101272156

Sri Lanka caught between China and India over Beijing’s ‘spy ship’
Desperate for both powers’ help, Colombo reportedly seeks to ‘defer’ vessel’s visit

MUNZA MUSHTAQ, Contributing writer
August 6, 2022 15:04 JSTUpdated on August 6, 2022 22:01 JST

COLOMBO — A high-tech Chinese military survey vessel due to dock in Sri Lanka this month has highlighted the bankrupt island nation’s delicate position between two rival regional powers.

Sri Lanka gave the green light for the Yuan Wang 5 to call at the Chinese-built and controlled Hambantota Port in the south, expecting the ship to stay from Aug. 11 to 17. India, however, made it clear that it is unhappy about the prospect of the vessel and its advanced surveillance systems docking in its backyard.

As the controversy swelled, multiple Indian reports on Saturday said Colombo was now asking China to “defer” the vessel’s visit. Nikkei Asia could not immediately verify the reports, and it was unclear how Beijing would respond or what a deferment would entail.

The small but strategically situated Indian Ocean island cannot afford to antagonize either giant. It is relying on both for help in escaping the worst economic crisis in its history. Experts told Nikkei Asia this week that Sri Lankan officials would need a particularly deft diplomatic touch to manage the issue.

Prior to Saturday’s reports, Col. Nalin Herath, a spokesman for Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defense, had told Nikkei that local authorities approved China’s request for permission to dock based on the “standard procedure.” He stressed that this was “not the first Chinese naval ship to come to Sri Lanka,” and that vessels from a range of countries including India and the U.S. have also called in the past.

The colonel said China declared the visit would be for replenishing fuel and other supplies.

But some local and Indian experts found that curious, considering Sri Lanka is in the middle of a severe fuel crisis due to a lack of foreign currency. Within the country, fuel for vehicles is only available on a weekly quota basis.

The skeptics argued that the Yuan Wang 5 is equipped with surveillance technology that could pose security risks.

Rohan Masakorala, a maritime shipping expert and CEO of the Shippers’ Academy Colombo, said that according to available information, the ship has long-range scanning capabilities that can be used to map defense installations and help the Chinese military’s strategic planning. Media reports have said it will be conducting space tracking, satellite control and research tracking operations in the region.

“This is not considered just a battleship by the Indians, but rather in their view this is a spy ship,” Masakorala told Nikkei Asia.

R. Hariharan, a retired Indian military intelligence specialist associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies think tank, said China operates an extensive fleet of survey ships and that one of them, the Xiang Yang Hong 06, deployed at least 12 underwater drones in the Indian Ocean in 2019.

Citing a Chinese Academy of Sciences article from March 2020, Hariharan said the drones traveled more than 12,000 kilometers and conducted more than 3,400 profiling observations. Such drones can map the contours of the seabed and gather data on salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll and oxygen levels. This data “can help China to detect and track foreign submarine movements but also for planning routes for its own submarines,” Hariharan said.

“So what is the Yuan Wang up to?” he asked. “Definitely, it’s not on a picnic.”

India lodged a verbal protest with Sri Lanka, according to Reuters, while a spokesman for New Delhi’s Foreign Ministry said the government “carefully monitors any developments having a bearing on India’s security and economic interests, and takes all necessary measures to safeguard them.”

“I think that should be a clear message,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.

China’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said it hoped that “the relevant parties will view and report on China’s marine scientific research activities correctly and refrain from interfering with normal and legitimate maritime activities.”

Hariharan acknowledged that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, there is no ban on warships moving on the high seas. At the same time, he noted that India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have a security arrangement, which allows Indian Navy warships to conduct joint patrols within the smaller countries’ exclusive economic zones.

He and other experts agreed that the best Sri Lankan officials could do would be to maintain open lines of communication with the Indian side.

“Given the state of uneasy security relations between India and China, it will be prudent for Sri Lanka to keep India in the information loop of any potential security issue,” Hariharan said. “Sri Lanka is dependent upon the goodwill of India and the West to see it through its economic crisis. So there is no harm if it takes extra precautions to attend to India’s concerns. Of course, it need not be abrasive to China, either.”

An officer stands by India’s and Sri Lanka’s flags during a visit to Colombo by an Indian Coast Guard ship in 2018. © Reuters
Masakorala, the Sri Lankan shipping expert, said Colombo would need a “maximum diplomatic effort” to balance the two powers and minimize tensions surrounding the nation’s ports.

For years, India and China have jostled for influence in the South Asian country. After the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, Beijing poured investments into Sri Lankan airports, ports, highways and other large infrastructure projects, eventually making it a major focus of its Belt and Road Initiative. Along the way, this raised concerns that Sri Lanka was becoming too reliant on and indebted to China — underscored in 2017, when the country handed a Chinese company a 99-year lease on Hambantota Port because it could not keep up with payments.

India has sought to stay engaged with investments of its own. As Sri Lanka slipped deeper into its economic crisis this year, New Delhi was quick to lend a hand, extending over $3.5 billion worth of loans and a line of credit.

George I. H. Cooke, a former diplomat in Sri Lanka’s foreign service, stressed that it was important for Sri Lanka to avoid annoying China, as it now needs an agreement with Beijing to restructure debt. “We can’t turn our noses up against the Chinese, because then the Chinese can even tighten the noose around our neck,” he warned.

He said Sri Lanka would have to use “the finesse of diplomacy” to explain to India that it has little choice but to accommodate docking requests from powerful navies sailing through its waters. “Eventually it will all depend on how we explain this to them, and balance both countries,” he said. “We need to use the correct terminology and explain to them our vulnerability and our powerlessness.”

But if the Sri Lankan authorities bow to the Indian pressure, that could create complications with Beijing — with potential implications for Colombo’s economic recovery hopes.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Sri-Lanka-caught-between-China-and-India-over-Beijing-s-spy-ship?

South Korea’s Yoon plummets in polls as critics slam Pelosi snub
Approval hits 24% amid doubts over cabinet picks and president’s own capabilities

KIM JAEWON, Nikkei staff writer
August 9, 2022 15:46 JST

SEOUL — After three months on the job, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s approval rating has already sunk well below the worst figures of his predecessor, raising questions about whether his government will ever find its footing.

Yoon’s rating last week hit 24%, down from 28% a week earlier, according to polling by Gallup Korea. The previous president, Moon Jae-in, had his struggles but never saw his approval rating dip below 29% in a given week or 35% on a quarterly basis.

In early June, Yoon’s rating peaked at 53%, but citizens are abandoning him in droves. Survey respondents listed three key reasons why: questionable management of government appointees, a lack of experience and capability, and poor communication.

One example might be Education Minister Park Soon-ae, who resigned on Monday, taking responsibility for an abandoned plan to lower the school entrance age to 5 from 6. Parents and educators strongly protested, arguing it was an ill-conceived policy that would impose a greater burden on families. While South Korea’s preschools and kindergartens offer all-day care, elementary schools do not.

Yoon had pushed to appoint Park despite a stain on her record. She had been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in 2001. She was indicted but never sentenced.

Yoon has also taken flak for his handling of foreign affairs.

Last week, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited South Korea, the president did not meet with her. Yoon’s office initially said it was because he was on vacation but later changed its tune, saying the decision to avoid a meeting was for the national interest, without elaborating.

Pelosi had come to Seoul after her controversial visit to Taiwan. China condemned her trip to Taipei as an infringement of its sovereignty and launched large-scale military exercises in the waters surrounding the self-ruled democratic island.

Whatever the reasoning, Yoon’s snub of Pelosi gave his critics ammunition.

Yoo Seong-min, a veteran politician who lost to Yoon in the governing People Power Party’s primaries, said he could not understand why Yoon did not meet Pelosi but had time to dine with actors after watching their theater performance during his holidays.

“Such an important figure is visiting South Korea, but the president in Seoul is not meeting her?” Yoo wrote on his Facebook page. “Holidays can’t be an excuse.”

Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Ewha Womans University, said that Yoon may have thought of Pelosi as simply a member of Congress and taken the visit too lightly. “He should have met her because she is a legend in U.S. politics,” the professor said.

Meanwhile, the fledgling government faces heavy economic pressures, with inflation approaching a 24-year high at 6.3% in July.

Park Sung-min, a political consultant, also pointed out that young voters are withdrawing their support for Yoon amid PPP infighting, as factions spar over how to govern and other matters.

“Young male voters in their 20s and 30s also turned their back on , as the governing party is in an internal feud, including the suspension of party leader Lee Jun-seok, a young politician.”

Lee, 37, is the youngest person to lead the conservative bloc; he became a favorite among a segment of young men due to his anti-feminist stance. He was suspended in July for six months over allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies, while his defenders see him as a victim of party elders close to Yoon.

In any case, voters’ displeasure with Yoon may stem partly from something more fundamental. Park Sung-min said Yoon has so far failed to meet people’s expectations for their president, in terms of the way he talks and his manners.

“South Koreans have some level of expectations for the president, such as dignity,” Park observed. “People can’t see such things from him and that’s why they are disappointed with him.”

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/South-Korea-s-Yoon-plummets-in-polls-as-critics-slam-Pelosi-snub?

China’s growing reach is transforming a Pacific island chain

By Michael E. Miller
August 11, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. EDT

HONIARA, Solomon Islands — The half-built stadium is hard to miss in a country of crumbling infrastructure. Cranes swing massive pieces of steel. Welding sparks rain down from the rafters. Trucks hauling concrete rumble late into the night. Above it all soar two flags, one belonging to this underdeveloped island nation and the other to the country building and paying for the $50 million project: China.

“For Shared Future,” read signs in English and Chinese.

That future has its critics, however.

As China rapidly extends its reach in the Pacific, its growing influence is unmistakable in the Solomon Islands, a country with which it established diplomatic ties only in 2019. The relationship between the world’s most populous country and this Pacific archipelago of 700,000 people was thrust into the spotlight this year when word leaked that they had struck a secret security agreement. The United States and its allies fear the pact could pave the way for the establishment of a Chinese military base in the strategically valuable island chain where several thousand American soldiers died during World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign.

The Solomon Islands and China have denied plans for a base. But China is changing this country in other ways. Some are flashy, such as the sports stadium that will serve as the centerpiece of next year’s Pacific Games. Others are subtler yet potentially more profound, including growing Chinese influence over local policing and politics and a plan for Huawei to build more than 150 telecommunications towers that critics fear could enable Chinese surveillance. Many of the deals remain shrouded in mystery, months or years after they were struck.

Perhaps most problematic is Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s plan to delay next year’s election, which he says is to avoid conflicts with the games. His opponents claim it’s a power grab that could spark riots like the ones that roiled the capital last year and give Sogavare an excuse to call in Chinese troops.

In a country divided over China, the stadium is the ultimate Rorschach test. It was once going to be a gift from Taiwan, which Honiara previously recognized over Beijing. Now, it’s being built by a Chinese state-owned company with a grant from the Chinese government. Some say it is sorely needed. But others worry what will happen when the games have finished.

“This gift has strings attached, but for what? Our resources? Influence? A base?” said opposition lawmaker Peter Kenilorea Jr. “Sooner or later, they will come and collect, and I worry that by then we’ll be so dependent on China we will not be able to extract ourselves.”

The United States and Australia are both increasing their aid and diplomatic engagement with Pacific nations, including the Solomon Islands, where the Biden administration announced in February it would reopen the long-closed U.S. Embassy. Some Solomon Islanders feel the efforts by China’s rivals are too little, too late. But cracks also are showing in China’s promises.

“We are starting to see how China does things,” said Robert Maenalamo, 41, as he waited outside the stadium for a paycheck he said was more than two weeks late. Like many of the construction workers, he hailed from the province of Malaita, whose opposition to China has strained relations with Sogavare’s government.

Maenalamo said he’d just finished a shift pouring concrete. He needed the job to send his children to school, but he also felt the stadium was a Chinese attempt to “manipulate” the Solomon Islands. His village in Malaita was so worried about the project that it asked him to report back on what he found.

The Chinese, he said, “have got their own plans for this country.”

Secretive deals
The security pact between the Solomon Islands and China is one of several Beijing has been pushing to Pacific island nations in recent years, according to a senior U.S. official in Washington who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

That Beijing’s breakthrough came in Honiara was no coincidence: In Sogavare, the Chinese found a canny politician with a grudge against Australia — a key U.S. ally in the region — a combative streak and what some experts say is an ambivalence toward democracy.

“Every time he’s been in power, he’s tended to take an autocratic turn,” said Graeme Smith, an expert on China and the Pacific at the Australian National University. “This represented an opportunity Beijing couldn’t pass up.”

Sogavare declined requests for an interview. In speeches, he says his country is a “friend to all and enemy to none” that is simply “diversifying” its foreign relationships. But he has accused Australian forces of failing to protect Chinese-built infrastructure during the November riots, a charge Australia has denied.

“He’s got a lot of resentment, a lot of built-up scar tissue about Australia,” Smith said.

The son of missionaries from the Solomon Islands, Sogavare, 67, was born in Papua New Guinea at a time of increasing calls for independence from Australia. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii, recalled Sogavare’s coming to his Catholic school in Honiara, not to talk politics but to perform karate.

“I used to see people break bricks on his stomach,” he said of Sogavare, who is a black belt. “He sometimes runs the government like he’s in the dojo.”

Sogavare’s four stints as prime minister have been tumultuous. He first came to power in 2000 after his predecessor was toppled in a coup but lasted only a year. His second stint also ended quickly, after a spat with Australia in which Sogavare expelled Canberra’s top diplomat and Australian peacekeepers raided his office. A third spell was cut short in 2017, when members of Parliament accused him of trying to push through legislation they did not support.

His current term began in controversy. He ran for reelection to Parliament in 2019 as an independent, only to emerge from days of bitter backroom negotiations as prime minister. Five months later, Sogavare — who two years earlier had urged the United Nations General Assembly to recognize Taiwan — announced that the Solomon Islands would recognize China.

The decision’s timing and lack of debate sparked allegations that Beijing had played a role in his return to office, something Sogavare and China have denied.

Sogavare’s former press secretary Douglas Marau, who now works for the opposition, said the diplomatic switch was “the talk of the corridors” in Parliament when Sogavare was selected as prime minister. “The amount of money circulating at the time of the formation of government, only god knows where it came from,” he said.

Around the same time, Kenilorea said “Chinese interests” approached him via an intermediary with an offer of $1 million and land near Honiara if he would “say nice things about China.”

In November, hundreds of protesters from Malaita gathered outside Parliament and demanded to see Sogavare, in part over his backing for Beijing. Soon, rioters were looting and torching buildings, especially Chinese-owned shops.

As the violence continued into a second day, Australia agreed to Sogavare’s request to send troops, around 100 of whom landed on the third day and helped restore order.

“Had they arrived 24 hours later, Sogavare likely wouldn’t be in office,” said a diplomat in the Pacific region who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Sogavare claims he turned to China because Australia refused to protect Chinese buildings. But many of his opponents suspect the security agreement was already in the works.

Opposition leader Matthew Wale told The Washington Post that he approached the Australians three months before the riots and warned them Sogavare was working on a security deal with China. Australian officials have denied it.

Kenilorea also said he warned Australia’s top diplomatic representative in the Solomons, High Commissioner Lachlan Strahan, around the same time that Sogavare was aiming to bring in Chinese “boots on the ground” to supplant Australia as peacekeeper.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) did not respond to a question about Kenilorea’s claim. But it said in a statement: “Australia has been aware of China’s interest in greater engagement in the security sector in Solomon Islands for some time.”

The United States caught wind of the China-Solomons security discussions a few weeks after the riots and saw strong indications that the two countries were working on an official agreement in February, a month before the leak, according to the diplomat in the Pacific. But when the draft emerged in late March, the wording was a shock. “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of the Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistics replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in the Solomon Islands,” it said.

Sogavare says he cannot release the final version without China’s permission, even as he dismisses international alarm. “Let me assure you all again, there is no military base,” he said last month.

China signs security deal with Solomon Islands, alarming neighbors

But opposition leaders and some experts say China could use commercial facilities to establish a de facto base.

“When people hear ‘base’ they think big land mass with big infrastructure,” said Marau. “But it might be something smaller.”

An Australian expert on the Solomon Islands said China already has access to a privately owned deep-water port just outside Honiara. Clive Moore, the expert, said that it was at this port this year that customs officials found a shipment of guns after seizing a shipping container addressed to the Chinese Embassy and carried on a logging vessel. Police later declared that the weapons were replicas donated by China for training.

A truck enters Leroy Wharf. Customs officials seized a container carried on a logging vessel at the port this year and addressed to the Chinese Embassy. They reported finding a shipment of guns. (Michael Miller/The Washington Post)
Moore also speculated that the Gold Ridge mine, which is two hours from Honiara and is majority-owned by a Chinese company, could be used as a discreet military garrison. But Walter Naezon, the director of Gold Ridge Mining, insisted that the site was “purely private.”

In 2019, a Chinese company with links to the Chinese government tried to lease an island with a deep-water port. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently reported that a Chinese state-owned company is negotiating to buy a deep-water port and airstrip on a different island.

Sogavare has said the security pact is needed because of “internal” threats. On independence day last month, he praised China and warned of “forces of evil” in his country.

Many of his fears appear to center on Malaita, the most populous province, whose government refuses to recognize China. The provincial premier, Daniel Suidani, denied having any connection to the protests that turned violent last year. But he admitted that when Sogavare’s office asked him to tell the protesters to go home, he refused.

“I said it was too late,” he told The Post in his office in the small town of Auki, four hours by ferry from Honiara. Suidani said the security pact appeared aimed at his province. “There are businesses and buildings here in Auki owned by Chinese,” he said. “Definitely will end up here.”

Suidani said community policing exercises in Malaita had been falsely portrayed as a scheme to overthrow the prime minister. But one Malaitan political figure told The Post about plotting to oust Sogavare in late 2019.

“I was trying to see what would be the options to get Sogavare out, including some nasty things,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest. Pressed on what that meant, he said: “Assassination.”

The political figure, who did not provide evidence to corroborate the claim, said he discussed the idea with others for two months before abandoning it. He also claimed he was working as an informant for Australia at the time and asked Australian officials how they would respond to an assassination but that they refused to discuss the scenario.

The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force did not respond to a request for comment on potential plots against the prime minister. Australia’s DFAT declined to answer questions about the individual.

“Australian assistance directly supports the security and stability of the democratically elected government of the Solomon Islands and its citizens,” it said in a statement. “We unconditionally condemn any form of politically motivated violence.”

Projecting China’s system
The neighborhood next to Honiara’s hospital looks like a cyclone hit it. Most homes have been reduced to foundations. Children play with medical devices among the ruins. The aging hospital was largely built by Taiwan. But this neighborhood is being cleared for a new hospital wing, and the area’s residents have been relocated. As with the stadium, the benefactor is Beijing.

“People say China is just doing it as a PR campaign to fool people,” said a hospital worker smoking a cigarette where his home once stood. “But they are doing impactful things.”

He said the Solomon Islands was grateful for decades of aid from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, which remains the country’s biggest provider of aid.

“But we don’t see any of it, smell any of it, taste any of it,” said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job.

Yet some worry that China is not just building the country but is transforming it.

“As China projects its power, it’s also projecting its system,” said Kabutaulaka, the University of Hawaii political scientist. “The idea that people can protest or disagree with the government, that is not the way Beijing does things.”

For years, Taiwan helped bankroll a fund for all 50 members of Parliament to use on projects in their districts. China took over after the switch, annually providing about $8.5 million, or $170,000 per district, according to Samson Viulu, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development, which oversees the fund. China’s contribution dropped to less than $50,000 per district this year. And next year, it will be replaced by a separate program that will give the Chinese Embassy “final approval” over who gets roughly $12.5 million, he said.

The change, which has not been previously reported, is to implement “checks and balances” that were absent during the relationship with Taiwan, according to Viulu. He said the Chinese Embassy had promised him it would not play politics with the fund.

China could control the country’s airwaves, too. The government is in discussions for the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei to build 161 mobile phone towers across the Solomon Islands, said Peter Shanel Agovaka, the communications minister. The project would cost between $60 million and $70 million and be financed mostly with a loan from China.

Kenilorea said he feared the country could become trapped by debt. But he also worried that the phone towers could be used to eavesdrop, especially on the opposition. The United States, Australia and many other countries have banned Huawei equipment from their national networks over spying concerns.

“I’m very concerned about us becoming a surveillance state,” Kenilorea said.

Shanel dismissed the idea, saying Huawei had reassured him “there is nothing to be afraid of.”

The government has become more secretive under Sogavare, Kabutaulaka said. It has signed a dozen memorandums of understanding with Beijing since the diplomatic switch, including for airport upgrades and offshore mining, but none has been publicly released, and senior officials often are in the dark about the details.

Sogavare recently announced that the national television and radio broadcaster, SIBC, would come under more direct government control, raising fears of censorship. And there are increasing worries over the police, who were once trained by Australia but are now being instructed by China — an arrangement Sogavare said he would like to become “permanent.”

“Look at how the Chinese treat their own people,” said Ruth Liloqula, the chief executive of the nonprofit Transparency Solomon Islands. “We don’t want that style of policing here.”

The biggest worry for many here is what will happen if Sogavare goes through with his plan to amend the constitution and defer next year’s election. He says he will delay it until 2024, but critics say nothing is stopping him from deferring it further.

“It’s about staying in power,” said Kenilorea.

A canoe passes riot-scarred Chinatown on the Mataniko River as the sun sets over Honiara. (Michael Miller/The Washington Post)
Suidani said he expected that people would protest and that demonstrations could again devolve into riots. That could provide Sogavare an opportunity to invoke the security agreement and bring in Chinese security forces.

“They would make the situation much worse,” Moore said. “The Chinese are more likely to shoot first and ask questions later.”

The risks are evident in Honiara’s Chinatown, half of which remains in ruins from the November riot. One business owner of Chinese descent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared further violence, said he dodged rocks thrown at him and begged rioters not to burn his property. On the second day of the riots, he heard the screams of three people trapped inside a burning building.

One of them was George Tagini, a father of four from a shack along a trash-strewn stretch of Honiara’s beach. His family said he wasn’t a looter, as news articles claimed, but a security guard trying to stop the rioting. His body was so badly burned that relatives could not identify him.

“People were burning and looting because of some disagreement over the government recognizing China,” said Tagini’s uncle, Danny Konge. “But George didn’t care about that. He just cared about his job.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/11/solomon-islands-china-australia-pacific/?

South Korea has broad ‘consensus’ to avoid Japan asset sale: ambassador
Yun Duk-min calls for moratorium to advance talks, warns of astronomical losses

HIROSHI MINEGISHI, Nikkei senior staff writer
August 10, 2022 05:10 JST

TOKYO — South Korean politicians across party lines want to avoid the liquidation of Japanese corporate assets seized as compensation for wartime labor, Seoul’s ambassador to Tokyo tells Nikkei, calling for a moratorium on such sales to buy time for further discussions.

“Former President Moon Jae-in had also said he did not want Japanese corporate assets to be sold,” Yun Duk-min said Tuesday in his first interview with Japanese media since taking office in July. “That’s the cross-party consensus in South Korea.”

Well-versed in national security and North Korea’s nuclear development, Yun also advises President Yoon Suk-yeol on foreign policy. He also has extensive connections in Japan.

The South Korean Supreme Court has ordered a few Japanese companies to compensate individuals forced to work for them during World War II. Japan, which argues that the matter has been settled under a bilateral agreement signed in 1965, has warned of retaliatory measures should seized assets be sold in line with these rulings.

“We worry that the impact on investment and trade could add up to an astronomical figure in the tens or hundreds of trillions of won,” Yun said. Ten trillion won is approximately $7.67 billion.

South Korea has launched a public-private consultation body to discuss options.

“It’s an important step to resolve issues within South Korea and to lay the foundation for a forward-looking relationship between South Korea and Japan,” the ambassador said.

The wartime labor issue has been a leading source of tension between the two countries in recent years. While many in South Korea want to mend the frayed bilateral ties, others staunchly oppose any concessions regarding historical issues, presenting a major obstacle as Yoon pushes for a thaw.

Yun said that the South Korean government could not resolve the situation on its own, and he called for an “appropriate response” by Japan.

“It’s not good for friendly countries to impose restrictions against each other,” he said, referring to stricter export curbs on chipmaking materials introduced by Japan in 2019. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the U.S. are exploring cooperation on semiconductor production.

Yun said that the Yoon administration was seeking a “comprehensive solution” that would settle the wartime labor issue, roll back export controls and normalize a bilateral intelligence-sharing pact called the General Security of Military Information Agreement.

“We need to put all of these topics on the table,” he said.

Yun called it “extremely regrettable” that the 2015 agreement to finally and irreversibly settle the issue of wartime “comfort women” was not carried out under the Moon administration.

“South Korea and Japan need to engage in dialogue to find the best solution that considers the pain suffered by the victims,” he said.

The ambassador appeared optimistic about reinstating a visa waiver for tourists between South Korea and Japan. “If South Korea acts, that will prompt Japan to do the same. I think it’s worth a try,” he said.

“Japan is a neighbor that shares our strategic interests and values, so we need to come up with more efforts and ideas to normalize our relations,” Yun said. He hopes that regular diplomatic exchanges between the countries’ leaders will resume.

Authorities in Seoul and Tokyo also are discussing a 2018 incident in which a South Korean naval ship trained its fire-control radar on a Japanese patrol plane, Yun said.

“There is still a difference between our positions, but we need to get to the bottom of the incident given the threats” facing the countries, he said.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/South-Korea-has-broad-consensus-to-avoid-Japan-asset-sale-ambassador?

apparently the First Of The Fascists competition is getting underway in Sverige, so they have this

https://omni.se/andersson-vill-inte-ha-chinatowns-i-sverige/a/OrLAvE

Andersson: ”Vill inte ha Chinatowns i Sverige”

Vi vill inte ha Chinatowns i Sverige, vi vill inte ha Somalitown eller Little Italy, vi ska bo blandat med de olika erfarenheter som vi har.

Queen of Canada’: the rapid rise of a fringe QAnon figure sounds alarm

Romana Didulo claims sovereignty over Canada and is gaining fame online as trust erodes in the country’s civil institutions

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/23/queen-of-canada-qanon-rise-conspiracy-alarm

This is just funny. 60k supporters.

https://youtu.be/159sl6NcfsE

Rafael Grossi, IAEA chief, discusses the hopes for a renewed Iran nuclear deal. The previous framework (JCPA) to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons was signed by Iran, Russia, France, China and the UK and EU in 2015. President Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and Iran restarted its developmebt program. A European draft of a revised agreement appears to have the support of the major players.

Additionally, Grossi discusses the trouble at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.

The 46-year-old singer and songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken away from her home in Istanbul for questioning and later formally arrested before being taken to a prison pending trial.

The charges were based on a joke Gulsen made during an April concert in Istanbul, where she quipped that the “perversion” of one of her musicians stemmed from attending a religious school.

SCIENCE said:

The 46-year-old singer and songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken away from her home in Istanbul for questioning and later formally arrested before being taken to a prison pending trial.

The charges were based on a joke Gulsen made during an April concert in Istanbul, where she quipped that the “perversion” of one of her musicians stemmed from attending a religious school.

There are many countries where you can be arrested for telling the truth.

holy fuck

Interesting results in the Swedish election.

The Social Democrats currently hold the PMship as the major party in the governing block, and they’ve increased their number of seats from 100 to 107 and remain the major party in parliament.
However it seems certain they will not be in power now, and indeed the PM, Magdalena Andersson has already resigned.

This is because other seat changes have nudged the conservative block over 50% (probably).

349 seats, 17
Before:
Progressive block
Social Democrats 100
Greens 16
Centre 31
Left 28

dv said:

Interesting results in the Swedish election.

The Social Democrats currently hold the PMship as the major party in the governing block, and they’ve increased their number of seats from 100 to 107 and remain the major party in parliament.
However it seems certain they will not be in power now, and indeed the PM, Magdalena Andersson has already resigned.

This is because other seat changes have nudged the conservative block over 50% (probably).

349 seats, 17
Before:
Progressive block
Social Democrats 100
Greens 16
Centre 31
Left 28

The voting difference by sex are quite stark.

Interesting results in the Swedish election.

The Social Democrats currently hold the PMship as the major party in the governing block, and they’ve increased their number of seats from 100 to 107 and remain the major party in parliament.
However it seems certain they will not be in power now, and indeed the PM, Magdalena Andersson has already resigned.

This is because other seat changes have nudged the conservative block over 50% (probably).

349 seats, 175 for majority

Before:

Progressive block (175)
Social Democrats 100
Greens 16
Centre 31
Left 28

Moderates: 70
Chirstian Democrats: 22
Liberals: 20
Swedish Dem: 62

After:
Progressive block (173)
Social Democrats: 107
Greens 18
Centre 24
Left 24

Moderates: 68
Christian Dems: 19
Liberals: 16
Sweden Dems: 73

It seems likely that the Sweden Dems will be the major party in a conservative government and that their leader Jimmie Akesson will be PM.
Sweden Dems have usually been a far right party but Akesson has tried to tone down the party’s openly racist rhetoric somewhat.
Happily, it seems the new government will still be pro-Nato.

sibeen said:

The voting difference by sex are quite stark.

The age trends flip the script as well. 53% of those aged 65 or over voted for a party in the progressive block. Only 41% of those aged 18 to 21.

dv said:

sibeen said:

The voting difference by sex are quite stark.

The age trends flip the script as well. 53% of those aged 65 or over voted for a party in the progressive block. Only 41% of those aged 18 to 21.

I read somewhere that the progressive side has for years been angling to lower the voting age, but have now reversed that decision :)

sibeen said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

The voting difference by sex are quite stark.

The age trends flip the script as well. 53% of those aged 65 or over voted for a party in the progressive block. Only 41% of those aged 18 to 21.

I read somewhere that the progressive side has for years been angling to lower the voting age, but have now reversed that decision :)

Heh

SCIENCE said:

sorry, ASIA not global but a few interesting takes here

wonder if there’s a universally agreed definition of chores, hope it’s not a modern western definition being enthusiastically applied

transition said:

SCIENCE said:

sorry, ASIA not global but a few interesting takes here

wonder if there’s a universally agreed definition of chores, hope it’s not a modern western definition being enthusiastically applied

Steady on transition.

You might have waited the full year before commenting.

transition said:

SCIENCE said:

sorry, ASIA not global but a few interesting takes here

wonder if there’s a universally agreed definition of chores, hope it’s not a modern western definition being enthusiastically applied

from my trusty search engine dictionary service

a routine task, especially a household one

a tedious but necessary task

so all goes back to routine, and tedious, plenty scope there for conceptual imposition, forced convergence of concept

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

SCIENCE said:

sorry, ASIA not global but a few interesting takes here

wonder if there’s a universally agreed definition of chores, hope it’s not a modern western definition being enthusiastically applied

Steady on transition.

You might have waited the full year before commenting.

I pop in here to check how ignorable I am, bordering a failure responding to you now, but there you are on my screen

how do you feel about imposing concepts regard what a chore is, or ought be

what’s your neutral objective definition of chore

dv said:

Interesting results in the Swedish election.

The Social Democrats currently hold the PMship as the major party in the governing block, and they’ve increased their number of seats from 100 to 107 and remain the major party in parliament.
However it seems certain they will not be in power now, and indeed the PM, Magdalena Andersson has already resigned.

This is because other seat changes have nudged the conservative block over 50% (probably).

349 seats, 175 for majority

Before:

Progressive block (175)
Social Democrats 100
Greens 16
Centre 31
Left 28

Moderates: 70
Chirstian Democrats: 22
Liberals: 20
Swedish Dem: 62

After:
Progressive block (173)
Social Democrats: 107
Greens 18
Centre 24
Left 24

Moderates: 68
Christian Dems: 19
Liberals: 16
Sweden Dems: 73

It seems likely that the Sweden Dems will be the major party in a conservative government and that their leader Jimmie Akesson will be PM.
Sweden Dems have usually been a far right party but Akesson has tried to tone down the party’s openly racist rhetoric somewhat.
Happily, it seems the new government will still be pro-Nato.

guess the Ukraine situation is convenient for these kind souls, next time shirtless horseriding boys cry Nazi wolf about any of their neighbours adjacent or otherwise it’ll be easy to brush off

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

dv said:

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

Ah, gas giant, I see.

dv said:

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

Meanwhile, the new Tory readership in the UK has committed to 130 billion pounds in debt to bribe the energy companies into freezing energy prices yet protecting their massive windfall profits. They aren’t even pretending to be concerned with the living costs crisis of ordinary wage earners, it is all about protecting the profits of big business.

party_pants said:

dv said:

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

Meanwhile, the new Tory readership in the UK has committed to 130 billion pounds in debt to bribe the energy companies into freezing energy prices yet protecting their massive windfall profits. They aren’t even pretending to be concerned with the living costs crisis of ordinary wage earners, it is all about protecting the profits of big business.

She says she’s “prepared to be unpopular”. She’s unlikely to be disappointed in that regard.

Bubblecar said:

party_pants said:

dv said:

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

Meanwhile, the new Tory readership in the UK has committed to 130 billion pounds in debt to bribe the energy companies into freezing energy prices yet protecting their massive windfall profits. They aren’t even pretending to be concerned with the living costs crisis of ordinary wage earners, it is all about protecting the profits of big business.

She says she’s “prepared to be unpopular”. She’s unlikely to be disappointed in that regard.

Prepared for unemployment?

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis

Germany is to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies amid the war in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62980158

FFS, it’s spelt Jupiter.

Ah, gas giant, I see.

Golf clap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community_(2022)

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20221003-after-brexit-truss-s-surprise-yes-boosts-macron-s-european-political-community

After Brexit, Truss’s surprise ‘yes’ boosts Macron’s European Political Community

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s decision to join the inaugural summit of a pan-European grouping this week has given a boost to the initiative, a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron that some have written off already as just another talking shop.

The summit in Prague of the European Political Community (EPC) will bring together the 27 leaders of the European Union with 17 leaders from the continent currently outside the club, including Britain, Turkey, Norway and Ukraine.

—-

Near as I can tell, this EU+ meeting will include all European (sensu latu af) countries except for Russia, Belarus (apart from microstates such as Andorra and Monaco). This includes the western European nations that are outside the EU (Switzerland, UK, Norway, Switzerland), as well as EU-aspirant or EU-applicant countries and others that have vacillated (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia&Herz. The purpose appears to be to ensure European solidarity with the western non-EU countries during this troubling time, while offering support and confidence to the applicant and aspirant countries who will probably be waiting some years to join.

dv said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community_(2022)

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20221003-after-brexit-truss-s-surprise-yes-boosts-macron-s-european-political-community

After Brexit, Truss’s surprise ‘yes’ boosts Macron’s European Political Community

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s decision to join the inaugural summit of a pan-European grouping this week has given a boost to the initiative, a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron that some have written off already as just another talking shop.

The summit in Prague of the European Political Community (EPC) will bring together the 27 leaders of the European Union with 17 leaders from the continent currently outside the club, including Britain, Turkey, Norway and Ukraine.

—-

Near as I can tell, this EU+ meeting will include all European (sensu latu af) countries except for Russia, Belarus (apart from microstates such as Andorra and Monaco). This includes the western European nations that are outside the EU (Switzerland, UK, Norway, Switzerland), as well as EU-aspirant or EU-applicant countries and others that have vacillated (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia&Herz. The purpose appears to be to ensure European solidarity with the western non-EU countries during this troubling time, while offering support and confidence to the applicant and aspirant countries who will probably be waiting some years to join.

I’m glad that both Switzerland and Switzerland are part of this get together.

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community_(2022)

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20221003-after-brexit-truss-s-surprise-yes-boosts-macron-s-european-political-community

After Brexit, Truss’s surprise ‘yes’ boosts Macron’s European Political Community

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s decision to join the inaugural summit of a pan-European grouping this week has given a boost to the initiative, a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron that some have written off already as just another talking shop.

The summit in Prague of the European Political Community (EPC) will bring together the 27 leaders of the European Union with 17 leaders from the continent currently outside the club, including Britain, Turkey, Norway and Ukraine.

—-

Near as I can tell, this EU+ meeting will include all European (sensu latu af) countries except for Russia, Belarus (apart from microstates such as Andorra and Monaco). This includes the western European nations that are outside the EU (Switzerland, UK, Norway, Switzerland), as well as EU-aspirant or EU-applicant countries and others that have vacillated (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia&Herz. The purpose appears to be to ensure European solidarity with the western non-EU countries during this troubling time, while offering support and confidence to the applicant and aspirant countries who will probably be waiting some years to join.

I’m glad that both Switzerland and Switzerland are part of this get together.

Feel free to cross out a Switzerland and replace it with Iceland

Elections Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece
Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.

By Steven Erlanger
Oct. 16, 2022
Updated 10:45 a.m. ET

ISTANBUL — Last week at a closed dinner in Prague, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece was addressing 44 European leaders when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey interrupted him and started a shouting match.

Before stalking from the room, Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Mitsotakis of insincerity about settling disputes in the eastern Aegean and blasted the European Union for siding with its members, Greece and Cyprus, according to a European diplomat and two senior European officials who were there.

While the others, flabbergasted and annoyed, finished their dinners, Mr. Erdogan fulminated at a news conference against Greece and threatened invasion. “We may suddenly arrive one night,” he said. When a reporter asked if that meant he would attack Greece, the Turkish president said, “Actually you have understood.”

The outburst was only the latest from Mr. Erdogan. As he faces mounting political and economic difficulties before elections in the spring, he has been ramping up the threats against his NATO ally since the summer, using language normally left to military hawks and ultranationalists.

While few diplomats or analysts are predicting war, there is a growing sense among European diplomats that a politically threatened Mr. Erdogan is an increasingly dangerous one for his neighbors — and that accidents can happen.

Mr. Erdogan needs crisis to buoy his shaky standing at home after nearly 20 years in power, a diplomat specializing in Turkey said, requesting anonymity. And if he is not provided one, the diplomat said, he may create one.

The rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, now threaten to add a difficult new dimension to Europe’s efforts to maintain its unity in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine and its accumulating economic fallout.

Already, Mr. Erdogan has made himself a troublesome and unpredictable ally for his NATO partners. His economic challenges and desire to carve out a stable security sphere for Turkey in a tough neighborhood have pushed him ever closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Mr. Erdogan has earned some shelter from open criticism by allies because of his efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports.

But he has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and continues to get Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, while asking Moscow to delay payment for energy.

On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Putin in Kazakhstan, where they discussed using Turkey as an energy hub to export more Russian gas after the pipelines to Germany under the Baltic Sea have been damaged.

But it is the escalating rhetoric against Greece that is now drawing special attention.

Sinan Ulgen, the director of EDAM, an Istanbul-based research institution, said that of course there was an electoral aspect to Mr. Erdogan’s actions. But there were also deep-seated problems that foster chronic instability and dangerous tensions.

“Turkey and Greece have a set of unresolved bilateral disputes,” he said, “and this creates a favorable environment whenever a politician in Ankara or Athens wants to raise tensions.”

The two countries nearly went to war in the 1970s over energy exploration in the Aegean, in 1995-96 over disputed claims over an uninhabited rock formation in the eastern Mediterranean, and in 2020, again over energy exploration in disputed waters. “And now we’re at it again,” Mr. Ulgen said. “And why? Because of elections in Turkey and Greece.”

Mr. Mitsotakis is also in campaign mode, with elections expected next summer, damaged by a continuing scandal over spyware planted in the phones of opposition politicians and journalists. As in Turkey, nothing appeals to Greek patriotism more than a good spat with an old foe.

He has sought to appear firm without escalating. Confronted at the dinner in Prague, Mr. Mitsotakis retorted that leaders should solve problems and not create new ones, that he was prepared to discuss all issues but could not stay silent while Turkey threatened the sovereignty of Greek islands.

“No, Mr. Erdogan — no to bullying,” he said in a recent policy speech. He told reporters that he was open to talks with Mr. Erdogan despite the vitriol, saying he thought military conflict unlikely. “I don’t believe this will ever happen,” he said. “And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response.”

He was referring to Greek military abilities that have been significantly bolstered recently as part of expanded defense agreements with France and the United States.

Mr. Mitsotakis has also taken advantage of American annoyance with Mr. Erdogan’s relations with Russia and his delay in approving NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden to boost ties with Washington. In May, he was the first Greek prime minister to address Congress and urged it to reconsider arms sales to Turkey.

He has said Greece will buy F-35s, while Turkey, denied F-35s because of its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, is still pressing to get more F-16s and modernization kits, using NATO enlargement as leverage.

But Mr. Erdogan is facing considerable problems at home, making tensions with Greece an easy and traditional way to divert attention and rally support.

Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year — but most likely higher — and the currency depreciating. Turkish gross domestic product per capita, a measure of wealth, has dropped to about $7,500 from more than $12,600 in 2013, based on Turkey’s real population, which now includes some four million Syrian refugees, according to Bilge Yilmaz, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Erdogan has kept cutting interest rates against conventional economic advice. “We need to reverse monetary policy,” said Mr. Yilmaz, who is touted as a likely finance minister should Mr. Erdogan lose the election. “A strong adjustment of the economy will not be easy.”

There is also growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees, who were taken in by Mr. Erdogan as a generous gesture to fellow Muslims in difficulty.

Still, Mr. Erdogan is thought to have a solid 30 percent of the vote as his base, and government-controlled media dominate, with numerous opposition journalists and politicians jailed or silenced.

In a report on Wednesday, the European Union criticized “democratic backsliding” and said that “in the area of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights, Turkey needs to reverse the negative trend as a matter of priority with addressing the weakening of effective checks and balances in the political system.”

Still, at this point, analysts think Mr. Erdogan could lose his majority in Parliament and might just lose the presidential election itself.

That is an analysis firmly rejected by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, the AKP, said Volkan Bozkir, a former diplomat and member of Parliament, who says flatly that Mr. Erdogan and his party will be re-elected.

Constantinos Filis, the director of the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece, believes that Mr. Erdogan is trying to keep all options open, “casting Greece as a convenient external threat and creating a dangerous framework within which he could justify a potential move against Greece in advance.”

As for Washington, he said, they are telling Mr. Erdogan: “Thank you for what you did in Ukraine, of course you haven’t imposed sanctions on Russia, but OK, you’re in a difficult position, strategically, diplomatically, economically — but don’t dare to do something in the Aegean or the Eastern Mediterranean that will bring trouble to NATO.”

More likely, Mr. Filis said, Mr. Erdogan would again send migrants toward Europe, or launch another energy exploration in disputed areas off Cyprus or Crete, which produced near clashes in 2020, or intercept a Greek ship transporting military equipment to one of the Aegean Islands.

Mr. Ulgen also does not expect armed conflict but would not be surprised. “It could happen; it’s not something we can rule out anymore,” he said. “But if it happens, it will be small-scale.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/16/world/europe/turkey-elections-erdogan-greece.html

pretty similar

SCIENCE said:

pretty similar

I guess. More like Bali.

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

pretty similar

I guess. More like Bali.

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

pretty similar

I guess. More like Bali.

Whereas to my mind, Cyprus looks more like a stretchy version of the contiguous part of the USA

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

pretty similar

I guess. More like Bali.

Whereas to my mind, Cyprus looks more like a stretchy version of the contiguous part of the USA

Good News ¡ The Communist Left Is In Decline

but then the rest of the thread is a clusterfuck of No True Democracy awesomeness

SCIENCE said:

but then the rest of the thread is a clusterfuck of No True Democracy awesomeness

The White House is unnecessary, Trump showed that, not fit for office in any way and very destructive, and now they have someone who cant remember things, also unfit for office.

American Presidencies have wasted billions.

Trump made it laughable.

Tau.Neutrino said:

SCIENCE said:

but then the rest of the thread is a clusterfuck of No True Democracy awesomeness

The White House is unnecessary, Trump showed that, not fit for office in any way and very destructive, and now they have someone who cant remember things, also unfit for office.

American Presidencies have wasted billions.

Trump made it laughable.

I think I still prefer the guy that does little harm and forgets shit over the nasty guy that lies.

I’m stilll not sure of the best way to get a ceremonial HOS.

I didn’t even have a thread on the Danish Elections.

Long story short, the parties of the Left retained control of government. Social Dem Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will keep her job. She’s made noises about incorporating the new Moderate party in the government, but she commands a majority without their help, if it comes to it.

dv said:

I didn’t even have a thread on the Danish Elections.

Long story short, the parties of the Left retained control of government. Social Dem Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will keep her job. She’s made noises about incorporating the new Moderate party in the government, but she commands a majority without their help, if it comes to it.

What about Imperial politics on Coruscant

Cymek said:

dv said:

I didn’t even have a thread on the Danish Elections.

Long story short, the parties of the Left retained control of government. Social Dem Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will keep her job. She’s made noises about incorporating the new Moderate party in the government, but she commands a majority without their help, if it comes to it.

What about Imperial politics on Coruscant

That was a long time ago.

Anyway, I don’t think we need an intergalactic politics thread.

Well, not yet. The Uber driver is currently distracted arguing with idiots on the internet.

SCIENCE said:

Poland’s government has called an urgent security meeting after reports Russian missiles struck its territory.

bit of noise out there calling it an error, an errant missile, must have gone the wrong way, totally wasn’t intended, oh wait same with the next few

by Stan Grant

roughbarked said:

by Stan Grant

It’s Thuggish To Play By The Rules And Want Harmony ¡

Uncertainty in Malaysia as Anwar, Muhyiddin claim they have the numbers

By Chris Barrett
November 20, 2022 — 12.38pm

Kuala Lumpur: Mahathir Mohamad lost his seat, ending the political titan’s half-century career, and Malaysia’s perennially ruling Barisan Nasional was wiped out.

But uncertainty was otherwise the prevailing theme out of the election in the south-east Asian nation as a wave of support for an Islamist party delivered a hung parliament for the first time, foreshadowing continuing political instability.

With none of the three main competing coalitions reaching a simple majority on their own, it left the two leading performers, Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan, and the Malay nationalist Perikatan Nasional, having to strike deals with other parties to form government.

There was no obvious victor on Sunday afternoon, with both declaring they had agreements in place to come up with the numbers to present to Malaysia’s constitutional monarch, King Sultan Abdullah Ahmad.

“I have received a letter from the national palace with instructions on the requirements we need to fulfil according to the king. We need to do it as soon as possible,” said PN leader and former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, addressing supporters at a golf club in Shah Alam, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Late yesterday the palace asked political parties to present a name of a lawmaker that has majority support before 2pm on Monday (local time).

Emerging from his own party war room at a hotel in nearby Subang Jaya soon after, Anwar insisted he had reached the magic figure.

“It’s impossible for Muhyiddin to claim that he has the numbers when we have it in writing. We have the documents ready to submit to Agong as early as possible,” he said.

If that proves to be the case, it would be the culmination of a years-long pursuit of the top job in which Anwar has twice been jailed on sodomy charges widely regarded as politically motivated.

His PH multiracial bloc secured 82 of the 220 seats up for grabs on Saturday, nine more than PN, as a record 15.5 million voters turned out following a tumultuous four years in Malaysian politics in which there have been four prime ministers.

BN and its dominant party, the United Malays National Organisation, scored only 30, a stunning repudiation of the group that has ruled the country almost uninterrupted since independence.

Two-time prime minister Mahathir was another of the losers on the night, as the 97-year-old bowed out in his electorate of Langkawi, suffering his first defeat in 53 years. Anwar’s daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar was also ousted from a seat long held in the family.

But the main takeaway as the election results were absorbed on Sunday was the groundswell of support for the Malaysian Islamic Party, known as PAS, which favours sharia, or Islamic law.

A major component party within Muhyiddin’s PN coalition, it won 49 seats – more than any other single party – as Malay voters turned their backs on corruption-stained BN but did not embrace PH, which includes the ethnic Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party, to the extent Anwar had hoped.

It was an outcome that reinforced the religious as well as racial divisions in Malaysia and the challenge faced by Anwar and his reform agenda promoting pluralism.

Only two days before the election, Muhyiddin was criticised over a speech in which he claimed PH was conspiring in a Jewish and Christian agenda to try and “colonise” Malaysia. He said later he was taken out of context.

As Muhyiddin and Anwar strove to collect enough seats to form government, the Gabungan Parti Sarawak loomed as kingmakers. It won 22 seats in Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, and looked crucial to tipping one side over the edge.

In the wake of its trouncing, though, the once unbeatable UMNO-led BN also shaped as a potentially key player in the horse-trading to establish a governing alliance.

It was deposed in an historic changing of the guard in the previous election in 2018 but had wrestled its way back to control after defections sunk the governments of Mahathir and Muhyiddin in the past three years.

BN had called a snap election with the confidence it would retain power, but in a statement party president Zahid Hamidi – who is facing 47 charges of corruption – said he accepted their poor showing as a clear signal from voters.

Bridget Welsh, a research associate with the Asian Research Institute at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia, said a deal between PH and parties on Borneo was the path to a stable, inclusive government.

While Anwar did not divulge who he could form an alliance with, Muhyiddin posted a photograph on Sunday of Sarawak Premier Abang Johari Openg visiting him.

”God willing, the federal government will be able to be formed in the near future,” Muhyiddin said.

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/uncertainty-in-malaysia-as-anwar-muhyiddin-claim-they-have-the-numbers-20221120-p5bzpa.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/19/asia/malaysia-election-race-parliament-intl-hnk/index.html

CNN —
Malaysia is facing a hung parliament for the first time in its political history, after a divisive, tightly-contested general election left major parties unable to secure enough votes to form a new government.

The result has thrust the Southeast Asian country into fresh political turmoil, as rival leaders scramble to broaden collations in renewed efforts to form a clear majority. Whoever wins will become Malaysia’s fourth prime minister in as many years, as the country grapples with rising inflation and a cost of living crisis.

With all but one parliamentary seat declared Sunday morning, veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s multi-ethnic Pakatan Harapan coalition was ahead, having secured 82 seats from a possible 220, according to results from the country’s Election Commission.

Close behind is former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Malay-based Perikatan Nasional, or National Alliance, with 73 seats. Muhyiddin’s group includes an Islamist party that has openly backed shariah or Islamic law.

But in the biggest upset of the night, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, made up of center right political parties including the dominant United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), suffered a stunning defeat – winning just 30 seats.

Officials from UMNO, which ruled Malaysia for more than six decades following its independence from Britain, previously told CNN the party had “a lot of work” to do and did not want to go backwards.

Once indomitable figures were also thrust out. The country’s former prime minister, 97-year-old Mahathir Mohamad suffered defeat for the first time in 53 years, losing his seat in the Langkawi island constituency.

The lack of a clear winner in Saturday’s election now presents the possibility Malaysia’s King could become involved, with the constitution granting the monarch power to determine who has the majority in parliament.

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

…

Malaysian king names Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, ending deadlock

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/malaysian-king-names-anwar-ibrahim-as-prime-minister-ending-deadlock-20221124-p5c147.html

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

…

Malaysian king names Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, ending deadlock

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/malaysian-king-names-anwar-ibrahim-as-prime-minister-ending-deadlock-20221124-p5c147.html

Was it like the Oscars?

‘The envelope, please…i’m so excited…and the winner is…’

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

…

Malaysian king names Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, ending deadlock

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/malaysian-king-names-anwar-ibrahim-as-prime-minister-ending-deadlock-20221124-p5c147.html

Damn lucky they are not one of those busted arsed republics.

Peak Warming Man said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

…

Malaysian king names Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, ending deadlock

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/malaysian-king-names-anwar-ibrahim-as-prime-minister-ending-deadlock-20221124-p5c147.html

Damn lucky they are not one of those busted arsed republics.

Yeah. Wouldn’t want one of them for quids, would we, Mr Man.

STEMocracy

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

Singapore has been a de facto one party state since its founding.
Indonesia has been a proper multiparty democracy since 1999.
Barisan Nasional’s hold of Malaysia was broken in 2018 with the election of a centre-left alliance. At the time it was considered that Anwar would eventually take over but then that government lost lower. It’s good to see him finally be PM.

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

Singapore has been a de facto one party state since its founding.
Indonesia has been a proper multiparty democracy since 1999.
Barisan Nasional’s hold of Malaysia was broken in 2018 with the election of a centre-left alliance. At the time it was considered that Anwar would eventually take over but then that government lost lower. It’s good to see him finally be PM.

What are you the narrator?

Peak Warming Man said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

So it’s official: Indonesia and now Malaysia are more democratic than Singapore.

…

Malaysian king names Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister, ending deadlock

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/malaysian-king-names-anwar-ibrahim-as-prime-minister-ending-deadlock-20221124-p5c147.html

Damn lucky they are not one of those busted arsed republics.

Although Yang di-Pertuan Agong is usually transliterated in English as King, it should be noted that the position is an indirect-elected role that is not hereditary. The council of state leaders elects one of their own for a five year period. A direct translation would be “Someone who has been made supreme.”

On the other hand at a subnational level there are monarchs. Of Malaysia’s 13 states, 7 are ruled by hereditary monarchs (ie Sultans), such as as the Sultan of Selangor. Each of these plays a role somewhat similar to Governors in Australia: mostly ceremonial but with reserve powers to dismiss governments or refuse to dissolve governments.

Taiwan president resigns as party head after local election losses
Tsai Ing-wen takes ‘all responsibility’ for Democratic Progressive party’s poor performance on Saturday

Associated Press in Taipei
Sat 26 Nov 2022 16.19 AEDT

The Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, resigned as head of the ruling Democratic Progressive party (DPP) after it suffered local election losses on Saturday.

Voters in Taiwan overwhelmingly chose the opposition Nationalist party in several major races across the self-ruled island in an election in which lingering concerns about threats from China took a backseat to more local issues.

Tsai spoke out many times about “opposing China and defending Taiwan” while campaigning for DPP. But the party’s candidate Chen Shih-chung, who lost the vote for mayor of Taipei, only raised the issue of the Communist party’s threat a few times before he quickly switched back to local issues as there was little interest, experts said.

Tsai offered her resignation on Saturday evening – following tradition after a major loss – in a short speech in which she also thanked supporters.

“I must shoulder all the responsibility,” she said. “Faced with a result like this, there are many areas that we must deeply review.”

While international observers and the ruling party have attempted to link the elections to the long-term existential threat that is Taiwan’s neighbour, many local experts do not think China – which claims the island as its territory, to be annexed by force if necessary – has a large role to play this time around.

The international community has raised the stakes too high. They’ve raised a local election to this international level, and Taiwan’s survival,” said Yeh-lih Wang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.

During campaigning, there were few mentions of the large-scale military exercises targeting Taiwan that China conducted in August in reaction to a visit by the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

“So I think if you can’t even raise this issue in Taipei,” Wang said. “You don’t even need to consider it in cities in the south.”

The public voted for mayors, city council members and other local leaders in all 13 counties and in nine cities. There was also a referendum on lowering the voting age from 20 to 18, which was defeated, according to local media.

Chiang Wan-an, elected as the mayor of Taipei, declared victory on Saturday night at a large rally. “I will let the world see Taipei’s greatness,” he said.

Not all votes had been formally counted by the time of his speech, but Chiang and the other candidates’ numerical lead allowed them to declare victory.

Kao Hung-an, a candidate in the relatively new Taiwan People’s party, won the mayoral seat in Hsinchu, a city home to many of Taiwan’s semiconductor companies.

Campaigns had resolutely focused on the local: air pollution in the central city of Taichung, traffic snarls in Taipei’s tech hub, Nangang, and the island’s Covid-19 vaccine buying strategies, which left the island in short supply during an outbreak last year.

The defeat for the ruling DPP may be partly explained by the way it handled the pandemic.

“The public has some dissatisfaction with the DPP on this, even though Taiwan has done well relatively speaking in pandemic prevention,” said Huang Wei-hao, a political science professor at National Sun Yat-sen University.

At an elementary school in New Taipei City, which surrounds Taipei, voters young and old came early despite it raining.

Yu Mei-zhu, 60, said she came to cast her ballot for the incumbent mayor, Hou You-yi. “I think he has done well, so I want to continue to support him. I believe in him, and that he can improve our environment in New Taipei City and our transportation infrastructure.”

Tsai came out early on Saturday morning to cast her ballot, catching many voters by surprise as her security and entourage swept through the school.

“If the DPP loses many county seats, then their ability to rule will face a very strong challenge,” said You Ying-lung, chair at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which regularly conducts public surveys on political issues.

The election results will in some ways also reflect the public’s attitude toward the ruling party’s performance over the last two years, You said.

Some felt apathetic to the local race. “It feels as if everyone is almost the same, from the policy standpoint,” said 26-year-old Sean Tai, an employee at a hardware store.

Tai declined to say who he voted for, but wants someone who will raise Taipei’s profile and bring better economic prospects while keeping the status quo with China. “We don’t want to be completely sealed off. I really hope that Taiwan can be seen internationally,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/26/taiwan-local-election-polls-2024-presidential-election

Brazil judge fines Bolsonaro allies millions after ‘bad faith’ election challenge

The head of Brazil’s electoral court has rejected an attempt by outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro’s party to overturn the results of October’s run-off election, which he lost.

Alexandre de Moraes, a supreme court justice, also fined the parties in Bolsonaro’s coalition 22.9m reais ($4.3m) for what the court described as bad faith litigation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/24/brazil-judge-fines-bolsonaro-allies-millions-after-bad-faith-election-challenge

Good thing there are still some countries where the rule of law applies

socialist countries

“A lot of people will be wondering: ‘are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and have got a lot of common stuff there – when you got into politics and stuff – or can Kiwis actually expect to see more deals between our two countries down the line…?” the journalist asked.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/jacinda-ardern-shuts-down-reporters-question-about-finnish-leader/9btkn6cci

Ms Ardern was swift to interject, asking if the media would quiz male leaders about their similarities. “My first question is I wonder whether or not anyone every asked Barack Obama and John Key if they met because they were of a similar age,” she quizzed the reporter.

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

dv said:

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

Read that earlier.

Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, nothing will change.

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

Read that earlier.

Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, nothing will change.

That’s the spirit.

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

Read that earlier.

Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, nothing will change.

I was pretty damn stupid to rely on ones enemy to provide perhaps your most essential need plus knowing they have blackmailed other previously

Enough about democracy’s weaknesses. Let’s talk about its strengths.

By Fareed Zakaria
Columnist

December 1, 2022 at 5:02 p.m. EST

Residents confront workers in protective suits who are blocking the entrance to a residential compound in Shanghai in this still image obtained from a social media video released Nov. 30. (Reuters) (Video Obtained By Reuters/via REUTERS)

Over the past few months, we have worried a great deal about the fragility of democracy. From the United States and Brazil to Sweden and Italy, the system seemed to be facing real challenges. In fact, in all of these cases, elections have had the effect of taming many of the most illiberal forces, and, at least for now, the center has held. Meanwhile, we are seeing signs of deep and structural weaknesses in some of the world’s most powerful autocracies.

The most striking example is China, where an extraordinary wave of protest is confronting the powers that be. At the heart of the problem is the unwillingness of the central government to change course on covid-19 policy. This is a problem inherent in dictatorships, where decision-making is closed, hierarchical and unaccountable. Unlike autocrats, democratic leaders face persistent pressure to change policy. There is loud and noisy criticism of the government. Outside experts and observers present alternative strategies. Leaders know they face elections, so if things aren’t working out, policies have to change — or else they will be changed.

These problems have become harder in modern societies. Consider the difference between China during the student-led Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 and today. In the late 1980s, the number of college-educated, urban Chinese was probably in the few millions. Today, more than 200 million Chinese people have a college education, and they have smartphones and know how to use them. Even the legendary “great firewall” — with its army of 2 million censors — struggles to keep up with the torrent of images and messages being created on Chinese social media. In recent years, we have tended to focus on the many problems caused by social media. We have forgotten that the fundamental effect of these new technologies is to empower individuals.

In Russia we see how a similarly closed and unresponsive decision-making process can lead to disaster. As a result of President Vladimir Putin’s war, his country is becoming increasingly isolated and impoverished. Putin recently mobilized 300,000 reservists, many reluctant to fight in Ukraine. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled their homeland — including many of the highly skilled and educated people whom Russia needs for its future. Democracies do go to war, even pointless and costly wars, but always amid dissent and debate. And for those who oppose the war, there remains always the reasonable hope that the policy — or the policymaker — can be changed.

In Iran, we see a theocratic autocracy determined to maintain its ideological control of the country. Iran’s ruling elites believe that their fundamentalist version of Islam must be enforced — or else they will go the way of the Soviet commissars. By contrast, liberal democracies don’t try to impose preferred ideologies on their populations. This approach has sometimes been caricatured as value-neutral, but it is not. At its core is the deep, abiding belief that human beings should have the freedom to choose their own personal form of happiness — and respect that others will have their own definitions of a good life.

Autocracies can seem impressive for a while because they can be steady, consistent and ruthless in reaching goals. But they face a fundamental challenge: They struggle to accommodate themselves to a changing society. (China was an exception for a while, having created a rare form of dictatorship that was consensus-based, technocratic and responsive, but under Xi Jinping, it has reverted to something closer to the autocratic norm.) So the autocrats’ reflexive response to change is repression, which can work for only so long.

It is astonishing to remember that when America’s Founding Fathers were constructing their experiment in government, they were virtually alone in a world of monarchies. These politicians were drawing on the writings of Enlightenment intellectuals such as Montesquieu and John Locke, studying historical examples from ancient Greece and Rome, and embracing key elements of English governance and common law. But they were mostly making it up in their heads. They had failures; their first effort, the Articles of Confederation, collapsed. In the end, however, they concocted something stunning: a system that protected individual rights, allowed for regular changes in leadership, prevented religious hegemony, and created a structure flexible enough to adapt to massive changes.

Democracy is fragile in its own way, but this is a good moment to consider its strengths. This abstract idea of government largely created by the United States, borrowed over the years by countless other nations, refined and improved in various ways, has spread across the world in countries rich and poor, European, Asian, Latin American and African. It has stood the test of time for two and a half centuries. Does anyone think that the Russian or Chinese or Iranian systems will endure as long? Winston Churchill has surely been vindicated in his belief that democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/01/global-protests-democracy-autocracy-weakness/?

Cymek said:

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

Read that earlier.

Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, nothing will change.

I was pretty damn stupid to rely on ones enemy to provide perhaps your most essential need plus knowing they have blackmailed other previously

what does capitalism know about costs

Cymek said:

dv said:

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Europe ‘too dependent’ on technologies, energy from authoritarian states

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/sanna-marin-says-europe-too-dependent-on-russia-china/101724358

Read that earlier.

Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, nothing will change.

That’s the spirit.

I was pretty damn stupid to rely on ones enemy to provide perhaps your most essential need plus knowing they have blackmailed other previously

Wait ¡ We found what she actually said about Europe being too dependent on authoritarian states ¡

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-war-shows-europe-too-reliant-us-finland-pm-says-2022-12-02/

Ukraine war shows Europe too reliant on U.S., Finland PM says

ah yes that DPRNA one

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/07/europe/germany-far-right-arrests-grm-intl/index.html

Germany arrests 25 suspected far-right extremists for plotting to overthrow government

German officials arrested 22 suspected members and three suspected supporters of a far-right terrorist organization across the country on Wednesday on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

In a statement, the German federal prosecutor’s office said an estimated 50 people were suspected to have been part of the group called Reich Citizens movement, founded no later than November 2021, who were plotting to overthrow the government and replace it with their own order.

“The accused are united by a deep rejection of state institutions and the free democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which over time has led to their decision to participate in their violent elimination and to engage in concrete preparatory actions for this purpose,” the statement said.

“The members of the group follow a conglomerate of conspiracy myths consisting of narratives of the so-called Reichsbürger as well as QAnon ideology.”

hey apparently the Reichstag is on fire

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/europe/germany-coup-arrests.html

so apparently we’re dv too

…

bastard, we blame the shitty NBN speeds for 8 seconds

Peru’s President impeached and arrested after he attempts to dissolve Congress

Dina Boluarte became Peru’s first female president on Wednesday, capping off a dramatic day which saw her predecessor detained by police and impeached by lawmakers.

Boluarte, the country’s former Vice President, was sworn into the top job at Congress to become Peru’s sixth president in under five years.

The ceremony took place hours after a majority of 101 members in the 130-person legislative body voted to impeach former leader Pedro Castillo.

The tumultuous day began when then-President Castillo announced plans to dissolve Congress and install an emergency government, ahead of a looming impeachment vote by lawmakers, which Peru’s Ombudsman described as an “attempted coup d’état.”

He also called for parliamentary elections to work on a new constitution.

The move prompting a string of cabinet resignations, fiery reactions from top officials and condemnation from regional neighbors – and ultimately failed to prevent his impeachment in Congress.

Peruvian armed forces rejected Castillo’s attempt to sideline lawmakers, calling it an “infringement of the constitution.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/07/americas/peru-president-castillo-congress-dissolves-intl/index.html

CNN —
A court in Argentina on Tuesday sentenced the country’s vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, to six years in prison and disqualified her from holding public office again after finding her guilty of corruption during her earlier terms as President.

Fernández de Kirchner has temporary immunity due to her current role so will not immediately go to jail, and can appeal. Following the verdict, she denied the allegations against her but said she will not run for reelection next year.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/07/americas/argentina-vice-president-fernndez-de-kirchner-sentenced-intl-hnk/index.html

France turning into CHINA

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57055154

More South China Sea Shenanigans

US-built corvette in use since 1987, was hit by strong waves on Sunday, forcing it it to tilt to one side before becoming flooded with seawater, navy spokesperson Admiral Pogkrong Monthardpalin said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-19/thailand-navy-ship-sinks-33-sailors-missing/101789240

yeah but if communist

citizens say anything, they’re just drones

Korean Republican fighter downed responding to Democratic Korean threat

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-26/south-korea-jets-fight-north-korean-drones/101809624

Croatia has now joined the Eurozone. Their present currency, the kuna, will still be legal tender for a couple of weeks.

dv said:

Croatia has now joined the Eurozone. Their present currency, the kuna, will still be legal tender for a couple of weeks.

It’sa weird place, and Putin wants to annexe it all in the closest thing to Hitler, since well, Adolf.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Croatia has now joined the Eurozone. Their present currency, the kuna, will still be legal tender for a couple of weeks.

It’sa weird place, and Putin wants to annexe it all in the closest thing to Hitler, since well, Adolf.

And that all seems to have backfired, with Sweden and Finland in the process of joining NATO, and the rest of the world coming very close to not needing Russian oil or gas.

Dark Orange said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Croatia has now joined the Eurozone. Their present currency, the kuna, will still be legal tender for a couple of weeks.

It’sa weird place, and Putin wants to annexe it all in the closest thing to Hitler, since well, Adolf.

And that all seems to have backfired, with Sweden and Finland in the process of joining NATO, and the rest of the world coming very close to not needing Russian oil or gas.

Indeed. It will be both serious and amusing as to how far he can backpedal.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Croatia has now joined the Eurozone. Their present currency, the kuna, will still be legal tender for a couple of weeks.

It’sa weird place, and Putin wants to annexe it all in the closest thing to Hitler, since well, Adolf.

Stalin.

Stalin claimed most of eastern Europe as his area of control.

LOL but why let that

Foreign buyers account for less than five per cent of home ownership in Canada, according to the national statistical agency, prompting experts to believe the ban will not have the desired effect of making homes more affordable. Rather, they point to a need for more housing construction to meet demand.

stop you from making a populist xenophobic gesture

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-02/canada-bans-foreigners-from-buying-property/101821128

Fuck Foreigners ¡ That’s what they’re for anyway, not to share privilege with ¡

SCIENCE said:

LOL but why let that

Foreign buyers account for less than five per cent of home ownership in Canada, according to the national statistical agency, prompting experts to believe the ban will not have the desired effect of making homes more affordable. Rather, they point to a need for more housing construction to meet demand.

stop you from making a populist xenophobic gesture

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-02/canada-bans-foreigners-from-buying-property/101821128

Fuck Foreigners ¡ That’s what they’re for anyway, not to share privilege with ¡

“Canada bans foreigners from buying property”.

No, Canada bans foreigners from having their name on the record as the owner of the property.

Given the amount of ingenuity that’s put into avoiding paying taxes in pretty much any jurisdiction in the world, it won’t be beyond the reach of the very wealthy to find a way around this little hurdle as well.

captain_spalding said:

SCIENCE said:

LOL but why let that

Foreign buyers account for less than five per cent of home ownership in Canada, according to the national statistical agency, prompting experts to believe the ban will not have the desired effect of making homes more affordable. Rather, they point to a need for more housing construction to meet demand.

stop you from making a populist xenophobic gesture

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-02/canada-bans-foreigners-from-buying-property/101821128

Fuck Foreigners ¡ That’s what they’re for anyway, not to share privilege with ¡

“Canada bans foreigners from buying property”.

No, Canada bans foreigners from having their name on the record as the owner of the property.

Given the amount of ingenuity that’s put into avoiding paying taxes in pretty much any jurisdiction in the world, it won’t be beyond the reach of the very wealthy to find a way around this little hurdle as well.

Yeah, there may well be a sudden increase in new small companies owned overseas.

(Which is just what I did 40 years ago, so I could buy a house in Perth before getting residency in Australia).

dv said:

That response is just gold standard.

Why Poland loves to hate Germany
The two NATO allies can’t stop squabbling

Jan 5th 2023 | BERLIN

Germany and Poland should be happy neighbours. Bound by close personal ties as well as €150bn ($159bn) in yearly trade, the two are key members of both the European Union and nato. As Russia’s invasion confronts Europe with the gravest security threat since the cold war, the pair are also, after America and perhaps Britain, Ukraine’s most vital strategic allies. Poland is the main arms conduit into Ukraine and a host to millions of its refugees. Because of their own history with Russia, Poles have been among Ukraine’s most ardent, generous and timely supporters. Germany, Europe’s richest economy, has been slower to react but is now by far the continent’s biggest contributor to the war effort.

Yet on January 3rd Arkadiusz Mularczyk, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, lashed out at Germany. Calling the ostensible ally “disrespectful” and “unfriendly”, he accused Berlin of trying to turn Poland into a “vassal state”. He also called on the United Nations to intervene in support of Poland’s claims against its neighbour.

Mr Mularczyk is particularly familiar with these claims. He helped write a three-volume study that tots them up. Sponsored by his Law and Justice party (known by its Polish acronym PIS) and published in September, it puts the bill for damages caused to Poland by Germany during the second world war at a colossal €1.3trn, about double Poland’s gdp. On October 3rd Poland formally presented this demand to Berlin. The German response is a firm nein.

No one disputes the monstrosity of Nazi crimes in Poland. But they took place eight decades ago. Since then, Germany has ceded vast tracts of land to Poland and signed deals with varied Polish governments to close the books on the war. So the timing and blindness to precedent of the mounting Polish campaign against Germany, of which the reparations demand forms just a part, do raise questions.

There is a simple answer to all of them: Poland’s polarised politics. Opinion polls show a slow slide in support for United Right, the coalition dominated by the nationalist, socially conservative PIS that has run the country since 2015. Strains have grown inside the coalition since it won a second term in 2019. Micro-parties on the far right whine that their bigger ally has gone soft, failing to stand up to what they see as bullying from the EU. With elections looming in autumn 2023, PIS is keen both to rally its base and to hold this alliance together.

Souring relations with Germany should be seen in the context of Poland’s European policy, explains Piotr Buras of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank. As Brussels has pressed Poland, particularly over the government’s efforts to quash judicial independence and enforce traditional “family values”, PIS’s leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has increasingly pointed to Germany as a behind-the-scenes source of trouble. In December 2021 he claimed that its real agenda is to turn the eu into a “Fourth Reich”. (Tellingly, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, put precisely the same contention in a New Year’s message.) Even months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr Kaczynski was still suggesting that Berlin is colluding with Moscow to “enslave” Poland.

Neighbours with history
Such dark suspicions are not the only excuses to bash Germany. Mr Kaczynski’s main sparring opponent on the left, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister from 2007 to 2014, happens to have partial German ancestry (quite common in western Poland) and served as president of the European Council. pis and its allies, whose strongholds are in the rural east, have not shied from tarring Mr Tusk as a treacherous Germanophile. “This may sound crazy, but it makes sense in their particular bubble,” says Wojciech Przybylski of Res Publica, a Warsaw research group.

Germany has also attracted blame to itself, and not just for failing to pay Poland the humble respect it has shown to others, such as Israel and France, in recognition of Nazi crimes. Mr Kaczynski is hardly the only eastern European to wag a “we told you so” finger at a generation of German leaders who blindly trusted Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, so saddling Germany with a feeble army and a dangerous dependence on Russian energy.

Mr Kaczynski draws strength from this sense of moral superiority, says Mr Buras. The irony is that he chooses to flaunt it just when Germany has at last admitted the error of its ways on Russia, and just as the two countries’ policies converge more than ever. Despite responding heroically to Ukraine, it is Poland that is making trouble for the broader Western alliance.

When Germany found that the weapons it gives Ukraine are so heavily used that they often break down, Poland proved hesitant to allow the Bundeswehr to build a repair centre on its territory. This vital facility opened in Slovakia instead. When a stray Ukrainian rocket fell in Poland in November, killing two farmers, Germany hastened to offer its neighbour a battery of sophisticated Patriot air-defence missiles. The Polish government at first welcomed the offer, but Mr Kaczynski then said no, adding that German soldiers would anyway be too sissy to shoot at Russian aircraft. Only after an embarrassing week-long muddle did Poland back down, allowing the system to be deployed.

As elections approach, flip-flops by PIS may grow more common. Another occurred just before Christmas, when the government announced a compromise that would allow the release of some €36bn in EU grants and loans that have been stalled by a long quarrel between Brussels and United Right over judicial independence. Then came a sudden reverse, as PIS appeared to bow to objections from ultranationalist coalition allies. The issue remains unresolved.

United Right’s anti-German drumbeat, gleefully echoed by state broadcasters, has clearly influenced Polish public opinion. An annual barometer of sentiments finds that last year, for the first time, more than half of Poles said relations with Germany are not good, with 35% describing them as downright bad. In December, perhaps in an effort at damage control, Andrzej Duda, Poland’s largely titular president, a former pis mp who often acts as a “good cop” to soften Mr Kaczynski’s bluntness, paid a cordial visit to his even less powerful German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. But it will take more than diplomatic niceties, dismissed by Mr Mularczyk as “fairy tales”, to fix the current mess.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/01/05/why-poland-loves-to-hate-germany?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Poland loves to hate Germany

Real mystery

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Poland loves to hate Germany

Real mystery

Has me racking my brain.

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

dv said:

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

Rare earths aren’t really that rare. We just like China digging them up because it’s quite polluting. I can see the Swedish greens going all in for mining in the arctic regions.

sibeen said:

dv said:

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

Rare earths aren’t really that rare. We just like China digging them up because it’s quite polluting. I can see the Swedish greens going all in for mining in the arctic regions.

We dig them up in WA, and send them to Malaysia for processing. The processing stage is quite polluting and generates lots of toxic waste, and some low level radioactive waste too. Nobody in advanced developed nations wants that sort of thing happening in their backyards.

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

dv said:

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

Rare earths aren’t really that rare. We just like China digging them up because it’s quite polluting. I can see the Swedish greens going all in for mining in the arctic regions.

We dig them up in WA, and send them to Malaysia for processing. The processing stage is quite polluting and generates lots of toxic waste, and some low level radioactive waste too. Nobody in advanced developed nations wants that sort of thing happening in their backyards.

so basically the main reason they’re called rare earths is that they aren’t in general well done, and nothing to do with their abundance

cephalic detonation

dv said:

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

The announced REE deposit is adjacent to the Kiruna iron ore deposit (which contains accessory REEs, likely in apatite). I’d love to know how they are related.

https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals-is-located-in-the-kiruna-area/

https://lkab.com/en/news/rare-earth-elements-in-mine-waste-a-solution-for-the-electric-power-of-the-future/

sibeen said:

dv said:

Sweden’s having a good day

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/13/tech/sweden-biggest-rare-earth-mine-china-dependence-intl-hnk/index.html

Sweden finds the largest rare earth deposit in Europe. It could help cut dependence on China

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/13/this-arctic-space-centre-could-become-the-first-to-launch-satellites-from-mainland-europe

Sweden inaugurates Arctic satellite launch site as space race heats up in Europe

Rare earths aren’t really that rare. We just like China digging them up because it’s quite polluting. I can see the Swedish greens going all in for mining in the arctic regions.

Economic deposits of REEs are rare. Big ones are even more rare. Deposits without Uranium are probably rarer again.

SCIENCE said:

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

Rare earths aren’t really that rare. We just like China digging them up because it’s quite polluting. I can see the Swedish greens going all in for mining in the arctic regions.

We dig them up in WA, and send them to Malaysia for processing. The processing stage is quite polluting and generates lots of toxic waste, and some low level radioactive waste too. Nobody in advanced developed nations wants that sort of thing happening in their backyards.

so basically the main reason they’re called rare earths is that they aren’t in general well done, and nothing to do with their abundance

cephalic detonation

Appreciate the pun

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,”

He wasn’t the only one.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

It is the new cold war.

The “peaceful rise of China” has just not happened. They are increasing showing signs of being cunts about it. So the world splits into factions once more. History repeats. There is no “end of history:”.

party_pants said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

It is the new cold war.

The “peaceful rise of China” has just not happened. They are increasing showing signs of being cunts about it. So the world splits into factions once more. History repeats. There is no “end of history:”.

Yeah, Fukuyama must be feeling a little coy about now :)

party_pants said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

It is the new cold war.

The “peaceful rise of China” has just not happened. They are increasing showing signs of being cunts about it. So the world splits into factions once more. History repeats. There is no “end of history:”.

It’s up to the Chinese people real

party_pants said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

It is the new cold war.

The “peaceful rise of China” has just not happened. They are increasing showing signs of being cunts about it. So the world splits into factions once more. History repeats. There is no “end of history:”.

It’s up to the Chinese people real

party_pants said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

By David Ignatius
Columnist

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Why is Japan taking this step toward remilitarization? One galvanizing moment for Japanese leaders, U.S. officials say, was when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24, as Tokyo was hosting a meeting of the “Quad” partnership of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/russia-china-threat-japan-military/?

It is the new cold war.

The “peaceful rise of China” has just not happened. They are increasing showing signs of being cunts about it. So the world splits into factions once more. History repeats. There is no “end of history:”.

It’s up to the Chinese people really. Will they let the CCP chase global denomination while ignoring the populace at home? The about-face about COVID shows how fearful the leadership are of ‘people power’.

https://twitter.com/YouAreLobbyLud/status/1614217291897663488

SCIENCE said:

https://twitter.com/YouAreLobbyLud/status/1614217291897663488

Bit of sand in the eyes here.

What woman! What a holocaust survivor! Decent people standing up for what is right.

Vive le FRA… oh sorry the town-crier has retired early

…

Emmanuel Macron unveils his pension reforms
He wants the French to work longer. Good luck with that

Jan 10th 2023 | PARIS

The French government has decided to go ahead with a controversial pension reform that looks set to divide the country and spark social unrest. On January 10th Elisabeth Borne, the prime minister, unveiled the details of changes to the country’s mandatory pension rules. The fate of these measures will test Emmanuel Macron’s ability to continue to reform France during his second presidential term.

The centrepiece is a raising of the legal minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, by 2030. This measure is deeply unpopular with the French, but in line with Mr Macron’s campaign promise ahead of his re-election in April 2022. Ms Borne’s package includes an increase of €100 ($107) a month to €1,200 for the minimum state pension, which is paid to those who have made the required contributions over a lifetime. The prime minister made other concessions designed to win political support, including extra pension credits for those who have physically demanding jobs or began to work when very young.

France’s new pension rules are at once bold, overdue and less radical than once planned. Bold, because the decision to go ahead at all comes in the middle of a cost-of-living squeeze, as part of the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thanks to generous French state subsidies and caps on price increases, the country’s inflation rate, at 6.7%, is one of the lowest in the euro zone, and fell in December. But the French still feel the pinch in their pockets, and this will get worse. This year the government is allowing energy bills for households to rise by 15%, up from 0-4% in 2022. Corporate bills are soaring. Small businesses are under particular stress.

The reform is bold politically too. Few outside Mr Macron’s party and his support base want it, though the employers’ federation applauded. Fully 68% of the French and 77% of 35- to 49-year-olds are against a rise in the pension age to 64. All the country’s trade unions are against any increase in the retirement age, including—to Mr Macron’s frustration—the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (cfdt), a moderate union. Its leader, Laurent Berger, called it “one of the most brutal pension reforms for 30 years”. Most opposition parties also oppose the reform. Indeed Marine Le Pen’s nationalist-populist National Rally, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France on the left both want to lower the retirement age to 60, at least for some workers. A first day of protests and strikes has been called for January 19th.

In any event, the reform is overdue. Mr Macron has been promising it since he was first elected, in 2017. Endless consultations, mixed messaging and a failure to build a consensus around a previous version, in 2019, led to the longest period of strikes in France since the uprising of 1968. This first attempt by Mr Macron was finally shelved when covid-19 struck in 2020.

Yet France cannot afford to keep things as they are. At 60, the average age at which French men actually retire (for women it is 61) is the third-lowest in the oecd, a group of mainly rich countries. Thanks to a high life expectancy, a retired man then spends an average of 23.5 years in his armchair (and a French woman 27 years), the second-longest. The share of 55- to 64-year-olds still at their desks is just 57%, compared with 74% in Germany and 65% in Britain. Indeed many firms edge out workers before retirement. The government says it will now make them publish statistics on the employment of older workers, to nudge them into better behaviour.

This lifestyle comes at a cost. France spends 14% of gdp on public pensions, nearly double the oecd average. By 2030, according to Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, the deficit in the French pensions system will reach €14bn. The new measures should comfortably close that gap. “Given the current environment of upward pressure on interest rates, this pension reform is an important message to investors,” says Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz, an insurer.

Overall, however, the reform is less radical than the one that Mr Macron originally dreamed up. When first elected, he wanted to bring in a universal points-based system, in order to make sense of the labyrinthine system of regimes and rules that governs different employees’ rights. As it is, most French workers have no idea of their exact retirement entitlement, which in turn muddles decisions about staying on at work later in life. If France is to raise the share of older workers in jobs, it needs at some point to make things simpler.

The government’s new rules now need to go to parliament. The best hope for Mr Macron, who lost his majority there last June, is to secure the support of the opposition Republicans. The president’s centrist alliance holds 250 seats, 39 short of a majority. But the Republicans, who when in power themselves raised the retirement age, are not keen to hand Mr Macron an easy victory. If a parliamentary majority cannot be found, the government may have to resort to using a special provision of the constitution to force the rules through, at the risk of prompting fresh elections.

Technically, in other words, Mr Macron could get this reform on the statute books by September, as the government wants. The stiffest opposition, though, may come not from the benches of parliament but from the street. Unions and opposition parties promise demonstrations. New forms of protest and industrial action could yet emerge. Strikes over the Christmas period at the sncf, the national railway, were organised via Facebook without the support of the unions.

In short, France looks set for a period of unrest. Mr Macron remains unpopular, with an approval rating of only 36%. Any ill-considered remark on the new proposals that slips from his tongue could sour the mood yet more. If the president is to leave a mark on his second term, he may have little choice but to hold firm, stay quiet, and sit it out.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/01/10/emmanuel-macron-unveils-his-pension-reforms?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Emmanuel Macron unveils his pension reforms
He wants the French to work longer. Good luck with that

In short, France looks set for a period of unrest.

Quelle surprise.

sibeen said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Emmanuel Macron unveils his pension reforms
He wants the French to work longer. Good luck with that

In short, France looks set for a period of unrest.

Quelle surprise.

the French know how to riot.

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Emmanuel Macron unveils his pension reforms
He wants the French to work longer. Good luck with that

In short, France looks set for a period of unrest.

Quelle surprise.

the French know how to riot.

Yet they share streets with Belgium seemingly happily enough.

roughbarked said:

party_pants said:

sibeen said:

Quelle surprise.

the French know how to riot.

Yet they share streets with Belgium seemingly happily enough.

So their current pension age is 62, compared to 67 in Australia.

Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

dv said:

Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

She’s a fair bit behind in the polls so probably a good time to jump ship.

sibeen said:

dv said:

Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

She’s a fair bit behind in the polls so probably a good time to jump ship.

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

sibeen said:

dv said:

Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

She’s a fair bit behind in the polls so probably a good time to jump ship.

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

dv said:

Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

She’s a fair bit behind in the polls so probably a good time to jump ship.

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

:)

I didn’t know her popularity was waning either… but I just read that the NZ PM has no term limit .. so they either have to resign or be ousted…

I guess she’s just had enough and is ready to move on without any conspiracy behind it

Arts said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

She’s a fair bit behind in the polls so probably a good time to jump ship.

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

:)

I didn’t know her popularity was waning either… but I just read that the NZ PM has no term limit .. so they either have to resign or be ousted…

I guess she’s just had enough and is ready to move on without any conspiracy behind it

Are there any term-limited PMs in the Commonwealth?

dv said:

Arts said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

:)

I didn’t know her popularity was waning either… but I just read that the NZ PM has no term limit .. so they either have to resign or be ousted…

I guess she’s just had enough and is ready to move on without any conspiracy behind it

Are there any term-limited PMs in the Commonwealth?

Fine, don’t tell me.

But near as I can tell, the answer is no. No Commonwealth countries have term limits for prime ministers.

dv said:

Arts said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I didn’t know her popularity was waning.

I guessed it must have been revealed that she dressed as a follower of Mao for her 21st.

:)

I didn’t know her popularity was waning either… but I just read that the NZ PM has no term limit .. so they either have to resign or be ousted…

I guess she’s just had enough and is ready to move on without any conspiracy behind it

Are there any term-limited PMs in the Commonwealth?

no idea.

https://www.newslive.com/featured/msnbc.html

ms spock said:

https://www.newslive.com/featured/msnbc.html

Hi MS. Could you also post a description of a link’s content so that we can decide whether to click it or not based on our interests.

I see Sky News are going all out to ensure that Jacinda’s legacy is recognised appropriately.

ms spock said:

https://www.newslive.com/featured/msnbc.html

You realise you’ve just shared the MSNBC front page.

dv said:

ms spock said:

https://www.newslive.com/featured/msnbc.html

You realise you’ve just shared the MSNBC front page.

If you search Fox News on Google you should be able to get the one you want

The America trap: Why our enemies often underestimate us

By Robert Kagan
Editor at large
January 19, 2023 at 9:21 a.m. EST

Editor’s note: The brief, unsettling moment in history between the end of World War I in 1918 and the United States’ entrance into World War II in late 1941 covers the same timespan as between 2000 and today: 23 years. America in that earlier interval moved from war footing to almost total isolation and then to fighting in an even more deadly conflict.

The United States’ instincts in the 1920s and 1930s, as historian and Opinions editor at large Robert Kagan reminds us, were decidedly insular. Americans saw their nation as a world power but balked at the responsibilities that came with it. That would prove hard to change.

In an exclusive adaptation from his new book, “The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941,” Kagan details the global rise of fascism beginning in 1925, tallies the miscalculations of Berlin and Tokyo as both pondered what they imagined to be a neutral United States, and reminds us that President Franklin D. Roosevelt built domestic support for intervention slowly — maybe too slowly — because he did not want to get ahead of the public.

In circumstances that may speak to the present, the combination of events created what Kagan calls “the America trap” — the tendency of our enemies and rivals to underestimate what the United States can accomplish when united.

•••

How quickly do times of apparent peace become times of conflict; seemingly stable world orders come crashing down; the hopes of many for improvement of the human condition are dashed and replaced by fear and despair.

For the first dozen years after World War I, the three powerful democracies — the United States, Britain and France — were in substantial control of world affairs, economically, politically and militarily. They established the terms of the peace settlement, redrew the borders of Europe, summoned new nations into being, distributed pieces of defunct empires, erected security arrangements, determined who owed what to whom, and how and when debts should be paid. They called together the conferences that determined the levels of armaments the major nations could possess.

All this was possible because they had won the war; because the United States and Britain controlled the banks and the seas; because France wielded predominant military power on the European continent. With this power, the three Western democracies sought to establish and consolidate a world system favorable to their interests and preferences. They argued over how best to do this, and they became increasingly estranged from each other in these years. But they all wanted a stable, prosperous and peaceful Europe. They all sought to preserve their global empires, or, in the United States’ case, its hemispheric hegemony. They all sought to defend the liberal, capitalist economic system that enriched and protected them and in which they believed. None doubted the rightness of their vision of international order or much questioned the justice of imposing it.

And there had been successes, certainly from their point of view. By the second half of the 1920s, the world had grown less violent and marginally less miserable. In Europe especially, economies were recovering, living standards were rising, general violence was down from the immediate postwar years, and the dangers of war and aggression seemed as low as they had been in decades. Internationally, trade had risen by more than 20 percent, despite growing protectionism, driven largely by the American economic boom. Nations spent more time discussing measures for peace than preparing for war. The League of Nations had come into its own. Germany seemed to be on a moderate, democratic course. In general, the threat of a return to autocracy and militarism seemed low. Democracy seemed to be ascendant.

The fascist challenge­­­

Even those who openly defied the new order had to move cautiously. The Soviets promoted their revolution abroad but not so aggressively as to challenge the dominant powers, and they wound up settling for “socialism in one country.” Benito Mussolini, ruling an Italy surrounded in the Mediterranean by British and French naval power and dependent on the United States for financial support, thought it best to play the responsible European statesman. The 1920s were his “decade of good behavior.”

Adolf Hitler, too, proceeded with caution as he ascended to power in the early ’30s. Impressed by the United States as “a giant state with unimaginable productive capacities” and by Anglo-American domination of the global economy, and well aware of the role it had played in selecting Germany’s past governments, he worked at first to soften Washington’s opposition to his rise. He reached out to the U.S. ambassador, gave numerous interviews to prominent American media figures, including William Randolph Hearst, in the hope of making “the personality of Adolf Hitler more accessible to the American people.” He promised to pay Germany’s “private debts” to American bankers and went out of his way to assure the English-speaking world that his national socialist movement would gain power only in a “purely legal way” in accordance with the “present constitution.” After taking power, he told the press and his own officials to play down the campaigns of antisemitism that began immediately. He sought to keep German rearmament under wraps in what he called the “perilous interval” during which the “whole world” was “against us.” Until the economy recovered and German rearmament was further along, he feared that the national socialist revolution could be crushed at any time by the superior power of the democracies.

It was remarkable how quickly the winds were shifting, though. An American journalist identified the moment when history pivoted. “In the first five years after the World War,” he wrote, “the nations of Europe, on their backs and seeking American aid, took all pains to avoid offending us and therefore appeared to give careful and weighty consideration to our altruistic advice. The succeeding five years have changed that.”

One indicator of the shifting trends was the declining fortunes of democracy throughout Europe. It was inevitable that some of the new democracies, implanted in lands that had never known such a form of government, would not survive. The rise of dictatorship in various forms in Hungary (1920), Italy (1925), Lithuania, Poland and Portugal (1926), Yugoslavia (1929), Romania (1930), Germany and Austria (1933), Bulgaria and Latvia (1934), and Greece (1935) had many internal and external causes, including the global depression that began around 1930. But the overall decline of European democracy from the second half of the 1920s onward, and the turn away from democracy in Japan, also reflected the declining influence and appeal of the great-power democracies and their order.

Liberal democracy was not just losing ground. It faced a potent challenge from a vibrant and revolutionary anti-liberal doctrine that attracted followers and imitators throughout Europe and beyond. Americans, British and French during World War I and for decades afterward assumed that Bolshevism posed the greatest threat to liberal democracy. But Bolshevism proved less easily exported than both its proponents and its opponents believed. Ostracized by the rest of Europe, the Soviet Union turned inward to wrestle with the transformation of its society. When democracies fell in the 1920s and ’30s, they fell to the Right, not the Left.

Mussolini’s fascism had many roots. Some of the fascist worldview was unique to the Italian experience, but some of it transcended national boundaries. Above all, fascism represented a rejection of liberalism and the postwar Anglo-American political and economic order that had been imposed on the peoples of the “have-not” nations. Fascism promised to restore national and ethnic identity and culture even while modernizing the nation to compete in an industrializing world. It glorified the people not as individuals but as a collective, with the nation serving as the vehicle for their common destiny. Individual rights and legal processes had to be subordinated to the popular will, a will that could only be understood, articulated and executed by a single charismatic national leader, il Duce, in whom the people could place their trust. By 1925, Mussolini introduced the idea of the “totalitarian” society, in which the state oversaw every aspect of life or, as he put it, “everything within the state, nothing outside the state.”

Fascism was not an ideology of peace. To revise or overthrow this unjust order would require military power and the will to use it. “Words are beautiful things,” Mussolini said, “but rifles, machine guns, ships, aircraft, and cannon are still more beautiful.” Society had to be purged of flabby liberalism, quarreling political parties and alien elements and forged into one unified collective fit for war. The people needed to be prepared for war by rigid control of politics, economics and society, and the elimination of all institutions that could stand in the way of the leader’s total power, from the church to the aristocracy to the remnants of monarchy. Hitler’s entire program was aimed at creating a new Germany that would not fail as Imperial Germany had in 1918. Democracy was “the most disastrous thing there is,” he told his top generals on the eve of taking power. “Only one person can and should give orders.” The German population had to learn to “think nationalistically and thus be welded together,” and this could only be accomplished by force.

This fervent nationalism had transnational appeal. “Whoever says that fascism is not an exportable commodity is mistaken,” Mussolini declared. He hoped and expected that it would become to the 20th century what liberalism had been to the 19th. He even tried to promote fascism in the United States. He saw himself as “the Pope of antidemocracy” leading an “antidemocratic crusade throughout the entire world.” In the 1920s and ’30s, fascist movements of varying hues and size cropped up in practically every nation in the world. It made less headway in Britain and the United States, where democracy was more firmly rooted, but it thrived in countries where liberal democratic institutions were new and fragile, including in France. Where fascism did not succeed, as in Romania and Hungary, it was usually because the government was already sufficiently right-wing and nationalist that fascists could not find an opening. Even in China, Chiang Kai-shek and his advisers marveled at how Mussolini had become “the greatest and most picturesque statesman in Europe” and thought that fascist Italy offered a model for how China could restore its national strength “through the revitalization of a past great civilization.”

Mussolini always had international ambitions, even if in the 1920s he lacked the means of pursuing them. He was encouraged by the Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the weak and faltering response of the League of Nations and the United States. When Japan announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, it was a sign that the other “have-not” nations might be willing and able to mount a rebellion against the Anglo-American system. But ultimately, it was to Germany that Mussolini looked for salvation. As far back as 1923, he had believed that the “axis of European history passes through Berlin.” He saw in Hitler’s rise to power the historic opportunity for which he had been waiting.

Hitler saw the fascist seizure of power in Italy as “a harbinger of his own success” and had such admiration for Mussolini that when they met for the first time in the summer of 1934, he had tears in his eyes. Mussolini believed a “community of destiny” united the fascist powers. The “alliance between the two nations,” his foreign minister declared, was based above all on the “identity between their political regimes.” By the mid-1930s, the Japanese had joined the anti-liberal club. As Yosuke Matsuoka, a leading Japanese fascist in the 1930s argued, each of the have-not nations was fighting for “recognition and its place in the eyes of the world.”

The entry of Japan into what Hitler would call the “triangle” of challengers to the Anglo-American system was the final step in a geopolitical revolution. As one Japanese author noted in 1934, the world now contained “two tinderboxes,” one in the western Pacific and one in Europe, and the two were “interlocked.” A crisis in one “can easily extend to the other and assume a global character.” Hitler believed that if the British were confronted not only by Germany and Italy in Europe but also by “a common organized force in the Far East,” they would have no choice but to accept Germany’s rise and even seek “common ground with this new political system.”

Accelerating toward war

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was an internationalist, but he spent his first term in office fighting the Great Depression and his second term trying to cajole Americans out of their rigid anti-interventionism. After the fall of France in 1940, he shifted into a more alarmist mode. The conquest of France gave the Germans new bases on the Atlantic coast from which to operate against British shipping and their naval convoys. This greatly extended the reach of the German U-boat fleet, which had grown more sophisticated in its tactics. The Germans by early 1941 were sinking British merchant ships at a rate more than five times Britain’s capacity to replace them. Roosevelt’s alarmed advisers argued for direct American military involvement to protect Britain’s transatlantic lifeline. Roosevelt, who feared that the public was not yet ready, was reluctant to take such a big “step forward” — to which Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson replied, “Well, I hope you will keep on walking, Mr. President. Keep on walking.”

Roosevelt did. He began allowing British ships to be repaired in American ports. He transferred coast guard cutters to the Royal Navy. He gained the Danish government’s permission to place Greenland under American control and authorized the establishment of bases there to help defend transatlantic shipping. In April, he authorized the Navy to begin working with the British on plans for escorting convoys. And although he continued to shy away from announcing such a policy openly — an April poll suggested the public was still opposed, 50-41 — he ordered U.S. naval patrols to help the British spot German subs.

A string of Nazi victories in the spring of 1941 made the situation more dire. German forces invaded and occupied Greece; Yugoslavia fell in 11 days. With Gen. Erwin Rommel leading his Afrika Korps, the Germans were punishing British and Australian forces in North Africa. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill begged Roosevelt to step up American assistance and even to enter the war officially. Unless the United States took “more advanced positions now, or very soon,” Churchill warned, “vast balances may be tilted heavily to our disadvantage.”

Roosevelt agreed that the situation was grave and pushed ahead as far as he thought the American public would allow. “Unless the advance of Hitlerism is forcibly checked now,” he warned in a speech at the end of May, “the Western Hemisphere will be within range of the Nazi weapons of destruction.” He issued a proclamation that “an unlimited national emergency exists” and called for “strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority.” In June, he ordered 4,000 U.S. Marines to take positions in Iceland, allowing British forces there to operate elsewhere. As Lord Halifax, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, observed, Roosevelt’s “perpetual problem was to steer a course between … (1) the wish of 70 percent of Americans to keep out of war; (2) the wish of 70 percent of Americans to do everything to break Hitler, even if it means war.”

On Sept. 4, 1941, a German submarine fired torpedoes at an American destroyer, the USS Greer, which in turn dropped depth charges. Even American officials believed the U-boat commander did not know he was firing at an American warship, but Roosevelt made the most of the incident. “This was no mere episode in a struggle between two nations,” he declared in a radio talk. It was part of a determined effort by Germany to create “a permanent world system based on force, on terror and on murder.” American security, he insisted, was now directly threatened. “For if the world outside of the Americas falls under Axis domination, the shipbuilding facilities which the Axis powers would then possess in all of Europe, in the British Isles and in the Far East would be much greater than all the shipbuilding facilities and potentialities of all of the Americas — not only greater, but two or three times greater — enough to win.” Roosevelt warned again that it was “time for all Americans … to stop being deluded by the romantic notion that the Americas can go on living happily and peacefully in a Nazi-dominated world.”

Nazi soldiers look over a French submarine under construction near Chalons, France, on July 12, 1940. (AP)
He then announced his new policy. “We have sought no shooting war with Hitler,” he told Americans, and “we do not seek it now.” But “when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.” The “Nazi submarines” were “the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic,” he declared. Therefore, “our patrolling vessels and planes will protect all merchant ships — not only American ships but ships of any flag — engaged in commerce in our defensive waters. … Let this warning be clear. From now on, if German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril.”

Roosevelt would later be accused of misleading Americans about the risks he was taking. In this case, however, he said he had “no illusions about the gravity of this step. I have not taken it hurriedly or lightly. It is the result of months and months of constant thought and anxiety and prayer. In the protection of your Nation and mine it cannot be avoided.”

As Roosevelt no doubt hoped and expected, the majority of Americans were with him on this latest escalation. Sixty-two percent of those polled approved of a policy of “shoot on sight.” As he also may have feared, however, Congress was less supportive. In an effort to bring the neutrality legislation in line with his new policies, Roosevelt first asked Congress to revise the legislation to allow American-flagged merchant ships to arm themselves for the transatlantic crossing. He then asked Congress for a further revision allowing American vessels to deliver Lend-Lease goods directly to British ports, instead of having the British pick them up at U.S. ports. This passed the Senate, but only by 50-37, the smallest majority of any foreign policy vote taken since the outbreak of the European war. In the House, revision passed by only 18 votes, 212-194, despite the Democrats’ 268-162 majority. It was clear to Roosevelt that it would take more time and more severe “incidents” to bring the country around.

Part of a U.S. bomber is moved onto a ship at the British port on Sept. 18, 1941. Under the Lend-Lease program, the United States provided war supplies to the Allies. (AP)
If Roosevelt was waiting for Hitler to fire the first shot, however, he would have to wait a long time. From giving almost no thought to the United States as a factor in the war, Hitler had since come to regard the Roosevelt-led Americans as a serious obstacle. By late 1940, all his strategic plans revolved around keeping the United States out of the war until he was ready to take it on.

Roosevelt’s reelection to a third term in November 1940 made the United States’ eventual involvement almost a certainty. In December, German intelligence noted that interventionist sentiment seemed to be growing, thanks largely to Roosevelt. Hitler and his advisers knew that in 1941 U.S. aircraft production would exceed that of the Reich and that by the end of 1941 the United States would possess a modern, well-equipped army with 1,500,000 troops. Hitler told Gen. Alfred Jodl in December 1940 that Germany needed to solve all continental problems in 1941 “because in 1942 the United States will be ready to intervene.”

German officials had long regarded Japan as a critical asset when it came to the United States. The Germans assumed that the United States would do anything to avoid a two-front war — always the Germans’ own nightmare — and that fear of Japan would force Roosevelt to keep the bulk of the American fleet in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic. In September 1940, Hitler told Mussolini that “a close cooperation with Japan” was the “best way either to keep America entirely out of the picture or to render her entry into the war ineffective.” Whether the Japanese could be induced to play this role, however, was uncertain and would be a continuing source of anxiety for Hitler for the next two years.

Japan’s hostility toward and fear of the United States had certainly grown in recent years. The first critical turning point had come in 1931 with the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. The attack badly damaged relations between Japan and the United States. It also both revealed and strengthened some new trends in Japanese society, particularly the growing influence of the military, and within the military, the growing influence of younger, more aggressive army officers. This was part of a broader shift in Japanese society. After a decade of relatively liberal and democratic government and cooperation with the United States and the West, many Japanese increasingly came to reject the Anglo-American liberal capitalist world order, and, indeed, liberalism itself, as a constraint on Japanese national ambitions. In 1934, the army ministry published a pamphlet denouncing the “ideas of liberalism, individualism, and internationalism which neglect the nation.” It called for “the education of the people in order to organize and control the great potential spiritual and physical energy of the imperial nation for the sake of national defense and to administer it in a unified manner.”

As in Germany, much of the drive for unity and national organization aimed at preparing the people for the great struggle ahead. If saving the Japanese soul, spirit and nation meant throwing off the dominating influences of the Anglo-American order, that could hardly be done while Japan remained dependent on, and therefore vulnerable to, American economic power. Military and civilian leaders insisted, as some of them had been doing for decades, that Japan’s survival required further expansion to acquire the resources necessary to relieve the dangerous dependence.

Some advocates of the “new order” in Asia believed it could be achieved without collision with the United States. Others feared that the United States would never tolerate Japanese expansion and control of China and would eventually seek to thwart it. Therefore, Japan had to move quickly to acquire the resources and power necessary to prevail in the inevitable conflict.

In practical terms, this meant striking out in new directions to end Japan’s dependence on the United States, particularly for that most vital of military resources, oil. The Imperial Navy argued for an expansion of naval power into the South Pacific to gain access to natural resources in advance of any possible conflict with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Only with secure access to the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies could Japan safeguard what it had already gained in China and prepare for future contingencies. In 1936, the Japanese leadership decided to pursue this southward advance.

Another turning point came in the spring of 1937. A new government came into office, headed by Prince Fumimaro Konoe, the man who two decades earlier had denounced the “Anglo-Saxon peace” and the relegation of Japan to the status of “have-not” nation. As prime minister, Konoe declared that peace could no longer be the sole object of Japanese foreign policy. It was time for Japan to “work out new principles of international peace from our own perspective.” The full-scale invasion of China that Japan launched in July brought into the open the fundamental clash between Japan and the West. After Japanese forces seized Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangdong, and Hankou, Konoe proclaimed the “New Order” on Nov. 3, 1938, just a month after the British and French capitulation at Munich.

The war in China boldly defied the West and accelerated the evolution of Japanese politics toward authoritarianism and militarism. In keeping with the conservative, antidemocratic trend, Konoe’s ministry launched the nation into a full-scale war economy. A national mobilization law gave the government broad powers as Japan poured more than 1 million troops into China over the first year of the war. When the Konoe government resigned in 1939, amidst popular frustration with the high cost and indeterminate results of the war, a new government led by a leading right-wing politician and founder of one of the nationalist antidemocratic societies further deepened the role of the state and the organization of society around the war effort. To Western observers, Japan had moved “a long way on the road to totalitarian statehood.”

If Hitler’s aim was to embroil the United States in a conflict with Japan in order to distract it from Europe, Roosevelt’s aim was not to be distracted. Throughout 1938, the State Department studied options for economic sanctions, which would require abrogating the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan, but Roosevelt had not been ready to take that step. In 1939, as public and congressional pressures increased, Roosevelt imposed what he called “moral embargoes” on aircraft and air munitions, intended to discourage American companies from selling such items to Japan. But that restriction proved limited. American companies were still allowed to export steel, aluminum, technology and aviation fuel.

The result was an American policy that neither accommodated nor deterred the Japanese. As Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes put it, dependence on American resources was a “noose” around the Japanese neck. Roosevelt was “unwilling to draw the noose tight” lest he force Tokyo’s hand, but he was willing to “give it a jerk now and then” to remind the Japanese of the possibility of strangulation.

Roosevelt’s ambivalent approach created a dilemma for the Japanese. As Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka put it at a critical meeting of senior officials in the fall of 1940, Japan could seek a return to cooperative relations with the United States and Great Britain. But it could only do so on the Anglo-Saxons’ terms. Any settlement would require giving up many of the gains made over the previous two decades and getting used to living with the American noose around their necks. Or they could try to remove the noose by acquiring the territory and resources that would relieve their dependence on the United States. This was what the Imperial Navy proposed to do with its plan for a southward advance into Indochina and toward the oil supply of the Dutch East Indies. That meant risking war with the United States.

At no time were the Japanese convinced they could win such a war. More than Hitler, they were acutely aware of their own vulnerability to the United States’ superior economic and industrial strength, its seemingly limitless resources, and its large population. War games consistently showed that Japan could score short-term victories owing to their initial military superiority over Anglo-American forces in the region and also to the inadequacy of American bases in the western Pacific. But within two or three years, the United States would develop sufficient military power to roll back Japanese victories and eventually threaten Japan itself. As the brilliant naval commander and tactician Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto put it, “If I am told to fight, regardless of the consequences, I shall run wild for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second or third years.”

The America trap
The United States’ intervention was at first disastrous. As Yamamoto predicted, the Japanese did “run wild” for the better part of a year. Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces attacked American bases in the Philippines. They destroyed half of the U.S. Far East air force on the ground along with its installations. American and Filipino army forces were driven back to Bataan, where they fought tenaciously before succumbing to hunger and disease. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was evacuated from the Philippines on March 11, 1942, and the remaining American and Filipino fighters surrendered on April 9. Tens of thousands were captured. Guam fell quickly, as it was almost entirely undefended, just as it had been for more than four decades. Americans suffered more casualties in a shorter span of time than in any conflict in their history other than the Civil War.

Meanwhile the British were suffering the “greatest disaster” in their entire history. They surrendered Hong Kong in a matter of weeks. Malaya fell in two months, as British and Indian forces were chewed up, British warships sunk, and tens of thousands taken prisoner. By the end of February, the Japanese Imperial Navy had met and destroyed the combined naval forces of the United States, the Dutch and the British. Rangoon and Burma fell on March 8. In less than six months, Japan had conquered a new empire of some 350 million people, three-fourths the size of the British Empire. All told, Japan conquered more territory in a shorter period of time than any nation in history. To win the war would require the United States, practically by itself, to fight its way back across the Pacific and roll back these massive strategic gains one island at a time.

At the same time, the United States began operations against German forces on the other side of the world. Taking the lead from the British, American forces drove the Germans out of North Africa and then began the attack through Italy. It would be two more years of brutal fighting, especially on the eastern front, before the United States led the Allied invasion of Germany that ultimately ended the war in Europe.

The Americans started slowly, just as they had during the First World War, but once the U.S. economy shifted fully into war production and as the large and healthy population geared itself up for war-fighting, the tide turned, just as it had in 1918. The U.S. Army, which had numbered 188,000 in 1939, swelled to 5.4 million by the end of 1942. At the end of the war, 12 million Americans were under arms, second in number only to the Soviet Union. American weapons production eclipsed all previous efforts. Shipyards produced almost 9,000 “major naval vessels” between 1941 and 1945, nearly 10 times the number produced by Britain in the same period and 16 times the number produced by Japan. In 1943 alone, the United States built 16 aircraft carriers, which more than replaced their early losses. The Japanese, who lost just as many in the early fighting, built none. American industry produced over 300,000 military aircraft during the war, more than Britain, Germany, and Japan combined. The United States also produced 90 percent of the Allies’ aviation fuel and, through Lend-Lease, supplied a quarter of all British munitions and over half of all military vehicles used by the Red Army. The Soviets acknowledged then and later that they never could have held out against the German onslaught without American financial and material assistance. “I drink to the American auto industry and the American oil industry,” Stalin remarked with conscious irony in 1943.

Meanwhile, the American economy soared. While every other great power’s economy collapsed under the strain of total war, U.S. GNP more than doubled. Eleven million Americans joined the armed forces, but 6 million more joined the ranks of the civilian workforce. This expansion allowed the American economy to increase military production without greatly limiting production of many non-war-related goods.

Workers assemble P-38 fighter planes in Burbank, Calif., on July 3, 1943 (AP)
The phenomenon of a single power fighting two full-scale wars on land and sea, financing and producing enough military equipment for itself and its allies, while at the same time also raising its people’s standard of living, was so unprecedented that Hitler could be forgiven for not having anticipated it. He admitted to the Japanese ambassador, soon after declaring war, that he did “not know yet” how “one defeats the USA.” He soon came to regard the war with America as “a tragedy, illogical, devoid of fundamental reality.”

Hitler, like everyone else, including Americans, had not fully realized how much the world had changed and how much the United States’ overwhelming power, both existing and potential, could affect the fate of would-be hegemons in Europe and Asia. But his underestimation of American power was reinforced by Americans’ behavior over the previous two decades.

Hitler fell into a trap unwittingly laid by American policymakers, Congress and the public. In the critical years of his rise to power, the consolidation of his rule, Hitler feared and expected the democracies would come after him during what he called that “perilous interval.” When they did not, and he was allowed to pass undisturbed through his time of greatest vulnerability, he grew overconfident. As early as 1935, Hitler and his lieutenants were already “absolutely drunk with power,” convinced that “the whole world” was afraid of them and would not move against them “no matter what” they did. He was emboldened to reoccupy the Rhineland in 1936 and then to move on to fulfill his ambitions in central Europe. When Roosevelt took office, it was already too late to knock Hitler off his course merely with strong words or even sanctions. By the time Roosevelt actually began trying to convince Americans that they would have to become involved in the general international crisis, both Hitler and the Japanese were so far down the road that they could not be deterred by anything short of a genuine threat of war, and perhaps not even by that.

It mattered a great deal that the United States and the democracies did not successfully contain either Germany or Japan in the late ’20s and early ’30s. The simultaneous rise of two aggressive major powers in two core regions of the world was harder to manage than each would have been by itself. Even though the two powers were never truly allied and consistently mistrusted one another, every German success in Europe spurred further Japanese aggression in Asia, and every Japanese victory in Asia strengthened Hitler’s resolve to press forward in Europe. Both assumed that the Allied powers, and especially the United States, would be distracted by the aggressive moves of the other and fearful of a two-front war. Strengthening this assumption was their common belief — in Japan’s case it was more of a wish and prayer — that the Americans would not fight for anything outside the Western Hemisphere.

How were the leaders of Japan and Germany to know that there would come a point at which Americans would completely change their minds and decide that the stakes were worth risking war? Here the America trap was sprung. By the time the United States finally decided to use its power, after almost two decades of deliberate inaction, it was too late for the Japanese to turn back without a catastrophic humiliation. For Hitler, any hope of deterrence ended after 1936, at the latest. As Churchill put it, “When the situation was manageable, it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/19/robert-kagan-america-trap-world-war-hitler-japan/?

The Australian, having a very normal one

Witty Rejoinder said:

ms spock said:

https://www.newslive.com/featured/msnbc.html

Hi MS. Could you also post a description of a link’s content so that we can decide whether to click it or not based on our interests.

Sure thing it was American news in time, so sadly yes you see the ads, in this particular case it was Nicole Wallace, Never Trumper Republican, pulling apart the latest in American politics. She does canvas a wide range of opinions and folks. Sometimes I am entranced by it all.

No one else might find it of any interest though!

If you click on that link you can see not only all the American news channels but also channels from around the world! Though there is not as many as there used to be.

Thanks Witty for reminding me to put more of a description. If you want to avoid the ads you can watch it on YouTube for a couple of hours before they get their legal letters and pull them down.

dv said:

The Australian, having a very normal one

true, Australia is the driest continent, their water tank must have been empty, very droll

dv said:

The Australian, having a very normal one

I have a bottle of champagne ready for when that evil pile of shit dies.

And I do look for the good side in everyone, but he doesn’t seem to have one.

If only he could do an Alfred Nobel, see his own obituary, and hopefully turn back into a human.

Witty Rejoinder said:

The America trap: Why our enemies often underestimate us

By Robert Kagan
Editor at large
January 19, 2023 at 9:21 a.m. EST

Editor’s note: The brief, unsettling moment in history between the end of World War I in 1918 and the United States’ entrance into World War II in late 1941 covers the same timespan as between 2000 and today: 23 years. America in that earlier interval moved from war footing to almost total isolation and then to fighting in an even more deadly conflict.

The United States’ instincts in the 1920s and 1930s, as historian and Opinions editor at large Robert Kagan reminds us, were decidedly insular. Americans saw their nation as a world power but balked at the responsibilities that came with it. That would prove hard to change.

In an exclusive adaptation from his new book, “The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941,” Kagan details the global rise of fascism beginning in 1925, tallies the miscalculations of Berlin and Tokyo as both pondered what they imagined to be a neutral United States, and reminds us that President Franklin D. Roosevelt built domestic support for intervention slowly — maybe too slowly — because he did not want to get ahead of the public.

In circumstances that may speak to the present, the combination of events created what Kagan calls “the America trap” — the tendency of our enemies and rivals to underestimate what the United States can accomplish when united.

•••

How quickly do times of apparent peace become times of conflict; seemingly stable world orders come crashing down; the hopes of many for improvement of the human condition are dashed and replaced by fear and despair.

For the first dozen years after World War I, the three powerful democracies — the United States, Britain and France — were in substantial control of world affairs, economically, politically and militarily. They established the terms of the peace settlement, redrew the borders of Europe, summoned new nations into being, distributed pieces of defunct empires, erected security arrangements, determined who owed what to whom, and how and when debts should be paid. They called together the conferences that determined the levels of armaments the major nations could possess.

All this was possible because they had won the war; because the United States and Britain controlled the banks and the seas; because France wielded predominant military power on the European continent. With this power, the three Western democracies sought to establish and consolidate a world system favorable to their interests and preferences. They argued over how best to do this, and they became increasingly estranged from each other in these years. But they all wanted a stable, prosperous and peaceful Europe. They all sought to preserve their global empires, or, in the United States’ case, its hemispheric hegemony. They all sought to defend the liberal, capitalist economic system that enriched and protected them and in which they believed. None doubted the rightness of their vision of international order or much questioned the justice of imposing it.

And there had been successes, certainly from their point of view. By the second half of the 1920s, the world had grown less violent and marginally less miserable. In Europe especially, economies were recovering, living standards were rising, general violence was down from the immediate postwar years, and the dangers of war and aggression seemed as low as they had been in decades. Internationally, trade had risen by more than 20 percent, despite growing protectionism, driven largely by the American economic boom. Nations spent more time discussing measures for peace than preparing for war. The League of Nations had come into its own. Germany seemed to be on a moderate, democratic course. In general, the threat of a return to autocracy and militarism seemed low. Democracy seemed to be ascendant.

The fascist challenge­­­

Even those who openly defied the new order had to move cautiously. The Soviets promoted their revolution abroad but not so aggressively as to challenge the dominant powers, and they wound up settling for “socialism in one country.” Benito Mussolini, ruling an Italy surrounded in the Mediterranean by British and French naval power and dependent on the United States for financial support, thought it best to play the responsible European statesman. The 1920s were his “decade of good behavior.”

Adolf Hitler, too, proceeded with caution as he ascended to power in the early ’30s. Impressed by the United States as “a giant state with unimaginable productive capacities” and by Anglo-American domination of the global economy, and well aware of the role it had played in selecting Germany’s past governments, he worked at first to soften Washington’s opposition to his rise. He reached out to the U.S. ambassador, gave numerous interviews to prominent American media figures, including William Randolph Hearst, in the hope of making “the personality of Adolf Hitler more accessible to the American people.” He promised to pay Germany’s “private debts” to American bankers and went out of his way to assure the English-speaking world that his national socialist movement would gain power only in a “purely legal way” in accordance with the “present constitution.” After taking power, he told the press and his own officials to play down the campaigns of antisemitism that began immediately. He sought to keep German rearmament under wraps in what he called the “perilous interval” during which the “whole world” was “against us.” Until the economy recovered and German rearmament was further along, he feared that the national socialist revolution could be crushed at any time by the superior power of the democracies.

It was remarkable how quickly the winds were shifting, though. An American journalist identified the moment when history pivoted. “In the first five years after the World War,” he wrote, “the nations of Europe, on their backs and seeking American aid, took all pains to avoid offending us and therefore appeared to give careful and weighty consideration to our altruistic advice. The succeeding five years have changed that.”

One indicator of the shifting trends was the declining fortunes of democracy throughout Europe. It was inevitable that some of the new democracies, implanted in lands that had never known such a form of government, would not survive. The rise of dictatorship in various forms in Hungary (1920), Italy (1925), Lithuania, Poland and Portugal (1926), Yugoslavia (1929), Romania (1930), Germany and Austria (1933), Bulgaria and Latvia (1934), and Greece (1935) had many internal and external causes, including the global depression that began around 1930. But the overall decline of European democracy from the second half of the 1920s onward, and the turn away from democracy in Japan, also reflected the declining influence and appeal of the great-power democracies and their order.

Liberal democracy was not just losing ground. It faced a potent challenge from a vibrant and revolutionary anti-liberal doctrine that attracted followers and imitators throughout Europe and beyond. Americans, British and French during World War I and for decades afterward assumed that Bolshevism posed the greatest threat to liberal democracy. But Bolshevism proved less easily exported than both its proponents and its opponents believed. Ostracized by the rest of Europe, the Soviet Union turned inward to wrestle with the transformation of its society. When democracies fell in the 1920s and ’30s, they fell to the Right, not the Left.

Mussolini’s fascism had many roots. Some of the fascist worldview was unique to the Italian experience, but some of it transcended national boundaries. Above all, fascism represented a rejection of liberalism and the postwar Anglo-American political and economic order that had been imposed on the peoples of the “have-not” nations. Fascism promised to restore national and ethnic identity and culture even while modernizing the nation to compete in an industrializing world. It glorified the people not as individuals but as a collective, with the nation serving as the vehicle for their common destiny. Individual rights and legal processes had to be subordinated to the popular will, a will that could only be understood, articulated and executed by a single charismatic national leader, il Duce, in whom the people could place their trust. By 1925, Mussolini introduced the idea of the “totalitarian” society, in which the state oversaw every aspect of life or, as he put it, “everything within the state, nothing outside the state.”

Fascism was not an ideology of peace. To revise or overthrow this unjust order would require military power and the will to use it. “Words are beautiful things,” Mussolini said, “but rifles, machine guns, ships, aircraft, and cannon are still more beautiful.” Society had to be purged of flabby liberalism, quarreling political parties and alien elements and forged into one unified collective fit for war. The people needed to be prepared for war by rigid control of politics, economics and society, and the elimination of all institutions that could stand in the way of the leader’s total power, from the church to the aristocracy to the remnants of monarchy. Hitler’s entire program was aimed at creating a new Germany that would not fail as Imperial Germany had in 1918. Democracy was “the most disastrous thing there is,” he told his top generals on the eve of taking power. “Only one person can and should give orders.” The German population had to learn to “think nationalistically and thus be welded together,” and this could only be accomplished by force.

This fervent nationalism had transnational appeal. “Whoever says that fascism is not an exportable commodity is mistaken,” Mussolini declared. He hoped and expected that it would become to the 20th century what liberalism had been to the 19th. He even tried to promote fascism in the United States. He saw himself as “the Pope of antidemocracy” leading an “antidemocratic crusade throughout the entire world.” In the 1920s and ’30s, fascist movements of varying hues and size cropped up in practically every nation in the world. It made less headway in Britain and the United States, where democracy was more firmly rooted, but it thrived in countries where liberal democratic institutions were new and fragile, including in France. Where fascism did not succeed, as in Romania and Hungary, it was usually because the government was already sufficiently right-wing and nationalist that fascists could not find an opening. Even in China, Chiang Kai-shek and his advisers marveled at how Mussolini had become “the greatest and most picturesque statesman in Europe” and thought that fascist Italy offered a model for how China could restore its national strength “through the revitalization of a past great civilization.”

Mussolini always had international ambitions, even if in the 1920s he lacked the means of pursuing them. He was encouraged by the Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the weak and faltering response of the League of Nations and the United States. When Japan announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, it was a sign that the other “have-not” nations might be willing and able to mount a rebellion against the Anglo-American system. But ultimately, it was to Germany that Mussolini looked for salvation. As far back as 1923, he had believed that the “axis of European history passes through Berlin.” He saw in Hitler’s rise to power the historic opportunity for which he had been waiting.

Hitler saw the fascist seizure of power in Italy as “a harbinger of his own success” and had such admiration for Mussolini that when they met for the first time in the summer of 1934, he had tears in his eyes. Mussolini believed a “community of destiny” united the fascist powers. The “alliance between the two nations,” his foreign minister declared, was based above all on the “identity between their political regimes.” By the mid-1930s, the Japanese had joined the anti-liberal club. As Yosuke Matsuoka, a leading Japanese fascist in the 1930s argued, each of the have-not nations was fighting for “recognition and its place in the eyes of the world.”

The entry of Japan into what Hitler would call the “triangle” of challengers to the Anglo-American system was the final step in a geopolitical revolution. As one Japanese author noted in 1934, the world now contained “two tinderboxes,” one in the western Pacific and one in Europe, and the two were “interlocked.” A crisis in one “can easily extend to the other and assume a global character.” Hitler believed that if the British were confronted not only by Germany and Italy in Europe but also by “a common organized force in the Far East,” they would have no choice but to accept Germany’s rise and even seek “common ground with this new political system.”

Accelerating toward war

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was an internationalist, but he spent his first term in office fighting the Great Depression and his second term trying to cajole Americans out of their rigid anti-interventionism. After the fall of France in 1940, he shifted into a more alarmist mode. The conquest of France gave the Germans new bases on the Atlantic coast from which to operate against British shipping and their naval convoys. This greatly extended the reach of the German U-boat fleet, which had grown more sophisticated in its tactics. The Germans by early 1941 were sinking British merchant ships at a rate more than five times Britain’s capacity to replace them. Roosevelt’s alarmed advisers argued for direct American military involvement to protect Britain’s transatlantic lifeline. Roosevelt, who feared that the public was not yet ready, was reluctant to take such a big “step forward” — to which Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson replied, “Well, I hope you will keep on walking, Mr. President. Keep on walking.”

Roosevelt did. He began allowing British ships to be repaired in American ports. He transferred coast guard cutters to the Royal Navy. He gained the Danish government’s permission to place Greenland under American control and authorized the establishment of bases there to help defend transatlantic shipping. In April, he authorized the Navy to begin working with the British on plans for escorting convoys. And although he continued to shy away from announcing such a policy openly — an April poll suggested the public was still opposed, 50-41 — he ordered U.S. naval patrols to help the British spot German subs.

A string of Nazi victories in the spring of 1941 made the situation more dire. German forces invaded and occupied Greece; Yugoslavia fell in 11 days. With Gen. Erwin Rommel leading his Afrika Korps, the Germans were punishing British and Australian forces in North Africa. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill begged Roosevelt to step up American assistance and even to enter the war officially. Unless the United States took “more advanced positions now, or very soon,” Churchill warned, “vast balances may be tilted heavily to our disadvantage.”

Roosevelt agreed that the situation was grave and pushed ahead as far as he thought the American public would allow. “Unless the advance of Hitlerism is forcibly checked now,” he warned in a speech at the end of May, “the Western Hemisphere will be within range of the Nazi weapons of destruction.” He issued a proclamation that “an unlimited national emergency exists” and called for “strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority.” In June, he ordered 4,000 U.S. Marines to take positions in Iceland, allowing British forces there to operate elsewhere. As Lord Halifax, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, observed, Roosevelt’s “perpetual problem was to steer a course between … (1) the wish of 70 percent of Americans to keep out of war; (2) the wish of 70 percent of Americans to do everything to break Hitler, even if it means war.”

On Sept. 4, 1941, a German submarine fired torpedoes at an American destroyer, the USS Greer, which in turn dropped depth charges. Even American officials believed the U-boat commander did not know he was firing at an American warship, but Roosevelt made the most of the incident. “This was no mere episode in a struggle between two nations,” he declared in a radio talk. It was part of a determined effort by Germany to create “a permanent world system based on force, on terror and on murder.” American security, he insisted, was now directly threatened. “For if the world outside of the Americas falls under Axis domination, the shipbuilding facilities which the Axis powers would then possess in all of Europe, in the British Isles and in the Far East would be much greater than all the shipbuilding facilities and potentialities of all of the Americas — not only greater, but two or three times greater — enough to win.” Roosevelt warned again that it was “time for all Americans … to stop being deluded by the romantic notion that the Americas can go on living happily and peacefully in a Nazi-dominated world.”

Nazi soldiers look over a French submarine under construction near Chalons, France, on July 12, 1940. (AP)
He then announced his new policy. “We have sought no shooting war with Hitler,” he told Americans, and “we do not seek it now.” But “when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.” The “Nazi submarines” were “the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic,” he declared. Therefore, “our patrolling vessels and planes will protect all merchant ships — not only American ships but ships of any flag — engaged in commerce in our defensive waters. … Let this warning be clear. From now on, if German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril.”

Roosevelt would later be accused of misleading Americans about the risks he was taking. In this case, however, he said he had “no illusions about the gravity of this step. I have not taken it hurriedly or lightly. It is the result of months and months of constant thought and anxiety and prayer. In the protection of your Nation and mine it cannot be avoided.”

As Roosevelt no doubt hoped and expected, the majority of Americans were with him on this latest escalation. Sixty-two percent of those polled approved of a policy of “shoot on sight.” As he also may have feared, however, Congress was less supportive. In an effort to bring the neutrality legislation in line with his new policies, Roosevelt first asked Congress to revise the legislation to allow American-flagged merchant ships to arm themselves for the transatlantic crossing. He then asked Congress for a further revision allowing American vessels to deliver Lend-Lease goods directly to British ports, instead of having the British pick them up at U.S. ports. This passed the Senate, but only by 50-37, the smallest majority of any foreign policy vote taken since the outbreak of the European war. In the House, revision passed by only 18 votes, 212-194, despite the Democrats’ 268-162 majority. It was clear to Roosevelt that it would take more time and more severe “incidents” to bring the country around.

Part of a U.S. bomber is moved onto a ship at the British port on Sept. 18, 1941. Under the Lend-Lease program, the United States provided war supplies to the Allies. (AP)
If Roosevelt was waiting for Hitler to fire the first shot, however, he would have to wait a long time. From giving almost no thought to the United States as a factor in the war, Hitler had since come to regard the Roosevelt-led Americans as a serious obstacle. By late 1940, all his strategic plans revolved around keeping the United States out of the war until he was ready to take it on.

Roosevelt’s reelection to a third term in November 1940 made the United States’ eventual involvement almost a certainty. In December, German intelligence noted that interventionist sentiment seemed to be growing, thanks largely to Roosevelt. Hitler and his advisers knew that in 1941 U.S. aircraft production would exceed that of the Reich and that by the end of 1941 the United States would possess a modern, well-equipped army with 1,500,000 troops. Hitler told Gen. Alfred Jodl in December 1940 that Germany needed to solve all continental problems in 1941 “because in 1942 the United States will be ready to intervene.”

German officials had long regarded Japan as a critical asset when it came to the United States. The Germans assumed that the United States would do anything to avoid a two-front war — always the Germans’ own nightmare — and that fear of Japan would force Roosevelt to keep the bulk of the American fleet in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic. In September 1940, Hitler told Mussolini that “a close cooperation with Japan” was the “best way either to keep America entirely out of the picture or to render her entry into the war ineffective.” Whether the Japanese could be induced to play this role, however, was uncertain and would be a continuing source of anxiety for Hitler for the next two years.

Japan’s hostility toward and fear of the United States had certainly grown in recent years. The first critical turning point had come in 1931 with the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. The attack badly damaged relations between Japan and the United States. It also both revealed and strengthened some new trends in Japanese society, particularly the growing influence of the military, and within the military, the growing influence of younger, more aggressive army officers. This was part of a broader shift in Japanese society. After a decade of relatively liberal and democratic government and cooperation with the United States and the West, many Japanese increasingly came to reject the Anglo-American liberal capitalist world order, and, indeed, liberalism itself, as a constraint on Japanese national ambitions. In 1934, the army ministry published a pamphlet denouncing the “ideas of liberalism, individualism, and internationalism which neglect the nation.” It called for “the education of the people in order to organize and control the great potential spiritual and physical energy of the imperial nation for the sake of national defense and to administer it in a unified manner.”

As in Germany, much of the drive for unity and national organization aimed at preparing the people for the great struggle ahead. If saving the Japanese soul, spirit and nation meant throwing off the dominating influences of the Anglo-American order, that could hardly be done while Japan remained dependent on, and therefore vulnerable to, American economic power. Military and civilian leaders insisted, as some of them had been doing for decades, that Japan’s survival required further expansion to acquire the resources necessary to relieve the dangerous dependence.

Some advocates of the “new order” in Asia believed it could be achieved without collision with the United States. Others feared that the United States would never tolerate Japanese expansion and control of China and would eventually seek to thwart it. Therefore, Japan had to move quickly to acquire the resources and power necessary to prevail in the inevitable conflict.

In practical terms, this meant striking out in new directions to end Japan’s dependence on the United States, particularly for that most vital of military resources, oil. The Imperial Navy argued for an expansion of naval power into the South Pacific to gain access to natural resources in advance of any possible conflict with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Only with secure access to the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies could Japan safeguard what it had already gained in China and prepare for future contingencies. In 1936, the Japanese leadership decided to pursue this southward advance.

Another turning point came in the spring of 1937. A new government came into office, headed by Prince Fumimaro Konoe, the man who two decades earlier had denounced the “Anglo-Saxon peace” and the relegation of Japan to the status of “have-not” nation. As prime minister, Konoe declared that peace could no longer be the sole object of Japanese foreign policy. It was time for Japan to “work out new principles of international peace from our own perspective.” The full-scale invasion of China that Japan launched in July brought into the open the fundamental clash between Japan and the West. After Japanese forces seized Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangdong, and Hankou, Konoe proclaimed the “New Order” on Nov. 3, 1938, just a month after the British and French capitulation at Munich.

The war in China boldly defied the West and accelerated the evolution of Japanese politics toward authoritarianism and militarism. In keeping with the conservative, antidemocratic trend, Konoe’s ministry launched the nation into a full-scale war economy. A national mobilization law gave the government broad powers as Japan poured more than 1 million troops into China over the first year of the war. When the Konoe government resigned in 1939, amidst popular frustration with the high cost and indeterminate results of the war, a new government led by a leading right-wing politician and founder of one of the nationalist antidemocratic societies further deepened the role of the state and the organization of society around the war effort. To Western observers, Japan had moved “a long way on the road to totalitarian statehood.”

If Hitler’s aim was to embroil the United States in a conflict with Japan in order to distract it from Europe, Roosevelt’s aim was not to be distracted. Throughout 1938, the State Department studied options for economic sanctions, which would require abrogating the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan, but Roosevelt had not been ready to take that step. In 1939, as public and congressional pressures increased, Roosevelt imposed what he called “moral embargoes” on aircraft and air munitions, intended to discourage American companies from selling such items to Japan. But that restriction proved limited. American companies were still allowed to export steel, aluminum, technology and aviation fuel.

The result was an American policy that neither accommodated nor deterred the Japanese. As Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes put it, dependence on American resources was a “noose” around the Japanese neck. Roosevelt was “unwilling to draw the noose tight” lest he force Tokyo’s hand, but he was willing to “give it a jerk now and then” to remind the Japanese of the possibility of strangulation.

Roosevelt’s ambivalent approach created a dilemma for the Japanese. As Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka put it at a critical meeting of senior officials in the fall of 1940, Japan could seek a return to cooperative relations with the United States and Great Britain. But it could only do so on the Anglo-Saxons’ terms. Any settlement would require giving up many of the gains made over the previous two decades and getting used to living with the American noose around their necks. Or they could try to remove the noose by acquiring the territory and resources that would relieve their dependence on the United States. This was what the Imperial Navy proposed to do with its plan for a southward advance into Indochina and toward the oil supply of the Dutch East Indies. That meant risking war with the United States.

At no time were the Japanese convinced they could win such a war. More than Hitler, they were acutely aware of their own vulnerability to the United States’ superior economic and industrial strength, its seemingly limitless resources, and its large population. War games consistently showed that Japan could score short-term victories owing to their initial military superiority over Anglo-American forces in the region and also to the inadequacy of American bases in the western Pacific. But within two or three years, the United States would develop sufficient military power to roll back Japanese victories and eventually threaten Japan itself. As the brilliant naval commander and tactician Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto put it, “If I am told to fight, regardless of the consequences, I shall run wild for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second or third years.”

The America trap
The United States’ intervention was at first disastrous. As Yamamoto predicted, the Japanese did “run wild” for the better part of a year. Ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces attacked American bases in the Philippines. They destroyed half of the U.S. Far East air force on the ground along with its installations. American and Filipino army forces were driven back to Bataan, where they fought tenaciously before succumbing to hunger and disease. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was evacuated from the Philippines on March 11, 1942, and the remaining American and Filipino fighters surrendered on April 9. Tens of thousands were captured. Guam fell quickly, as it was almost entirely undefended, just as it had been for more than four decades. Americans suffered more casualties in a shorter span of time than in any conflict in their history other than the Civil War.

Meanwhile the British were suffering the “greatest disaster” in their entire history. They surrendered Hong Kong in a matter of weeks. Malaya fell in two months, as British and Indian forces were chewed up, British warships sunk, and tens of thousands taken prisoner. By the end of February, the Japanese Imperial Navy had met and destroyed the combined naval forces of the United States, the Dutch and the British. Rangoon and Burma fell on March 8. In less than six months, Japan had conquered a new empire of some 350 million people, three-fourths the size of the British Empire. All told, Japan conquered more territory in a shorter period of time than any nation in history. To win the war would require the United States, practically by itself, to fight its way back across the Pacific and roll back these massive strategic gains one island at a time.

At the same time, the United States began operations against German forces on the other side of the world. Taking the lead from the British, American forces drove the Germans out of North Africa and then began the attack through Italy. It would be two more years of brutal fighting, especially on the eastern front, before the United States led the Allied invasion of Germany that ultimately ended the war in Europe.

The Americans started slowly, just as they had during the First World War, but once the U.S. economy shifted fully into war production and as the large and healthy population geared itself up for war-fighting, the tide turned, just as it had in 1918. The U.S. Army, which had numbered 188,000 in 1939, swelled to 5.4 million by the end of 1942. At the end of the war, 12 million Americans were under arms, second in number only to the Soviet Union. American weapons production eclipsed all previous efforts. Shipyards produced almost 9,000 “major naval vessels” between 1941 and 1945, nearly 10 times the number produced by Britain in the same period and 16 times the number produced by Japan. In 1943 alone, the United States built 16 aircraft carriers, which more than replaced their early losses. The Japanese, who lost just as many in the early fighting, built none. American industry produced over 300,000 military aircraft during the war, more than Britain, Germany, and Japan combined. The United States also produced 90 percent of the Allies’ aviation fuel and, through Lend-Lease, supplied a quarter of all British munitions and over half of all military vehicles used by the Red Army. The Soviets acknowledged then and later that they never could have held out against the German onslaught without American financial and material assistance. “I drink to the American auto industry and the American oil industry,” Stalin remarked with conscious irony in 1943.

Meanwhile, the American economy soared. While every other great power’s economy collapsed under the strain of total war, U.S. GNP more than doubled. Eleven million Americans joined the armed forces, but 6 million more joined the ranks of the civilian workforce. This expansion allowed the American economy to increase military production without greatly limiting production of many non-war-related goods.

Workers assemble P-38 fighter planes in Burbank, Calif., on July 3, 1943 (AP)
The phenomenon of a single power fighting two full-scale wars on land and sea, financing and producing enough military equipment for itself and its allies, while at the same time also raising its people’s standard of living, was so unprecedented that Hitler could be forgiven for not having anticipated it. He admitted to the Japanese ambassador, soon after declaring war, that he did “not know yet” how “one defeats the USA.” He soon came to regard the war with America as “a tragedy, illogical, devoid of fundamental reality.”

Hitler, like everyone else, including Americans, had not fully realized how much the world had changed and how much the United States’ overwhelming power, both existing and potential, could affect the fate of would-be hegemons in Europe and Asia. But his underestimation of American power was reinforced by Americans’ behavior over the previous two decades.

Hitler fell into a trap unwittingly laid by American policymakers, Congress and the public. In the critical years of his rise to power, the consolidation of his rule, Hitler feared and expected the democracies would come after him during what he called that “perilous interval.” When they did not, and he was allowed to pass undisturbed through his time of greatest vulnerability, he grew overconfident. As early as 1935, Hitler and his lieutenants were already “absolutely drunk with power,” convinced that “the whole world” was afraid of them and would not move against them “no matter what” they did. He was emboldened to reoccupy the Rhineland in 1936 and then to move on to fulfill his ambitions in central Europe. When Roosevelt took office, it was already too late to knock Hitler off his course merely with strong words or even sanctions. By the time Roosevelt actually began trying to convince Americans that they would have to become involved in the general international crisis, both Hitler and the Japanese were so far down the road that they could not be deterred by anything short of a genuine threat of war, and perhaps not even by that.

It mattered a great deal that the United States and the democracies did not successfully contain either Germany or Japan in the late ’20s and early ’30s. The simultaneous rise of two aggressive major powers in two core regions of the world was harder to manage than each would have been by itself. Even though the two powers were never truly allied and consistently mistrusted one another, every German success in Europe spurred further Japanese aggression in Asia, and every Japanese victory in Asia strengthened Hitler’s resolve to press forward in Europe. Both assumed that the Allied powers, and especially the United States, would be distracted by the aggressive moves of the other and fearful of a two-front war. Strengthening this assumption was their common belief — in Japan’s case it was more of a wish and prayer — that the Americans would not fight for anything outside the Western Hemisphere.

How were the leaders of Japan and Germany to know that there would come a point at which Americans would completely change their minds and decide that the stakes were worth risking war? Here the America trap was sprung. By the time the United States finally decided to use its power, after almost two decades of deliberate inaction, it was too late for the Japanese to turn back without a catastrophic humiliation. For Hitler, any hope of deterrence ended after 1936, at the latest. As Churchill put it, “When the situation was manageable, it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/19/robert-kagan-america-trap-world-war-hitler-japan/?

A well written piece from an American perspective.
However it doesn’t establish that there was an “American trap” as such, rather things just played out as history unfolded.

Chris Hipkins, current Education minister, will be the new NZ PM.

dv said:

Chris Hipkins, current Education minister, will be the new NZ PM.

Bringing a ranga to the crease.

Ardern’s covid policy was her ‘greatest legacy’ — but also her undoing
New Zealand’s prime minister says she slept well ‘for the first time in a long time’ after announcing resignation

By Michael E. Miller
January 20, 2023 at 4:29 a.m. EST

SYDNEY — Jacinda Ardern was on a work trip to a beach town in northern New Zealand almost exactly a year ago when her van was suddenly surrounded by anti-vaccine protesters. They called the prime minister a “Nazi” for requiring some workers get a coronavirus vaccine, and chanted “shame on you.” Some screamed obscenities. When a car tried to block Ardern’s exit, her van was forced to drive onto the curb to escape.

When asked about the incident a few days later, Ardern chuckled and shrugged it off.

“Every day is faced with new and different experiences in this job,” she said. “We are in an environment at the moment that does have an intensity to it that is unusual for New Zealand. I do also believe that with time it will pass.”

A little more than a month later, however, protests outside Parliament against vaccine mandates literally exploded into flames. Demonstrators set their own tents and gas canisters ablaze. Protesters pelted police with the same paving stones on which they’d written warnings to Ardern and other politicians that they’d “hang them high.” More than 120 people were arrested.

This time, Ardern didn’t shrug. Instead, she seemed angry and baffled.

“One day, it will be our job to try to understand how a group of people could succumb to such wild and dangerous mis- and disinformation,” she said.

In the end, New Zealand’s new era of intense rhetoric and dangerous disinformation will outlast Ardern, who announced Thursday that she was stepping down after more than five years in office.

“I know what this job takes,” the 42-year-old said in an emotional resignation speech. “And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice.”

On Saturday, the ruling Labour Party announced that it had nominated cabinet minister Chris Hipkins to replace Ardern, after he was the only lawmaker to enter the contest. Hipkins will still need an endorsement from his Labour Party colleagues in parliament — a vote that will take place Sunday.

In her speech, Ardern didn’t mention the protests or the extreme rhetoric or the threats she faced. But she did mention the coronavirus pandemic. And in many ways, her management of the health crisis was her greatest success, but it also made her a divisive figure in New Zealand.

“I think it will probably be her greatest legacy,” said Michael Baker, an epidemiologist who served as an outside adviser to Ardern’s government during the pandemic. He likened Ardern to Winston Churchill, who shepherded the United Kingdom through World War II only to lose the 1945 election.

“It’s very hard to even imagine navigating through such an extreme threat that has been so prolonged,” he said. “At the end of it there was a deep bitterness over the experience people had been through, and unfortunately to some extent it’s been directed at her even though she’s done an extraordinary job.”

Ardern acted quickly at the outset of the pandemic, closing her country’s borders to foreigners even though tourism is one of New Zealand’s biggest industries. That decision, coupled with stringent quarantine requirements for returning New Zealanders and snap lockdowns, kept her country largely covid-free until early last year.

By the time the virus did become widespread in New Zealand, the vast majority of adults had been immunized. As a result, the country of about 5 million people has recorded fewer than 2,500 covid-19 fatalities — the lowest covid-related death rate in the Western world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

New Zealand’s mortality rate is still so low that fewer people have died than in normal times, Baker noted.

For almost two years, the charismatic Ardern was the global face of “zero covid”: an approach that drew admiration from other countries and also seemed to dovetail with her personal style of consensus-based governance. In the fight against covid, she referred to New Zealanders as “our team of 5 million.”

But that sense of team unity began to fray in late 2021, when Ardern introduced requirements that some types of workers be vaccinated, and that proof of vaccination be shown to enter gyms, hairdressers, events, cafes and restaurants.

“From a public health view it saved many lives, but it had this political cost,” Baker admits. “It probably contributed to the intensity of the anti-vaccine movement in that it was seized on by some groups who called it the ‘overreach’ of the state.”

The same policies that made New Zealand and its prime minister a zero-covid success also made Ardern a lightning rod for anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine ardor.

“Because she was such a global and public symbol, she did become the focus of a lot of those attacks,” said Richard Jackson, professor of peace studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

“Their opinion was that she was destroying New Zealand society and bringing in ‘communist rule,’ and yet the whole world seemed to be praising her and lauding her,” he added. “It irritated the hell out of them.”

Protesters began following her around the country, from the van incident in the northern seaside town of Paihia in January last year to a similar incident in the South Island a few weeks later, when Ardern visited an elementary school only to be called a “murderer” by protesters waiting outside.

Hundreds of anti-mandate and anti-vaccine protesters also gathered on the lawn of Parliament in Wellington. Some put up signs that mocked Ardern in misogynistic fashion or compared her to Hitler. Others hung nooses reminiscent of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Protesters against coronavirus vaccine mandates and restrictions clash with police outside Parliament House in Wellington, New Zealand, on March 2, 2022. (Cameron James McLaren for The Washington Post)
The rise in extremist rhetoric and baseless theories in New Zealand has been partly fueled by far-right movements in the United States and Europe, Jackson said, including pundits such as Tucker Carlson, who often took aim at Ardern. The prime minister herself called it an “imported style of protest that we have not seen in New Zealand before.”

After increasingly aggressive behavior by the protesters, including some hurling feces at police, officers in riot gear began to clear Parliament grounds on the morning of March 2. Some protesters fought back, turning their camping equipment into incendiary weapons.

Ardern reminded people that “thousands more lives were saved over the past two years by your actions as New Zealanders than were on the front lawn of Parliament today.”

In the eyes of some, however, the moment marked a turning point for the country.

“The nooses, the misogyny, the hate, the level of people advocating violence, people threatening to hang politicians, that’s not part of the New Zealand tradition of politics,” said Alexander Gillespie, professor of law at the University of Waikato.

“It was a huge shock to the country,” said Jackson, who described the protests as the most violent since clashes during the 1981 visit of the apartheid-era South African rugby team. “The way it ended, I think, kind of brought home to everyone that what we thought of as quite moderate and peaceful and tolerant politics might have ended, and we now have a much more intense, polarized and extreme” atmosphere, he said.

A fire rages outside Parliament House in Wellington, New Zealand, on March 2, 2022, after authorities cleared a camp site of protesters against coronavirus vaccine mandates. (Cameron James McLaren/FTWP)
The vitriol continued even after her announcement Thursday: The owner of a bar in Nelson posted a doctored photo of Ardern in a wood chipper being towed by a hearse, but took it down after receiving complaints.

In recent months, Ardern’s broader popularity had begun to slip. The Labour Party she led to a sweeping and historic victory little more than two years ago now trails its rival in the polls, and her party is widely expected to lose this year’s election.

Like Churchill, Ardern had led her country through a dark time, but eventually lost the support of a crisis-weary populace, Baker said.

But the decision appears to have removed a weight from the prime minister’s shoulders. She told reporters Friday morning that she’d “slept well for the first time in a long time.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/20/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-covid-resignation/?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

dv said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

Their nasty 20th century history is surprisingly glossed over.

dv said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

I didn’t know it was on. Not very well advertised.

Maybe we could replace the Australia Day Public Holiday with a Fuck Belgium Public Holiday instead… that should keep all parties happy.

party_pants said:

dv said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

I didn’t know it was on. Not very well advertised.

Maybe we could replace the Australia Day Public Holiday with a Fuck Belgium Public Holiday instead… that should keep all parties happy.

And buy cheap Coles Belgian chocolate instead of the more expensive branded stuff.

party_pants said:

dv said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

I didn’t know it was on. Not very well advertised.

Maybe we could replace the Australia Day Public Holiday with a Fuck Belgium Public Holiday instead… that should keep all parties happy.

Or better still, Fuck Quebec Day.

Bubblecar said:

party_pants said:

dv said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

What did you all buy me for Fuck Belgium day?

I didn’t know it was on. Not very well advertised.

Maybe we could replace the Australia Day Public Holiday with a Fuck Belgium Public Holiday instead… that should keep all parties happy.

And buy cheap Coles Belgian chocolate instead of the more expensive branded stuff.

I don’t eat much chocolate so I can boycott that … but I can’t promise not to touch Belgian Beer.

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

It’s probably always been a world full of vicious liars. Just that these days they’re given their own shows.

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

Sadly TC’s text messages with Alex Jones were rather innocuous so he won’t be thrown in jail anytime soon.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

It’s probably always been a world full of vicious liars. Just that these days they’re given their own shows.

hey that’s no way to talk about a Kiwi politician who has compassionate interactions with CHINA and other antipandemic states

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

They say she could eat an apple through a tennis racket.

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Peak Warming Man said:

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Idk I think it is probably wise to sign off on your own terms. It is a rare privilege for a commonwealth Prime Minister.

Peak Warming Man said:

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Running a country is a bit more demanding than driving between retreats and saying hello to a few cows.

Bubblecar said:

Peak Warming Man said:

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Running a country is a bit more demanding than driving between retreats and saying hello to a few cows.

And let’s not forget that PWM has never found a woman he didn’t dislike.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Bubblecar said:

Peak Warming Man said:

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Running a country is a bit more demanding than driving between retreats and saying hello to a few cows.

And let’s not forget that PWM has never found a woman he didn’t dislike.

He loves his cows.

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

far out.

sarahs mum said:

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

far out.

I’d say he’s been eating the wrong tucker.

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

Bit rich for the Russian agent to be calling people Chinese agents…

Bubblecar said:

Peak Warming Man said:

When the going gets tough Jacinta gets going.

Running a country is a bit more demanding than driving between retreats and saying hello to a few cows.

we won’t have you talking about our Albanese like that oh please

party_pants said:

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

Bit rich for the Russian agent to be calling people Chinese agents…

like these agents https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-22/rent-increases-without-landlords-permission-perth-/101876684 double

fools, who doesn’t like a nice warm car to get back into after a nice summer’s day out

SCIENCE said:

fools, who doesn’t like a nice warm car to get back into after a nice summer’s day out

Pity you seem to think it’s a bad idea. I think it is Rather Good.

Michael V said:

SCIENCE said:

fools, who doesn’t like a nice warm car to get back into after a nice summer’s day out

Pity you seem to think it’s a bad idea. I think it is Rather Good.

Electric cars can then plug into it.

Michael V said:

SCIENCE said:

fools, who doesn’t like a nice warm car to get back into after a nice summer’s day out

Pity you seem to think it’s a bad idea. I think it is Rather Good.

Often hard to tell what SCIENCE is really thinking :)

It does seem strange to me that shopping centre car parks, and other commercial car parks, are so slow to install solar on their roof top parking. Surely it would save them money, and also provide more shaded parking.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

SCIENCE said:

fools, who doesn’t like a nice warm car to get back into after a nice summer’s day out

Pity you seem to think it’s a bad idea. I think it is Rather Good.

Often hard to tell what SCIENCE is really thinking :)

It does seem strange to me that shopping centre car parks, and other commercial car parks, are so slow to install solar on their roof top parking. Surely it would save them money, and also provide more shaded parking.

I reckon that it is a Grand Idea.

Michael V said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Michael V said:

Pity you seem to think it’s a bad idea. I think it is Rather Good.

Often hard to tell what SCIENCE is really thinking :)

It does seem strange to me that shopping centre car parks, and other commercial car parks, are so slow to install solar on their roof top parking. Surely it would save them money, and also provide more shaded parking.

I reckon that it is a Grand Idea.

I believe SCIENCE was being sarky. It is his second language.

ChrispenEvan said:

Michael V said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Often hard to tell what SCIENCE is really thinking :)

It does seem strange to me that shopping centre car parks, and other commercial car parks, are so slow to install solar on their roof top parking. Surely it would save them money, and also provide more shaded parking.

I reckon that it is a Grand Idea.

I believe SCIENCE was being sarky. It is his second language.

It might even be his first language.

waves to Mr V

YUKKA DUKKA DOOOOOOOOO!! 😎

You’ll need to turn your head sideways.

Woodie said:

waves to Mr V

YUKKA DUKKA DOOOOOOOOO!! 😎

You’ll need to turn your head sideways.

Cool!

Michael V said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Michael V said:

I reckon that it is a Grand Idea.

I believe SCIENCE was being sarky. It is his second language.

It might even be his first language.

sorry allow us to add this

interestingly it’s from

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40095-019-0311-2

so you could imagine they had thought of thermocoupling it up to charge the batteries or something

SCIENCE said:

Michael V said:

ChrispenEvan said:

I believe SCIENCE was being sarky. It is his second language.

It might even be his first language.

sorry allow us to add this

interestingly it’s from

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40095-019-0311-2

so you could imagine they had thought of thermocoupling it up to charge the batteries or something

Interesting article, thanks.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

“The appalling Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern — that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens — has just announced she is leaving office…What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government? We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”
— Fox host Tucker Carlson

It’s probably always been a world full of vicious liars. Just that these days they’re given their own shows.

They would sit at the local pub, everyone would roll their eyes and go on as if they didn’t say anything and moved on.

wait up

Scholz urges swift EU-Mercosur free trade deal on first South America trip

https://www.reuters.com/world/germanys-scholz-sets-off-first-south-american-tour-boost-trade-environment-ties-2023-01-28/

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 28 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday urged a swift conclusion to talks on a free trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur South American trade bloc, on the first stop in Buenos Aires of his inaugural tour of the region.

Seeking to reduce Germany’s economic reliance on China, diversify its trade and strengthen relations with democracies worldwide, Scholz is visiting Argentina, Chile and Brazil, all led by fellow leftists who came to power in the region’s new “pink tide.”

dv said:

What?, actually working for a living?

That’s unAfghanian!

Someone should blow them up.

And leave the money on the fridge, ya purple valiant driving wog!

The samurai must have missed out on so much hilarity because they didn’t have flash plugins.

dv said:

Fuck me, it was an 8 to 4 job; does no cunt read these things?

Kingy said:

The samurai must have missed out on so much hilarity because they didn’t have flash plugins.

No one flashed either, if he did flash he might get a plug-in.

Dunno.

totally argument winning line slam dunks communism

oh what

ah sorry we mean this is the best argument for having free speech instead of hermit communism ever

Heather Cox Richardson
1 m ·
February 10, 2023 (Friday)
Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

Democracy stands on the principle of equality for all people, and those who are turning away from democracy, including the right wing in the United States, object to that equality. They worry that equal rights for women and minorities—especially LGBTQ people—will undermine traditional religion and traditional power structures. They believe democracy saps the morals of a country and are eager for a strong leader who will use the power of the government to reinforce their worldview.
But empowering a strongman ends oversight and enables those in power to think of themselves as above the law. In the short term, it permits those in power to use the apparatus of their government to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of their country. Their supporters don’t care: they are willing to accept the cost of corruption so long as the government persecutes those they see as their enemies. But that deal is vulnerable when it becomes clear the government cannot respond to an immediate public crisis.

That equation is painfully clear right now in Turkey and Syria, where more than 380,000 people are homeless after Monday’s devastating earthquakes. The death toll has climbed to more than 23,000, and more than 78,000 are injured. So far. Just a month ago, Turkey’s president President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised that the country had the fastest and most effective system of response to disaster in the world.

But that promise has been exposed as a lie. As Jen Kirby pointed out in Vox yesterday, Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who have been moving the country toward autocracy, rose to power thanks to a construction boom in the 2010s that both drove economic growth and permitted Erdoğan to hand out contracts to his supporters. The collapse of more than 6,400 buildings in Monday’s quakes have brought attention to cost cutting and bribery to get around building codes. At the same time, since a big quake in 1999, homeowners have been paying an earthquake tax that should, by now, have been worth tens of billions of dollars, but none of that money seems to be available, and Erdoğan won’t say where it went.

“This is a time for unity, solidarity,” Erdoğan told reporters. “In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest.” He has shut down media coverage of the crisis and cracked down on social media as well. Elections in Turkey are scheduled for May 14. Erdoğan was already facing a difficult reelection.
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad also has to deal with the horrific scenario. Aid groups are having trouble getting assistance to hard-hit areas controlled by opponents of the regime during the country’s ongoing civil war. Assad has blamed western sanctions, imposed against his regime because of its murder of his opponents, for the slow response to the earthquake, but his government has blocked western aid to areas controlled by his opposition. The U.S. has issued a six-month sanctions exemption for relief in Syria.

Russia is also in trouble as its recent invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a protracted war, but it maintains it will continue to extend its new imperial project. On Tuesday, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, spoke openly of attacking Poland after conquering Ukraine. It was time, he said, for the West to fall to its knees before Russia, and he predicted Ukraine would be Russia’s before the end of 2023. Poland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and an attack on it would bring the rest of the NATO countries, including the U.S., to its aid.
Today, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people that borders Ukraine and has been under tremendous pressure from Russia, enduring soaring inflation, an inflow of Ukrainian refugees, and power cuts after Russian attacks on Ukraines’ grid, saw its government resign. That government has worked to move closer to European allies and has applied for admission to the European Union. Russia has sought to destabilize that government and has recently appeared to be planning to invade the country. Moldovan president Maia Sandu has nominated a new prime minister, one that intends to continue orienting the country toward Europe.

The U.S. has stood solidly against Russia’s ambitions, but our own right wing is increasingly supportive of Putin, liking his stand against LGBTQ people, his embrace of religion, and his ruthless determination to impose that vision on his country. Yesterday the president and chief executive officer of Elon Musk’s SpaceX admitted the company has blocked the ability of Ukrainian troops to use the Starlink satellite system to advance against Russia. In October, Musk drew fire for proposing a “peace” plan that would give Russia the territory it has claimed from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil met with President Joe Biden at the White House today. (His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of former president Trump, staged a coup against Lula and is now hanging out in Florida hoping to score a U.S. tourist visa.) In their meeting, Biden and Lula emphasized democracy.

Biden noted that both democracies had been tested lately and that we stand together, rejecting political violence and putting great value in our democratic institutions: the rule of law, freedom, and equality.

Through an interpreter, Lula expanded on what that means. He noted that Brazil had “self-marginalized” under Bolsonaro, rejecting the world and turning inward. But, he said, “Brazil is a country that people enjoy peace, democracy, work, and Carnival, and samba, and a lot of joy. This is the Brazil that we’re trying to reposition in the world.” He called for making sure no more right-wing insurrections undermine our democracies, as well as fighting racism “so that we can guarantee some dreams for the youth.” He called for protecting the natural world to combat climate change, and creating a world governance to enable us to work together against existential threats.

“This is not a government program,” Lula said. “This is a faith commitment of someone that believes in humanism, someone that believes in solidarity. I don’t want to live in a world where humans become algorithms. I want to live in a world where human beings are human beings. And for that, we have to take care very carefully what God gave us: that is the planet Earth.”

sarahs mum said:

Heather Cox Richardson
1 m ·
February 10, 2023 (Friday)
Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

no

STEMocracy

SCIENCE said:

sarahs mum said:

Heather Cox Richardson
1 m ·
February 10, 2023 (Friday)
Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

no

STEMocracy

In this day and age we don’t need sexist statements like that.
It should read “or is it better for a country to have a strongman or a strongwoman in charge?

Peak Warming Man said:

SCIENCE said:

sarahs mum said:

Heather Cox Richardson
1 m ·
February 10, 2023 (Friday)
Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

no

STEMocracy

In this day and age we don’t need sexist statements like that.
It should read “or is it better for a country to have a strongman or a strongwoman in charge?

a good start but surely a nonbinary could potentially lead

SCIENCE said:

Peak Warming Man said:

SCIENCE said:

no

STEMocracy

In this day and age we don’t need sexist statements like that.
It should read “or is it better for a country to have a strongman or a strongwoman in charge?

a good start but surely a nonbinary could potentially lead

Well we are all nonbinary, well except for cojoined people.

sarahs mum said:

Heather Cox Richardson
1 m ·
February 10, 2023 (Friday)
Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

Democracy stands on the principle of equality for all people, and those who are turning away from democracy, including the right wing in the United States, object to that equality. They worry that equal rights for women and minorities—especially LGBTQ people—will undermine traditional religion and traditional power structures. They believe democracy saps the morals of a country and are eager for a strong leader who will use the power of the government to reinforce their worldview.
But empowering a strongman ends oversight and enables those in power to think of themselves as above the law. In the short term, it permits those in power to use the apparatus of their government to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of their country. Their supporters don’t care: they are willing to accept the cost of corruption so long as the government persecutes those they see as their enemies. But that deal is vulnerable when it becomes clear the government cannot respond to an immediate public crisis.

That equation is painfully clear right now in Turkey and Syria, where more than 380,000 people are homeless after Monday’s devastating earthquakes. The death toll has climbed to more than 23,000, and more than 78,000 are injured. So far. Just a month ago, Turkey’s president President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised that the country had the fastest and most effective system of response to disaster in the world.

But that promise has been exposed as a lie. As Jen Kirby pointed out in Vox yesterday, Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who have been moving the country toward autocracy, rose to power thanks to a construction boom in the 2010s that both drove economic growth and permitted Erdoğan to hand out contracts to his supporters. The collapse of more than 6,400 buildings in Monday’s quakes have brought attention to cost cutting and bribery to get around building codes. At the same time, since a big quake in 1999, homeowners have been paying an earthquake tax that should, by now, have been worth tens of billions of dollars, but none of that money seems to be available, and Erdoğan won’t say where it went.

“This is a time for unity, solidarity,” Erdoğan told reporters. “In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest.” He has shut down media coverage of the crisis and cracked down on social media as well. Elections in Turkey are scheduled for May 14. Erdoğan was already facing a difficult reelection.
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad also has to deal with the horrific scenario. Aid groups are having trouble getting assistance to hard-hit areas controlled by opponents of the regime during the country’s ongoing civil war. Assad has blamed western sanctions, imposed against his regime because of its murder of his opponents, for the slow response to the earthquake, but his government has blocked western aid to areas controlled by his opposition. The U.S. has issued a six-month sanctions exemption for relief in Syria.

Russia is also in trouble as its recent invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a protracted war, but it maintains it will continue to extend its new imperial project. On Tuesday, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, spoke openly of attacking Poland after conquering Ukraine. It was time, he said, for the West to fall to its knees before Russia, and he predicted Ukraine would be Russia’s before the end of 2023. Poland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and an attack on it would bring the rest of the NATO countries, including the U.S., to its aid.
Today, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people that borders Ukraine and has been under tremendous pressure from Russia, enduring soaring inflation, an inflow of Ukrainian refugees, and power cuts after Russian attacks on Ukraines’ grid, saw its government resign. That government has worked to move closer to European allies and has applied for admission to the European Union. Russia has sought to destabilize that government and has recently appeared to be planning to invade the country. Moldovan president Maia Sandu has nominated a new prime minister, one that intends to continue orienting the country toward Europe.

The U.S. has stood solidly against Russia’s ambitions, but our own right wing is increasingly supportive of Putin, liking his stand against LGBTQ people, his embrace of religion, and his ruthless determination to impose that vision on his country. Yesterday the president and chief executive officer of Elon Musk’s SpaceX admitted the company has blocked the ability of Ukrainian troops to use the Starlink satellite system to advance against Russia. In October, Musk drew fire for proposing a “peace” plan that would give Russia the territory it has claimed from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil met with President Joe Biden at the White House today. (His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of former president Trump, staged a coup against Lula and is now hanging out in Florida hoping to score a U.S. tourist visa.) In their meeting, Biden and Lula emphasized democracy.

Biden noted that both democracies had been tested lately and that we stand together, rejecting political violence and putting great value in our democratic institutions: the rule of law, freedom, and equality.

Through an interpreter, Lula expanded on what that means. He noted that Brazil had “self-marginalized” under Bolsonaro, rejecting the world and turning inward. But, he said, “Brazil is a country that people enjoy peace, democracy, work, and Carnival, and samba, and a lot of joy. This is the Brazil that we’re trying to reposition in the world.” He called for making sure no more right-wing insurrections undermine our democracies, as well as fighting racism “so that we can guarantee some dreams for the youth.” He called for protecting the natural world to combat climate change, and creating a world governance to enable us to work together against existential threats.

“This is not a government program,” Lula said. “This is a faith commitment of someone that believes in humanism, someone that believes in solidarity. I don’t want to live in a world where humans become algorithms. I want to live in a world where human beings are human beings. And for that, we have to take care very carefully what God gave us: that is the planet Earth.”

The people of Turkey and Syria need a GeoffD, just like our GeoffD! They need someone really good.

The Global Zeitenwende

How to Avoid a New Cold War in a Multipolar Era
By German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/olaf-scholz-global-zeitenwende-how-avoid-new-cold-war?

One thing I did not know is that Japan Self-Defense Force has a permanent base in Djibouti, established in 2009.

The Reform Party, led by Kaja Kallas, has retained government in Estonia following the weekend’s elections. The Reformed Party gained 3 seats but will still need to negotiate to form government, probably with the help of the Centre Party, Social Democrats, and a new party called Estonia 200, which appears to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative.

Turnout was 64%, which is about normal for Estonia. For the first time, most votes were submitted electronically over the Internet.

dv said:

The Reform Party, led by Kaja Kallas, has retained government in Estonia following the weekend’s elections. The Reformed Party gained 3 seats but will still need to negotiate to form government, probably with the help of the Centre Party, Social Democrats, and a new party called Estonia 200, which appears to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative.

Turnout was 64%, which is about normal for Estonia. For the first time, most votes were submitted electronically over the Internet.

I reckon that, whatever their party, Estonian politicians know better than some US pollies when it comes to ‘election help’ from Russia.

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

The Reform Party, led by Kaja Kallas, has retained government in Estonia following the weekend’s elections. The Reformed Party gained 3 seats but will still need to negotiate to form government, probably with the help of the Centre Party, Social Democrats, and a new party called Estonia 200, which appears to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative.

Turnout was 64%, which is about normal for Estonia. For the first time, most votes were submitted electronically over the Internet.

I reckon that, whatever their party, Estonian politicians know better than some US pollies when it comes to ‘election help’ from Russia.

It seems reasonably certain that they don’t want to go back there.

missed

convenient, it was all foreign interference

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-10/panuelo-federated-states-of-micronesia-china-taiwan/102078898

Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse
War in Ukraine has aggravated a crisis that long predates the conflict

A demographic tragedy is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women now outnumber men by at least 10m.

War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.

The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with 149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. It was 145m in 2021 (that figure, from the un, excludes the 2.4m people of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and incorporated into its national accounts). According to un projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years, if current patterns persist. That would make Russia the 15th-most-populous country in the world, down from sixth in 1995. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer who used to work for the state statistics service, if you look just at peacetime years, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century. April was a particularly cruel month, but it was a revealing glimpse of a chronic problem.

Population decline is not unique to Russia: most post-communist states have seen dips, though not like this. Their declines have been slow but also manageable. Russia’s population in recent decades has seen a precipitous slump, then a partial recovery (thanks to a period of high immigration from parts of the ex-Soviet Union and more generous child allowances after 2007), followed by a renewed fall.

According to the state statistics agency, in 2020 and 2021 combined the country’s population declined by 1.3m; deaths outstripped births by 1.7m. (The un also shows a fall, but it is shallower.) The decline was largest among ethnic Russians, whose number, the census of 2021 said, fell by 5.4m in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%. So much for Mr Putin’s boast to be expanding the Russki mir (Russian world).

All this began before the war and reflects Russia’s appalling covid pandemic. The official death toll from the disease was 388,091, which would be relatively low; but The Economist estimates total excess deaths in 2020-23 at between 1.2m and 1.6m. That would be comparable to the number in China and the United States, which have much larger populations. Russia may have had the largest covid death toll in the world after India, and the highest mortality rate of all, with 850-1,100 deaths per 100,000 people.

If you add pandemic mortality to the casualties of war and the flight from mobilisation, Russia lost between 1.9m and 2.8m people in 2020-23 on top of its normal demographic deterioration. That would be even worse than during the disastrous early 2000s, when the population was falling by roughly half a million a year.

What might that mean for Russia’s future? Demography is not always destiny; and Russia did for a while begin to reverse its decline in the mid-2010s. The impact of population change is often complex, as Russia’s military mobilisation shows. The decline in the number of ethnic Russians of call-up age (which is being raised from 18-27 to 21-30) will make it harder for the armed forces to carry out the regular spring draft, which begins in April.

Such complications notwithstanding, the overall effect of demographic decline will be to change Russia profoundly—and for the worse. Most countries which have suffered population falls have managed to avoid big social upheavals. Russia may be different. Its population is falling unusually fast and may drop to 130m by mid-century. The decline is associated with increased misery: the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of covid, partly from alcohol-related disease. Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.

And Russia may not achieve what enables other countries to grow richer as they age: high and rising levels of education. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, argues that the country presents a peculiar combination of third-world mortality and first-world education. It has some of the highest rates of educational attainment among over-25s in the world. But the exodus of well-educated young people is eroding this advantage. According to the communications ministry, 10% of it workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men. Their flight is further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio, which in 2021 meant there were 121 females older than 18 for every 100 males.

The demographic doom loop has not, it appears, diminished Mr Putin’s craving for conquest. But it is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s. The invasion has been a human catastrophe—and not only for Ukrainians.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse
War in Ukraine has aggravated a crisis that long predates the conflict

A demographic tragedy is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women now outnumber men by at least 10m.

War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.

The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with 149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. It was 145m in 2021 (that figure, from the un, excludes the 2.4m people of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and incorporated into its national accounts). According to un projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years, if current patterns persist. That would make Russia the 15th-most-populous country in the world, down from sixth in 1995. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer who used to work for the state statistics service, if you look just at peacetime years, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century. April was a particularly cruel month, but it was a revealing glimpse of a chronic problem.

Population decline is not unique to Russia: most post-communist states have seen dips, though not like this. Their declines have been slow but also manageable. Russia’s population in recent decades has seen a precipitous slump, then a partial recovery (thanks to a period of high immigration from parts of the ex-Soviet Union and more generous child allowances after 2007), followed by a renewed fall.

According to the state statistics agency, in 2020 and 2021 combined the country’s population declined by 1.3m; deaths outstripped births by 1.7m. (The un also shows a fall, but it is shallower.) The decline was largest among ethnic Russians, whose number, the census of 2021 said, fell by 5.4m in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%. So much for Mr Putin’s boast to be expanding the Russki mir (Russian world).

All this began before the war and reflects Russia’s appalling covid pandemic. The official death toll from the disease was 388,091, which would be relatively low; but The Economist estimates total excess deaths in 2020-23 at between 1.2m and 1.6m. That would be comparable to the number in China and the United States, which have much larger populations. Russia may have had the largest covid death toll in the world after India, and the highest mortality rate of all, with 850-1,100 deaths per 100,000 people.

If you add pandemic mortality to the casualties of war and the flight from mobilisation, Russia lost between 1.9m and 2.8m people in 2020-23 on top of its normal demographic deterioration. That would be even worse than during the disastrous early 2000s, when the population was falling by roughly half a million a year.

What might that mean for Russia’s future? Demography is not always destiny; and Russia did for a while begin to reverse its decline in the mid-2010s. The impact of population change is often complex, as Russia’s military mobilisation shows. The decline in the number of ethnic Russians of call-up age (which is being raised from 18-27 to 21-30) will make it harder for the armed forces to carry out the regular spring draft, which begins in April.

Such complications notwithstanding, the overall effect of demographic decline will be to change Russia profoundly—and for the worse. Most countries which have suffered population falls have managed to avoid big social upheavals. Russia may be different. Its population is falling unusually fast and may drop to 130m by mid-century. The decline is associated with increased misery: the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of covid, partly from alcohol-related disease. Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.

And Russia may not achieve what enables other countries to grow richer as they age: high and rising levels of education. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, argues that the country presents a peculiar combination of third-world mortality and first-world education. It has some of the highest rates of educational attainment among over-25s in the world. But the exodus of well-educated young people is eroding this advantage. According to the communications ministry, 10% of it workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men. Their flight is further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio, which in 2021 meant there were 121 females older than 18 for every 100 males.

The demographic doom loop has not, it appears, diminished Mr Putin’s craving for conquest. But it is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s. The invasion has been a human catastrophe—and not only for Ukrainians.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse?

I really dislike this sort of article.

Yes, population decline creates some problems, but overall it is a good thing.

Corsican language ban stirs protest on French island
Court cites France’s constitution in ruling that only French is allowed in exercise of public office on Corsica

A court in Corsica has prompted outrage by banning the use of the Corsican language in the island’s local parliament.

The court in the city of Bastia cited France’s constitution it its ruling on Thursday that French was the only language allowed in the exercise of public office.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco to be in danger of becoming extinct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/corsica-language-ban-stirs-protest-on-french-island

dv said:

Corsican language ban stirs protest on French island
Court cites France’s constitution in ruling that only French is allowed in exercise of public office on Corsica

A court in Corsica has prompted outrage by banning the use of the Corsican language in the island’s local parliament.

The court in the city of Bastia cited France’s constitution it its ruling on Thursday that French was the only language allowed in the exercise of public office.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco to be in danger of becoming extinct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/corsica-language-ban-stirs-protest-on-french-island

The French can speak English alright but the bastards wont.
They’ll make you try and remember a few French words and phrase and stumble in your pocket for a french phrase book, they’re pricks.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Corsican language ban stirs protest on French island
Court cites France’s constitution in ruling that only French is allowed in exercise of public office on Corsica

A court in Corsica has prompted outrage by banning the use of the Corsican language in the island’s local parliament.

The court in the city of Bastia cited France’s constitution it its ruling on Thursday that French was the only language allowed in the exercise of public office.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco to be in danger of becoming extinct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/corsica-language-ban-stirs-protest-on-french-island

The French can speak English alright but the bastards wont.
They’ll make you try and remember a few French words and phrase and stumble in your pocket for a french phrase book, they’re pricks.

I’ll have no truck with them.
Goodnight.

dv said:

Corsican language ban stirs protest on French island
Court cites France’s constitution in ruling that only French is allowed in exercise of public office on Corsica

A court in Corsica has prompted outrage by banning the use of the Corsican language in the island’s local parliament.

The court in the city of Bastia cited France’s constitution it its ruling on Thursday that French was the only language allowed in the exercise of public office.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco to be in danger of becoming extinct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/corsica-language-ban-stirs-protest-on-french-island

Sounds like they’re gonna have to make a special provision for Corsica.

Kothos said:

dv said:

Corsican language ban stirs protest on French island
Court cites France’s constitution in ruling that only French is allowed in exercise of public office on Corsica

A court in Corsica has prompted outrage by banning the use of the Corsican language in the island’s local parliament.

The court in the city of Bastia cited France’s constitution it its ruling on Thursday that French was the only language allowed in the exercise of public office.

Corsican, which is close to standard Italian and has about 150,000 native speakers, is considered by the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco to be in danger of becoming extinct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/corsica-language-ban-stirs-protest-on-french-island

Sounds like they’re gonna have to make a special provision for Corsica.

That’s how you make a language go extinct. In Ireland there were many such provisions that saw the decimation of Irish.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

roughbarked said:

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

He probably reckons that’s just not cricket.

fuck yeah

SCIENCE said:

fuck yeah

look, if you can’t solve all forms of malnutrition, you shouldn’t solve any

Witty Rejoinder said:

roughbarked said:

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

He probably reckons that’s just not cricket.

He’ll let that one go through to the keeper.

roughbarked said:

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

So they’re basically giving up on ever normalising relations with Russia until Putin is gone.

Kothos said:

roughbarked said:

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

So they’re basically giving up on ever normalising relations with Russia until Putin is gone.

TFFT

dv said:

Kothos said:

roughbarked said:

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

So they’re basically giving up on ever normalising relations with Russia until Putin is gone.

TFFT

?

Kothos said:

dv said:

Kothos said:

So they’re basically giving up on ever normalising relations with Russia until Putin is gone.

TFFT

?

9

SCIENCE said:

Kothos said:

dv said:

TFFT

?

9

Thank
fuck
for
that

They’ve been giving Putin “exit ramps” for over a decade and it doesn’t seem to be moderating his behaviour.

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

Kothos said:

?

9

Thank
fuck
for
that

They’ve been giving Putin “exit ramps” for over a decade and it doesn’t seem to be moderating his behaviour.

The western propaganda is saying he is terminally ill with cancer, apparently.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

9

Thank
fuck
for
that

They’ve been giving Putin “exit ramps” for over a decade and it doesn’t seem to be moderating his behaviour.

The western propaganda is saying he is terminally ill with cancer, apparently.

And Donald Trump apparently is not.

Swings and roundabouts.

CNN —

Indian authorities have blocked internet access for about 27 million people in the state of Punjab for a third straight day – one of the country’s most extensive blackouts in recent years – as police search for a Sikh separatist on the run.

The Punjab government initially announced a 24-hour internet ban on Saturday as authorities launched an operation to arrest Amritpal Singh, a popular leader within the separatist Khalistan movement that seeks to establish a sovereign state for followers of the Sikh religion.

The internet shutdown – which affects everyone in the northern Indian state – was extended by the government for a third time to midday Tuesday under a law that allows the connection to be cut to “prevent any incitement to violence and any disturbance of peace and public order.”

Police in Punjab have justified the internet shutdown as a means to maintain law and order and stop the spread of “fake news.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/india/india-separatist-manhunt-internet-shutdown-intl-hnk/index.html

dv said:

CNN —

Indian authorities have blocked internet access for about 27 million people in the state of Punjab for a third straight day – one of the country’s most extensive blackouts in recent years – as police search for a Sikh separatist on the run.

The Punjab government initially announced a 24-hour internet ban on Saturday as authorities launched an operation to arrest Amritpal Singh, a popular leader within the separatist Khalistan movement that seeks to establish a sovereign state for followers of the Sikh religion.

The internet shutdown – which affects everyone in the northern Indian state – was extended by the government for a third time to midday Tuesday under a law that allows the connection to be cut to “prevent any incitement to violence and any disturbance of peace and public order.”

Police in Punjab have justified the internet shutdown as a means to maintain law and order and stop the spread of “fake news.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/india/india-separatist-manhunt-internet-shutdown-intl-hnk/index.html

good to hear our allies defending democracy against the CHINA threat

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

CNN —

Indian authorities have blocked internet access for about 27 million people in the state of Punjab for a third straight day – one of the country’s most extensive blackouts in recent years – as police search for a Sikh separatist on the run.

The Punjab government initially announced a 24-hour internet ban on Saturday as authorities launched an operation to arrest Amritpal Singh, a popular leader within the separatist Khalistan movement that seeks to establish a sovereign state for followers of the Sikh religion.

The internet shutdown – which affects everyone in the northern Indian state – was extended by the government for a third time to midday Tuesday under a law that allows the connection to be cut to “prevent any incitement to violence and any disturbance of peace and public order.”

Police in Punjab have justified the internet shutdown as a means to maintain law and order and stop the spread of “fake news.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/20/india/india-separatist-manhunt-internet-shutdown-intl-hnk/index.html

good to hear our allies defending democracy against the CHINA threat

religious persecution

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-24/amritpal-singh-on-the-run-from-indian-authorities/102123216

Mr Singh leads a group called Waris Punjab De, “the heirs of Punjab”, and has held thousands-strong marches around the country to rally support for his vision. Researchers say he has been using the Indian government’s Hindu nationalist identity to galvanise support for Sikh sovereignty.

In 1984, after Bhindranwale and his group took over the Golden Temple in Punjab — the most sacred site in Sikhism — then-prime minister Indira Gandhi ordered the military to remove them in a sting known as Operation Blue Star. Bhindranwale was killed in the operation, along with around 400 other people, including more than 80 soldiers. Operation Blue Star outraged Sikhs around the world. Four months later, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her personal security guards, both Sikhs, in revenge for the military operation.

Mr Singh has recently threatened India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah, saying he would “meet the same fate” as the slain prime minister. India’s government has expressed deep concerned about the pro-Khalistan movement, not only in Punjab but also among Sikh diaspora living in allied countries including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

ah well at least if they really do want to declare independence, there won’t be any interfering foreign cuntries holding any further special military operations to help

right

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kosovo-serbia-leaders-arrive-eu-backed-talks-deal-normalise-ties-2023-03-18/

Not a lot of good news these days

OHRID, North Macedonia, March 18 (Reuters) – Kosovo and Serbia have reached an agreement on implementing a European Union-backed deal to normalise ties, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday, though the two leaders said disagreements remain.

Kosovo and Serbia have been in EU-backed talks for nearly 10 years since Kosovo declared independence in 2008, almost a decade after war ended Serbian rule. But Serbia still regards Kosovo as a breakaway province and flare-ups between the Balkan neighbours have stoked fears of a return to conflict.

dv said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kosovo-serbia-leaders-arrive-eu-backed-talks-deal-normalise-ties-2023-03-18/

Not a lot of good news these days

OHRID, North Macedonia, March 18 (Reuters) – Kosovo and Serbia have reached an agreement on implementing a European Union-backed deal to normalise ties, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday, though the two leaders said disagreements remain.

Kosovo and Serbia have been in EU-backed talks for nearly 10 years since Kosovo declared independence in 2008, almost a decade after war ended Serbian rule. But Serbia still regards Kosovo as a breakaway province and flare-ups between the Balkan neighbours have stoked fears of a return to conflict.

fingers crossed

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

March 23, 2023 at 4:18 p.m. EDT

One of the oddest moments in this week’s love fest between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Moscow was when Putin congratulated Xi on his “reelection” as China’s president and Xi told Putin he was certain the Russian leader would win his own reelection in 2024 (even though Putin hasn’t yet announced he’s running). Why do these dictators even bother to pretend to be winners in democratic competitions? Who do they think they are fooling?

Autocrats using fake elections to claim popular support while consolidating power isn’t new. Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi used these tactics in Iraq and Libya, respectively. But Xi and Putin aren’t just hiding behind a fig leaf of legitimacy; they are attempting to redefine the world’s understanding of what “democracy” means. This is dangerous, and real democracies must push back.

To some, Putin and Xi’s democracy playacting might seem harmless. After all, everyone knows they have snuffed out democratic characteristics in their own systems by crushing political dissent, denying freedom of the press, criminalizing civic advocacy and granting themselves unlimited terms as rulers. Xi’s “reelection” as president was approved by the Chinese Communist Party Congress 2,952-0, numbers that would make Hussein envious.

But this week’s Putin-Xi summit showed that these two leaders are not simply trying to reframe democracy for domestic purposes. They are claiming ownership of the concept of democracy as a key plank of their proposed new world order — one where the actual struggle for democratic progress is demonized and negated. In 2021, China’s State Council Information Office even released a white paper entitled “China: Democracy That Works” and offered it as a model to the developing world.

China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, on Wednesday criticized the Biden administration’s framing of a global competition between democracies and autocracies, saying that “China and Russia are committed to promoting a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations.”

“We are working in solidarity on the formation of a more just and democratic multipolar world order,” Putin said this week on the Kremlin’s website.

It’s absurd to tout “greater democracy” in the world while defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to topple its democratically elected government. And if Putin and Xi really believed in “democracy in international relations,” they would honor the overwhelming vote by the United Nations calling on Russia to withdraw.

But there is an audience for the Putin-Xi narrative, disingenuous as it is. Beijing’s claim to practice what it calls “whole-process democracy” is appealing to other dictators and despots who don’t want to acknowledge they are holding on to power simply through brute force.

More broadly, Putin and Xi are trying to hollow out the very notions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the international system.

“Once you get a taste of being autocratic in your own country, you want to be autocratic in the world,” Moisés Naím, author of the book “The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century,” told me. “What happens in autocracies doesn’t stay in autocracies. It travels.”

Western democracies would be naive to think Beijing’s narrative isn’t spreading. A report last week by the U.S. Institute of Peace detailed the Chinese government’s extensive global campaign to influence media in the developing world through massive amounts of propaganda, corruption of local media, covert influence operations and co-opting of local officials.

“Beijing seeks to enlist a broad coalition of like-minded partners throughout the Global South to echo its claims that the Chinese political system is superior and that the United States is an unwelcome neo-imperialist,” the report stated.

Putin’s and Xi’s attacks on the Western concept of democracy are aided by the erosion of support for democracy promotion here at home. Some U.S. experts argue that the United States ought to ignore the ideological component of great-power competition because it shrinks the space for cooperation with dictatorships.

But the sheer amount of time, effort and resources that Putin and Xi devote to ideological projection shows its importance to them and therefore demands a response. The Biden administration next week is hosting the second iteration of its Summit for Democracy, which aims to bolster international support for these values. But one conference per year is just not enough.

Putin and Xi want to have it both ways; they want to run their systems as dictators while claiming the mantle of democracy in the 21st century. The fact they are pretending shows that they know their actual model is neither popular nor just. Leaders in open societies must ensure that democracy isn’t defined by those who oppose it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/23/putin-xi-authoritarianism-democracy/?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

March 23, 2023 at 4:18 p.m. EDT

One of the oddest moments in this week’s love fest between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Moscow was when Putin congratulated Xi on his “reelection” as China’s president and Xi told Putin he was certain the Russian leader would win his own reelection in 2024 (even though Putin hasn’t yet announced he’s running). Why do these dictators even bother to pretend to be winners in democratic competitions? Who do they think they are fooling?

Autocrats using fake elections to claim popular support while consolidating power isn’t new. Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi used these tactics in Iraq and Libya, respectively. But Xi and Putin aren’t just hiding behind a fig leaf of legitimacy; they are attempting to redefine the world’s understanding of what “democracy” means. This is dangerous, and real democracies must push back.

To some, Putin and Xi’s democracy playacting might seem harmless. After all, everyone knows they have snuffed out democratic characteristics in their own systems by crushing political dissent, denying freedom of the press, criminalizing civic advocacy and granting themselves unlimited terms as rulers. Xi’s “reelection” as president was approved by the Chinese Communist Party Congress 2,952-0, numbers that would make Hussein envious.

But this week’s Putin-Xi summit showed that these two leaders are not simply trying to reframe democracy for domestic purposes. They are claiming ownership of the concept of democracy as a key plank of their proposed new world order — one where the actual struggle for democratic progress is demonized and negated. In 2021, China’s State Council Information Office even released a white paper entitled “China: Democracy That Works” and offered it as a model to the developing world.

China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, on Wednesday criticized the Biden administration’s framing of a global competition between democracies and autocracies, saying that “China and Russia are committed to promoting a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations.”

“We are working in solidarity on the formation of a more just and democratic multipolar world order,” Putin said this week on the Kremlin’s website.

It’s absurd to tout “greater democracy” in the world while defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to topple its democratically elected government. And if Putin and Xi really believed in “democracy in international relations,” they would honor the overwhelming vote by the United Nations calling on Russia to withdraw.

But there is an audience for the Putin-Xi narrative, disingenuous as it is. Beijing’s claim to practice what it calls “whole-process democracy” is appealing to other dictators and despots who don’t want to acknowledge they are holding on to power simply through brute force.

More broadly, Putin and Xi are trying to hollow out the very notions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the international system.

“Once you get a taste of being autocratic in your own country, you want to be autocratic in the world,” Moisés Naím, author of the book “The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century,” told me. “What happens in autocracies doesn’t stay in autocracies. It travels.”

Western democracies would be naive to think Beijing’s narrative isn’t spreading. A report last week by the U.S. Institute of Peace detailed the Chinese government’s extensive global campaign to influence media in the developing world through massive amounts of propaganda, corruption of local media, covert influence operations and co-opting of local officials.

“Beijing seeks to enlist a broad coalition of like-minded partners throughout the Global South to echo its claims that the Chinese political system is superior and that the United States is an unwelcome neo-imperialist,” the report stated.

Putin’s and Xi’s attacks on the Western concept of democracy are aided by the erosion of support for democracy promotion here at home. Some U.S. experts argue that the United States ought to ignore the ideological component of great-power competition because it shrinks the space for cooperation with dictatorships.

But the sheer amount of time, effort and resources that Putin and Xi devote to ideological projection shows its importance to them and therefore demands a response. The Biden administration next week is hosting the second iteration of its Summit for Democracy, which aims to bolster international support for these values. But one conference per year is just not enough.

Putin and Xi want to have it both ways; they want to run their systems as dictators while claiming the mantle of democracy in the 21st century. The fact they are pretending shows that they know their actual model is neither popular nor just. Leaders in open societies must ensure that democracy isn’t defined by those who oppose it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/23/putin-xi-authoritarianism-democracy/?

Much truth there.

LOL

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

Good old rogan josh

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

Good old rogan josh

what’s their opinion on the political corrections to rolled dal

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

Good old rogan josh

what’s their opinion on the political corrections to rolled dal

Oompa

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

Why Xi and Putin pretend they run democracies

By Josh Rogin
Columnist

Good old rogan josh

what’s their opinion on the political corrections to rolled dal

Some naan and a cuppla papadams?

In Breaking News, Political Decisions And Religious Doctrine Control When The Sun Sets

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati decided on Thursday not to start daylight savings time over the last weekend of March — as usually happens in Lebanon, Europe and other regions — but instead to roll clocks forward an hour on April 20.

Though no reason was given for the decision, it was widely seen as a concession to Muslims, allowing those observing the holy month of Ramadan to break their daylight-hours fasts around 6pm rather than 7pm.

Interactive article about the challenges facing India as it tries to match and possibly exceed China’s pace of development over the coming years:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/india-china-next-global-superpower/102118522

Witty Rejoinder said:

SCIENCE said:

Only 10 per cent of adult women have a job in India, compared with 69 per cent in China.

Interactive article about the challenges facing India as it tries to match and possibly exceed China’s pace of development over the coming years:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/india-china-next-global-superpower/102118522

Democracy Is Great¡