#also news: eu elections will be up and for the first there may be a majority of nazis there! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

avo-kat · 10 months ago

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lemme check the news! :)

federal office for the protection of the constitution: the right-wing party AFD is right-wing extremist

news: Members of the AFD (+ other nazis) have a meeting talking about “remigration”, aka a plan to deport all foreigners (immigrants, asyl seekers and not assimilated german citizens) living in germany there

AFD: umm, that wasn’t an official party meeting, it was just a private meeintg??? :/

some german politicans: maybe we should ban the party… their idee of deporting ppl is clearly against our constitution... But that may be too difficult? :/

news: prognosis: the AFD will most likely get a bunch of votes in the next elections and may be in the government according to surveys

the current government: hey we wanna send bullets to israel to fight hamas :) #neveragain

news: 900.000 social apartments are missing that are needed

politician and human scum called spahn: we should punish unemployed people on social security even more. Oh we cant because of the constitution? Hmm we should change the constitution so we can do that. :) yes, the parts talking about human dignity. Who cares about poor people? Lmao

“social” party SPD: oh yes. This cannabis legalization thing we promised to do in our campaign and weve worked on for two years and promised to bring this year? Actually, we voted against it, because. Um. Concerns. Ur welcome.

ALSO, theres a poltiician whos even TOO RIGHT-WING for germany and people are demanding to REVOKE HIS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS so his free sprech wont be protected anymore and he wont be able to vote or be voted for. Hes too much of a nazi even for germany!!!!! ?????? why yes, he’s part of AFD, why are you asking? And yes, its possible to revoke constituional rights for people who are a serious danger to our democracy. Lmao.

news: hospitals are overloaded, regular clinics are overloaded, the phone hotline is overloaded, long waiting times, not enough employees

news: the government promised “climate money” as a reward for ppl for use less energy, because energy prices are rising. But alas the money that was supposed to uhhh last year wont come until, um, maybe 2027?

government: hey we promised a new & better law for trans ppl! Now, instead of having to pay €€€ and letting urself be humiliated in front of judges, changing ur name and gender will be soooo easy! Just fill out this form. And… we’ll save ur prev name for security reasons in this list. And give this out to basically anybody who asks. Also, surgeries will no longer be covered. Because. Saftey. Also this law will come…. End of this year… maybe??? :)

news: 100 days after the hamas-attack. A whole society is re-traumatized. Poor israel. :(

news: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer

news: the economy is shrinking… people arent buying enough. Because of the war. (russian war, duh) and inflation.

news: we are sending medicine to the israeli hostages! Don’t worry the red cross will make sure the medicine will reach the hostages! We need pictures as proof hamas isnt using the medicine themselves and giving it to the hostages tho. Some of the hostages are sick! Also apparently 160 palestinians died in the last 24 hours?

-> DISCLAIMER: all information to this conflict CANT be verified by an independent source! Any information on the war progress, attacks and number of victims cant be relied upon!!!! Careful!!!!!!!!!!!

news: Israel drones shot a car where the LEADER of TERROR CELL was inside who had been planning to ATTACK. Good thing israel killed him!!! And several other people! Yay!

news: the US defended a ship from a ROCKET shot by HUTHI, yay. With a fighter jet, cool! The US and allies started an attack on 30 milita stations in yemen last Friday. President joe biden warned, that huthi had to prepare for additional military actions, if they don’t give in. the US is supported by the uk, the netherlands, canada, australia and bahrain. Apparently ships are stuck with gas. If they cant continue, they have to sail around the cap. Some british politician says “freedom of shipping is an internation right”.

-> at the very bottom: The huthi are supported by iran and have been recently attacking trade ships in the red sea. they want to pressure israel because of the war in gaza. They see themselves as part of a self-named “axis of resistance” against israel. Hamas in gaza is also part of that.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

#going insaaaaaaaaneeeeeeee #ah wait nvm im already mentally ill #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #“private meeting” u dont understand how thats not better????#like at least theres tens of thousands of ppl protesting #but lolllllllllllllllllll #sigh #also news: eu elections will be up and for the first there may be a majority of nazis there!#yay..........#nazis going: wow nazis are bad. somebody stop these nazis! why are there nazis everywhere? its so weird!

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mariacallous · 8 months ago

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As 400 million Europeans get set to elect 720 EU parliamentarians in June, polls are predicting big gains for right-wing populists. As a result, for the first time since the European Parliament was directly elected in 1979, it is expected to have a solid majority on the right. This will mark a “sharp right turn” for Europe, the European Council of Foreign Affairs (ECFR) recently noted. The consequences for European politics and policy are already coming into view.

The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the left-leaning Socialists and Democrats party (S&D) are again expected to finish in first and second place, although both may lose a handful of seats. The EU’s far-right groups, Identity and Democracy (ID) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), will improve their tally mainly at the expense of liberals and Greens. According to ECFR, populists are likely to be the top vote-getter in nine countries, including Austria, the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. In nine others, including Spain and Germany, they could emerge as strong second or third-place contenders.

ID—which includes the main anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic parties in Germany (Alternative for Deutschland or AfD), France (National Rally), and Italy (the League or Lega)—is likely to become the EU parliament’s third-largest group after elections are held between June 6 and 9. The ECR is led by Georgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister and leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, and is home to Sweden’s Sweden Democrats and Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS). If authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, a member of the EPP until a few years ago, joins the ECR as expected, the far-right could claim a quarter of the total seats.

Political machinations already seem to be underway among some establishment parties to create cooperation with this newly powerful bloc. Experts say if the EPP, the strongest conservative party in the EU, welcomes far-right politicians in its fold or co-opts their policies, as it has lately been accused of, the balance of power in Europe will decisively shift to the right and have major implications for not just the EU’s common agenda but may also influence how member states decide critical policies.

“I think in our campaign we will ask the EPP to be pragmatic, to pick the alternative to a center-left majority,” Marco Campomenosi, a Lega politician and the head of the Italian delegation in ID, told Foreign Policy.

Experts say any such shift will have major implications for the EU as a whole, tainting its recent promises to pursue a humane migration policy and to establish rule of law at home that encourages democratic checks and balances. An empowered far-right may also keep coordination on a common defense policy to the bare minimum in the face of a looming threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The EU’s flagship Green Deal climate framework, which has set a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, is also at stake, as the populists try to push the EU to erode its commitment to renewable energy development and other climate policies.

Charlie Weimers, a member of the far-right Sweden Democrats that supports Sweden’s minority center-right government, said, his party’s priority is to push for a “Migration Pact 2.0,” with more stringent measures to stop the influx of immigrants than already listed in the new migration pact. “We need to stop asylum,” he told FP over the phone. “We need breathing space to deal with the immigrants already here otherwise we can never catch up.”

Lega’s Campomenosi said, “it’s not about the money” but about the “trouble” immigrants make. (Under the new migration pact an EU member state which refuses to accept an asylum seeker should pay a sum of 20,000 euros to an EU fund.) “If there are too many immigrants they can’t be integrated,” he added.

Three far-right parliamentarians told FP that with bigger numbers in Parliament they will be able to apply more pressure on the EU commissioner to throw out or dilute the green deal.

It “needs to go away,” Joachim Kuhs, the acting head of the AfD delegation in EU which is polling as the second strongest party in Germany, told FP in his office in the parliament. “It should be repealed and replaced,” Weimers added.

The liberal groups say the center-right has strengthened the far-right by co-opting its policies and forming alliances in individual member states.

Pedro Marques, a vice president of the S&D group, said the EPP parties have been “eroding the Cordon Sanitaire,” erected to keep the far-right out of governments and important positions. “The EPP is dancing with the far right,” he added, with grave consequences for the future of the union.

The cordon sanitaire is crumbling in many European nations. In Italy, the far-right is in power, in Sweden the center-right government is backed by the far-right. In Austria, center-right and far-right have been in a coalition, and the latter is polling ahead of all others in the run up to national elections. In France, Marine Le Pen is leading the polls, and in Germany, the conservatives have hinted at future cooperation at a regional level with the far-right AfD.

The legitimization of the far-right isn’t limited to member states. Ursula Von Der Leyen, a member of the EPP and EU commissioner, has alluded to Meloni’s inclusion in her grouping. She said it wasn’t clear which parties will remain in the ECR after the elections and which will leave, and “join EPP.”

Hans Kundnani, writer of a book called Eurowhiteness, said the boundaries between the ID, ECR and the EPP have always been “very fluid.”

“As soon as Meloni indicated she won’t be disruptive in the Eurozone, that she won’t be pro-Russian, centrist pro-European EPP said that’s great, we don’t mind,” Kundnani said. “The center right has no problem with far-right at all, they just have a problem with those who are Eurosceptic.”

Experts say Von Der Leyen has often backed off on key policies to appease the far-right. Just over the last few months as the farmers protested against the provisions of the green deal, the far-right found another issue to mobilize against mainstream parties. During election season, Von Der Leyen quickly conceded and granted several concessions to the agriculture sector that will affect the 2050 net zero target.

The best example of how the EU commissioner validated the far-right’s worldview, Kundnani argued, was when she created a post for an EU commissioner to promote a European way of life.

“The big theme of the European far-right is that the immigrants threaten European civilization,” he said. When Von Der Leyen created the position, she framed “immigration as a threat to the European way of life,” and in doing so legitimized the far-right.

It is unclear if co-opting the far-right’s talking points benefits the center right in keeping their traditional voters from moving towards populists, but there is an emerging consensus that it strengthens the radical right in the longer run. For its part, the far-right has moderated its own positions on many issues to appeal to the voters more to the center. The far-right parties say they are no longer calling for an exit from the EU, but merely to reform it from within. They say they back Ukraine and not Putin.

Many parties on the far-right advocate return of border controls in violation of the EU’s founding principle of free movement of people and goods. Last year, the AfD described the EU as a “failed project,’’ while Sweden Democrats said they had “good reasons to seriously reevaluate our membership in the union.” There is still a lingering suspicion that the rank-and-file members of the far-right parties harbor sympathy for Putin. Last month, Lega’s leader Matteo Salvini deflected when asked if he blamed Putin for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s sudden death.

The parliamentarians of the ID and ECR with whom FP spoke expressly rejected Von Der Leyen’s proposal to appoint a dedicated defense commissioner to improve coordination among member states on matters of defense.

“We say that we want to manage immigration in a humane way, we can do better to manage the borders,” added Marques of the S&D. In response to the far-right’s demand to externalize the screening of asylum seekers, he said it was difficult to find credible partners. “We did this agreement with the Tunisian authorities, but when we tried to go there to check the conditions, to see how European money will be spent, they said we don’t want your agreement anymore. These have to be credible partnerships.”

The center-left S&D party simply dismisses the moderated stances of far-right parties as a charade. They believe the far-right simply wants the benefits of being in the union, not the costs that sometimes come with upholding its values. “They want an EU without the rule of law, without humanity,” Marques said. “That’s not what we built after the Second World War. They want to change the EU into something that it isn’t. Their values are not European.”

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echo600 · 1 year ago

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Ok holy Sweet Honey Iced Tea a LOT has happened today and is not even over yet i think.

First the waystones around spaw where missing, that weird forniture apeard, than the eggs come back all dirty and aperantly more cracked even Pomme and probably Richas. So lets go i have a lot to say about that

At first i again though it was Q!BBH messing with Q!Forever's goverment, but as the day when on i just started to have the felling it wasn't that, because more stuff started to happen and it can't be a coinsidance. So quick recap:

Q!Fit and Q!Tubbo went to take care of Chayanne and notice that he was diferent, all dirty, more cracked and if u notice his duck floatie was kinda messed up too, beside the fact that he was tired and scared and couldn't remember how was his night. Then they found some furniture around Q!Fit's base that have being placed as numbers and in a patter of white and black. At the same time Quackity Studios posted a tweet of a lot of number that CC!Cellbit's discord solved forming the word "Tomorrow"

Skipping foward Pomme, Q!Antoine, and Q!BBH found out that if you get the number that the forniture was placed in the alfabetical order of the members base that they where found, it would form the frase "Eu te vejo" "I see You" in portuguese, at the same time that Q!Forever also was able to solve it, and then confirming it to them.

Puting all of that together it will form the santance "I see you tomorrow" or "i will see you tomorrow" it may meen that the person that CC!Forever chose and the unknow ice person may come tomorrow since it a santence i portugese and a word in english. Later Q!Cellbit was able to solve the other part of the enigma getting the frase " Viva la revolucion" that may mean that the person behind this is a spanish speaker.

Now to the egg problem Chayanne Pomme Dapper and Tallulah where tired dirty, cracked and they didn't know why, beside the fact that Richas wasn't woke up and that is very weird of him, my theory is that:

1 the eggs are the one's behind it all while either in a sleep-walking kinda way or in a someone was controling them kinda way. Either way they don't remember but have the feeling they've done something wrong, they are tired because they were awake all night doing it and was a not so easy job, thats why they were dirty and cracked

2 they were used to make new eggs just like i think they were in the first time they were kidnaped when the BR'S showed up, and the reason to that is because since the other new participants are coming they will all finaly be able to get new egg

I also stell think that is just like the eventes that were happening in the elections, were the cadidates were being attacked, not something especificly done by the federation but just the admins traying to add some drama to the series, it stell could be them or someone else like the codes its pretty posible as well

I also stell don't know why Richas would lie about Q!BBH being the one stealing the forniture yesterday, neither is know what he wroted to Q!Pac and Q!Cellbit it may be something personal like Ricardão had to do something that is why Richas didn't woke up until now but we may bever know

#sorry that was really long #qsmp #qsmp character analysis #qsmp lore #qsmp theory #qsmp recap #qsmp cellbit #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp eggs #qsmp forever #qsmp fitmc #qsmp tubbo #qsmp chayanne #qsmp richarlyson #qsmp pomme #qsmp tallulah #qsmp dapper

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rum-inspector · 8 months ago

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You remember 2017? What passing FOSTA/SESTA did to the Internet? Tumblr was never same was it. How legislation in one country, the one that controls most of our Web the Internet changed as a whole

They passed an even worse bill didn't they (masked in media as "tiktok ban" to try to downplay it)

If FOSTA/SESTA took dicks and boobs from your feed - it did a lot more actual harm to marginalized people but I am trying to find an angle people here would understand - the new one gives loopholes to cencor all LGBT content (as cr1stof4scists in power in USA deem it inherently sexual and do not tell me"republicans are soo bad but de... NO this bill had bipartisan support meaning both parties support this!) not to mention it gives them tools to cencor and control more - how fast pro-palestina rhetoric got seen must have scared them, your empire is scared of people talking to each other and seeing past their tailored propaganda.

On top, it gives tools for your governemnt to infringe your privacy even more and keep tabs on what you do online.. In a country that puts women who had miscarriages in jail, even joking about abortions becomes dangerous.

And Europeans, stop being smug. This is not "dumb americans" this is capitalism leading to (chr1sto)fascism. Europe is not far behind. This will seep in the Internet as a whole as it did with earlier legislation. There are also powerful lobbyists in EU trying to crumble privacy laws as it is indeed the USA not China that wants access to your private information and as it serves the capital, they got humongous amount of money to lobby and corruption is rampant. There is also very big chance the next elections may see the far right coalition in power in EU. We are not safe either.

What can you do? Be active. Call & mail your MPs share your concerns. Talk to people around you. Voting alone does nothing, you got to keep the pressure up between elections. EU people, find a party that is not the worst and then canditate that knows and is knowledgeable and back them up. Or get knowledgeable yourself and help canditates understand how important internet privacy and freedom is. The other side has money to lobby, but if enough of us has a few minutes time... There are far bigger things at stake here on top of anti-internet thing (like racism, supporting genocide and warmongering) but it is all connected and realist in me understands in the current state of europe you are more likely to get elected focused on privacy&freedom than peace&humanitarian issues.

Not the best article as it downplays it into tiktok ban and leaves out lot of stuff but one i had at hand as it was one of the first reporting of it:

#stop KOSA #internet censorship #internet privacy #internet freedom

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autogeneratedkahootnickname · 2 years ago

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Ok stuff's been happening in the world of UK politics and I need to share it with you before I scream.

So first, some important context. Way back in the 1920s when Ireland left the UK, the province of Ulster, by this point predominantly Protestant, remained, splitting from the rest of the nation. However, as is always the case with partition, it wasn't a clean break: people got stuck on sides of the border they weren't necessarily happy with, and over time, historical political and cultural divides were exacerbated by a new concrete separation that culminated in the Troubles, a period of violence in NI between the 1970s and the 1990s as radical nationalists (the IRA) clashed with the UK military over control of the region. This was largely ended in 1998 by the Good Friday Agreement, tearing down the hard border across Ireland and facilitating free movement of goods and people. In order to preserve the peace, a power sharing mechanism was implemented in Stormont (NI's assembly) whereby the government had to consist of two equal and codependent parties. The first minister was from the party who won the elections, the deputy minister was from the opposition, etc. This system worked well enough at suppressing Unionist/Nationalist tensions for about 20 years and was considered one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of British and Irish history.

Flash forward to 2016, and the UK votes to leave the EU. Overall. Within the nations, it's a different story, and while Scotland's desire to remain gets most of the press, Northern Ireland also voted disproportionately to remain. And as the Conservatives would discover, they kind of had to.

Because you see, a big part of the reason why the Good Friday Agreement worked is because both parties were EU members, so they were already part of the Single Market, meaning free movement of goods and services wasn't an issue since it was already European policy. Now Britain wants to leave the Single Market, we have an issue.

If you were looking at memes around 2017, you'll be familiar with the term 'Hard Brexit'. What that means is the UK is fully cut out of all the various levels of EU membership: the free trade, the external tariffs and, most importantly, the regulatory framework of the Single Market that allows goods to be easily traded across borders. As you may also know, the EU takes regulation very seriously, so ensuring imports are up to code is a lengthy and time-intensive process. If Britain wants a Hard Brexit, and they're cut out of the Single Market, there has to be a point where goods being traded in and out of countries still in the framework are checked. Say, for instance, in Ireland.

One problem: this entails a hard border. Not for people, perhaps, but for products, and people need products to make a living. On top of that as well, Northern Ireland would be cut out of the free trade area and potentially face massive import duties, massively increasing costs and threatening demand. Even on a symbolic level, its a firm dividing line across Ireland. And the Good Friday Agreement is very clear about the No Borders thing because Look What Happened The Last Time There Was A Border. If the Conservatives try and surround the UK with a hard customs border, Northern Ireland will fall.

But the alternative is either not having a Hard Brexit, the entire point of their manifesto, which would be political suicide, or leaving Northern Ireland behind basically in the EU, creating a border not across Ireland but across the UK. And if that happens, Northern Ireland will fall because of the radical unionists.

(Alternatively the solution was 'No Brexit in the first place' but too late for that now ig.)

David Cameron resigns before having to sort this out. Theresa May spends her entire premiership trying to sort this out while part of a coalition with the DUP (the leading Unionist party, at this point the largest party in Stormont and basically NI's Tories) and she can't, forcing her resignation. Then Boris Johnson comes along and finds a 'temporary' solution to get the paperwork signed: put the border between Great Britain and Norther Ireland, keeping Good Friday intact, until they can find a better way. Until then, Northern Ireland abides by EU trade regulation and future amendments: the Northern Ireland Protocol. And they wait. And they wait. And they don't.

As this shitshow is going down, Northern Ireland is getting increasingly tired of Westminster's routine (and the DUP's dumpster fire coalition attempt) and pivots towards new kid on the block, the party of compromise, Alliance. The Nationalists, led by Sinn Fein, lose votes through this too, but to a far lesser degree. DUP loses 10% of the vote share in the 2017 election, putting them and Sinn Fein neck and neck.

And in 2022, for the first time, Sinn Fein wins Stormont. The nationalists are in power in Northern Ireland. Or rather, they're half in power.

Because as we established, Northern Ireland has a power sharing system. And the DUP have boycotted Stormont. They aren't happy with the potential of being pulled away from the UK, so they decide if they can't have NI, no-one can. By refusing to participate in the coalition government, the Sinn Fein half is prohibited from governing alone, forcing the government into shutdown.

That shutdown has lasted for a year.

This happened around the time Boris Johnson started sinking over Partygate, followed by whatever the fuck happened with Truss, so NI got overshadowed in the news cycle but over the course of 2022, order has been breaking down in Northern Ireland as radical unionists begin to stir trouble. Indeed, it looks like Northern Ireland is heading straight back to the Troubles, and no-one seems to want to do anything to fix it. In fact, the Conservatives seem to want to declare war with the EU through a proposed override of the Protocol, dismantling decades of diplomatic hard work and plunging the continent into anarchy.

In October, Rishi Sunak is 'elected' Prime Minister, and he sets out to solve the Northern Irish issue. For all her many faults, Truss was pretty cordial with Europe, and Sunak continued that trend well into his premiership. Combined with the looming threat of Russia over European stability, the EU is in a compromising mood, and agrees to help work out a new system that tears down the border between the UK and Ireland. The plan is: separate goods going to Northern Ireland and goods going to the EU. Why it took them 7 years to sort that out I don't know but huzzah, a solution. But on top of this, they also implement the Stormont Brake: whereas before, EU law applies automatically in Northern Ireland, Stormont can veto proposed amendments from applying in Northern Ireland if they're too radical. This is a hugely generous concession by the EU since this is a major compromise on a lot of their core principles, since Northern Ireland is now part of the Single Market but theoretically exempt from following it, and by extension a huge win for Rishi Sunak. While the DUP have lost all credibility, this will hopefully be enough to get them back into Stormont. This new arrangement is called the Windsor Framework, and buries the final major hatchet in the Brexit divorce proceedings.

OK, LENGTHY context complete, lets discuss what's happened. Because turns out, there's opposition to this new framework.

Who from?

WHY ITS BORIS JOHNSON AND THE CHUCKLEFUCKS.

Basically, leading members of the Johnsonian and Trussian governments (including both PMs) explicitly said they wouldn't support the deal. They don't have an alternative. A plan. Anything. They just won't support it.

Joining them is, you guessed it, THE FUCKING DUP. No matter what happens, they're refusing to go back to Stormont. Just to spite their rivals.

Some more important context, the Conservatives are on the verge of self destructing since vast swathes of the party believe Johnson is a martyr and Sunak is not the True King, so getting the Conservatives to vote together is a massive challenge. If this vote passes, it'll give the Tories a lifeline to the next election, possibly their one positive achievement since 2016 outside of 'not actively backing Putin'. If it fails, the Conservatives are history. Making matters worse in the best way, Keir Starmer pledges Labour's plurality in support of Windsor, saying, to paraphrase, 'if you fucks can't get it together we'll do it for you.' Iconic. By doing so, Labour guarantee the vote passes unless the entire Conservative party rips itself in twain, but potentially force the PM to rely on the OPPOSITION over his OWN PARTY to pass groundbreaking legislation, which is almost worse for Sunak than the bill failing.

The vote took place today and the Conservatives, despite a massive rebellion, barely managed to vote in favour on their own majority alone. Barely. We're talking single digits. Two dozen Tory MPs rebelled, and 3 dozen more abstained. With no alternative. They would rather have chaos in Northern Ireland than be forced to work with the EU when the EU is bending over backwards to make this happen.

Today is a positive for the UK's future, but it reaffirms that the Conservatives need to go now more than ever.

#uk politics #northern ireland #windsor framework #long post #stormont #sorry for the long post i just needed to vent #i hope its accurate if its not ill make edits

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sun-in-retrograde · 7 months ago

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Uranus Conjunct Jupiter - Hope Just Spat Out a Tooth

The Jupiter-Uranus Conjunction is a lot of things, but one way to think of it is basically the new moon of the way the two planets relate - the end of a cycle that started at the last Jupiter Uranus conjunction and the start of something new. I wanted to give a little time to thinking about what we’re putting down, and what we might be able to do with the new energy.

An Aries Cycle

Uranus entered Aries 27 May and stayed there till mid August before retrograde. The conjunction completed 8 June.

Here’s the astro-seek data:

For the first half of the cycle, the energy of the relationship was pretty intense - Jupiter aspected Uranus, then went retrograde and aspected in again, then moved on. It was a slow build up, reaching a pinnacle in 2016/7 before winding down.

Think of this in terms of a lunar cycle. While Jupiter is waxing, building upon the Uranus energy it picked up in its conjunction, Uranus was in Aries. The process was laborious, intense.

Uranus in Aries came with promises - it started with the Arab Spring. Uranus in Aries was a freedom fighter establishing itself. It had rebel without a cause vibes. It came in with riots in the UK over the London Metropolitan Police shooting a black man, the Occupy Movement, the student fees protests and anti-austerity. It came in, fundamentally, with the first Conservative government since 1997.

The last one is important. 1997 was the last election in the UK where power changed hands. Power didn’t change hands in 1983, but the structure of the system changed fundamentally. Uranus and Jupiter can oversee revolutions.

What house is your Aries in? Where was the energy of Uranus active in your life while it was there? Was there anything that took time to develop? Any lessons that had to be learned again and again?

It feels to me almost like Uranus in Aries built up power and worked and grew, then the waning end of the cycle was a release of pressure. For example, in 2010 Britain elected a Conservative government under a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction. The Conservatives got in under a plan to unify the right and temper it’s weirdest and worst aspects. Or at least make it palatable. In 2014, under the square, a right of conservative party group called UKIP became a major party. In 2016 as the opposition completed itself, Britain voted to leave the EU.

In 2018, Uranus entered Taurus - traditional, slow moving and comfortable Taurus is a weird place for Uranus. What happens when Conservatives encounter the nervous energy of Uranus with its connections to queerness and difference? They react with fear. Since the Uranus-Jupiter cycle reached its waning phase, mainstream conservative movements in Britain have been ideologically captured by increasingly deranged conspiracy theorists. This process has felt relatively easy, and fast.

Another example: in 2010 the Lib Dems confirmed they wanted to bring in gay marriage and they had the power to push for it. In 2014, the square gave us gay marriage, but also Time Magazine’s “Transgender tipping point” - the key issues and demands of queer activism started to change. In 2017, at the opposition point of this cycle, the government announced that it would hold a consultation on gender recognition act reform. Then in 2018 Uranus entered Taurus and Gender Critical reactionary anti-trans rhetoric really stepped up. The tenor of the conversation has changed. In 2017 the Tories wanted to be pro-LGBT to be on “the right side of history”. These days the prime minister jokes about murdered trans children in front of their parents.

Cycles and cycles

Of course, we haven’t lost every cultural battle since Uranus entered Taurus, and the Uranus Jupiter Cycle isn’t the only cycle that’s going on. But it has been a tough old cycle. Maybe it was tough for you personally, or maybe the area Uranus has been active in has been blessed with luck from Jupiter. Maybe for you it feels like on a personal level the hard work of Uranus in Aries paid off in an easeful period of Uranus in Taurus. Maybe you’ve even won your political struggles.

It’s worth considering the public and personal issues you’ve been through in this period, and whether they may be coming towards the possibility for something new.

The future

In the next cycle, while it starts in Taurus it’s not there for long - just the conjunction. Then for 14 years Uranus will be active in Gemini, then Cancer.

Taking the last phase as a pattern, the first part of this stage feels relatively easeful - there are no repetitions. In Gemini I wonder if we may find Uranus active in how we respond to, incorporate, and resist technology. This seems reasonable. We appear to have entered one of those periods where technology is shifting.

What interests me is the 2030s. Uranus enters Cancer and we do the work of coming home, nurturing, integrating something. Looking at the cycle we’re about to start - it starts with Uranus in a sign where it’s deeply reactive, and uncomfortable (arguably, Uranus has its fall in Taurus). But, I hope, it’s heading to a kind of integration and better wholeness. There’s the potential in this cycle to learn cool shit and, ultimately, to learn to live with it. To maybe even heal a bit, if we’re lucky.

But, more importantly, it’s a new revolution. Revolutions go around. We didn’t win every fight in the last Jupiter-Uranus cycle, but we won some, and we can win some this time, too.

#astrology #uranus #jupiter

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beardedmrbean · 5 months ago

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France's political future was up in the air Thursday with the far-right surging in polls but other forces fighting to the end three days before a high-stakes parliamentary vote.

Depending on the result, President Emmanuel Macron could be left in a tense "cohabitation" with a prime minister from an opposing party, or with a chamber unable to produce a stable majority for at least a year to govern the EU's second economy and top military power.

Surveys suggest voters will hand the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen over 35 percent in the first round on Sunday, with a left alliance trailing on up to 29 and Macron's centrists in the dust at around 20 percent.

When he called the snap poll after a June 9 European election drubbing by the RN, Macron had hoped to present voters with a stark choice about whether to hand France to the far right.

But the lightning three-week campaign "wasn't going to turn around the major trends," Brice Teinturier, deputy director of pollster Ipsos, told Le Monde daily, adding that the "RN bloc is incredibly powerful".

Even France's seasoned pollsters are struggling to translate that base level of support into a final result, as July 7's second-round run-off ballots -- many expected to be three-way fights -- can see voters shift allegiances and new alliances of convenience form.

Higher-than-usual turnout could also transform the vote.

Around two thirds of eligible voters plan to cast their ballots, which would be the highest level since 1997.

By Thursday, polling firm Harris Interactive Toluna was predicting 250 to 305 seats out of 577 for the RN -- putting an absolute majority in its grasp -- while Ifop-Fiducial suggested the party could top out at 260.

Le Pen already was planning for an absoute majority and RN head of government, telling the Telegramme daily that the president's title as commander-in-chief of the armed forces was "an honorific, because it's the prime minister who holds the purse strings."

Therefore, "on Ukraine, the president will not be able to send troops", she added, undermining his warning to Moscow that France would keep all options on the table to thwart Russia's invasion of its neighbour.

Her candidate for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, has already vowed not to send Kyiv long-range missiles and other weapons that could strike Russian territory, in a reversal of Macron's policy.

The RN has also said it will not agree to form a government without an absolute majority -- leaving open the possibility that no political force will be able to keep a prime minister in place.

Last gasp

Hoping to defy the odds, current incumbent Gabriel Attal -- named months ago by Macron as France's youngest-ever PM -- will take on RN frontman Bardella and Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure in a TV debate on Thursday evening.

It marks one of the last opportunities to convince voters as campaigning is officially suspended on Saturday and during voting on Sunday.

Candidates had failed to land any telling blows in a previous broadcast showdown on Tuesday.

Attal on Wednesday hammered his message throughout the lightning three-week campaign at a stop in central France, asking voters to reject an RN that "stigmatises" parts of the population and a left alliance he said indulged sectarianism.

Bardella may attempt to clarify some of his plans for voters' wallets, after struggling to explain how he would undo Macron's unpopular increase to the pension age or shape a policy to exempt under-30s from income tax.

He was forced to say Wednesday that "of course there would be a ceiling" on the income tax exemption after being challenged on whether star France striker Kylian Mbappe's multi-million salary would go untaxed.

#nunyas news

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biblenewsprophecy · 2 days ago

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EU proposing another agency that would support ‘666’ controls

COGwriter

While many are fixated on the US presidential election, other developments are happening around the world that look to have prophetic importance.

Consider that the European Union keeps taking steps to increase surveillance. According to the National Post, it now has proposed a new espionage agency:

The EU is Developing Its Own CIA

A report produced by the European Union (EU) has called on the bloc to create a new Europe-wide spy agency to fight against sabotage and other foreign threats. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö submitted the report to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Niinistö calls on the EU to create a “fully-fledged intelligence cooperation service at the EU level that can serve both the strategic and operational needs ” and adds that a network is also needed to prevent the sabotage of critical infrastructure.

President Von der Leyen reacted to the report by saying, “We should build on improving the flow of information, information gathering, and intelligence gathering.” https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/11/02/the-eu-is-developing-its-own-cia/

This looks like another step that would help Europe implement/monitor totalitarian ‘666-type’ controls.

Earlier this year, the EU went for regulation of Artificial Intelligence (see CNBC: World’s first major act to regulate AI passed by European lawmakers).

While European Union leaders want to project the idea that their new agencies and rules will “would enable innovation, while safeguarding fundamental rights,” they will tend to have the opposite affect.

What we keep seeing looks to be preludes to 666.

The Bible teaches that Europe will reorganize to become a dictatorship:

12 “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. 13 These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. (Revelation 17:12-13)

By having its own European spy agency, this is another way that Europe is trying to rise up.

The Bible prophesies that financial and other controls are coming to Europe. In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John was told by Jesus to write the following:

15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelation 13:15-18)

Notice that buying and selling will be monitored and worship forced. It will take some type of group to do that, and that certainly would align with an espionage agency in Europe. 666 is a European power, the final revival of the Roman Empire (see also The European Union and the Seven Kings of Revelation 17). When Jesus had the Apostle John pen this 1900+ years ago, there was no way to monitor most buying and selling. With computer software, including AI, much is already being done, and more will be done. A totalitarian system is being put in place. Europe wants to lead it.

As far as 666 pointing to the Roman Empire, the first writing that has been found that suggests that a Roman, or Roman empire, is 666 was by Irenaeus, who claimed to have listened to Polycarp when he (Irenaeus) was a young man. Irenaeus wrote:

Then also Lateinos (LATEINOS) has the number six hundred and sixty-six; and it is a very probable [solution], this being the name of the last kingdom [of the four seen by Daniel]. For the Latins are they who at present bear rule: (Irenaeus. Adversus haereses, Book V, Chapter 30, Verse 3. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).

The New Testament was written in Greek, and John penned the Book of Revelation on the Greek speaking island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9). They still speak Greek there. Anyway, adding up the values of the Greek letters for the word Lateinos brings you to 666:

L = 30lambda

A = 1alpha

T = 300tau

E = 5epsilon

I = 10iota

N = 50nu

O = 70omicron

S = 200sigma

——–

666

This is consistent with what the old Worldwide Church of God taught:

In the 2nd century A.D., Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp, the Apostle John’s disciple, explained that in Greek the word Lateinos — meaning “Latin man” or Roman — adds up to 666. (L = 30; A = 1; T = 300; E = 5; I = 10; N = 50; 0 = 70; S = 200) This, he stated, was the, intent of the scripture.

The number 666 is thus anciently branded on the old Roman Empire and its revivals. (Stump KW. Just What Do You Mean… ANTICHRIST? Plain Truth, September 1981)

As far as tying that in with modern Europe, consider that back in 1962, Oxford published an article claiming a European Empire from Charlemagne (who headed up what was called the ‘Holy Roman Empire’) essentially became the European Economic Community, then also called the Common Market (Engelmann, Hugo O. “The European Empire: From Charlemagne to the Common Market.” Social Forces, vol. 40, no. 4, 1962, pp. 297–301). Notice something more recent:

The New Empire

Like the Holy Roman Empire, the European Union is not a nation-state — and it doesn’t control a large part of its member-states’ revenues or military resources. But the EU can coordinate collective defense … And it can manage other joint projects — again, just like the empire. (Tollen D. EU SUPERPOWER: THE NEW HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Pints of History, March 15, 2022)

Yes, Europe is a type of revival of the Roman Empire and the so-called ‘Holy Roman Empire.’ The European Beast will be the end time 666.

As far as 666 itself goes, it is the number of the first beast in Revelation 13 as distinguished from the Antichrist, who is the second, the two-horned beast, in the same chapter. And as Revelation 13 shows, the two-horned beast works with, and promotes, the seven-headed (and ten-horned) first beast in that chapter. While some have tried to state that the number is actually 616 and not 666:

the earliest extant Greek manuscripts of Revelation visually represented the number 666 either in longhand number- words (hexakosioi hexÄ“konta hex), or in alphabetic shorthand (Ï‡Î¾Ï›). (Winkl RE. Recalculating the Number of the Beast in Revelation 13:18. 2019 SBL INTERNATIONAL MEETING ABSTRACTS, July 2, 2019)

Yes, the number is 666. A number of imperfect humankind.

That said, please understand that the leader of the ten-horned Beast of Revelation 13:1-10 (see Europa, the Beast, and the Book of Revelation) and the one called 666 in Revelation 13:10 is also the one who is the final King of the North. He is also called the ‘man of sin’ in 2 Thessalonians 2 (see also Who is the Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians 2?).

As we warned before, Europe has long been in the process of establishing an enforcer for 666 controls. We have a related video:

youtube

EU Setting Up 666 Enforcer?

The European Union is in the process of establishing the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. This is a major, first-of-its-kind move, with the EU setting up a European-wide prosecutor’s office that will have power to investigate and charge people for financial crimes committed against the EU. It looks like this type of office may end up persecuting those that do not have the mark of the Beast when they “buy or sell” as that will later be considered a financial crime in Europe. What does 666 mean? How has that name been calculated? How can we be certain that this is a prophecy for Europe and not Islam? Is the appointment of this new office of significant prophetic importance? Dr. Thiel addresses these issues and more by pointing to scriptures, news items, and historical accounts.

Here is a link to the sermonette video: EU Setting Up 666 Enforcer?

Europe has set up such an office with that ability.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office officially started operations on 1 June 2021 (https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/background).

A major spy agency would also seem to be part of 666 monitoring, and that is now been proposed.

Europe is taking steps.

Related to financial monitoring, the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) put out the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

youtube

9:03

EU to be ‘Sheriff’ of BitCoin & Digital Currencies

Will Bitcoin remain unregulated? The European Union does not think it should be and it released a paper titled “Proposal for EU Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets.” Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, earlier endorsed EU regulation of crypto and digital currencies. A Belgian declared that the EU was the “new Sheriff in town” to deal with the “wild west” of Bitcoin, blockchain, and other cryptocurrencies. The European Union now also has the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in operation, mainly to deal with financial matters? Will the Europeans end up controlling buying and selling associated with 666 in Revelation 13:16-18? Is Europe taking preliminary steps to do so now? Dr. Thiel address these issues.

Here is a link to our video: EU to be ‘Sheriff’ of BitCoin & Digital Currencies.

Steps towards 666 in Europe are taking place.

Are YOU paying attention? Things are changing and will not remain as they have.

Remember to pray, as Jesus said (Matthew 6:10), for God’s Kingdom to come.

LATEST NEWS REPORTS

LATEST BIBLE PROPHECY INTERVIEWS

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qnewsau · 4 months ago

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Civil unions begin for same-sex couples in Latvia

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/civil-unions-begin-for-same-sex-couples-in-latvia/

Civil unions begin for same-sex couples in Latvia

With civil unions becoming available for gay and lesbian couples in Latvia on July 1, only five EU member states still do not formally recognise same-sex relationships under the law.

Latvia’s civil unions law was passed by the parliament in November last year but it only came into effect on Monday.

Maksims Ringo and Janis Locs became the first Latvian couple to register their relationship as a civil union, staying up past midnight on June 30 in the capital Riga until the law came into effect.

They exchanged silver rings which they plan to exchange for gold rings if Latvia ever overturns its 2006 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“We are together for five and a half years … so for us, it’s mostly practical,” Ringo told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

Better rights but still not equal

Latvian couples who register their relationships as civil unions will have guaranteed hospital visitation rights and improved tax and social security arrangements.

However they will still not be able to adopt children as a couple or adopt their partner’s children and are still not guaranteed inheritance rights if their partner dies.

“The introduction of partnership in Latvia is an important step towards a more equal, inclusive and empathetic society, in which each person feels valued and can realise his or her potential both in personal and professional life,” Latvia’s Life Partners movement leader Kaspars Zālītis said in a statement.

“The introduction of the Institute of Partnership Law is an important signal that all families in Latvia are protected, valued, and recognised.

“This is extremely important for people who have remained invisible to the state, not only in practical matters of everyday life but also emotionally. This long-awaited moment will positively change the lives of many people,”

Latvia’s parliament elected its first openly gay head of state in May, President Edgars Rinkevics.

The five EU holdouts

With this reform coming into effect, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia are left as the only remaining EU states that do not recognise same-sex relationships – though the European Court of Justice has ruled that all EU states must grant married same-sex couples, where at least one partner is an EU citizen, full residency rights and freedom of movement.

Neighbouring Estonia legalised same-sex marriage in June last year, becoming the first Baltic state to do so.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

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at-the-end-of-days · 9 months ago

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Conspiracy Theory Time:

It is February 28, 2024.

Looking at America, they have cancelled Roe v. Wade, resulting in more pregnancies.

They have a Migrant “crisis.”

Though Europe is having a similar issue:

Warsaw, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Irregular immigration to the EU from Western Africa rose more than ten times on the year in January, according to the bloc's Frontex border agency, which expects overall arrivals to grow in 2024 and says halting the movement of people completely is impossible.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-border-agency-says-stopping-migration-is-impossible-2024-02-07/#:~:text=Warsaw%2C%20Feb%207%20(Reuters),of%20people%20completely%20is%20impossible

Their military is restructuring. Aka, cutting about 24,000 positions.

Their military is also offering a chance for Migrants to fast track their U.S. citizenship by joining the military.

If you served honorably in the U.S. armed forces for at least one year at any time, you may be eligible to apply for naturalization. While some general naturalization requirements apply under INA 328, other requirements may not apply or are reduced.

https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-military-service#:~:text=If%20you%20served%20honorably%20in,not%20apply%20or%20are%20reduced.

That was in 2023. 2024?

It’s even faster.

And Senate leader, Mitch McConnell is stepping down in November.

And we all know how much politicians love their money and to stay in power.

And the United States can never pay back its national debt.

My theory?

The United States has been planning world war 3 for a long time. They planned to overthrow Roe v. Wade to begin preparing for a massive population loss. They’re fighting all they can to ensure as many women as possible get and stay pregnant, both as a means of controlling women, and to pump the population before a dip. They can’t pay back their national debt, and they would need a valid reason to cancel the debt, or destroy their own economy.

They’ve been purposefully firing up the migrant issue for a while now, both in policy and in opinion of the population, so that the Migrants will feel they have no other choice than to join the military for citizenship.

So, they vacated positions, to save the “true born Americans” and then send in as many migrants as possible to get a war started, to keep the “true borns” in reserve. Yes, countless will die, but now more of the “other” can die in their government’s eyes.

^this doesn’t reflect my morals, I do not approve of this, or war, it’s simply what I think their government is considering.

I don’t like Trump as a person, politician, or businessman from what I’ve read and seen. But would he even have a chance to be President of the United States if NATO goes into Ukraine before the election? Wouldn’t their current President simply remain president? But the other politicians, their party leaders at least, know more than their people do. I don’t think their Senate leader wants to lead during a war, so, stepping down come the election.

But that’s my theory, that everything’s been planned by the United States for a global conflict.

#conspiracy theory #at the end of days #American politics #United States military #United states

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news-now · 3 years ago

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Spies, Business deals and Criminals. How Orbán favors Russian interests instead of Western Ones

In the past 12 years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has gotten into a situation many times, when they had to decide between the interests of Western allies, or Russia. News Now has revealed many cases, where, in the end, the government favored Vladimir Putin and his circles. It occurred, for example, that they drove a Hungarian company out of business, just to be able to make space for a Russian firm.

From the beginning of the Russian invasion on Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and members of his government suddenly started stressing their devotion for their Western alliance and NATO. In the past 12 years, however, several Hungarian government decisions benefited Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

These were especially eye-catching when the government favored Putin and his circles even in situations when Russian aspirations obviously collided with the interest of Hungary’s NATO and EU-allies, or even Hungarian economic players, or the Hungarian state itself.

Since these conflicts mostly took place behind the curtains, they only became public afterwards, thanks to the investigative work of, amongst many, News Now. In this article we summarised how the Orbán government decided in many of these disputed matters prioritizing Russia’s interests.

Fidesz oligarchs visiting Putin’s intelligence service

Up until 2010, one could have the perception – based on his rhetoric in public – that Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party represented a reliably pro-Western position in foreign policy, security, and energy issues. For instance, April Foley, the former U.S. Ambassador to Budapest put it this way in a diplomatic telegram, that was later published by WikiLeaks:

„Orbán may be no angel, but he is on the side of the angels on these issues.”

However, choosing sides was not that obvious anymore for Viktor Orbán when he was preparing to win the parliamentary elections in 2010. It was a clear sign when the Fidesz charman – who had previously been presumed as anti-Russian – met Putin in person in Russia at the end of 2009. What the public had no knowledge about, however, was that Fidesz oligarch Lajos Simicska and his close associate, businessman Zsolt Nyerges, later also flew to Moscow.

Simicska and his people were still controlling the economic hinterland of Fidesz as close allies of Orbán at that time, and they went to Russia to build relationships useful in the future governing. Their way led to the former KGB headquarters at Lubyanka Square, where they had a negotiation with a representative of the FSB (Federal Security Service), the successor to the KGB. (Previously, Vladimir Putin was director of the FSB, and he also served as a KGB security officer in his youth.)

Sources familiar with this meeting told News Now that at this “introductory visit” the Russians expressed that if the Hungarian party needs assistance in business matters, they can be “counted on”. Information about the meeting only became public in 2018, when News Now published a long article revealing the nature of Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin’s relationship (in the article, we also showed what disputed issued needed to be settled first to get this friendship started).

Russian nuclear deal instead of Western technologies

Orbán’s first truly spectacular move signalling both in Hungary and abroad that he would be committed to Russia in the long run was when he decided on the Paks nuclear power plant extension.

During the early 2010’s, U.S., French and South Korean companies were also interested in carrying out this project. By the end of 2013, however, Hungarian government officials negotiating on the matter received an order saying that there was no need for further discussions.

This was because, in a confidential meeting in August 2013, Viktor Orbán made an agreement with the head of Russian state nuclear company Rosatom awarding the contract of the new nuclear plant in Paks to the Russians without an open bidding. Details were settled by the Russian and Hungarian parties in secrecy in the upcoming months. The public was only notified when, in January 2014, Orbán and Putin declared that they signed a contract on the matter.

Although the European Union’s approval on the project had caused some delays, it did not get any faster afterwards either. The main reason for this was that the Russians struggled to make progress with planning the facility in accordance with the applying Hungarian standards. A visible sign of this was that the construction permit request was not ready in time. In this document, based on Russian plans, it must be justified that the power plant can be built and operated safely. At first, the Hungarian government expected that this paper could be filed with the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority, which is responsible for the approval, in 2018. Eventually, it only happened much later in 2020.

Although the Russians were stranded in the planning, they still urged to start executing the project, and came up with many ideas they thought could be used to catch up with the delay. One suggestion was that some specific groundwork could be started before the construction permit is approved. This had a risk that if the foundations are laid before the project’s documentations are accepted, it is not certain that they would fit to the future power plant in all aspects.

To be able to go through with these modifications favored by the Russians, the Hungarian government eventually agreed to change a crucial regulation, which caused conflicts even inside the administration, and needed additional approval from the European Union.

The government however did not let the power plant get the construction permit before the Russians corrected their faulty documentation.

Hungarian company booted out to make space for Russians

The government prioritized Russian interests above Hungarians, when Ganz group, a Hungarian mechanical engineering firm, got close to a lucrative foreign contract. As a member of a consortium, Ganz won an Egyptian tender for the purchase of 1,300 railway carriages worth many hundreds of billions of forints. To be able to carry out the project, Ganz needed a loan from the state. State-owned Eximbank first took over the payment of this, but later cancelled and threw their support behind Transmashholding instead, which was the Russian competitor of Ganz.

As Ganz’s bid was made impossible, in September of 2018, the Egyptians entered into a contract with Transmashholding Hungary Ltd., the Hungarian subsidiary of the Russian firm. Later, pro-government figures started showing up around this company. One of the firsts steps of this progress was when Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, former Hungarian Ambassador to London and once a business partner of Árpád Habony, bought ownership in the tender-winner company.

The Hungarian state favored Transmashholding also when in spring 2021 they decided to withdraw and relaunch the 200 billion forints worth public procurement of suburban rail carriages. The government’s official explanation was that the bids of the two contenders, the Swiss Stadler and the French Alstom companies, were too pricey. By rebooting the procurement, Transmashholding also got a chance to enter the competition for the huge contract. Previously, the Russian company did not meet the requirements of the original procurement conditions.

In our country even Russian spies run free

Besides the Russian expansion of the Paks nuclear plant, the Orbán government has most frequently been criticised for turning a blind eye to Russian intelligence operations. In the 2010’s, majority of EU and NATO member states started seeing Russia as the greatest threat to their national security. They kept revealing Russian spies committing assassinations, murders, and explosions. Orbán’s government, however, approached the problem in a completely different way.

For instance, News Now uncovered that although Russian spies – about ten of them between 2010 and 2016 – have been exposed in Hungary too, these spy affairs were always dealt with secrecy. While neighbouring countries made cases public many times when Russian intelligence operatives were caught, and Russian diplomats were expelled as sanctions, Hungary simply asked the exposed officials to return home.

This so called “silent expulsion” happened in the case of that GRU agent too who previously had been in contact with the Hungarian neo-Nazi group called Hungarian National Front (MNA). This organisation became widely known in 2016. Their leader, István Győrkös had gotten into a firefight with police officers arriving to search his home for weapons, and one officer died. Subsequently, Index.hu discovered that GRU intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover in the Russian embassy in Budapest provided military training to the Hungarian neo-Nazis, disguised as airsoft practice (military games played with tools resembling real weapons).

Since 2010, there was only a single case when Hungary officially banned a Russian diplomat. This happened in spring 2018, after the GRU tried to murder former Russian spy Sergey Skripal – who defected and, by that time, also lived in Great Britain – and his daughter with a nerve agent. As a response to the assassination attempt, NATO and EU member states, following up a British initiative, expelled Russian diplomats with GRU ties, and Hungary also joined the action.

But even on this rare occasion, News Now found out that Budapest and Moscow secretly played on the same side, and commanded the mutual expulsion of their diplomats in a way that they could avoid harming Russian-Hungarian relations. For example, the Russian diplomat who was banned from Hungary had finished his mission anyway beforehand, and was already preparing to return home.

But the graciousness of the Hungarian counterintelligence towards Russian intelligence services was perhaps best shown in the handling of the Hungarian residency bond (golden visa) program. News Now, together with 444.hu and Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, found that people in Putin’s circles had also purchased Hungarian residency permits (combined with Schengen visas), and some of them were quite problematic with respect to Hungarian national security. Despite compulsory national security screenings, residency bonds were purchased by Russian foreign intelligence (SVR) head Sergey Naryshkin’s close family members, like, for example, his son.

Arms dealers helped to freedom by the Orbán government

While the Orbán government did a growing number of favors to Russia in mostly economic matters and also did not step up firmly against Russian espionage, the cooperation with NATO partners could have never been doubted in the field of law enforcement. The turning point was the Lyubishin affair.

Vladimir Lyubishin and his son of the same name had long been living in Hungary, from where the Russians were selling arms – for example, discarded weapons of the Hungarian Defence Forces. When representatives of a Mexican drug cartel showed up as potential customers, they did not turn them down either. Among many other things, they wanted to buy anti-aircraft missiles that they would shoot at the helicopters of the U.S. coast guards, and besides cash, they would have paid the for them in cocaine. But not long after the deal had been made, the Lyubishins were raided by Counter Terrorism Centre (TEK) special forces.

News Now revealed the Lyubishin’s story in the autumn of 2018. In a secret international investigation under the codename ‘Perseus’ it was the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that captured the two Russians in a sting operation. Subsequently, the Lyubishins were to stand trial in New York City. Throughout the whole investigation, the U.S. cooperated with Hungarian authorities, this is why they were stunned when the Orbán government suddenly denied a U.S. extradition request for Lyubishin and his son, and sent the two men to Russia instead.

Later we also found out that it was the Russian FSB that came to the help of the Lyubishins. Russia submitted their extradition request based on a fake, backdated FSB investigation against the two arms dealers that they have actually staged afterwards the arrest in Hungary. Although the Russian documents were full of errors, and even the Hungarian prosecutor was against accepting the Russian extradition request, Minister of Justice László Trócsányi decided to send the weapons smugglers home regardless. First it was Lyubishin Jr. who was set free; and a few months later his father was also released. The case put a strain on the Hungarian-U.S. relationship.

Bank suspected of espionage relocates to Budapest

Not long after the Lyubishin affair, the Orbán government found itself between colliding U.S. and Russian interests once more, and decided in favor of Moscow again.

Vladimir Putin brought one of the former Soviet Bloc’s institutions, the International Investment Bank (IIB) – also dubbed as the ‘Comecon bank’ – back to life in 2012. This step fit well into the part of the Russian foreign policy agenda that wanted to expand its international financial influence. Russia is the biggest stakeholder of IIB and the bank’s chairman is also Russian, which reveals that the whole bank is actually Russian-dominated to its core. Moreover, Russia’s second biggest financial institution, VTB Bank – whose leader has close ties to Putin – has been granted a supervisory position within IIB.

In their financial expansion, Russians found an eager partner in the Orbán government. Hungary joined the IIB in 2015, and soon became its second biggest stakeholder step by step. In the end of 2018, it also turned out that the bank was relocating its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest, and while doing it, they received many privileges from the Hungarian government. Although both the bank and the Hungarian government has been stressing that this is an international institution, in his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán said he asked the Russian president so the bank could come to Budapest.

The bank quickly started its relocation in 2019, but the United States saw the institution as a threat from the very beginning. They were concerned that the bank – abusing the diplomatic immunities that IIB is entitled to have – would send more Russian spies to Hungary. IIB denied this suspicion from the start, while the media emphasized IIB chairman Nikolay Kosov’s family ties to the KGB. His father was a member of the KG task force sent to Hungary to crush the revolution of 1956, and later on he even became the KGB’s local head in Budapest.

IIB – labeled as “Russian spy bank” by the Hungarian opposition – became a symbolic example of the Orbán government’s pro-Kremlin agenda. It was well shown by the fact that, right after the Russians launched the invasion on Ukraine, the Hungarian opposition instantly requested the expulsion of IIB from Hungary. Later, on March 1, they held an anti-war protest in front of the bank’s headquarters.

#Russian #Russian spy bank

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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The election earlier this month of the Russia-friendly populist Peter Pellegrini to president of Slovakia over the pro-Western candidate, Ivan Korcok, has gifted Moscow another collaborator in the EU, and thus dealt faltering Ukraine a further blow as it struggles on the battlefield. The new president will solidify the power of his close political ally, Prime Minister Robert Fico, who opposes sending military aid to Ukraine, and hand Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a more solid pro-Russia ally in EU and NATO decision-making processes.

The campaign’s shrill tone, dominated by anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian disinformation posing Korcok as a U.S. lackey and “candidate of war,” is not just another case of dirty electioneering in Central Europe. It is also the result of Russia’s intervention in Slovakia’s media space and politics, which experts say ramped up significantly during the campaign’s final weeks. It was another stark warning ahead of European parliamentary elections in June that Russian digital propagandists and their proxies are intent upon—and capable of—swaying elections within the EU.

The contest for the Slovakian presidency might at first glance seem like a marginal spectacle. In the Central European country of just 5.4 million, the presidency has few powers, the most consequential being a veto over new legislation—and even that can be overridden by the parliament with a simple majority. Yet for the past five years this post has been held by the progressive-minded environmental and human rights advocate Zuzana Caputova, who, when elected in 2019, many saw as a bright spot in Central and Eastern Europe, a region where populists have thrived. Perhaps her most important work—and evidence of the enormity of the popular figure’s decision not to run for reelection—unfolded in the last six months. Despite her limited reach, Caputova acted as a check on Fico’s three-party coalition, for example by challenging the government’s overhaul of the criminal code.

Korcok, a retired diplomat who was foreign minister from 2020 to 2022, would have been an able successor, observers said. And he entered the race in pole position after winning the first round of voting in March with 42.5 percent of the votes, compared to Pellegrini’s 37 percent.

But a campaign featuring a barrage of pro-Russian disinformation could have been the lever that turned the result around so dramatically: Pellegrini captured around 53 percent, while Korcok trailed woefully with almost 47 percent. Russia’s footprint was all over the election campaign, said Slovak observers, and, as it did in last year’s parliamentary elections, Russia’s machinations may well have swung the vote to its favored candidate.

“Russia’s impact was immense and influential,” said Eva Mihockova of the Bratislava-based think tank Slovak Foreign Policy Association. “The lies and ridiculous falsehoods on dubious websites and social media blasted Korcok as the candidate of war and a dangerous free-market liberal,” she said. “The influence of Russia is obvious, even though there’s no evidence yet that these media are actually paid by Moscow, although there is big suspicion that they are. They certainly take a line that reflects Russia’s interests.” Mihockova said that much of the disinformation comes indirectly through Slovak proxies rather than directly from Russia, in contrast to last year, when Slovakia expelled a Russian diplomat for meddling in the parliamentary campaign.

“Since the pandemic, the pro-Russia, conspiracy-theorizing, so-called alternative media have been and are instrumental in changing the political landscape here, as well as the language and culture,” said Juliana Sokolova, a Slovak poet and philosopher. “They are listened to by lots of people and accepted as true.”

The pro-Russian internet platforms and social media channels, said Slovak experts such as Dominika Hajdu of the Bratislava think tank Globsec, threw their support demonstratively behind Pellegrini after the first round. The websites—such as Hlavne Spravy, ExtraPlus, InfoVojna, and others—reiterated the Kremlin line pretty much verbatim, she said. Hlavne Spravy’s Telegram account is rife with posts about LGBTQ perversion, Washington’s aggressive foreign policies, NATO’s expansionist aims, the NATO-U.S. bombing of Serbia in 1999, and of course the war in Ukraine itself: the oppression of the Russian minority in Ukraine, NATO hawkishness, and the far right in Ukrainian society and politics. Some of the Slovak websites’ news bulletins simply copied, translated, and pasted articles from NewsFront, Hajdu said, referring to a Crimea-based disinformation and propaganda outlet that works with Russia’s main security agency, the FSB.

According to Gerulata Technologies, a Slovak start-up specializing in hybrid threats, the thicket of pro-Russian media is complex and intransparent. There are far-right, far-left, and populist politicians who spread pro-Russian propaganda out of conviction, it said, as well as disinformation media outlets that are sometimes directly connected to Russian interests and others, like the Slovak branch of NewsFront, that are Russian state-controlled trolls and proxies.

The analyst Michaela Ruzickova said in the two weeks before the vote, the pro-Russian narratives reached a crescendo. Even more so than in July last year, Ruzickova, working for the think tank Warsaw Institute, found that “to achieve its goals, the Kremlin uses not only its own resources (embassies, spies, oligarchs), but also local actors who are willing to cooperate and spread Russian propaganda for various incentives.” Ruzickova argued that “the multiplication of Russian influence in Slovakia is facilitated by domestic sympathizers and disinformation actors who willingly adopt the content of pro-Kremlin channels, as well as the official positions of the Russian military and political establishment. Slovak disinformation actors are thus deliberately helping Russia to legitimize its policies and discredit Ukraine, the West, and democratic and international institutions.”

The most pronounced example of this was the way that, in the aftermath of the first-round vote, Slovakia’s pro-Russia media outlets and proxies energetically perpetuated the disinformation that Korcok was the candidate of war who would reinstate military conscription and send Slovak soldiers to Ukraine to fight for Kyiv. They charged that Korcok was a U.S. and NATO puppet who put the interests of the EU and the Atlantic alliance above those of ordinary Slovaks. In fact, Korcok never said this, nor does the Slovak president have the power to send anyone to war. Fico joined in the cacophony of Russian tropes, calling Korcok a “warmonger.”

There is evidence across Central Europe of Russia investing in disinformation channels much like the Slovak websites and illiberal right-wing parties. On March 27, the German magazine Der Spiegel and the Czech Deník N reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary received payments from Voice of Europe, a portal owned by a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch, to spread Russian propaganda in advance of the European Parliament vote. The Czech government slapped sanctions on the platform for promoting Russian interests and covertly financing candidates for the European Parliament, which caused it to cease operations. Voice of Europe had more than 180,000 followers on Twitter/X, according to the BBC.

Matus Kostolny, chief editor of Dennik N, finds it hard to explain the Slovaks’ favorable opinion of Russia after the Soviet Union’s 40 years of postwar occupation of Slovakia and the invasion of Ukraine—in stark contrast to neighboring Czech Republic and Poland. But he underscored that the Russian propaganda in Slovakia has more voices than just “fake journalists” on the internet. “Slovakia’s politicians, particularly in the government parties, regularly mouth this language of Russia and repeat its topics and propaganda. This is more powerful than anything coming directly from Russia.”

“It’s not that Slovaks want to live in Russia, nor do these [pro-Russian] politicians want the Soviet Union back in Slovakia,” Kostolny told Foreign Policy. “But they use it to attack their liberal opponents who have cracked down on the corruption and put their allies behind bars.” The Slovak president, Kostolny noted, has the authority to appoint justices to the Constitutional Court and to issue pardons—two critical levers for reversing the fight against corruption. Kostolny said he wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Pellegrini begins pardoning some of the dozens of convicted figures from the ranks of the government parties.

But Slovakia’s new rulers have shown that they will practice what they preach. After the Fico government took office last year, Fico cut off Slovakian military aid to Ukraine and then claimed earlier this year that Ukraine stood “completely under the influence and control of the USA” and is therefore “not an independent and sovereign country.”

Sokolova said that another critical component to the wins by Fico’s party and Pellegrini was the long arm of Orban. The ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia compose about 8 percent of the population and vote in both Slovak and Hungarian elections. They vote overwhelmingly for Orban’s Fidesz party and tend to chafe under the rule of Slovak nationalist politicos.

But Orban sees an alliance with Slovakia’s populist government, which includes the ultranationalist Slovak National Party, as a better payoff than fighting rhetorical battles over bygone injustices. “Orban mobilizing voters in southern Slovakia via his media for Pellegrini was absolutely decisive,” said Sokolova, an ethnic Hungarian living in southern Slovakia. “The voter turnout [for Pellegrini] was massive in [ethnic] Hungarian towns.”

Mihockova said the ethnic animosity between Slovaks and Hungarians has mostly evaporated in favor of other enmities. “Slovakia’s nationalists and autocrats found that you can win more voters with the hate figure favorites of the Orban regime—such as Brussels, the U.S., and immigrants—than with traditional ethnic nationalism,” she told Foreign Policy. “The Slovak populists see Orban and Fidesz Hungary as a role model.” And, as for Orban’s about-face, “he needs partners,” Mihockova said.

Now, with Slovakia’s populist president and government in place, he has one more partner in his crusade to flip the European Parliament and abandon Europe’s defense of Ukraine.

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purplepink-blueberry · 6 months ago

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hello everyone, an update and clarification of stuff

this information is based of Denník N, which is a mostly reliable news source. also, this info is as of 10 pm of the 15th of may 2024.

the PM was shot 3 times (as far as we know) in the town of Handlová in central Slovakia. the weapon fired 4 times. the PM's security fucked up massively, based on the video I saw (recorded by RTV Prievidza). it is in this man's tradition to greet people and shake hands with them personally. it's a big part of his marketing. so he was doing just that, he approached a barrier and from behind the barrier, a shooter started shooting. the security was on the other side of the barriers and while they were able to reach the guy, they didn't (or couldn't) prevent him from shooting, they took him down once they got over the barrier. i think this is a massive fuck up cause there were multiple guys in charge of this guy's security and he got shot. but i also have to say, the fact that the PM greets people like that all the time probably helped the situation. also the fact that this is the first time it happened here, so the guys were probably also taken aback. nonetheless, they had one job and they weren't too successful at it.

anyway, back to the PM. it is reported that he was awake during his transport to the hospital (apparently they used the delegation's car to take him to a hospital probably in Handlová if they have a hospital, idk i've never been there, and then they took him to a hospital in the closest city with a helicopter). right now, he is in banská bystrica and undergoing surgery. The reports are changing, so far I've heard that he was shot in the chest, the abdomen, his arm and his leg. The most reliable will be probably to say abdomen and a limb and the abdominal wound has damaged multiple organs (plus dude's heart is not in the best shape and prolly his liver is suffering too - he is likely an alcoholic)

according to the news, his state is critical and life threatening. people (politicians who are there) are emotional (which is fair enough). frankly, at the moment, i am just refreshing the news.

Someone asked about the president elect and the assassination threat and this PM. So, a little backstory and some names. Our PM, Robert Fico, is from a party called SMER-SD (Direction-Social Democracy). Really, this party is not social democratic at all, but the name is the name. They suck and they are corrupt and might have been partially entangled in the murder of a journalist, Ján Kuciak, in 2018. But anyway. Fico is the guy who got shot. Peter Pellegrini was elected as president in early April, the inaugurations are probably sometime in June (I think that's how it was last time). He is originally from SMER-SD party but in 2020 (i think) he and a couple of others created a party called Hlas-SD (Voice/Vote-Social Democracy). Again, not really a social democracy. Just a little bit less crazy version of SMER. They are both in the coalition. Old political pals, now rivals and pals at the same time.

Anyway, the atmosphere in Slovakia is incredibly tense and there have been violent attacks (most notably, a terror attack in front of a queer bar, Tepláre��, in October 2022). While our political system is multi-party, there are essentially two camps: pro-coalition and anti-coalition. Coalition consists of the two wannabe-social-democratic parties I mentioned above and a far right nationalist party called "Slovak National Party". The coalition is pro-Russian, which in Slovak terms also goes with being queerphobic, especially transphobic, racist, anti-immigrant, misogynistic... you know, all of that. And also anti-vaxxer and believing in the conspiracy theories that facemasks impant microchips in our noses and shit like that. So yeah, that's our government and its supporters. THen you have those against it: anyone who is pro-European Union ranging from conservative catholics who are pro-EU to the most leftist, most progressive whatever person they have. And especially NGOs, journalists and activists. So this is the climate we're in and it is very tense.

so a couple weeks ago i think the PM, Fico, started talking about assassination plots on Pellegrini, because evil opposition and journalists and whatnot. I don't know where his claims came from, I know they were identified as a hoax, at least in the SME newspaper a classmate of mine read aloud to practice his Slovak pronunciation.

So yeah, Fico was scaring us that someone was set to assassinate Pellegrini and he was the one who... well, wasn't assassinated YET but we'll see how his surgeries go

also something about the shooter who was apprehended and arrested on scene, he is racist, has ties to a nationalist pro-Russian organisation, and also is 71 years old.

soooo our PM just got shot by just, i mean... they reported it an hour and half ago?

it is very chaotic. he is both okay and dying (well, some media reported he was not in the risk of dying and then the governmental office said he was very much in the risk of death so idk who to believe).

interesting fact is that it is he who was scaring us with a possible assassination attempt at our almost-president (elected to become a president, not yet sworn in)

What is also interesting is the way people reacted. the opposition is mostly saying "oh no how terrible violence bad we hope the PM makes it" while the coalition is blaming the opposition and journalists.

i think that says something about the state of our politics and also freedom of press

anyway, our constitution doesn't say what's supposed to happen if the PM dies. and denník n (one of the most reliable sources in slovakia) said that if the PM is incapacitated for a long period of time, they are supposed to appoint someone from the ministers to act in their stead. idk how that works if the PM can't appoint anyone due to circumstances that might occur, such as coma or death though, that is quite unprecedented

anyway those are my two eurocents on this as a political science student who should really be actually studying but instead, i read the news, the constitution and then write this

#robert fico #ťumblr #slovakia #slovak politics #ťumbľr #slovensko #čumlbr #slovenský tumblr #it is currently 10 30 pm and i am tired i also turned off grammarly so you have to deal with typos and run on sentences #i am also not a journalist i wasnt there and if i dont state my source or that something is my opinion then in this case its dennik n #anyway this is not good and its not gonna be good

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swldx · 1 year ago

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BBC 0432 4 Aug 2023

12095Khz 0357 4 AUG 2023 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55445. English, dead carrier s/on @0357z then ID@0359z pips and Newsday preview. @0401z World News anchored by Neil Nunes. Former US President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in a Washington DC court to conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat. During a short arraignment, he spoke softly to confirm his not-guilty plea, name and age, and that he was not under the influence of any substances. The oceans have hit their hottest ever recorded temperature as they soak up warmth from climate change, with dire implications for our planet's health. The average daily global sea surface temperature beat a 2016 record this week, according to the EU's climate change service Copernicus. "March should be when the oceans globally are warmest, not August or September. The fact that we've seen the record now makes me nervous about how much warmer the ocean may get between now and next March," says Dr Samantha Burgess from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Niger's newly installed junta has threatened an immediate response to any "aggression or attempted aggression", as the clock ticks down on a deadline given by its neighbours to reverse last week's coup. It also made diplomatic swipes against international condemnation of the putsch, scrapping military pacts with France and pulling its ambassadors from Paris and Washington as well as from Togo and Nigeria. A husband and wife cyber-crime team have pleaded guilty to trying to launder $4.5bn (£3.5bn) of Bitcoin that he had stolen in a hack in 2016. Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein were arrested last year in New York after police traced their riches back to the crypto heist. At least 18 people died in western Mexico when a passenger bus plunged off a highway into a ravine early on Thursday, state officials said, adding the passengers were mostly foreigners and some were heading for the U.S. border. The New Zealand government on Friday presented its first national security strategy, along with the first stage of a defence review. The review outlined how New Zealand needs to spend more on its military and strengthen ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific to help meet the challenges of climate change and strategic competition between the West, and China and Russia. The government of Alberta has pulled its support for a bid to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games due to rising costs. @0406z Newsday begins. 250ft unterminated BoG antenna pointed E/W w/MFJ-1020C active antenna (used as a preamplifier/preselector), Etón e1XM. 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2257.

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nbmsports · 1 year ago

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Sweden's path to NATO membership cleared after Turkey greenlights bid

NATO Summit Vilnius 2023 logo as seen on a smartphone screen.Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to back Sweden's bid to join NATO, clearing the latter's pathway to become a part of the military alliance."Completing Sweden's accession to NATO is a historic step that benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time. It makes us all stronger and safer," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the eve of the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.Erdogan had blocked the move for a year, approving Finland's bid first. Ankara's objections were complex, but centered mainly on Sweden's support for Kurdish groups that Turkey considers to be terrorists, and on weapons embargoes that both Sweden and Finland, along with other EU countries, imposed on Turkey for targeting Kurdish militias in Syria.The hold up spurred protests against Turkey in Sweden's capital, which escalated at the beginning of the year when far-right demonstrators burned a Quran. The move was swiftly criticized and threatened to derail Sweden's NATO membership bid.NATO said Sweden and Turkey have cooperated closely to address the latter's security concerns since last year's summit."Sweden has amended its constitution, changed its laws, significantly expanded its counter-terrorism cooperation against the PKK, and resumed arms exports to Turkey," the statement said, referring to the Kurdish Workers' Party which Ankara had designated as a terrorist organization.The nations also agreed that counterterrorism cooperation is a long-term effort, which will continue beyond Sweden's accession to NATO.U.S. President Joe Biden praised the development, saying "I stand ready to work with President Erdoğan and Türkiye on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area."Turkey greenlighting the bid was, however, something that had been "predicted for some time," especially if Erdogan were reelected for a third term as he would no longer need to use the issue to rally nationalist support, said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at RAND.Prior to Turkey's elections in May, the country's presidential spokesperson in March said that Ankara had "left the door open" to Stockholm's bid to be a part of the military alliance.NATO's expansion along Europe's eastern flank with Finland and Sweden's membership could also make the military alliance "much stronger," Courtney added."The addition especially of Finland up in the northern flank, brings a whole new capability for NATO along the eastern edge." Source link Read the full article

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newstfionline · 2 years ago

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Friday, December 16, 2022

From Mexican labs to U.S. streets, a lethal pipeline (Washington Post) Fentanyl’s catastrophic surge came after the Drug Enforcement Administration cracked down on the excesses of the U.S. opioid industry. Millions of Americans who had become addicted to prescription pain pills suddenly found them difficult or impossible to get. Mexican cartels stepped in to fill the vacuum. Traffickers, who relied for decades on plant-based drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana, are now using chemicals in clandestine laboratories to manufacture fentanyl powder and pills to meet the ever-increasing demand in the United States. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and its compactness makes it far easier to smuggle. The synthetic opioid is so powerful that a year’s supply of pure fentanyl powder for the U.S. market would fit in the beds of two pickup trucks. As fentanyl trafficking boomed, U.S. counternarcotics cooperation with Mexico deteriorated. U.S. border authorities are now overwhelmed, and, since July, the volume of fentanyl seized coming across the Mexico border each month has doubled from earlier in the year. Since the early 2000s, three waves of the opioid epidemic—fueled first by prescription pain pills, then by heroin and now by illicit fentanyl—have taken the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million Americans. The damage to U.S. communities cost the economy $1.5 trillion in 2020 alone, according to a congressional analysis.

A Sign That Tuition Is Too High: Some Colleges Are Slashing It in Half (NYT) Like other schools across the country, a small private college named Colby-Sawyer College saw applications fall by about 10% over the last two years, caused in part by the Covid pandemic and increased competition from other universities. In response, Colby-Sawyer slashed its tuition for the 2023-24 school year from roughly $46,000 to $17,500—a discount of 62%. While this may look like a huge discount for prospective students, in practice the move barely affects tuition for most. Like other lesser-known private colleges, the school has long driven up its sticker tuition price in order to appear a bit more prestigious—a well-established marketing move in the realm of private higher education. To make the school actually accessible to real people, the school provides scholarships and price cuts for all of its students. Why play with tuitions like this? Roughly 20 years ago, colleges discovered the Chivas Regal effect—basically, people associate price with quality. Parents also liked the system of using scholarships to make tuition more affordable, giving their pride a boost. Since then, colleges have fallen into the groove of raising prices and handing out scholarships to offset them. Other schools have caught on to the end of the inflated-tuition status quo as well. Multiple private colleges have announced “tuition resets,” overhauling their tuition and scholarship systems, and some public schools have cut prices as well. However, the most exclusive schools in the country are holding strong at their price points, knowing that demand for their products remains high. The jury is still out on whether or not tuition resets work—while Colby-Sawyer has seen an increase in interest, the number of applications the school has received has remained relatively level for now.

The world’s most expensive city to live in (CNN) The award for most expensive city to live in goes to … New York and Singapore, tied for first place. Perhaps surprisingly, this is the first time the Big Apple makes it to the top of the annual Economist Intelligence Unit list. Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Zurich, Geneva, San Francisco, Paris and Copenhagen complete the top 10.

EU to US: We already have war, don’t give us trade war, too (AP) Disappointment has set in two years after the election of U.S. President Joe Biden was supposed to reset trans-Atlantic relations with the European Union. EU leaders are openly talking about fights, not only friendship. They say conflict with Washington is the last thing they want, with war raging on their doorstep in Ukraine and common resolve essential in stopping Russia. But money is a threat to that unity. “We already have war in Europe. The last thing we need is a trade war,” European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager told lawmakers Wednesday. They were debating U.S. policies that many in the 27-nation bloc see as unfairly locking a longstanding and trusted ally out of the lucrative American market. The point of contention is the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, a $369 billion plan that favors American-made climate technology through subsidies and, according to the EU, will unfairly discriminate against its firms.

Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ tops Russian bestseller lists (Reuters) George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”, set in an imagined future where totalitarian rulers deprive their citizens of all agency in order to maintain support for senseless wars, has topped electronic bestseller lists in Russia. The novel is the most popular fiction download of 2022 on the platform of the Russian online bookseller LitRes, and the second most popular download in any category, the state news agency Tass reported on Tuesday. The English author’s novel was published in 1949, when Nazism had just been defeated and the West’s Cold War with its erstwhile ally Josef Stalin and the Soviet communist bloc he now led was just beginning. The book was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988. Orwell said he had used Stalin’s dictatorship as a model for the personality cult of the all-seeing Big Brother, whose “thought police” force cowed citizens to engage in “doublethink” in order to believe that “War is peace, freedom is slavery”.

Will Russia’s defenses hold? (NYT) Russia has accelerated the construction of trenches and traps along the eastern and southern fronts, a Times analysis of satellite imagery shows. In an area where Russian forces are waging an offensive near the eastern city of Bakhmut, the structures appeared within six days. The defenses include miles-long rows of concrete pyramids known as dragon’s teeth and deep ditches called tank traps. Both are designed to slow Ukrainian vehicles and force them into positions where Russian forces can target them. Russia is also building miles of trenches, and pillboxes for their troops to shoot from. Near Bakhmut, the newly built defenses provide Russian fighters with several options for retreat. That could help Russia avoid a repeat of its costly withdrawal from the Kharkiv region in September, when it lost thousands of square miles of territory and was forced to abandon military equipment. Ultimately, the success of Russia’s defenses depends on the quality of the troops defending them. Military analysts say the new defense lines could easily collapse if they are manned by poorly trained and unequipped new recruits.

Turkish court sentences Erdogan rival to prison for insulting officials (Washington Post) A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced Istanbul’s popular mayor, a political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to more than two years in prison on the charge of “insulting public figures,” a verdict that underscored concerns that opposition figures will be prevented from fairly competing in upcoming elections. Recent polls have shown that Imamoglu is among a small group of opposition figures who could defeat Erdogan in a consequential presidential election in June. Erdogan’s popularity has been dented by his management of the economy, which has suffered from skyrocketing inflation, rising unemployment and the collapse of the local currency. Imamoglu, 52, a member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, rose to prominence in 2019 after defeating a candidate from Erdogan’s ruling party in the race for mayor of Istanbul—a political thunderbolt that handed the opposition control of Turkey’s largest city for the first time in decades. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, challenged the initial vote, which was overturned by the state election council. Imamoglu, though, handily won the revote, a stunning defeat for the president that cemented the mayor’s stature as a figure who threatened the AKP’s dominance.

Covid cases explode in Beijing leaving city streets empty and daily life disrupted (CNN) Empty streets, deserted shopping centers, and residents staying away from one another are the new normal in Beijing—but not because the city, like many Chinese ones before it, is under a “zero-Covid” lockdown. This time, it’s because Beijing has been hit with a significant, and spreading, outbreak—a first for the Chinese capital since the beginning of the pandemic, a week after leaders eased the country’s restrictive Covid policy. The impact of the outbreak in the city was visible in the upmarket shopping district Sanlitun on Tuesday. There, the usually bustling shops and restaurants were without customers and, in some cases, functioning on skeleton crews or offering takeout only. Similar scenes are playing out across Beijing, as offices, shops and residential communities report being understaffed or shifting working arrangements as employees fall ill with the virus. Meanwhile, others stay home to avoid being infected. Beijing is now on the front lines of a new reality for China: not since the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan have Chinese cities dealt with an outbreak without hefty control measures in place.

Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull (AP) Business is bouncing back in Bethlehem after two years in the doldrums during the coronavirus pandemic, lifting spirits in the traditional birthplace of Jesus ahead of the Christmas holiday. Streets are bustling with tour groups. Hotels are fully booked, and months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting appears to be having little effect on the vital tourism industry. Elias Arja, head of the Bethlehem hotel association, said that tourists are hungry to visit the Holy Land’s religious sites after suffering through lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent years. He expects the rebound to continue into next year. Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Bethlehem, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank just a few miles southeast of Jerusalem. In pre-pandemic times, thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world came to celebrate. But those numbers plummeted during the pandemic. Although tourism hasn’t fully recovered, the hordes of visitors are a welcome improvement and encouraging sign.

When African leaders go to Washington, China is in the room (Worldcrunch) Some 100 of the most important political eyes in Africa aren’t turned towards the U.S. this week—they’re in the U.S. For the first time in eight years, the White House is hosting 49 African heads of state and leaders of government (and the Senegalese head of the African Union) for a U.S.-Africa summit. It’s only the second such summit, after Barack Obama held the inaugural one in 2014. For African nations, it’s a chance to push for trade agreements and international investment, as reports FinancialAfrik, as well as to showcase their most successful businesses. But is the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and the accompanying nice talk all just cynical cover for what are, in fact, purely U.S. strategic interests in its wider global competition with China? That’s certainly the message from Chinese media—but also a point of view either echoed, or simply acknowledged as matter of fact, by African voices. “No matter how many fancy words the U.S. uses, the country still sees Africa as an arena to serve its strategic goal of competing with China,” Liu Xin writes for China’s state-run Global Times. Even if Biden Administration officials have been eager to talk about Africa on its own terms, the “long shadow” of China is everywhere, writes Kenya’s The Standard. The U.S. is playing “catch up,” writes The Standard, having fallen behind China when it comes to foreign direct investment in Africa, and must convince African countries that it is a better partner than China.

Luxury Submarines (Financial Times) For the discerning rich guy who yearns for the sea, sometimes it’s simply not enough to get a massive yacht to take to the open water. For a specific type of person, they’re the ideal customer for the luxury submarine business, which does in fact exist. Triton Submarines, partly owned by the billionaire Ray Dalio, will sell you a sub for anywhere from $2.5 million to $40 million, vessels that range in overall capacity from one person to 66 people, and with a depth range of anywhere from 100 meters to as deep as you want. Yes, no longer will you have to buy one of El Chapo’s narcosubs from a police auction to get in on the submersible action; you too are just $2.5 million away from the first step in becoming a James Bond villain.

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