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• Post #4504217

  RE: https://mas.to/@therightarticle/117098031979293308 This was an academic lynching, led by an acknowledged racist - sacked for precisely that by Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2024 - followed by an irresponsible pile-on by the UK's rabid right-wing press.

• Post #4371804

  Looks like China already has the technology (extreme-ultraviolet lithography) to make the most advanced computer chips... https://observer.co.uk/news/business/article/china-shocks-with-chip-tech-breakthrough

• Post #4228540

  "The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it." - France’s UN Mission in Geneva. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/07/28/us-walks-out-on-france-at-un-meeting_6755911_4.html

• Post #4157685

  EU tells firms to label AI-generated content from Sunday - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/07/28/eu-tells-firms-to-label-ai-generated-content-from-sunday_6755910_4.html

• Post #4157218

  It's important to note that both wildfires and pandemics - like the Ebola incubating, perhaps, in Africa now - are symptoms of capitalism's over-exploitation of resources. Of course there were wildfires and pandemics before globalisation, but their frequency and intensity is increased by over-exploitation of natural resources: trade and mixing of rare species facilitates microbes crossing species barriers, trade and tourism facilitate contagion, just as surely as harmful emissions and o...

• Post #4148377

  Corsica's 'fight against Airbnb-ization' claims to have returned 233 homes to 'year-round residents' - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/07/27/corsica-s-fight-against-airbnb-ization-claims-to-have-returned-233-homes-to-year-round-residents_6755892_19.html

• Post #4056716

  You could look at your tax bill like this... The government creates all money (either directly by spending or indirectly through the banks it licences). All of this money is created out of nothing - it's just 'IOUs' written by the government - which is why UK bank notes always had printed on them "I promise to pay the bearer on demand". The money created by banks when they make loans is cancelled - destroyed - when the loans are repaid. The money created when the govern...

• Post #4030517

  Another accused Epstein associate found dead... Who is hindering prosecutions and revelations - even, perhaps, willing to kill to do so ? "The failure of the Paris public prosecutor's office to act in the knowledge that Siad was a close associate of Epstein and facing multiple rape and trafficking allegations is beyond comprehension." https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/22/epstein-case-french-model-scout-and-alleged-recruiter-found-dead_6755717_7.html

• Post #4029102

  I think the left/green needs to beware of negativity around electric cars - specifically, it should view, and represent electric cars not as a continuation of the car problem, but as part of the transition away from car dependency. The developed world has been constructed around personal car ownership. Some on the left/green may not be fully conscious of this, because they are concentrated in cities that already have decent public transport, bike-able distances, etc - or among the young, or ma...

• Post #4012304

  France has an almost universal provision of state apartment blocks for young people - my son lives in one now. They are like university halls of residence, but instead of just students at one uni, they are open to anybody under 25 that has a 'personal project' - any education or training course, starting work, setting up a business, etc. Generally, people can stay up to 2 years, and most have a social worker attached to help young people into independent life - everything from tax form...

• Post #3986489

  Just heard a bit of the BBC reporting of Andy Burnham's cut in VAT on energy bills - it was all about what it would 'cost', and whether this would have to be 'paid for' by raising taxes or borrowing. It again seems not to have occurred to any of the political journalists that a lot of the people benefiting from this cut in VAT might not save it, or spend it all on non-VATable purchases, but actually go out and spend it precisely on other things that do incur VAT. Or they mi...

• Post #3906181

  "The problem is that people like me have not managed to find a slogan as effective as 'immigrants take your jobs... It is false, no data shows it, but it works." This researcher on the impact of immigration blames himself - https://archive.ph/e04j3#selection-3625.124-3625.296 - and it's true of course that people with detailed understanding are not necessarily the best communicators - but I'd say there are 3 much bigger forces in play. The first is built in to the way pe...

• Post #3885656

  RE: https://mamot.fr/@wwwcdorg/116930309676207928 In France, the extreme right promises to defend the European Social Model and “high-quality public services” - but where they have won control of local councils the evidence is that they have done just the opposite...

• Post #3779587

  "France's main energy provider on Sunday, July 12, said three nuclear reactors had been temporarily shut down and eight others were operating at reduced power due to the heatwave." - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/12/france-powers-down-several-nuclear-reactors-due-to-extreme-heat_6755404_7.html So it turns out nuclear power was not part of the answer to climate breakdown after all...

• Post #3755640

  RE: https://mamot.fr/@Attac/116903440670164167 One of the things that immediately impressed itself on me when I moved to France from the UK in 2012 was how much less neoliberal it seemed. It remains a more equal society, with better regulation of big business, much better public services and infrastructure... But this is not to say France entirely escaped the canker of neoliberalism. As in the UK and US, since Thatcherism and Reaganomics, in France also a transfer of wealth from the many to t...

• Post #3644137

  So, in a microcosm of Trump's whole Presidency, his attempt to rig the World Cup turns out to be self-defeating, as a supercharged Belgium dismantle a clearly demotivated US team. "Belgium captain Youri Tielemans said the furor over Balogun had motivated his teammates. "Let's be honest: We held a meeting when we heard the news," said Tielemans. "We told ourselves we needed to do our talking on the pitch. That's what we did today"." https://www.lemonde....

• Post #3464553

  Here's a curious development: "Israel government recognises Armenian genocide" - https://archive.ph/yuXdP#selection-3397.0-3397.46 In itself, of course, recognition of the Armenian genocide is a good thing - but it's equally obvious that Israel is engaging in tit-for-tat whataboutery, since Turkey has condemned the Gaza genocide. But is it wise for Israel to ruffle a country less than a hundred miles from its own borders, that has NATO's second-largest land army ?

• Post #3411320

  It's the impossible high note ! #totp

• Post #3407309

  RE: https://mediapart.social/@mediapart/116816318032436864 In the Paris area, the fire service is overwhelmed and the hospitals are full...

• Post #3390113

  The current heatwave in Europe seems to have moved mainstream media attention to climate adaption, away from climate mitigation. Of course we must protect the vulnerable, make our infrastructures more robust, etc... but the top priority still has to be stopping the emissions that are actually creating the problem in the first place.

• Post #3388604

  Looks like the EU will press ahead with creating the digital euro - more evidence that Trump's actions, such as imposing sanctions implicating Visa and Mastercard against the ICC judges that issued a war crimes arrest warrant on Netanyahu - will end up removing Europe from US markets - Visa and Mastercard will not be able to compete against the digital euro - and undermining the reserve currency status of the dollar. Trump and his sycophants clearly do not understand the implications of th...

• Post #3372610

  Let's not lose sight of this: Starmer failed in the way that all centre-left governments are doomed to fail, because there are no non-radical solutions to the polycrisis. The centre-left dream of positive change without disruption is over. In France, the electorate gifted Macron with a golden opportunity to bring together the political centre and not just the centre-left, but a broad left coalition. He fluffed it. Let's just hope Burnham can bring it off, because it's the only wa...

• Post #3359262

  Thomas Piketty proposes a referendum on a new wealth tax on "billionaires and centimillionaires in the form of equities and shares and placed in a sovereign fund, allowing public authorities to redirect investment in line with the country's strategic priorities,,, energy... education, research and healthcare." But it's also a political move: a referendum to expose the extreme right's pose as aligned with the people's and nation's interests (when in fact they are fu...

• Post #3343861

  "The two camps not only want different things; they inhabit different worlds. MAGA rhetoric is rooted in a mythical past. It seeks to restore a lost industrial, national and cultural order centered on work, the nuclear family and community life. On one side, there is nostalgia for an idealized past; on the other, a drive to make the present obsolete. "The MAGA movement sees itself as representing the "forgotten" citizens: workers, small business owners and voters from deindu...

• Post #3317277

  "Justice Johnson... also warned defence barristers not to tell the jury about the principle of “jury equity” – the freedom of jurors to reach a verdict according to their conscience. In essence, Johnson ruled that a barrister cannot tell a jury that it has the right to do what it legally has the right to do." https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/sentencing-the-palestine-activists-for-terrorism-places-civil-liberties-in-grave-peril

• Post #3300760

  "Many countries engaged in the second demographic transition [high life expectancy and persistently low birth rates] are pursuing utilitarian immigration policies... for economic reasons – because pro-natalist policies cannot stop declining population numbers." "Saying we don't want any more immigrants is... economic nonsense." https://archive.ph/TV2EV#selection-3603.259-3603.333

• Post #3216486

  Yesterday I posted about China's industrial dominance - https://climatejustice.social/@GeofCox/116710581637118870 - today I want to add something about the lessons implied. A central assumption of 'the West' - of liberal democracy - was that there is an automatic shaping link between free enterprise, democracy and economic/technological progress. It was supposed that communist China would either not ''catch up', or that catching up would automatically lead to systemic a...

• Post #3174564

  Some details from a LeMonde article on China's industrial dominance... Two-thirds of all electric vehicles sold in the world are made in China; China has more public charging stations than the rest of the world combined. It also accounts for 70% of total global electric vehicle battery production, 80% of global solar panel production, and 90% of the global market for civilian drones. Last year 54% of all new industrial robot installations in the world were from China. 70% of all the world&#...

• Post #3117233

  Two statements from an article by a French economist (a centrist in French terms - left-wing by US standards)... "Wars are economically irrational: They destroy material and human capital." "A move away from a war economy would likely push Russia into deep recession." Why is this ? The statements appeal to different frames of reference. From the perspective of people and planet war is of course destructive, stupid - but for capitalism it is just the opposite. If I go to...

• Post #3094632

  "Under our plan, 89% of the global population would see their monetary income double by 2100; more than 95% would benefit in the Global South, and between 85% and 95% in the Global North." France's leading economists put forward a utopia-or-bust programme for the World Inequality Conference from June 4 to 6 - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/06/04/thomas-piketty-s-lab-proposes-ambitious-plan-to-cut-global-inequality-and-curb-climate-change_6754121_19.html