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zvaigzdelasas · 9 months

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China’s global infrastructure strategy stood out as a main talking point in his meetings with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Friday and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo on Thursday.[...]

Xi told Garibashvili that China was ready to push forward with building the belt and road with Georgia. He added that Beijing welcomed more exports from the country and encouraged more Chinese companies to invest there.

Xi said the two countries were set to announce that bilateral relations would be upgraded to a “strategic partnership” during Garibashvili’s trip to China, according to state news agency Xinhua. China and Georgia ratified a free-trade agreement in 2017 – Beijing’s first with a former Soviet state. Georgia applied for EU membership last year and has launched a bid to join Nato. In the meeting with his Guyanese counterpart, Xi said Beijing was willing to further align the belt and road strategy and the South American nation’s low-carbon development strategy.[...]

China signed belt and road cooperation agreements with Georgia in 2015 and Guyana in 2018.[...]

In the meeting with Widodo, Xi hailed the two “like-minded” Asian neighbours, which had made “major achievements” in aligning Beijing’s belt and road plan and Jakarta’s global maritime axis, a strategy to develop port infrastructure and strengthen maritime security.

Indonesia was where Xi launched the idea of the “21st century Maritime Silk Road” a decade ago, one of the two major pillars of the belt and road.

Widodo said that the high-speed railway linking Jakarta and Bandung – a cornerstone project of the belt and road – would come into operation on schedule next month. [...]

Xi also met and discussed the belt and road with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye on Friday. China and Mauritania signed a cooperation plan to jointly promote building the belt and road on Friday.[...]

Beijing announced on Monday that Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka would also attend the opening ceremony, but he later had to cancel the visit to China after falling and hurting his head.

28 Jul 23

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aethericfist · 4 months

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China announces rules to reduce spending on video games

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-issues-draft-rules-online-game-management-2023-12-22/

So since I work in the gambling industry, I have always been appalled by the straight up gambling video games marketed at children. Genshin Impact, Honkai Starrail, (any MIHOYO game), any EA game, etc

And finally SOMEONE is doing something. Like hell, we have so many more regulations, (that I think are good) that they should also be subjected to. I think this sector needs more regulation, ESPECIALLY when open to children. It needs to make it into the public consciousness that some games are employing strategies OUTLAWED in some countries for gambling targeted at adults.

"But I am just spending x amount" you might be a grown up, or not, but taking gamlbing and addiction out of the equation might help you too enjoy the game more. Denial won't help protect minors.

Hopefully other countries will follow, because we need some of those regulations in the west. (EU, please listen to me)

#genshin impact #mihoyo #ea #gaming #video games #gacha #european union #china #hashtagging eu so hopefully SOMONE hears my cry for positive change

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mariacallous · 4 months

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As NATO prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, the bloc’s original architects would have been stunned by its broad membership and growing agenda today. In helping design the new alliance for the purpose of containing the Soviet Union in Europe after World War II, the U.S. diplomat George Kennan argued that NATO should take its name literally and include only North Atlantic countries—excluding Mediterranean states such as Greece, Italy, and Turkey. His rationale was that only countries on the Atlantic seaboard could be effectively supplied by ship in the event of war with the Soviets, whereas including others would remove all limits to the bloc’s commitments and be unworkable. To ensure that Article 5 of its founding treaty—the collective defense clause—was ironclad, NATO kept a laser-sharp focus on military preparedness for much of its history.

Today, NATO has 31 members (though when Sweden joins, it will be 32) and more than 30 partner countries across the world. Its agenda has expanded to issues beyond territorial defense, such as cybersecurity and counterterrorism. Last year, the bloc established the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, a 1-billion-euro (about $1.1-billion) fund for emerging and disruptive technologies.

Yet as the toolbox of statecraft has expanded in response to security challenges, NATO has retained a narrow focus on military objectives. And even in this area, it has been constrained in delivering on its goals. Defense ministers, for example, can make commitments at NATO meetings, but finance ministers may not find the required resources at home. For European countries, dual membership in NATO and the European Union has diffused responsibility and led to significant underinvestment in military preparedness. Too many European leaders still hope that Washington or Brussels will take care of it.

With the return of war to Europe and the Middle East, as well as great-power competition to the world, NATO’s vision and scope need to be broader. The alliance faces not only Russian aggression, but also the challenge from China and other autocratic, revisionist actors seeking to upend the global order. Security today involves a comprehensive toolbox, including economic sanctions and industrial policy, and needs to bring the relevant actors into the fold.

Consider the current state of play. Last month, 31 foreign ministers met at NATO headquarters in Brussels to discuss a range of security issues, from Russia’s war against Ukraine to the long-term challenge of China. Yet the only major decision achieved at the two-day gathering was a brief three-paragraph statement on Ukraine that echoed previously agreed-on language. The Israel-Hamas war and its effects across the Middle East, which was top of mind for many of the participants, was barely addressed at all, even though many European NATO members will be directly affected.

The allies’ ambition should therefore be to make NATO the premier forum not only for trans-Atlantic military cooperation, but also for better coordination among the world’s democracies. Europe and the United States should leverage NATO to buttress international order alongside their Indo-Pacific partners. To that end, the institution should globalize its agenda and find ways to work more closely with its partners outside the Euro-Atlantic region.

Currently, too many issues that are central to the security of NATO allies are dispersed across multiple forums, contact groups, and bilateral channels. NATO is charged with collective security for Europe and North America. The EU also has a mutual defense clause for its members and has moved forward on defense cooperation and funding. Both blocs have intensified their security outreach to countries in the Indo-Pacific. That, in turn, overlaps with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—as well as the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact. Also involved is the G-7, which has evolved from a talking shop to a forum where the leading democracies deliberate on economic sanctions and technology policy. The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council has a similar remit—but neither it nor the G-7 can make binding decisions. All this overlap produces confusion and lack of focus, restricting the ability of NATO members to develop an effective strategy, let alone make efficient decisions in times of conflict.

To remove these political detours and bureaucratic obstacles, it would make sense for many of these discussions and decisions to take place in a single forum—or at least, for the various strings to come together in one place. And that would be NATO, which has the strongest record on addressing collective security. Issues to be integrated with military defense would include economic sanctions, export controls, industrial policy, technology policy, foreign investment screening, outbound investment controls, secure supply chains, and trade measures.

For a start, there should not just be regular meetings of NATO defense and foreign ministers. Ministers responsible for finance, trade, commerce, and technology should convene within NATO as well. All these areas are vital for national security.

In addition to globalizing its agenda, NATO should also expand the participants in these discussions to include Indo-Pacific partners, such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. Leaders of these four countries attended NATO’s annual summits in 2022 and 2023, but instead of cooperating on an ad hoc basis, it would be better to establish standing open invitations to NATO summits and ministerial meetings.

The bloc could also establish a council of NATO members and Indo-Pacific states—akin to the NATO-Ukraine Council—where those partners could convene meetings and be on equal footing with the NATO allies. Over time, additional partners could also be invited.

These changes require a shift in mindset within NATO. The bloc is rightly regarded by many as the most successful military alliance in history, but it could also be the most effective international institution for foreign-policy coordination and implementation. However, its primary focus on the Article 5 collective defense guarantee has developed into inherent institutional caution and constraint.

Yet not all security challenges trigger Article 5—and even then, the defense clause does not set off an automatic response. Article 5 states only that if armed attack occurs against a NATO member, each ally commits to assist the attacked country with “such action as it deems necessary.”

On the one hand, NATO’s focus on Article 5 has made the alliance an undisputed success, with every square inch of territory backed by the full weight of the alliance, which includes potential nuclear retaliation. In all of NATO’s long history, the bloc invoked Article 5 only once: after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. On the other hand, the emphasis on Article 5 has also constrained the bloc’s potential for more nimble political action.

NATO would benefit from greater strategic flexibility to address security policy issues. A useful historical analogy is the shift in U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, when Washington moved from the doctrine of massive retaliation to so-called flexible response. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration defined its deterrence and containment policy in terms of overwhelming response to any encroachment by the Soviet Union or the communist bloc. But this outsized commitment made foreign policy too rigid and limited: After all, not every nail around the world required a nuclear hammer. Thus, the Kennedy administration devised a more agile approach, including military and nonmilitary options for a particular crisis in proportion to the specific situation.

NATO already has the institutional mechanism for a broader approach to security. Article 4, for example, provides for political consultations whenever a member considers its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” threatened. This is both a broader remit and a lower threshold, allowing security threats short of a military attack to be addressed. It would be the institutional basis for the alliance to incorporate key tools of security policy, such as economic sanctions and export controls.

NATO also has a basis for addressing issues such as industrial and technology policy as means to develop defense and security capabilities. Under Article 3, allies have committed to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack” through “self-help and mutual aid.” NATO should facilitate better coordination on defense investment and ensure that the allies maintain a long-term technological competitive edge over their adversaries.

A broader and more global NATO would help overcome the hobbled, overly complex decision-making processes among the Euro-Atlantic allies and their partners in the Indo-Pacific. That said, there should be no illusion that an institutional setup alone can escape the primacy of politics.

Organizations such as NATO are what their members make of them. Blaming them for failure or inaction is like blaming Madison Square Garden when the New York Knicks play badly, as the late U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke once quipped.

But a simplified and better-designed institutional setup would go a long way in facilitating sounder, more efficient decision-making during unavoidably turbulent times.

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libertariantaoist · 4 months

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News Roundup 12/29/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 12/29/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

Venezuela

Venezuela Responds to UK Warship Deployment to Guyana By Conducting War Games AP

Ukraine

Russia Says US Demands Prevent Hostage Swap El Pais

US Announces $250 Million Arms Package for Ukraine AWC

Ukraine Beginning to Lose Gains Made During Costly Counter-Offensive NYT

Report: US Is Shifting Strategy on Ukraine AWC

Ukrainian Government Workers Will Face Salary and Pension Delays If US and EU Don’t Approve More Aid AWC

China

Chinese Military Says Pentagon Spending Bill Exaggerates China Threat AWC

Israel

Witnesses Say Israeli Forces Executing Civilians in Gaza MEE

WashPo: Israeli Destruction of Gaza More Significant than Destruction of Aleppo WashPo

Israel Requesting Apache Attack Helicopters from US YnetThe Institute

Israel’s Security Agency Ignored Warning from Gaza Source About October 7 Attack AWC

Over 500 Israeli Soldiers Killed Since October 7 The Institute

Netanyahu Refuses to Discuss Post-War Plans for Gaza With Security Chiefs AWC

Turkey’s Erdogan Says Netanyahu Is No Different Than Hitler AWC

Biden Asks Netanyahu to Release Palestinian Tax Revenue Collected by Israel Axios

Iran

Sen. Lindsey Graham Calls for US to Blow Parts of Iran ‘Off the Map’ AWC

Iran Atomic Chief: Claims of Escalated Enrichment Untrue, Nothing New in Nuclear Work AWC

Iraq

Israel Warns Time for Diplomacy with Hezbollah Is Running Out The Institute

Biden Tells Congress He Launched Airstrikes in Iraq to ‘Deter’ Future Attacks AWC

Iraqi PM Says Baghdad Is ‘Heading Towards’ Ending the US Military Presence in the Country AWC

Yemen

US Issues Sanctions on Aledged Network Funding Houthi Red Sea Attacks Press Release

US Allies Reluctant to Join Anti-Houthi Red Sea Naval Coalition AWC

US Says It Shot Down 12 Houthi Drones, 5 missiles in Red Sea AWC

Pentagon Says US Downed Drone and Missile Fired By Houthis CENTCOM

#kyle anzalone #libertarian institute #news roundup

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voskhozhdeniye · 3 months

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Global economic contours are shifting inexorably towards the countries of global south. The U.S. and EU markets are less important to China, relatively speaking, than are the growth markets of the developing world. And for the developing world, China is a more important partner than most others. Trade and investment flows have been trending in this direction for some time already, aided by initiatives such as the BRI as well as the recently launched Asian free trade zone - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The growing interlinking of Chinese capital markets with those of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are creating the new pipelines for capital flow between China and West Asia. The consolidation of a Eurasian economic sphere, including the energy-rich nations of West Asia, is creating new opportunities for value growth and flow. Trade growth is being complemented by capital circulation by way of investment flows denominated in national currencies. The ability to trade OPEC oil with national currencies is enabling these nations to evolve away from dependence on the USD. Economic decentering is one feature of the collective west’s displacement anxiety. The reality that its claimed military preponderance is more rhetoric than real brings a “hard power” edge to these anxieties. These material factors are buttressed by deep rooted Manichaean frames in which racialised exceptionalism is ever-present. This is most pronounced in the Millenarian zealotry that underlies American exceptionalism. The idea of decentering is bad enough; it’s made all the worse as the new centres are found in the Orientals of the “near- and far east”. Against this backdrop, we can expect the transatlantic neocons to intensify their attempts to hang on to what’s left of western colonial hegemony and American primacy. The neocon playbook has been to generate regional instability whenever and wherever it feels threatened. This “divide and conquer” strategy has played out in numerous “colour revolutions” and “coups” over the decades; in short, regime change operations aimed at installing pliable regimes. Colour revolution risks across Eurasia are likely to intensify over the next few years. China’s President Xi was prescient last year when he warned Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members of these risks. Additionally, preparations for proxy wars in Asia, borrowing from the Ukraine 2014-2022 playbook, are also likely to continue, as I have previously described. The Philippines is being groomed, as is Taiwan. As the US and NATO face defeat on the steppes of Ukraine, NATO has set its sights on becoming a global military force; and that means it will continue to seek ways of asserting a presence in Asia. Its attempt to secure a foothold in Japan was rebuffed by the French, but this is unlikely to be its last attempt to turn the “A” in NATO from meaning “Atlantic” to meaning “Asia”. The transatlantic neocons have been decentred, economically and geopolitically. Five centuries of colonial dominance, coupled with seven decades of American Primacy are coming to an end. This is doubtless a discomforting experience. Antonio Gramsci once observed: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Today, the monsters Gramsci spoke of are those that torment the collective west and its neocon political elite as they confront their anxieties of being displaced by a Multipolarity that is struggling its way forward. This is why the 2020s is the “decade of living dangerously”.

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rvps2001 · 10 months

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Russia-Ukraine Daily Briefing

🇷🇺-🇺🇦 Thursday Briefing:

- Russian missile kills 11 in a pizza parlor

- Where are Russia's top generals? Rumours swirl after mercenary mutiny

- Who knew about Prigozhin’s Wagner revolt before it happened?

- Putin moves to seize control of Wagner’s global empire

- As Russia teetered, the elite trembled, and some private jets left

- EU leaders to debate Russia mutiny, pledge support for Ukraine

- New law imposes fresh sanctions on Russia accessing UK legal expertise

- Czechs call Russia a threat, China a systemic challenge in new security strategy

- Poland to raise security on Belarus border amid Wagner presence

📨 More news here: https://russia-ukraine-newsletter.beehiiv.com/

Keep up with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rvps2001

#russia ukraine war #ukraine russia war #ukraine war #news #newsletter #russia #ukraine

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theculturedmarxist · 11 months

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“The war in Ukraine is also a battle for raw materials. The country has large deposits of iron, titanium and lithium, some of which are now controlled by Russia.” That’s what the federally owned German foreign trade agency Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) reported on its website on January 16 under the title “Ukraine’s raw materials wealth at risk.”

There are trillions at stake. According to the GTAI, “raw material deposits worth $12.4 trillion” remain beyond the control of the Ukrainian army, “including 41 coal mines, 27 gas deposits, 9 oil fields and 6 iron ore deposits.” Ukraine has not only coal, gas, oil and wheat but also rare earths and metals—especially lithium, which has been called the “white gold” of the transition to new energy and transportation technologies. The country accounts for around one-third of Europe’s explored lithium deposits.

Only the ignorant could believe that this is irrelevant to NATO’s war aims. It would be the first major war in over 100 years that is not about mineral resources, markets and geostrategic interests. The World Socialist Web Site has pointed out in previous articles that deposits of critical raw materials in Russia and China, which are essential to the transition to electric mobility and renewable energy, are an important factor in the war calculus of NATO states.

Yet they go unmentioned in the media’s round-the-clock war propaganda. The media wish the public to believe that NATO is waging this war to defend “freedom” and “democracy”—and that after bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria back into the Middle Ages under similar pretexts.

Relevant trade journals, industry magazines and think tanks, on the other hand, rave about Ukraine’s mineral wealth and discuss how best to capture it. It was to this end that German Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) even traveled to Ukraine at the beginning of April with a high-ranking business delegation.

According to the industry magazine Mining World, Ukraine has a total of around 20,000 raw material deposits, of which only 7,800 have been explored. Numerous other articles and strategy papers openly state that this is what the war is about.

On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest German business magazine, Capital, published an article stating that “Europe’s supply of raw materials” was “threatened” by the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine was not only “the leading grain exporter” but also the largest EU supplier of iron ore pellets and “a linchpin for Europe’s energy security.” Among investors, the magazine said, there is “concern that the war will cut off exports of key raw materials.”

The GTAI article cited earlier reports that European steel mills were sourcing nearly one-fifth of their iron ore pellets from Ukraine in 2021. GTAI goes on to write that Ukraine is among the top ten producers of iron ore, manganese, zirconium, and graphite, and is “among the world leaders in titanium and kaolin.” In addition to “untapped oil and gas fields,” Ukraine’s lithium and titanium deposits, in particular, hold “enormous potential” for the European economy. In 2020, production volumes amounted to 1,681,000 tons of kaolin, 537,000 tons of titanium, 699,000 tons of manganese and 49,274,000 tons of iron ore.

Lithium for electromobility and energy storage

The price of lithium has increased more than eightfold in the last decade and is the subject of intense speculation. The metal is of strategic importance to the major imperialist powers because it is used in lithium-ion batteries installed in electric vehicles and off-grid renewable energy sources, and is also needed for lightweight aluminum alloys in the aerospace industry.

The largest lithium deposit in Europe is located in the Donetsk Oblast in the middle of the embattled Donbas region, only kilometers from the front lines. An article in the Tagesspiegel, published two months after the Russian invasion, points to untapped lithium reserves of 500,000 tons in Shevchenko near Potrovsk and at least two other Ukrainian deposits.

Western companies and Ukrainian oligarchs were already fighting bitterly for control of this “white gold” before the war. As the Tagesspiegel reports, “Ukrainian businessmen” (who stood close to the Ukrainian government of the time under the oligarch Petro Poroshenko) with connections to Western mining companies obtained mining licenses, without a tender process, for the lithium deposit in Shevchenko as early as 2018.

The company in question, Petro Consulting—which was renamed “European Lithium Ukraine” shortly before the war began—is expected to be bought out by the Australian-European mining company European Lithium once its access to Ukraine’s lithium reserves is secured.

In 2018, when the Ukrainian Geological Survey refused to issue a “special permit” for Ukraine’s second largest lithium deposit at Dobra, likewise bypassing the tender process, Petro Consulting went so far as to sue the agency. After the Ukrainian Procurator General’s Office eventually launched an investigation into the allegedly illegal special permits, Petro-Consulting had its Shevchenko mining license revoked by the courts in April 2020 until further notice.

However, a spokesman for European Lithium told Der Tagesspiegel that the company bears “no risk in connection with the Ukrainian deposits.” He expressed confidence that the projects would be “made production-ready” after the end of the war.

Titanium for the Western arms industry

In a September 2022 article titled “Ukraine’s Titanium Can Armor the West,” the transatlantic think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) wrote: “Support for Ukraine has been driven by strategic concerns and moral-political values. But long-term Western help should also be based on solid material interests.”

“Ukraine’s substantial titanium deposits” are “a key resource critical to the West” because the metal is “integral to many defense systems,” such as aircraft components and missiles. Currently, the raw material for Airbus, Boeing and Co. is extracted “in an expensive and time-consuming six-step process” from titanium ore, which until then had been sourced to a considerable extent from Russia. This “dependence” on “strategic competitors and adversaries” is unacceptable from the West’s point of view and can be ended with the help of Ukrainian resources:

For example, Dnipro-based Velta, the largest private exporter of raw titanium in Europe, has developed a new production system that bypasses the intensive process of producing titanium sponge and could supply the US and European defense and aerospace industries with finished metal. Given there are only five countries in the world actively producing titanium sponge —China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan and Ukraine — Velta’s technology could be a game changer for the supply chain by cutting reliance on Russia and China.

CEPA is funded by US and European defense contractors and lists as members of its “scientific advisory board” Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor General H. R. McMaster, former German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and publicists Anne Applebaum, Francis Fukuyama, and Timothy Garton Ash among others.

The CEPA article continues, “Reorienting titanium contracts to Ukraine would stimulate the country’s economy, even during wartime, not to mention during postwar reconstruction, and simultaneously strike another blow at Russia’s war machine.” The goal, it states, should be “cementing Ukraine’s integration into Europe.”

A January 28, 2023 report in Newsweek reports, “there is a nascent effort underway in the U.S. and allied nations to identify, develop, and utilize Ukraine’s vast resources of a key metal crucial for the development of the West’s most advanced military technology which will form the backbone of future deterrence against Russia and China.” The report adds, “If Ukraine wins, the U.S. and its allies will be in sole position to cultivate a new conduit of titanium.”

“Strategic raw materials partnership” between EU and Ukraine

The US and EU efforts to plunder Ukraine’s lithium and titanium deposits are part of the broader goal of tying Ukraine to the West as a strategic raw materials supplier. In particular, the EU is seeking to free itself from dependence on China—currently its most important raw materials supplier—against which the imperialist powers, especially the United States, are preparing to wage war.

On July 13, 2021, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President of the European Commission, signed a “Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials and Batteries” in Kiev to “integrate critical raw materials and battery value chains.” Ukraine’s inclusion in the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) and the European Battery Alliance (EBA) serves to “bolster Europe’s resilience and open strategic autonomy in key technologies,” the EU Commission said.

Referring to the list of critical raw materials in the EU’s associated “action plan,” Šefčovič told the press, “21 of these critical raw materials are in Ukraine, which is also extracting 117 out of 120 globally used minerals.” He added: “We’re talking about lithium, cobalt, manganese, rare earths—all of them are in Ukraine.”

Following the signing, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is also responsible for the defense and space industries of EU countries, praised the “high potential of the critical raw material reserves in Ukraine” that could help in “addressing some of the strategic dependencies [of the EU].”

Speaking at Raw Materials Week in Brussels in November 2022, Prime Minister Shmyhal stressed that Ukraine is “among the top ten producers of titanium, iron ore, kaolin, manganese, zirconium and graphite” and renewed his pledge to make the country an “integral part of industrial supply chains in the EU.”

The EU’s “strategic dependencies” are by no means limited to Russia or China and certainly not to Ukraine. A global race for strategic sources of raw materials has long since begun, in the course of which the US and the leading EU powers are attempting to divide among themselves the mineral resources and other resources of the “weaker” states. Although they are jointly waging war against Russia in Ukraine, this inevitably exacerbates conflicts between themselves as well.

The escalation of the war in Ukraine shows that the ruling elites are willing to go to extremes to enforce their profit interests. Only the working class can put an end to permanent war and the prospect of devastating nuclear war by bringing the resources of the entire planet under its democratic control on the basis of a socialist program and holding war profiteers to account.

#nato #economics #capitalism #ukraine #ukraine conflict

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 1 year

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Eyes on the prize: Lula’s outbursts won’t deter EU from chasing Mercosur deal

Brazilian leader’s erratic geopolitics are testing the nerves of EU trade negotiators.

The European Union might have been put out by the latest anti-Western antics of Brazil's maverick president, but that's not going to deter it from pushing ahead to conclude a trade deal with Latin American countries that’s been in the making for decades.

The EU is on a charm offensive as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tours Portugal and Spain — part of a courtship that seeks to mark progress on a deal with the Mercosur trading bloc at a major EU-Latin America summit in Brussels in July.

Lula's behavior of late has hardly helped the cause: He had been due to welcome European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen a couple of weeks back, but instead flew to China. There, he railed against the West in general, and the United States in particular, calling on Washington to "stop encouraging war” in Ukraine. Lula's comments triggered a storm of criticism from Washington and Brussels, amid concern that the West had lost the Brazilian leader just months after he returned to power.

But in the corridors of power in Brussels, diplomats say the public acrimony won’t be enough to derail the crucial trade deal

“Obviously, it is important to push back strongly against any comments that would look to question the realities of the war in Ukraine, wherever they come from," said one EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to freely discuss sensitive topics. “However, the EU doesn’t take such big decisions based on issues like this. Mercosur is an important long-term strategy.”

#brazil #politics #europe #european union #ukraine #ukraine crisis #brazilian politics #european politics #international politics #mercosur #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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goldiers1 · 1 year

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Hazardous Chemicals in SHEIN Products Break EU Regulations.

Greenpeace has conducted research on the Chinese fashion company SHEIN that identifies high levels of hazardous chemicals which break European Union regulations by up to 100% or more. Some 47 products were randomly tested and 7 (15%) were found to have contained hazardous chemicals that break EU regulatory limits. 5 were found to break the EU limits by 100% or more. The products are purchased online from Germany, Austria, Spain Italy, and Switzerland. They were also purchased from a pop-up store in Munich, Germany. All the products tested included children's clothes and shoes. All the garments were sent to an independent laboratory BUI for chemical analysis. SHEIN is at the forefront of ultra-fast fashion which has environmentalists up in arms. There are many reasons too, including the short life span of their products, ultra-low pay to Chinese workers, and now clear breaches of EU health regulations. Established fashion designers like Prado have also been vocal about intellectual property theft. BUIs findings included very high levels of phthalates in shoes and formaldehyde in a baby girl’s dress indicate at the very least SHEIN is not regulating its product production.

Munich Pop-Up store. Photo by Maria irl. Greenpeace.

SHEIN targets TikTok users.

Rebecca Morter, founder of the sustainable e-commerce site Lone Design Club recently said in an interview with Glossy, “The worry with what Shein is doing — especially with their target audience of Gen-Zers* — is that it is making them think that it’s OK to pay next to nothing for an item of clothing, when the only way to have reached that price would mean exploiting people along the supply chain, from the makers to the designers,” * Gen-Z (people born between the mid-to-late 1990s and 2012).

SheIn Women's Casual V Neck Sleeveless Ribbed Knit Cami Crop Top. Photo by Shop8447. Flickr.

The Supply Chain.

SHEIN's business model relies on products being produced and delivered almost instantly. The fast fashion style forces suppliers to deliver at breakneck speed which in turn makes things very hard for regulators. Earlier this month SHEIN announced the opening of a 170,000 sq ft. Warehouse and Office in Greater Toronto Area. The company is set to keep expanding and if regulators don't start looking into this soon there could be really bad ramifications.

Dye Factory in Shaoxing, China. Photo by Lu Guang. Greenpeace.

Greenpeace's point of view.

Viola Wohlgemuth, Greenpeace Overconsumption & toxics Campaigner in Germany said, “Greenpeace is calling for the EU to enforce its laws on hazardous chemicals – which are a basic requirement for achieving a circular textiles economy and the end of fast fashion, as set out in the EU’s own Textiles Strategy.” “But the EU’s proposals also need to take on the inhuman system of exploitation and destruction by ultra fast fashion that should have no place in any industry in the 21st century, by holding companies fully responsible for environmental and social exploitation in their supply chains and the impacts from fashion waste. This also needs to be urgently addressed through a global treaty, similar to the recently agreed UNEA plastics treaty that is currently being discussed, to finally tackle the giant fashion footprint.”

In conclusion.

SHEIN's business model needs investigating by the authorities soon rather than later. If their business model is putting people at risk of exposure to dangerous levels of toxins then the public has a right to know. Parents should do some research and make sure their kids are not put at risk because of new fashion trends. Sources: THX News, LinkedIn, SHEIN, Glossy, Euro News & Greenpeace. Read the full article

#fashion #Greenpeace #GreenpeaceGermany #SHEIN

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

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The EU is interested in pursuing “Central Asia energy independence from Russia,” [an anonymous EU] official said. [...]

The funding would be part of the EU’s “Global Gateway” strategy, the EU official said. Brussels unveiled the 300-billion-euro global infrastructure spending plan in December as a better, greener alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. [...]

It is unclear when the EU’s plans could turn into actual investments, but the EU official said that decisions could be made by the final quarter of this year.

5 Jul 22

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hexjulia · 1 year

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why is the tone in which this is written so reminiscent of celebrity gossip magazines

#in a way i suppose thats all it is anyway. this embassador is like the kardashians for another target audience

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mariacallous · 9 months

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Central banks from eight countries—Mexico, the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Singapore, and China—formed the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) in 2017 to investigate and coordinate a response to climate change. By the end of 2022, the NGFS had over 120 members. However, among these central banks, there were considerable differences in the strategies adopted to account for and address climate change. Most strikingly, climate change has emerged as an unusual area of divergence between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), despite their historical tendency to adopt similar policy tools, frameworks, and objectives. The Fed limited its approach to climate change to basic climate policy standards or “norms” that recognized some relevance of climate change to achieving its monetary and prudential objectives but avoided any support for decarbonization. In contrast, the ECB better appreciated that climate change raised profound challenges for achieving its central banking objectives. As a result, the ECB adopted proactive climate policy norms that, for example, put in place climate-related criteria for asset purchase programs and far-reaching supervisory interventions to ensure that financial institutions accounted for climate risk.

To understand the ECB-Fed divergence on climate policy, we develop a theoretical framework that describes how new central banking norms are created and become influential in the context of domestic and international pressures. In the initial stage of climate policy norm emergence, broad support across the EU for climate action along with persuasive think tanks, researchers, and other policy entrepreneurs helped push the ECB to endorse new climate-related norms. The founding of the NGFS and the associated cascade of climate-related norms exerted significant pressure towards climate policy convergence across many central banks. However, the deeply polarized and partisan U.S. debate on climate change, stoked by an influential domestic fossil fuel industry, led the Fed to adopt only a modest version of the foundational climate norms—a stark divergence from the proactive climate stance of the ECB.

Given the deep differences in domestic political pressures, it seems unlikely that the climate policy differences between the ECB and the Fed will soon disappear. However, given the international connectedness of central banking, we expect global policy norms to provide sustained pressure towards convergence. In this context, the ECB might scale back some proactive commitments, although it seems unlikely to entirely disavow its current forward-leaning stance. The Fed may also seek a more favorable compromise, such as assuring domestic audiences of climate policy restraint, while cooperating with international peers on less overt regulatory interventions.

Download the full paper here»

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