Reflectii

На саммите Евросоюза в Брюсселе состоялась “самая острая дискуссия за последние несколько лет”. Двухчасовое обсуждение, “временами эмоциональное”, было посвящено — нет, не необходимости организовать в ближайшее время саммит с Путиным, который предложили провести Меркель и Макрон.
Обсуждали действия “европейского Путина”, давно уже вызывающего у евроинтеграторов изжогу. “Ты пересек красную линию! Это не та Европа, в которой я хочу жить!” — возмущался премьер-министр Люксембурга. “Я намерен поставить их на колени. На этот раз все зашло слишком далеко! Им больше нечего делать в ЕС”, — добавлял премьер Нидерландов. “Позор! Исключить!” — все это кричали премьер-министру Венгрии Виктору Орбану, требуя от него объяснений из-за принятого на днях в Венгрии закона о запрете пропаганды ЛГБТ (в том числе в школах и среди несовершеннолетних). Лидеры 17 из 27 стран подписали обращение к Орбану с призывом отменить закон — но венгерский премьер стоял на своем. Защищаем семьи — и все тут.

The morning after a Russian-American summit is most critical to know whether the previous day’s bonhomie was real, surreal or unreal. Surveying the Geneva Summit (June 16) between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, I cautiously assessed the next day,

Modern warfare is waged with high-tech weapons. Each battle fought eats up loads of ammunition and modern weapons systems need spare parts and fuel. All this meaning that no military action is possible without an advanced economy and supplies. Even terrorist organizations forced to go deep into the underground have to set up laboratories and workshops to produce homemade explosives and weapons. Incidentally, it is exactly this “underground industry” that makes them vulnerable to the intelligence services. Therefore, one might think that large and internationally outlawed groups of terrorists and separatists simply can’t exist for long because they will be left with virtually nothing to fight with.

Follow the money. O expresie celebră din zona politicii, înfiptă în mintea oamenilor odată cu scandalul Watergate și cu filmul All The President’s Men.

Ciudate timpuri trăim şi stranii perspective ni se deschid în faţa existenţei europene, în condiţiile în care liderii politici nu încetează să pledeze electoral despre nevoia de solidaritate europeană. Departe de a mai convinge pe cineva, efectul începe să fie chiar o afundare în ridicol şi desuetudine (ceea ce nu ar fi ceva nou în cazul multora dintre ei) şi o demonstraţie a faliei care începe să se confirme la nivelul construcţiei europene.

C’est l’une des premières mesures prises par Joe Biden : annuler l’interdiction édictée par Donald Trump de s’engager dans l’armée sous une “identité de genre”, celle que les transgenres peuvent faire reconnaître à l’état-civil. Les soldats qui n’auraient pas passé le cap peuvent aussi, désormais, se faire opérer aux frais de l’institution.

À peine finie la cérémonie de son investiture, qui a nécessité le déploiement de 25 000 soldats de la garde nationale le 20 janvier 2021, Joe Biden, le nouveau président américain et commandant en chef des armées, a pris une décision : celle d’annuler l’interdiction pour les personnes transgenres de s’engager sous leur « identité de genre » (celle qu’ils ont choisie). Cet interdit édicté par Donald Trump dès 2017 avait été validé par la Cour suprême en 2019.

To Recall Active Attendance of Former British Colonialism

The G-7 used to be G-8 inclusive of Russia, but it shrinked to being the “West and America First” and anything else is a matter of opinion to be relevant for global peace and harmony. We, the People of the world are constantly becoming victim of modern ignorance, rooted insolence of withered expectations and growing indifference to much desired international cooperation and working together for peace, intelligence and goodness of humanity. While common masses who are victimized by the atrocities of the few against all – war is not the means to peacemaking and cutting short stupidity and evil-mongering against the global mankind – the real inhabitants of Earth and extended Universal harmony.

Sempre vero che la foresta, quando cresce, fa meno rumore del singolo albero in caduta. Ma è destinata a durare, e magari cambiare l’ecosistema.

Martedì l’Europa ha ‘piantato’ quasi in sordina – per quanto fragoroso era stato nella primavera 2020 il dibattito sulla possibile mutualizzazione del debito anti-Covid – il primo bond del Next Generation Eu, il programma comune per ricostruire con intenti sostenibili l’economia dell’Unione. La Commissione ha raccolto 20 miliardi di euro con un titolo decennale per il quale la richiesta degli investitori è stata sette volte tanto, segno che l’interesse dei mercati per un’obbligazione europea ‘tripla A’ è grande. Entro l’anno i miliardi saranno oltre 100. Serviranno a finanziare le sovvenzioni e i prestiti destinati agli Stati membri nel 2021 per realizzare i progetti inseriti nei Piani nazionali dei Ventisette.

While Australian politicians languish in a world blotched by climate change scepticism and fossil fuel love-ins, global oil and gas companies have been shaken. Three titans of oil fame – Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron – faced a range of decisions in May that promise to dramatically shape their future operations. The point is not negligible, given that this triarchy produced, between 1988 and 2015, 5% of total global scope 1 and 3 emissions.

Groton and New London, Connecticut, are home to about 65,000 people, three colleges, the Coast Guard Academy, 15 nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines capable of destroying the world many times over, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat, a multi-billion-dollar private corporation that offers stock options to its shareholders and mega-salaries to its top executives as it pockets taxpayer dollars and manufactures yet more of those stealthy, potentially world-ending machines. Whew! That was a long sentence!