by Oui
Tue Jul 23rd, 2019 at 11:50:29 AM EST
No surprise there ... any thoughts on the coming months leading up to the real deal Brexit before 10-31-2019?
The exciting period leading up to this Tory election has taken the excitement in the Strait of Hormuz to the backburner ... the flames need to be contended with. Will Hunt stay on as FM?
More below the fold ...
by Oui
Sun Jul 21st, 2019 at 11:44:20 AM EST
Heading into Ukraine's July 21 parliamentary elections, new President Volodomyr Zelenskiy is riding a high. Having swept into office in late May with 73% of the vote, Zelenskiy is poised to take a commanding share of the Ukrainian Rada (parliament), if not an outright majority.
Most polls have his Servant of the People Party with somewhere between 42% and 48% of the vote, figures that are unheard of in a system in which a top party rarely wins more than one-third. The next most popular party, the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc, has only 15% of the vote according to polls. [Source: Brookings Institute]
○ How Pro-Russian Oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk Is Regaining Power in Ukraine
Ukraine parliamentary vote: Fresh start or a U-turn? | DW |
Radical plans
Sunday's election will be decisive for Zelenskiy: For his radical fresh start, the former comedian needs a broad majority. Zelenskiy wants to reform almost all sectors, press ahead with digitization and fight corruption. He has also hinted at a reckoning with the legacy left by former President Petro Poroshenko.
Continued below the fold ...
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Jul 19th, 2019 at 11:16:56 PM EST
The European Tribune has come into possession of a secret memorandum of the Irish Department of External Affairs...
Top Secret
Caution: To be shared with UK Government only after talks with the incoming UK Prime Minister have irretrievably broken down.
Memorandum proposing a process to overcome Withdrawal Agreement impasse.
Background: Para. 5 of the EU/UK agreement to extend the A.50 negotiation period explicitly prohibits the UK from using the extension to seek to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement. Further negotiations were to focus exclusively on the legally non-binding accompanying political declaration. However, it has become clear during the Conservative Party leadership election that without at least some face saving device the Withdrawal Agreement, in its current form, will not be passed by the UK Parliament. The Irish Government will therefore be faced, at the very least, with a period of "No-deal" Brexit until such time as the current UK Government, dependent as it is on the DUP, is no longer in power.
by Oui
Fri Jul 19th, 2019 at 06:52:07 AM EST
Miscalculation by Dutch PM Mark Rutte: an Atlanticist, conservative and long-time Theresa May supporter ...
○ News Analysis: Strong signal by northern eight unlikely to be game changer in eurozone reforms
○ Due to Brexit, smaller countries fear French and German dominance
Serving personal interests and lobbying for an IMF position for Jeroen Dijsselbloem ... the joint press conference with President Trump dwarfed all Dutch talking points ...
More below the fold ...
by Oui
Thu Jul 18th, 2019 at 07:49:21 PM EST
Nothing here to see ... just as the domestic quarrel issue, Der Boris honors the Sicilian code of silence, the omertà.
○ Il sindaco di Londra Boris Johnson in Umbria ospite dell'oligarca Evgeny Lebedev | Umbria24 - Nov. 2012 |
Boris Johnson refuses to answer questions over party in Lebedev mansion | The Guardian - 4 hrs ago |
Boris Johnson is refusing to give details of a trip he made to Italy when he was foreign secretary for a weekend-long party held at a restored castle owned by the media billionaire and socialite Evgeny Lebedev.
The Guardian has learned that the likely next prime minister went to Palazzo Terranova in Perugia in April 2018 at the invitation of Lebedev [4th invitation], the owner of the London Evening Standard and the Independent who is renowned for hosting glamorous events for the world's rich and famous.
Continued below the fold ...
by Bernard
Tue Jul 16th, 2019 at 06:28:37 PM EST
Von der Leyen confirmed as new Commission president by paper-thin majority - Euractiv
The European Parliament confirmed on Tuesday (16 July) Ursula von der Leyen by a paper-thin majority as the new European Commission president, giving her the reins of the EU executive for the next five years.
The German defence minister - a surprise candidate from the EPP, picked by the member states on 21 June - managed to convince a majority of Socialists and liberals in the Parliament with promises of reforms and climate action. She won 383 votes, compared to the minimum of 374 votes necessary, in a secret paper ballot - only nine more than the required minimum.
The votes against were 327 with 22 abstentions or blank vote.
In comparison, five years ago Jean-Claude Juncker was elected with 422 votes. The difference, however, is at that time, there were no doubts that the former prime minister of Luxembourg would get the top EU job. In the case of von der Leyen, a less known figure, who moreover was not even a Spitzenkandidat, uncertainty prevailed in the few weeks before the vote.
More importantly, it appears that the three mainstream groups, EPP, S&D and RE, voted predominantly in favour of the nominee proposed by EU heads of state and government, forging a majority which would be much needed in the years to come.
Other coverage from Deutsche Welle and the Grauniad.
Secret ballot, so no detail on how many in the EPP, S&D and RE voted for or against her.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Jul 14th, 2019 at 12:25:00 PM EST
Cliff Taylor has written a rather amusing spoof despatch from a British Diplomat in Dublin back to his seniors in Whitehall - no doubt modelled on Sir Kim Darroch despatches from Washington. In general it seems an accurate take on the state of "no deal" Brexit contingency planning in Ireland, but the over-riding impression is one of confusion as to what the Irish are really up to.
by Oui
Sun Jul 14th, 2019 at 09:55:14 AM EST
Two whistleblowers in BBC documentary covering anti-Semitism in the Labour party found their way to smart libel lawyer Mark Lewis doing pro-Israel cases for free.
With Panorama's hatchet job on Labour antisemitism, BBC has become pro-Tory media | Middle-East Eye |
It is difficult to describe as anything other than a hatchet job the BBC Panorama special this week that sought to bolster claims that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn has become "institutionally antisemitic".
The partisan tone was set from the opening shot. A young woman whose name was not revealed tearfully claimed to have been abused with antisemitic taunts at a Labour Party conference.
The decision not to disclose their interviewee's identity is understandable in the circumstances. It would have discredited the whole narrative Panorama was trying so hard to build.
The woman's name is Ella Rose, a senior official in the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), an organisation representing Jewish and non-Jewish members of Labour at the forefront of attacks on Corbyn. Rose has a secret past too: she once worked at the Israeli embassy in London.
Jewish Labour Movement was refounded to fight Corbyn
○ The Jewish Labour Movement is fighting our friends and propping up our enemies | JC |
Continued below the fold ...
[Some links added are mine - Oui]
by ARGeezer
Wed Jul 10th, 2019 at 09:32:13 PM EST
A major conceptual problem for me while taking thermodynamics in 1963 was the focus on equilibrium situations, which seemed to me to be special cases and unrepresentative of the general reality I observed. A recent paper in Real World Economic Review has brought all of that back to mind: What can economists and energy engineers learn from thermodynamics beyond the technical aspects?
In a conference that opened the way to the thermodynamics of human societies, the sociologist Maurice Hauriou (1899, p.5) took up this idea by considering that only the "thermodynamic laws shed some light on the possibilities of freedom". This presupposes a permanent interaction between the human and his environment and overlaps with the formulation of Douglas Hugh Everett, in his "Introduction to the Study of Chemical Thermodynamics"(1959), according to which "a particular proportion of the Universe is called the `system'while the rest of the Universe is called 'the outside' or 'the environment"(Rybac, 1968, p.137).
This conceptualization has allowed researchers to develop the thermodynamics of open systems, traversed by a flow of matter and energy, whereas the classical conception of thermodynamics considers closed systems, whose exchanges with the external environment are null or limited and tightly controlled. From this angle, the new thermodynamics gives a major importance to the phenomenon of irreversibility, where the old is placed in the vicinity of equilibrium, in the reversibility zone, which makes the human world appear to be subject to its potential momentum and not just the laws of thermodynamics in their traditional meaning. In this context, the appearance of the notion of dissipative structure (Prigogine, 1967, p.371), which applies to phenomena as different as cyclones or living species, seems particularly interesting because it applies to human societies. Cyclones, living species, human societies, are famous for the unpredictability of their evolution.
As is so often the case, the problems that perplexed me as an undergraduate were just being addressed on the fringes of the field - open system thermodynamics.
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Jul 10th, 2019 at 12:09:18 AM EST
I do so tire of Brexiteers claiming that the referendum result gives them the right to do more or less as they please and that anyone who objects to their proposals is acting undemocratically. However I get especially annoyed when Irish writers claim that respect for democracy requires us to indulge Brexiteers every whim and cast aside our own national interests. It's not all about the UK you know...
by Oui
Tue Jul 9th, 2019 at 10:16:33 AM EST
Will this sentencing stand in Italy's highest court??
○ Processo d'appello contro i responsabili dell'Operazione Condor
○ Operazione Condor, 24 ergastoli a ex capi di Stato e 007 per 23 italiani uccisi
Italian court jails 24 over South American Operation Condor | The Guardian |
Prosecutors in the case drew on the precedent set in 2000 by the arrest in London of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet under the principle of "universal jurisdiction".
Continued below the fold ...
by eurogreen
Mon Jul 8th, 2019 at 12:22:00 PM EST
A general election took place in Greece, yesterday 7th July 2019. I will make a few comments, as nobody else has done so.
Please note that I have no particular knowledge of politics in Greece, other than through my attachment to the DiEM25 movement.
So this will be a somewhat ignorant and partisan little diary.
The headline is "Conservative landslide", because the New Democracy party won a majority (158 of 300 seats)...
But in a normal European democracy, the news today would be all about the difficulty of cobbling together a left-of-centre government...
Frontpaged - Frank Schnittger
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Jul 5th, 2019 at 01:51:04 PM EST
The Johnson and Hunt show is winding its tedious way around the UK with the principals both promising to re-negotiate the Withdrawal Agreement and declaring the Irish backstop to be a dead letter. Well they would, wouldn't they, given the audiences they are speaking to. John Crace is particularly withering about their performance in Northern Ireland. Both are blithely ignoring the fact that the EU has consistently said the A.50 negotiations are finished and the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations won't be re-opened.
by gmoke
Thu Jul 4th, 2019 at 08:31:36 PM EST
I did some back of the envelope estimates of the cost of the fossil fuels we use in a year.
The source of these figures is the USA DOE Energy Information Agency https:/www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php
But any mistakes in arithmetic are my own.
-----------------
7.5 billion barrels of petroleum products consumed in USA in 2018
average price $69.78 per barrel
Cost of petroleum products: $523,350,000,000
In 2017, the United States consumed about 27.11 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas
average of $4.08 per thousand cubic feet
Cost of natural gas: $110,608,800,000
EIA expects total U.S. coal consumption in 2018 to fall to 691 million short tons (MMst)
$39.09 per short ton (2017 price)
Cost of coal: $27,011,190,000
Total: $660,969,990,000
We spend nearly $661 billion per year or something like that on fuel alone every year.
And these are only ballpark numbers, probably on the low side.
With the 2018 USA GDP at $20.50 trillion, the cost of fuel is approximately 3.22% of annual GDP
---------------------------
Another "cost" of fuel is covered in the International Monetary Fund's recent report on fossil fuel subsidies, covering 191 countries:
https:www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-A
n-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509
They look at the difference between the market price and "how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs and revenue requirements."
Global fuel subsidies were $4.7 trillion (6.3% of global GDP) in 2015 and were projected to be $5.2 trillion (6.5% of GDP) in 2017
China subsidizes the most with $1.4 trillion per year
$649 billion in 2015 for the USA, 3.6% of GDP
Russia at $551 billion
EU at $289 billion
India at $209 billion
"Efficient fossil fuel pricing in 2015 would have lowered global carbon emissions by 28% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 46%, and increased government revenue by 3.8 % of GDP."
Subsidies consist of underpricing for local air pollution, the largest source (48% in 2015),
global warming at 24%
broader environmental costs of road fuels at 15%
undercharging for general consumption taxes 7%
supply costs 7%
Coal and petroleum get 85% of the global subsidies monies.
Coal receives 44% of subsidy monies
petroleum 41%
natural gas 10%
electricity 4%
"If fuel prices had been set at fully efficient levels in 2015, estimated global CO2 emissions would have been 28% lower, fossil fuel air pollution deaths 46% lower, tax revenues higher by 3.8% of global GDP, and net economic benefits (environmental benefits less economic costs) would have amounted to 1.7% of global GDP."
---------------------------
The USA spends about $661 billion per year on the cost of fuel
and another $649 billion on subsidies for that fuel
That's about $1.2 trillion per year for the full cost accounting of fossil fuels and such fossil foolishness.
That's about 7% of USA GDP
The energy transition, Energiewende, of Germany is estimated to cost 0.5 - 1.2% of GDP per year
Source: https:/www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/how-much-does-germanys-energy-transition-cost
How do you pay for the Green New Deal? You do away with the cost of fuel (and all the subsidies that go along with it).
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Jul 2nd, 2019 at 11:12:01 AM EST
Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney hold their press conference on the street after the British failed to provide a room following a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London last month. Photograph: Kirsty O'Connor/PA
Update [2019-7-2 11:12:1 by Frank Schnittger]:First published Fri Aug 3rd, 2018, but is there anything of substance which has changed in the meantime?</update>
One of the few things the UK government has done well is to summarise their position in a few pithy phrases even low information voters can understand. We are all familiar with the famous "Brexit means Brexit" catchphrase of Prime Minster May and Boris Johnson's famous "we can have our cake at eat it" which should really be "we can eat our cake and still have it"...
What Johnson means by this is that the UK will be able to carry on trading with the EU very much as before, taking all the benefits of access to the EU Single Market and all the Free Trade Agreements (FTA) the EU has negotiated with third parties without any of the costs and restrictions of EU membership. Apparently the EU would agree to this because "they need us more than we need them" and replicating EU FTAs would be a simple mater of replacing the letters "EU" with "UK" in all the FTAs the EU has negotiated to date.
The EU negotiating stance, on the other hand, has been one long slow process of disabusing the UK of such notions. Access to the Single Market will require agreement to "the four freedoms", and membership of the Customs Union will require compliance with the corpus of customs regulations the EU has built up over the years. The UK will not be allowed to achieve a competitive advantage by taking in cheaper, less regulated imports, or by reducing the scope of workers rights. And this is before we even talk about the UK making Norway style ongoing contributions to the EU budget in return for access to the Single Market.
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Jun 26th, 2019 at 12:52:26 PM EST
EU Prime Ministers met last week-end to try to fill the key EU posts of President of the Commission, President of the Council, President of the Central Bank, and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. They failed miserably, agreeing only to kill off the candidacies of European Parliament Spitzenkandidaten Manfred Weber (EPP), Dutch socialist Franz Timmermans and the Danish liberal Margrethe Vestager.
Insiders joked the leaders couldn't even agree on what they disagreed on. Leo Varadker opined it was easier to elect a Pope. Jean-Claude Juncker noted with some conceit that "it appears I'm not that easy to replace." EU Prime Ministers like to keep decisions on the top jobs to themselves, and are not about to outsource that decision to the European Parliament, or indeed to the European peoples who elected that Parliament.
They meet again this week-end ahead of the opening session of the European Parliament which must approve their choice for Commission President, but with no guarantee they will succeed in moving the process any further forward. The complex series of compromises required to achieve an acceptable mix of ideological, party, nationality, personality, and gender balances may well continue to elude them. And yet the EU, confronted by Trump, trade wars, and Brexit, needs strong and capable leadership now more than ever before.
by Oui
Fri Jun 21st, 2019 at 06:41:00 AM EST
Clock ticking towards a US-Iran military confrontration in the Persian Gulf region ...
○ Coping with Iran: Confrontation, Containment, or Engagement? | RAND - 2007 |
Is Trump willing to risk destroying a civilization existing thousands of years before the journey of Columbus and the discovery of the Americas in 1492 AD?
This event on the same day the USA named as a rogue state ...
○ US joins four rogue countries seen as likely forces for bad, poll finds | The Guardian |
I have been writing this for a number of years now! The election of Trump tipped the scale towards a force of evil ...
○ Donald Trump Decided to Strike Iranian Missile System, Then Changed His Mind | Newsweek |
More below the fold ...
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Jul 2nd, 2019 at 09:55:29 AM EST
Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney hold their press conference on the street after the British failed to provide a room following a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London last month. Photograph: Kirsty O'Connor/PA
Update [2019-7-2 9:55:29 by Frank Schnittger]:First published Fri Aug 3rd, 2018, but is there anything of substance which has changed in the meantime?
One of the few things the UK government has done well is to summarise their position in a few pithy phrases even low information voters can understand. We are all familiar with the famous "Brexit means Brexit" catchphrase of Prime Minster May and Boris Johnson's famous "we can have our cake at eat it" which should really be "we can eat our cake and still have it"...
What Johnson means by this is that the UK will be able to carry on trading with the EU very much as before, taking all the benefits of access to the EU Single Market and all the Free Trade Agreements (FTA) the EU has negotiated with third parties without any of the costs and restrictions of EU membership. Apparently the EU would agree to this because "they need us more than we need them" and replicating EU FTAs would be a simple mater of replacing the letters "EU" with "UK" in all the FTAs the EU has negotiated to date.
The EU negotiating stance, on the other hand, has been one long slow process of disabusing the UK of such notions. Access to the Single Market will require agreement to "the four freedoms", and membership of the Customs Union will require compliance with the corpus of customs regulations the EU has built up over the years. The UK will not be allowed to achieve a competitive advantage by taking in cheaper, less regulated imports, or by reducing the scope of workers rights. And this is before we even talk about the UK making Norway style ongoing contributions to the EU budget in return for access to the Single Market.
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Jun 20th, 2019 at 11:51:27 PM EST
Letter published in the Irish Times...
Northern Ireland and staying in UK
A chara, - You cite Lord Paul Bew, who teaches Irish history and politics at Queen's University Belfast (QUB), as saying, "Theresa May's successor must make the case for the union consistently". He also highlights what he describes as the "intellectual weakness" of the case for a united Ireland".
He has published his paper through Policy Exchange, a right-of-centre UK think tank which is frequently cited as influential on Tory Party policymaking, together with a foreword by Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, and who proposed the Brady amendment to pursue alternative solutions to the backstop.
Ironically, he describes the nationalist case for a united Ireland as based on falsifiable or insupportable suppositions, when it is the DUP and British government which have singularly failed to show any practical alternative solution to the backstop working anywhere in the world.
He argues that "a new, modern case for the union must be developed, based on the principle of consent", when that is precisely what is enshrined in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, then resisted by the DUP, and which Brexiteers and unionists are now so anxious to undermine.
Northern Ireland voted 56 per cent to 44 per cent to remain in the EU and it is the DUP, with 22 per cent support in the recent European Parliament elections, which is pursuing a Brexit agenda, in cahoots with a Conservative government, against the consent of the majority.
Perhaps the good professor needs to examine the "intellectual weaknesses" in his own position. - Yours, etc,
FRANK SCHNITTGER
