Why the world is becoming more French - New Statesman

For decades France has been the red cape to the bull of liberal Atlanticist orthodoxy. Lukewarm on a transatlantic alliance others treated as sacrosanct, ­wedded to Gaullist multipolarity in a ­seemingly unipolar age, enduringly statist in defiance of Hayekian economics, heavy-handedly dirigiste in an age of decentralisation and networked power, at points it has appeared like the village in the Astérix books; the stubborn Gallic holdout against the end of history.

Despair about France often tracks liberal hubris in the Anglo-Saxon world. It was in 2012 - the year of peak Osbornism in Britain and of the Cameron-Obama "bromance" - that the Economist declared France "a country in denial" in an editorial tutting: "French voters are notorious for their belief in the state's benevolence". It was in 2017 - with the UK and US reeling from Brexit and Donald Trump respectively - that the revisionist case for optimism about France, now under the leadership of Emmanuel Macron, started appearing once more.

The Queen's death will be referred to internally by the government as "D-Day," and flags in Whitehall will be lowered to half-mast. According to the leaked plan, however, the government has expressed concern that it might anger the public if it cannot pull its flags down to half-mast within ten minutes of the Queen's death being announced, and it could even be forced to call in a contractor to do it if no one is around with the ability.

EU nations have an interest in fueling the pandemic recovery in Vietnam, as it's the bloc's largest trade partner in Southeast Asia. The EU is also eager to get a geopolitical foothold in the Indo-Pacific region.
[...]
Vietnamese groups were particularly active in countries like the Czech Republic, France[!], Germany and Poland, which have the largest Vietnamese diaspora communities in Europe. All four of these countries have now donated vaccines to Vietnam.

Anti-Americanism is uneven in the EU. In France, it has almost been the default national policy since Charles de Gaulle.

In Germany, it's forbidden and only the extreme left engages in it, but Die Linke has now become a potentially important factor in the context of the 26 September elections. It is not by chance that Merkel's CDU has lashed out preemptively against the SPD, who are suspected of planning to team up with Die Linke, if they win the elections.

In Eastern Europe, anti-Americanism is the favourite toy of the pro-Russian forces. They are in most cases in opposition, but sometimes sit in governments that pretend to be pro-Western, although sometimes the Americans don't realise this.
[...]
The Afghanistan cold shower is also a timely reminder that the return of a mainstream politician to the White House doesn't solve all the geopolitical problems, and that the EU needs to be a world power of its own.

The EU needs to engage much more strongly, and fast, with Central Asia, India, Pakistan, Iran, if it doesn't want to become the victim of the US shortfall in Afghanistan.

And although transatlantic relations remain paramount for the EU, in the longer term, our Union should manage its relationship with Russia and China as a world power, not as a US subcontractor.

Press release from Ministry of Justice - Sweden

In part by using Swedish legislation as a model, a ban on the purchase of sexual services was introduced in France in 2016. Now 250 people who state that they sell sexual services have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, as they claim that the French legislation violates their human rights and is therefore in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Government has decided to intervene in the cases before the European Court of Human Rights and take part as a third party to defend the Swedish model regarding banning the purchase of sexual services. As a pioneering country in this area, Sweden has a unique opportunity to contribute and ensure that the European Court of Human Rights has a solid basis for its assessment.

The amount paid has not been revealed but according to Berlingske, it has been calculated according to what it cost the British to assess the 23 interpreters' documents and evacuate them, and what it would cost the UK to integrate them, including social benefits for five years.
[...]
The list includes 12 interpreters who had first been refused an entry visa to Denmark and 11 interpreters who wished to come to the UK.

A total of 195 interpreters assisted the Danish forces during the war in Afghanistan. Until June this year, merely five Afghan interpreters had been granted asylum in Denmark out of 139 applications.

Starting January 1, 2022, France will be offering free contraception to all women under 25. The upcoming policy change was announced by Health Minister Olivier Véran on France-2 television. pic.twitter.com/sBvpM3EPd8

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 9, 2021

'People seem to finally have woken up to the scale of the housing crisis,' [Amsterdam Noord resident Annelies Groot] told DutchNews.nl. 'I remember back when my social housing complex was being sold, and we went to protest at the housing corporation and barely a few hundred people came'.
[...]
Later in the day, police arrested 61 people after they attempted to squat an empty building. Squatting was made illegal in the Netherlands in 2010. The squatters later issued a statement condemning the police for using excessive violence and arguing that squatting is a form of protest. The building they attempted to take over has been vacant for multiple years, and is one of 116 buildings owned by Rogier Thewassen, the CEO of Young Capital, the squatters said.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said before the ship's departure that the goal was to show support for Berlin's allies in the region. "For our [']partners['] in the Indo-Pacific, it is a reality that sea routes are no longer open and secure, and that claims to territory are being applied by the law of 'might is right,'" she said."

reference
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, "South China Sea Arbitration Ruling: What Happened and What's Next?", 2016
"At the center of the dispute is China's ninedash line, a vague depiction by China of its claim encompassing about 90 percent of the South China Sea."

Germany's diversity shows as immigrants run for parliament

The current parliament has 8.2%, or 58 of 709 lawmakers with immigrant roots. The 2013-17 parliament had only 5.9%, or 37 out of 631 lawmakers, according to Mediendienst Integration, an organization tracking migrant issues in Germany.

Of the 6,227 candidates running for parliament, 537 have immigrant roots, said Julia Schulte-Cloos, a political scientist from Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University specializing in political behavior and discrimination of minorities in Germany and Europe.

reference
Law on Nationality
"The aim of avoiding multiple nationality remains a key feature of German law on nationality, even now."
archived legio

"In this case it was Turla, but it speaks to a larger trend. Regardless of the sophistication level of the attacker, lightweight access is the key to maximizing value. We are seeing these types of lightweight backdoors or remote access trojans being dropped in the hopes of maximizing the value from the compromise," a Talos spokesperson explained.

"... The Trojan women keened in grief, but I was glad--by then I wanted to go home.
I wished that Aphrodite had not made me
go crazy; when she took me from my country,
and made me leave my daughter and the bed
I shared with my fine, handsome, clever husband."

And Menelaus said,
"Yes, wife, quite right.
I have been around the world, and I have met
many heroic men and known their minds.
I never saw a man so resolute
as that Odysseus. How tough he was!
And what impressive fortitude he showed
inside the Wooden Horse! We fighters lurked
inside, to bring destruction to the Trojans.
You came there too. Some spirit who desired
to glorify the Trojans urged you on.
Three times you went around the hollow belly,
touching the hiding plce, and calling on
us Greeks by name; you put on different voices
for each man's wife. Then I and Diomedes
and good Odysseus, inside the horse,
heard you call out to us, and we two wanted
to go out, or to answer you there.
Odysseus prevented us from going.
Then all the other sons of the Achaeans
were quiet; Anticlus still wished to answer.
Odysseus' hands clamped shut his mouth
and saved us all. He held him there like that,
until Athena led you far away.

Weighing his words, Telemachus replied,
"But Menelaus, all this makes it worse!
My father's courage could not save his life,
even if he had a heart of iron.
So now, show us to bed. We need the comfort
of being lulled into sweet deep sleep."

While a ​​number of technical steps remain before trade can commence, the minister said in an online statement that he expected that once the remaining steps were completed, exports will "grow gradually over time, as Chinese consumers become familiar with the quality and taste of our Irish sheepmeat offering."

China is a substantial importer of sheepmeat, accounting for 38% of the global sheepmeat import market. In 2020, China's sheepmeat imports amounted to 365,000 tonnes and were valued at €1.47 billion at current exchange rates.

Imports account for 8% of total sheep meat consumed in China and the supply gap is growing annually, with average prices for imported sheep meat in China more than doubling over the last decade.

So abortion is now legal in all if Italy except the Holy See. When is their referendum?

KPÖ in Graz an erster Stelle, ÖVP-Bürgermeister Nagl tritt zurück

Laut erster Hochrechnung kommt die Kommunistische Partei auf 28,8%, die ÖVP verliert fast zwölf Prozentpunkte.

Mario Eustacchio (FPÖ):

Ich bin mit diesem Ergebnis nicht zufrieden. Wir rutschen damit gewaltig nach links. Wir machen uns damit zum Gelächter in ganz Europa. Es gibt ein Sprichwort: ,,Der Wähler hat immer recht!" Da bin ich mir nicht mehr ganz so sicher.

"But why would you use Euros?"

Just published: front page of the Financial Times UK edition Thursday September 2 https://t.co/nTCZC8wBBo pic.twitter.com/ETIv26y3e8

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) September 1, 2021

Brexit: food and drink exports to EU suffer `disastrous' decline [_link]

— The Guardian (@guardian) September 2, 2021

1.25 percentage point increase in national insurance contributions, which will be levied on employers and employees. Tax on share dividends will also be increased by 1.25 percentage points, in a move expected to raise < cue Dr Evil > £600m [!].

From 2023-24, once HM Revenue's computer systems have been updated, the NICs increase will be rebadged as a health and social care levy, which will appear as a separate line on payslips.
It will be extended at that point to cover pensioners who are still in work, and the proceeds hypothecated - put into a separate pot by law.

Over time, a growing proportion of the revenue raised will go to social care, allowing the government to implement a new cap on total care costs, so that no individual will have to pay more than £86,000 over their lifetime.

The supply chain troubles caused by Brexit and the pandemic have been so bad for Satyan Patel that the shelves at his convenience store in central London are seriously lacking water and soft drinks.

"Last week I ran out of Coca-Cola.

I haven't had large bottles of Evian for three weeks," said Patel.

Wine Society members - mainly middle class Tory voters - told their orders won't arrive because of "Brexit customs delays causing port congestion". This is serious. When Middle England runs out claret and white wine it is almost a pre-revolutionary moment @pmdfoster @Simon_Nixon

— Denis MacShane (@DenisMacShane) September 9, 2021

Patel : we will suspend payments to France for protection of our English borders
France : We have seen not a penny since August 2019

— Irishmonk (@castlvillageman) September 11, 2021

Last week, Afghans staying in the quarantine hotels were told they would be allowed to remain there free of charge "until onward accommodation is arranged for you with the Home Office".

"It's ironic," said one EU diplomat. "They talked about taking back control, but they are letting products into Britain without any controls at all. That's fine with us." https://t.co/jeutHt9imu

— Ulrike Franke (@RikeFranke) September 14, 2021

Ministers are eyeing a post-Brexit return to imperial measurements, with shops to be allowed to sell products in pounds and ounces again after 25 years.

The government has pledged to review a ban on marking and selling products in imperial units as part of post-Brexit changes to EU laws. Other possible reforms include plans to permit the voluntary printing of the crown stamp on pint glasses and the introduction of digital driving licences.

NHS trust wins legal fight to overturn ban on puberty-blocking drugs for children

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the UK's only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, brought an appeal against the ruling in June.

In a judgment on Friday, the Court of Appeal said it was inappropriate for the High Court to give the guidance - which will impact thousands of children with gender dysphoria - and instead, finding it is for doctors to exercise their judgment about whether their patients can properly consent.

The original case was brought by Keira Bell - a 24-year-old woman who began taking puberty blockers when she was 16 before later "detransitioning" - and the mother of a teenager who is on the waiting list for treatment, referred to as "Mrs A". They are seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

'Victory for common sense'

Following the ruling, Mermaids, a charity representing trans children, claimed it as "a victory for common sense and young people's bodily autonomy" amid calls for the NHS to urgently publish updated guidance for the 5,000 young people seeking treatment.
[...]
During a two-day appeal earlier this year, the Tavistock's lawyers argued the ruling was "inconsistent" with a long-standing concept that young people may be able to consent to their own medical treatments, following an appeal over access to the contraceptive pill [!] for under 16s in the 1980s.
[...]
An NHS spokesperson said: "The NHS commissioned Dr Hilary Cass to review gender identity services prior to the original High Court ruling to ensure the best model of safe and effective care is delivered - this will set out wide-ranging recommendations, including on the use of puberty blockers and the many contested clinical issues identified by the court.

"An independent multi-professional review group will continue to confirm whether clinical decision making has followed a robust consent process now that the endocrine pathway has been reopened by the Tavistock."

As petrol stations in parts of the UK started running out of fuel on Friday, business at Martin Miller's electric car dealership in Guildford, Surrey, started soaring.

After what ended up being his company EV Experts busiest day ever, interest does not appear to be dying down. This week the diary is booked up with test drives and the business is low on stock.

Actual quote from a State Dept employee when accused of antisemitism: "I am heartened to know that I have Jewish readers--I truly hope that they, like Saul, come to know Jesus Christ as literally the Son of God."
from @RobbieGramer https://t.co/vYszfUeekA

— Gabby Deutch (@GSDeutch) August 31, 2021

That's because the Census Bureau applied a new algorithm to census results meant to protect respondents' privacy -- but it also created thousands of improbabilities like that block of "Boxcar Children" in upstate New York.

First, the case is titled WHOLE WOMAN'S HEALTH ET AL. v. AUSTIN REEVE ACKSON, JUDGE, ET AL.

And no appellate court has even received an application for review from either litigant. The case is not "ripe," as the tribunal is wont to say, for either review or a ruling, which has not occurred.

Here, ROBERTS, being CJ, prepends the rationale of the majority (SCALITO, THOMAS, KAVANAUGH, GORSUCH, BARRETT) to his own dissent, joined by BRYER and KAGAN
and SOTOMAYOR's dissent, joined by BRYER and Kagan
and BRYER's dissent, joined by KAGAN and SOTOMAYOR

Here's the money quote.

The
applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue. But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden. ... And it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention. Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 409 (2013) ("threatened injury must be certainly impending" (citation omitted)).
[...]
The State has represented that neither it nor its executive employees possess the authority to enforce the Texas law either directly or indirectly. Nor is it clear whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas's law. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 163 (1908). Finally, the sole private-citizen respondent before us has filed an affidavit stating that he has no present intention to enforce the law. In light of such issues, we cannot say the applicants have met their burden to prevail in an injunction or stay application. ... In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas's law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.

y'all give me a headache.

Dear Acting Comptroller Hsu ...
I am concerned about a number of national trust charters granted by the prior leadership of the OCC. Shortly after former Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks left the OCC to join Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, several ["]nontraditional["] firms that specialize in digital and cryptocurrency activities - including Paxos, Protego, and Anchorage - received conditional national trust charters from the OCC. ...

It is also UNCLEAR whether the OCC engaged in the appropriate due diligence to stand behind this 'seal of approval' before granting these charters. Former Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks actively encouraged cryptocurrency companies to apply for a ["]national trust charter["] because it had "relatively easy requirements" and is "just a faster charter to get."10 Not only could these charter approvals lead customers to underestimate the risks related to these assets, but it could undermine faith in the safety and stability of the entire banking system. ...

I love this map! It shows all the US cities that used to have more than 100,000 residents but now don't anymore. Cool US history and geography trivia. Source: https://t.co/HZ4gRPnchL pic.twitter.com/i9oXUvraJH

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) September 4, 2021

And I would even posit that this issue of, of Biden's position on on Gaza could have hurt him in his overall ratings. We do know that over the past couple of months, the president's approval rating have diminished going down to 49%. And and that decline is almost entirely coming from Democrats is almost entirely coming from Democrats, there is a decline in democratic approval. Now, obviously, there are many issues by that's the case. It's not Israel. Palestine may be a small part of it. But it certainly didn't help. And there's no question that we have evidence that it certainly didn't help them, especially among young Democrats.

Defense attorneys are expected to argue that [torture d/b/a enhanced] interrogations the FBI conducted in 2007 should be ruled inadmissible on the grounds that these "clean-team" agents came in on the heels of years of torture while the defendants were in CIA custody.
[...]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind ... A Pakistani citizen raised in Kuwait, Mohammed is believed to have ["]first pitched["] Osama bin Laden on using commercial airlines as missiles to crash them into buildings in the US in 1996. When bin Laden approved the plot, he placed Mohammed in charge of its execution.

A graduate of a US university, Mohammed was working for the Qatari government in the early 1990s when he began conspiring with his nephew Ramzi Yousef who detonated a car bomb in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in 1993.

• Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the Yemeni 'Hamburg cell' organizer
  
• Walid bin Attash, the KSA-Yemeni 'senior lieutenant'
  
• Ammar al-Baluchi, Pakistani re-location expert
  
• Mustafa al-Hawsawi, KSA travel agent

AQ-aligned Unit Publishes Booklet Presenting Evidence of AQ Role in 9/11, Debunking Conspiracy Theory https://t.co/cseqYdcSDY pic.twitter.com/ZLZK2CWSKN

— SITE Intel - Jihadist Threat (@siteintel_jt) September 9, 2021

First report ... Antony Blinken already picked successor president Haiti

Haiti PM Ariel Henry banned from leaving country amid investigation into his alleged involvement in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse [_link]

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 14, 2021

Oh wait, how about asylum seeker status or a plane ticket to Dubai?

'Sapere aude'

Between 2013 and 2014, three Mozambican state-owned companies, ProIndicus, Ematum and Mam, took out €1.76 billion ($2.08 billion) in loans. The colossal amount of money came from Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB, among others [World Food Program (WFP)!]. These funds were allegedly meant to finance maritime surveillance, fishing and shipyard projects.
[...]
The trial of, among others, Ndambi Guebuza, son of former President Armando Guebuza, and Gregorio Leao, former head of the security services, on charges of blackmail, embezzlement and money laundering is being aired live on television.
[...]
Fighting Mozambique's graft
Many Mozambicans believe that the judicial proceedings show that the authorities are finally getting serious about fighting corruption.

Suga announced on Friday that he will not run for leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party this month, meaning that whoever wins the leadership race will become prime minister.
[...]
[Taro] Kono, 58, is popular among young voters after building support through Twitter, where he has 2.3 million followers - a rarity in Japanese politics, which is dominated by older men less adept with social media.

Why do you accept this military takeover?

Obviously, it is against my beliefs. But we are facing a situation where Alpha Conde has seized power by violating the constitution, by violating his oath, by trampling on all the rules and principles of democracy and the rule of law.

We have tried everything else. We called on the international community, but it did not or could not change its position. Peaceful demonstrations on the streets were brutally suppressed. Innocent Guineans were killed simply for exercising their constitutional right to march in public places. They killed nearly 40 people in N'zerekore and buried them in the night. All of these people, all of these citizens, were denied justice, compassion, and reparation.

Nothing we tried worked. We tried to take legal action against this, but without success. The judiciary is not independent; it does not dispense justice. Alpha Conde was always right; the opposition was always wrong. Hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested, tried and convicted even though they were innocent. All resistance has been unsuccessful.

[chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander] Fedorov is the latest Russian official to express his apprehensions over the US' widespread deployment of military biolabs in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. In April, the Russian Security Council's secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, told a Russian newspaper that Moscow was aware of the creation of new US military biolabs near Russia and China, and warned that Russian officials had reason to believe that biological weapons were being developed there.

The United States has pushed the creation of biolabs via its so-called 'Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction', as well as bilateral 'Joint Biological Commitments and Joint Threat Reduction' programmes with individual nations. Washington has long insisted that these programmes, which started being implemented after the end of the Cold War, are designed only to reduce biological weapons proliferation and production.
[...]
Last year, Ukrainian opposition politician Viktor Medvedchuk revealed to parliament that as many as 15 US-sponsored biological laboratories were operating on Ukrainian territory, with some of them said to be engaged in the storage of pathogens hazardous to humans and animals.

reference*
GAO, "CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE, Designated Entity Needed to Identify, Align, and Manage DOD's Infrastructure, 2015
GAO, "BIOLOGICAL SELECT AGENTS AND TOXINS, Actions Needed to Improve Management of DOD's Biosafety and Biosecurity Program ", 2018
Health.mil, The Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (GEIS) partner network

* also known as permanent US federal records

"Their values are not our values," Basira Taheri from Herat city told DW. "The Taliban fighters have lived all their lives in some remote places, far away from civilization, and have only learned to fight. They can hardly read or write. Many of them have no idea of life in a city. Afghan society has changed over the past 20 years. We will not allow the Taliban to take away our rights," she said.

The urban-rural gap grew even wider after the US' invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The US spent hundreds of billions of dollars on development aid, but all that money went to the big cities and surrounding areas under American control.But for people living in war-torn rural areas, the slogans and reforms proclaimed by the Soviets and the Americans actually became the objects of hatred.

Over the past 43 years, the most important thing for women in rural areas was finding a way for their families to survive strafing runs by Soviet Mi-24D helicopter gunships; sexual assault, kidnapping, sex trafficking, and toll-collecting by local warlords; and drone attacks by the US military.
[...]
Here are some of the contradictory reports coming out of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Just 100 of 700 female journalists are still working in Kabul. Women are being hired for sub-cabinet positions in the government and are allowed to be educated in universities divided by gender. Women protesters are being dispersed, but Taliban members who dispersed the protesters are being arrested. Some say the Taliban are just as oppressive as ever, while others argue that they've changed. What's clear is that such debates have little meaning for the 70% of Afghan women who inhabit the feudal society of the countryside.

As they noted, SDRs represent an international reserve asset that was created by the 🤬IMF in 1969 to help facilitate balance of payment settlements. Even so, SDRs themselves do not constitute debt or loans, but potential claims on the freely usable hard currencies of other 🤬IMF members. Historically, these claims have been used on occasions to pay back 🤬IMF loan programs. This implies the assets are, and always have been, closely connected to fiscal budgets.
[...]
Banxico, recently published a statement asserting that it, rather than the government, should maintain control over the $12 billion worth of SDRs the state has received in the latest 🤬IMF issuance. Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, disagrees. He believes the SDRs should go to the government's budget.

It is López Obrador who is right. And it is important for the international community to understand why, on a legal basis.

According to Articles XV and XVII of the 🤬IMF Articles of Agreement, the SDRs belong to "members." Members are the nations' governments, not their central banks.

So, the game-changing news that there are peace talks being held in México City between the Venezuelan government and opposition parties is ignored.  México is acting as host and facilitator with the kingdoms of Norway and Netherlands, and the Russian Federation as mediators. This seminal event has been scarcely reported by the North American media or commented on by politicians. Not a peep. Perhaps it is because neither the USA nor Canada have been permitted to be part of these negotiations, although certainly the USA has tried, and failed, to worm itself in.
[...]
The significance of this MOU is that

    + The extremist opposition parties at long last recognize the Venezuelan State, political institutions, and the legitimacy of President Nicolás Maduro. Previously, they had refused any dialogue alleging that Nicolás Maduro was not a legitimate president and demanding his resignation or new elections (which would have been against the Constitution) before they would even sit down to talk.

    + It spells the end of the US attempt to create a bogus alternative government with the fantasy that Juan Guaidó was any sort of president.

    + It indicates the end of the vicious Canadian absurdity of the Lima Group created solely to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Shockingly, at present, during an election campaign, not one Canadian media or party leader has reported the utter failure of this Liberal Party strategy of aggression towards Venezuela.

UPDATE Unity government loses disputed no-confidence vote, 21 Sep 2021

The lower chamber of the Libyan parliament withdrew their support for the unity government that was approved earlier in the year to lead the war-ravaged country through elections. Abdallah Abaihig, a spokesperson for the legislature, said 89 out of 113 attending lawmakers voted against the Cabinet.

The government, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, will now take on a caretaker role, according to Abaihig. However, a parliamentary source told the AFP that the vote was invalid because only 113 deputies attended the session in the eastern city of Tobruk.

According to the source, parliamentary rules require a minimum turnout of 120 members of the 200-seat house for a no-confidence vote.

To date, Cambodia has received a total of 32.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from friendly countries and the World Health Organization (WHO)'s COVAX Facility, of which 29.8 million doses, or 91.4 percent, are from China, she said.

The Southeast Asian nation launched a COVID-19 vaccination drive in February. As of Sept. 23, the kingdom has administered at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines to 12.8 million people, or 80 percent of its 16-million population, the MoH said. Of them, 10.7 million, or 67 percent, have been fully vaccinated with both required shots, and 855,045 people, or 5.34 percent, have received a booster dose, it added.
[...]
Cambodia on Friday reported a daily record of 822 new COVID-19 cases, lifting the national total caseload to 107,441, the MoH said, adding that 21 more fatalities have been registered, taking the overall death toll to 2,197.

After all votes were counted Sunday, female candidates held 33 seats in Iceland's 63-seat parliament, the Althing. ... According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rwanda leads the world with women making up 61% of its Chamber of Deputies, with Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico narrowly over the 50% mark. Worldwide, the organization says just over a quarter of legislators are women. The milestone for women comes despite a poor outcome for parties on the left, where female candidates are more often front-runners.
[...]
Opinion polls had suggested a victory for left-leaning parties in the unpredictable election, which saw 10 parties competing for seats. But the center-right Independence Party took the largest share of votes, winning 16 seats, seven of them held by women.

this was largely due to the performance of the Progressive Party, as the Left-Greens lost some of their seats during the previous term and subsequent elections, while the Independence Party held steady.

Left-Greens: 8 seats, down from 11
Independence Party: Retains 16 seats.
Progressive Party: 13 seats, up from 8.
Social Democrats: 6 seats, down from 7.
Pirate Party: Retains 6 seats.
Reform Party: 5 seats, up from 4.
People's Party: 6 seats, up from 4
Centre Party: 3 seats, down from 7
[...]
Voter turn-out was 80.1% this year, barely less than during the 2017 elections, when turn-out was at 81.2%

EU NGOs to boycott media events sponsored by fossil fuel firms

Sixteen European civil society organizations said Thursday they would no longer attend media events sponsored by fossil fuel companies and hosted by POLITICO Europe, the Financial Times or Euractiv.
The fossil fuel industry is "buying a platform to gain credibility and undue influence" through such sponsorships, the organizations wrote in a joint letter to the media organizations.
POLITICO regularly hosts events on EU policy, and some have been sponsored by firms such as oil giant Shell.

The NGOs -- which include Corporate Europe Observatory, the European Federation of Public Service Unions, Greenpeace and Transport & Environment, among others -- are calling on the three media outlets to drop fossil fuel firms as sponsors.

The usual blurb about "editorial independence", etc...

A spokesperson for POLITICO Europe stressed that event sponsors have no influence on the organization's editorial content and that "the objectivity, independence and integrity applied to our coverage ... also apply to our POLITICO Live events."

In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, the suppliers argue they were denied due process when state regulators ordered thousands of landowners last month to cease diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta due to drought conditions. They claim the sweeping water curtailments were based off faulty data and will cause permanent damage to pricey fruit and nut orchards.

archived San Franciso drought resiliency, reacted with disbelief, Sep 11th, 2020

Finally, APsplainin confirms a duck: After Ida oil spill, divers put ["]containment dome["] on pipeline

Houston-based Talos Energy said in a statement that its oil spill response contractor had installed the containment dome Monday evening, allowing for the recovery of the oil coming from the sheared-off 1-foot-diameter (30-centimeter-diameter) pipe and transferring it to surface vessels.

Talos said it does not own the ruptured pipeline that divers identified as ["]the likely source["] of an 11-mile-long [!] (18-kilometer-long) oil slick that appeared after the Category 4 hurricane made landfall on Aug. 29.

The Associated Press first reported last week that aerial photos showed a large brown and black oil slick spreading about 2 miles (3 kilometers) south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana. The broken pipe is in relatively shallow [?!] water, at about 34 feet (10 meters) of depth.

setting off huge plumes of steam and possibly [BWAH!] toxic gases that required local residents outside the evacuation zone to remain indoors on Wednesday.

Currently, more than 55 million people suffer from the degenerative neurological disease, WHO noted, an epidemic that the organization estimated costs $1.3 trillion [inflation-adjusted ?!] a year on a global scale.

"Dementia robs millions of people of their memories, independence and dignity, but it also ROBS the rest of us of the people we know and love," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

the monitoring and accountability mechanism for the Global action plan on the public response to dementia 2017-25. It collates data from WHO Member States on 35 key dementia indicators to strengthen countries' ability to respond to the needs of people with dementia, their carers and families.

Dementia is one of the leading causes of care dependency and disability in old age, both in HICs [High-Income Countries] and LMICs [Low- and Middle-Income Countries]. In people aged 60 years and older, dementia is among the top ten causes of years of healthy life lost due to disability (YLDs). Considering all ages, dementia is the twenty-fifth cause of disability-adjusted life years [!] (DALYs) globally with an alarming trend. Over the past 20 years, DALYs due to dementia more than doubled, representing the biggest rate of increase among the Top 30 causes of DALYs. Also of concern is that globally, DALYs are roughly 60% higher for women than for men.

• inclusion
  
• migrants
  
• empowerment
  
• identity dysphoria
  
• substance abuse
  
• paleo dieting
  
• christians v heathens
  
• MPAA "sexually suggestive" rating

HBO Max "content creators" LASH OUT: 70-year occupation werks like a boss!
Miss Sherlock (with subtitles)

The fragments contain a passage from the Old French sequence of texts known as the Vulgate Cycle or Lancelot-Grail Cycle, which dates to the early 13th century [1220-1225]. Parts of this Cycle may have been used by Sir Thomas Malory (1415-1471) as a source for his Le Morte Darthur (first printed in 1485 by William Caxton) which is itself the main source text for many modern retellings of the Arthurian legend in English[!].

In addition to uncovering detail on the age of the manuscript, the team was also able to piece together how the fragments ended up in the books and how the books themselves found their way to Bristol. Based on the bindings of the books in which the fragments are now bound as pastedowns (a four-volume copy of the works of the French philosopher Jean Gerson, printed 1494-1502), the team was able to deduce that the fragments, and the manuscript from which they came, had become 'waste' in either Oxford or Cambridge, and were then recycled, for their parchment, rather than their content, as binding materials in the books in which we now find them - this probably happened prior to 1520.

The reason for the manuscript becoming waste is unknown, but may have to do with newer, English versions of the Arthurian legend becoming available in the new medium of print (like Malory's Le Morte Darthur).

2/2 Unhealthy, excessive skepticism is killing people. Graph from The Economist of data from Morning Consult. pic.twitter.com/0zr5vMqJhG

— ALWAC Alabama World Affairs Council (@AlwacWorld) September 8, 2021

Time, misinfo, [Hollywood historical fiction,] complicate ["]teaching 9/11["] to kids born after it.

Liz Prince is having her fifth graders at DeSoto Central Elementary school in Southaven, Mississippi, record an interview with someone they know about a Sept. 11 experience, then share it with classmates. She also ordered books to help with age-appropriate explanations about places that were targeted and people who died. But Prince says she's not ready to discuss Afghanistan, which she considers too political for her classroom.

reference
AmeriSpeak Omnibus®, a monthly multi-client survey, methodology

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research was created to join the expertise of NORC at the University of Chicago, one of the world's premier independent research organizations, with The Associated Press, one of the world's largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering which provides news seen every day over all media platforms and formats by more than half of the world's population.The two organizations established The AP-NORC Center to conduct, analyze, and distribute social science research in the public interest on newsworthy topics, and to use the power of journalism to tell the stories that research reveals. This combination of rigorous, objective research and reliable, unbiased journalism has unmatched potential to reach both broad audiences and policymakers at every governmental level, creating a seamless transition from the gathering of survey-based information to a more fully-informed society.

The London Times published last month, and the NYT reprints, evidence from the former's Constantinople correspondent that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not only fake, but that it's a rip-off of a very obscure 1864 French-language book published, possibly, in Geneva. ...

"Black Friday" preceding "Red Friday", UK
"Battle of Blair Mountain", USA

The Istanbul pogrom, also known as the Istanbul riots or September events (Greek: Σεπτεμβριανά, romanized: Septemvriana, lit. 'Events of September'; Turkish: 6-7 Eylül Olayları, lit. 'Events of 6-7 September'), were a series of organized mob attacks directed primarily at Istanbul's Greek minority on 6-7 September 1955. The pogrom was orchestrated by the governing Democratic Party in Turkey in cooperation with various security organizations (Tactical Mobilisation Group, Counter-Guerrilla and National Security Service).

An Australian musk duck has been recorded saying "You bloody fool" in the first documented instance of the species mimicking human speech https://t.co/GDWozhRLAR

— CNN (@CNN) September 8, 2021

The WHO announced Friday it was recommending a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies manufactured by the US biotech firm Regeneron and marketed by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to treat COVID-19 in certain patients. ... The cocktail, marketed as REGEN-COV in the US and Ronapreve elsewhere, was recommended only for certain patients, namely those who had a previous illness or are at risk of falling seriously ill from COVID-19 and facing time in intensive care.

US President Donald Trump when he had COVID-19.

The WHO was joined by Doctors Without Borders in expressing concerns about the high cost of the treatment. ["]Global public health["] will depend on pharmaceutical manufacturers and governments working together to bring costs down, especially in the developing world, the UN health agency said, adding other agencies were involved in talks with Roche.

Doctors Without Borders said Regeneron has filed patent applications in at least 11 impoverished nations. Japan was first to authorize its use last July. The European Union, US, India, Switzerland and Canada have already approved the drug combination for emergency use.