To be clear: “NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday that 23 of its 32 member states were expected to meet the alliance’s defense spending commitments this year. That is 13 countries more compared to last year’s data, and five more than an earlier estimate in February.”

“Recently, the challenges and risks related to the rise of China as a dominant actor in many economy and technology areas have become more and more apparent in Latin America as well,” Christian Hauser, an expert on Latin America at the University of Applied Sciences in Graubünden, Switzerland, told DW.

Various Latin American societies are increasingly feeling that it’s predominantly Beijing which has profited from the region’s economic relations with China, said Hauser. Therefore, he said, current criticism of China’s trade practices could become even more pronounced."

TLDR(Long article);

Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.

Israeli intelligence captured the communications of numerous ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor as prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents.

The joint investigation draws on interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officers and government officials, senior ICC figures, diplomats and lawyers familiar with the ICC case and Israel’s efforts to undermine it.

Unlike the international court of justice (ICJ), a UN body that deals with the legal responsibility of nation states, the ICC is a criminal court that prosecutes individuals, targeting those deemed most responsible for atrocities.

That would be great if economies would chip in. Idk, USA, EU has some plans iirc, Saudi, Chinese , India etc.

And the Billionaires worldwide as well , they pack a wallet the size of some countries.

The banks were among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with Germany’s Linde, which was terminated due to Western sanctions.

Three weeks after one of Brazil’s worst-ever floods hit its southernmost state, killing 155 people and forcing 540,000 from their homes, experts have warned that water levels will take at least another two weeks to drop.

The death toll across Rio Grande do Sul is still increasing daily, and more than 77,000 displaced people remain in public shelters, prompting the state government to announce plans to build four temporary “tent cities” to accommodate them.

I don’t know, I don’t have that much confidence about them forming a proper coalition.

They’ve been saying stuff like this for half a year, and it’s been like the muppetshow. No offence for muppets btw.

And still whistleblowers are being sentenced, jailed, prosecuted by Gvements ( and sometimes killed)

I get the security thing, but war crimes and industrial crimes should be measured on another different scale altogether. Most of those guys should get a medal, imo. WTF?!

"A higher regional court in western Germany rejected on Monday an appeal by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party against its classification as a “suspected” far-right extremist organization.

The judges at the court in Münster said the designation was appropriate and did not violate the constitution or European law.

geothermal

I would have expected that too. Always seemed a good sustainable additional solution to me.

100%. Its a classic divide & conquer strategy, albeit that the technology has changed over the centuries, and the methodology (hybrid) has become more finetuned. I mean, objectivelly and strategically it’s how the world has been working forever: " in war and love there are no rules", it is said.

On the otherhand, how the world has been working forever, is exactly the whole issue. Speaking for European (or worldcitizens) we really hate wars and catastrophic results, so we’d like to move away from the old world, towards a more balanced world with more equal partnership; ideally.

It’s impossible to move to that point, when your supposed partners apperantly don’t have the same wish ( Ruzz Mir for example, isn’t peace). At the end of the day I perceive this as a clash between systems, democracies & authoracies.And, even this comparance may be too simplified. I hope and trust, we can find a proportionate and adequate response to these negative developments and actions.

Also it should be a joint responsibility between all the citizens from the whole world ( if your country is fucking up, try to do something if possible, stay safe ofc). Instead, as it appears now, we have just some head of states deciding everything for billions.

Kinda of like a modernised slogan from yesteryear," citizens over the World Unite; against idiotic head of states! " thing. Wouldn’t that be something . Cheesy John Lenon shit. Yet maybe he’s right; because here we are in this mess.

We likely are in a century where climatic catastrophs will double in severity every few (10?) years.

For sure it will get worse.

I’m curious, perhaps you (or anyone) have came across some up2date projections (numbers) on this? I’ve only seen reports about co2/ temperature and potential catastrophs.

This is one of those events that will go down in history,” added Leite, who has declared a state of emergency in 397 of his state’s 497 towns and cities.

One of the worst-affected cities is the state capital, Porto Alegre, which sits along the Guaíba river. The waterway hit a record level of 5.33 metres (17.5ft) on Sunday morning – even higher than during historic 1941 floods when it rained for more than 20 days straight.

“Porto Alegre has been devastated, leaving virtually the whole city without its supply of water, electricity and food,” the newspaper O Globo reported on Tuesday, describing “a situation of unprecedented sorrow” in the flooded city of 1.4 million inhabitants.

I see a bit of mass histeria, hive-like drone behaviour, and mass psy-ops all at once. So yes, It makes makes me wonder. maybe …? idk… something’s up? ^^

“A Russian influence campaign seems to be attempting to sow division in the US around the college campus protests. As protests at universities across the country—and the responses to them by college authorities and law enforcement—continue to stoke division and anger, the Kremlin appears to have taken a page from its foreign influence playbook, using its disinformation infrastructure in collaboration with state-run media and Telegram influencers in an effort to further divide American society.”

The EU has been hosting many immigrants for decades, and many have become citizens.

Surprisingly though,it seems that many EU citizens with a migration background, ( for example 1st and 2nd generation etc) in the EU vote against new immigrants. They usually perceive it as a threat against their economic/housing/children’s stability & future.

So… communism works?

They are not Communist, it has now become an even more repressive autocratic regime, under the guise of a Communist label. If you want to know about communism read Karl Marx.

I’d add that local charities will know their communities far better than outside organizations.

As a general rule, I’d 100% agree on that. And yes, like you said, there’re will always be some exceptions.

the drive to localize to improve indigenous capabilities? Or would you get more bang for the buck? Or does it produce better outcomes?

Good questions.

Have only skimmed this spefific rapport, but I’m happy that in this report they finally seem to be open to a shift in thinking about aid.

Afaik, aid has usually been actually kind of outsourced to non regional organizations. Generally 80/90% of money for the aid is used on that.

Many organizations need also to bribe, pay , convince local warlords to get there, and then the question remains,how effective the locally sourced( new) aid centre will be.

But, If you can cut the overhead and could invest like 80% of the money instead of the say, 20%, that would be a win.

Also, the current aid programs have been having negative outcomes and received critique. Basically, what I read was, that aid organisations ended up cultivating an atmosphere of extra dependence for their target groups, and or in some places the help only made the sitiuation worse, on the longer term.

Also , your valid and critical questions should always be addressed and situations will need some monitoring, so they can’t cut all the overhead, and neither should they.

I’m sure there are plenty of unique factors

Correct. it’s a very complex situation, which nobody wanted, yet here we are. And politically and judicial, both on regional, national and European level, there is no known simple solution.

What really triggered this mess was a court ruling regarding an environmental N0 ( nitro oxygen?) and a Co2 and smallparticle emission report not very long ago. That ruling gridlocked everything.

And to add another viewpoint, this development has spiked the attitude and emotions concerning immigrations. For literally, atm there simply is no affordable housing to be found for the current nationals . Not talking about the political or the morality, simply about the absence of (current and new) infrastructure for placements in the foreseeable future.

Not to mention, that the Netherlands is one of the highest populated areas per km² in the world, especially considering that only like 30% of it’s total landsurface is used for housing and all the rest industry, trade, but especially agriculture takes a huge bulk.