gabor

Twitter ie. Musk is making public internal documents and emails on past content moderation practices and direct lines between politicians' teams and senior Twitter personel, taking first the Hunter Biden Laptop / New York Post censorhip episode. More is supposed to follow, including publishing "The Algorithm" (?). It appears that the deal with the journalist, Matt Taibbi is that he has to publish it on Twitter...

Nancy Faeser promises instead to increase police budget for classic detective work when investigating online platforms distributing sexualised violence against children. She also acknowledged that much of the violence occurs "offline", often in the home environment and commits to improve assistance for female victims of domestic violence

Folk-rap collective ride their song “Stefania” and the public vote to victory

A balanced interview in my opinion with a Rolling Stone journalist and war correspondant who spent a lot of time on the ground in Ukraine. He tells of his perspective of the limited access that is provided by Ukrainian authorities to journalists trying to visit contact zones, military units or hospitals etc. At the same time he states his support of weapons deliveries to Ukraine and condemns alltogether the Russian invasion of Ukraine (as does Mate). Worth listening to in full length.

What happened to Germany’s pacifists?

They certainly took their time, but on June 21, the two chairmen of the sister parties CDU and CSU announced the party platform on which the Union is running under chancellor candidate Armin Laschet. The agenda doesn’t fail to dissapoint. A quick analysis.

The campaign and growing support of Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) and possibilities of their cooperation with other parties like the Greens and CDU (“Jamaica”) or Greens and SPD (“Traffic Light”) after the 2021 Bundestag elections

The 40-year-old party chairwoman and pragmatic green politician becomes first ever female chancellorship candidate of her party, promises to be candidate of change. Continued high support for Green party in polls gives her a real shot as Merkel’s successor. In first interview after nomination, Baerbock advocates for hardliner course against Russia and China.

This week’s inconsistent pandemic management and communications chaos makes priorities of Merkel government painfully obvious. Interests of commerce and employers take precedence over pandemic control.

Gemany’s second most supported Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Party will run on a bold social and climate agenda including doubling of carbon price, no production of combustion engine vehicles after 2030, 45 % tax for incomes over 100 000 EUR, 24 months of parental leave and flexible working hours. No decision over candidacy for chancellor.

At a time when the US economy is shrinking and its European allies are politically fractured, it is difficult to imagine that any American plan to counter China’s influence, whether in the Middle East, Asia or anywhere else, will have much success.

The biggest hindrance to Washington’s China strategy is that there can never be an outcome in which the US achieves a clear and precise victory. Economically, China is now driving global growth, thus balancing out the US-international crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Hurting China economically would weaken the US as well as the global markets.

The same is true politically and strategically. In the case of the Middle East, the pivot to Asia has backfired on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it registered no palpable success in Asia while, on the other, it created a massive vacuum for China to refocus its own strategy in the Middle East.

Greens gain support while CDU takes political damage for corruption affairs and pandemic mismanagement