Valbuena, 37, is from Cali, which he describes as “the capital of salsa”; he now finds himself in the more sedate surroundings of Campdevànol, a village of 3,200 people in the foothills of the Catalan Pyrenees, as a pioneer in the programme Comunitats Rurals Queer.
With funding from the equality ministry of the Catalan regional government, Valbuena now shares a house in the village with two other Colombian refugees: Edwin Cardenas, 54, a trans man, and his partner Nazareth Moreno, 51, who is a lesbian.
One beneficiary of the Oportunitat500 scheme is Sabiha Kammoush, 50, a refugee from Aleppo, Syria, who for the past two years has been living in Bellaguarda, a tiny village – population 289 – surrounded by olive and almond groves in the Catalan interior, along with three of her six children.
Eunice Romero Rivera, responsible for migration, refugees and antiracism in the Catalan government, agrees: “If you dump 300 people in a village with a small population, and furthermore in a country which is quite racist, it’s hardly surprising that there’s a populist reaction,” she says.
Inspired by Riace, the social cooperative JungiMundu (“unite the world” in the local dialect) set about repopulating Camini, another Calabrian village, which now hosts 118 migrants in a total population of 810.
And in last month’s regional election, Campdevànol voted for Catalonia’s own xenophobic party, Aliança Catalana, whose leader Sílvia Orriols, says, among other things, that “it is impossible for a Muslim to be a Catalan”.
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But a last-minute change of heart by Austria’s Green climate minister, whose vote is credited with saving the proposal, led to fury in Vienna, with the party of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.
Seeking criminal charges for a democratically elected representative voting in favor of their alleged agenda sounds more fascist than conservative to me. Must be the evolution of language.
All of this is coming to the whole of Europe, with an ageing population and not reformed pension systems, you better start investing now and hope the stock market doesn't go the drain.
Here's a really good analysis of how it's not true the Boomers have all the money - there are lots of very comfortable Millennials too. It's more complicated than people like to think
Anywya, I do my own analysis based on data released by the federal reserve along with bls reports for income distributions. Not some shiti twatter shit post.
there are lots of very comfortable Millennials
Nobody said there werent affluent millenials, who mostly who come from rich families lol
Ah, yes, I had forgotten I should have invested when my rent was 100€ higher than my income.
Like, I mean, it is good advice for some people at the individual level. Specifically, those who can afford it. But an issue of this magnitude requires political, collective solutions.
I was thinking recently, with how many pollinators we're hemorrhaging, often simply because their habitat is destroyed or poisoned by pesticides, we really need to get some strips of untouched nature around the place. Cool, that there was already something in the works here.
Unfortunately it only tells countries to make a good effort. But that's better than nothing, and the current policy of doing nothing is at least out of the window.
As someone whose country just put the moronic Farmers party in charge of the environment, this EU law makes me very happy
Do you have some kind of pointer to a summary of what concrete impacts it actually has? Like, the article here doesn't list any concrete material. I see some phrases like "20% of land and sea". Given that Hungary and Austria were apparently both reluctant and both are land-locked, I am wondering if it was "20% of land and sea", where sea can substitute for land.
Does it basically ask EU members to designate at least 20% of their territory as a sort of national park?
The EC has a section on their website on the thing, but it's...really fluffy and full of marketing material. Their factsheet on the law is...very sparse on actual facts about the law.
EDIT: This Wikipedia page seems to reference what is a superset of it:
But the targets there don't seem to match up with what is going through, like:
The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 includes the following targets:
Protect 30% of the sea territory and 30% of land territory especially primary forests and old-growth forests.
...whereas the law that went through uses "20%".
EDIT: Okay, that's definitely a superset of what was planned for the law, because the page does reference the targets that were actually taken being 20%.
The factsheet is vague because it tells countries to find a way to fix a problem. All countries have to come up with a realistic method to improve natural areas, 20% by 2026, 30% need a concrete plan by 2030 and 90% by 2050.
More importantly, there's a requirement that Member States make a significant effort to prevent worsening in the meantime.
What those plans are, is up to the Member States, but they need to be solid and realistic, not the usual vagueness
But a last-minute change of heart by Austria’s Green climate minister, whose vote is credited with saving the proposal, led to fury in Vienna, with the party of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.
In an extraordinary display of division at the heart of Austria’s coalition government, Nehammer wrote to the Belgian presidency of the EU Council before the vote urging it to disregard his minister’s support and arguing that she did not have the right to take the position she had.
“Today marks a significant day for Europe as we transition from merely protecting and conserving nature to actively restoring it,” said César Luena, a centre-left MEP from Spain who led the European parliament’s negotiations on the law.
Copa and Cogeca, the EU’s biggest farming lobby group, criticised the slim majority of ministers voting in favour of the law, calling it a “flawed proposal” that would cause legal battles in regional, national and European courts.
“Political rhetoric aside, the question of the lack of clear and consistent funding for ecosystem restoration across the EU remains unanswered – partly explaining the great embarrassment and headlong rush that surrounds this law,” a spokesperson said.
Špela Bandelj Ruiz, a Greenpeace biodiversity campaigner, said: “Despite the weakening of the law, this deal offers a ray of hope for Europe’s nature, future generations and the livelihoods of rural communities.”
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I feel this is like the least controversial thing to happen in Austrian politics in the last 10 years... There is a long list of shit before this one that the ÖVP should be sued for...
Copa and Cogeca, the EU’s biggest farming lobby group, criticised the slim majority of ministers voting in favour of the law, calling it a “flawed proposal” that would cause legal battles in regional, national and European courts.
I suspect this is not so much to do with the lack of clarity regarding funds as the lobby group suggested in the article, and more to do with the fact this law paints a target on the back of the Agribusinesses that hide within this "Agricooperative" lobby, who are responsible for large biodiversity losses, and carbon emissions.
A Chinese state-owned company sought to use a partnership with a leading British university in order to access AI technology for potential use in “smart military bases”, the Guardian has learned.
Emails show that China’s Jiangsu Automation Research Institute (Jari) discussed deploying software developed by scientists at Imperial College London for military use.
Ministers have spent the past year stepping up warnings about the potential security risk posed by academic collaborations with China, with MI5 telling vice-chancellors in April that hostile states are targeting sensitive research that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.
They together raise questions about whether British science faculties understand that China has become increasingly authoritarian and militarised under Xi Jinping, and that proper due diligence is required in dealings with this state.”
A Channel 4 documentary last year revealed that Guo had written eight papers with Chinese collaborators at Shanghai University on missile design and using AI to control fleets of marine combat drones.
Of his previous collaborations, he said that the papers were classified as “basic research” and were written to help advance scientific knowledge in a broad range of fields rather than solving specific, real-world problems.
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That would include, for many of the party’s young supporters, explicit backing of “remigration” of Germans with immigrant roots who “fail to integrate”. News in January that top AfD officials had discussed such a proposal prompted widespread outrage and sent tens of thousands of Germans on to the streets in protest.
However, among many AfD voters, the notion has become an unabashed talking point. “Not everyone should have to go but at least the criminals, like in Mannheim – this can’t go on,” said Konstantin, 17, referring to the killing of a police officer in the western city just days before the election, allegedly by an Afghan asylum seeker with a jihadist motive.
Oh for fuck’s sake are we doing this bullshit again?! C’MON, GERMANY, GET IT TOGETHER.
Tariffs and moving away from free trade makes us all poorer. We need EVs to be cheap and abundant now more than ever. People complain it's "uncompetitive" when china subsidizes the shit out of their EV industry, but the US did the exact same thing with "build back better", and the EU got pissed about it. Just as the US has been doing for decades with agriculture and the defense industry.
I agree subsidies are contrary to the best methods of free trade but until we can force countries to stop (and stop doing it ourselves), they are a part of life. Let china win the EV race, we all get cheap abundant EVs, and America can win the space race and we'll all get cheap satellite services, and Europe can win idk whatever it is they're working on over there and we'll all get a bunch of cheap copies of that.
Chinese solar panel manufacturers said they are seeking immediate government intervention to curb investment and industry collaboration to arrest a plunge in prices of solar cells and modules, as the industry faces overcapacity.
Financial incentives and a government push have helped China become the solar panel factory of the world, accounting for about 80% of global module capacity. Analysts expect Chinese manufacturers to add up to 600 gigawatts (GW) this year, enough to meet global demand through 2032.
However, with no end in sight for the plunge in prices, industry officials and analysts said intense competition was threatening to drive smaller producers into bankruptcy. Rapid capacity additions drove down prices of China's finished solar panels by 42% last year.
Personal anecdote. I have recently been in China, specifically Shenzhen and a couple of other southern megacities.
Let me tell you all something: China is getting ahead of us. Shenzhen used to be known for its smokestacks. It is now at least as pleasant as any European city. Not only does it have an excellent metro, loads of green space and trees, wide sidewalks and cycle lanes. It also has silent streets with shockingly clean air. And for a simple reason: all the buses, all the scooters and motorbikes, and at least 40% of the private cars (not very numerous because of the great transit) are electric.
Europeans might be surprised to discover what a difference this electrification makes to a city. From personal experience of both, I can tell you that (IMO) Chinese cities are putting Swiss ones in the shade. This should be a pretty shameful situation for the supposed quality-of-life superpower that Europe imagines itself to be.
Instead of punishing China for getting ahead in a technological battle that will benefit us all, Europe should be copying it.
Shenzhen and Hong Kong and many other Chinese cities are really great, I have been there too. The point is that what we see and what you describe is the surface. China is a deeply autocratic regime. It's a shame what the CCP is doing to the Chinese people and their culture.
They have also been installing solar powerplants at a lightning rate. They installed more solar in 2023 than the US has in total according to an article I read a few months ago.
It's not about saving the planet though, they import the bulk of their fossil fuels, moving to renewables reduces their fuel import dependency
Increased solar and wind means little in terms of saving the planet when coal usage is increasing. I look forward to the day when we have some honest data from CN on electricitymaps
I agree with your point on curbing fuel import and dependence.
This prejudice is no longer valid. Chinese OEMs have been getting really good at making cars. I would recommend doing some test drives and trying to be open and unbiased about it
theguardian.com
Heiß