"For many European governments, including America’s longest-standing and most loyal allies, Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs against anyone who tries to stop him taking Greenland was the final straw."
"Divorce, they believe, is now inevitable."
Not the sort of letter committed to paper by a well man. "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"
Recent statements by the incoming 🇺🇸ambassador to Iceland that the US has ideas to annex it and make it the 52nd state (after Greenland) are prompting the government to make moves toward joining the EU.
Iceland is currently in the shadow-EU EEA, following EU law but with no say in creating it.
BREAKING: US officials have concluded that Ukraine did not launch a drone strike on Putin’s residence. In other words, it is now apparent that the Russian dictator personally lied to Trump in a bid to derail peace efforts. Will there be consequences?
Carol of the Bells in #
Kyiv subway.
Voices of the Embassies of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom came together to perform Shchedryk in the Kyiv metro as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine.
Thankful to everyone who stands with us!
Carol of the Bells in #Kyiv railway station
📹Aleksa Shaaa/instagram
Declaring anti-harassment and disinformation organizations, as well as those working to stem hate speech and anti-vaccination conspiracies online, enemies of the US is basically admitting that trolling, harassment, and conspiracies are our new official ideology.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/b...
So, only people who support hate speech are now allowed into the US
How much longer is the US public going to stand for the acceleration towards an autocratic state?
Will 2026 see the start of an effective fight-back - or the arrival of a full-on dictatorship
www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Today, those structures are virtually absent. America has had no ambassador in Moscow since June. There is no assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Witkoff has declined multiple offers from the CIA for a briefing on Russia. The State Department assigned a small group of staffers to support Witkoff, but members of that team, and others across the administration, have struggled to get summaries of Witkoff's foreign meetings. Longtime allies in
Did you know that the US hasn’t had an ambassador in Moscow in 6 months?
Or that our chief envoy to Russia won’t take briefings from the CIA?
But wait, there’s more. Much more in this 6-byline WSJ piece on the Witkoff-Putin axis.
Free link www.wsj.com/world/putin-...
Chart showing slowdown in productivity growth across rich democracies
Just need to keep repeating this point. Stagnant zero sum economies create political ungovernability. Productivity growth has collapsed in many rich countries since the financial crash on.ft.com/4hwRuoB
Quite the chart. www.ft.com/content/30a4...
Figure shows that between 1975 and 2019, manufacturing industries lost about 1.5 million manufacturing jobs, while service industries gained about 1.1 million manufacturing jobs. Thus, 67.5% of manufacturing jobs ‘lost’ in manufacturing industries reappeared in the service sector. The net decline in manufacturing work, defined by occupations and hence, tasks performed, was only around 500,000 jobs, far smaller than the perceived 1.5 million. Manufacturing employment in advanced economies is widely viewed as being in long-term decline. Using German administrative data from 1975 to 2019, this column shows that much of the decline measured at the industry level reflects a shift of manufacturing tasks into service sector firms rather than a disappearance of manufacturing work. When workers move across sectors while keeping their manufacturing occupation, their long-run earnings losses are modest. By contrast, workers who must switch into service occupations experience substantial and persistent penalties. These findings suggest that occupation-specific skills, rather than sectoral affiliation, shape workers’ adjustment to structural change.
Much of the decline of #manufacturing employment at the industry level in #Germany reflects a shift of manufacturing tasks into service sector firms rather than a disappearance of manufacturing work.
Dominik Boddin & Thilo Kroeger
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky
Matilde Mas y @pilatd.bsky.social:
"Todos los países pueden beneficiarse de una agenda estratégica de productividad que aborde áreas como la inversión en distintos tipos de activos y sectores, habilidades, innovación, regulación y competencia"
elpais.com/economia/neg...
People in #Gaza need an unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid.
While UNRWA is ready to deliver shelter supplies for up to 1.3 million people, the Israeli Authorities continue to block the Agency from bringing aid in.
The scale of UNRWA's work in Gaza must be restored to its fullest capacity.
Oops.
Brexit costing UK up to £90bn in lost tax revenue a year, new analysis shows
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
The entire Witkoff family should be investigated.
A new feature on Elon Musk’s X has given surprising new insight into the online “America First” movement.
Dear media of the world,
When an autocrat admiring the aggressor sits with the aggressor and together they write up the terms on which the victim should surrender, it's not a peace plan/proposal, much less a peace deal.
Stop parroting the autocrat!
US 'peace proposal' includes Russianisms prompting questions about authorship of text - analysis Luke Harding in Kyiv Some of the phrases in the US’s “peace proposal” for Ukraine appear to have been originally written in Russian. In several places the language would work in Russian but seems distinctly odd in English.
NEW: It’s takes a moment for this to really sink in.
Guardian reporting that key parts of Trump’s peace plan was drafted IN RUSSIAN first.
This is an awesome interview on multiple technologies coming together. People simply do not get how the fossil fuel companies are utterly hosed because of this.
European leaders responded to the 28-point peace plan and unanimously reaffirmed their support for Ukraine.
Any peace plan must be fair and sustainable — made with Ukraine and for Ukraine.
Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
#StandWithUkraine🧵
❗️RETWEET if you stand with President 🇺🇦Zelensky!
This is peak delusional
"The obstacles to limiting warming to below ever-more-dangerous levels remain political, rather than physical or technological."
But it won't be done with CO₂ removal (CDR) technologies because the obstacles to scaling CDR are political, social, financial, physical, and technological.
⚡️ Update: Poland says 'everything indicates' Russia behind railway sabotage incident.
"Russian services want to disrupt our society, to scare us," Polish security service spokesperson Jacek Dobrzynski said.
