Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Keeping Up with COP28

by gmoke Thu Nov 30th, 2023 at 10:49:48 PM EST

As someone who scans the Internet to find energy/environment/climate events (mostly academic) around the world to publish Energy (and Other) Events Monthly (http://hubevents.blogspot.com), I found these online events which are intended to keep people informed about what is going to go on in Dubai during the Conference of Parties or COP28.  If you can't make it to the United Arab Emirates to participate, these events should provide you with the information you just might want or need.

RMI [Rocky Mountain Institute] at COP28
Multiple events from December 1 through December 12
More information at http://rmi.org/rmi-at-cop28/ and http://rmi.org/events/

COP28 Climate Hub
Daily live broadcasts from COP28 in Dubai. December 1-11, 2023
http://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/cop28

Cop28 and the green transition, with Christiana Figueres and others
Tuesday, December 5
3:00 EST
Online
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/cop28-and-the-green-transition-with-christiana-figueres-and-others-ticke ts-734770015897
Cost:  £10.88

Editorial Comment:  Christiana Figueres was the head of the UNFCC and, in my opinion, was one of the lynch-pins who made the Paris Agreement possible by concentrating on moving cities, states, and sub-national regions forward on climate after the debacle of the Copenhagen COP.  I've seen her speak a few times and she is extremely knowledgable, smart, and FIERCE.

Putting People at the Center of Just Transition:  How can we achieve a people-focused approach to a just transition?
Friday, December 8
[9.30-10.15 [UTC+4)]
Online
RSVP at http://pub.norden.org/cop28/-december-8-equality-just-transition.html#id03386

Online dialogue: COP28 post-match analysis
December 19
7:30 - 9am EST [13:30 - 15:00 CET]
Online
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.se/e/online-dialogue-cop28-post-match-analysis-tickets-757617994817

Post-match analysis:  "It was a slam dunk by gut-check time but we kept our eyes on the ball and answered the bell.  Now the ball's in your court, Mr Monday-Morning Quarterback."

PS:  A lot of these events are archived online these days as well and can be found with a little effort.

A Sort-a Truce Extended 24 Hours

by Oui Thu Nov 30th, 2023 at 08:43:36 AM EST

Israel and Hamas agree to extend truce for seventh day | Al Jazeera |

An agreement has been reached, with 10 minutes to go.

The last time a ceasefire extension was announced was for two days; this one is only for the next 24 hours.

This goes to show you how hard-fought these negotiations are and how difficult it is for the Qatari mediators, Egypt and the US to get to an agreement.

Read more... (10 comments, 1639 words in story)

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - December 2023

by gmoke Tue Nov 28th, 2023 at 08:06:44 PM EST

 These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them. This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).  

A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.  

If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.

Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com

http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds

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Index
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More information on each event at http://hubevents.blogspot.com

Does democracy imply majority rule? Insights from the US and around the world
Wednesday, November 29
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E15, Bartos Theater, E15-070. 20 AMES ST, Cambridge, MA 02142

Conference on AI & Democracy
Thursday, November 30 - Saturday, December 2
Thursday: Harvard, Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South
Friday: Loeb House
Saturday: Malkin Penthouse, HKS
RSVP at http://airtable.com/appdEhGPi9PSUJeLr/shr3VnhhuYgiCTbgc

RMI [Rocky Mountain Institute] at COP28
November 30-December 12, 2023 (Hybrid; Dubai, UAE)
More information http://rmi.org/events/

Crisis as Catalyst: Meeting the Moment with Transformational Investments
Thursday, November 30
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP, Louis D. Brandeis Conference Center, 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at http://climateadaptationforum.org/event/crisis-as-catalyst-meeting-the-moment-with-transformational- investment/
Cost $15 - $45

Lies in Your Grocery Cart: How Misinformation and Disinformation Impact Food Choice
Thursday, November 30
12:15 pm - 2:15 pm
Harvard Law School, WCC; 2036 Milstein East B, 1585 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138

Learning from Indigenous Voices: Adaptation Futures 2023 Conference
Thursday, November 30
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Online
RSVP at http://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/j/99038829904?pwd=bnk5VU0zQVdwRUxWYTE2czAvNEd2UT09&from=addon

Arctic Methane Emissions: Uncertainty and the Value of Better Information; Plus: COP28 preview
Thursday, November 30
1:15 - 2:30 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F Kennedy Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://web.cvent.com/event/8c2f4383-ea75-4153-a9ac-a88dede9d1bd/regProcessStep1?RefId=Gazette&rp =2174ca8b-9157-48d8-b0d2-7ce64606e847

Circular Economy in the Buildings Sector
Thursday, November 30
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at http://greentownlabs.com/event/circular-economy-buildings-sector/

Engineering Ecosystems with AI
Thursday, November 30
6:00pm to 9:00pm
MIT, Building 32, 32-449, 32 VASSAR ST, Cambridge, MA 02139
And online
RSVP at http://acm-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/9116977451705/WN_4z6KkwZbRxq_WpTR6RrEBA
Please register in advance for this seminar even if you plan to attend in person

Read more... (1121 words in story)

NeXiT the Trump Era of Dutch PM Wilders

by Oui Tue Nov 28th, 2023 at 08:40:40 AM EST

A thousand excuses to all …

Horrible … horrible … happens once in a thousand days when I’m updating diary on my iPad … must have touched the “delete” button and “spoof” I get the message “deleted diary” 

Update Consulted with ET editorial team, but delete is quite definite.

On my iPad there was still the older version open, so I managed a print screen copy in order to re-assemble all the comments.

Original posted by Oui on Wed Nov 22nd 2023 at 07:09:53 PM PDT

I've got my bags packed ... moving to an EU country on the Mediterranean Sea ... whiff of fresh air and no more freezing Winter temperatures ...

See my stoutest fears of the election result on Monday ...

The Dutch Massacre of Election Day Nov 22

Meet the next Prime Minister of the Kingdom of The Netherlands ...

Previous diary ...

1st Election Debate Gives Clarity Candidates

Former VVD colleague Geert Wilders will pick up where 13 horror years of Mark Rutte left the Dutch ... the imposter fled the scene early in Rutte IV. One can easily determine any coalition with Wilders will be Rutte V. A smiling Mark ... he knew he shared the same voter electorate as right-wing PVV, the one-man party of Wilders financed by the American Anti-Islam lobby. Indeed, Geert Wilders is a fervent pro-Israel candidate who has stated the Palestinians have a state in Jordan and should be moved by force out of the West Bank.

Mark Rutte knew the Dutch are so damn racist and Islamophobic, a Kurdish immigrant would never be elected as Prime Minister. Wilders has the most experience in government and has been part of an earlier coalition in support of Rutte.

Read more... (37 comments, 901 words in story)

Erasure of Palestinians the Zionist Dream

by Oui Mon Nov 27th, 2023 at 11:03:25 AM EST

"By dropping the requirement that such articles be declared excess, it would also increase the existing strain on US military readiness in order to provide more arms to Israel," said Josh Paul, who was the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, for over 11 years.

Paul, whose resignation last month due to US military aid to Israel caused a stir in Washington, admitted that "the President's emergency supplemental funding request, would essentially create a free-flowing pipeline to provide any defense articles to Israel by the simple act of placing them in the WRSA-I stockpile, or other stockpiles intended for Israel."

Read more... (8 comments, 1530 words in story)

21st Century Pax Americana and Violence

by Oui Sat Nov 25th, 2023 at 05:22:34 PM EST

First responders: Canadians who rushed to New York after the 9/11 attacks | CBC News |

Police officers, firefighters from eastern Ontario raced down to join rescue effort

Blondin smelled smoke and thought something was wrong with his car. Then he spotted the thick grey plume hanging over the skyline ahead. "You could see the smoke just billowing out [for] miles and miles."

'It was all grey dust everywhere'

The first state trooper he encountered let him pass, but the second one ordered Blondin to pull off at a firehall in the Bronx. He arrived at Engine 81 Ladder 46 just before 8 p.m.

Dozens of firefighters from various New York suburbs were milling around outside, awaiting orders. Blondin introduced himself and was invited to stay the night. The next morning, he boarded a bus for Lower Manhattan.

"As you pull in closer to Ground Zero, it was like a first snowfall in Ottawa, like when you get an inch of snow, but it was all grey dust everywhere ... and papers everywhere, pictures on the ground," he recalled.

Digging through the debris was hot, dangerous work. Blondin injured himself a few days after arriving in New York, and was unable to continue.

The smouldering World Trade Center site -- first responders simply called it "the Pile" -- was teeming with rescuers, including firefighters, police officers, K-9 teams and iron workers, by the time the crew from the Bronx arrived.

Blondin was first assigned to a bucket brigade, handing five-gallon pails of debris down the line for investigators to sift through. After a couple hours, he joined a search team whose job it was to dig wherever they saw an orange X that marked a spot where a dog had alerted its handler to possible human remains. They did that until about 6 a.m. the following day.

"There were Xs everywhere," Blondin said. "Everywhere."

Read more... (11 comments, 3304 words in story)

Dublin Far Right Riots After Knife Attack

by Oui Fri Nov 24th, 2023 at 06:16:22 AM EST

Police chief blames Dublin riot on 'far-right hooligans' | BBC News |

Read more... (336 words in story)

Clean Break From Peace to War

by Oui Wed Nov 22nd, 2023 at 10:33:23 AM EST

Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech October 27, 1964

John Wayne and Victory Squad introducing Ronald Reagan as candidate for Governor of California.

Read more... (1 comment, 1729 words in story)

Woodrow Wilson's Collapse and the Peace Movement

by Oui Wed Nov 22nd, 2023 at 01:06:16 AM EST

In 2002, America Unrivaled—a book edited by my Princeton colleague, G John Ikenberry, the foremost exponent [sic] of the idea of liberal internationalism—asked why there was so little resistance from other countries to American power projection.

Posted by Cat … I expanded the comment and wrote this diary …

This inspired to write about societal revolts during my lifetime ..

From EuroTrib archives ...

In Search of a Foreign Policy Vision | 28 Jan. 2007 |

Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter like to emphasize the "liberty under law" aspect of Wilson's thinking as distinct from the lawlesslessness of neoconservatives.  I think, however, the stronger difference between them is demonstrated by Ikenberry's final sentence.  Wilson was unquestionably an American exceptionalist; but while he may in fact have seen America as "God's chosen midwife of progressive change," it was progressive change itself that represented for him the final apotheosis of civilization.  In fact, Wilson said as much in his Pueblo speech ...

Read more... (2214 words in story)

A Children's Sing-Along Annihilate Everyone In Gaza

by Oui Tue Nov 21st, 2023 at 02:15:12 PM EST

Israeli children sing, "We will annihilate everyone" in Gaza | Electronic Intifada |

Israel's national broadcaster Kan uploaded this song to X (formerly Twitter) in which Israeli children sing in celebration and support for the Israeli army's mass extermination campaign of Palestinians in Gaza.

The sweet faces of children make an incongruous accompaniment to the genocidal lyrics of the so-called Friendship Song 2023.

"Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza, planes are bombing, destruction, destruction," the children sing in angelic voices. "Within a year we will annihilate everyone, and then we will return to plow our fields."

The lyrics were translated for The Electronic Intifada by independent writer and filmmaker David Sheen and you can watch a subtitled video of the song above, or in the tweet below:

Read more... (19 comments, 3091 words in story)

Xi - Joe Launch a New Communication Probe

by Oui Thu Nov 16th, 2023 at 10:09:54 AM EST

Frontpaged with minor edit - Frank Schnittger - a key issue for the modern world

Read more... (15 comments, 2183 words in story)

The Israeli War Hoax of 40 Beheaded Babies

by Oui Wed Nov 15th, 2023 at 02:35:03 PM EST

An international outcry erupted when Israel's Foreign Ministry announced that Palestinian militants from the besieged Gaza Strip had killed 40 "babies," and beheaded several of them during an incursion into Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the Gaza border. President Joseph Biden repeated the inflammatory claim during an October 10 White House Rose Garden address, while networks across the West carried the story without a shred of critical scrutiny.

After an Israeli reserve soldier named David Ben Zion told a reporter Palestinian militants "cut [off] heads of babies," Biden, Netanyahu, and the international media amplified the dubious claim.

The Grayzone has identified Ben Zion as a fanatical settler leader who incited riots by demanding a Palestinian town be "wiped out."

Read more... (4 comments, 3476 words in story)

If Palestinians Are 'Animals'? What Are the Israelis?

by Oui Mon Nov 13th, 2023 at 02:52:21 PM EST

See my many posts in last 48 hours ... EU leadership be damned ... VDL - Scholz - Rutte - Meloni and brutal Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Austin Lloyd and UK's Rishi Sunak

Read more... (19 comments, 439 words in story)

Gaza Atrocities and the UN Fail

by Oui Sun Nov 12th, 2023 at 01:06:18 PM EST

IDF Soldiers Behind Twitter Accounts Harassing Journalists, Left-wing Activists

Read more... (24 comments, 1623 words in story)

Clean Energy Wire's Fact Sheet on Upcoming Dutch Election

by gmoke Sun Nov 12th, 2023 at 12:06:14 AM EST

"Any new government will have to make difficult decisions on the controversial topic of nitrogen emissions and how to prioritise different sectors such as farming, aviation, and construction. Dutch climate policy also stretches across borders. The country is one of of the world's largest agricultural exporters, and recently closed one of Europe's largest natural gas fields, which served neighbouring countries for decades. The Netherlands also aims to become the continent's green hydrogen hub. This factsheet gives an overview of crucial climate and energy issues, and how the highest-polling parties position themselves."

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/wide-open-dutch-elections-shape-transition-key-agricultur e-exporter

Looks like they did their homework and the Netherlands with its focus on agricultural production is one country which may help show the future of clikmate regulation and laws.  That is, if there is a future.

Comments >> (7 comments)

Broadening the War to Lebanon and Syria-Iraq

by Oui Sat Nov 11th, 2023 at 09:20:09 AM EST

Elijah J. Magnier is an excellent source on activities and views on the Hezbollah resistance movement and its political issues in Beirut and Lebanese government. There is no Saudi frontmen active in leadership like the Hariri's in the past. The Sunni (Sidon and Tripoli) and Shia divide (South and East in the Bekaa valley) May join fir es after the division led to the Syrian civil war causing nearly half a million deaths and millions of displaced persons and war refugees moving into Türkiye and beyond.

Read more... (14 comments, 1469 words in story)

Dishonest Hope and Trust In a Two-State Option

by Oui Fri Nov 10th, 2023 at 11:33:32 PM EST

In the year 2000 when the peace formula failed, the Jewish settlers East of the Green Demarcation line numbered 250,000. The housing conglomerates could be swapped with Arab districts inside Israel in proposals at Camp David.

Today with the policy of Zionism above peace with Palestinians and its Arab neighbours, the number of illegal settlers has jumped to 700,000. The indigenous people of Palestine are suffering.

Israel approves 6,000 new homes for Israeli settlers in West Bank | Al Jazeera - July 2019 |

Announcement comes ahead of a visit by US envoy Jared Kushner to Israel to discuss an Israeli-Palestinian 'peace' plan.

Read more... (1572 words in story)

Gaza Massacre, Biden Funding Ethnic Cleansing

by Oui Thu Nov 9th, 2023 at 08:01:20 AM EST

Read more... (28 comments, 1237 words in story)

Dominique de Villepin Israel's Security Not by War

by Oui Wed Nov 8th, 2023 at 10:53:46 PM EST

.

Dominique De Villepin - Occidentalism is a trap!

There is no military solution for Israel's occupation of Palestinian Land.

Read more... (748 words in story)

NATO Is Losing the Proxy War In Ukraine

by Oui Tue Nov 7th, 2023 at 11:44:53 PM EST

The next president is waiting in exile in Austria ...

Divide between the political and military leadership in Ukraine is growing | MofA |

The recent publications about Zelenski's egomania in Time and the war 'stalemate' as claimed by General Zaluzny in The Economist have led to a conflict between the political and military sides of Ukraine:

There are sure signs that the divide between the political and military leadership in Ukraine is growing. President Zelenski, on request of his new defense minister, just removed the commander of Ukraine's special forces and installed a new one:

    Major General Viktor Khorenko does not know the reasons for his dismissal from the post of Commander of the Special Operations Forces. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, did not submit a request for his dismissal.

It is very unusual to fire an officer without a request from his superior commander.


Read more... (3 comments, 486 words in story)
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News and Views

 November 2023

by Oui - Nov 2, 183 comments

Your take on today's news media



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