Europe

For First Time, Wind provided more Power than Fossil Gas for Britain, enough to Power 300 mn. Teslas

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new study commissioned by the UK private electric utility Drax and carried out by professors at Imperial College London has confirmed that in the first quarter of this year, wind turbines in Britain generated more electricity than did fossil gas plants. This is the first time the UK got […]

Climate Crisis

New wind turbine installations in Germany grow almost 50% in early 2023

Benjamin Wehrmann

Clean Energy Wire / Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany installed 128 new wind turbines with a total capacity of 0.6 gigawatts (GW) between January and April 2023, an increase in the growth rate of 46 percent compared to the same period in the year before, according to figures by the […]

European Union

European Union cancels ‘Europe Day’ Diplomatic Reception to Avoid Extremist Racist Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Chosen Representative

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Le Monde reports that a European Union diplomatic delegation to Tel Aviv announced Monday that it was canceling the diplomatic reception for Europe Day there because the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had selected far-right extremist Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir to represent it. The site of the French […]

Climate Crisis

Sir Gawain and the Green King: What can Newly Crowned Charles III do to Combat the Climate Emergency?

Juan Cole

Revised Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We can argue about the character of Charles’s philosophy of nature and whether it is conservative or not. I don’t really care about the origins of his concern for the dangers we face from the climate emergency. I’m just glad he takes this stance, unlike so many of his […]

Featured

King Charles III as Defender of all Faiths, including Islam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Although King Charles III will, like his predecessors going back to Henry VIII, be styled “Defender of the Faith,” he intends the phrase to be understood in a pluralistic rather than exclusivist manner. Harriet Sherwood at The Guardian reports that before Charles takes the oath on Saturday, the Archbishop of […]

Climate Crisis

Germany overtakes Spain to become leading solar PV market in Europe

Clean Energy Wire

By Jessica Bateman | – Tagesspiegel Background ( Clean Energy Wire ) – An analysis of solar power markets in Europe has declared Germany the leading solar PV market in the region. According to the analysis conducted by Aurora Energy Research and reported in Tagesspiegel Background, strong political support and a large market have helped […]

China

Can the U.S. Adjust Sensibly to a Multipolar World?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – In his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy reassured Americans that the decline the United States was facing after a century of international dominance was “relative and not absolute, and is therefore perfectly natural; and that the only serious threat to the real interests […]

Iraq

What the Iraq War can teach the US about avoiding a Quagmire in Ukraine – 3 key Lessons

The Conversation

By Patrick James, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences | – Leaked Pentagon papers showed in early April 2023 that the U.S. is allegedly following the inner workings of Russia’s intelligence operations and is also spying on Ukraine, adding a new dimension to the United States’ involvement in the Ukraine war. While the […]

BDS Occupied Territories

Barcelona, Liège, Oslo: The Movement to Boycott Illegal Israeli Squatters in Palestine moves to Municipalities

Ramzy Baroud

Dr Ramzy Baroud RamzyBaroud A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well. In Barcelona, the city’s Mayor cancelled a twinning agreement with the Israeli city […]