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Cake day: January 29th, 2025

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  • Brazil sues China carmaker BYD over ‘slave-like’ conditions

    Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD and two of its contractors, saying they were responsible for human trafficking and conditions “analogous to slavery” at a factory construction site in the country.

    Did coerced labour build your car?

    Thousands of cars ship out of factories every day. But at the other end of the production line, workers are shipped in – thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz every year – from Xinjiang, the western region at the centre of a long-running human rights crisis.

    Moved as part of a labour transfer scheme that experts call forced labour, these ethnic minorities are coercively recruited by the Chinese state to travel thousands of miles and fill the manufacturing jobs that recent Chinese graduates have spurned. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found more than 100 brands whose products have been made, in part or whole, by workers moved under this system.


  • Brazil sues China carmaker BYD over ‘slave-like’ conditions

    Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD and two of its contractors, saying they were responsible for human trafficking and conditions “analogous to slavery” at a factory construction site in the country.

    Did coerced labour build your car?

    Thousands of cars ship out of factories every day. But at the other end of the production line, workers are shipped in – thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz every year – from Xinjiang, the western region at the centre of a long-running human rights crisis.

    Moved as part of a labour transfer scheme that experts call forced labour, these ethnic minorities are coercively recruited by the Chinese state to travel thousands of miles and fill the manufacturing jobs that recent Chinese graduates have spurned. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found more than 100 brands whose products have been made, in part or whole, by workers moved under this system.


  • Brazil sues China carmaker BYD over ‘slave-like’ conditions

    Brazilian prosecutors are suing Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD and two of its contractors, saying they were responsible for human trafficking and conditions “analogous to slavery” at a factory construction site in the country.

    Did coerced labour build your car?

    Thousands of cars ship out of factories every day. But at the other end of the production line, workers are shipped in – thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz every year – from Xinjiang, the western region at the centre of a long-running human rights crisis.

    Moved as part of a labour transfer scheme that experts call forced labour, these ethnic minorities are coercively recruited by the Chinese state to travel thousands of miles and fill the manufacturing jobs that recent Chinese graduates have spurned. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found more than 100 brands whose products have been made, in part or whole, by workers moved under this system.


  • Defence or Welfare? Europe Can Afford Both, and Must

    This is a highly biased article with little content. The article links to a couple of other media reports, but the author admits that increased military spending will “likely” result in a further erosion of the decades-old European social compact. I very much doubt that the author has had a look into the budget plan of a single EU member. They mention not a single number in the whole article, no research, it’s just a rant with a bold headline that serves a particular narrative.

    What makes the whole thing worse is the sentence:

    Europe’s leaders have decided to embrace the sort of massive ramp-up in military spending that so often serves as the prelude to war.

    No, the current ‘ramp-up’ of military spending is certainly not ‘the prelude of war’ - simply because the war is already here. It has been happening for more than three years with military attacks on Ukraine and what is sometimes called a ‘hybrid war’ against European countries such as a recent arson attack on a restaurant in Estonia ordered by Russian intelligence .

    I don’t see what’s wrong if the European countries spend “3.5 percent of their respective GDPs on core military spending, and another 1.5 percent on security and miscellaneous other expenditures designed to harden economies and infrastructure against cyberattacks, people trafficking, and additional risks and perceived risks to NATO economies.”

    Estonia, for example, has been spending more than 5% of its GDP for defense already before the Nato summit, and I argue that this has not so much to do with ‘appeasing’ Trump than with its common border with Russia.




  • This is a very weird framing of this study. The original study (which is linked in the article) is in German. Those who don’t speak German will find a useful translation provider, I provide the study’s summary literal translation:

    >Young people: EU and democracy are good, but reforms are needed

    • 57% prefer democracy to any other form of government - 39% think that the EU does not function particularly democratically
    • Young Europeans want change - 53% criticize the EU for being too preoccupied with trivialities instead of focusing on the essentials
    • Cost of living, defense against external threats and better conditions for businesses should be priorities for the EU
    • Only 42% think that the EU is one of the three most powerful global political players

    Among others, the study also says (again, a direct translation, I am not paraphrasing):

    48% of young Europeans believe that democracy in their country is under threat, compared to 61% in Germany. Two thirds rate their country’s membership of the EU as positive. At the same time, 53% of young people criticize the fact that the EU is too often concerned with minor issues. Half of 16 to 26-year-olds think the EU is a good idea, but very poorly implemented.

    I don’t say that everything is perfect, but the whole study paints a completely different picture than this article - and especially its headline - appears to suggest.

    [Edit my comments for clarity, translation has not been edited.]


  • This is a very weird framing of this study. The original study (which is linked in the article) is in German. Those who don’t speak German will find a useful translation provider, I provide the study’s summary literal translation:

    >Young people: EU and democracy are good, but reforms are needed

    • 57% prefer democracy to any other form of government - 39% think that the EU does not function particularly democratically
    • Young Europeans want change - 53% criticize the EU for being too preoccupied with trivialities instead of focusing on the essentials
    • Cost of living, defense against external threats and better conditions for businesses should be priorities for the EU
    • Only 42% think that the EU is one of the three most powerful global political players

    Among others, the study also says (again, a direct translation, I am not paraphrasing):

    48% of young Europeans believe that democracy in their country is under threat, compared to 61% in Germany. Two thirds rate their country’s membership of the EU as positive. At the same time, 53% of young people criticize the fact that the EU is too often concerned with minor issues. Half of 16 to 26-year-olds think the EU is a good idea, but very poorly implemented.

    I don’t say that everything is perfect, but the whole study paints a completely different picture than this article - and especially its headline - appears to suggest.

    [Edit my comments for clarity, translation has not been edited.]


  • This is a very weird framing of this study. The original study (which is linked in the article) is in German. Those who don’t speak German will find a useful translation provider, I provide the study’s summary literal translation:

    >Young people: EU and democracy are good, but reforms are needed

    • 57% prefer democracy to any other form of government - 39% think that the EU does not function particularly democratically
    • Young Europeans want change - 53% criticize the EU for being too preoccupied with trivialities instead of focusing on the essentials
    • Cost of living, defense against external threats and better conditions for businesses should be priorities for the EU
    • Only 42% think that the EU is one of the three most powerful global political players

    Among others, the study also says (again, a direct translation, I am not paraphrasing):

    48% of young Europeans believe that democracy in their country is under threat, compared to 61% in Germany. Two thirds rate their country’s membership of the EU as positive. At the same time, 53% of young people criticize the fact that the EU is too often concerned with minor issues. Half of 16 to 26-year-olds think the EU is a good idea, but very poorly implemented.

    I don’t say that everything is perfect, but the whole study paints a completely different picture than this article - and especially its headline - appears to suggest.

    [Edit my comments for clarity, translation has not been edited.]



  • I don’t want to defend nor attack England, France or anyone else, but we should never look at one metric when assessing a market. The EU provides some useful insights on its website about the bloc’s housing market (unfortunately without the England or UK data …).

    When measured by the gross value added (GVA) of a country’s construction sector as a share of total GVA, France is persistently below the EU average. In 2023, the EU countries with the largest shares were Slovakia (8.4%), Romania (8.3%) and Lithuania (7.3%), and with smallest Greece (2.1%), Ireland (2.6%) and Malta (4.2%).

    Regarding the number of dwellings approved for construction between 2010 and 2023, France saw the largest decrease (-27%), followed by Finland and Italy (-36% and -50%, respectively). The largest increases were in Bulgaria (+269%), followed by Ireland (+123%) and Estonia (+117%).

    We must also look at how affordable housing is. According to the EU data, Greece, Denmark, and Germany appear to have he least affordable housing in the EU.

    You’ll find a lot of interesting data on the site: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/housing-2024





  • As much as I agree with Mr. Türk, it unfortunately is a “logical and consistent step” as Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said. We must not forget that Russia didn’t even adhere to bans on mines in peace time: Moscow has never signed the Ottawa Treaty and has used anti-personnel mines in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Maybe I am wrong, but if I lived in one of these countries bordering Russia, I would even better understand this decision I guess.