Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“global warming is now taking a backseat to economic woes and the war in Ukraine. Governments seem not to be in a hurry to start a discussion on new climate targets. While a handful of EU countries, Denmark among them, have endorsed a 90 percent target for 2040, others, including Poland, aren’t yet ready to do so.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-all-but-guaranteed-to-miss-global-deadline-for-climate-targets/
“Germany’s three-party ruling coalition — consisting of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens on the left side of the political spectrum, and the fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) on the center right — was never a match made in heaven. Both the SPD and the Greens favor a strong social safety net and big investment to speed economic growth and the green energy transition. The FDP, on the other hand, believes in less government and less spending.
You may ask yourself why this triad came together in the first place. Good question! Simply put, there weren’t a lot of options given Germany’s increasingly splintered political landscape, as the rise of upstart parties has made it more difficult for the big-tent parties — the SPD and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — to form two-party coalition governments.
The fragmentation has worsened with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, now polling in second place nationally, and will continue with the arrival of populist-left newcomer Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW). Post-war Germany hasn’t had much experience of larger coalitions (Scholz’s fallen triad was the first three-way alliance in over six decades), but the ongoing division may make such coalitions — which tend to be more volatile — the new norm.
The key moment in the early demise of Scholz’s coalition came a year ago, when Germany’s top court handed down a bombshell ruling that ended a workaround the government had been using to spend money without violating the country’s constitutional “debt brake.” In order to circumvent those self-imposed fiscal strictures, Scholz’s coalition had relied on a network of “special funds” outside the main budget. The court deemed the practice unlawful, blowing a €60 billion hole in the federal budget in the process.
After that, Scholz’s coalition, which had relied on the free flow of money to paper over its major ideological differences, was not long for this world. A string of embarrassing election defeats and record-low approval ratings prompted the coalition parties to play to their bases to revive their political fortunes, worsening their incessant squabbling.”
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“Germany will hold its federal snap election on Sunday Feb. 23, 2025, lawmakers and officials in three of the major parties told POLITICO”
https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-germany-snap-election-what-happens-now/
Trump made peace with the Taliban, stopped fighting with them directly, pulled out U.S. forces, leaving behind a rump force, and agreed to fully pull out during the next term, which ended up being Biden’s term, leaving Biden the choice of reneging on Trump’s deal and restarting the war directly with the Taliban which would require more troops, or pull out.
Hitler stole land with the threat of military force and with military force, Europe allowed it hoping Hitler would be satisfied. This history is reminiscent of Putin’s actions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZmB1eCiaNs
1,000 Days of War in Ukraine – Russia’s IRBM Strike, Trends & The Forces after 1,000 days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2vSoWsmgI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLr78zOubfI
“Charities have been essential to meeting these needs. No one knows precisely how many items they have donated, but the figure is likely in the millions. The donations were particularly sizable in the war’s first year. “We were sending primarily drones, night-vision equipment and optics, plates, helmets, carriers and uniforms,” said Tallat-Kelpša, whose group raised over $1 million in the first 10 months of the invasion. United Help Ukraine, which raised tens of millions of dollars in 2022, told me they sent 5,000 bulletproof vests and 100,000 tourniquets. Hope for Ukraine, a New Jersey-based group that raised over $6 million in 2022, was able to stuff a shipping container with aid — including food and medical supplies — every week or two.
“The entire war is crowdfunded,” said Matthew Sampson, a former U.S. soldier who serves in Ukraine’s International Legion, a unit of the Ukrainian armed forces composed of foreign volunteers. Like many NATO veterans now fighting in Ukraine, he is acutely aware of what Kyiv lacks. Foreign donors, Sampson said, allowed his unit to purchase food and fuel. They gave them cars. They even helped pay for housing. “For our safe houses, we had to pay rent, utilities and repairs,” Sampson told me. “Ukraine doesn’t have the money for any of that stuff.”
But today, almost every group helping the country — big and small alike — is taking in less money than before. During the first year of the war, Come Back Alive raised roughly $38 million in non-Ukrainian currencies. In the more than 18 months since, it has raised less than half that figure. United Help Ukraine also said donations had decreased, although they didn’t provide details. Hope for Ukraine said they raised roughly a third as much in 2023 as they did in 2022. “It was like a big roller coaster,” said Yuriy Boyechko, the group’s leader. “There was a big high, and then there was a big drop.””
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/17/ukraine-russia-war-aid-donations-00184025
“South Korea’s spy agency said Friday it believes North Korea has already begun deploying four brigades totaling 12,000 troops, including special forces, to the war in Ukraine.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/north-korean-troops-helping-vladimir-putin-grave-threat-world-seoul-yoon-suk-yeol/
WHAT TIMOTHY SNYDER KNOWS (and Everyone Else Needs to Learn)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4oyEYbsIUY
Sanctions against Russia made their ability to wage war weaker than it otherwise would have been, but only had limited effectiveness due to poor execution and other powers not going along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74hq_0BLxf4
“Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom in order to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it.
Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia will now only supply significant gas volumes to Hungary and Slovakia, in Hungary’s case via a pipeline running mostly through Turkey. In contrast, Russia met 40% of the European Union’s gas needs before Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.”
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/austrias-omv-informed-gazprom-deliveries-150454416.html