Residential mining

 

Giving an appearance of solidity

Mani Basharzad has an interesting CAPX piece on events in Iran. Worth reading.


Iranians are ready for their final battle

• The Islamic Republic was never a regional superpower; it was a regional thug
• Ordinary Iranians now have an opening to reclaim their future
• The 'no war with Iran' crowd fails to grasp that dictatorships do not change through shifts in opinion alone

For years, Iran’s Islamic Republic tried to sell a picture to the world, as George Orwell once put it, by ‘giving an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. Its negotiating technique was never complicated; it was simple stonewalling. Yet it is striking how different administrations interpreted that posture. Barack Obama saw them as complicated, sophisticated negotiators. Donald Trump thought they were fools. What happened on February 28 seemed to vindicate Trump. The tyrant who dreamed of total victory in a civilisational war fell on the very first day of it.

Why AOC Was at Munich

Victor Davis Hanson on why AOC was at the Munich Security Conference. 

Both entertaining and interesting, but let us hope AOC remains entertaining and nothing more. 

Mysterious Account Tests the Waters

Gu Cheng has an interesting People News piece about a mysterious mainland social-media account relating to the mostly opaque Xi–Zhang power struggle in China.


Mysterious Account Tests the Waters: Xi–Zhang Power Struggle Loosens Externally, Tightens Internally

Xi’s Diplomatic Tone Turns Weak and Fatigued

[People News] Recently, former CCP Central Party School professor Cai Xia revealed that He Weidong and Miao Hua had formed a secret army in Langfang, Hebei, sparking widespread attention and heated discussion. Around the same time, a mysterious mainland social-media account called “Wind Direction Observer” (风向观察) suddenly released alleged court documents detailing the trials of former Rocket Force leaders Li Shangfu, Wei Fenghe, and others accused of colluding with foreign powers.

Both incidents were not from official sources, yet occurred in close succession. Coupled with the recent, markedly softer diplomatic tone Xi Jinping adopted in meetings with U.S. and Japanese leaders, these developments highlight that, after the CCP’s 20th Fourth Plenary Session, fierce internal struggles within the military persist — and that the complexity of the power structure at the top far exceeds what is visible on the surface.


It's worth reading the whole piece, if nothing else it makes our UK media obsession with Andrew Whatsit seem even more trivial.

Then came Xi’s meeting with his nemesis, new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

In their first summit, Xi found himself completely on the defensive. After the CCP failed to interfere in Japan’s election, Xi sulked and withheld congratulations; Takaichi ignored him and confronted him head-on.

She listed every sore point: the East China Sea (including the Senkaku Islands), rare earths, concern over detained Japanese citizens, safety of overseas nationals, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and North Korea abductions — directly challenging Xi’s regime on all fronts.

Xi was speechless.

Unprepared and without his cue cards — or with cards that lacked any answers — he was utterly stumped.

Such questions went far beyond the CCP’s script; even Cai Qi, his chief of staff, would never dare write responses for these.

Canadians unimpressed

Canadians unimpressed by UK state visit invite to Donald Trump, says PM Mark Carney

Mark Carney has said Canadian’s “weren’t impressed” by the decision of the UK government to offer Donald Trump a second state visit.

The invitation was offered to the US President by Sir Keir Starmer during a visit to the Oval Office in February.

Canada’s newly-elected Prime Minister said the invitation “cut across clear messages” his government is trying to send to the White House following Trump’s threat to annex the US’s northern neighbour.


Canadian’s? Oh well.

Chaps such as Mark Carney should probably avoid suggesting that Canadians “weren’t impressed” by any event where his presence clearly wasn't considered essential. 

Some Canadians could conclude from this that Carney isn't interesting or important enough to be remembered when the invitations go out. The folk of Alberta may have a view on him too.

Two headlines

Starmer tells leaders step up at ‘once in a generation moment’ at Ukraine summit

Sir Keir Starmer has urged leaders to step up at a “once in a generation moment” for security in Europe at the start of the defence summit on Ukraine.


Europe cut out of the negotiating table, and no one who matters cares

Europe no longer has a place at the table. It is that simple. At the time of writing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are negotiating in Saudi Arabia about the future of Eastern Europe. There is a lot of huffing-and-puffing about this in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin but no one who matters really cares.

Typosquatting in a Volvo

Jonathan M. Gitlin has an entertaining Ars Technica piece on fake Bowers and Wilkins speakers in Chinese Volvos. Worth reading.


An episode of The Simpsons? Fake speakers found in Chinese Volvos.

Bowers and VVilkins? That's not right!

Do you remember The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield"? It first aired in February 1996, and it's the one where Homer and Bart go to Appliance Zone and are confronted with "genuine" Panaphonics, Sorny, and Magnetbox TVs. Well, it seems a similar brand name game has been going on at a Volvo dealership in China.

News started filtering out of China last week about an owner of a Volvo S60 sedan who realized the speakers in his car were not from Bowers and Wilkins, as they were supposed to be. Instead, the speakers were branded Bowers and VVilkins, substituting a pair of Vs for the W. We've seen that "typosquatting" approach in malicious emails plenty of times, but it's a first in a Volvo.

Another tiny USAID insight

Krzysztof Mularczyk has an interesting Brussels Signal piece on some of the fallout in Poland from suspended USAID funding. Interesting as another tiny insight into the vast complexity of international political funding and lack of balanced political oversight. Worth reading.

 
Liberal and left-leaning groups appeal to Polish Government for USAID cuts compensation

While the Polish government has expressed sympathy for the situation in which the groups found themselves, it has admitted to PAP that it did not keep records of all US government grants for Polish organisations and therefore could not assess the scale of the problem.

Batko-Tołuć admitted that even the NGO monitors were not fully conversant with the number of groups actually funded through USAID because much of it was provided through USAID international grantees such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

A pluri-national, inter-cultural, regional and ecological state

MercoPress has an interesting piece on political jostling for the 2025 elections in Chile.

The woman who will lead Chile’s counter-revolution, according to The Economist

The graffiti are still visible. Walls shout: “Death to the police!” Bus shelters demand: “No more private pensions!” Yet the occasionally violent social upheaval that rocked Chile from 2019 to 2022 is past. And the radical left-wing movement it propelled to power is now unpopular, having discovered that governing is harder than protesting.

Chileans are fed up with extremism and yearn for moderation and common sense, argues Evelyn Matthei, the mayor of Providencia, a posh part of Santiago, the capital.

Polls suggest that in the election next year, voters will replace Gabriel Boric, a leftist firebrand who cannot seek re-election, with a bastion of the right. Many expected that to be José Antonio Kast, an ultraconservative who scooped up 44% of the vote when he came second to Mr Boric last time. Instead the more centrist Ms Matthei has emerged as the front-runner.

The whole piece is well worth reading, even for those whose knowledge of Chilean politics is as lamentably threadbare as mine. It's a Chilean version of the current global political malaise - pragmatic sanity versus the lunacy of socialist wordsmiths. Here in the UK we've just elected the lunatic socialist wordsmiths - aren't we the clever ones?


The contrast between Mr Boric and Ms Matthei is striking. He sports ornate tattoos and made his name as a student leader. He was elected in 2021, at only 35, following large protests against inequality. As president, he has proved less radical than the movement from which he sprang. And he deserves credit for his full-throated condemnation of the electoral fraud in Venezuela, a test most leftists in the region have failed. But he backed a utopian and barely intelligible draft constitution, which would have defined Chile as a “pluri-national, inter-cultural, regional and ecological” state, banned for-profit universities and granted rights to nature. Voters roundly rejected the draft in 2022, and shot down another effort from hard line conservatives.

The unstoppable trend

Michael Cook has an interesting Mercator piece on the declining population of China. Familiar enough, but one of those issues where the present is a plausible guide to the future and for China it doesn't look good.


China is failing to persuade women to have more children. Or any children

China’s population has declined for the second year in a row, despite desperate government incentives to persuade women to have children. In 2023, the number of people fell by 2.08 million to 1.410 billion. The number of births fell by 500,000.

This year, 2024, could see a temporary recovery. A demographer noted in the official newspaper, the Global Times, that this is the Year of the Dragon, a year in which couples traditionally try to conceive a child. But demographers agree that the trend downwards is unstoppable.


The whole piece is well worth reading, population decline being one of the main political justifications for mass immigration.


The New York Times pointed out that “History suggests that once a country crosses the threshold of negative population growth, there is little that its government can do to reverse it. And as a country’s population grows more top-heavy, a smaller, younger generation bears the increasing costs of caring for a larger, older one.” China’s problem is particularly acute. Other advanced countries like Australia, Germany, or the United States have offset low birth rates with immigration. But immigration into China is negligible.

Underestimating Argentinian discontent

David Smith has an interesting Critic piece on the perennial woes of Argentina


Argentina, crying for change

Outsiders are underestimating the scale of Argentinian discontent

Sometimes, living in Argentina, you have to pinch yourself to believe how a country blessed with so much can deliver so little — first to its own people, then perhaps to the world. Yet, if you shed a tear some days, it’s not just about the state of the country at home, but the way some in that wider world misread what’s happening here. They see modern Argentina as a cradle of brave, left-wing pioneers, instead of corrupt, power-hungry folks who have run the place forever.

The self-inflicted damage is all too evident. Argentina represents one of the world’s leading breadbaskets, with farmland that can do it all, yet almost half of its own population lives below the poverty line. Hunger is truly a scandal when you consider Argentina’s potential to feed a billion people across our planet.


The whole piece is well worth reading, not only as a reminder of Argentina's problems, but also a reminder of how damaging and resistant to reform corrupt governments can be. Even the UK Guardian has a role in failing to diagnose the problems.


The Left in Europe is often trapped in the past when it comes to Latin America. It celebrates a political class that espouses socialism and care for the poor, whilst ignoring the obvious consequences of their policies: spending a lot more than they have and printing money so much as to fuel sky-high inflation. This is not to mention the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars whilst in power — corruption writ large.

MAiD in Canada

Michael Cook has a Mercatornet piece on the Canadian enthusiasm for euthanasia.

 

Canada keeps a tight grip on its world record for euthanasia deaths

A parliamentary committee recommends liberalising an already liberal “right to die” law

Canadians are famed for their unfailing, even relentless, politeness. This seems inconsistent with another reason for their fame, or infamy: – Canada is the world leader in euthanasia deaths. Since “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) became legal in 2016 until the end of 2021, 31,664 people died. The official figures have not been published for 2022, but they will show that another 11,000 or more have been added to that total.

The government believes that there is something wrong with these figures. They are too low – the safeguards need to be relaxed even further. Has someone been spiking the maple syrup?

The whole article is well worth reading as another piece in the euthanasia jigsaw. When one step is taken, the next seems more reasonable. 

Canada is a paradigm of the ruthless logic of voluntary euthanasia. As soon as the principle takes hold that people have a right to die, or rather, a right to be killed, within carefully defined boundaries, the work of demolition begins. That right expands from people with a terminally ill condition, to people who are tired of life, to people who are demented, to children, and to infants. The second last step in this logic is a right to universal suicide.

And the last step? Don’t be surprised to hear “right to die” activists arguing that no right exists without a corresponding duty.

Yet I sometimes wonder if my mother would have opted for a quietly dignified exit rather than the torment of dementia in her final years. Impossible question, but I still think the answer is 'yes'. 

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Chinese Spy Balloon...

 

Priorities

The Taliban unveils its SUPERCAR (powered by a Toyota Corolla engine): Afghanistan's rulers declare the vehicle 'an honour' for the nation

The Taliban has unveiled the first ever supercar designed and made in Afghanistan.

The aggressive and sleek-looking Mada 9 prototype sports car is the culmination of five years of design and development led by 30 engineers at manufacturer ENTOP and Kabul's Afghanistan Technical Vocational Institute (ATVI).

Its capabilities on the road remain to be seen - the vehicle is immobile in almost all footage circulating on social media, and ENTOP has not released any performance data whatsoever.

I wonder if they intend to ask Harry to test drive one? As a way to launch his book in Afghanistan perhaps.

Disputed ancestry

Geoff Leo of CBC News has one of those strange stories of claimed but disputed indigenous ancestry.

Indigenous groups rally around Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond amid calls for proof of her Cree ancestry

Indigenous organizations in Saskatchewan and British Columbia are expressing support for Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond in the wake of a CBC News investigation into her claims to Indigenous ancestry.

But some Indigenous scholars are calling on the prominent academic and former judge — she is a professor at UBC and was on the bench in Saskatchewan — to answer the questions it raised.

For decades, Turpel-Lafond has claimed to be a treaty Indian of Cree descent. However, when challenged, she has refused to provide evidence of her claims.

Worth reading because of the curious divide it highlights, how even an individual can become in a sense, too big to fail.

On Wednesday evening, hours after CBC's story was published, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) said in a statement Turpel-Lafond "has been a fierce, ethical, and groundbreaking advocate for Indigenous peoples for decades."

Her integrity "is beyond reproach," the organization said.

The UBCIC also said CBC has no business investigating Turpel-Lafond's — or anyone else's — claims to Indigenous identity.

And yet -

None of the organizations addressed the fact that Turpel-Lafond has failed to offer evidence of her ancestry. Experts note that membership in a First Nations community does not make one Indigenous.

Turpel-Lafond says her father was Cree and was raised by her grandparents, Dr. William Nicholson Turpel and his wife Eleanor. However, genealogical records show that William was of Irish, German and U.S. ancestry, while Eleanor was born in England to British parents.

Turpel-Lafond declined to explain this when asked by CBC News.

Cité Soleil

 

Booze Boost

Japan encourages its sober young people to drink more and boost economy

The Japanese government has launched a nationwide competition to revitalise the alcoholic beverages industry which has been shrinking due to demographic changes, lifestyle choices and the coronavirus pandemic.

The country's national tax agency's Sake Viva! campaign, which runs until 9 September, asks people aged 20 to 39 to come up with ideas for new "products and designs" to "stimulate demand among young people".

This includes boosting Japanese alcoholic beverages such as sake (rice wine), beer, whiskey, wine or beer.

I have a simple idea. Show episodes of Maigret on Japanese TV and give it lots of positive publicity. I'm thinking of the version where Rupert Davies played Maigret. His character drank even while on duty trying to find the murderer - smoked like a chimney too. Could also help with the ageing population problem.

Rob Hersov on South Africa

 

I've posted two videos in a row here, which I usually avoid but this is an interesting and unusually forceful speech given by billionaire Rob Hersov last year. It concerns the continuing problem of South African corruption and what can be done about it. 

Assuming she's sober...

 

Fish just won't wear masks