Month: March 2024

In yet another endless sign our markets are completely broken and unredeemable, Porsche stock was up 10% on Tuesday, despite the company warning about its profit for the year. 

Porsche reported a 7.7% increase in sales revenue for 2023, reaching 40.53 billion euros ($44.29 billion), with its operating profit climbing by 7.6% to 7.28 billion euros, according to CNBC. 

But it also announced a predicted dip in profitability for 2024 due to new model launches and challenging economic conditions, despite raising its dividend after a profitable 2023. The luxury carmaker anticipates an operating profit margin between 15% and 17%, a decrease from the 18% seen in the past two years, aiming for a long-term goal above 20%.

The company said that the forecast reflected the impact of product range updates, global economic factors, higher depreciation costs, and ongoing investments.

The company plans to introduce new versions of the Panamera, Macan, Taycan, and 911 models in 2024, it said. It was also reported yesterday that the company would be ‘flexible’ on any new combustion engine rules that could potentially be rolled back by the EU, per Bloomberg. 

The report said the company is prepared to “steer investments back to combustion-engine cars” if the EU delays its timeline for phasing out ICE vehicles. It had previously planned to phase out ICE investments in 2026 and 2027, but Chief Financial Officer Lutz Meschke said “we are flexible to react” if the rules change. 

Chairman Oliver Blume commented Tuesday: “2024 is going to be a year of product launches for Porsche – more so than any year in our history.” 

He continued: “We will be introducing a variety of exhilarating sports cars to the road, they will delight our customers around the world. This will put the wind at our back for years to come.”

Meschke added: “Porsche proved in 2023 that we are resilient, highly profitable and financially robust even in volatile times. And we benefit from an even better-balanced sales structure than in the past.”

“On this basis, we’re laying the groundwork in 2024 for a flying start in 2025. Our focus remains on the sustainable success of the company. Our customers and employees, the company and our shareholders all benefit.”

Eight men were arrested in India’s Northeastern Jharkhand state for allegedly raping a foreign tourist while holding her and her husband at knifepoint. The case has been tied to a video by a Spanish-Brazilian travel blogger couple identifying themselves as the victims in the attack. The pair had been traveling overland by motorcycle and had been camping.

The case has caused an outcry internationally and in India, where outrage over rampant sexual violence against women has hit headlines repeatedly, catalyzed by several high-profile rape cases, like those of a 22-year-old intern in Delhi in 2012, a 71-year-old Catholic nun in West Bengal in 2015 or a 26-year-old veterinarian near Hyderabad in 2019.

Two of these three women were killed.

But, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, according to the Georgetown Institute 2023 Women Peace and Security Index, India scored 0.595 out of 1 points, placing it in rank 128 among 177 countries rated in the index.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The report attested an especially high amount of political violence aimed at women, counting the seven-most incidents of all countries. India also fared poorly due to the rate of boys to girls being born with the sixth-worst score in the ranking. The nation was among the most improved in women’s financial participation, while scoring much lower education, employment and parliamentary representation.

The index employs a broad view of women’s security, not only analyzing the incidence of violence against women and prevalence of discrimination, but also women’s independence, taking the view that women who are educated, employed and autonomous are much safer from violence.

Asia and Africa were identified as the least safe places for women by the index.

In Latin America, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador stuck out as places that are especially dangerous.

In Europe, Southeastern Europe and Italy fared worse than the rest of the continent.

Authored by David Brady Jr via The Mises Institute,

If one follows news relating to the economy, they surely have come across certain mainstream rhetoric in support of the Federal Reserve System.

Everyone is familiar with the typical claims that the Federal Reserve strives for maximized employment and low inflation, and that the Fed is the regulator of the banking industry. But king of them all is of the supposed political neutrality of the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve itself touts its elevation above the petty conflicts and interests of the three branches of government. The Fed’s website declares,

Congress has determined the Federal Reserve can best achieve its mission of supporting maximum employment and stable prices as an independent agency that makes decisions based on the best available evidence and analysis, without taking politics into consideration.

Experience around the world has also shown that countries with independent central banks that are able to make decisions free from political influence have better economic outcomes for their citizens.

If one is to take the central bank at face value, it is the one true neutral body that overreaches the lives of the citizenry. It claims that its only goals and motives are that prescribed by Congress through the Federal Reserve Act and various other legislation that guide the central bank. Congress and the executive branch are explicitly political in nature, and the Supreme Court is hardly the “unbiased arbiter” that it passes itself to be. The Federal Reserve is no outlier in this respect.

It is easy to take this truth—that the Fed is a political monetary regulator—for granted, but it is helpful to understand why. To be able to articulate the reasoning clarifies it.

The Federal Reserve is levied with a dual mandate to ensure low and steady inflation and maximum employment. Surely these come across as objective metrics and goals that supersede political squabbles, yet their very prescription is political. One is led to ask, why is the central bank responsible for employment? How much inflation is low and steady? Why that much? These are arbitrary edicts, derived from congressional acts and legislation. Even the 2 percent target for inflation is a relatively new proposal, coming from our current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

These mandates are up to the legislature, as the central bank reports to Congress. These mandates might be as arbitrary as Congress decides. The central bank must conform to political interests, or the interests of the polity will be enacted into it.

The Fed also falls victim to appointment corruption. The Chair of the Federal Reserve is appointed by the president of the United States, as are the two vice-chairs that serve similar four-year terms. While the other governors on the Federal Reserve Board in Washington are appointed to fourteen-year terms, they are appointed nonetheless. Appointees earn their position by conforming to the interests of the executive. Much like liberal presidents will appoint liberal Supreme Court Justices, a presidential administration will appoint members to the board that conform to the interests of the administration.

Long length of terms might serve as a necessary check, as governors aren’t beholden to specific presidents. Staggering terms over presidential terms, which prevents loyalty to one administration, might also provide a necessary check. These solutions seem nice at face value, but careful public choice analysis disproves these misconceptions.

These long terms being limited to just one simply means there is a limited window for the governors to make use of their positions. Surely, they could work for the best interests of those affected by monetary policy, but it is far more likely that these governors will make use of this limited time to benefit themselves. While not the governors themselves, the presidents of the Dallas and Boston Feds acted in such a manner with insider trading. The governors have an incentive to benefit themselves as much as possible, including with their stances on monetary policy.

The chair and vice-chairs are even more susceptible to political pressures. With reappointment on the line, the Fed chair is beholden to whoever nominates them next. It is a careful game of either assisting the incumbent if they believe the incumbent will be reelected or getting in the good graces of the new incumbent. They will fold to pressure and adjust policy in any manner that will gift them reappointment.

Donald Trump was ever a fan of placing pressure on the Federal Reserve. Trump ran on a platform of auditing the Federal Reserve amid his criticisms of the political elite. Yet, once he entered office, he pivoted to pressuring the Federal Reserve and his appointee Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, which the Fed did happily.

When lockdowns occurred, Trump advocated for further rate cuts amid lockdowns.

However, Trump lost the 2020 election, and Joe Biden entered office and became the next man to appoint the next Federal Reserve chair.

 Amid soaring inflation and his reappointment, Jerome Powell dubbed inflation “transitory” and held back on raising interest rates to combat inflation.

Interest rate hikes very well could have brought about a recession, albeit necessary. Causing a recession is hardly a means to be nominated as chair once more.

Once Powell was renominated and confirmed for his second term, rates were allowed to rise to historic levels.

The central bank’s policy actions are heavily dependent on political pressure and the interests of the executive, legislature, and those that govern it.

The Federal Reserve’s policy actions are not only arbitrary but also often politically motivated.

It does not exist as some benevolent government agency that is above political motivations. It is simply another road into the lives of average citizens for political dictation of the economy and life.

In many countries, the drastic step of shutting down the internet is employed in response to actual or potential unrest. Shutdowns generally occur when someone (usually a government) intentionally disrupts the internet or social media networks. The measure has been widely criticized as too drastic a curbing of freedom of expression and an encroachment of peoples’ everyday lives especially if it is done to shut down dissent.

As Statista’s Katharinia Buchholz reports, Egypt’s 2011 revolution and the failed Turkish military coup of 2016 are prime examples of internet shutdowns employed in this way.

In India – the country that cuts internet access the most – shutdowns have in the past clustered in Kashmir and Rajasthan, where they have been used during protests (and preemptively when protests were expected), but also during exams. In 2023, ethnic tensions in Manipur state led to most targeted shutdowns employed by the government.

All 2023 Indian internet blockages and shutdowns affected around 59 million people for a total of almost 8,000 hours – the highest in the world when combined according to Top10VPN. In Ethiopia, Myanmar and Iran, the suppression of dissent, protest and in one instant the Orthodox church, have caused almost equally long user hours of internet blocks.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Across the world, internet shutdowns and deliberate slowdowns have become more common once again.

Given how important the internet is in everyday life, limiting access to it can have financial consequences.

In Russia, Ethiopia and Myanmar, the huge number of shutdowns and their length are getting very expensive. Top10VPN found that around 1,350 hours of intentional internet downtime and targeted blocks in 2023 have cost the Russian economy $4 billion.

Via SchiffGold.com,

With President Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan set to extend more student loan relief to borrowers this summer, the federal government is pretending it can wave a magic wand to make debts disappear. But the truth of student debt “relief” is that they’re simply shifting the burden to everyone else, robbing Peter to pay Paul and funneling more steam into an inflation pressure cooker that’s already set to burst.

Starting July 1st, new rules go into effect that change the discretionary income requirements for their payment plans from 10% to only 5% for undergraduates, leading to lower payments for millions. Some borrowers will even have their owed balances revert to zero.

What the plan doesn’t describe, predictably, is how that burden will be shifted to the rest of the country by stealing value out of their pockets via new taxes or increased inflation, which still simmering well above levels seen in early 2020 before the Fed printed trillions in Covid “stimulus” money. They’re rewarding students who took out loans they can’t afford and punishing those who paid their way or repaid their loans, attending school while living within their means. And they’re stealing from the entire country to finance it.

Biden actually claims that a continuing Covid “emergency” is what gives him the authority to offer student loan forgiveness to begin with. As with any “temporary” measure that gives state power a pretense to grow, or gives them an excuse to collect more revenue (I’m looking at you, federal income tax), COVID-19 continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for power and revenue-hungry politicians even as the CDC reclassifies the virus as a threat similar to the seasonal flu.

The SAVE plan takes the burden of billions of dollars in owed payments away from students and adds it to a national debt that’s already ballooning to the tune of a mind-boggling trillion dollars every 3 months. If all student loan debt were forgiven, according to the Brookings Institution, it would surpass the cumulative totals for the past 20 years for multiple existing tax credits and welfare programs:

“Forgiving all student debt would be a transfer larger than the amounts the nation has spent over the past 20 years on unemployment insurance, larger than the amount it has spent on the Earned Income Tax Credit, and larger than the amount it has spent on food stamps.”

Ironically enough, adding hundreds of billions to the national debt from Biden’s program is likely to cause the most pain to the very demographics the Biden administration claims to be helping with its plan: poor people, anyone who skipped college entirely or paid their loans back, and other already overly-indebted young adults, whose purchasing power is being rapidly eroded by out-of-control government spending and central bank monetary shenanigans. It effectively transfers even more wealth from the poor to the wealthy, a trend that Covid-era measures have taken to new extremes.

As Ron Paul pointed out in a recent op-ed for the Eurasia Review:

“…these loans will be paid off in part by taxpayers who did not go to college, paid their own way through school, or have already paid off their student loans. Since those with college degrees tend to earn more over time than those without them, this program redistributes wealth from lower to higher income Americans.”

Even some progressives are taking aim at the plan, not because it shifts the debt burden to other Americans, but because it will require cutting welfare or sacrificing other expensive social programs promised by Biden such as universal pre-K. For these critics, the issue isn’t so much that spending and debt are totally out of control, but that they’re being funneled into the wrong issues.

Progressive “solutions” always seem to take the form of slogans like “tax the wealthy,” a feel-good bromide that for lawmakers always seems to translate into increased taxes for the middle and lower-upper class. Meanwhile, the .01% continue to avoid taxes through offshore accounts, money laundering trickery dressed up as philanthropy, and general de facto ownership of the system through channels like political donations and aggressive lobbying.

If new waves of college applicants expect loan forgiveness plans to continue, it also encourages schools to continue raising tuition and motivates prospective students to continue with even more irresponsible borrowing.

This puts pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates lower to help accommodate waves of new student loan applicants from sparkly-eyed young borrowers who figure they’ll never really have to pay the money back.

With the Fed already expected to cut rates this year despite inflation not being properly under control, the loan forgiveness scheme is just one of many factors conspiring to cause inflation to start running hotter again, spiraling out of control, as the entire country is forced to pay the hidden tax of price increases for all their basic needs.

Before flight was even invented, humans have been fascinated by the vast skies above them, and for obvious reasons. There is inherent marvel in defying something as fundamental as gravity; in quite literally, reaching for the stars.

And from the early days of military use, the aviation industry is now critical to the movement of goods and people around the world.

Nevertheless, there are accidents, and while few and far between, their scale and tragedy tend to leave a big impact on collective psyches. But which airline companies have seen the most number of incidents?

Using research published by Executive Flyers on September 19, 2023, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu ranks global airlines based on the number of their plane crashes.

Which Global Airline Has Had the Most Crashes?

Air France and American Airlines tie for most plane crashes, with 11 each.

Notably two of American’s incidents happened on September 11th, 2001, as did two from United Airlines’ seven crashes.

Note: American Eagle is the brand name of a regional branch of American Airlines. Continental Airlines merged with United in 2012.

China Airlines and Korean Air also tie with nine crashes each, followed by Pakistan International Airlines with eight accidents.

While many plane crashes do not result in fatalities, here are some examples that were particularly deadly:

• Air France: In June 2009, Flight 477 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 onboard.

• Air China: In May 2002, Flight 611 disintegrated mid-air due to repair faults, killing all 225 onboard.

• United Airlines: In Sept 1965, Flight 389 crashed while landing in Salt Lake City, killing 43 of 91 passengers.

• Thai Airlines: In Aug 1987, Flight 365 crashed near Phuket, killing all 83 onboard.

The much-covered disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 prompted an overhaul of airline regulations and safety measures including better satellite tracking and improved training for crews during emergency situations.

And aside from pilot error, aircraft models themselves can often be the cause of accidents. Two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed in 2018–19, stemming from issues with the model’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System system, a flight control software designed to prevent stalls.

Finally, hostile airspace has also caused aircraft accidents. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 were shot down by Russian separatist forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2014 and 2020 respectively.

How Safe is Air Travel?

It is useful to remember however that airlines have suffered a very small number of accidents throughout history. Considering there are tens of millions of flights per year, major crashes are actually extremely rare.

“If you take one flight a day, you would, on average, need to fly every day for 55,000 years before being involved in a fatal crash.”

= ARNOLD BARNETT, PROFESSOR OF STATISTICS AT MIT, VIA ABC NEWS.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has gone nearly 15 years without a major commercial airline crash, despite the more than 100 million flights and 10 billion passengers since then.

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

England’s National Health Service (NHS) has banned the use of puberty blockers to treat children with gender dysphoria at the nation’s gender identity clinics, Sky News reported.

Taking a position at odds with the Biden administration, Health Minister Maria Caulfield said:

“We have always been clear that children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS. Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child.”

Puberty blockers block testosterone and estrogen to stop the normal physical changes of puberty such as breast development, facial hair, periods, and voice-deepening. The decision affects anyone under the age of 18 being treated by state-funded NHS. The drugs will now only be available to children as part of clinical research trials.

NHS conducted an independent review of services for children under 18 following the explosion of referrals to England’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in the past ten years.

In 2011/2012, there were under 250 referrals to GIDS compared to more than 5,000 in 2021/2022.

GIDS will be forced to close at the end of March and will be replaced by two new NHS services that will open in London and Liverpool in early April.

NHS said children attending these clinics will be seen by experts in neurodiversity, pediatrics and mental health, “resulting in a holistic approach to care.”

Around 5,000 children and young people are currently on the waiting list for referral into the new clinics, with 250 patients expected to be transferred to them when they are open.

Currently there are fewer than 100 children on puberty blockers, who will continue their treatment at Leeds and University College London Hospital.

Puberty blockers can be used to delay the development of physical characteristics which can make someone look male or female, allowing transgender young people to explore their gender identity and weigh up medically transitioning.

Taking them early in puberty may mean less treatment or surgery in the future. However, critics have raised concerns over issues including consent, mental health risks and bone density development.

Massive news!

Children in England will no longer be given puberty blockers!

We will restore sanity across the globe.

Children are beautiful just as they are. No drugs or scalpels needed!pic.twitter.com/HmSlelpa1A

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) March 12, 2024

England’s decision to ban puberty blockers in minors was announced on the 4th annual “Detrans Awareness Day,” which aims to raise awareness about the “unique health care needs” of detransitioners on the “unpopular trip” back from transition. It also highlights how young children like detransitioner Prisha Mosley become lifetime victims of transgender ideology and pseudoscience.

“Experimental drugs with huge harms should never have been given to children in the first place. Finally common sense, scientific fact and medical ethics have triumphed,” TalkTV’s Julia Hartley Brewer said.

It’s Detransition Awareness Day.

Thank you to these brave souls speaking up, like Prisha Mosley.@detransaqua. pic.twitter.com/v2OQlbeTUc

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) March 12, 2024

Rachel Levine,  the transgender U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, has repeatedly insisted that there’s a consensus among medical professionals that “gender-affirming care is medically necessary, safe, and effective.”

By “gender-affirming care,” Levine means cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and radical gender reassignment surgeries. Levine said: “There is no argument among medical professionals” that minors’ access to “gender-affirming care” is important and valuable.

The fact that hormonal treatments and puberty blockers have been linked to lower bone density, and infertility in patients, Levine has continued to promote them as “gender-affirming” and “life-saving.”

“Every major medical association agrees: gender-affirming care is life-saving, medically necessary, age-appropriate and a critical tool for health care providers,” Levine declared last year.

Levine argued that attempts to restrict these life-altering drugs among “trans youth” was “costing the lives of young people.”

Biden’s HHS assistant trans secretary Rachel Levine calls child mutilation “necessary.” “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, safe, and effective for transgender and nonbinary youth.” We have reached the end of civilization. pic.twitter.com/v5XZvttoiL

— Lalo White (@LaloWhite_) June 14, 2023

England clearly disagrees.

[ZH: The Babylon Bee summed things up in their usual succinct manner…]

Next on the chopping block is the use of cross-sex hormones on minors questioning their sex.

The Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill seeks to regulate access to the body-altering drugs both privately and on the NHS and will receive a second reading on Friday.

On Tuesday Russia said it has “thwarted” another significant attempt at a ground invasion of the Russian border region of Belgorod consisting of Ukraine-backed “sabotage and reconnaissance groups.”

Ukraine-based groups identifying themselves as the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion posted a message on Telegram acknowledged they launched a raid with an aim to “take our land away from the [Putin] regime, centimeter by centimeter” and additionally urged all Russians to boycott the national presidential election. Another group calling itelf the Russian Volunteer Corps also claimed responsibility.

They claimed to have gained control of a Russian border village. “The settlement of Tyotkino in the Kursk region is entirely under the control of Russian liberation forces,” a statement said.

The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) has responded by saying the ‘terror’ attack was beaten back. “Around 3:00 a.m. Moscow time, after intense shelling of civilian structures, Ukrainian terrorist groups, using tanks and armored vehicles, attempted to invade the territory of the Russian Federation,” the MoD wrote. “All the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were repelled by the selfless actions of the Russian military. The enemy was hit by aircraft, rocket troops and artillery,” the statement added.

According to CNN’s description of the groups involved in the assault:

The group, comprising a few hundred battle-hardened, anti-Kremlin Russian volunteers fighting as part of Ukraine’s armed forces, also said it had destroyed an armored personnel carrier inside Russia.

A separate pro-Ukrainian group of Russian fighters, the Siberian Battalion, wrote Tuesday on Telegram: “Well, we’re home at last. As promised, we are bringing freedom and justice to our Russian land.”

So in essence this was an attempted incursion by units of Ukraine’s national military, and not for the first time. Last year there were several such cross-border raids by some of the same groups, with the biggest happening on May 22, 2023.

At that time it was the largest such cross-border ground incursion, and even involved anti-Kremlin fighters utilizing American equipment including Humvees. Washington at the time distanced itself from the attack which briefly resulted in the pro-Ukraine groups holding territory and causing Russian civilians to flee. 

As for this fresh Tuesday attack, Russia’s military further described that five tanks were “eliminated” in Nekhoteevka and Spodariushino, along with a personnel carrier. The MoD also said Russian forces killed 60 Ukrainian soldiers near Odnorobovka who were attempting to cross into Russia.

Russian state media released footage of what it described as a failed attempt to attack Russian territory…

❗️The Russian Ministry of Defense published footage of destroyed equipment of Ukrainian sabotage groups near Nekhoteyevka (Russia’s Belgorod region). pic.twitter.com/OM0odqbAIN

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 12, 2024

Like with prior cross-border ground incursions, this seems a desperate act meant to generate headlines, likely with an aim of Kiev showing the West it is still “in the fight” and not yet defeated.

President Zelensky has been desperately trying to attract more weaponry and funding from a reluctant West. He’s been up against an avalanche of inconvenient mainstream media reporting and acknowledgement that Ukraine forces are being steadily beaten back.

Meanwhile, Russia on Tuesday is touting that it has taken out a US-produced HIMARS multiple rocket launcher. While a precise location for the alleged strike wasn’t given, Russian media released video…

The Russian MoD just released a video reported to be the destruction of an M142 HIMARS by a 9K720 Iskander-M.#OSINT #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/mBIH4GMQaa

— OSINT (Uri) 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@UKikaski) March 12, 2024

The White House has been trying to signal it won’t back down from backing Kiev, and has newly announced it is sending Ukraine $300 million more in immediate aid for ‘pressing’ needs.

At a moment the House has continued to block the much larger billions Biden has sought, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced Tuesday, “Today, on behalf of President Biden, I’m announcing an emergency package of security assistance and $300 billion worth of weapons and equipment to address some of Ukraine’s pressing needs.”

Via ReMix News,

On Monday evening, the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) decided whether to refer the European Commission to the Court of Justice of the European Union for unblocking previously frozen funds for Hungary.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen smiles before the start of the EPP Congress in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, March 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The result of the committee’s vote was a recommendation that the case be referred to the EU’s top court. However, the decision to do so must be ratified by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.

Should Metsola not agree with the proposal, it will go to the Conference of Presidents, i.e., the leaders of the parliament’s political groups.

However, this means that a delicate situation would arise within the European People’s Party (EPP), which has become increasingly entrenched in the liberal mainstream over the past few years. During the campaign period, it was up to the EPP president to decide whether the institution led by the EPP’s top candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, should be brought before the courts.

Fidesz MEP Ernő Schaller-Baross told Magyar Nemzet the situation was becoming farcical.

“What the European Parliament is doing is nonsense from a legal point of view, since it is nothing more than a case of going to the European Court of Justice to legally impose its own political demands, without regard for legal limits.

“It expects the Court of Justice to annul the Commission’s decision on the EU funds due to Hungary because it did not take sufficient account of the parliament’s political arguments,” he said.

Putting the developments into context, the MEP added that the dangers of the disempowerment of democracy and politics, as well as the political bias in the functioning of the EU that filters into legal procedures, are dangerous.

“It is telling that the European Parliament’s Legal Service is unable or does not dare to give an opinion on the legal action, as there is no legal basis for such a lawsuit, which clearly shows that it is a political dispute,” he added.

Schaller-Baross said that the upcoming EU elections will be an opportunity for the electorate to voice its demand for a better democracy: “With less than a hundred days to go until the European elections, European voters will have their say on the functioning of the EU institutions in the spirit of their demand for a better democracy. Change is needed in Brussels. We hope that political forces that want to build a Europe of nations and respect our EU treaties will win a majority in the EP elections in June.”

Read more here…

At a moment the White House is openly clashing with Israel over Gaza policy, there have been rapid developments regarding the risky venture of shipping humanitarian aid by sea to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and its over 2 million residents.

On Tuesday the Spanish NGO ‘Open Arms’ has sent the first chartered ship loaded with 200 tons of humanitarian aid toward the Strip. It set sail from Larnaca, Cyprus on a voyage of some 370km. The group said on X, “the maritime humanitarian corridor to the Strip is opened, in a highly complex mission that we trust will be the first of many.”

The mission is happening under the aegis of an EU humanitarian corridor at a moment Palestinians are facing famine conditions in the Gaza Strip. Open Arms is also partnering with the World Central Kitchen.

Open Arms spokeswoman Laura Lanuza said the aid ship contains “mainly water and food: rice, pasta, flour, canned food, tins of tuna … Basic necessities.” She described that “When we first arrived in Cyprus, we thought it would be mission impossible.”

The government of Cyprus has been key in setting up the EU maritime aid corridor. “Our goal is to establish a maritime highway of boats and barges stocked with millions of meals continuously headed towards Gaza,” a statement by the World Central Kitchen said. The initiative is funded in part by the UAE.

At this early stage the needed infrastructure for offloading the aid supplies is still very much in question…

.@WCKitchen “Operation Safeena”, (boat,vessel) on its way! First trip to the shores of Gaza, learning. At the same time as @openarms_fund is moving, construction of the Jetty is well underway….we may fail, but the biggest failure will be not trying! Thank you to all that made it… pic.twitter.com/vKavoczEJN

— José Andrés 🇺🇸🇪🇸🇺🇦 (@chefjoseandres) March 12, 2024

Israel has approved the idea of the maritime corridor so long as vessels undergo the proper security checks, which Tel Aviv is coordinating with Cypriot authorities on implementing.

But even as the Open Arms vessel which is towing a barge loaded flour, rice and protein makes its way toward Gaza for the expected at least two-day trip, international reports say there’s as yet “no clear unloading plan”.

“Once the barge nears Gaza, two smaller vessels will tow it to the jetty being built by WCK, which operates 65 kitchens across the territory,” writes Canadian broadcaster CBC. “The organization plans to distribute the food in northern Gaza.”

A separate but parallel effort is underway by the Pentagon upon Biden administration orders. A US support and logistics ship, the General Frank S Besson, departed a naval base in Virginia on Saturday.

It is carrying equipment for US soldiers to construct a large temporary pier off Gaza’s coast to transport food from ships, with the plan being for Israel to provide security.

US officials have predicted that the project could take up to 60 days before the pier is up and running. Some 1,000 US troops working from aboard naval vessels in the Mediterranean will construct the pier.