alanjjohnstone
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The building of the world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a “gamechanger”… the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tonnes of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock.
New Australian government. Same old foreign policy with some tweaks.
An article on co-ops in Argentina
Employee-run Companies, Part of the Landscape of an Argentina in Crisis
“All we ever wanted was to keep working…”
Population decline said to be a cause for the invasion
a slumping birth rate, a death rate on the rise and immigration slowly falling, Russia is experiencing population decline… Putin is now facing a “major problem for someone who believes population is synonymous with power”, says French demographer Laurent Chalard.
“Putin is obsessed with this demographic issue,” says Chalard. “In his mind, the power of a country is linked to the size of its population. The larger the population, the more powerful the state.” Following this mindset, Putin presented the demographic crisis as a “historic challenge” in January 2020, and assured his country that “Russia’s destiny and its historic prospects depend on how numerous we will be”.
In the face of this, population decline is clearly a key motivator for Russia in its war against Ukraine… Ukraine has a population of 44 million people who are mostly of Slavic descent from the former Soviet bloc. For Putin, the invasion is not only about capturing territory he believes belongs to Russia, but about gaining control over a population he wants to ‘integrate’ into the country.
George Soros and pessimistic prediction
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to be the “beginning of the third world war” that could spell the end of civilisation…
“The invasion may have been the beginning of the third world war and our civilisation may not survive it,” he said. “The invasion of Ukraine didn’t come out of the blue. The world has been increasingly engaged in a struggle between two systems of governance that are diametrically opposed to each other: open society and closed society…
“While the war rages, the fight against climate change has to take second place. Yet the experts tell us that we have already fallen far behind, and climate change is on the verge of becoming irreversible. That could be the end of our civilisation.
“Therefore, we must mobilise all our resources to bring the war to an early end. The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilisation is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line.”
UK risks a shooting war with Russia?
Britain has backed in principle a proposal by Lithuania for a naval coalition “of the willing” to lift the Russian Black Sea blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.
Libcom comments explain the reasoning behind it
https://libcom.org/discussion/freedom-press-no-longer-believe-no-war-class-war
Freedom Press no longer believe in ‘No war but the class war’?
Rob Ray 32 min 47 sec ago
Not my retweet (it’s a jointly used account) but missing the point of the meme entirely there – it’s a criticism of some Western anarchists who use the slogan to the point of refusing to listen to or show solidarity with Eastern European anarchists.Freedom Press as a whole is comprised of people with a variety of viewpoints, we don’t have a unified position as such – afair we’ve put out one “Freedom Press view” in about five years, in favour of trans rights. Not that this stops a lot of people from trying to define one on our behalf on the grounds of particular Tweets or articles so they can tell us off about it of course.
That all being said, as a personal thing I think NWBTCW can sometimes be simplistically fetishised into ludicrousness. It’s a slogan which helps to frame how we think about conflict, not an inviolable pacifistic principle. Sometimes, for example, if the option is mass murder or fighting back to try and save working class lives, it’s correct to fight. Not for the fiefdoms of elites (NWBTCW is important to identify that aspect) – just to stave off mass murder.
Retweeted by Freedom Press
This hits hard. #FckPutin pic.twitter.com/PGQlaFjHSG
— Dywizjon 161 (@Dywizjon161) May 23, 2022
Paradoxically, green policies could lead to increased environment damage
Electric Cars and Lithium Extraction Threaten to Drive Even More Climate Harm
Ukraine Today, Taiwan Tomorrow?
Today, there are an estimated 10,000 Chinese marines. It is projected that there will be 100,000 by 2027.
In the short term, these growing resources are still too limited to envision a total invasion and control of Taiwan, the researcher says. “But if Beijing continues at this rate, it will have the resources necessary in a couple of years.”
Although China may far surpass Taiwan in its military arsenal and manpower, in terms of strategy, such an invasion would remain “extremely difficult for Beijing”, says Duchâtel.
“The Taiwanese, without even taking into account the US intervention, have a strong response capability, and could generate heavy losses for Beijing in case of an amphibious or airborne landing attempt.”
Indeed, Taiwan has also boosted its defence spending, allocating in January an extra $8.6 billion on top of a record annual defence budget, dedicated to buying weapons like long-range precision weapons and warships.
Biden said that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan. The U.S. traditionally has avoided making such an explicit security guarantee to Taiwan
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-taiwan-china-4fb0ad0567ed5bbe46c01dd758e6c62b
Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s head of responsible investing in charge of a team responsible for analysing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks has been suspended after he gave a presentation in London entitled “why investors need not worry about climate risk”, in which he made light of major flooding risks, and complained about having to spend time “looking at something that’s going to happen in 20 or 30 years”.
“Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?…”
Caroline Dennett, a senior safety consultant has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of causing “extreme harms” to the environment.
She claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change risks” and urged others in the oil and gas industry to “walk away while there’s still time”. She said she had quit because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.
Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental safety before production”.
She said: “Shell’s stated safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they are completely failing on it.
“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes extreme harms, to our climate, to our environment and to people. And whatever they say, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/23/shell-consultant-quits-environment-caroline-dennett
Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s head of responsible investing in charge of a team responsible for analysing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks has been suspended after he gave a presentation in London entitled “why investors need not worry about climate risk”, in which he made light of major flooding risks, and complained about having to spend time “looking at something that’s going to happen in 20 or 30 years”.
“Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years?…”
Another article on the systemic failings of the baby formula industry
Baby Formula Industry was Primed for Disaster Long Before Key Factory Closed Down
