HowRu68

TL; DR; it will take many years.

Swedish producer is trying to to accelerate the process of extracting the elements vital for hi-tech products. The LKAB iron ore mine at Kiruna in Sweden is close to one of Europe’s largest-known deposits of rare earths (..).

The 17 rare earth elements – all found in Kiruna – include neodymium and praseodymium, critical materials for the powerful permanent magnets needed for everything from electric cars to household appliances and military jets. From mine to refined end production could take 10 to 15 years, say experts.(..)

“I think people often miss the point. They say ‘why don’t we just produce rare earths in Europe?’. But you have to have the entire supply chain to do that,” says Nigel Steward, a professor at Imperial College London, a materials scientist and a former executive in the US mining industry."(..)

The experience in Kiruna shows just how challenging it is to reduce the EU’s dependency on China, which is now the core supplier of rare earth magnets and willing to choke supplies, as it did last year, if politically desirable.(..)

State-owned LKAB is now trying to accelerate the process of mining, extraction, and separation of the crumbs from the ore, to help the EU de-risk as quickly as possible.(..)

"I’ve been talking in Brussels the past two or three years about the huge disadvantages we created in the 1970s and the 1980s when we closed the mining industry and started importing metals from South America, Africa, Australia,” he says.(..)

Asked why it has taken the EU so long to wake up to the dangers of dependency on China’s rare earth supply, he is blunt: “Politicians will never be more courageous than the voters.”

Oona Anne Hathaway is an American legal scholar specialized in international law and U.S. foreign relations.

In conclusion:

" The decades of imperfect but transformative peace that the U.N. Charter helped create now faces the same fate. As the United States fails to abide by the underlying principle of the international legal system it once championed, the already ailing system faces total collapse."

A criminal network is behind the fireworks attacks against the police in Amsterdam’s Floradorp neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, National Police Chief Janny Knol said in the television program Pauw de Wit.

On New Year’s Eve, the police intervened multiple times after groups set fires on Dotterbloemstraat in the Floradorp neighborhood. Riot police had to disperse crowds so that firefighters could extinguish the fires. During these confrontations, people in the crowds pelted officers with fireworks. The unrest followed tension in Floradorp after Mayor Femke Halsema banned the city’s annual bonfire due to safety concerns.

1. The Russian Model: Biohazardous Disinformation

The concept of disinformation as a “biohazard” underscores its infectious nature. Like a virus, disinformation spreads invisibly, mutates rapidly, and exploits the vulnerabilities of its host societies. Thus, the NDU Press article notes, Russia’s campaigns are tailored to the sociopolitical fault lines of target countries—race, immigration, economic inequality, and vaccine hesitancy, among others. Meanwhile, this precision targeting is facilitated by data analytics and AI-driven algorithms that allow for hyper-personalized influence operations.

2. Evidence-Based Countermeasures: A Path Forward

• Resilience involves enhancing societal immunity to disinformation. This includes media literacy education, public awareness campaigns, and investment in independent journalism.
• Transparency requires holding platforms accountable for the algorithmic amplification of false content and enforcing robust content labeling standards.
• Deterrence suggests imposing costs on perpetrators through sanctions, cyber countermeasures, and diplomatic censure.

3. However, as the Brill article argues, strategies must also respect democratic values and avoid sliding into counterpropaganda or censorship.

NOTE: Happy New Year and let's be alert together. In light of the ongoing wars, turmoil and new events, I thought this hand-out could be helpfull.

“Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint,” she wrote.

Her comments were echoed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, with Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera adding that “we need a rules-based world.”

France went a step further with its foreign minister condemning the American operation on social media. According to Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Maduro “gravely violated” the rights of Venezuelans, but the military operation that led to him being grabbed “contravenes the principle of non-use of force, which underpins international law.”

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the United States has provided a textbook example of how to deal with dictators in Venezuela and "knows what to do next".

Arch

Hours after the U.S. invaded Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump sent a warning to the governments of Mexico, Cuba and Colombia that their countries could be next.

Why it matters: The stunning attack on Caracas follows Trump's recent assertion of his own version of the Monroe Doctrine, and the president's comments that the U.S is not afraid to put "boots on the ground" in the country suggest that the administration won't hesitate to have an ongoing presence in the region.

It has been a “fucking nightmare”. But sometimes a nation needs a nightmare before it can fully awaken to long-simmering crises.

The US had to come to this point. We couldn’t go on as we were, even under Democratic presidents. For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.

I’m old enough to remember when the US had the largest and fastest-growing middle class in the world. We adhered to the basic bargain that if someone worked hard and played by the rules, they’d do better than their parents, and their children would do even better.

I remember when CEOs took home 20 times the pay of their workers, not 300 times. When members of Congress acted in the interests of their constituents rather than being bribed by campaign donations to do the bidding of big corporations and the super-wealthy. Trump has precipitated a long-overdue reckoning.

That reckoning has revealed the rot.

It has also revealed the suck-up cowardice of so many CEOs, billionaires, Wall Street bankers, media moguls, tech titans, Republican politicians and other so-called “leaders” who have stayed silent or actively sought to curry Trump’s favor.

Note: I think this trend holds true for many recent crises in other countries as well, directly or indirectly. We need to reveal the rot and all do our own reckoning.

Cross-posted

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday revealed details of the latest US-backed 20-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, saying it has been sent to Moscow for feedback. Zelensky gave a point-by-point briefing to journalists in Kyiv, including details on the creation of demilitarised zones.

The European Commission and Japan have successfully concluded negotiations on Japan's association to Horizon Europe, the EU's flagship €93.5 billion research and innovation funding programme. The agreement, expected to be signed in 2026, represents the closest form of collaboration offered by the EU to global partners in this field. It will enable Japanese researchers to lead and coordinate their own research and innovation projects under the programme, to apply and receive funding, and to seek closer collaboration with partners in the EU and other associated countries.

The EU has formal security and defence partnerships with Australia, Japan and South Korea, and in 2020 signed a broad “strategic partnership” with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional group, which includes co-operation on counterterrorism and maritime and cyber security.(..)

Kallas said the EU was “not the traditional security actor”, but Asian countries had been raising the possibility of working with it on issues such as maritime security, freedom of navigation and cyber security.(..)

“China is telling us that they want to be good partners and they are interested in our partnership,” she said. “If you want to have a partnership, then you also listen to the worries that the other side has.” Arch

Poster of Danish movie Festen ( The Confrontation), as a critical thought of what Xmas is or should be. During this movie years long lingering burried emotions and harsh truths are voiced and acted upon.