Predictable outrage over Palestianian wxhibit at CMHR

A planned exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) entitled Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present is having the expected controversy and protest.

It's only a small exhibit, 12 metres wide, tucked into a corner on the first floor, just a few panels with some photos, video clips and first-person accounts, and it comes at the request of many Palestinian-Canadians who want to see some exposure of the violent displacement of some 800,000 Palestinians from their lands by the nascent state of Israel in 1947.

Many influential Jewish people, including "honorary board member" Gail Asper (who, with her father, Israel Asper, was instrumental in fundraising and getting the museum up and running), are taking issue with it, complaining that it lacks historical context and might inflame antisemitism. Jewish museum trustee Mark Berlin, who describes himself as pro-Palestinian, also resigned his position over the exhibit.

They argue that the exhibit lacks "context" in that it does not also cover the history surrounding the establishment of Israel, or the displacement of Jews from Arab lands after 1948. But, hold on, does any discussion of Nazi Germany have to include a countervailing segment on the Huns' invasion of Germany in the 4th century or Napoleon's invasion in the early 19th century, "for context"? How much context is enough context?

The so-called "Jewish nakba", in the years following the establishment of the state of Israel, is its own story, and probably merits a separate exhibit, although it bears noting that some of the resettlement of Jews was voluntary, and at least they had a homeland to resettle to, rather than languishing in refugee camps for decades like the Palestinians. 

The museum's CEO Isha Khan (not Jewish!) has defended the planned Palestinian exhibit, saying that it is not anti-Zionist, and that it does not challenge the legitimacy of the state of Israel. It is merely a piece to highlight a little-known aspect of Middle Eastern history and its human rights connotations. Moreover, the museum has for years had an exhibit on the second floor that specifically highlights the mass displacement of Jews from Arab lands, not to mention extensive galleries about the Holocaust.

An indication of just how knee-jerk a reaction this is: most of the people complaining about the display have not actually seen it yet! It only opened this weekend. The curators beg people to come and see it for themselves before they criticize.

What would the objectors have the museum do? Gloss over these historically-validated events? Grow the exhibit by two or three times in order to encompass the Israeli "context" (and thereby dilute the poignancy of the Palestinian story)? This is not a Jewish museum. Israel and the Jewish people have been the perpetrators of some pretty bad stuff over the years, as well as being the victims. Those stories need to be told too. This does not detract from Israel's - or rather the Jewish people's - vicissitudes and victimhood.

It was so predictable that there would be outrage expressed whenever Israel is criticized in any way. It was equally predictable that the "antisemitism card" would get played at some point. It's all part and parcel of the usual Israeli tendency to shut down any and all forms of criticism. I find it hard to understand that some people identify so closely with a race or a religion or a nationality that it subsumes almost everything else. But I do understand, from having observed it, that that's how it is with some people.

Hungary still out of step with Europe

You have to wonder about Hungary. By which I mean the Hungarian people. I know they just recently voted out Victor Orbán for a much more moderate president, so that's something. But, from what I can glean from international polls, they do still seem pretty out to lunch on political matters.

For example, a recent poll of different countries' views of Trump, Macron, Zelensky, Xi, Putin and Netanyahu, shows Hungary very much out on a limb where no-one else wants to be. While Canada and most European countries have very little confidence that Trump would do the right thing for world affairs and peace (in the range of 10-20%), 44% of Hungarians still have faith in Trump. Ditto with Putin: Canada and most of Europe's confidence in Putin ranges from 4% to 20%, apart from Hungary (33%) and, equally inexplicably, Greece (35%). They also have a much more positive view of Netanyahu than other countries.

As for their views on whether Donald Trump is a reliable partner to their country, Hungary and Greece are the only countries where their percentage has actually INCREASED over the last few years. Hungary's approval of Trump as a partner (65%) is much higher than any of the other countries polled.

Likewise, views on whether the USA contributes to peace and stability around the world have seen substantial decreases in most countries in recent years. Except Hungary, where the positive views have in RISEN from 33% to 46%! Hard to believe I know.

So, yes, the good burghers of Hungary have swapped out Orbán for Magyar. But they still seem to be totally out of step with the rest of Europe. And they clearly still have a soft spot for a good strong dictator.

The most, and least, liked countries in the world

Liking is a very subjective thing, especially when it comes to something as amorphous as a country. But the Democracy Perception Index does its best to quantify it, and Visual Capitalist does its usual excellent job of displaying its results.

It's edifying to see that Canada and Switzerland are jointly at the top of this list, closely followed by Japan, Sweden, Italy and Norway.

The lowest perceptions? You guessed it: Israel, followed by North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran and then ... Land of the Free, Leader of the Free World, the good old US of A. The US is the only major Western democracy with a negative net perception score. Go figure!

Anti-immigrant sentiment does not extend to soccer

If the World Cup has done nothing else, it has drawn attention to immigration, and, for once, no-one seems keen on criticizing and protesting.

Nearly a quarter of the 1,248 players at this year's World Cup a representing a country other than the one they were born in, up from just 9% at the 2006 competition. You just have to look at the number of black faces on teams from Canada, USA, England, Netherlands, even notoriously immigration-unfriendly Switzerland, to get a very visual reminder that these countries are highly reliant on immigrant talent (although bear in mind that many of the white faces are also immigrants).

Tunisia, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Qatar all have more than half of their squads born elsewhere. The Morocco team is 73% foreign-born, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's is 85%, and little Curaçao's squad is comprised of 97% immigrants. 

There are many compelling immigrant stories behind some of the competition's top players. Canada's star player Alphonso Davies was born in a refugee camp in Ghana to Liberian parents. Australia's Thomas Deng and Nestory Irankunda were both born in refugee camps, in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. Germany's Antonio Rudiger was born to immigrant parents fleeing Sierra Leone's civil war.

The US team in particular has received a lot of attention, given the Trump administration's outspoken views on immigration. Florian Balogun, who scored two of the US's four goals against Paraguay, was born to Nigerian parents temporarily living in New York, making him a 14th Amendment "birthright citizen", which Trump has actively tried to deny (although federal courts are currently blocking his executive order from taking effect). Tim Weah, Haji Wright, Ricardo Pepi, Sergiño Dest, even Christian Pulisic, are all immigrants or children of immigrants, and several others on the squad have immigration somewhere in their stories.

I just find it interesting how little push-back there is against this particular kind of immigration, even from countries like USA, Germany, Switzerland,.Sweden and England, where there is so often a strong and vocal anti-immigration sentiment.

Trump? Isolated? Say it ain't true!

Here's Mr. Trump at the G7 meeting. 

Everyone else seems vey animated and engaged. But does no-one want to speak to Trump? Say it ain't true!

This photo probably came soon after Trump, supposedly tongue-in-cheek, told the room, "I'm the boss". *sigh* 

What has America achieved in Iran?

It's taken four months, and not a "few days" as advertised, but Donald Trump finally has his Iran Deal (or, rather, a memorandum of understanding, not a full-blown peace agreement). Details are still scarce, but it should see the extension of the current shaky ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the lifting of the US and Iran blockades. Much can still go wrong between now and Friday, when the agreement is due to be officially signed, but assuming it does actually happen, where does that leave things?

Well, essentially it leaves things pretty much where they were before the war, but with America, Iran and most of the rest of the world worse off. It's being called Trump's worst foreign policy blunder so far - and there have been a few! - an ill-advised, botched affair that should never have happened.

It has soured America's relations with the Gulf states, and severely damaged those states' reputations (albeit through no fault of their own) as islands of stability in a turbulent Middle East. 

It has weakened the US militarily, as it has burned through much more of its expensive and hard-to-replace weapons stocks than expected. At the same time, it has provided an important free lesson to equally heavily-armed and belligerent China as it continues to consider military action against Taiwan. Russia too will have been watching closely.

The global economy has taken a huge and unnecessary economic hit, for which the USA will be eternally (and rightly) blamed, with some countries in Asia and Africa in particular bearing the brunt of the suffering as oil prices surged and the supply of oil, petrochemicals, fertilizer and other important resources were strangled for months on end. The war has set in motion economic changes that will be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.

In terms of actual cost to the USA, best estimates put this in the area of $40 billion so far (because this may not be over!), although that only accounts for direct costs like munitions, destroyed equipment, damage to bases, etc.  The total price, of course, may be much higher, depending on what you choose to include.

The future of Iran's nuclear program and the level of sanctions levied against it remain to be negotiated, essentially the same position as things were at on 27th February, just before the US-Israeli attacks (except, then at least, negotiations on these matters were already well advanced). Iran did not have nuclear weapons before the war and it does not now. Its pledge not to develop them has been in place since 2003, and was renewed under President Obama in 2015. While Trump used to make a big hooh-hah about Iran's "nuclear dust" (what does he mean by that? nobody says "nuclear dust"!), he now claims that "it's not very valuable stuff", and he's not really bothered about it, except for perhaps "psychologically". What?

Trump is trying to sell the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a win. But the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war that Trump started. How is a return to the status quo a win for anyone? There is also a distinct possibility that the Strait may reopen with new "maritime service fees" - i.e. a toll - that was not there before. Transit tolls are prohibited under international law, but Iran says it reserves the right to charge fees in exchange for navigational services and environmental protection(!) as part of its deal with Trump. Still calling it a win?

Through the Memorandum of Understanding, Washington has promised to unfreeze billions in Iranian assets, remove sanctions, allow Iran to trade its oil on more favourable terms, and commit $300 billion to reconstructing what it has destroyed in Iran. Does that sound like the actions of a victor?

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other members of his administration and military are now dead, but they have been succeeded by younger and equally radical replacements. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) still wields total control over the beleaguered Iranian people. The repressive theocratic regime remains intact, arguably even more entrenched, embittered and emboldened, and the Iranian people are no better off than they were. Remember Trump's exhortations to the people of Iran to rise up and that "help is on the way"? Poof! Just in case you were in any doubt, Trump confirmed in a recent interview, "I never cared about regime change", and the Iranians now in charge are "nice to deal with"!

America's relationship with Israel - or at least with Prime Minster Netanyahu - has also suffered, once it became clear that Israel's goals were quite different from those of the USA. (Surprise!) Israel looks on the US-Iran agreement with dismay, as they are still looking to make further incursions into Lebanon, and would like to see Iran totally destroyed, which, despite Trump's bluster, it evidently is not. Some top Americans have been criticizing Israel's reaction in ways that would have been inconceivable at the start of this war. Vice-President Vance described Trump as "the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time", and even that may be a stretch. He warns that Israel "needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in".

The whole sorry affair, then, is petering out, more with a whimper than a bang. Any agreement that does come out of it is unlikely to be much different from what Barack Obama achieved all those years ago. And that will really rankle with Trump. Thousands of Iranians and other Middle Easterners have lost their lives, reputations across the board have been damaged, the world is poorer and more unstable, the global economy is screwed up, and tempers are further frayed.

Remember Trump's demands for Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"? Well, in some respects, Iran may come out of this in better shape than before, even if the rest of the world doesn't. Good job, Donny!

Hobson's Choice for the Armenian people

With all this talk about "great powers" and "middle powers", spare a thought for some of the "small powers".

Take little Armenia, for example: population about 3 million, area about half the size of Nova Scotia or a bit bigger than Wales, GDP in the same range as Burkina Faso and Mongolia? Armenia is about to hold a general election on June 7th, and the run-up to it has brought home just what a balancing act a small land-locked country like that has to maintain.

Armenia has been a life-line for Iran, on its southern flank, providing thousands of truckloads of agricultural produce, cargo and fuel. But it must be painfully aware that Iran can turn on its allies in a heartbeat.

It maintains a fragile peace with next-door neighbour, historic rival and perennial bugbear Azerbaijan, particularly in the aftermath of yet another skirmish over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which many thousands of ethnic Armenians were expelled, and some Armenian POWs remain in custody.

Its relationship with Turkey (sorry, Türkiye) on its western border is in constant state of fracture, especially under the iron rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Notwithstanding the ongoing debate over the 1915 Armenian Genocide by the Turkish Ottoman Empire - well, only debated in Turkey and Azerbaijan, really; accepted fact everywhere else - there are many other points of contention with Turkey, some going back centuries. For example, Mount Ararat, with all its historical and cultural significance, sits firmly within the legal borders of Turkey, but Armenians still see it as the mythical birthplace of the Armenian people, and the recent removal of its image from Armenia's passport entry/exit stamps was highly controversial.

And, overshadowing everything, is the looming presence of Russia, Armenia's one-time overlord back in the Soviet Union days. There is still a Russian air base near the Armenian capital Yerevan, and Russian FSB officer can still seen patrolling Armenia's southern border. Vladimir Putin still considers Armenia to be within Russia's sphere of influence despite its many years of independence, and he has warned Armenia in no uncertain terms against pursuing closer links with the European Union. Russia has exerted pressure in many ways, some subtle, some not so much, from a ban on seafood, mineral water, fresh fruit and vegetables and flowers(!), to the withdrawal of its ambassador, to veiled threats over the functioning of Armenia's (poorly) Russian-run railway system. Putin also warned Armenia in a not-so-veiled reference that "the crisis in Ukraine began with efforts to move toward EU accession".

Into this volatile mix, then, come the candidates standing for the position of President: former president Robert Kocharyan, staunchly pro-Russia and running on a nationalist platform but also aiming to distance Armenia from the pro-Europe stance of the current President Nicol Pashinyan; the almost equally pro-Russia billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, Moscow's preferred candidate, technically still under house arrest for plotting to overthrow the government, who is promising a "strategic re-alignment" with Russia; and the sole pro-European candidate, the unpopular incumbent Pashinyan (unpopular mainly because of making concessions in favour of peace with Azerbaijan).

If the two pro-Russian candidates were to work together they would handily beat Pashinyan. But, as things stand, Pashinyan may just squeak out a victory, Russian pressure notwithstanding. But a lot of Armenians are going to be a bit frustrated with the choice of potential presidents they are being presented with. Hobson's choice? (Look it up!)

UPDATE

In the end, it wasn't even close. 

Paashinyan's Civil Contract Party won the election with 49.8% of the popular vote. Karapetyan's Strong Armenia Alliance polled just 23.2%, while Kocharyan's Armenia Alliance came in a distant third with 9.9%.

Putin is understandably pissed. There are reports that the Kremlin has instructed the Russian press to downplay the pro-Europe vote. 

America hijacks D-Day memorial to score what they see as political points

The arrogance! The disdain! The pompousness! The insensitivity! Yes, I could be talking about almost any member of the Trump administration on almost any day, but this time it's the turn of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth was giving a speech in Normandy, 82 years after the joint D-Day operation to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944. Under the codenames Operation Overlord and Operation Neptune, D-Day remains the largest amphibious invasion in military history, and marked a crucial turning point in World War II.

I guess the Europeans felt they had to invite an American to speak, as the USA did provide the largest contingent of troops in the operation and was directly responsible for two of the five beach landings. But they must have had some misgivings at handing Hegseth the mike. And they would have been so right.

Hegseth thought it was appropriate to turn a solemn memorial event into a tub-thumping political diatribe and a pointed critique of European immigration policy from a (totally inapposite) American perspective.

"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?"

"The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe. That freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war-fighters, or what they fought for was merely temporary."

I don't know whether Hegseth thought up the (spurious) link between these "invasions" himself, or had a speech-writer do it. But I'm sure he felt himself very clever for it. 

And clearly it never even occurred to him that the callous politicization of a such a sombre and reflective event might not be, well, appropriate. European speakers could have drawn parallels between the "dangerous ideologies" of the Nazis and what is happening in the USA today, but they realized that that would have been inappropriate. Or they could have pointed out modern America's penchant for invading other countries, but that would have been cheap political point-scoring, wouldn't it?

Hegseth - and the whole Trump administration for that matter - has no such qualms, no such subtlety or delicacy. They feel emboldened to say whatever they want in whatever arena at whatever time. They are boors and churls (and much worse).

How Spain became so successful: immigrants

Remember back in the late 2000s/2010s, Spain, along with southern European neighbours Portugal, Italy and Greece were disparagingly referred to as "PIGS", and mercilessly berated as failed states by more successful European countries like Germany and France?

Well, not any longer. Since the 2020 pandemic, Spain's economy has boomed while the likes of Germany, France and the UK have struggled. Disposable income in Spain has risen three times as fast as in France and eight times as fast as in Germany. Unemployment, poverty and inequality have all fallen to their lowest levels in nearly 20 years. The Economist ranked Spain as the No. 1 economy in the world in 2024.

All this has happened under the progressive centre-left government of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, which has now been in power for eight years. It has welcomed record numbers of immigrants, hiked the minimum wage, implemented energy price controls, fast-tracked renewable energy projects, and even implemented a kind of guaranteed income system. Just about the only negative arising from all this is a burgeoning housing crisis, which the government will need to address if it wants to retain voter popularity.

When the initial COVID lockdowns started to fade in 2021, and tourists started to flock back to Spain (the country has always been in the top three of global tourist destinations), Spain, with one of the fastest-ageing populations in all of Europe, just didn't have enough workers to keep up. Increased immigration was the obvious solution, but that also had political ramifications, and the country's surging hard-right faction was ever active on that file, as always.

Spain's solution was elegant. It visibly cracked down on the most controversial form of immigration: African migrants entering the country illegally by boats across the Mediterranean. This was actually just a tiny proportion of its overall immigration, but it was the one most often targeted by the populist right wing and by the Spanish public in general. At the same time, they substantially ramped up the least controversial form of immigration: legal Latin American migrants. Given that they share a language and certain cultural affinities, Latinos have always been reasonably well-tolerated in Spain, especially if they do the least-popular and poorly-paid manual jobs.

They fast-tracked work authorizations for immigrants willing to work in those sectors with labour shortages, streamlined the foreign worker visa process, and encouraged workers to settle in areas where the local workforce had dried up. Government representatives would even recruit individuals from the migrant refugee camps on the US-Mexico border. 

It was a very successful strategy even if it wasn't particularly progressive in some respects (this is not quite on a par with Donald Trump declaring that only white South African Afrikaners are welcome to immigrate into the USA, but it does sniff of discrimination). In just two years from 2021-3, Spain added 3 million workers to its 48 million population. They injected new life into Spanish economy, allowed businesses to expand, and some of the more ambitious immigrants even went on to open up new businesses themselves. By some estimates, a quarter of the rise in Spain's GDP over the last few years can be attributed directly to immigrants.

Israel denies allegations of sexual violence in conflict zones

The UN has accused both Israel and Russia of engaging in "patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence" in conflict zones, and added them to a blacklist of countries suspected of such proscribed tactics.

Israel, predictably enough, back-accused the UN, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in particular, of downright lies and slander, and severed all ties with Guterres (although what "ties" they really have is hard to know). Israel's UN ambassador pulled no punches in his public response: "Given that Antonio Guterres has chosen to violate every standard of honesty, integrity and professionalism, Israel has decided to sever all ties with the Secretary-General's Office and will wait until a new UN Secretary-General is appointed". Well!

Of course, no such thing has happened. Mr. Guterres was merely articulating the results of a detailed report by the United Nations in which multiple specific instances of conflict-related sexual violence on Israel's part are well documented, covering the years 2023, 2024 and 2025. It had put Russia and Israel "on notice" last year that they were likely to be added to the blacklist; this was not, then, unexpected. (Hamas, by the way, was already on the list.)

So, the UN was just doing its job, as was Mr Guterres. The violation of honesty, integrity and professionalism seems to be all on the side of Israel.

Russia, for its part, does not seem to have commented on the allegations, and presumably just doesn't care.

China's immovable smoking addiction

By all accounts, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave up an atrocious smoking habit some fifteen years ago. His country, though, is making zero - or rather negative - progress on his attempts to reduce China's awful addiction to smoking.

Over the last twenty years, smoking in the rest of the world has fallen by a respectable 26%; in China, over that period, it increased by 39%. China now accounts for nearly half of the global total of cigarettes smoked, some 2.4 trillion every year. While the percentage of smokers in China has fallen a bit, as fewer young people take up the habit, overall cigarette sales have continued an inexorable rise.

Part of the problem is that cigarettes are ridiculously cheap in China - at around $3 a pack on average, they are about a third of the price of smokes in the USA and Canada. China ratified WHO's tobacco control treaty in 2005, but has never really implemented its strictest provisions. Unlike the graphic health warnings on North American and European cigarettes, Chinese cigarettes have a simple, unobtrusive text warning, all but lost among the patriotic symbols that adorn the cigarette packs produced by the China National Tobacco Corp (CNTC), a vast state-owned monopoly and the world's largest producer of cigarettes. 

Indeed, the CNTC is the main problem. Generating annual profits of $244 billion last year, the CNTC alone contributes an eye-popping 7% of China's tax income each year, about the same as what it spends on defence. (Roughly half of the sales revenue of each cigarette flows into government coffers.) The company has also been called on to help out with specific strategic priorities, like financially shoring up one of China's biggest banks, funding national semi-conductor investment, etc. In short, it has made itself economically indispensable, and accumulated a lot of political influence in the process. 

It's also alarmingly corrupt: seven former top administrators of the CNTC have been arrested on corruption charges in the last seven years. It has successfully blocked a concerted national push for an indoor smoking ban, and even official studies have concluded that the state monopoly has actively interfered in national and local attempts to rein in smoking. It's influence is, obviously, even more marked in tobacco-growing regions like Kunming and Changde, where tobacco taxes can account for more than half of the city's budget. 

There are local "tobacco bureaus" that actively work to water down even modest anti-smoking initiatives. In one city, the local health commission proposed a system of smoke-free public areas, but the local tobacco bureau managed to ensure it did not apply to restaurants and bars, and even tried to limit the smoke-free designation in schools to elementary and middle schools only.

We think of President Xi as ruling China with a rod of iron, but even his attempts to reduce the country's smoking addiction have met with the immovable object of the powerful smoking lobby.

The other disease outbreak that no-one is talking about

With all the attention on hantavirus and ebola outbreaks, the devastating measles outbreak in Bangladesh has gone all but unnoticed. What measles outbreak, you ask? Well, precisely.

In just two short months, since mid-March, Bangladesh has seen 60,000 suspected measles cases and 528 suspected measles-related deaths, the vast majority of them children under 5 years old. Yikes!

The irony is that, under disgraced ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Bangladesh was making good progress on completely eliminating measles in the country, with a robust community-led vaccination campaign. After the July Uprising of 2024, though, the interim government dropped the ball, the vaccination supply was disrupted, and immunization campaigns postponed. The whole thing was made worse by hospital staffing shortages caused by, among other things, foreign aid cuts, principally by the Trump administration in the USA.

And here we see the consequences. UNICEF and the WHO have watched it happening and issued stern warnings, but nothing has changed. This is now the largest measles outbreak in Bangladesh in decades and hospitals are already overwhelmed, with no end in sight.

Has America lost another war?

The United States is not used to losing. Whether we're talking sports, military conflicts, cultural exports, economic power, you name it, the US has been without doubt the most successful country in the world over the last couple of centuries.

That said, it has over-reached itself a few times, especially militarily. The War of 1812 with Canada, Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, Afghanistan in the 2000s and 2010s, arguably even Iraq in the 2000s - these were all either American losses or at least stalemates that did not achieve their objectives.

Is Iran 2026 another such failure?

There are arguments to say so. While Donald Trump has claimed overwhelming victory almost since Day 1 and at least a dozen times since, no-one really believes that guy. Although Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iran's military capabilities have been "obliterated" (his favourite word after "tariffs"), other sources suggest that Iran has retained or restored operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, and that it retains about 70% of its mobile launchers and it's pre-war missile stockpiles. 

Trump seems to be dialling back his earlier insistence that he needs Iran's nuclear stockpiles, or that at the very least they should be destroyed. And while the US "took out" Ayatollah Ali Khomeini early on in the action, Iran has seamlessly replaced him with his son, and the regime has continued essentially unchanged. The Strait of Hormuz is still far from "open". Iran remains a key player in the Middle East.

Of course, part of the problem here is establishing what would constitute an American victory, as Trump and his whole administration seem a bit confused about what the actual goals of the engagement are or were. Success and failure are therefore pretty hard to pin down. Also, as has been argued by better men than me, military leaders rarely actually admit defeat: their whole credibility rests on success.

Either way, whether you believe the USA has won the Iran war or not, Iran certainly believes - and with some justification - that it has not lost it. Iran has, at the very least, made America look like what the Chinese like to call a "paper tiger". People are muttering, online and in the street, that the US will not soon recover from this set-back.

US position on Taiwan remains unchanged, but Trump can turn on a dime

For the most part, Donald Trump's visit to China was a bit of a nothingburger, despite his usual bombastic and delusional reporting. No big deals, and very few small deals.

Of course, the subject of Taiwan had to come up at some point in the visit, and, of course, President Xi urged Trump not to support Taiwan, which China claims as part of its own territory. Trump, for his part, blathered something about "not looking for somebody to go independent", which might or might not be a veiled and confusing warning to Taiwan not to declare its independence, which is has already done for decades. He did say that "if you kept it the way it is, I think China's going to be OK with that", which is also absolutely not true.

Trump added that "nothing's changed" with respect to the USA's policy on Taiwan, which amounts to not formally supporting Taiwanese independence, while stopping short of explicitly opposing independence, a kind of sensible on-the-fence position, given the circumstances. The average Taiwanese citizen just wants to maintain the current status quo, i.e. neither formally declaring independence, but not unifying with China either, what you might call de facto independence.

Of course, the first thing Taiwan did after Trump's visit was to publicly re-declare their independence: Taiwan "is a sovereign and independent democratic nation and is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China", read an unequivocal foreign ministry statement. Taiwan's Presidential Office reminded the world of "the multiple reaffirmations from the US side, including from President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that the consistent US policy toward Taiwan remain unchanged".

This, of course, puts the US in an awkward position, especially as President Xi was at pains to remind Trump that any misstep on the issue could cause "conflict". 

But Taiwan too needs to tread carefully. The United States is legally required to provide weapons to Taiwan for its defence (stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act), and an $11.1 billion arms package was announced by Washington just this last December. But a second phase of arms sales, worth around $15 billion, has not yet been approved by the US, and Taiwan must know that Trump would be more than willing to use that as a bargaining chip in his relations with China (in fact, he admitted as much, in so many words). Taiwan might think that that deal is done, dusted and non-negotiable, but Trump almost certainly does not.

Israel uproots thousands of Palestinian olive trees

The state of Israel has never had a good image. From its very beginnings, it has been militaristic, combative and uncompromising. Since its scorched-earth policy in Gaza over the last couple of years (and, yes, let's say it, it's genocidal intentions), it has lost most of the little goodwill it may have had. You can be sympathetic to Jewish people for the way they were treated by the Nazis, but still hate the policies and the philosophy of the Israeli state, particularly its apartheid treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive moves to settle Israelis on Palestinian land.

More recently, since the press spotlight has been caught up in the Iran debacle, Israel has pressed what it sees as its advantage and made further illegal incursions into the West Bank. Attacks and intrusions by Israeli settlers have become increasingly violent, and whole Palestinian villages have been razed to the ground to make way for Israeli settlements (illegal under UN law).

Now, they have upped the ante, and hit new highs (lows) of callousness, as Israeli contractors uprooted and destroyed thousands of olive trees in the West Bank. The olive trees of Palestinians are their lifeline economically, but also a symbol of their national pride. Israel, of course, knows that, and pursued this action deliberately to further its aims of complete obliteration of Palestine.

It's known that the orders came directly from Bezalel Smodrich, one of the most hawkish members of the Israeli cabinet. He has made his intentions quite clear: to "build the land of Israel and destroy of the idea of a Palestinian state". You can watch video of the devastation if you have a strong constitution.

Still on the fence about whether Israel is guilty of genocide?

Why does Russia care about Alberta separatism

While I am on the subject of disinformation and foreign political interference, the Alberta separatism movement, such as it is, is a prime target for foreign propaganda and interference. There's already plenty of home-grown disinformation and misinformation out there; a bit more from outside the country probably wouldn't get noticed. But it seems there's more of it going on than we realize.

While monitoring Russian disinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine and support for Ukraine in Canada, researchers were surprised to see that a lot of the mendacity emanating from Russian propaganda outlets like the Pravda Network, CopyCop, Storm 1516 and the Internet Research Agency was specifically targeting Alberta separatism. Not only are there large numbers of social media posts - hundreds of thousands - but complete websites (like AlbertaSeparatist.com) that purport to be grass-roots campaigns by aggrieved Albertans, but are actually being generated by Russian propaganda farms. AI-generated "slopaganda" is also being used to pollute the information environment, intensify grievances, and confuse legitimate debate with foreign manipulation.

I mean, you know this stuff happens. But, when you stop and think about it, what are they really trying to achieve? What is it to Russia whether Alberta separates or not? How does it merit such a concerted effort to them? Don't they have bigger fish to fry?

I can understand that the Trump administration and the MAGA mob might have a vested interest in Alberta separation (and they are indeed attempting to influence the vote, albeit mainly thought more mainstream, and less illegal, conduits). But Russia?

DisinfoWatch says that Russian interference in the Alberta separatism debate "appears doctrinal, operational and sustained", all part of the Russian government's long history of exploiting divisive issues in Western democracies in general. Division for the sake of division, as far as I can tell. There is much more detail on DisinfoWatch's website. The Global Centre for Democratic Resilience and the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict at the University of Regina both concur.

I guess I understand, in general terms at least, that anything that weakens the West strengthens the East. It just surprises me that the hawks in the Kremlin see this as an issue deserving of not-insignificant funds. And it's such a bore that we have to spend time and money guarding against these digital incursions.

All of this, and the revelations that a separatist group gave unauthorized access to the province's list electors to hundreds of people (potentially including foreign actors), has cast a pall over the whole enterprise and put the legitimacy of its outcome in doubt.

UPDATE

Given all of the above, it seems particularly ironic that Alberta's Minster for Public Safety and Emergency Services should choose his week to announce that an RCMP report has somehow managed to find that there is no evidence that Alberta's separatist movement has been subject to foreign interference.

Wind power under attack

And I don't mean from Donald Trump!

Sweden, always the overachiever, has managed to get to the point where it produces 99% of its electricity from "clean" sources (40% from hydro, 23% from wind, 2% from solar, and - OK - 27% from nuclear). Just 1.2% comes from fossil fuels. A pretty impressive achievement, even for an overachiever, and Swedes can justifiably congratulate themselves.

If you read Swedish social media, though, you'd get a very different impression. You'd think that Sweden's reliance on wind power in particular is excessive and somehow dangerous. You'd think that most of the country was up in arms against all this wrong-headed reliance on cheap, non-polluting wind energy. 

There are four main narratives: the wind industry is run by greedy developers putting naked profit before environmental and social good; wind power is being imposed by distant political or economic elites on unwilling local populations; wind turbines are harmful to nature and wildlife; and wind power is inherently destabilizing, technologically unviable, and economically unfeasible.

Of course, almost all of the online posts are disinformation (deliberately deceiving), those that aren't just misinformation (merely incorrect or out-of-context), and all of these contentions have been repeatedly disproved by reputable studies over many years. 

What's more, these attacks on the wind industry appear to be coordinated. Most of the attack posts seem to have been written in Sweden, but a good percentage of them are from France, Norway, Finland, UK and Germany. Analysis shows that those from the UK generate the most engagement, followed by Germany, Norway and France. Engagement from Swedish posts seems to be much lower. There doesn't seem to be a comparable backlash against solar, hydro, or even nuclear energy.

It's not clear where these social media posts are coming from, and how - or even if - they are being coordinated. It seems that they may be emanating from political groups hanging onto Trump's coattails. They seems to be attempts, presumably by the far right, to attack the business model of European companies and to weaponize anti-EU sentiment, or just to discredit the status quo. Just as in America, unscrupulous populist politicians can use such sentiments for electoral gain, regardless of whether they are based on truth or reality.

It seems there's no such thing as paradise, whether socially, environmentally or politically. Someone always wants to crap on it.

UAE leaves OPEC - should we care?

As of tomorrow, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will officially leave the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel that has historically exerted a strong influence over global oil prices through its ability to impose production quotas over its members. This is probably not going to change your life overnight. In fact, you're probably not even going to see any change in gas prices, at least in the near term, and certainly not while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. But in terms of geopolitics and the global economy, it could be significant in the longer term. It has been called "the beginning of the end of OPEC".

UAE is OPEC third or fourth biggest crude oil producer after Saudi Arabia, Iraq and maybe Iran, and has been a member of OPEC (and the expanded OPEC+ group) since 1967, soon after the group's inception in 1960. 

Crucially, though, the UAE's "spare" oil capacity is second only to Saudi Arabia's, making it an important "swing producer". It has a sustainable production capacity of 4.85 million barrels a day, but due to its OPEC quota it only actually produces 3.4 million barrels a day. OPEC (effectively Saudi Arabia) is therefore causing it to lose a lot of potential revenue which, given that oil accounts for about a third of its GDP, has always rankled. 

The UAE must also be painfully conscious that, as hydrocarbons are substituted by other energy sources, oil will not always be such a sure source of income. It makes sense, then, for the UAE to maximize its income from its oil reserves now, before demand craters.

UAE's exit widens its rift with Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, and deals a considerable blow to the influential oil producers' group and its ability to dictate oil prices. Freed from the constraints of OPEC, the UAE will almost certainly increase its crude oil output, which could have a significant effect on global prices.

The move is also seen as a win for Donald Trump, who has long railed against OPEC and its price-fixing. Trump needs gas and diesel prices to fall before the mid-term elections, and increasesd oil production by UAE could help with that.

UAE has long been a valued ally of the US, and even of Israel in recent years. UAE's decision to move now, with a US-Israeli war against Iran going on, can be no coincidence. (It has publicly complained that Saudi Arabia has offered it no support during Iran's bombardment, while Israel cleverly extended its protective Iron Dome to the Emirates.)

OPEC has gradually been losing influence for some years now. Back in the 1970s, it controlled over 50% of the world's oil; today, with the huge production increases in the USA, Canada, Russia and China, among others, that figure is closer to 30%. Several members have already defected: Indonesia left in 2016, Qatar left in 2019, Ecuador in 2020, and Angola in 2024. UAE's exit is a much bigger deal than any these. 11 members remain. And next? Almost certainly Venezuela.

How bad is the Iranian economy?

Here's an eye-opening article about the parlous state of Iran's economy after two months of battering by American and Israeli forces. Spoiler: it's substantially worse than I thought.

At least a million jobs have been lost directly due to the war, and 10-12 million - almost half of Iran's labour force - are at risk from the ripple effects.

Although Israel claims to have landed precision strikes on Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard facilities early in the war, in fact their air strikes destroyed or damaged some 20,000 civilian factories, hobbling about 20% of the country's manufacturing capacity, particularly in the essential pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, aluminum, cement and steelmaking sectors. This has crippled Iran's main non-oil exports, and raised domestic prices for everything from plastics and pipes to fabrics, packaging and construction materials. There was little or no military targeting involved in this; this was an opportunistic Israel gleefully moving to incapacitate its arch-enemy's economy under cover of US bluster, while it thought it could get away with it.

Iran's internet has been largely shut down since the start of the war (or even before, during the domestic protests that preceded it), gutting all the small- and medium-sized businesses that rely on online sales. 

Before the war, Iran made about $98 billion in exports, just under half of it from oil. A good proportion of that is now gone, mainly due to the US blockade on exports, with no end in sight (although actually about half of Iran's non-oil trade goes overland and through Caspian Sea ports, and not through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz).

Pre-war, Iran relied substantially on the United Arab Emirates for up to a third of its imports. Since the US strikes, it has had to retaliate however it can, including strikes on UAE, leading that country to cut off all trade with Iran. No more imports.

The city of Kashan, where most of Iran's lucrative carpet production was centred, has all but closed down. Exports have plummeted and domestic sales petered out. Prices for synthetic fibres have surged by 30-50%, largely due to ongoing hits on Iran's petrochemical facilities.

Most new construction has ground to a halt, with priority going to the reconstruction of essential infrastructure. The price of iron sheeting has more than doubled. Savings of individuals and companies alike are starting to run out, those that had any.

Even with all that litany of grimness, Iranian officials are however still trying to reassure the public that the country can withstand all the economic pain. Certainly, if any country could, it is Iran. After decades of sanctions, the country has built up a lot of resilience, and is well-prepared for "worst case scenarios". It maintains large reserves of vital supplies, and even resources like electrical machinery, cement, iron and steel, for just such an emergency. The US has clearly been shocked by how resilient Iran has proved, although a bit more inquiry and less hubris could easily have alerted them to that.

Such reserves and resilience are not, of course, unlimited. While it is thought that Iran could still bounce back once the war ends, that would largely depend on whether international sanctions were lifted, and that in turn depends on a whole load of other things, things that are currently unknown. Whether Iran can outlast the United States - which has its own constraints and determining factors - is an open question.

Should (could?) Canada join the European Union?

I confess I hadn't really noticed it, but apparently  there is talk in some circles about what a good idea it would be for Canada to join the European Union (EU).

Wait, what? That's nuts! Well, yes, it is. 

Now, to be clear, this is not a full-blown movement. It's a few off-the-cuff comments by minor (or sometimes not-so-minor) members of the Finnish, German and French governments.(and now Swedish). The only not-so-minor Canadian who seems sold on the idea is Thomas Lucaszuk, a former Alberta cabinet minister, and he's pretty minor. But a recent Nanos poll suggests that nearly 58% of Canadians would be open to the idea.

Access to the world's second-largest economic bloc might be nice. But the implications of such a union would be stark. I know we are in the throes of a bad break-up with the USA, but to then look to throw in our lot with another behemoth would be the worst kind of rebound relationship. 

This is not just Canada joining the Eurovision Song Contest (also a bad idea) Becoming part of the EU, would mean de facto rule from Brussels - a common trade and tariffs policy (including the renegotiation of all current trade treaties), a common foreign policy, a common agricultural policy, a common fiscal policy, possibly a common currency. We would be subject to European laws and regulations, from the environment to finance to labour laws. It would amount to an almost complete loss of sovereignty, at a time when we're just realizing how valuable that is.

Luckily, it's not going to happen. Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union reserves membership to "any European state", which, last time I looked, we are most definitely not. And, anyway, we already have access to European trade through the Canada-European Union Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) - not perfect access by any means, but still pretty good. The experience of negotiating even that agreement was fraught enough - there is no way that all 27 member states would vote to allow Canada into their club.

I'm not sure that the suggestion was all that serious, just the kind of thing politicians throw around to make a point. But we should probably be grateful for that. Make nice with Europe by all means - it is a pretty civilized and sensible organization in an increasingly dysfunctional world - but don't even consider throwing caution to the wind and joining as a full member. Even the Eurovision Song Contest is controversial enough.