20 July 2019
euronews: EU debunks Boris Johnson's fishy claims about food regulation
"After decades of sending kippers like this through the post, he's had his costs massively increased by Brussels bureaucrats who have insisted that each kipper must be accompanied by this, a plastic ice pillow. Pointless, pointless, expensive, environmentally damaging. Health and safety, ladies and gentlemen," Johnson said. [...]
But EU officials debunked Johnson's claim on Thursday, with a spokeswoman telling reporters that although the bloc has "strict rules when it comes to fresh fish" they do not "apply to processed fishery products". [...]
"Foods that need refrigerating must be kept cool while they are being transported. This may need to be packed in an insulated box with coolant gel or in a cool bag," the guidelines continue. [...]
He also pointed out that the Isle of Man — a self-governing British dependency located in the Irish Sea — is not in the bloc.
Quartz: Taiwan is the new home for Hong Kongers seeking political safety
Multiple Hong Kong media outlets have reported that as many as 30 (link in Chinese, paywall) protesters connected to the storming of the city’s legislature during a protest on July 1 have fled to Taiwan. The incident occurred on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, amid a weeks-long series of protests against a much-maligned extradition bill. The reports say that some of the protesters are seeking ways to stay in Taiwan such as applying for school, while others are seeking asylum. [...]
The case of the Hong Kong protesters is a test of Taiwan’s commitment to human rights and progressive values at a time of ever-tightening restrictions on personal freedoms in China, and as many see Beijing’s heavy hand eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy. Tsai herself has been extremely outspoken on the recent protests in Hong Kong, which are also fueling solidarity in both Taiwan and Hong Kong against Beijing. [...]
Another Hong Kong woman, Lee Sin-yi, who was found guilty for her role in the 2016 “Fishball Revolution” riot, left the city for Taiwan in 2017 ahead of a court hearing. Having gone dark for almost two years, a recording purportedly featuring Lee surfaced in May where she warned that more Hong Kongers would be forced to go into exile in the future as Beijing tightens its grip on the city. Taiwanese media at the time said that Lee’s whereabouts were unknown after she had overstayed her visa.
Associated Press: Germany honors resisters who tried to assassinate Hitler
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will speak Saturday at an annual swearing-in ceremony for some 400 troops before addressing a memorial event, paid tribute ahead of the anniversary to executed plot leader Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators and highlighted their importance to modern Germany. [...]
The resistance against the Nazis only came to be “laboriously accepted” over subsequent decades, said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial Center, and even in the 1980s many believed its memory would fade away. Only in 2004 did a survey show that a majority of Germans believe the resistance to the Nazis is “important for our political culture,” he added. [...]
Tuchel said von Stauffenberg is a “symbolic figure” of the resistance, an officer who evolved from supporting Nazi policies to becoming a ferocious opponent of the regime after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He acknowledged that the resistance within the German military was, in overall terms, tiny: 200 to 300 people were involved in the July 20 plot. The German military had some 8 million men under arms at the time, and only “a handful or two” of its more than 1,000 generals and admirals participated.
19 July 2019
UnHerd: Does dirty money make the art world go round?
While drug use and abuse are not new, the remarkable thing about the Sackler scandal is the allegation that the Purdue Pharma knew about the widespread misuse of the drug. And even pursued it. The company was supposedly also engaged in comprehensive marketing schemes to ensure sufficient OxyContin proliferation to destroy their competition. They had determined that the base clientele of Oxy users were the perfect customers for naloxone, the drug that reverses the effect of opioid overdose. They realised they could increase their profits by selling treatments for the problem their company was creating. The implication is that the Sackler family was aware of and in favour of these profit making motives. [...]
They wanted the Guggenheim to refuse all future funding from the Sackler family foundations, and they wanted the name pulled off buildings and wings built with that money. It was not enough that visitors to galleries and museums funded by the Sacklers should know the corporate misdeeds of its patrons, but that the name and the money itself, should be scrubbed from institutional existence.[...]
Much of the American artistic, cultural, educational and medical infrastructure was funded by robber barons, tycoons of industry, and companies and families that had money to burn (hello, runaway capitalism). The Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and Astor families, to name a few, profited from unfair labour practices, not to mention slavery, the decimation of native tribes, exploitation of natural resources, all of which enabled an ultra-rich class that subsequently felt a noblesse oblige to provide at least some pittance to the lower classes.
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