Social Europe: Poles apart—the presidential election in Poland

Anxiety about this election proved a great mobiliser: turnout reached 68 per cent, unseen in Poland since the mid-1990s. The result revealed the extent of the polarisation of Polish society, most manifest in the distribution of support for the two candidates who met in the second round. Both received more than 10 million votes and the outcome was determined by a mere 420,000 ballots.

The most important factors distinguishing these two groups of voters were age, education and place of residence. In a nutshell, younger and better-educated voters, living in the metropoles and other cities, chose Trzaskowski. Older citizens from rural areas, pensioners and farmers, as also the unemployed, chose Duda. [...]

Poles abroad also played a significant role in this election. Not only did their voter turnout vary around 80 per cent but Trzaskowski won a vast majority of their votes (74 per cent). There was however a big difference in voter preferences between the Polish communities in the EU and in north America and post-Soviet countries, where Duda was an unquestionable leader, most probably thanks to a new course in the foreign policy of the national-conservative government.

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TLDR News: Anti Trump Republicans & The Lincoln Project: Why Some Don't Want Trump

In recent weeks, a group of anti-Trump Republicans seems to be increasing its campaign against the president. Groups like the Lincoln project and GOP leaders (including Romney and Bush Jr) have come out against Trump, saying they won't vote for him in 2020. So in this video, we explain this movement, the issue they have with their leader and what it means for Trump's 2020 campaign.

The New York Times: When China Met Iran

Leaked news this month that China and Iran had come to the verge of signing a 25-year trade and military partnership agreement struck like a geopolitical storm in Washington — a rising rival of America and a longtime foe joining forces to threaten the United States’s predominant position in the Middle East. [...]

Yet in Iran and China themselves, the reaction was hardly ebullient. Critics of Iran’s beleaguered president, Hassan Rouhani, called the deal a new Treaty of Turkmenchay, after the notorious 1828 accord under which a weakened Persia ceded much of the South Caucasus to the Russian Empire. In Beijing, a government spokesman who was asked about the deal dodged rather than criticize Washington, insisting blandly that Iran is merely one of many countries with which China is “developing normal friendly relations,” and claiming not to have further information about the reported deal. [...]

In recent years, as the United States has been bogged down in unrewarding conflicts in the Middle East, China has been quietly expanding its economic, diplomatic and even military activities in the region. Beijing’s motives are straightforward but varied: It seeks to advance its interests, such as a pressing need for energy imports and for destinations for surplus capital and labor. In practice, it tries to advance President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, which is aimed at reshaping regional economic topographies in China’s favor and counters what Beijing sees as an American effort to contain it. In short, China seeks to establish itself in the eyes of the world — and its own people — as a great power capable of contending with the United States.

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EU south hails step towards federalism, north sees handout

Almost half of this, 32 billion euros ($36bn), comes from NextGenerationEU, with some 19 billion euros ($21bn) in the form of grants and more than 12 billion euros ($13bn) in the form of loans. Over a five-year period, the grants alone amount to a boost of about 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per year. [...]

The pandemic is set to claim 8.3 percent of the EU economy, but other countries in the European south stand to lose even more than Greece. Spain, Italy and France are expected to see recessions to the tune of 11 percent. [...]

NextGenerationEU marks the first time all 27 EU members are selling debt together, and it is the first time the Commission is to be given powers to levy taxes and raise resources of its own to service that debt. [...]

"Conte is probably the last thing separating Italy from sliding to a new wave of anti-Europeanism that could be fatal, not just for Italy's participation in the euro, but for the entire European integration project and the single market," he said.

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The Guardian: The end of tourism?

What goes for cruises goes for most of the travel industry. For decades, a small number of environmentally minded reformists in the sector have tried to develop sustainable tourism that creates enduring employment while minimising the damage it does. But most hotel groups, tour operators and national tourism authorities – whatever their stated commitment to sustainable tourism – continue to prioritise the economies of scale that inevitably lead to more tourists paying less money and heaping more pressure on those same assets. Before the pandemic, industry experts were forecasting that international arrivals would rise by between 3% and 4% in 2020. Chinese travellers, the largest and fastest-growing cohort in world tourism, were expected to make 160m trips abroad, a 27% increase on the 2015 figure. [...]

Coronavirus has also revealed the danger of overreliance on tourism, demonstrating in brutal fashion what happens when the industry supporting an entire community, at the expense of any other more sustainable activity, collapses. On 7 May, the UN World Tourism Organisation estimated that earnings from international tourism might be down 80% this year against last year’s figure of $1.7tn, and that 120m jobs could be lost. Since tourism relies on the same human mobility that spreads disease, and will be subject to the most stringent and lasting restrictions, it is likely to suffer more than almost any other economic activity. [...]

According to the unapologetic elitism that informs the thinking of Van der Borg and other industry strategists, “high-impact, low-value” excursionists should be made less welcome than the affluent independent travellers who stay in a hotel, eat at neighbourhood restaurants and perhaps round off a day in the city’s lesser-known churches with a bellini at Harry’s Bar – like Truman Capote before them. At every step, runs this line of reasoning, “quality” tourists contribute to the city’s wellbeing through taxes, tips and human interaction. [...]

There is, of course, a financial cost to limiting tourism. As Fermín Villar, the president of the Friends of La Rambla, which represents the street’s residential and commercial interests, told the Guardian two years ago, “La Rambla is above all a business … every year more than 100 million people walk along this street. Imagine,” he enthused, “if each person spends only €1.” But mass tourism displaces other businesses, while the exodus of many creative and productive residents, as well as the stress placed on local infrastructure by visitors in such numbers, carry a cost of their own. Da Mosto told me that, in purely economic terms, Venice is a net loser from an industry that has set up shop on its premises and remits much of its revenues elsewhere. [...]

While in many places getting rid of tourists may be the only way to restore a healthy natural world, in countries where the tourist industry focuses on the environment, the opposite may be true. When I suggested to Karim Wissanji, Elewana’s CEO, that the best way to conserve Africa’s wildlife might be for human beings to migrate to the cities and leave them in peace, he retorted: “The future of our wildlife and their habitats are intrinsically linked to the future of the safari adventure industry.”

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