"¡No sea inocente!"Una película anti-odio de 1947 válida para 2016

OPEN CULTURE.- If you aren’t seriously disturbed, even alarmed, that we in the U.S. have a presidential candidate from a major political party who succeeds by whipping up xenophobic fervor and telling us the country must not only reinstitute torture, but must do “the unthinkable”… well…. I don’t really know what to say to you. Perhaps more symptom than cause of a global turn toward tribal hatred, the GOP candidate has lent his name to a phenomenon characterized by cultish devotion to an authoritarian strongman, serial falsehood, and easy, uncritical scapegoating. We needn’t look far back in time to see the historical analogues, whether in the early 20th century, at the end of the 19th, or during any number of historical moments before and after.

We also needn’t look very far back to find a history of resistance to authoritarian bigotry, and not only from Civil Rights campaigners and leftists, but also, as you can see above, from the U.S. War Department. In 1947, the Department released the short propaganda film, “Don’t Be a Sucker!”, aimed at middle-class American Joes. Shot at Warner Studios, the film opens with some typical noirish crime scenarios, complete with convincingly noir lighting and camera angles, to visually set up the character of the “sucker” who gets taken in by sinister but seductive characters—“people who stay up nights trying to figure out how to take away” what the everyman has. What do naïve potential marks in this analogy have to lose? American plenty: “plenty of food, big factories to make things a man can use, big cities to do the business of a big country, and people, lots of people.”

“People,” the narrator says, working the farms and factories, digging the mines and running the businesses: “all kinds of people. People from different countries with different religions, different colored skins. Free people.” Is this disingenuous? You bet. We’re told this aggregate of people is “free to vote”—and we know this to be largely untrue in practice for many, necessitating the Voting Rights Act almost twenty years later. Free to “pick their own jobs”? Employment discrimination, segregation, and sexism effectively prevented that for millions. But the sentiments are noble, even if the facts don’t fully fit. As our average Joe wanders along, contemplating his advantages, he happens upon a reactionary streetcorner demogague haranguing against foreigners, African-Americans, Catholics, and Freemasons (?) on behalf of “real Americans.” Sounds plenty familiar.

The voice of reason comes from a naturalized Hungarian professor who witnessed the rise of Nazism in Berlin and who explains to our everyman the strategy of fanatics and fascists—divide and rule. “We human beings are not born with prejudices,” says the wise professor, “always they are made for us. Made by someone who wants something. Remember that when you hear this kind of talk. Somebody’s going to get something out of it. And it isn’t going to be you.” The remainder of the film mostly consists of the Hungarian professor’s recollections of how the Nazis won over ordinary Germans.

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Getafe marca con perfil homófobo a los varones heterosexuales, delgados, blancos y católicos

Cuando el responsable de un delito -de odio racial, homofobia, violación, robo...- deja de ser una persona concreta y la presunción de culpabilidad se transfiere a todo un colectivo se produce la quiebra del Estado de Derecho. De ahí a marcar a los 'sospechosos' con una estrella o un triángulo sólo hay un paso.

ABC.- El Ayuntamiento de Getafe aprobará este miércoles una moción a propuesta de todos los grupos, excepto del PP, que establece que el perfil de la persona homófoba es el de un «varón, heterosexual, delgado, blanco y de la fe mayoritaria»; es decir, la católica. Este «Manifiesto por el día internacional del orgullo LGTBI+», redactado por los colectivos UC3M LGTB+, Colegas Getafe y Gaytafe LGTBI+, contará con el apoyo del PSOE (la alcaldesa, Sara Hernández, es también líder de los socialistas madrileños), Izquierda Unida, Ahora Getafe (marca municipal de Podemos) y Ciudadanos.

El PP es el único grupo que votará en contra. En un comunicado recrimina el apoyo del resto de ediles a un texto «cargado de sectarismo, que discrimina a la población por motivos como la apariencia física, el nivel de renta económica o las creencias religiosas».

El texto, al que ha tenido acceso ABC, defiende otras reivindicaciones, como la igualdad de todos los ciudadanos o los derechos de los refugiados/as LGTB+;pero, a renglón seguido, aseguran que existe la «pirámide social de la discriminación», en cuya cúspide se encuentra «el hombre blanco, heterosexual y cisexual (aquel que no es transexual)».

La descripción no termina ahí, pues se dan mas detalles: el homófobo, según esta tesis, es de «clase media o alta, sin diversidad funcional, joven y delgado. Incluso perteneciente a la fe mayoritaria», en referencia al catolicismo.

Recuperar la ambivalencia

Alice Dreger, the historian of science, sex researcher, activist, and author of a much-discussed book of last year, has recently called attention to the loss of ambivalence as an acceptable attitude in contemporary politics and beyond. “Once upon a time,” she writes, “we were allowed to feel ambivalent about people. We were allowed to say, ‘I like what they did here, but that bit over there doesn’t thrill me so much.’ Those days are gone. Today the rule is that if someone — a scientist, a writer, a broadcaster, a politician — does one thing we don’t like, they’re dead to us.”

I’m going to suggest that this development leads to another kind of loss: the loss of our ability to work together, or better, learn from each other, despite intense disagreement over certain issues. Whether it’s because our opponent hails from a different political party, or voted differently on a key referendum, or thinks about economics or gun control or immigration or social values — or whatever — in a way we struggle to comprehend, our collective habit of shouting at each other with fingers stuffed in our ears has reached a breaking point.

It’s time to bring ambivalence back.

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¿Y si 2016 tampoco batiera el récord de temperatura de 1998?

Por fin la Agencia Estatal de Meteorología ha publicado, sin publicidad y sólo para entendidos, la temperatura media en España en el trimestre de la primavera de 2016, marzo-abril-mayo. Como se observa en la figura, la temperatura de esta primavera ha sido más bien fría, algo por encima de los 13 grados. También, como se observa en la figura, desde hace 20 años la evolución de la temperatura media no muestra una tendencia al alza, a pesar de lo que diga la propaganda. ANTÓN URIARTE

PLAZA MOYUA.- Roy Spencer en su blog:

Record Warm 2016? What a Difference One Month Makes

Con el rápido enfriamiento ahora en curso de la temperatura global media troposférica, mi anterior predicción de un año récord en las medidas de los satélites para 2016 parece … bueno … prematura.

Básicamente, si las anomalías (las temperaturas) se mantienen por debajo del valor de 0,34ºC de junio, 2016 no será un año récord.

Significado. Si eso ocurre, la “pausa” en el calentamiento global según lo miden los satélites alcanzará casi seguro los 20 o 21 años. Porque el Pacífico se pondrá muy probablemente en modo La Niña. Y en ese caso quedarán dos opciones.

1) Los satélites miden mal.

2) Los satélites miden bien y los modelos climáticos son una caca. Lo que querría decir que el cuento del Calentamiento Global Acojonante es … ¡un cuento!

El aburrimiento puede llevar al extremismo político

New research published in the European Journal of Social Psychology has found a link between boredom and political extremism.

“Boredom puts people on edge: It makes them seek engagements that are challenging, exciting, and that offer a sense of purpose. Political ideologies can aid this existential quest,” wrote Wijnand A.P. Van Tilburg of King’s College London and Eric Igou of the University of Limerick in their study.

The researchers’ previous study found that boring activities can trigger a sense of meaninglessness in people, along with a corresponding desire to “reinject meaningfulness in their lives.”

“Boredom motivates people to alter their situation and fosters the engagement in activities that seem more meaningful than those currently at hand,” van Tilburg and Igou explained in their new study. Their research suggests that adopting a more extreme political ideology is one way that people reinject meaningfulness into a boring situation.

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El franquismo sobrevivirá mientras viva el antifranquismo, que todavía sueña con ganar la guerra civil

El franquismo político e institucional murió con la Constitución de 1978. Pero el antifranquismo, no. Esa paradoja explica que el franquismo sobreviva, más allá de los diminutos panteones de la extrema derecha, en el antifranquismo perenne, que todavía sueña con ganar la guerra civil.

Los hinchas de Podexit atribuyen su fracaso electoral el 26-J a los viejos 'fachas', y piden aplicarles la ley del paredón. Se equivocan otra vez. La culpa de su derrota no es del senilismo sino de su antifranquismo redivivo, anacrónico y revanchista.

El franquismo, niños, sólo vive entre vosotros y morirá definitivamente el día en que muera el último antifranquista rezagado.

Los abuelos españoles han salvado a sus nietos porque recuerdan la Guerra Civil

'La efebocracia en boga entraña la creencia en una superioridad moral de los jóvenes que no sólo ha sido contestada en las urnas, sino también en la filosofía, la literatura y la historia. De las fábulas de Esopo al senado romano (senado en latín viene a significar reunión de viejos), la civilización la han construido los consejos de los prudentes y la han defendido los músculos de los guerreros. Por supuesto, en cada tribu el relato custodiado por el sanedrín es diferente, y así como los abuelos británicos han traicionado sin querer a sus nietos porque votaron movidos por el recuerdo de una isla imperial, los abuelos españoles han salvado a los suyos de una amenaza que no necesitan exagerar, porque guardan memoria guerracivilista de su triste certeza. No es que a los viejos les guste la corrupción; no es que les embargue una nostalgia del franquismo que se consuelan con el PP; es que la experiencia les ha persuadido de que no existen los inmaculados, y a cambio han aprendido a ponderar el mal menor entre el asco y la ruina. Tampoco Carmena es una niña, y quizá sea eso lo mejor de su gestión'. | JORGE BUSTOS

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Podemos achaca su bajada el 26-J al “miedo” a que gobernase “lo nuevo”

Será más bien que no les votaron por miedo a lo viejo: el frentepopulismo, 'el pueblo unido jamás será vencido', la demagogia, el matonismo...

110 premios Nobel acusan a Greenpeace de "crimen contra la humanidad" por su oposición a los transgénicos

Los ecologistas son muy propensos a envolverse en el manto de la ciencia cuando consideran que conviene a sus intereses, como en el caso del cambio climático, y a ignorarla por completo cuando no lo hace, como es el caso de los transgénicos. Pero ahora tendrán más complicado hacerlo. Más de un centenar de premios Nobel, en el momento de escribir estas lineas,han firmado una dura carta abierta en la que exigen a Greenpeace que cese en su oposición a los transgénicos en general, y más en concreto al arroz dorado.

La carta recuerda que, cada año, entre 250.000 y medio millón de niños en los países pobres se quedan ciegos por falta de vitamina A, y la mitad de ellos mueren de esa enfermedad menos de un año después. Sumando niños y adultos, UNICEF calcula que mueren por esta enfermedad entre uno y dos millones de personas cada año. Esta enfermedad podría prevenirse gracias a un organismo transgénico, el llamado arroz dorado.

A finales de los años 90, dos científicos europeos, Ingo Potrykus y Peter Beyer, desarrollaron una variedad de arroz –un alimento en el que se basa la dieta en muchos países pobres– que incluía entre sus nutrientes la provitamina A o betacaroteno, un compuesto químico que nuestro cuerpo transforma en vitamina A, gracias al uso de genes provenientes de bacterias y otras plantas, como el maíz o los narcisos. Lo llamaron arroz dorado por su color, por otra parte muy apropiado para hacer una paella. Aunque originalmente su creación contenía un porcentaje demasiado pequeño de provitamina, con el paso de los años se ha mejorado hasta conseguir que 144 gramos de este arroz basten para ingerir la dosis diaria necesaria en una dieta sana.

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El presidente checo reclama un referéndum sobre la pertenencia a la UE y a la OTAN

The seeds of European disconent are spreading. One week after Britain voted to separate amicably with the EU, the president of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, called for a referendum on his country’s membership in the EU and NATO. Demonstrating a shocking grasp of what democracy truly is, while Zeman wants to remain in both organizations, he wants the public to have a chance to "express themselves" something which sends a spike of terror through the hearts of all unelected Brussels bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, support for the EU is waning in the central European country. In April, a poll conducted by the CVVM institute showed that just 25% of the population is satisfied with their membership in the bloc, as cited by Reuters. Twelve months earlier, that figure had stood at 32%. And so, following on Britain’s vote to exit the EU, Zeman now wants to give the Czech public the chance to decide their own future, as skepticism about the merits of remaining in the bloc continues to rise.

“I disagree with those who are for leaving the European Union,” Czech Radio quoted Zeman as saying on Thursday evening, according to Reuters. “But I will do everything for them to have a referendum and be able to express themselves. And the same goes for a NATO exit too,” he added.

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Bruselas autoriza a Renzi a dar liquidez a la banca italiana

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.- The European Commission on Sunday authorized Italy to use government guarantees to provide liquidity support to its banks, a spokeswoman said, disclosing the first intervention by a European Union government into its banking system following the U.K. vote to leave the EU.

(...)

Italian banks have lost more than half of their market capitalization since the beginning of the year, as investors fret about some EUR360 billion in bad loans still logged on their balance sheets. That drop in market value compares to an average decline of less than one third for European lenders.

Some Italian banks have seen their shares plummet by some 75% in the first half of the year.

A person familiar with the Italian government’s plans said the cabinet of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hoped to use a liquidity backstop to contain investor panic, which could result in a run on deposit and affect banks’ liquidity.

The liquidity support provides a temporary cushion for Italian banks. But it doesn’t solve the broader issue of how to raise sufficient capital to sustain writedowns of loan portfolios gone bad.

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El Constitucional austríaco invalida las elecciones presidenciales que ganó el candidato ecologista

Austria's highest court has annulled the result of the presidential election narrowly lost by the candidate of the far-right Freedom Party.

The party had challenged the result, saying that postal votes had been illegally and improperly handled.

The Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost the election to the former leader of the Greens, Alexander Van der Bellen, by just 30,863 votes or less than one percentage point.

The election will now be re-run.

Announcing the decision, Gerhard Holzinger, head of the Constitutional Court, said: "The challenge brought by Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache against the 22 May election... has been upheld."

He added: "The decision I am announcing today has no winner and no loser, it has only one aim: to strengthen trust in the rule of law a

nd democracy."

Mr Hofer said he was pleased that the court had taken "a difficult decision", adding: "I have great trust in the rule of law." What were the complaints?

In two weeks of hearings, lawyers for the Freedom Party argued that postal ballots were illegally handled in 94 out of 117 districts.

It alleged that thousands of votes were opened earlier than permitted under election rules and some were counted by people unauthorised to do so.

The party also claimed to have evidence that some under-16s and foreigners had been allowed to vote.

In its ruling, the court said election rules had been broken in a way that could have influenced the result.

But it said there was no proof the count had been manipulated.

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Elon Musk está equivocado. No vivimos en una simulación

El fundador de SpaceX y Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, sostiene que solo hay "una posibilidad entre miles de millones" de que vivamos de verdad y no en una simulación de computadora."En 40 años hemos pasado del 'Pong' a masivos juegos en línea con millones de jugadores simultáneos y en 3D, y cada año se mejoran. Pronto tendremos la realidad virtual, la realidad aumentada". Según Elon Musk, en un futuro "los juegos llegarán a ser indistinguibles de la realidad", lo que en su opinión no se trata de un hecho negativo. "O vamos hacia la creación de simulaciones que sean indistinguibles de la realidad, o la civilización dejará de existir".

"Una manzana simulado no puede alimentar a nadie", le responden un filósofo, Riccardo Manzotti, y un científico cognitivo, Andrew Smart:

The key question is what are simulations made of? Or, if you are more poetically inclined, what is the stuff that dreams are made of? Simulations are things that we use to talk or to think about other things. In this respect, they do not step out of Musk’s base reality. They are still base reality. They are made of the same stuff everything else is made of.

For instance, a 10-inch neoprene model of Mount Everest is still an object, albeit an object that is used to refer to a much bigger object. A flight simulator is a physical thing used to refer to real planes. A dynamic simulation on a computer of the galaxy is yet another object made of rather complex networks of electronic gates and devices cleverly connected. It is a dynamic object we use to refer to another object. But nowhere do we meet a pure simulation that is not an object.

The idea that simulations are a sort of immaterial entity that are, despite being dependent on their physical substrate, nonetheless different, is a leftover of the aforementioned belief in a higher—and possibly better—reality. It’s a belief that we have no reason to take seriously. The notion that we may mistake a simulation of the world for the world is both conceptually and empirically flawed.

Conceptually, it is a self-defeating notion—something that if taken to be truth, negates itself. In fact, if, say, simulated water might be a meaningful notion, what would it be made of? It could not be made of real stuff, because if it was, it would no longer be simulated water. However, neither could it be made of simulated stuff, because—that’s the point of being a simulation—there is no such thing as simulated stuff. All we know is physical. All we know belongs, once again, to base reality. Either way, simulated water cannot exist.

Empirically, increasing computational power will not necessarily transform the water of computer games into the wine of a full-fledged simulated world. Making bigger bows and stronger arrows will never lead to an H-Bomb. Sometimes there are conceptual gaps that cannot be bridged by incremental improvements. Living in a simulation is not like building a 1-mile-high tower, which is challenging but possible, but rather like having a planet with a certain mass and no gravity. No amount of technological progress will achieve the latter, no matter what.

Moreover, Musk’s confidence in the development of technology—that massive increases in computational power will transmogrify existing videogames into a real simulated world—is based on the confusion between the ideal notion of simulation, which does not really exist, and the actual thing a simulation is. The ideal notion of simulation is, in turn, based on the notion that there are disembodied minds or a higher level of reality over and above basic reality. This is highly questionable.

Leer en Motherboard el artículo completo.

Sabemos que los británicos votaron en contra de la UE, pero no a favor de qué

THE ECONOMIST.- MANY Brexiteers built their campaign on optimism. Outside the European Union, Britain would be free to open up to the world. But what secured their victory was anger.

Anger stirred up a winning turnout in the depressed, down-at-heel cities of England (see article). Anger at immigration, globalisation, social liberalism and even feminism, polling shows, translated into a vote to reject the EU. As if victory were a licence to spread hatred, anger has since lashed Britain’s streets with an outburst of racist abuse.

Across Western democracies, from the America of Donald Trump to the France of Marine Le Pen, large numbers of people are enraged. If they cannot find a voice within the mainstream, they will make themselves heard from without. Unless they believe that the global order works to their benefit, Brexit risks becoming just the start of an unravelling of globalisation and the prosperity it has created.

The rest of history

Today’s crisis in liberalism—in the free-market, British sense—was born in 1989, out of the ashes of the Soviet Union. At the time the thinker Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history”, the moment when no ideology was left to challenge democracy, markets and global co-operation as a way of organising society. It was liberalism’s greatest triumph, but it also engendered a narrow, technocratic politics obsessed by process. In the ensuing quarter-century the majority has prospered, but plenty of voters feel as if they have been left behind.

Their anger is justified. Proponents of globalisation, including this newspaper, must acknowledge that technocrats have made mistakes and ordinary people paid the price. The move to a flawed European currency, a technocratic scheme par excellence, led to stagnation and unemployment and is driving Europe apart. Elaborate financial instruments bamboozled regulators, crashed the world economy and ended up with taxpayer-funded bail-outs of banks, and later on, budget cuts.

Even when globalisation has been hugely beneficial, policymakers have not done enough to help the losers. Trade with China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and brought immense gains for Western consumers. But many factory workers who have lost their jobs have been unable to find a decently paid replacement.

Rather than spread the benefits of globalisation, politicians have focused elsewhere. The left moved on to arguments about culture—race, greenery, human rights and sexual politics. The right preached meritocratic self-advancement, but failed to win everyone the chance to partake in it. Proud industrial communities that look to family and nation suffered alienation and decay. Mendacious campaigning mirrored by partisan media amplified the sense of betrayal.

Less obviously, the intellectual underpinnings of liberalism have been neglected. When Mr Trump called for protectionism this week, urging Americans to “take back control” (see article), he was both parroting the Brexiteers and exploiting how almost no politician has been willing to make the full-throated case for trade liberalisation as a boost to prosperity rather than a cost or a concession. Liberalism depends on a belief in progress but, for many voters, progress is what happens to other people. While American GDP per person grew by 14% in 2001-15, median wages grew by only 2%. Liberals believe in the benefits of pooling sovereignty for the common good. But, as Brexit shows, when people feel they do not control their lives or share in the fruits of globalisation, they strike out. The distant, baffling, overbearing EU makes an irresistible target.

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Ni hubo pucherazo ni puede haberlo

El objetivo de la izquierda radical es acabar con la democracia liberal. Para ello tiene dos caminos. El primero, ganar las elecciones, ocupar el poder y no abandonarlo hasta haber desmantelado la legalidad constitucional. El segundo, perder las elecciones, denunciar un pucherazo masivo que deslegitime al Estado y provocar el colapso de las instituciones (léase golpe de estado).

Eso es lo que desean hacer ahora los amigos de Podexit, sus confluencias, sus mareas y sus botellones doctrinarios. Y es que los hijos mimados del Estado del Bienestar no toleran la frustración. No es sólo que no sepan perder, es que no pueden perder, ya que la dialéctica materialista de la historia predice su victoria inapelable. Ergo, si pierden es porque les han robado la mayoría, porque ha habido conspiración para el pucherazo. Y eso los legitima para cualquier cosa, incluida la mentira y la violencia.

Las mentiras ya han empezado a circular en progresión geométrica en Twitter y Facebook, pero también en las páginas de medios de comunicación afines al populismo que muestran no tener el más mínimo escrúpulo respecto a la veracidad de lo que publican.

Este es el caso, por ejemplo, de las cartas de los supuestos presidentes de Mesa Ruth Bermúdez Rodríguez y Christian Avilés, que cuentan unas historias kafkianas que sólo pueden ser creídas por mucha gente ignorante del funcionamiento de un colegio electoral pero no por nadie que haya estado una sola vez en una mesa de votación.

En su entrada 'No: el 26J no hubo pucherazo (ni puede haberlo)', David Fernández no sólo desmonta las contradicciones de esas dos cartas sino que ofrece otras de las muchas mentiras que se están publicando para hacer creer que en el 26-J hubo pucherazo. De todas ellas recojo una, especialmente reveladora de que nos encontramos ante un proceso de producción industrial de mentiras. Esta:

Que el fraude electoral ha salido publicado incluso en The New York Times. Si se toman la molestia de consultar la edición original, como lo ha hecho David Fernández, comprobarán que la portada difundida es falsa, es un trucaje de photoshop.

'El mundo no se detendrá'

Declaración de 78 personalidades europeas tras el Brexit

The Brexit vote poses profound questions about the future of the European project. But the world will not stop while Europe works out its future; people will continue to want to come, enemies will continue to plot, civil wars will continue to kill.

Even as we fashion a response to the internal crisis of Europe, we must maintain Europe’s capacity to make an effective foreign policy and to protect Europe’s citizens. Ahead of today’s European Council, we call on European leaders to embrace some core principles moving forward:

Unity is the most essential source of Europe’s strength. In a time of heightened emotion, it is essential to avoid actions that sow division among member states. There are multiple institutional options for forging common European responses. But there can be no two classes of EU membership, where one group decides about the others. This will be the fastest way towards the unraveling of the EU. Forging an effective partnership with Britain on foreign and security policy will always be a core interest of the other European states. European foreign policy cannot be divorced from the needs and desires of the people of Europe. Any initiative for forging cooperation among European states must take their concerns seriously.

The following signatories endorse this statement in a personal capacity:

Joaquin Almunia, former Vice President of the European Commission

Kostas Bakoyannis, Governor of Central Greece

Juraj Bayer, CFO & Member of the Board, ZSE Energia

Erik Berglof, Director, Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics

Emma Bonino, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy; former European Commissioner

Stine Bosse, Chairman and Non-Executive Board Member; Adjunct Professor, Copenhagen Business School

Goran Buldioski, Director, Think Tank Fund (TTF); Director, Open Society Initiative For Europe (OSIFE)

Gunilla Carlsson, former Minister for International Development Cooperation, Sweden

Ian Clarkson, Chair, Brightfield Consulting

Lucinda Creighton, former European Affairs Minister, Ireland

Daniel Daianu, Professor of Economics, National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest

Kemal Dervis, Vice-President and Director of Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution

Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Director General and Permanent Representative, European Investment Bank

Andrew Duff, Visiting Fellow, European Policy Centre

Karin Forseke, Co-Chair, Sisters Capital

Jaime Gama, former Foreign Minister of Portugal

Jonas Gahr Støre, Leader of the Labour party; former Foreign Minister, Norway

Carlos Gaspar, Portuguese Institute of International Relations

Teresa Gouveia, former Foreign Minister of Portugal

Beatrice de Graaf, Professor of the History of International Relations and Global Governance, Utrecht University

Djema Grozdanova, Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee, National Assembly of Bulgaria

Antonio Guterres, former United Nations Commissioner for Refugees; former Prime Minister of Portugal

Istvan Gyarmati, Ambassador, International Centre for Democratic Transition

Heidi Hautala, Member of the European Parliament; former Minister for International Development, Finland

Connie Hedegaard, former European Commissioner for Climate Action

Diego Hidalgo, Co-founder of Spanish newspaper El País; Founder of Club de Madrid, CITpax and Founder and Honorary President of FRIDE

Anna Ibrisagic, Senior Partner, ESL & Network; former Member of the European Parliament

Jaakko Iloniemi, former Ambassador

Diana Janse, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, Moderate Party

Mary Kaldor, Professor, London School of Economics

Ivailo Kalfin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labour & Social Policy; former Foreign Minister

Claude Kandiyoti, CEO, Krest Real Estate Investments

Piia-Noora Kauppi, Managing Director, Federation of Finnish Financial Services

Roderich Kiesewetter, Member of the Bundestag

David Koranyi, Director, Eurasian Energy Future Initiative, Atlantic Council

Brigid Laffan, Director, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute

Pascal Lamy, Honorary President, Notre Europe; former Director-General of the WTO; former EU Commissioner

Mark Leonard, Director, European Council on Foreign Relations

Sonja Licht, President, Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence

Maria Livanos Cattaui, former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce

Miguel Maduro, Professor and Director, Global Governance Programme at the European University Institute; former Minister

Cristina Manzano, Editor-in-chief, Esglobal

Joseph Mifsud, Director, London Academy of Diplomacy; Professor, University of Stirling

Hedvig Morvai, Executive Director, European Fund for the Balkans

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Professor of Democracy Studies, Hertie School of Governance

Dietmar Nietan, Member of the Bundestag

Kalypso Nicolaidis, Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford

Christine Ockrent, Commentator and writer; Presenter of 'Affaires Internationales', France Culture Radio

Andrzej Olechowski, former Foreign Minister

Dick Oosting, CEO, European Council on Foreign Relations

Andres Ortega, Author & journalist; former Director of Policy Planning, Office of the Spanish Prime Minister

Marc Otte, Director General, Egmont Institute; former EU Special Representative to the Middle East Peace Process

Cem Özdemir, Member of the Bundestag

Zaneta Ozolina, Professor, University of Latvia;

Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, Ambassador of Poland to the Russian Federation

Ruprecht Polenz, former Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Bundestag

Charles Powell, Director, Real Instituto Elcano

Andrew Puddephatt, Director, Global Partners & Associated Ltd.

Norbert Roettgen, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Bundestag

Albert Rohan, former Ambassador

Jan Royall, Member of the House of Lords

Adam Daniel Rotfeld, former Foreign Minister of Poland

Nicolò Russo Perez, International Affairs Programme, Compagnia di San Paolo

Wolfgang Schuessel, former Federal Chancellor of Austria

Narcis Serra, President, IBEI

Javier Solana, former EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy & Secretary-General of the Council of the EU; former Secretary General of NATO

George Soros, Founder and Chairman, Open Society Foundations

Andris Strazds, Advisor, Bank of Latvia

Ion Sturza, Founder & Chairman, Fribourg Capital

Hannes Swoboda, former President of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, European Parliament

Reka Szemerkenyi, Ambassador of Hungary to the United States

Anna Terron Cusi, President, InStrategies

Erkki Tuomioja, former Foreign Minister of Finland

Constantijn van Oranje, Chairman, Start-up Fest Europe; Director for Digital Diplomacy and Macro Strategy, Macro Advisory Partners

Jordi Vaquer, Director, Open Society Initiative for Europe

Andre Wilkens, Author

Stelios Zavvos, Founder and CEO of Zeus Capital Management, Chairman of the Board of Solidarity Now organization

Samuel Zbogar, EU Representative to Kosovo; former Foreign Minister

Vuelve el debate en la UE sobre más o menos Europa

POLITICO.- While there was a consensus that the Brexit vote is a “wake-up call,” and a mixture of varying sadness over the outcome and anger with Cameron, there was less clarity and much debate about how the EU should respond.

“The next weeks will be decisive,” French President François Hollande said. “Europe must show its solidity, its solidarity, its capacity to propose initiatives for and with Europeans.”

The early blueprints, which will sound familiar to anyone who has followed European politics over the past 30 years, can be abridged to “more versus less Europe.”

Europe’s center-left, in what could be mistaken for a case study in Pavlovian conditioning, has responded to the British whistle by dusting off its plan for a more federalist Europe, replete with a common budget and much deeper political integration.

Just a day after the result came in, the Socialist foreign ministers of France and Germany presented a paper sketching out their vision for “further steps in the direction of a political union in Europe,” including the introduction of a “fiscal capacity” by 2018 to invest in the Union’s battered economies.

Such ideas, and the fiscal transfers they would entail, are anathema to most of Europe’s conservatives. The center-right is pushing in the opposite direction: “national solutions where possible; European solutions, where necessary,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

“This is not a time to resort to extremist thinking or to get bogged down in ideological discussions about a superstate versus nation states,” he said after Tuesday’s summit dinner. “Our focus should be on practical cooperation that will lead to a stronger and better Europe.”

In countries with strong anti-EU movements, a group that now includes most of the Continent, the political appetite for deeper integration has evaporated.

That suggests a more pragmatic approach will prevail. Instead of trying to restructure the EU root and branch, a task that would require both unanimity and referendums in a number of countries, several of the bloc’s leaders said after Wednesday’s deliberations they would work within the confines of what already exists. Their goal is to find common solutions to address issues from economic stagnation to migration to security.

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La UE permitirá a Reino Unido seguir en el mercado único si hay libre movilidad

El Reino Unido ya se encamina a la recesión

¿Cuánto tiempo pasará antes de la próxima revolución contra la élite pro-Brexit? [Anne Applebaum]

******

Un grupo de jóvenes increpa a un hombre extranjero en un tranvía de Manchester, mientras le gritan que abandone el Reino Unido

Así desmontó Borrell a Junqueras (Vídeo)

Hacer del Brexit una oportunidad [Henry Kissinger]

Too much of the Europe of today is absorbed in management of structural problems rather than the elaboration of its purposes. From globalization to migration, the willingness to sacrifice is weakening. But a better future cannot be reached without some sacrifice of the present. A society reluctant to accept this verity stagnates and, over the decades, consumes its substance.

Inevitably a gap arises between the institutions and their responsibilities, which accounts for increasing populist pressures. The deepest challenge to the EU is not its management but its ultimate goals. In a world in which upheavals based on conflicting values span the continents, a common act of imagination by Europe and its Atlantic partners is badly needed.

Instead, European leadership is now faced with an unexpected challenge. Under the terms of its charter, the EU is obliged to negotiate with a principal member over the terms of withdrawal. Britain will want to maintain extensive ties with Europe while lifting or easing the constraints of its many legislative and bureaucratic requirements. The EU leadership has almost the opposite incentive. It will not wish to reward Britain’s Leave majority by granting Britain better terms than it enjoyed as a full member. Hence a punitive element is likely to be inherent in the EU bargaining position.

Many of us who have grown up with and admired the vision of European unity hope that the EU will transcend itself, by seeking its vocation not in penalizing the recalcitrant but by negotiating in a manner that restores the prospects of unity. The EU should not treat Britain as an escapee from prison but as a potential compatriot.

Punishing the U.K. will not solve the question of how to operate a common currency in the absence of a common fiscal policy among countries with disparate economic capacities, or of how to define a union whose ability to achieve common political strategies lags fundamentally behind its economic and administrative capacities.

By the same token, Britain needs to put forward the concept of autonomy for which its people voted in a manner that embraces ultimate cooperation. Britain and Europe together must consider how they might return, at least partially, to their historical role as shapers of international order.

In recent decades, Europe has retreated to the conduct of soft power. But besieged as it is on almost all frontiers by upheavals and migration, Europe, including Britain, can avoid turning into a victim of circumstance only by assuming a more active role. These vistas cannot yet be discussed at a geopolitical level, but the EU’s leaders should be able to form discrete and discreet panels for exploring them. In this manner, the Leave vote can serve as a catharsis. | HENRY KISSINGER

Leer el artículo completo, aquí (The Wall Street Journal)

Descubren el primer cáncer contagioso que puede saltar entre las especies

Se estudiaron colonias enfermas de mejillones de cerca de Vancouver y berberechos y almejas de la costa de España

THE WASHINGTON POST.- The first contagious cancer was discovered in the 1990s, when researchers studying Tasmanian devils noticed that the fierce marsupials were perishing from ugly facial tumors. Eventually, they identified two cancer cell lines that were causing the disease. Meanwhile, scientists working with dogs found that canines on every continent have been suffering from a sexually transmitted tumor for hundreds of years.

Goff and his colleagues found a third example of this phenomenon last year in soft shell clams living along the Atlantic coast. A colleague working at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., asked him to come take a look at her dying clams, which she thought were suffering from a virus. Instead, they were being killed by a form of bivalve leukemia.

"It was really wild," Goff told The Washington Post at the time. "It was not what we were expecting."

Cockles (Cerastoderma edule) collected in Galicia, Spain. They are one of three new species that suffer from contagious cancer. (David Iglesias via Nature) But the discovery got him wondering whether transmissible cancers might be more common than anyone realized. So he set about collecting specimens from sick bivalve colonies on opposite sides of the world: mussels from near Vancouver and cockles and golden carpet shell clams on the coast of Spain. All three species were dying from cancer, he found. And all three of the cancers were genetically different from their hosts (the cockles suffered from two distinct strains).

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Lo que ocurrió en Sheffield explica por qué Gran Bretaña optó por el Brexit

El voto de los obreros empobrecidos por la globalización, desilusionados con el laborismo, se fueron al UKIP

Like the rest of the country, the city voted in favor of Brexit by a paper-thin margin: just 51% voted to Leave, with only 6,000 votes separating the Brexit and Remain camps. And right up until the eve of the result, Sheffield was expected to vote Remain – as was the UK as a whole.

To understand what happened here, we need to go back to April 2014, when UKIP leader Nigel Farage launched his campaign for the European Parliament elections in central Sheffield. For some, this seemed bizarre. Many had seen his party as an electoral threat primarily to the Conservatives. But Sheffield is a long-time Labour stronghold, in a Labour-dominated region. It hardly looked like fertile territory for a party nipping at the Conservatives’ heels. What was Farage up to?

At the launch, he made his intentions clear. Labour’s northern strongholds were very much in UKIP’s sights. Political scientists Rob Ford and Matt Goodwin later revealed that older, working class voters – who had long formed the core of Labour’s support – were becoming disillusioned. They felt “left behind” by social and economic change, and ignored by the political establishment (not least on concerns over rapid immigration from the EU). As a result, many were thinking of shifting to UKIP.

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WSJ, NYT y FT coinciden: España frena al populismo y precisa de un acuerdo entre PP y PSOE

Still, the bottom line is that Spain needs a functioning government. Creating one requires cooperation from the Socialists, who vigorously oppose Mr. Rajoy. Given the widespread anxiety and instability elsewhere in Europe, the Socialists should think twice before rejecting any accommodation with Mr. Rajoy’s party, Sunday’s clear front-runner. Mr. Rajoy should also put the welfare of Spain above personal ambition, and consider stepping aside to allow a party member more palatable to the Socialists to lead a government that will address Spanish citizens’ deep yearning for political renewal, transparency and equity.

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The Socialists don’t seem inclined to join a left-right coalition government. But perhaps they could be persuaded to abstain on an organizing vote in return for PP concessions. Those could include the resignation of Mr. Rajoy, who has already served his country well. New, more charismatic PP leaders could help the center-right cause if they would continue to push the Rajoy agenda.

The Brexit vote has triggered a new round of pessimism over Europe, but the EU is composed of individual countries whose fate is in their own hands. Spain shows that it’s possible for Old Europe to get some new life.

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A grand coalition between the PP and Socialists may be neither realistic nor desirable. However, there is an opportunity — and an urgent need — for the two main parties to enter negotiations and try to reach a broad agreement on the path forward. One early test would be whether they can achieve cross-party support to pass a new budget.

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Las vías 'chilenas' acaban con Castro o con Pinochet

Producían pavor los gestos y la retórica parda y el mal gusto, y la vulgaridad y la estética chavista y el ambiente general que apestaba a matones del partido. Las consignas más asquerosas del castrismo cantadas como si fuera una gracia, las consignas de los populistas y de los rojos asesinos como si fuesen una gracia. Y la cancioncita siniestra de los Quilapayún, a quienes recuerdo en Cuba lamiendo el culo a Fidel Castro y comiendo langostas en medio de los cubanos hambreados. Yo trabajé como obrero esclavo construyendo edificios para la crápula chilena entrenada por los Castro que huía a Cuba después del golpe de Pinochet. Conozco a esa gentuza cuyo propósito a fin de cuentas era convertir a Chile en otra Cuba. Y por eso la musiquita quilapayún me daba ganas de vomitar, naturalmente. ¿Y a esa mugrienta y sanguinolenta diarrea ideológica han votado cinco millones de españoles? Me preguntaba mirando el aquelarre fidelista lleno de asco. Y un tanto aterrado, he de confesarlo. | JUAN ABREU

¿Quién es el más ladrón?

ES DIARIO.- ...según los datos recabados el PP atesora el 49% de los casos de presunta corrupción, pero también es cierto que hasta ahora es el partido que más poder ha tocado y de ahí su liderazgo en este controvertido ranking. Por detrás queda el PSOE, con 30% de los casos recabados, seguido del capítulo “otros” (partidos independientes en distintos municipios) con un 11%, de CiU y los Pujol con un 5% y Unió Mallorquina con un casi un 4%.

Una “clasificación” que da un giro de 180 grados si ponemos en valor el importe de lo sustraído. Vaya por delante que todos los casos de corrupción, de saqueo de las arcas públicas, son censurables, perseguibles y en último caso condenables pero al César lo que es del César y el PP, dicho en román paladino, no es el partido que más ha robado.

Leer el artículo completo, aquí

Mas, Ortega y Rigau a punto de sentarse en el banquillo por desobediencia y prevaricación el 9-N

El Tribunal Superior de Justícia de Catalunya cierra la instrucción, acusa a Mas, Ortega y Rigau de desobediencia y prevaricación, rechaza la petición de archivo y da traslado a las partes para que soliciten la apertura de juicio oral o bien el sobreseimiento

Según el juez, Mas "conocía desde el mismo día 4 de noviembre la providencia del Tribunal Constitucional" que prohibía el 9-N y todos los preparativos y aseguró que pasaba el testigo a voluntarios. Sin embargo, continúa Abril, los indicios señalan que "intervinieron contratistas contratados por la Generalitat". "(Artur Mas) consintió y no paralizó los diferentes procedimientos de contratación, algunos de carácter tan evidente como la preparación de un centro de prensa en Montjuïc" en el que el Govern informó sobre la consulta.

“La consulta no se llevó a cabo solo a través de voluntarios sino que jugaron un papel relevante contratistas privados, que prestaron servicios abonados con recursos financieros públicos, con plena conciencia de la desobediencia a la suspensión ordenada, como lo evidencia la indicación del carácter ‘confidencial’ o de ‘tacto’ en la correspondencia electrónica entre la Administración de la Generalitat y los contratistas privados".

Se recuerda que el Govern adquirió “7.000 ordenadores portátiles a Telefónica a finales del mes de octubre de 2014”, donde se instalaron los programas informáticos citados anteriormente “en los días 7 y 8 de noviembre para estar en funcionamiento el día 9 de noviembre”. Fue también en los días 7 y 8 de noviembre cuando FUJITSU instaló en la sede del CTTI el tercer programa, relativo a la recepción y tratamiento de los resultados de la consulta.

El TSJC, a partir del testimonio de un trabajador, indica que Inet-Inst, S.L., empresa subcontratada de Fujitsu, “abonaba a los trabajadores 200 euros/día por trabajar los días 8 y 9 de noviembre y que fueron más de 150 trabajadores los que prestaron el servicio de llevar los ordenadores e instalarlos en las direcciones asignadas”.

Por otra parte, acusa a Governació de gastar “21.780 euros” en el “material necesario para la votación”, tras la suspensión de la consulta por parte del TC el 4-N. También a Presidència de abonar a la empresa Focus “144.244 euros” para que “acondicionara el pabellón italiano de Montjuïc e instalara en el mismo el Centro de Prensa internacional”.

“Los voluntarios dispusieron de un seguro de accidentes que fue contratado por el Departament de Governació y que supuso que AXA emitiera un suplemento de seguro el día 4 de noviembre para dar cobertura a 25.800 voluntarios para el día 9 de noviembre de 2014. El importe de ese suplemento de póliza de seguro fue de 1.409 euros”, se añade.

En lo referente a Ensenyament, se denuncian “instrucciones verbales” a los directores para ceder sus Institutos y se les animó a “reclutar voluntarios, recibir material y custodiarlo y, ceder el uso de los centros y, para el caso de no querer participar, entregar las llaves a los servicios territoriales”.

También se añade que “fue rechazada la petición de instrucciones escritas por parte de algunos directores, preocupados por la responsabilidad en que podían incidir”. “La intención de no dejar instrucciones escritas en este proceso, fue gráficamente calificada por el Inspector de Educación Sr. R. como de atipicidad administrativa”, se subraya.

“La suspensión o resolución de los contratos existentes con las empresas privadas, sino que los mismos fueron llevados a término, pese a la suspensión decretada de llevar a cabo la consulta y de las operaciones de preparación de la misma y vinculadas a ella”, afirma.

“Cuando uno de los contratistas T- SYSTEMS, solicita si debe cumplir su encargo, en atención al dictado de la providencia de 4 de noviembre, se contesta por parte del entonces Conseller de Presidencia al director del CTTI, para que traslade su respuesta, que sí debe cumplir y que para el caso de incumplir este u otro contratista pone a su disposición a los servicios jurídicos de la Generalitat”, añade.

“En consecuencia, se continuó con los actos de preparación y organización que, como se ha indicado, no se llevaban a cabo solo por voluntarios, sino que participaron empresas privadas durante los días 4 a 9 de noviembre y con posterioridad a la jornada de votación, con el conocimiento y acuerdo de los investigados”, concluye.

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Juncker, a Farage: "Es la última vez que aplauden. ¿Qué hacen aquí?"

Lo que la UE le dirá esta noche a David Cameron

POLITICO.- When EU leaders sit down over dinner Tuesday to hear British Prime Minister David Cameron “explain the situation” in the U.K. after the Brexit vote, they will be looking for answers about what happens next and when.

The result of Britain’s historic vote has thrown global markets into turmoil, threatened the breakup of the United Kingdom, and delivered a political blow to an EU already dealing with plenty of other crises.

That question of how quickly and dramatically to react has divided the other 27 EU countries and even the European institutions. Should they start the divorce process immediately or give Britain time to sort out its internal politics before difficult negotiations on the way forward can begin?

Cameron’s position is clear, as he told the House of Commons Monday. “All of the key decisions will have to wait for the arrival of the new prime minister,” Cameron said. “The British government will not be triggering Article 50 at this stage. Before we do that we have to decide what kind of relationship we want Britain to have with the European Union.”

For the summit Tuesday and Wednesday — and also for the foreseeable future — the Brexit vote has forced other important issues off the table: migration, security policy, the European economy. Talks on those matters usually fill up a summit; tomorrow they will be shoehorned into a three-hour opening session during which most leaders will undoubtedly be impatient to get to the big question: What now?

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¿Hay que dudar de los 4 millones de firmas para apoyar la petición de un segundo referéndum en el Reino Unido?

LE MONDE.- Les partisans du « Brexit » – sortie du Royaume-Uni de l’Union européenne (UE) – ont remporté la victoire lors du scrutin du 23 juin, mais certains ne digèrent toujours pas ce résultat. Une pétition qui réclame un nouveau référendum a rencontré un large écho sur les réseaux sociaux et dans les médias ces derniers jours. Plus de 3,9 millions de signatures étaient recensées, mardi 28 juin au matin sur la page dédiée au texte. Mais peut-on se fier à ce chiffre, devenu un des symboles de l’amertume d’une grande partie du pays ?

Cette pétition, lancée le 25 mai, réclamait d’ajouter une règle au vote sur le Brexit : si un camp l’emportait avec moins de 60 % avec une participation de moins de 75 %, « il devrait y avoir un nouveau référendum ». C’est exactement ce qui s’est produit le 23 juin : le camp « Leave » l’a emporté avec 51,9 % des suffrages exprimés, alors que 72,2 % des électeurs se sont déplacés. Si cet appel était resté confidentiel entre sa publication et le jour du vote, il a bénéficié d’une exposition importante dans les jours qui ont suivi, atteignant plus de 3,9 millions de signatures. Ironie de l’histoire : le Britannique qui l’a lancé, Olivier Healey, affirme sur Facebook qu’il était un partisan du « Leave » (la sortie de l’UE). Ce militant, qui a proposé la pétition à un moment où son camp était donné perdant dans les sondages, estime désormais que le vote a été équitable et se désolidarise de son propre texte.

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Antifraude descubre una trama de financiación ilegal del PSC que movió 70 millones

Antifraude descubre una trama de financiación ilegal del PSC que movió 70 millones #ca https://t.co/9ux41Pb6xo

— The Catalan Analyst (@CatalanAnalyst) June 28, 2016

Por qué han fallado las encuestas

Las encuestas del 26-J tuvieron dos grandes errores: no previeron el crecimiento del PP ni el resultado pobre de Unidos Podemos. El consenso es que el error más inexplicable e imprevisible es el de la coalición encabezada por Pablo Iglesias. Un día después de las elecciones, se intuye de dónde han salido los votos del PP —de un trasvase de Ciudadanos, de la abstención y de otros partidos—, pero no por qué nadie vio que Unidos Podemos iba a perder más de un millón de votos respecto al 20-D.

Jordi Pérez Colomé desgrana 5 razones de ese fracaso, aquí

Puigdemont baraja elecciones anticipadas en Cataluña para el 20 de Noviembre

Puigdemont baraja elecciones anticipadas en Cataluña para el 20 de Noviembre https://t.co/WD3LtwpJ12 vía @cronicaglobal #ca

— The Catalan Analyst (@CatalanAnalyst) June 28, 2016

La Guardia Civil registra Adif por un desvío de 80 millones en el AVE de Barcelona

La Guardia Civil registra Adif por un desvío de 80 millones en el AVE de Barcelona #ca https://t.co/sUgcccoJ1J vía @el_pais

— The Catalan Analyst (@CatalanAnalyst) June 28, 2016