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"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."

-- Niels Bohr

News and Opinion

Chile announces much-anticipated plan to search for Pinochet’s victims

Chile’s government has announced its much-anticipated plan to search for the victims of forced disappearance and political execution under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, which began with a coup 50 years ago next month. The plan nacional de búsqueda, or national search plan, will seek to establish the circumstances and conditions under which each person was forcibly disappeared, guarantee access to government records and provide reparations and guarantees for victims’ families.

It is the first time that the Chilean state has assumed responsibility for the search for victims of the Pinochet dictatorship, which ran from 1973 to 1990, despite families’ tireless efforts and hundreds of legal cases taken on by the judiciary. ...

A total of 40,175 people are registered victims of crimes under the Pinochet dictatorship ranging from imprisonment and torture to execution. Of these, 1,092 are listed as forcibly disappeared and 377 as victims of political executions. Some were thrown into the Pacific Ocean or dumped in shallow graves in the Atacama desert and elsewhere. The remains of only 307 previously missing victims have been identified since the return to democracy in 1990. ...

Campaigners, however, have said more still needs to be done. “It signals good intention from the government, and it is essential that we have a state-led policy,” said Álvaro González, the vice-president of the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos, a national organisation of families that has spent 50 years tracking down victims. “But we still have doubts about how effective this can be without the cooperation of the armed forces, who say they don’t have any information when we know that they do.”

“Pacts of silence” among the perpetrators of human rights abuses and members of the armed forces have consistently thwarted attempts to seek justice. This was complicated further by a 1978 amnesty law that excused perpetrators and accomplices of all crimes committed between 11 September 1973 – when Pinochet’s coup overthrew the socialist president Salvador Allende – nd 10 March 1978, without distinguishing between common and politically motivated crimes.

Chile launches plan to trace over 1,000 disappeared under Pinochet

Unveiling Shadows: Guantánamo Prisoners and the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

Despite the fact that the United States has routinely and openly violated the human rights of its own citizens as well as communities across the globe, the government rarely has any qualms about condemning the violations of other countries. These condemnations, almost always hypocritical, however, often do more to shine light on its own abuses and the lack of accountability.

Like clockwork each year, the United States issues statements commemorating various human rights days highlighting particular abuses. Last year, for example, Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement through the State Department on the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. The statement reads in part that “the United States renews its commitment to addressing enforced disappearance and calls on governments around the world to put an end to this practice, hold those responsible to account, reveal the whereabouts or fate of loved ones who have been disappeared, and respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons.”

This year, the U.S. government will almost certainly release yet another statement to commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30, once again erasing its own crimes. Although disappearances have less typically been associated with the United States, the U.S. has long deployed this abuse in the War on Terror—often disguising the practice through euphemisms and denials. After two decades plus of the War on Terror, however, it is imperative to shed light on the unresolved issue of Guantánamo prisoners’ disappearances and the CIA’s disturbing rendition, detention, and interrogation program that operated in the earlier days of the war.

In the early days of the War on Terror, the CIA was given the licence to render and detain people in countries across the globe who were willing to host black sites. The program operated from 2002-2009, with at least 119 individuals enduring the violence of the CIA. Some never returned home; others were sent to Guantánamo Bay. Although the U.S. government has continued to use the term “render” as in render to justice, in practice, many of those subjected to this violence have effectively disappeared—leaving their families in an abyss of uncertainty, all while the U.S. government refuses to reckon with this legacy.

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the United States should reflect on its own violence, so there can finally be some semblance of accountability—including acknowledging wrongdoing, repairing the harm to the victims, and putting mechanisms in place that prevent this violence from recurring.

Enforced disappearances are a particularly brutal form of state violence. Not only do the victims fear never being found, the families of the victims live in perpetual uncertainty with constant denials of information from the government about their loved ones’ fates. The pain of not knowing whether a family member is alive or deceased, free or imprisoned, makes closure impossible.

The post-9/11 and the War on Terror waged by the United States transformed many parts of the world into war zones, cemeteries, and prisons. Lives were forever lost or shrouded in obscurity, while entire families were erased. Gul Rahman, an Afghan citizen, is just one name among the countless individuals whose fate became tragically entwined with the secret operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, vanishing into CIA black sites, never to emerge alive. Among the torture Rahman endured was being handcuffed to the ground, put in a diaper, and placed in a cell with freezing temperatures—which lead to his untimely death by hypothermia. Rahman’s family was never formally informed of his death, and, despite their fighting to have his body returned for a proper burial, the United States has denied their request.

Detention by the CIA was not the only way War on Terror prisoners have been effectively disappeared. When the first Muslim men were taken to Guantánamo in January 2002, only the nationalities of prisoners were disclosed. Not only because the U.S. didn’t actually know the identities of many of the men, but because they were so dehumanized, that the U.S. government didn’t prioritize sharing the names with the International Committee of the Red Cross or any other agency or institution—especially any that would hold them accountable. It wasn’t until 2004 that the names of the men detained were finally revealed—although many with incomplete names documented, leaving their families in prolonged darkness about their whereabouts. Names were only disclosed by monitoring websites like Alasra and the Britain-based CagePrisoners.

Guantánamo became synonymous with secrecy, human rights abuses, and the plight of countless detainees. Many were held there for years, unaccounted for, like ghosts in the system. Families were left in a perpetual state of uncertainty, not knowing whether their loved ones were dead or alive. In addition, nine prisoners died while at Guantánamo—a harrowing and violent conclusion to their detention—especially since the deaths occurred years after many of the men last saw their families.

As a Guantánamo survivor myself, I spent around six agonizing years at Guantánamo before my family knew anything about my whereabouts. Another family came to know about their son in 2016; a lawyer contacted the family and let them know.

The injustices extended beyond the walls of Guantánamo. In many cases, after being transferred, detainees vanished for months, disappearing into solitary confinement in their home countries in Saudi Arabia or in third-party nations like the United Arab Emirates. Constituting a violent ebb and flow of being lost and found, War on Terror prisoners have been forced to endure the possibility of being disappeared again and again.

Ghassan al-Sharbi’s case represents a more recent chapter in this ongoing tragedy. Forcibly repatriated to Saudi Arabia, he vanished into obscurity. Despite attempts to locate him, his whereabouts remain unknown. The lack of response from both the Saudi government and the State Department exemplifies the prevailing indifference to the plight of former detainees.

Another former prisoner, Asim al-khalaqi, was released to Kazakhstan in 2015, but died tragically four months later due to mistreatment and medical negligence. The Kazakh government failed to inform Asim’s family of his death, denying them the chance to retrieve his body or hold a proper burial—thus constituting a symbolic disappearance. He was buried in an unknown cemetery and an unknown grave.

The stories of Gul Rahman, Asim al-khalaqi, Ghassan al-Sharbi, and countless others stand as painful reminders of the enduring impact of CIA rendition, Guantánamo Bay, and the “War on Terror.” While the black sites and detention camps have garnered international criticism, their legacy continues to cast a long shadow over the lives of those affected. Families have been denied closure, and the cycle of suffering perpetuates even after release. The world must remember these names, demand accountability, and work toward a future where such gross violations of human rights are truly left in the past. Until then, the War on Terror will endure as a haunting testament to the cost of sacrificing justice for security.

What a fucking moron Dick Blumenthal is.

Sen. Blumenthal: US Getting Its ‘Money’s Worth’ in Ukraine Because Americans Aren’t Dying

Fresh from a trip to Kyiv, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is arguing that the US is getting its “money’s worth” in Ukraine because Russia is taking losses and no Americans are dying, showing a lack of concern for Ukrainian lives.

“Even Americans who have no particular interest in freedom and independence in democracies worldwide, should be satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment,” Blumenthal wrote in the Connecticut Post.

“For less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half … All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost,” he added.

Tucker, US-Russia war. Borrell, 40K troops ready. Pskov, Kremlin silent

EU's Borrell Urges Countries to Order More Ammunition for Ukraine

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged member countries on Wednesday to order more ammunition for Ukraine, as figures showed the bloc is a long way from a March target of giving Kyiv a million artillery shells within 12 months. ...

In a landmark step, EU countries agreed in March on a plan worth some 2 billion euros ($2.18 billion) to provide 1 million artillery shells or missiles to Ukraine within 12 months.

The first element involved countries digging into their reserves or buying stock from elsewhere. Borrell said that element had yielded about 224,000 ammunition rounds and 2,300 missiles, worth a total of some 1.1 billion euros.

That means the EU has not even reached a quarter of its target, more than five months after the initiative was launched.

The rest of the shells are meant to come from the second element of the plan - a joint procurement scheme that encourages EU member countries to place orders for Ukraine and to replenish their own stocks, badly depleted by donating to Kyiv. But with no orders announced so far under the scheme, some EU members are urging the bloc to look at other options.

No compromise in economic war against China, says US commerce secretary

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has made it clear to her Chinese counterparts during a four-day visit to the country this week that there will be no let up in the economic warfare waged by Washington. The main purpose of the visit and the talks, which the US has said are aimed at keeping open lines of communication, has been to ensure that China does not escalate retaliatory measures in response to a swathe of US sanctions covering the export of high-tech components and US investments in Chinese enterprises.

Even as it intensifies the pressure, the US is seeking to extract concessions from Beijing. As was the case earlier this year during visits by US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Raimondo’s statements reeked of hypocrisy. She made clear the US is not going to shift from its measures being implemented under the banner of “national security.” Speaking on her departure to return to the US, Raimondo said the newly established “commercial relations working group” would lessen frictions and was the beginning of a new relationship overcoming the problems of the past. ...

On Monday the two sides agreed to establish more dialogue on commercial questions and to set up regular meetings to share information on the enforcement of the Biden administration’s export controls. However, that will not mean any concessions by the US. As Bloomberg reported: “Raimondo emphasized… that opening the lines of communication wouldn’t result in Beijing influencing US policy. She said she refused requests from Chinese officials during the visit that the US lower tariffs, cut export controls and scrap plans to limit some forms of outbound investment.”

The “information exchange” was to build an understanding about US laws, not to open the door for negotiation. “The very fact that now we would have informal communication, be able to pick up the phone and talk, is a step forward,” she said. “It doesn’t mean when we talk, I’m going to compromise or concede. It means we have a shot at reducing miscalculation and sharing information.” The reference to “miscalculation” is the fear in Washington that, in response to its increasing economic belligerence, China is going to hit back with its own sanctions that will impact vital supply chains before the US has developed alternatives.

Worth a full read, here's a snippet to get you started:

Patrick Lawrence: The Real Threat From China: They’re Better at Capitalism Than We Are

The Biden regime’s robotic procession to Beijing proceeds apace. Following Antony Blinken’s fruitless visit in mid–June, we have paid Janet Yellen’s airfare for another fruitless visit, and following Yellen it was the same for John Kerry. This week it is Gina Raimondo’s turn. The secretary of state, the Treasury secretary, the chief climate envoy, and the commerce secretary: What is the point of this parade?

I cannot but wonder whether these officials are dispatched across the Pacific in descending order of competence. Raimondo, who previously flopped as governor of Rhode Island—except for her plan to cut civil service pensions, an unfortunate success—is mediocrity made flesh. The Chinese must be wondering, with chagrin or amusement or both, who the Biden regime will next send their way.

The assignment in all these cases is the same: It comes down to “two seemingly contradictory responsibilities,” as The New York Times’s Ana Swanson put it in a curtain-raiser last week. She described “a mandate to strengthen U.S. business relations with Beijing while also imposing some of the toughest Chinese trade restrictions in years.” This is succinct, although we can live without the “seemingly.” Proposing to conduct routine business while sabotaging China’s competitive position in advanced technologies is prima facie a ridiculous idea. ...

The Biden administration’s China strategy comes down to parrying, in a word. All the pointless talk is intended to obscure a concerted effort to undermine China’s economy because we cannot compete with it in various strategic sectors, while—part two—buying time to move maximum U.S. military hardware as close to the mainland as possible under the program the Defense Department named a few years ago the Pacific Defense Initiative, the PDI.

At the horizon, we are likely to see Washington’s trans–Pacific military ambitions trump longstanding trade and investment relationships. This is what “decoupling” and now “delinking” are all about. They are warnings to the corporate and financial sectors that their interests, which came first in the decades after the Dengist reforms of the 1980s, will no longer take precedence as the new Cold War Biden constantly denies provoking destroys relations with the mainland. ...

Beijing knows very well there is a point to all these apparently pointless visits U.S. officials insist on making. The Biden regime is buying time as it remilitarizes the western end of the Pacific. The only people who are supposed to understand otherwise are Americans. We are not supposed to watch as Washington provokes and prosecutes Cold War II before our eyes. We are supposed to watch as American officials—reasonable, constructive, well-intended—make all efforts to talk to the Chinese in the face of their stubborn reluctance to cooperate.

This is my revised take on the Blinken–Yellen–Kerry–Raimondo cavalcade across the Pacific. These people are not clods. They are purposefully malicious and, it should go without saying, are making the world even more dangerous than it already is.

Military Coup in Gabon Seen as Part of Broader Revolt Against France & Neo-Colonialism in Africa

Another Regime in ‘French West Africa’ Is Toppled

Wild celebrations have broken out on the streets of Gabon’s cities on Wednesday after a military junta announced on television that it had put President Ali Bongo Ondimba under house arrest and had seized power.
The Bongo family had ruled the former French colony since 1967. Ali Bongo was the wealthiest man in Gabon with an estimated $1 billion in assets. The coup took place just after the country’s electoral commission declared that he won a third term.

It is the fifth coup in a West African country once ruled directly by France since August 2020, when Mali fell to military leaders. This was followed by military coups in Burkina Faso in September 2022, in Guinea in September 2021, in Niger last month and in Gabon on Wednesday.

The pressure is growing on Paris as the coups are directed against France’s continuing Neo-colonial rule in West Africa. The push to get France out is being buoyed by a growing confidence of developing countries in the emergence of a multilateral world amid the accelerating death of U.S. unilateralism and the remnants of colonialism.

The African Union and France, which has 350 troops in the country, have condemned the coup. It isn’t clear yet whether these troops will be asked to leave by the new rulers.

More tales from the gerontocracy:

Mitch McConnell appears to freeze again for more than 30 seconds

The Republican leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, experienced another public health scare on Wednesday when he appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds while speaking to reporters in his home state, Kentucky. McConnell, 81, was eventually escorted away by staff, footage from an NBC News affiliate showed.

Asked for his thoughts about running for re-election in 2026, McConnell laughed and said: “Oh, that’s a …” He then appeared to freeze. Coming to his side, an aide said: “Did you hear the question, senator? Running for re-election in 2026?”

McConnell did not answer. The aide said, “All right, I’m sorry you all, we’re gonna need a minute.” Another aide exchanged quiet words with the senator, who said: “OK.” The first aide asked for another question, saying: “Please speak up.” The aide repeated questions loudly into McConnell’s ear. He gave quiet, halting answers.

Told, “It’s a question about Trump,” McConnell said he would not comment on the presidential race “on the Democratic side or the Republican side”.

The two aides then escorted McConnell away.

The incident came a little more than a month after McConnell appeared to freeze while talking to reporters at the US Capitol in Washington.

Mitch McConnell’s Brief Flash Of Humanity

Mitch McConnell froze up in public again, the second such incident in the last few weeks.

He just stood there silently —  a gentle, childlike smile flickering across his face, probably for the first time since the Truman administration.

In that moment, while Mitch McConnell’s dying brain struggled and failed to make sense of its present reality, all the dourness was gone from his face. All the downward gravitational pull from a lifetime in the DC swamp. All the seriousness. All the scheming. All the warmongering, tyranny and abusiveness.

In that moment of amnesiac innocence, you’d never be able to tell from looking at Mitch McConnell how many people he’s helped kill. How much suffering he’s helped cause. How much health and thriving he’s frozen out of humanity in his joyless facilitation of corporate dystopia.

All you’d see is a man. A cute, harmless, befuddled old man. All the dark, dense, contracted energy gone from his form in a sweet tender moment of intimate indivisibility.

Capitol Hill is where warmongers and principles go to die. It’s an assisted living facility for psychopaths  —  a nursing home where people who receive sexual gratification from dropping military explosives on foreigners go to wait for their decomposition. The whole place smells like night terrors and urine.

Capitol Hill is a gerontocratic command center where miserable octogenarians in wheelchairs and adult diapers keep pulling the levers of ecocide and nuclear brinkmanship like retirees at a Vegas slot machine as a final fuck you to younger generations who are still capable of enjoying life on this planet. It’s where they warehouse souls too atrophied and mummified to take a stand against the empire in order to give Americans the illusion of living in a democracy.

Joe Biden called McConnell his good friend, and of course they are good friends; they are the same kind of monster. The same variety of spent, half-dead Beltway flotsam made of corporate logos and plastic donor class dinner parties held together by nothing but Aricept and wood glue who’ve been pushing war, militarism, austerity and authoritarianism since the instant they were able to claw their way into elected office.

This is the hub of the global empire. This is what it looks like. Corrupt. Decrepit. Blood-spattered. Shitting itself. And then Hollywood perception managers come in and dress it up as something pretty.

But it all faded away in that one moment of neurological misfire. Not even a distant memory as colors, sounds and feelings swirled ineffably in McConnell’s bewildered mind.

Perhaps one day this will happen to the entire empire. The whole thing suddenly vanishing for the lie it always was, all its managers left blinking stupidly in the sunlight, reaching for tools that aren’t there anymore and word magic that no longer has any power.

Perhaps one day all the illusions will disappear like the network of conceptual constructs in Mitch McConnell’s head. Perhaps one day the empire will call upon its servants and no one will answer, and it will be left there anxiously repeating the call, like an actor trapped onstage repeating a line from the script, awaiting a fellow cast member who missed their cue.

Kyle Rittenhouse sued by estate of man he killed at Kenosha anti-racism protest

Kyle Rittenhouse, who as a teenager shot and killed two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is being sued by the estate of one of the men who died, according to court documents.

Since the killings Rittenhouse has become a high-profile figure on the US right, feted at events by rightwingers, appearing on conservative media and lauded by gun rights activists.

But in a lawsuit filed in Wisconsin this week, lawyers representing the estate of Joseph Rosenbaum, who Rittenhouse shot with an assault rifle in August 2020, said Rittenhouse and a series of other defendants had “intentionally and unjustifiably caused the death of Joseph Rosenbaum”.

Rosenbaum’s estate is also suing several law enforcement departments, including the Kenosha police department and Kenosha county sheriff’s department, along with the City of Kenosha. The lawsuit was submitted on Friday, and the estate is seeking unnamed damages.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Rittenhouse, who was cleared of homicide and attempted homicide, responded: “I’m being sued again for defending my life.”

Texas judge blocks bill that would allow state to override local water breaks rules

A Texas judge has ruled that a controversial bill dubbed “the Death Star law” is unconstitutional, just days before the law was set to take effect when it would have hurt many local labor laws, including paid sick leave and mandated water breaks for some employees toiling outside in a brutal heatwave.

The state district judge Maya Guerra Gamble issued her decision in response to a lawsuit against Texas filed by the cities of Houston, San Antonio and El Paso. Gamble agreed with arguments made by the cities that the bill is vague and unclear on which ordinances the municipalities must cancel before it was set to take effect.

The law was an attempt by Texas Republicans to nullify and prevent local municipalities and counties from passing local ordinances that go further than state law. It was slated to prevent legislation requiring paid sick leave for workers, eviction protections for tenants, and would nullify local ordinances that mandated water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas and prompted San Antonio to scale back efforts to enact a similar ordinance.

Texas is expected to appeal, but worker advocate groups praised the decision.

Donald Trump vows to lock up political enemies if he returns to White House

Donald Trump says he will lock up his political enemies if he is president again. In an interview on Tuesday, the rightwing broadcaster Glenn Beck raised Trump’s famous campaign-trail vow to “lock up” Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016, a promise Trump did not fulfill in office.

Beck said: “Do you regret not locking [Clinton] up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?”

Trump said: “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.”

Pod Saves Bros FREAK Over Biden Tied With Trump

Democrat says court dates clashing with Trump’s campaign schedule is unfair

Assuming Donald Trump clinches the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it would be unfair for any court dates associated with the former president’s pending criminal charges to “compromise [his] ability to have a robust campaign schedule”, the Democratic US congressman Ro Khanna has said.

Khanna’s remarks on Tuesday – in an interview with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt – might be surprising to some, given his credentials as a leading progressive voice in the House. Khanna was the former co-chairperson of the liberal US senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination that the more centrist Joe Biden ultimately secured.

Nonetheless, while Khanna made clear that he believed Trump should have to answer the various charges against him, the Californian said the timing of exactly when that happens is of the utmost importance. “My instinct on all of this is they’re not going to have trials in the middle of something that’s going to compromise a candidate’s ability to have a fair fight,” Khanna said. “I just don’t see that happening in our country.”

He continued: “You can’t just say OK, because someone was president or someone is a candidate, that you’re above the law. Everyone is under the law, and that allegations, the evidence needs to be pursued. But what we’re discussing is the timing.

“And I do think we need to make sure that in the timing, if Trump does emerge as the Republican nominee, that it does not compromise the ability to have a robust campaign schedule. And I imagine that the courts will take that into consider if he is the nominee.”

RFK JR GAINING on Biden With 19% Support Among Dems DESPITE MSM Coverage Blackout

U.S. Aquifers Are Running Dry, Posing Major Threat to Drinking Water Supply

Excellent, worth a click and a full read:

The Climate Crisis Will End When Capitalism Ends

The March to End Fossil Fuels will take place in New York City on September 17, days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit. Considering that July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded on earth, the role of fossil fuel production in the climate crisis surely needs public attention and action.,

But there is something highly problematic about marches and meetings that don’t address two large elephants in the room: capitalism and militarism. The United States military is the world’s biggest emitter of fossil fuels, having emitted 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere since 2001. The huge number is no surprise considering that the U.S. has more than 800 military facilities around the world and needs huge amounts of fossil fuels in order to operate them all.

Fossil fuel usage can only end with radical changes to life in industrialized nations and with very radical changes in politics. The March to End Fossil Fuels website is replete with pleas to Joe Biden to suddenly stop doing what he’s been doing throughout his presidency, “It's time for Biden to pick a side: is he with us, or is he with the fossil fuel CEOs destroying our planet and polluting our communities?” Biden answered that question. He is, like his predecessors, on the side of the fossil fuel CEOs.

The duopoly’s good cop/bad cop routine is quite predictable. Republicans pledge to drill for oil and proclaim their disdain for environmental concerns by opting out of international climate accords. Democrats join the climate accords and claim they will work towards a fossil free future, as Biden did during his 2020 campaign. But once in office they do what Republicans do. The U.S. is now producing a record 12.8 million barrels of oil per day, more than any other nation. Democrats are the worst liars in this regard, as they are well aware that their voters want action on the environment, but their bread is buttered by big oil. ...

Humans have an infinite capacity for wishful thinking, but a revolutionary project is by definition a recognition that wishes are for fairy tales. Yes, demonstrations must be part of the plan to save life on earth. They aren’t enough though, and appealing to the people who have no shame is not a good use of time. Anyone who marches against fossil fuel production must be ready for very radical political change. Presidents of the United States and the nation’s entire political leadership are errand boys and girls for the capitalist classes. Record breaking heat will only end when capitalism does too.

EU fossil fuel burning for electricity fell to lowest on record in 2023, data shows

The European Union is stoking its power plants with fewer lumps of coal and barrels of oil and gas than it has ever recorded, data shows. The 27 member states burned 17% less fossil fuel to make electricity between January and June 2023 than over the same period the year before, a study from the clean energy thinktank Ember found. The EU made 410TWh of electricity from sources that release planet-heating gases, which analysts say is the lowest level since 2015 – the first year for which they have monthly data – and “very likely” since 2000.

The drop in fossil fuel generation was driven by a fall in demand for electricity, as well as some growth in clean power, the study found. “We’re glad to see fossil fuels down, but in the long-term it is not going to be sustainable to rely on the fall in demand to do this,” said Matt Ewen, a data analyst at Ember and author of the report. “We have to be replacing this energy rather than just expecting it to go away and not be used.” ...

The report found that fossil generation in the first half of 2023 fell more than 20% in 11 EU countries and more than 30% in five of them. Fourteen countries saw their lowest total fossil generation on record for the period. In seven countries – Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia – fossil fuel burning hit its lowest levels this century. ... But even as high energy prices have brought down demand, “the EU’s reliance on fossil fuels persists”, said Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at CREA and co-author of the report.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Even The Bald Eagle’s Call Is Propaganda

Big Serge On The Summer Campaign In Ukraine

Protests Against French Troops Intensify in Niger as War Looms

Problems of Capitalism: Power Accumulation

'Rescheduling Is Not Enough,' Advocates Say of HHS Cannabis Recommendation

US cities say they turn food waste into compost. Is it a problem when they don’t?

Ron DeSantis Pledges To INVADE MEXICO!

WATCH: McConnell FREEZES Inexplicably AGAIN; Jean-Pierre SQUIRMS When Pressed On Biden's Age

A Little Night Music

Tampa Red - Things 'Bout Coming My Way

Tampa Red - Boogie Woogie Dance

Tampa Red - Don't You Lie to Me

Tampa Red - Anna Lou Blues

Tampa Red - Witching Hour Blues

Tampa Red - New Strangers Blues

Tampa Red - Love With A Feeling

Tampa Red - Let Me Play With Your Poodle

Tampa Red - Juicy Lemon Blues

Tampa Red - Let's Get Drunk & Truck