‘Key lessons’ for conservation as India’s tiger population doubles in a decade BBC
Amazon river dolphins may send messages with aerial streams of urine Science (Jeff W)
Signs Of Life In A Desert Of Death Nomea (Micael T)
The Case Against Drinking Sam Kahn (Micael T)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
NEW: In response to orders by the Trump admin, the CDC has taken down the Household Pulse Survey, one of the biggest and most important sources of Long COVID data in the world.
The US government is literally erasing the existence of Long COVID. pic.twitter.com/X5QfBNJHsd
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) February 1, 2025
New bird flu strain H5N9 in California raises pandemic potential concerns Washington Post (Dr. Kevin)
Climate/Environment
New report urges IEA to turn away from energy transition focus Reuters
‘Like dropping a bomb’: why is clean energy leader Uruguay ramping up the search for oil? Guardian
Global Banks Make Little Headway in Addressing Climate Change Bloomberg
California bill would let insurers sue oil companies to avoid raising rates eenews
Flowers blooming in Moscow and Kiev too:
🌡️HISTORIC WINTER WARMTH IN EUROPE
Hundreds of records smashed in all Central-East
including capitals like Belgrade and Zagreb,
Slovak national monthly record of highest minimum,etc
Croatia broke records in nearly every stationMost important records 👇(magnify the screenshot) pic.twitter.com/GV5tXv56WJ
— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) January 29, 2025
New documentary investigates IKEA’s destructive logging in Romania REDDMonitor. Micael T: “So IKEA cut high quality wood and turn it to disposable shit furniture. This is outrageous on so many levels.”
China?
US should ‘steal’ China’s best AI talent to keep pace, Senate hears South China Morning Post (guurst). The stupid, it burns.
Africa
France’s Military Withdrawal & Africa’s Realignment Paolo Aguilar
South of the Border
Coffee prices hit record high after Trump stand-off with Colombia Telegraph. Prices steady here because Thailand grows its own but export very little. And it’s really good. I buy Zoba, which has elephants on the bag, natch.
Myanmar
Myanmar disintegrating four years after a disastrous coup Asia Times
European Disunion
Germany recession fears return ahead of election Reuters
Deutsche Bank profits collapse as German economy reels Telegraph
Germany: Mass protests after far-right AfD helps CDU/CSU DW
Anti-migration bill fails German Bundestag after Merkel denounces CDU cooperation with AfD and the left break out in widespread protests eugyppius (Micael T)
The Bundestag debate on the influx restriction law shows why party democracy must go Anti-Spiegel via machine translation (Micael T)
French economy shrinks as political crisis eclipses Olympic boost France24
Greek defence minister demands France explain sale of missiles to Turkey Euronews
Old Blighty
Brexit has some benefits, No 10 says on anniversary BBC (Kevin W)
Israel v. The Resistance
‘We won’t let them sabotage this’: Hostage families fight to keep ceasefire alive +972
The refusal to allow the entry of mobile homes and caravans into Gaza is intensifying the already dire humanitarian crisis faced by thousands of displaced families who have lost their homes entirely. With temperatures continuing to drop and essential services severely lacking,… pic.twitter.com/xejrvAdi75
— Dr Fadel Naim (@fnaim65) January 31, 2025
Palestinian patients on way to Egypt as Rafah crossing opens after 9 months Aljazeera
Pay attention to the wording. Transfer NOT movement. Seems that EU will help implement the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. https://t.co/bExTo8B63V
— Sunny Singh (@ProfSunnySingh) January 31, 2025
this btw is not some rando poster. this is the columbia law prof who got pushed out for standing up for palestinians. also $400 frickin’ K? seems somebody shud investigate this sweetheart deal. Anybody know a good lawyer? https://t.co/NhgJuvpoJI
— chinahand (@chinahand) January 30, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Neverending War Julian Macfarlane (Micael T)
CIA/NYT Remove North Korean Troops From Ukraine’s Front Line Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Trump is now threatening the BRICS countries. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/buKuqoUEBb
— Berniegirl No More (@Hedgesgurl) January 31, 2025
Russia may drop caps on nuclear arms, if US pushes ahead with missile defense effort — MFA TASS (guurst)
Trump 2.0
Trump threatens to ignite era of trade wars with new tariffs Financial Times
Biggest US trading allies brace for a ‘game of chicken’ with Trump’s tariffs Guardian
Fun Fact: Trump’s tariffs were very limited in his first term, and they obliterated the farming industry. He then had to subsidize farmers with billions of dollars just to save them.
Good luck to everyone.
— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) January 31, 2025
Trump vows to ‘absolutely’ impose tariffs on EU RT
Trump DOJ demands list of thousands of FBI agents, others who worked on Jan. 6 and Trump investigations for possible firing CNN (Kevin W)
* * * Secretary Marco Rubio with Megyn Kelly of The Megyn Kelly Show State.gov (Alexander Mercouris)
* * * Cruz to revive push to abolish government consumer protection agency The Hill. Have a look at the photo.In win for Trump, oil giant Shell walks away from major New Jersey offshore wind farm Associated Press (Kevin W)
No survivors expected after air ambulance crashes in Philadelphia Anadolu Agency
Immigration
Mexico builds tent camps for migrants amid looming mass deportations from US iNews
From Xcancel:
She deported 7,300 people in the first week and is playing dress up and doing constant conservative TV to get pats on the back.
Biden deported 15,000 on an average week. https://t.co/7xT9bxMQ64
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 31, 2025
Our No Longer Free Press
LA Times Flips Anti-RFK Jr. Op-Ed Into Pro-Kennedy Propaganda TechDirt (Paul R)
AI
Books Written Without AI Can Now Receive New ‘Human Authored’ Certification Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)
North Korean hackers use Google’s Gemini AI for cybercrime and espionage. Fortune
Dylan Riley, Fire and Spark New Left Review. Anthony L:”The Infallible One – Lawrence Summers – is, it seems, never right.”
“Over 83 hrs, Deepseek server cluster was subjected to over 230 million DDoS malicious requests per second, with the total attack volume equivalent to the total internet traffic of Europe for three days”
I wonder who has the capability to carry out attack on such scale?🤔… https://t.co/piwiTjkDB0
— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) January 31, 2025
AI Will Degenerate In Much The Same Way Google Did Ian Welsh (Micael T)
China’s AI Sputnik moment is not what it seems Engelsberg Ideas
The Bezzle
Whales, Gunpowder, and Sputnik Doug Casey (Micael T)
Guillotine Watch
Why are the oligarchs so grossly aggressive? Here are four answers etc via machine translation (Micael T)
Class Warfare
A record number of car owners can’t afford their loans. That’s bad for everyone. Business Insider
‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley Guardian (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour. Tracie H: “Chanel here is now about 4 1/2 months old. This was taken last week.”
And a bonus (Chuck L). This looks too pretty to be real but I will defer to readers.
Winter Night in Norway 🇸🇯 pic.twitter.com/WlYrF5rogW
— Magical places (@PlacesMagi15559) January 29, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
