The French regional elections were fairly hectic this year. The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) almost won the region of Provence-Alps-Côte d’Azure, Macron’s En Marche (EM) did pretty badly, a worryingly low number of people actually voted, and the centre saw a big resurgence. Here in Alsace the candidat from Les Républicains, Jean Rottner secured a…
While the G7 summit this year was disappointing to some, mainly due to unambitious contributions to the climate fight and vaccine donations, one interesting thing they did manage to get through was “Build Back Better World” (B3W). It is intended to be an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which has been one…
At the moment the mouse plague afflicting Australia feels almost biblical following extensive fires, drought and rain in recent times. Millions of mice are on the move in Western NSW and parts of Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, causing millions in property damage. The mice arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and have been…
Gas’s role in the future is a highly debated topic, and not without reason. It is a fossil fuel, and its use emits CO2 into the atmosphere, furthering the climate crisis. On the other hand it is the lowest emission fossil fuel, and could provide backup power generation to complement renewables and help the transition….
The Nord Stream 2 project is an under-construction gas pipeline that would go from Russia to Germany which has been the subject of a lot of controversy recently. So let’s look a bit deeper into it. Nord Stream 2 is an expansion of the original Nord Stream gas line, creating two additional pipelines along the…
The hijacking of a passenger plane by Belarus is a huge threat to international aviation, being as it is a hijacking perpetrated by the state itself. In doing this Belarus broke multiple International Civil Aviation Organisation Treaties guaranteeing the free passage and neutrality of airspace, possibly broke the European Convention on Human Rights (they never…
Today the EU and Japan signed the “EU-Japan Green Alliance” during the 27th EU-Japan summit, which also occurred today. So what’s happened? Firstly, European Council President, Charles Michel and European Commision President, Ursula Von der Leyen represented the EU at this summit while Japan was represented by their PM Yoshihide Suga. What did they discuss…
After watching this year’s Eurovision I have quite a few things to say about it, so here’s a rundown of this year’s Eurovision: Best Songs: Germany’s entry was really corny, but I love it. The song is kind of a bop (and the corny-ness just makes it more fun), the lead singer could actually dance…
The South China Sea has the three most important seafaring routes of East Asia and carries about one third of global shipping or $5.3 trillion annually. Almost everything going from or to the numerous nations in the region needs to go through the South China Sea. It controls access to the Strait of Malacca, among…