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Why Europe is up in arms
đ§ Cheese war | đ > đŚ | đď¸ Luxury garlic
In the headlines
The Democratic Unionist Party has agreed a deal with Westminster to return to power-sharing at Stormont, paving the way for an end to two years of political deadlock. The party has boycotted the devolved parliament since February 2022 in protest over post-Brexit trade arrangements, leaving Northern Ireland to be run by civil servants. Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets, in what his supporters have called a âsham caseâ. Khan, who is already serving a three-year sentence for corruption, was accused of sharing the contents of a diplomatic cable sent by the countryâs ambassador in Washington. Elon Musk says his company Neuralink has successfully implanted a wireless chip into a human patientâs brain for the first time. The billionaire says the aim of the technology is to allow people with complex neurological conditions to control external computers âjust by thinkingâ. đ§ đ¤
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Tractors blocking a motorway outside Paris. Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty
Why Europe is up in arms
French farmers have blockaded Paris with tractors, says Virginie Malingre in Le Monde, because they are fed up with climate policies âcoming from Brusselsâ. But this is just the most visible sign of discontent. âRebellion has been stirring in every corner of Europeâ against the European Green Deal, which imposes new taxes and regulations on EU states as part of the race towards Net Zero by 2050. Farmers have taken to the streets not just in France, but also in Germany, Romania, Poland and the Netherlands. Big industry â everything from steelmaking and cement production to car manufacturing and construction â is complaining about the onerous bureaucracy of the Green Deal. They fear the legislation will see them eclipsed by their âmassively subsidised American and Chinese competitorsâ.
All this is having a massive impact on the continentâs politics. In the European Parliament, the right-wing European Peopleâs Party â the largest bloc of MEPs â has won several victories against climate policy by teaming up with everyone from the hard right to socialists and liberals. The nationalist and populist movements promising to scupper the Green Deal look set to do well in this summerâs European elections, while the green parties are plummeting in opinion polls, particularly in Germany and France. Emmanuel Macron has called on the EU ânot to further burden the French people with new regulationsâ, with similar pleas made by others, from the Swedes to the Greeks. âIf we had discussed the Green Deal today,â says one European diplomat, âthere would be no Green Deal.â
Nature
When a new species invades a habitat, says Walt Hickey on Substack, the effects can be felt right the way up the food chain. A new study has found that invasive ants in the grasslands of Kenya have driven out the native ant species that used to protect the whistling thorn tree. With those âinsect defendersâ gone, elephants have been âstripping and toppling the trees for funâ â which in turn has destroyed the foliage lions use to hide. This is massively hampering the lionsâ ability to hunt: in places where the invasive ants have taken over, they are killing zebras almost three times less often.
Inside politics
Joe Bidenâs low approval rating of just 37% gets âa lot of attentionâ, says Ruchir Sharma in the FT, but heâs doing better than most of his peers. The leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Japan all have ratings below 30%. Just one developed country â Italy â has seen its premier become more popular in the 2020s. Itâs different in the developing world, where most leaders in the 10 largest countries âstill have a rating above 50%â.
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Global update
Liz Truss sticking up for British cheese
The government has suspended trade deal talks with Canada, âall because of a row over cheeseâ, says The Daily Telegraph. Britain started post-Brexit negotiations with Ottawa two years ago, but conversations came to a sharp halt this month when the Land of Maple Syrup slapped a 245% tariff on imports of British cheeses including cheddar and stilton. In response, trade secretary Kemi Badenoch told her Canadian counterpart that she could see no point in the talks, which seek to expand a trading relationship already worth some ÂŁ26bn. Quelle fromage!
Comment
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie: âbadly plotted and messyâ
Give it a rest, you âspoilt, painted clownsâ
In case you missed it, says Camilla Long in The Sunday Times, there has been âhowling, helium angerâ that the âfrothing pink juggernautâ Barbie has not received more Oscar nominations. Ryan Gosling, who has been nominated for his role as Ken, said he was particularly âdisappointedâ that his co-star Margot Robbie and their director Greta Gerwig were overlooked. Even the âterminally bescarfed harbinger of absolute wrongnessâ, Hillary Clinton, couldnât resist contacting the pair publicly to say she understands how much it can âsting to win the box office but not take home the goldâ. What?
I canât help looking at all the âwailing statementsâ from these âspoilt, painted clownsâ, whose collective wealth is âprobably five times that of the female workforce of Venezuelaâ, and thinking: âWho are these women?â How can we be told in one moment how âfearless and strongâ they are â Gerwig is apparently an âiconâ, Clinton a âfeminist legendâ â only to watch them âcrater into bawling, hissy, tantruming messesâ the minute they donât get exactly what they want? Barbie was âbadly plotted and messyâ. What makes Ryan Gosling â an intelligent person who was the best thing in the film â believe Gerwig deserves an Oscar? Or is he just saying it to promote himself and secure his gong? The film is also âincredible in its dishonestyâ. None of the women in it really thinks that Barbie, who looks like a sex toy, can be radical or progressive, so why pretend otherwise? Oh, because the toy company that makes Barbies, Mattel, paid them to. It doesnât get much more âkickass and feministâ than that.
Desert Island Discs
Noted
There are âall sorts of rumoursâ about why South Africa is pursuing its genocide case against Israel, says Ivan Fallon in The Sunday Times. The âmost prevalentâ is that Iran is behind it, having given the countryâs ruling ANC party a âlarge cash contributionâ last year. No one has produced any actual evidence for this. But itâs certainly true that the ANCâs âacute financial problemsâ seem to have disappeared since senior ministers paid a visit to the Islamic Republic.
Snapshot
Snapshot answer
Itâs the âsleepy girl mocktailâ, says The New York Times, a homemade night-time drink thatâs taking over TikTok. The recipe is simple: âSwirl a spoonful of magnesium into a fizzing glass of seltzer and tart cherry juice, take a big sip and get the best sleep of your life.â But bedtime boffins remain sceptical. Tart cherries are a source of melatonin, but contain only a fraction of a percent of the amount that has been shown to induce drowsiness. And magnesium has been repeatedly shown to have no effect at all, except possibly to cause diarrhoea.
Quoted
âAccept who you are. Unless youâre a serial killer.â
Ellen DeGeneres