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Announcing our 2026 Fellows! One is a neuroscientist exploring how the brain computes at a molecular level, another is a bioengineer 3D-printing human tissue. There’s a PhD student working on computational protein design, and an engineer developing robots to build large structures in space – just to name a... show more
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![Through Technology, a Centuries-Old Battle Is Coming to a Head "A Discussion of Open-Source AI with Travis Oliphant" Travis Oliphant Travis Oliphant is an entrepreneur and CEO and co founder of OpenTeams (OpenTeams®), a company that “helps organizations deploy, support, and own [AI] technology at enterprise scale.” One of their tag lines is “Connecting Companies with Communities.” As a data scientist and software developer, Travis is known for his contributions to Python and as the creator of NumPy and a founding contributor to SciPy, which together formed a foundation for modern AI and machine learning. When I was in Salt Lake City in the first week of June, Travis and I went into a studio to record this interview, continuing a conversation we had started when Travis and his team visited the Solari team in the Netherlands in early 2026. Our discussion focuses on how we can understand and manage the growing presence of AI in our lives. Travis has an impressive intellectual and entrepreneurial background. After earning Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering at Brigham Young University, he completed a PhD in biomedical engineering at the Mayo Clinic. As an assistant professor at Brigham Young’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2001 to 2007, he directed the Biomedical Imaging Lab, where his research centered on computational imaging techniques. He then went on to start several companies, each time identifying the need for a new standard, building the open-source infrastructure, and helping enterprises adopt it at scale. Brilliant, open-minded, deeply caring, and generous, Travis is someone who can help us understand what is happening and what we do about it. My hope is this will be the first of many conversations as we navigate the acceleration in technological innovation (and skullduggery) and seek to ensure that tools such as AI serve the health and prosperity of a human civilization. Full Report: Subscribe to](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2070708278330294540/amplify_video_thumb/2070707095863754752/img/KW6uXp4XVuKz7Zk_.jpg)
![I’m seeing a lot of questions on the launch of China’s Chang’e 6 mission yesterday to get samples - for the first time - from the far side of the moon. We don’t know (afaik) why specifically they’re doing that, but we have a pretty good idea what grand vision China is working towards with their space program. How? From this 2022 video by Chas Freeman (former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Nixon's interpreter during his era-defining 1972 China visit), who imho is undoubtedly one of the most knowledgeable former US officials on China. He says that according to his own discussions with people running China’s space program, they’re following the vision described in the book "The high frontier" by Gerard K. O'Neill, which Freeman says has "become the bible of the Chinese space program". I read the book. So what vision does it describe? The book was written in 1976 by O'Neill who was a professor of physics at Princeton University. He also founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. In other words, he knew his stuff. The book makes the very fair point that we have massive resource constraints on earth, especially given the growing population. He estimated in 1976 that we should be "about six and a half billion people in the year 2000", and we were 6.114 billion back then so he was pretty prescient. He estimates that these constraints will progressively give rise to more and more social tensions as the growing earth population competes for our limited resources as well as faces global problems like climate change. In his view, dealing with this will either require "an authoritarian regime capable of mounting the immense task of social reorganization needed to escape catastrophe" or, alternatively, “mankind would [need to adopt] a static society [that would be] forced in self-defense to suppress new ideas". The 3rd alternative is of course the colonization of space. The most interesting aspect of the book is that he claims everything he writes is feasible with knowledge and technology that already existed in the late 70s. In short he calls for the establishment of large human habitats in the Earth-Moon system, located at stable Lagrange points ("parking spots" in space where gravity from different spatial bodies cancel each other out). In particular he developed the concept of what's known today as the "O'Neill cylinder" which he says "could support quite easily a population of ten million people, growing its food in agricultural cylinders near but outside the main habitat". Energy-wise, it'd simply make use of solar energy via a system of mirrors. As he describes it: "the concentration of the unvarying, intense sunlight of space by very lightweight, inexpensive mirrors can provide all the energy that industry will ever need [...] at a fraction of a cent per kilowatt-hour". He envisages building these habitats with material from the moon, shot into space via "mass drivers", a form of electromagnetic catapult. Also "the habitats would have artificial gravity similar as that of earth by rotating about twenty-eight times an hour”, but he also envisages low-gravity areas, especially for recreational activities such as swimming pools or dancing representations. To trade with earth, he develops the idea of beaming solar power back to earth via "microwave from solar power stations in orbit". As he describes it "the microwave beam would arrive at Earth with a beam width of about seven kilometers. Its intensity would be modest, less than half that of sunlight. In contrast to sunlight, though, it would be there all the time, even at night or in clouds or rain, and it would be in a form ready for conversion to DC current with a loss of only 10 percent. The areas receiving these beams’ output on Earth would be fenced, and outside the fence the intensity of microwave radiation would be no higher than outside a microwave oven with the door closed. He estimates that if "Satellite Solar Power Stations (SSPS) were to become the sole source of electric energy in the United States in the year 2000, the land area necessary for the SSPS antennas would still be only 0.2 percent of that of the continental United States". In short, the establishment of space colonies could lead to the fulfillment of a good share of Earth's energy needs. Last but not least he describes life in space habitats as better than that of earth, largely thanks to the level of control we'd have over the environment (total climate control which would enable an abundance of food and no natural disaster) as well as unlimited cheap energy. To conclude, Chas Freeman typically really knows his stuff when it comes to China and he’s very intellectually honest (a rare trait among US officials) so I have no doubt he tells the truth when he says the Chinese told him that was the vision. And China famously thinks very big and very long term so it would be quite like them to go for something like this. There are also quite a few tangible signs that China is working towards that vision. See for instance this November 2022 news where “China’s space station will join a project to collect solar power from space and send it to Earth in a high-energy microwave beam”: That’s exactly O’Neill’s vision! Or check this October 2022 news that says China is developing new "electromagnetic sledges" that can propel a carriage weighing a few tonnes to a record speed, with a key application for this being “aerospace”: Remember: O’Neill’s vision is to build his habitats with material from the moon, shot into space via "mass drivers", a form of electromagnetic catapult. So there you go… Or also the fact that the Chinese will build, together with the Russians, a moon base - planned for 2028 - powered by a “space nuclear reactor” that’s already been developed (on Earth) and has passed review by China’s Ministry of Science: The space nuclear reactor can generate 1MW of electricity, enough to power 10 International Space Stations. Enough power, maybe, to undertake mining activity and power an electromagnetic catapult… After visions change, the world changes, so it’s also possible that China’s view on what they want to do has evolved. In any case, Chas Freeman is right that China’s motivation for all its initiatives in space can’t just be to “boldly explore where no-one has been before”, they have to be working towards something. And Freeman is also absolutely right to lament that the U.S. decided to ban any cooperation in space with the Chinese. Those endeavors are something that could have been jointly developed as a multilateral effort to unite us all as a species… Instead China is now forced to go at it alone with Russia and we face a future where our petty divisions on Earth will be carried with us to space…](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1786611294218702934/ext_tw_video_thumb/1786610517114851328/pu/img/OoYUvR3PovMC-WFS.jpg)
![This battery is about to change the world in 3 months, or make this guy a fool | Fred Lambert, Hacker News Donut Lab lit the EV and energy storage industry on fire last week with its announcement of a 400 Wh/kg solid-state battery cell that can last for 100 years. At face value, if true, we are looking at the single most disruptive announcement in the history of the electric vehicle industry and energy storage as a whole. We aren’t just talking about a better motorcycle battery. If the claims of a 5-minute charge, 100,000-cycle life, and ~400 Wh/kg energy density are accurate and scalable, as Donut Lab claims, this is the holy grail of energy storage. Battery breakthrough announcements generally don’t catch fire like this, but Donut Lab’s did because it said that the cell was already in production and will be in a production vehicle, Verge’s electric motorcycle, this quarter. It gave credibility to the claim, pushing everyone to report on it. Now, we have interviewed Donut Lab’s CEO and investigated the technology. At this point, it looks like either this battery changes the world within the next 3 months, or it will make the CEO look like a fool. In this article, we discuss the impact of the battery, whether real or not, as well as clues about the secret sauce behind its chemistry. The Holy Grail of Energy Storage Consider the implications. A battery that lasts 100,000 cycles is effectively immortal in human terms. You could charge it every single day for 270 years, and it would still be working. It means the battery outlives the vehicle, not just once, but ten times over. It changes the economics of transportation entirely: you buy the battery once, and you swap it into your next five cars. The power density required for a 5-minute charge and the 400 Wh/kg of energy density opens the door to commercial electric aviation, a sector currently strangled by the weight and slow charging speeds of lithium-ion. It solves the grid storage problem by offering a medium that doesn’t degrade, meaning utility companies could amortize the cost over a century rather than a decade. If this is real, the internal combustion engine didn’t just die today; it was buried 100 feet deep, and every other battery is not far behind. But, and this is a massive “but”, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and Donut Lab has yet to release that proof. And that brings us to the man making them. The Man Betting His Reputation I spoke with Marko Lehtimäki, the CEO of Donut Lab and Chairman of Verge Motorcycles. My goal was simple: ask him about the chemistry behind his battery and, if that doesn’t work, look him in the eye and figure out if he’s selling vaporware or if he’s sitting on the breakthrough of the century. Marko isn’t a random guy shouting about a battery breakthrough that will change the world. He is a legit entrepreneur. A computer scientist who built a no-coding app builder years before “vibe coding” was even a thing and sold it to SAP. After the successful exit, he became an investor and serial entrepreneur with his biggest, or most well-known, company being Verge Motorcycles, which has real products on the road. By announcing that this “miracle battery” is already in production and will be shipping in customer vehicles within 10 weeks, he is betting his entire personal reputation on this technology. If he misses this timeline or if the specs are fake, Donut Labs and Verge Motorcycles might not survive the credibility loss. He has a lot to lose here. In my article about the battery announcement last week, I noted that Marko’s presentation was incredible. He basically described a perfect battery: record energy density, incredible charge rate, unprecedented longevity, no rare metals, a cost lower than traditional Li-ion cells, and in scalable production right now. Sounds too good to be true? The only thing he didn’t share was details about the chemistry, beyond saying it doesn’t use lithium or other rare metals. What’s the point of protecting the chemistry if the battery is already in production and it will be in a product shipped this quarter? If that’s true, the battery will be reverse-engineered before the snow completely melts. We discussed it with Marko during our interview. His logic is that once the bikes ship, competitors will tear them down and figure it out anyway. But that won’t happen for another 10 weeks or so, and the head start is critical for a technology this disruptive. In the meantime, Donut Lab’s goal with the announcement was to get the attention of OEMs and ship them battery packs for validation. Marko said: We are right now shipping demo packs to OEMs under NDAs and under tight disclosures so that they can test that all of that is true, which serves our business very well [better than disclosing the chemistry]. But these programs with OEMs are likely to take a long time before they become public. Shorter term, there’s Verge Motorcycles shipping bikes with the battery by the end of the quarter. Before that, Marko also said that we should soon see third-party testing of those cells: We rather right now ship it to authorized research and science center that tests everything without opening it and telling everybody what’s in there. In short, we should have a good idea whether the claims are true or not in just a few weeks no matter what. What does Marko, or Donut Lab, have to gain by lying about this? I also discussed this with Marko and the only thing I could come up with is if he happens to be raising capital right now, but he shut that down: There are a million investors chasing us right now, but we are literally not talking to anybody. We tell investors that we can discuss terms after we have done all our disclosures. Marko insisted that Donut Lab is not taking any investment until they have proven their cells work. In short, it’s hard to find an upside for Donut Lab in making this announcement if the claims are not true. It doesn’t mean that they are, but it makes you think. The Investigation: What Is the “Donut Battery”? So, what is the secret sauce? Marko wouldn’t say, but after digging into public records, supply chains, and research papers, I believe we have a pretty good idea. Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a chemist or physicist, but I’ve been a journalist covering electric vehicles for more than a decade, and I’m pretty good at connecting the dots, and in this case, I’ve had the help of a couple of great sources, too. I’m not saying that this is the Donut Lab battery, but since they are not sharing much, we have to speculate, and all evidence points to a Finnish nanotechnology startup called Nordic Nano and its Chief Scientist, Dr. Bela Bhuskute. Donut Lab invested in Nordic Nano in October 2025, just months before this announcement. At the time of writing this, the press release has fewer than 200 views. The announcement went under the radar, and while Marko said that Nordic Nano is more of a “solar company” during our interview, the announcement mentions both solar and energy storage. Dr. Bhuskute’s research at Tampere University focuses on amorphous Titanium Dioxide nanostructures, which could benefit many different technologies, including batteries. It fits the “miracle” specs perfectly: - 100,000 Cycles: Traditional solid-state batteries are crystalline (like a brick wall) and crack when ions rush in. Dr. Bhuskute’s amorphous Titanium Dioxide is disordered (like a sponge) and “breathes,” allowing it to expand and contract without breaking. - 5-Minute Charge: This chemistry stores energy via “pseudocapacitance,” which is basically like Velcro. Ions stick to the surface almost instantly rather than having to burrow deep inside the material. - The Manufacturing: Nordic Nano uses a “nanofluid” printing process for its solar product using the technology. This aligns with Donut Lab’s description of a “clay-like” material that enables an easier manufacturing process. Some call this “battery printing”, which could explain Donut Lab’s ability to bring this to production in record time. When I asked Marko for the volumetric energy density (Wh/L), he claimed he “couldn’t remember”. Volumetric energy density is one of the few specs that Donut Lab hasn’t released. This battery is lighter than lithium-ion, but it could be bigger due to the amorphous nature of the titanium dioxide. However, the CEO claimed it has a higher volumetric density than traditional Li-ion batteries, without providing a specific number. If that’s true, not only could electric vehicles and energy storage switch to this new chemistry, but even personal electronics, such as smartphones. In 2025, Nordic Nano has been making moves, including securing a former large retail location in Imatra, Finland, near the Russian border: It could be where the company has set up production. Following investment from the Finnish government, Nordic Nano had to elaborate a bit on its products and confirmed that it is working on “solar energy systems and energy storage solutions”: The company’s range of products includes two product families: solar energy systems and energy storage solutions: The ultra-thin and flexible solar film collects twice the amount of energy compared to traditional silicon-based solar panels. Solid-state salt batteries are manufactured by printing from nanofluid, which enables the efficient use of space and the production of batteries in varying shapes. Furthermore, the company confirmed that it is using a “screenprinting” manufacturing method. This is not new. Other companies have produced battery cells with this technology with varying degrees of success. It appears that the bet is that the amorphous rather than crystalized titanium dioxide nanostructure could be more easily adapted and scaled with this manufacturing technology. Electrek’s Take I’m naturally skeptical, and this screams “too good to be true”, but I can’t find anything that categorically rejects the claims. I get battery breakthrough announcements in my inbox every week, and most of the time they never amount to anything. If I decide to spend some time researching them and talking to experts, I generally quickly hit a problem or two that make them commercially unviable. This announcement is different. We can’t really investigate the actual breakthrough; we can only speculate about it, since it is guarded. Marko’s logic for guarding the chemistry is sound, and the incentives to lie about what they have aren’t clear if he is not currently raising money. Then, because they claim this is already in production and will be in a deliverable product within weeks, we will know whether the claims are true in short order, and their reputations, especially Marko’s, are on the line. During my interview, Marko didn’t seem too worried about it. It doesn’t sound like someone who needs to quickly figure out how to deliver this, but rather someone who has a couple of aces in their hand and is looking to maximize them. It’s also strange that this innovation and then production quickly comes from a relatively small company. I thought researching Donut Lab would make me more skeptical about the claims, but it’s the contrary. It confirms that their technology stems from years of research, backed by university and government funding for its commercialization. Could it be that this critical research went under the radar and a small electric motorcycle startup in need of a significant bump in energy density stumbled upon it? Then, a savvy entrepreneur quickly found a way to optimize the impact of this potentially groundbreaking tech by spinning out a startup from the motorcycle company to market the battery to a broader market. Maybe? This could be real, or it could be hype. Again, I’m still skeptical, but I can’t point to anything specific that would disprove any claim made about this miracle battery. Again, if this is true, we are talking about a complete reset of the entire energy and transportation sectors. Donut Lab would become one of the biggest companies in the world. A Nobel Prize would be coming to Dr. Bhuskute and her colleagues in the near future. If it’s not, Marko and Donut Lab’s reputation would be destroyed. There might also be a middle conclusion where the battery is nearly as good as they claim, but when you ramp up production, other problems arise, such as scrap, which has been the undoing of another company that recently tried screenprinting batteries. Who knows? But it sounds like we should find out soon. Within weeks, we should get independent verifications of the specs. Then the bikes get delivered within months. You can fake a presentation, but there are things you can’t fake.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2012141965471522941/amplify_video_thumb/2012141829290905600/img/DKuKZ0Te4x4eMdfe.jpg)
![Everybody needs a digital ID, say heads of state and high-tech leaders. They give many reasons: it will stop illegal migration; it will increase efficiency; it will protect privacy; and it will prevent online fraud and data ransoming. But we don’t need digital IDs for any of those things. The US just stopped illegal migration without digital IDs. Our online activities are more efficient than ever and it’s hard to see how they could get more efficient without sacrificing privacy and safety. And centralizing data through digital IDs, which could link social media, vaccine, and banking information, in ways that allow government control, would undermine cybersecurity because having separate log-ins for our financial, health, shopping, banking, credit card, and other data makes sure that if one is hacked they aren’t all hacked. “All your information in one place is a hacker’s dream,” said an Oxford University IT expert. “We already have countless ways we can provide our identity – passports, driving licences, and so on.” Many Americans likely think that digital IDs are only something people in Britain have to worry about. Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week declared that every working person there must have digital ID, or “BritCard”. The U.S. should never allow such a thing. A digital ID that linked our social media, vaccine records, and bank accounts could allow governments to censor and control the population, violating our free speech and privacy rights. Those Americans should think again. We are rapidly moving to the exact same digital ID surveillance and control system as the British. Real IDs contain embedded microchips that bring us one step closer to digital IDs. State governors are pushing it. Gavin Newsom last year allowed drivers licenses onto Apple and Google wallets. This “mobile drivers license,” or mDL, is a digital ID, and one more link in the chain. And it is Americans, including Bill Gates and the controlling owner of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who are financing the digital ID push. “ The NHS [National Health Service] in the UK has an incredible amount of population data, but it’s fragmented,” he told Blair in February of this year. “It’s not easily accessible by these AI models. We have to take all of this data we have in our country and move it into a single, if you will, unified data platform… The secret is to get all of that data in one place.” In September, Ellison made clear that he viewed the power of data centralization in behavior change. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching and recording everything that’s going on.” Ellison’s Oracle is an AI database cloud computing company and he is its best salesman. Ellison, the second richest man in the world, and owner of CBS and CNN, has “donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute,” reportedthe New Statesman last week. “Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries.” The nightmare scenario for mass, constant spying on citizens is not theoretical. China in 2019 created a social credit system with rewards that include better employment, school admissions, and shorter wait times in hospitals, and punishments including denial of access to public services and social events, denial of train and air tickets, and public shaming. One study found that at least one-third of total “offenses” were not actually against the law and thus expanded “local government authority into moral and social domains beyond the law,” found researchers. UK’s Big Brother Watched recently warned that a digital ID system, even if initially limited, could be a gateway to more invasive government surveillance and intrusion. Why would any liberal and democratic Western government like Britain want such a thing? Money is no doubt a big part of it. Oracle and other high tech companies stand to make billions taking bits of our money here and there for every transaction. Governments like Keir Starmer’s also seem eager to give them billions in contracts to monitor and analyze the population. We found no evidence Starmer would personally benefit financially from digital IDs, however, and as a political leader, he must consider whether his actions are popular, and digital IDs are not. A YouGov poll released yesterday found UK opinion toward digital IDs was 42 percent in favor and 45 percent against. And given the negative reaction to them online, popular opposition will likely rise. Tony Blair Institute’s (TBI) polling may have misled Starmer. TBI’s first question primed people to think about how inconvenienced they’ve felt without a digital ID, a blatantly manipulative form of polling. No honest pollster seeking to give a client a realistic understanding of how the public thought about digital IDs would have started with that question, because they know the importance of framing. The second question was equally biased. “Some are suggesting the government should introduce a new app, allowing instant access to a range of public services.” The framing suggests awareness on the part of the pollster that the public had a negative view of “digital ID,” hence the use of the “app” euphemism. The third question was “Do you think there is digital technology that could help tackle these issues... Processing asylum seekers and managing the UK’s borders.” One reason to think Starmer relied on the TBI’s biased polling is that Starmer pitched the digital ID as necessary to stop mass migration. “I know working people are worried about the level of illegal migration into this country,” said Starmer. “Digital ID… will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure.” The notion is absurd. Nations have maintained borders for hundreds of years without the need for digital IDs. Given how badly the Starmer government’s digital ID roll out appears to have backfired, why did Starmer and Blair push it? One possibility is that they really believe in the mission of improving people’s lives. That is already how they justify it. Said Starmer, “it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly - rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.” But it is hard to believe Starmer and Blair really viewed the difficulty of finding where you left your utility bill as a high-priority social problem. It appears more likely that they are hiding their reasons and that the real motivation is the same as the Chinese government: to control the population. Gates last year released a Netflix documentary calling for sweeping AI-powered censorship of people he disagrees with on vaccines and other issues. The Starmer government’s digital IDs should be a wake-up call to all of us. For years, various people have been raising concerns about digital IDs but free speech and privacy advocates have clearly not done enough to stop them. That needs to change. The good news is that the backlash to the digital IDs appears strong and growing. And anyone can see that, when they spoke, Blair was taking instructions from Ellison. “You can pipe this data from these three thousand separate data sources into a single unified database,” said Ellison, “and that’s what we need to do.” The episode should wake us Americans up to the continuing threat of total surveillance and censorship. Powerful American high-tech elites see dollar signs in controlling our data — and our behavior. As such, this episode has motivated my colleagues and me to do more on this issue, including making grants to people doing investigative reporting, research, documentary filmmaking, policy development and policy advocacy on digital IDs. Please email info@civilizationworks.org to get involved, and consider making a tax-deductible donation. And if you’re not already a subscriber, please subscribe now to support our award-winning investigative journalism, which is essential to revealing the truth about censorship and digital IDs.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1972057739615703182/amplify_video_thumb/1972056204710166528/img/qv0NmF8nl8F1kOJK.jpg)
![Today I’m going to tell you the strange story about how the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association went over to the dark side. The HKJA is in the news at the moment—for NOT telling its own members who’s running it. It’s pretty weird. If you go to their website and click to find out the names of the executive committee, you get this: “The Executive Committee has earlier decided not to publicise the list of Executive Committee members.” Odd, no? If there is ONE just one defining characteristic of journalists, it is that we love to see our names in print! So how can we be represented by a mystery group of people who are too shy to share their names?! . LOUD MEMBERS So who are they? Well, officially, no one knows. But Hong Kong does have a lively journalistic community, and they have worked out who are the dominant voices are in the organization. - There’s Selina Cheng who was famously sacked by the Wall Street Journal, which is not a Hong Kong newspaper. - There’s Danny Vincent who used to work for the BBC, which is not a Hong Kong news outlet. - There’s Mak Yin-Ting, freelance reporter for Radio France Internationale, which is not a Hong Kong radio station. - Then there is a Swiss photographer named Marc Progin, who achieved notoriety as the person who thoughtlessly shut a door, halting an innocent bank staff member’s journey, just before a violent protester who savagely attacked him. [vid clip provided] - The other person named is So Chun-yeung, a photographer for Channel WE, a new blog set up on the bones of Channel C, an online media outlet which collapsed in April, owing lots of unpaid salaries. These individuals may be very nice people. But do they epitomize the Hong Kong journalism community? These people who work for the infamous western mainstream media on the other side of the planet? Knowing the history of the HKJA is helpful. . 1. NO POLITICS The HKJA was founded in 1968 – by an Australian named Jack Spackman, who mainly worked for a Hong Kong newspaper called the China Mail. I knew him in the 1980s. The founder of the HKJA used to remind young journalists like me that we should report on political groups but never join them. (Yes, I was young once -- pic in the video.) The tall, thin, friendly Australian would say: “Leave politics to the politicians. But don’t let them get away with anything.” . 2. CIA ARRIVES Jack left Hong Kong in 1987. In 1989, various CIA and NED agents started long-term major operations in Hong Kong, with their usual modus operandi: setting up trade unions and groups to feed the media with the CIA's Three Weaponized Terms: freedom, democracy and human rights. In 1990, the NED started funding a new group called the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions. In 1994, the NED started funding another new group: the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. And in the same period, the HKJA became a political body. I stopped going to the meetings when they were chaired by Emily Lau, tireless critic of China. . 3. TEAMING UP WITH THE N.E.D. In 2002, the two NED-financed groups in Hong Kong met with the Hong Kong Journalists Association and other groups to create a joint operation called the Civil Human Rights Front, to organize anti-China street protests and criticize the government. How did that fit with Spackman’s vision of “leaving politics to the politicians”? Another group joined the cluster – the Civic Party, which also went through a period of getting funding directly from the NED. . 4. TEAMING UP WITH THE UK By the early 2000s, the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association had got into the habit of producing an annual report saying that press freedom in Hong Kong was dead or dying – but it was produced in partnership with Article19, a UK-based political body. The HKJA did this every year until 2006. Why was a Hong Kong body working with the west to demonize its own community? Bit odd. . 5. QUOTING THE INFAMOUS RSF On similar lines, HKJA leaders started to quote the RSF press freedom index. But real journalists never quote that index because it had already been exposed as a CIA-NED scam. Originally RSF told people they were not US-financed, and got their money by book sales. Then real journalists discovered that they didn’t sell books! And RSF was forced to reveal their funding had really been from the CIA and later, the NED. . 6. MILLIONS IN MYSTERY FUNDING In 2014, an over-staffed HK blog called House News closed down. This was no surprise. Few people read it, no one advertised in it, and it was reportedly losing HK$600,000 a month. But what happened next WAS a surprise. It was relaunched a few months later as wealthy anti-China website called Stand News, anonymously financed. On its board was Denise Ho, associated with the Oslo Freedom Forum, later revealed by the BBC to be secret US-based organizer of protests in Hong Kong. [clip provided] Stand News overseas director was a man named Evan Fowler, who had co-founded a China-hostile website called the Hong Kong Free Press, home of the notorious yellowface hoaxer named Brian P. Kern. A Stand News reporter, Ronson Chan, became chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association from June 2021. After the bosses of Stand News closed it down, investigators found the website had a reserve cash account containing $8 million US dollars. Lot of spare cash for a blog with no functioning business model! Later, at a court hearing, financial investigators revealed that they had found millions of dollars had been delivered to Stand News quote "in a clandestine manner" before the 2019 riots broke out. You decide who was really behind Stand News. . 7. THE $2.50 INSTANT JOURNALISTS During the violent insurgency of 2019, all pretense of professionalism at the HKJA was killed stone dead. It seemed like anybody could get an official HKJA membership, and it was just HK$20 if you said you were a student – that’s about US$2.50. I was teaching a screenwriting program at university and some of my students were reinventing themselves as journalists. No accreditation, no training course, no professional standards, no exams, nothing. . 8. SERVING THE WEST Today, it may seem obvious that the Hong Kong Journalists Association does not represent Hong Kong journalists. It comes across as a western political body with a relentlessly anti-China stance. Its job is to push the western media narrative. When the western media say Hong Kong is dead, China killed Hong Kong, there’s no freedom in Hong Kong, all the freedoms have been lost – the HKJA’s job is to say YES. . A NEW CHAPTER? Good stories have Epilogues, so let’s have one Journalism is an important part of a community’s civic services. For too long, Hong Kong's civic sector has been dominated by people paid, often secretly, by the west, to drive the west’s political anti-China narrative. It’s time to recapture the original spirit of the HKJA. Real journalists, citizen journalists, young journalists, who’s with me? I can still hear the voice of Jack Spackman, the Australian founder of HKJA. “Leave politics to the politicians. But don’t let them get away with anything.” Peace.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2087477330285580790/amplify_video_thumb/2087470898194661376/img/gx0fF6019zavRfHq.jpg)
![The Economics of Europe’s Descent into Warmongering – and our duty now! My speech at the European Parliament on the theme of “The Economic Conditions of Peace”, Tuesday 10th June 2025 [INTRODUCTION] A year ago, I would have started this speech with a lament about the hitherto unimaginable conversion of the European Union from a Peace to a War Project. Not so today. Over the past year, warmongering has seeped into the very fabric of the Union, it has trickled into every policy, it has soaked every one of the thinktanks that generate Europe’s dominant narratives and creeds. Today, therefore, it makes no sense to lament what is now a fact: The EU is now a fully-fledged War Project – a project that will either land us in permanent war, or it will bankrupt us further, or probably both! Europe’s military Keynesianism, I shall be arguing, is guaranteed to make Europe less safe, more unequal, weaker. Only two interesting questions remain: Why has Europe taken this road? And, now that Europe is on this war path, what is ourduty to our people, to Europeans, to Peace? Let me begin at the very beginning. [THE EU WAS DESIGNED TO BE SUBSERVIENT TO THE UNITED STATES] At the risk of irking Europeanists who believe in their own creation myth, let me be clear: The European Union (from its beginnings as the European Communities of Coal & Steel) was an American Construction – a part of a US Global Plan that also comprised the Bretton Woods System, the Truman Doctrine and, of course, NATO. Yes, most Europeans hankered for no more war and no more totalitarianism. But the EU was designed in Washington DC. And it was designed specifically not as a competitive market but as a Big Business Cartel run by a democracy-free bureaucracy (also known as the European Commission) not coincidentally located a stone’s throw from NATO’s headquarters. From 1950 on, the EU was nurtured by and in tune with the interests of the United States – an inconvenient fact both for Europe’s self-important rulers and for Donald Trump. Looking back, a common thread runs through the entire history of the EU: its total economic dependence on the United States. Initially, the EU was deeply dependent on being part of the Dollar Zone. Then, from 1971 onwards, it was deeply dependent on the American trade deficit. So, one way or another, Europe’s deep dependence on the US was ingrained into its architecture. It will thus take much more than mere pronouncements - or a few hundred billion borrowed euros spent on weaponry - to shed Europe’s in-built dependence on the United States. The fact that the EU was, from the beginning, fashioned as a Big Business Cartel is the reason why the EU needed fixed exchange rates: Currency fluctuations destabilise any cartel, making it hard to maintain the necessary levels of collusion between its participating producers. From 1950 to 1971, the US took care of this problem on Europe’s behalf. As long as it was running a trade deficit with the United States, Europe’s cartel was embedded in the dollar zone – its currencies tied to the dollar But, when around 1969 Europe (and Japan) started running a trade surplus with the United States, it was game over. On 15th August 1971, the Donald Trump of that era, President Richard Nixon, jettisoned Europe from the dollar zone, his Treasury Secretary cynically telling the dumbfounded Europeans: “From today the dollar is our currency but it is your problem!” Two things happened next. First, to save their Big Business Cartel the Europeans scrambled to create their own fixed exchange rate regime. They tried everything: The Snake. The European Monetary System. The European Exchange Rate Mechanism. They all proved flimsy designs that speculators had no trouble crushing. So, in desperation, they created the most noxious currency the human spirit could fashion - the euro. The second development was that, as America expanded its budget and trade deficits, the Eurozone morphed into a German-led net exporting machine whose aggregate demand was subcontracted to the United States. In effect, America’s twin deficits operated like a huge vacuum cleaner that sucked into America Europe’s net exports as well as the European exporters’ profits which were thus invested in US Treasuries, US shares and US real estate. That’s how, once it was expelled from the dollar zone, Europe became addicted to the US deficits. That was what the Nixon Shock did: It converted Europe’s utter reliance on living within the dollar zone into an even greater dependence on the US deficits. [NEVER MISSING A CHANCE TO MISS AN OPPORTUNITY] Here in Brussels they love the expression that Europe progresses from crisis to crisis. That’s another delusion. The crisis of 2008 was our greatest opportunity to render the European Union viable, and to end its deep dependence on the United States. · The French and German banks went bankrupt. · The Eurozone’s impossible rules were in tatters. · A domino effect, beginning with Greece, was bankrupting our governments. It was the perfect opportunity to transform the EU from a Big Business Cartel, inherently reliant on the US for its aggregate demand, into a functional, internally balanced federation. Instead, Europe’s radical centre (both the centre right and the centre left) decided that they would change everything so as to ensure that nothingchanges. In this vein, they did their worst: Universal austerity for the many. And frantic money printing for the financiers and Big Business. What happens when you crush the incomes of the many and hand over trillions to the very few? Since the many are too poor to buy high value added goods, business stops investing in productive capital –– while the rich use the free cash to push through the roof house prices, share prices, Bitcoin prices, art, asset prices in general. The natural result is soul-crushing levels of inequality and deep popular discontent. The people got desperate. They even voted for radical progressives like me to enter the Eurogroup! Then, in horror, Brussels and Frankfurt overthrew us, or made Mr Tsipras overthrow his own government, using not the tanks, as they did in Greece in 1967, but the banks – not that much of a difference really! A coup d’ état is a coup d’ état. [TWO SYMBIOTIC AUTHORITARIANISMS] Guess what happened next: Just as in the mid-war period, xenophobic ultra-rightists rose up from the woodwork. They proved a godsent for the shockingly unpopular radical centre whose politicians could now say to voters: It is us or them! But it was equally a godsent for the ultra-right who needed the radical centre to impose the austerity policies which created the discontent which fuelled the anger that delivered the ultra-right votes. To put it differently, if Macron and Le Pen had any sense, they would each keep a framed picture of the other on their bedside tables, saying a little prayer in their hated opponent’s name every night before going to sleep. [SMOKE AND MIRRORS] Liberal Totalitarianism and Ultra-Right-Xenophobic Totalitarianism are accomplices, they feed off each other. Meanwhile, austerity for the many and money printing for the few depletes Europe’s productive foundations, its social fabric, its sense of purpose. That’s how the European Union lost any legitimacy it had in the eyes of the public. Sensing this, the Liberal Totalitarians in charge came up with one failed Grand Initiative after another. Who can forget the eminently forgettable Juncker investment plan, the Banking Union, the Green Deal, or the Draghi Report that has now joined them in History’s Dustbin? Impressive numbers were announced that, alas, dependably failed to materialise. It was inevitable. As long as our rulers said NO to the political union that could sustain a proper, macroeconomically significant, eurobond, the money to fund the necessary investment could never materialise. Even when they – finally – during the pandemic – did issue common debt, they ended up with common liabilities but no common purpose. Every Grand Initiative ever announced was a dance with failure, smoke and mirrors by which they disguised Europe’s nakedness. The result? After fifteen years of ZERO NET PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENT, · Germany is deindustrialising fast, and along with it Eastern and Central Europe, Austria, Northern Italy · Political paralysis grows on the back of fiscal pressures · Neofascism and xenophobia are rising up everywhere · Europe’s dependence on the United States grows stronger at the time Donald Trump is cutting Europe loose · The Rest of the World looks at Europe as a sad case of what could have been, an irritating irrelevance. In this sad context, our great and good leaders had another woeful idea for a Grand Initiative: Now that the Green Deal is dead-in-the-water and the Recovery Fund is spent, why not try Military Keynesianism? [THE FOLLY OF MILITARY KEYNESIANISM] Ladies and Gentlemen, Military Keynesianism works in the United States because America has the federal institutions, the monetary sovereignty, the fiscal power, the technostructure, and the common procurement process that are essential in implementing Military Keynesianism. Europe has none of that, nor does it have leaders interested in acquiring any of that. This is why Military Keynesianism cannot work in Europe. Thank goodness it can’t work, I say! For if it could work, Europe would have to emulate the United States in starting a war every year so that the stocks of ammunition, missiles et al could be depleted sufficiently to justify the new colossal orders necessary to maintain Military Keynesianism. Nevertheless, while Europe’s Military Keynesianism cannot and should not work, it serves a purpose – it is a kind of a solution for, say, Volkswagen: Now that Volkswagen can no longer sell its cars, it hands over whole production lines to Rheinmetall to produce Leopard tanks which von der Leyen makes Greece and Italy buy even though we neither want nor need them. Yes, Military Keynesianism will fail Europe badly, but not before it further bankrupts our states and throws more fuel onto the fire burning down lives and dreams in Ukraine’s killing fields. So, let me be frank: · No really-existing enemy of Europe shakes in his boots watching a stagnating, heavily indebted Europe, invest billions in weaponry. Quite the opposite! · Military Keynesianism will end up as Europe’s New Austerity for the many and a new money spinner for the few. · It will make Europe weaker while prolonging the Ukraine War in a manner that is detrimental to the stated aim of supporting Ukraine. [EUROPE’S SURRENDER TO NATO, ITS ROLE IN UKRAINE] It is at this point that angry yelps will rise up from the press gallery. Can’t you hear them ask: "“Is Russia not ante portas?” “Is Europe not in danger?” “Should Europe remain defenceless, especially now that Trump is abandoning Europe?” My answer is clear: Weakening ourselves economically through a Military Keynesianism that constitutes the New Austerity which will, with mathematical precision, diminish Europe further is no way to make Europe stronger! And lest we forget, Europe already has 1.5m men and women in uniform while, over the past decade, we spent €2.7 trillion on defence – a period during which our net productive investment was zero! Now, NATO demands that we spend three times as much - which is totally insane, given how wastefully that €2.7 trillion was spent. In this light, surrendering our foreign and defence policies to NATO, and sinking further in unsustainable debt just to satisfy President Trump’s demands for more military spending, is the surest way of making Europe more dependent, less secure, uglier and sadder. In this context, the powers-that-be here in Brussels are anxiously trying to keep their jobs and boost their budgets by spreading the lie that NATO had to expand in order to deter Russian aggression – when it is exactly the other way round: Like the Mafia, NATO expanded to create insecurity in order to sell us protection! Does this mean that Putin was right to invade the Ukraine? Of course not. What it means is that NATO and Putin are accomplices – that they needed one another in their joint bid for a confrontation that strengthened both – at Europe’s expense. It also means that anyone truly interested in Europe’s security and prosperity 1. must dispel the lie that Russia is about to invade us – it can’t even if it wants to 2. must work tirelessly to kill Europe’s Military Keynesianism, and 3. must work toward a European Peace Process which uses Russia’s confiscated monies not as a piggybank for more useless Leopard tanks and Leonardo missiles but as a bargaining chip to end the Ukraine War in the context of a comprehensive EU-Russia Peace Treaty. As for the politicians in this town who will not rest until they see Russia on its knees, I have this to say to them: If you really wanted to weaken Russia, to bring Russia to its knees, you should have worked hard to admit Russia into the… Eurozone. In one fell swoop the euro would have wrecked Russia’s productive basis, it would have indebted its people and its state, it would have made its leaders rush to Brussels and to Frankfurt with begging bowl in hand! You think I am joking. But there is too much truth in this joke for comfort! To sum up my argument so far, Europe’s economic stagnation was the product of its total dependence on the American deficits. This dependence yielded Europe’s complicity with the decade-long American project of inciting a war in Ukraine. And now that the US is decoupling, our rulers – resembling decapitated chickens – are running around without their heads screwed on, struggling to find ways of continuing to impede Peace in Ukraine so as to use military funds to prop up Europe’s faltering Big Business Cartel. [WHAT’S BEHIND EUROPE’S ETHICAL DECAY: GAZA, TOTALITARIANISM] Ladies and Gentlemen, as we speak here today, Europe is falling headlong into another ethical void: complicity in the Palestinian genocide. It is not just the embarrassment, also known as Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, posing like a cheerleader of Israel’s genocidal army in front of its tanks hours before they stormed Gaza. No, the European Union is not merely complicit due to our subservience to the United States. No, the European Union is also enabling, it is in fact funding, the war criminals of its own accord. Directly. Cynically. With no compunction. · BNP PARIBAS and ALLIANZ underwrite the issues of the Israeli government bonds that fund the Israeli meatgrinder in the Palestinian Occupied Territories · MAERSK is the prime transporter of the military machine at work in Gaza · Since 2007, the European Union has channelled €2 billion of research funding to Israeli entities producing the means by which Palestinians are ethnically cleansed, targeted, murdered and maimed. But there is something even scarier going on: Some of our top institutions depend financially on backing Israel’s genocide. If Europe were to do its duty and sanction Israel, the Technical University of Munich stands to lose €195.4 million from the EU’s HORIZON program which funds the University to carry out joint research with Israeli institutions. Ladies and Gentlemen, Europe carries an enormous guilt. The pogroms against the Jews started here, in Europe. Europeans carried out genocides across Africa, in the Americas, in Australia. By forming the EU as a Peace Project, we claimed a chance to make amends for Europe’s past genocides. However, our dependence on the US and our ruling class’s penchant to profit from imperialism have made this impossible – and so Europe’s hands are, again, covered in the blood of innocents, in Gaza, in Ukraine, in the Sudan, in Libya, in Yemen, in Syria. It has also brought totalitarianism back into our midst, here in Europe. When the German authorities banned me from entering Germany for the crime of co-organising with German Jews a conference on the theme of ‘A Just Peace in the Middle East’, they were making a point: To them, letting the rivers of Palestinian blood flow unimpeded represented their chance of washing off their hands the guilt over the Holocaust, over the other German genocide in Namibia, of Belgium’s crimes against humanity in the Congo… It is, therefore, a clear warning to us: Economic stagnation begets warmongering which begets a revived European white settler mentality. This Europe has fallen so far into a moral crevice that it cannot easily climb out of it. Europe’s Liberal Totalitarianism, which we in Greece experienced in all its horror ten years ago, is now everywhere – and it is throwing wide open the gates through which Xenophobic Ultra-Right Totalitarianism arrives to darken our doorstep. The time to rise up against both forms of totalitarianism is now. On behalf of the peoples of Europe. [WHAT MUST WE DO?] So, what must we do? Let us begin by grasping that: · The economic condition for Peace is to de-couple Europe's economy from America's wars! · But for that we must end, once and for all, Europe’s dependence on the United States. · This entails ending Europe’s dependence on net exports to America. · Which means rebalancing Europe’s internal economy through o new productive green investments, o an end to structural austerity o an end to the madness of cartel-infested electricity ‘markets’ o a new monetary commons by which to end the bankers’ monopoly over payments and to institute a personal dividend for all o a new EU-China deal that liberates us from America’s agenda of intensifying a pointless New Cold War at our expense. Only by transforming Europe’s political economy can we end the never-ending fragmentation which breeds war, totalitarianism and the embarrassment of being led by cheerleaders of genocide and permanent war with Russia, like Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas. How can we accomplish that? In two ways. First, we need a Credible Plan for a Europe worth fighting for. Second, we must organise a campaign of civil and governmental disobedience in our countries and, potentially, in the European Council until our Plan for Europe gets a chance. We, DiEM25, have worked for a decade on this Plan – our Green New Deal for Europe – and are happy to share it with you, so that you can refine, revise, adapt it. You, the 5S Movement and other parties eager to partake across Europe, have the organisation that we lack so that, together with our MERA25 transnational parties, we can together help organise the campaign of civil and governmental disobedience without which nothing will change, nothing will impede Europe’s, Italy’s, Greece’s, indeed Germany’s secular decline. [CONCLUSION] So, to conclude, seventy-five years of this European Union teach us that we face a stark choice. A choice between a Dependent-on-the-United States, Warmongering, Stagnating Europe. Or an Independent, Non-Aligned, Prosperous, Green Europe. A choice between a von der Leyen-type Commission that greenlights genocide, impedes Peace, illegally deletes her Pfizer chat history, lobbies for Lockheed Martin, and borrows money we can’t repay to buy weaponry we do not need - while condemning People and Planet to impecunity. Or European Institutions optimised against raw power and in favour of common prosperity. A choice between being at the beck and call of the boardrooms of Rheinmetall, Leonardo and Pfizer, blind to the tax havens where war profits and tax fraud hide, while our coastguards turn refugees into corpses. Or a Europe of rational, that is a radical, humanism. To even have this choice, our immediate task must be to end war, to end genocide and to terminate before it is too late the New Austerity going by the name of Military Keynesianism.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1933459747866316884/amplify_video_thumb/1933456380167364608/img/Up__hbhEoJPhHmsi.jpg)