Mark Hibbs

Beyond navel-gazing Germany right now fine print of this item would be headlines: "Support in victorious extremist AFD party for Germany reclaiming Alsace and Lorraine" Incredible. www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/afd-s...

Germany's Pisa failure is no coincidence: years of low/no economic growth, climate of permissive lethargy on education, migration, social welfare, health care.

That's fine, but as you know and Von der Leyen must also know, there is no such thing as "associate membership" in the EU Treaty. Under Article 49, Canada would not be considered a European state. NATO handles most Euro-defense issues; the EU has non-NATO members.

"Golden Arches Theory"--a permutation of the quaint post-Cold War convergence theory of International relations: "The more we trade with them and the nicer we are, the more they will become like us."

So this is about Assad's U3O8? Anything of more acute interest? A "US official" is cited here as saying there is something else at this location. What, then? Did they ask? Murky rumors that Turkey is mixed up in this? Pray, tell.

Oh good grief. This is paranoia wrapped up in fantasy. Canada’s nuclear industry, including plans for new reactors, do not give any reasons that Canada may break or exit the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Aside from it being politically suicidal for the government, it remains practically impossible. 1/

Reupping this, in light of the news that Iran has agreed to let IAEA inspectors back into the country. If true it's a good start, but as @mark88.bsky.social explained, the IAEA lost continuity of knowledge and an accurate baseline for safeguards after June 2025, and it's gotten worse since then.

Turkey, Russia, Ethiopia, Egypt, UAE, Iran: All these states are profiteering from the civil war in Sudan. Both sides are getting their help in continuing the bloodshed. The Franco-German ARTE site summarizes it: www.arte.tv/de/videos/12...

How many people in Washington this week will tell their funders that they succeeded behind the scenes in convincing Rubio and Trump that the U.S. should "cooperate" with China?

Chancelier Merz ne cesse de dire des choses qui vont lui attirer des ennuis...

@chriswinedoctor.bsky.social Imbibed the first of 6 bottles of Pierre Menard's 2022 dry Anjou cuvées: Quarts de Gastines. If the rest are this good, wow. White chocolate, anise, coconut, lemon.

@rosabalfour.bsky.social Hungarian election commission says Magyar has a 2/3 majority: Bad news for nuclear industry friends of @rosatom.bsky.social in Brussels, France, Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia

www.lemonde.fr/sport/live/2... Paris-Roubaix 2026. And in the field today is a team managed by George Hincapie, with years of experience in the doping network of former team member Lance Armstrong.

..and the ultimate challenge to the revolving-door career culture of Washington's permanent meritocracy. It could still take effective action.

Subversive interference by a foreign government in another country's democratic election process

The EU wants to reestablish the nuclear power supply it once had, when nuclear provided about a 1/3 of the bloc’s electricity supply. But Europe's industrial capacity, financial challenges, & politics are major obstacles to a "nuclear renaissance."

Beyond happy talk and tweaking bureaucratic rules, Europe has a very long road ahead if it aims to renew its nuclear industry capacity enough to make a difference. In this piece I and Miles Pomper of MIIS identify the big picture obstacles.

It was Rembrandt who changed the complexion of European art by painting real Jews in biblical scenes. That was beginning in the 1630s. Here, in 1909, Mary looks extremely Ukrainian!

Not convinced that greater defenses in Ukraine would have "ended" Putin's war. But there is no doubt that both US and Europe have failed to do specific things that would isolate, penalize, and defund Moscow's war machine.

I also said that Moscow's demonstrative non-interference in Rosatom clients' politics was separate from Russia's efforts to access and influence these states' internal strategic decision making. www.dw.com/en/russia-oi...

Global Entry should be terminated. At Islamabad airport, personnel request baksheesh to let you jump the queue. At US airports, it's the federal government that asks you to grease their palm for that 'service.' DHS should staff up and put an end to this form of institutionalized corruption.

How will Leafs receive Austin Matthews when he returns to Toronto ice? editorinleaf.com/auston-matth...

If Canada wins in Milan this afternoon, Trump will say: 1.) Canada stole the game from the US, and/or 2.) The referees were disloyal and unpatriotic.

As a frame, worth recalling that yesterday at MSC German Chancellor Friedrich Merz quoted the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk: The 5-decade "holiday from world history is over."

Perhaps this incident will prompt Sánchez and his Socialist Party base to take seriously from now on what NATO is facing on its eastern border.

@chriswinedoctor.bsky.social U were generous in rating Ch. Plaisance Grand Lopin '21 at 87/100 but yr points still held in '25: Little sweetness, dense but opaque profile en bouche, thin, flat palette, sour finish. Nose improved since yr '22 tasting Their whites are better than this on average.

The IAEA contributed to what little is known about the impact of the June attacks on Iran's nuclear installations. But the challenges to the IAEA going forward in and with Iran will be mammoth. www.worldpoliticsreview.com/us-iran-nucl...

Here in Germany if extreme polarization prompted justices of the Constitutional Court to make such accusations, the country's leadership & everyone else would engage on how to avoid/prepare for a national state of emergency (Innerer Notstand/Notstandsgesetze)

Louis-Ferdinand Céline à Eugène Dabit, 1933: "La vie ne passe plus par la littérature. C'est une ville ancienne capitale comme Dijon abandonnée aux chats amputés...''

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/w... For the IAEA for 3 weeks management of this issue wasn't trivial. When the 12-day bombing got underway, I heard then, there were personnel in Israel, also in Tehran and in a location between Natanz and Fordo.

Grossi isn't guessing. The IAEA in fact has some quantitative evidence permitting the conclusion that the centrifuges at Fordo are broken.

"Expert X says Iran could have nuclear weapons in a year." "Expert Y says Iran's nuclear weapons quest was set back between 2 and 5 years." "Expert Z says Iran's nuclear weapons program was virtually destroyed."

IAEA board on Monday could request Secretariat & Iran to re-verify, report on safeguards status of Iran's HEU inventory: All material accounted for? Safeguards continuity? Prerequisites: Iran's cooperation, halt to Israeli warfare in Iran.

Israël se prépare-t-il à mettre un terme aux bombardements?

Das israelische Militär hat die Möglichkeit für den Iran, „eine Atombombe zu erlangen, bereits um mindestens 2 oder 3 Jahre verzögert“. www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/israel-...

But a week of Israeli attacks which have disabled virtually all of Iran's above-ground strategic nuclear infrastructure won't incentivize Iran to have nuclear weapons?

L’islamologue analyse les ressorts et les conséquences de la guerre qui oppose Israël et l’Iran. La chute du régime des mollahs représenterait, selon lui, un tournant historique aussi important que celui de la chute du mur de Berlin. →https://l.lefigaro.fr/S18

Will the next US step be to provide bunker-busting bombs to attack underground nuclear sites in Iran, led off by Fordo? Are US Republicans on board with this US escalation? As long as Israel has command of Iranian air space, probably yes.

What media on Friday morning called an Israeli attack to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capacity 24 hrs later looks more like a military escalation prompted by still other aims and having a longer trajectory that may incentivize Iran to cross the line on nuclear arms.

What media on Friday morning called an Israeli attack to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capacity 24 hrs later looks more like a military escalation prompted by other aims and having a longer trajectory that may incentivize Iran to cross the line on nuclear arms.

Reported absence of detected radiation emissions is not an indicator for a military attack on a centrifuge enrichment plant.

On the same day the German SPD left wing stumps for cooperation & peace w/Putin, Merz protests that Putin has arrested another Russian national politician for the crime of advocating a ceasefire. See this clip beginning at 8:50 www.arte.tv/de/videos/12...

@ericasimov.bsky.social Excerpting a late comment I posted to your 4/21/22 piece: We were shocked by an expensive 2019 Viré-Cruzille from Julien Guillot. Sulfur nose, after 2 decantings still tasted like iron. Some Ziereisen whites also like this. What's behind this? Fundamentalist bio-winemaking?

Tracking with the trend that a disproportionate share of Germany's irregular migrants/political asylum seekers are males between the age of 15 and 25...

nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo... "This newly available historical evidence shows that the U.S. was deeply involved...From the very beginning, government secrecy, obfuscation, lies, and the incomplete and contradictory statements of key American participants confused the record."