Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Morocco is on a green energy roll, as the government’s far-sighted plan to move the North African country to renewables makes it a leader in the region. The installed renewables capacity increased 5% from 2021 to 2025, to 12 gigawatts, according to an announcement in mid-May of the Minister of […]
Gaza “a Gaping Wound on Humanity:” Spain Convenes Int’l Conference to call for Arms Embargo on Israel
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Spanish wire service EFE reports that delegations from 20 countries met Sunday in Madrid in a push to pressure Israel to halt its total war on Gaza and to establish a Palestinian state. Convened by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, the conference sought to move to concrete actions. Israel […]
Genetic Study finds Echoes of the Early Modern Ethnic Cleansing of Spain’s Muslims
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A genetic history study of Spain by Gonzalo Oteo-Garcia et al. in Genome Biology eloquently confirms the story of the great seventeenth-century ethnic cleansing of the remaining crypto-Muslims of Spain. As Mar Jonsson writes in his 2007 “The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain in 1609–1614: the destruction of an […]
EVs will Make Up 25% of New Car Sales Globally in 2025, up from 20% last Year
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Electric vehicles are expected to make up some 25% of cars sold globally in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. Given where we were only a decade ago, this is a world-historical statistic. In 2016, EVs made up a little less than one percent of light vehicle sales. The […]
Green Enterprise: 1 Gigawatt He Dreiht North Sea Wind Farm receives no Gov’t Subsidies
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The first giant Vestas offshore wind turbine of the German He Dreiht (“It Spins”) project in the North Sea has been installed, some 190 miles northwest of Bremerhaven. It is capable of generating 15 megawatts just on its own. When the other 64 turbines are erected on the already-sunk pilons […]
Britain, France and Canada threaten Israel with Concrete Sanctions if Gaza War is not Halted
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Britain, France and Canada issued a statement on Monday, demanding that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu cease its military campaign against the people of Gaza and halt its months-long blockade of food and medical aid, which has left the Strip on the verge of widespread famine. The three threatened […]
Gaza, Yemen, Iran: Trump’s Opening Gambits in the Middle East (Juan Cole on The Bitchuation Room with Francesca Fiorentini)
Juan Cole Interviewed by Francesca Fiorentini: “The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini): How To Lose a Country In 100 Days with Josh Gondelman & Juan Cole (Ep 278) ” Follow Francesca’s YouTube channel at the link above and sign up for her Patreon here . I fed the computer-generated transcript through ChatGPT to clean it […]
Libyan Gov’t Decries Fake News about Taking 1 mn. Palestinian Refugees: “Committed to the Palestinian Cause”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abu Dhabi-based Erem News reports that the Prime Minister of Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh, has vehemently denied the report in the “American Thinker” by what Libya called the “notorious conspiracy theorist” Jerome Corsi that the Trump administration is negotiating with the […]
China’s Power Sector Emissions fall 5.8% in Q1, as Renewables rapidly Replace Coal
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lauri Myllyvirta writes at Carbon Brief that China’s CO2 emissions over-all fell by 1% in the past 12 months, and by 1.6% in the first quarter of this year compared to Q1 of 2024. In the first quarter of this year, moreover, power sector emissions fell a dramatic 5.8 percent. […]