[If you see this note, it means these links launched before complete because reasons. Please refresh your browser at 8:00 AM EDT for a final version]
Wild Orangutans Display Language Complexity Once Thought Uniquely Human SciTech Daily (Chuck L)
Disability claims skyrocket, raising new puzzle alongside ‘excess mortality’ Insurance News. Paul R: “As the saying goes, ’tis a mystery!”
China?
Important. Please read the whole thread:
2. Which means that the loopholes of buying through South Korea and Japan is finally closed. Now they are desperate, my guess is this export control has started taking their toll on the US and their stockpiles is critically low. It’s actually amazing when you think about it…
— Miss Li (@MissQuanyi18) June 2, 2025
U.S. Dependence on China for Rare Earth Magnets Is Causing Shortages New York Times
Trump’s China rant can’t hide his trade war retreat Asia Times (Kevin W)
Legal action over huge lithium project in DR Congo on hold as US battles China’s dominance South China Morning Post
Chinese firms carving up Tesla’s once solid brand recognition BNE
Going To an Office and Pretending To Work: A Business That’s Booming in China El Pais
India-Pakistan Row
India arrests 81 for ‘sympathising’ with Pakistan amid Kashmir conflict aftermath South China Morning Post
European Disunion
Poland election: Tusk to ask for a vote of confidence DW (Kevin W)
From Politico’s morning European newsletter, subject line “Tusk, defiant and defanged”:
TUSK BETWEEN NAWROCKI AND A HARD PLACE: Stinging from his ally’s narrow defeat in the presidential election, a defiant Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he plans to call a vote of confidence.
The message: Tusk said he has already been dealing with an uncooperative president and has an emergency plan to handle the persistent threat of veto against his government’s efforts to bring Poland back into Brussels’ good graces.
“I want everyone to see, including our opponents at home and abroad, that we are ready for this situation, that we understand the gravity of the moment, but that we do not intend to take a single step back,” Tusk said of the victory on Sunday by Karol Nawrocki, the candidate backed by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party. Read more from Joe Stanley-Smith.
The same could be said of this confidence vote. “Unless things go very wrong, he has no chance of losing,” notes POLITICO’s own Polish politics guru Jan Cienski. “Still, that’s unlikely to change the dynamic that now favors a revived Law and Justice party.”
HOW BRUSSELS WILL FEEL THE POLISH RESULTS: Tusk was poised to make Poland powerful again on the European stage — just six months ago, he was the most potent player in the revived Weimar Triangle. Now, he’s among the EU’s walking wounded, and mainstream Brussels has lost a role model for how to counter populism.
Dutch government collapses after far-right PVV party withdraws from coalition over immigration dispute Anadolu Agency
Spotify Fined 58 Million Kronor for GDPR Violations Sweden Herald. Micael T: “Approx. 5MEUR. A kind stroke on the chin as always in the EU. ”
Sweden has once again become a formidable adversary for Russia in the Baltics Vyzglad via machine translation. Micael T: “The article politely avoid the potential visits of Messieurs Iskander, Kinzhal or Oreshkin.”
Old Blighty
The UK is risking a debt, tax and austerity doom-loop The Times
Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to dramatically cut factory energy costs amid warnings huge bills are pushing Britain towards “de-industrialisation” Telegraph
The real effects of Brexit on labour demand VoxEU
To the ramparts! Sir Keir summons hard power for hard times John Crace, Guardian (Kevin W)
Israel v. the Resistance
Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects Larry Wilkerson reports that the IDF is using aid distribution to get Gazans to group so as to more easily exterminate them.
Israel destroys north Gaza’s sole kidney dialysis facility Middle East Eye (resilc). Kidney failure is a bad way to go.
* * *
The Yemeni Leader’s Meeting With Putin Should Be A Reality Check For Alt-Media Andrew Korybko. While I am not keen about “alt-media” as a term, Korybko is correct that there is a lot of anti-globalist group think that winds up being sloppy with facts. Here Korybko names a prime actor, Pepe Escobar.
Majority of Germans want arms exports suspended to Israel over Gaza war: Survey Anadolu Agency. Other versions of this story try playing the poll down by putting “slim majority” in the headline.
Trump’s Maximalism Fails Again Daniel Larison. On the Iran talks outtrade.
Iran on brink of rejecting US proposal on nuclear programme Guardian (Kevin W)
Preventing Cascading Failures in Power Grids OilPrice. With AI. Help me.
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia submits “usual” demands for peace in Ukraine talks Axios. One hour is barely a meeting.
Ukraine Shows It Can Still Flip the Script on How Wars Are Waged New York Times (resilc). We have a post up, but if you have not had time to get to it, listen to the opening section of this interview with Larry Wilkerson. He is incandescent about the cavalierness, as embodied in this headline, of violating critical Cold War nuclear war understandings.
🇷🇺⚡️ Marines of the North group of forces broke the enemy’s stubborn resistance and liberated the settlement of Andreyevka in the traditionally Russian Sumy region
Initially, our soldiers were confronted by the Lvov 103rd separate brigade of the Territorial Army , reinforced by…
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) June 3, 2025
Moscow has offered Kyiv a test of readiness for peace Vyzglad via machine translation (Micael T). Russia still observing forms.
America Can’t Afford to Protect Europe from Russia American Conservative (resilc)
A peace deal in Istanbul won’t happen until NATO is off the table Ian Proud
Syraqistan
US Blesses Idea of Syrian Military Integrating Foreign Islamist Fighters Antiwar.com (resilc)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Germany’s Annalena Baerbock elected President of the 80th General Assembly UN News. And the Kazan Declaration had the fantasy that the global South could exercise more power in these Western-chartered institutions.
How Britain’s biggest companies are preparing for a Third World War Telegraph
John Mearsheimer | Liberal Hegemony & the Present Crisis in U.S. Foreign Policy YouTube
Wang Wen: China is Building a New World Order Glenn Diesen
How a Pentagon contractor built a global empire — and a massive tax evasion scheme ICIJ (resilc)
Immigration
Trump team emphasizes immigration in Boulder response The Hill
ICYMI: It was Trump’s policies, Republicans, Border Patrol Union & Fox screaming the border was open 24/7 that caused the “invasion” they are now using to take away our rights. 4 parts:
[image or embed]
— Jenn Budd (@jennbudd.bsky.social) June 3, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Trump visa scrutiny expands beyond students to tech and business staff Nikkei
Democrat Death Wish
Here She Comes: AOC Looks to Defy Expectations as Her Meteoric Rise Continues CounterPunch. resilc: “
Our No Longer Free Press
America This Week, Live on Monday 6-2-25 Racket News, YouTube. Tom D: “Interesting discussion of Orwell’s 1984 as it relates to today’s culture. Begins at 53:30.”
Police State Watch
Homeland Security’s Pre-Crime Push Ken Klippenstein
Mr. Market is Moody
Private credit could ‘amplify’ next financial crisis, study finds Financial Times
Asian Economies Pile into American Assets Barry Ritholtz (resilc). Note that these countries kept their currencies cheap so as to run surpluses with the US after the 1997 Asian crisis so as to have very hefty FX reserve to assure they would never again be subject to an IMF bailout (China and Singapore did not need one but observed what happened to others; Japan had been undervaluing the yen after its early 1990s real estate/stock market bubble implosions)
AI
A.I. Killed the Math Brain New York Times. LT added: “Related to your post the other day, What I told you about what my friend said in the 90s at Columbia about Americans not having the mathematical sophistication to do the physics graduate work was a canary in the coal mine; this is not a new problem, but that we are already deeply vulnerable. Now we’ve got a coal mine full of birds.”
Teachers Are Not OK 404 Media (Randy K). Wowsers.
Class Warfare
People are cooking at home at the highest levels since start of pandemic, according to Campbell’s CNBC (Kevin W)
“Learn to Code” Backfires Spectacularly as Comp-Sci Majors Suddenly Have Sky-High Unemployment Futurism (resilc)
Antidote du jour (John U):
And a bonus:
The “negotiations”, in a nutshell. pic.twitter.com/b3MCJaWNhd
— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) June 3, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
