The Dutch secretary of digitization announced plans today for creating a national cloud for public services. IT projects aren’t usually our governments strong suit, so who knows if this will succeed. At least they’re doing something.

More on this (in Dutch language): https://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/infrastructure/563864/nederland-zet-in-op-eigen-soevereine-overheidscloud/

Oi mate, come and rest yer head on our European bosom hehe

I now see you meant we shouldn’t give them privileges other countries don’t have either, I do agree with that. I most of all meant we should create the conditions that make it as attractive as possible to rejoin the EU. In some articles about a multi-speed EU they say the UK could join at the lowest speed in a similar way Norway and Switzerland are ‘members’ of the economic area, I think it’s more realistic the UK will first have an agreement like those two countries before they become a full/regular member again.

Guess I wasn’t the only one confused. But thinking the top 10 most polluted rivers are over 10 times as polluted as the European ones isn’t exactly good news. Well, for us maybe. But still.

I like Brtl-Z written, but probably no longer once I hear a brit talk about Bontrol-Z lol

They should be given the best of privileges, but on the EU’s terms: everything that is beneficial for the people in the UK and their economy, unless that’s harmful for the union (such as exemptions from fishing quota or whatever). A stronger member leads to a strong whole, generally speaking.

Not mine but one I really like is The Breversal. Although technically not as correct as breunification, breintegration, the brejoing or the brestoration.

In the source’s url

Luckily Europe is one step ahead:

Access to clean energy and rare earths is critical for the EU as it seeks to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and boost its autonomy in strategic sectors.

But sizeable shares of the global mining, processing and recycling of some of the critical raw materials, like lithium, that are indispensable to the development of renewable energy, everyday items as well as defence systems, are controlled by China, from which the EU wants to ‘decouple’ due to its aggressive and protectionist trade and foreign policy practices.

Central Asia holds large deposits, including 38.6% of the world’s manganese ore, 30.07% of chromium, 20% of lead, 12.6% of zinc, and 8.7% of titanium.

“These raw materials are the lifeblood of the future global economy. Yet they are also a honeypot for global players. Some are only interested in exploiting and extracting,” von der Leyen told Central Asian leaders.

“Europe’s offer is different. We also want to be your partners in developing your local industries. The added value has to be local. Our track record speaks for itself,” she added.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/04/eu-seals-new-central-asia-partnership-deal-as-debut-samarkand-summit-ends

I see this as doubling down on not being responsible for this mess, giving Trump a way out. Personally don’t think he’ll take any deal proposed by the EU, but who knows. With this proposal, EU and national leaders can rightfully say they did their best to mitigate the damage. Here’s how Von Der Leyen said it:

“We stand ready to negotiate with the US. Indeed, we have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners,” the Commission president said on Monday afternoon.

“Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table. But we are also prepared to respond through countermeasures and defend our interests.”

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/07/von-der-leyen-offers-trump-zero-for-zero-tariffs-deal-on-all-industrial-goods

“… while Europe stays silent” isn’t news anymore.

I was searching online to check if ‘sticking your head above the cornfield’ is an english saying, this page was one of the results: https://dutchreview.com/culture/doe-normaal-a-dutch-concept-and-term/

This is more a thing out of the big cities, I presume there is many countries where the rural areas are more conservative.

Did they move back to the states or ended up somewhere else?

The term brain drain refers to losing educated people to another country so there is not a brain being drained from an individual but rather a bunch of brains being drained from a population. Here’s a wikipedia page for the curious minds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

You wanna do this the easy way, or the hard way? She basically asks.

“We stand ready to negotiate with the US. Indeed, we have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners,” the Commission president said on Monday afternoon.

“Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table. But we are also prepared to respond through countermeasures and defend our interests.”

Yes, let’s go!

The results show that 40 microplastic units were measured per cubic meter of water flowing in the rivers. This is “alarming,” according to Ghiglione, but still not as hazardous as in the world’s ten most polluted rivers, where 40 microplastic units per cubic meter of river water have been measured.

Huh?

Nice article, thanks for sharing. Does anybody here have more details on the current relation between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan or Turkmenistan on the one hand and Russia or China on the other? I’m assuming their big neighbours don’t like this but it is more strategic for the central-asian countries to have strong ties with Europe, but I might be wrong.

I don’t think you understand the quote you use. What is in the article and in your quote of the article is thataccording to the opposition (and others) the current government is banning TikTok to silence critics and manipulate the upcoming elections.

Then you mention how TikTok is being used to manipulatie elections … on a global scale. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but in this case the banning of a social media platform is similar to how governments suppress newspapers and tv-channels because they are a threat to the ruling party.

This is not about foreign agents influencing elections, this is about a local power suppressing their people.

Yea I agree. I try to live my values, feel like that hard enough.