There might be public displeasure about it, but I think behind the scenes India buying Russia oil is expected and at least to some degree accepted (or possibly even wanted).
The bigger thing is Russia not generating profits from those sales, which I am speculating is not the case at the prices India is buying at. The upside of Russian oil still being available to the world market is keeping the prices lower, something Europe is very much interested in.
I never used it myself, but rather than a dedicated alarm clock app, maybe look at tasker?
Looking at their website they actually list your use case as an example of what is possible
wake up with a random song from your music collection
(Third point under “usage examples”)
(also no telephone booths)
Speaking of telephone booths: With their disappearance the 2001 movie “Phone Booth” also lost its location.
Italy, a member of the G7, emerged as another opponent because of the large number of Italians living in Russia, diplomats said.
Rome has argued that it would not be able to offer consulate services across Russia if the Kremlin responds with tit-for-tat bans on diplomatic movements.
Its government also voiced support for maintaining “open diplomatic channels” with Moscow and there were other tactics to fight Russian intelligence agents, a diplomat said.
Feels like you could have also included that part of the article. Because while the headline ofc isn’t technically wrong, it does imply that it is only Germany blocking the proposal. However the article itself also mentions Italy being against it (and who knows how the rest of the countries are leaning), including other reasons than just wanting to trade again. So it feels like they just wanna bash Germany specifically.
A more neutral headline would e.g. be “Europe still divided about Czech proposal to limit movement of Russian diplomats to combat spie activities”.
Personally i think as a layman it is kind of hard to judge who is right in this debate. My first thought would be that you know who you give those diplomat credentials to, so while they might be spies, at the same time it makes it easier to track them.
The proposal of limiting them to only the specific country they are stationed in only makes sense to me, if it is a problem keeping track of them when they change countries (which would be a problem that should be fixed in general I guess).
I do like the part with requiring a biometric passport, that seems like an easy enough and sensible requirement. But ofc who says that spies would come with Russian passports in the first place. Couldn’t they also come with passports from other contries like Kasachstan or Usbekistan for example?
We also shouldn’t forget that we most certainly are doing the same with our diplomats. At least as far as spying goes, maybe not so much the sabotage part.
This is their best chance to escape their coming economic trap. They control so few actual resources beyond labor.
Is that actually the case? I am not sure how many resources china has in their own country (I assume there are a few with it being this vast), but I think they are tackling the resource problem more so with their investments in Africa and other poor countries. And because of the war Russia also has fewer countries to sell to besides China.
I think the true longterm problem is actually with the cheap labour force you mention. As the standard of living rises, so do wages. And more importantly they’ll experience the same demographic shift other developed countries are currently experiencing with an aging population. With the difference that it’ll be worse for them due to the one child polic.
I’ve had two USB C ports fail on HMD phones.
Yeah, that’s what got my HMD made, Nokia branded, 7 plus. And from a search at the time this was a common problem
I think you’ll need to give some more information to receive good advice:
What’s your budget
What’s your use case? Just web browsing, light office work or something more demanding like gaming or editing?
What form factor? Want a larger screen or something lighter and more compact? Touch screen/convertible yes or no?
I’m nowhere near tech-savvy so it has to be easy to use,
Easy to use or easy to repair? As far as use goes pretty much every windows laptop will be feel the same to use, same as with apple. I mean it is the same operating system, just depends on what you are used to, but neither are complicated. It’s only Linux where you have a larger variety of variants, some easier to use, others geared more towards advanced users. Bur you haven’t indicated that you specifically want to run Linux.
I want something that is built to last, as opposed to certain (looking at you, Apple) devices that are desinged to become unusable within a next couple of years.
Generally laptops aimed at businesses are more durable than consumer lines. Don’t go too cheap unless you are buying used business laptops. And if something is heavilu leaning towards thin and light, then usually it is at the expense of some durability.
Apple is actually decently durable and I’ve seen quite a few MacBooks running for over a decade while still being ok. Where they fall short is repairability, when something does break and their lowest specs paired with no real way to upgrade later (especially with the newer models that don’t even have SSDs that can be swapped) is bad for future proofing, if demands change. And they make you pay through your nose for reasonable configurations.
Also investing in a troubled company directly before a quarterly report, when you can expect to see volatility, is just gambling.
Even if you’d want to do lump sum rather than DCA, with that kind of sum and a long term investment horizon you wait out the event.
Personally I don’t understand these kind of people either, who endorse something that directly goes against themselves (e.g. in case of gays in conservative parties) or their children. But I think there also is another way to view this behavior:
Because besides being a father of biracial children, he is one other important thing: rich. And he only gains to get richer from playing towards the maga crowd.
So how much do we actually expect his children to suffer the consequences? They’ll probably grow up privileged in good neighborhoods, get great education, own their homes and advance in their careers through connections.
Man is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Imo this is also one of the issues that shows how he has boxed himself into a corner with his VP candidate choice. If he had chosen someone that appeals to a different voter base, rather than Vance, who caters to the same crowd, then they’d have an easier time arguing both sides at the same time.
Well i aswell hope that this isn’t just my bias speaking :)
Unlike France or GB, which recently had elections substantially changing majorities, here in Germany it’s still the exact same people in charge since the start of this war. With the only major change being the defense minister, and that was for the better. So the people deciding here are the same that (based on this article) doubled this years support budget. And as far as i am aware there really hasn’t been any major event that would have shifted the sentiment in foreign politics from what we’ve experienced until now.
On the side of internal politics as mentioned it is basically a self-inflicted struggle to balance the budget and limit new debt. Because for some reason we chose to write that into our constitution, restraining our options. So everyone is fighting for their share and by the looks the winners are the usual: more money to secure pensions for old people and the automotive industry. While not only the budget for Ukraine is on the chopping block, but also other stuff like a reform of welfare for children or infrastructure projects for railroads.
Might sound bad, but it’s nothing really new and so far lack of funds hasn’t been an issue delaying German support. So i don’t expect it to be going forward either. We’ll just keep moving in lockstep with what others provide, slowly build out capacity and react to new developments. Which would be no change to how we’ve seem to have handled it so far, and not like “the slashing the budget by half” would imply.
And as mentioned above i am sure there are plenty of additional ways to support Ukraine that don’t hinge on the budget. Like telling Ukraine to direcly purchase through the manufacturers and giving security assurances for loans. Might be a worse deal on paper for Ukraine, but in the short/medium term wouldn’t make a practical difference. And things can get sorted later.
But regardless of how this plays out we won’t have any type of deadlock like the one delaying US aid until recently. And the largest party in the opposition is also in favor of supporting Ukraine, despite taking any opportunity to take shots at whatever the governing parties decide.
Personally as a German. while disappointing at facevalue, i wouldn’t read too much into it in respect to any shifts in the commitment to supporting Ukraine (but i might also be wrong here).
To me this very much is an internal self-inflicted struggle about balancing budgets and we’ll only be able to tell whether it actually affected things in retrospect (if it’s even possible).
In the end maybe more purchases will be directed through EU funds (of which Germany pays a substantial share) or instead of direct aid things are financed through low interest rate loans (that later might even get forgiven). Or you have some other kind of schemes where aid indirectly goes towards Ukraine.
And who knows how the conflict will change, promting adjustments in deliveries. Like the recent airstrikes probably leading towards more air defense systems being delivered than originally anticipated (with a single Patriot system being worth as much as 1 billion if i understand it correctly)
the only way another candidate can be successful is if Biden himself drops out and endorses (and indeed continues to campaign for) them.
And he had 4 years to decide on and build up a successor, but chose to not do so. And neither did the democratic party.
His age and the related issues can’t be a surprise to anyone, so i really don’t see why there should be a sudden change in direction.
For me in some ways it is even more telling how there seems to be no attempt towards a constructive solution with the West Bank. If anything they are making things worse with the illegal settlements.
That wouldn’t be an easy task either, but leagues easier compared to getting anything productive done in a hot conflict like what is currently happening in Gaza.
He could also take higher risks, since he knew that there was a security net to catch him. Much easier to make high risk/reward decisions, if the risk (e.g. going broke) isn’t actually real. He presumably also had an above average education and many other benefits. This is also why many rich people might end up building successful businesses. The average person might get one shot and either makes it or goes broke. The rich person can roll the dice multiple times (and might have learned something from the last try).
Also disregarding everything even, if he had succeded: That would still only have been a sample size of one. I doubt anyone is saying that you can’t under any circumstances pull yourself out of poverty, but on average the cards are just stacked against you in many ways.
Also i doubt that reselling second hand stuff is a viable business model for a larger group. Like sure in a large city a few people might be able to carve out a niche for themself, but the more people do it or the smaller the market, the less it works.
Is the 10 VI Sony’s midrange? It’s certainly priced like one, but within their lineup it would be the lower end, no? The 5 would be their midtier offering.
Yeah, slightly better now, but still lackluster in a phone of this class.
Especially considering that eventually every phone in the EU starting June 2025 will be required to offer at least 5 year updates. You’d think that they could offer that level of support slightly earlier to someone willing to drop well over 1k€ on their phone. Unless of course they plan to pull out of the european market at that point.
For the US maybe, but I don’t think it is profitabel for Europe.
Refugees aren’t cheap (even though ukrainian people might integrate easier than others and later add value), a good part of money for weapon purchases flows towards America since they have more immediate capacities, and long term we do want to integrate Ukraine, which means Europe will ultimately bear a significant chunk of rebuilding costs.
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Thanks for the link. That is certainly a frustrating development, since they had to sell it for a much steeper discount before as the article mentions.