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London talks on ending war in Ukraine downgraded as Rubio pulls out - Reuters

Brain Draining the Swamp: European Countries Welcome Purged American Scientists

European nations are launching initiatives to attract scientists persecuted under the American Trump regime. In response to budget cuts, ideological purges, and political interference in research across the United States, these countries are positioning themselves as sanctuaries for exiled intellectuals and displaced expertise.

Norway has announced a NOK 100 million (RMB 70 million) initiative aimed at recruiting up to 50 foreign researchers into its universities and research institutions. Although the program is nominally global, officials acknowledge it was fast-tracked due to what they describe as the "acute situation in the U.S." Mari Sundli Tveit, Director of the Norwegian Research Council, pointed to “academic freedom under pressure” and the emergence of “forbidden word lists” in U.S. grant applications—including banned terms like “climate change,” “black,” and “woman”—as signs of deeper systemic rot. “There is great concern about irreplaceable data on health and climate stored in the U.S.,” Tveit warned.

Norwegian Education Minister Sigrun Aasland underscored the country’s urgent need for top-tier scientific expertise, even as she acknowledged the complex but vital partnership with American researchers. “We have an extensive collaboration with American researchers, and we want that to continue,” she noted.

Across the Skagerrak, Danish academic institutions report an unprecedented influx of interest from U.S. scientists, many from elite institutions such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton. “We are seeing an interest from U.S. researchers I have never experienced in my 12 years in this field,” said Nikolaj Lubanski, deputy director of Copenhagen Capacity, the agency behind Science Hub Denmark, an organisation recruiting international talent for Danish universities. This initiative, backed by major Danish research foundations, is now explicitly targeting American talent.

Lubanski describes a “special window” created by the collapse of stability in U.S. science policy. Danish universities are particularly eager to recruit experts in green technology, neuroscience, and sustainable biosolutions. A recent recruitment event by Science Hub Denmark at MIT attracted three times more applicants than it could accommodate and half of the unique visitors to the organisation's home page are Americans.

This pan-European effort also includes France’s “Safe Place for Science” program. President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed via social media: “Science is a boundless horizon. Researchers of the world, choose France, choose Europe.” Éric Berton, rector of Aix-Marseille University, framed the effort as “a form of scientific asylum” for embattled colleagues.

Though European leaders stop short of directly denouncing their imperial overlord’s crackdown on scientific inquiry, the quiet exfiltration of intellectual capital from the United States points to an unraveling of the hegemon’s soft power. As universities across Europe mobilize to absorb the human capital purged by the Trump regime, the long-term consequences for global scientific collaboration—and for American imperialism's ability to project power through research—remain to be seen.

I'm not used to writing long posts here but since the French communist youth (MJCF, Mouvement jeunes communistes de France) held its 44th congress recently I thought I might share some takeaways from it. Note however that I am not in France at the moment, nor was I there during the whole run-up to the congress itself, so I am sharing what I've been told by other comrades and what I can gather from the new texts that have been voted on.

According to our general secretary, the number of members doubled since the last congress in 2022.

Speaking of doubling in size, since the last congress in 2022 the size the MJCF's policy text grew from 37 pages to 56. Generally, it seems that this new text confirms the return to Marxism-Leninism that had been started by the previous congress, and clarifies many things that have been left merely implied or glossed over. One part of the text that I want to highlight is the way that the text lists the historical and philosophical foundations that make up the MJCF's understanding of Marxism-Leninism:

"It [the MJCF] draws from the French Revolution the aspiration to truly popular sovereignty, which only the emancipation of the proletariat can achieve. It rejects the bourgeois confiscation of the Republic and human rights, and asserts that only a society free of capitalism will enable the people to exercise their sovereignty fully. It also draws on universalism, the foundation of equality in rights and a necessary step towards genuine equality. It draws on French history to build its political project around the demand for a Social Republic, as opposed to a bourgeois republic.

It adopts the work of Marx and Engels to analyse and change the social relations of production. It affirms the revolutionary role of the proletariat in opposition to ["antagoniste à" in the original] the bourgeoisie, whose political and economic goal is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the need to socialise those means.

It appropriates Jaurès' contributions to socialist ideas in France, as well as his fights for peace and secularism ["laïcité" in the original]. He saw capitalism as incompatible with any aspiration for peace between peoples.

It draws from the work and life of Lenin his conception of organisation and the seizure of power. Without a party and without organisation, there can be no revolution and no seizure of power by the working class. It embraces Lenin's analysis of imperialism. It defines imperialism as the supreme stage of capitalism.

This is what the MJCF calls Marxism-Leninism."

Contrast this with the policy text of the 43rd congress, where the only mention of Marxism, Leninism or the rest of the movement’s historical roots was this single short sentence:

"The MJCF embraces Marxism-Leninism as the historic political current to which it belongs."

But the text doesn't just mention Marx, Engels and Lenin here and leave it at that. Indeed, another change from the previous policy text is that there are now proper definitions of the socialist revolution, of the dictatorship of the proletariat (as part of the new definition of socialism) and of democratic centralism (which has a whole section dedicated to it). They are as follows:

"Socialist revolution consists of the overthrow of capitalist social relations through democratic control of economic, social and political institutions by the working class and the abolition of bourgeois property. […] The French Socialist Revolution will take a form which is appropriate to the material conditions of the country. It is a long-term construction which requires the structuring and strengthening of the organisation."

"Socialism is a phase in which the working class has taken control of the state and the economy, but where the reminiscences of capitalism and the reaction of the bourgeoisie remain strong. It is a phase in which workers are learning to manage society themselves, with the defence of their long-term interests at its heart. The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. the total exercise of power by the proletariat, is necessary to prevent the counter-revolution of the bourgeoisie and to bring the revolution to a successful conclusion."

"The MJCF does not operate on the basis of factions. It does not tolerate any strategy of entryism by other organisations into its midst and does not practise entryism in other organisations. Each level of the MJCF respects the decisions taken by the higher level. In return, the higher echelon must take into account the opinions and feedback of grassroots activists, thus guaranteeing that decisions are rooted in the reality on the ground. This ensures the unity of the movement, while guaranteeing that debates take place within the framework provided. The democratic nature of the movement is at the heart of the democratic centralism that the MJCF embraces.

Democratic centralism can be summed up as follows: ‘total freedom in discussion, unity in action’. The democratic aspect ensures collective decision-making: freedom of debate in the bodies set up for this purpose within the MJCF and constant feedback from members based on their experiences. The centralist aspect ensures unity of action, by respecting the decisions of the higher echelons and ensuring that they are strictly applied, as well as respecting the governing bodies and their members, and respect for national and federal bodies and executives. It implies a permanent link with the movement's management, particularly through regular monitoring in each federation.

Once a decision has been taken democratically, all members must respect and defend it publicly and show discipline, even in the event of disagreement. In the event of disagreement, it is essential not to express criticism in public, but to discuss matters internally in order to preserve the unity and cohesion of the organisation.

The NC [National council] is responsible for ensuring the ideological, organisational and militant coherence of the movement at national level. The monitoring system, a prerequisite for mass organisation. Monitoring members of the NC occupy a key position within their federations. They must be able to go there face-to-face several times a year and be available to federal executives, with weekly telephone calls. Executives must be particularly attentive to the profiles of comrades with experience who could be relevant for the monitoring role but who sometimes do not dare to apply to the NC. This issue is linked to the wider issue of under-candidacy for the NC, particularly among our female comrades."

There are also a lot of other important changes which I'll summarise now. There is a renewed emphasis on class struggle, the need to abolish private propriety and establish a planned economy. On class struggle, that is also shown in the updated section on the European Union, which in addition to being much longer also focuses for a big part of it on the role the EU plays in the domination of capital. Additionally, France's own role as an imperialist power is criticised more in the new text, not only within the EU and NATO but also in relation to former colonies in Africa as well as Kanaky-New Caledonia. And finally, the section on LGBTI rights is also greatly expanded in the new text, with an interesting passage on transition (defined in the text as three things: social transition, administrative transition and medical transition) as well as on the mutilation of intersex people; in contrast, the old text only had once sentence regarding LGBTI people, about how anti-LGBTI discrimination was a cause of patriarchal ideology. Here is what the new text has to say on transition:

"Transition paths must be facilitated. It is essential that these paths be supported medically and socially.

It must be possible to change one's marital status at the town hall on simple request, and the process must be streamlined. The use of hormones, regardless of the method used, must be fully reimbursed by Social Security.

A better understanding of transition paths is needed to provide this support. By transition we mean 3 different things: social transition, i.e. changing first names and pronouns in everyday life and wearing gender-affirming clothing; administrative transition, i.e. changing first names and sex on the civil register; medical transition, ranging from hormone treatment to surgery. A transgender person may undergo some or all of these transitions, sometimes without the support of family and/or friends, leading to social insecurity."

Overall I'm very happy with my comrades' work and I'm hopeful about the future of the MJCF. I'm a bit bummed out now that I still won't be in France for the next few years to see how these changes will be put into practice concretely within the movement.

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ordered the Pentagon to brief Elon Musk on approximately 20 top secret China-related issues, without the approval of a legal advisor or the President – CNN

Death panel. Only literally this time. And it's privatized. Palantir is not just a defense and marketing surveillance company; it's in healthcare, insurance, finance, your taxes, etc.

• Palantir: The New Deep State

Garnishing wages of people with student loan debt is just another tax draining demand for real goods. Good job.

Kristi Noem's purse, which had $3,000 in cash, had been stolen while she was dining with her family at a restaurant. Inside the secretary of Homeland Security's purse were also blank checks and DHS login credentials.

• Telesur English

Chris Hedges interviews Norman Finkelstein. The Fink is right about a lot of stuff, I think. Such as Israel accelerating not because Trump "gave him the green light', but simply because Trump is taking the media spotlight constantly, and Israel knows very well how to take advantage of that. And, unfortunately, that the resistance (nor anybody else) probably doesn't stand much of a chance of keeping the zionists from "finishing the job".

• Emptying Gaza (w/ Norman Finkelstein) | The Chris Hedges Report

Unfortunately the Fink also shows his brainworms and blames "wokeness" for a lot of the attack on academic freedom. Hedges doesn't really challenge him on that, but does kind of shunt the conversation away from it. Probably still worth watching/listening to.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to British mass media claims of Russia supposedly agreeing to "freeze" the conflict:

https://www.rt.com/russia/616126-only-trust-firsthand-sources-on/

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Peskov was asked to comment on a recent report from the Financial Times that claimed Moscow is ready to halt the hostilities in the Ukraine conflict along the current front line.

“A lot of fakes are being published now, including by respected publications, so you should only listen to the primary sources,” he said.

According to the FT article from Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to freeze the conflict along the current front line during his meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this month in St. Petersburg.