Borderfire without purpose by Mary Long

The artillery thunder rolling across the Thai–Cambodian border feels less like a military strategy and more like the sound of two governments shouting past reason. Along an 800-kilometre line drawn decades ago by colonial maps and political convenience, shells now land where farmers once walked, and forested hilltops have become symbols of pride worth dying for. What is unfolding is not a war of necessity but a war of stubbornness, fuelled by history, nationalism, and a dangerous lack of imagination.

On paper, the balance is clear. Thailand commands the skies, flying unchallenged over Cambodian territory, striking at targets that cannot strike back. Cambodia, lacking meaningful air defences or a credible air force, responds with what it has, BM21 rocket systems that are terrifying more for their randomness than their precision. These rockets do not choose soldiers over civilians. They fall where gravity and chance decide, killing a civilian here, wounding families there, turning evacuation plans into grim confirmations that the worst was always expected.

This is where the moral argument collapses entirely. When inherently inaccurate weapons are used near civilian areas, and when air superiority is exercised without restraint, the conflict stops being about security and starts being about indifference. Each side claims defence, yet each action deepens the wound it claims to be stitching shut. The forested hilltops now soaked in blood offer no strategic value proportional to the lives being spent to control them. They are trophies of ego, not assets of survival.

The tragedy is amplified by how predictable this escalation was. Border tensions between Thailand and Cambodia are not new; they are ritualistic. They flare, cool, and flare again, usually wrapped in the language of sovereignty and honour. But honour has become a hollow word when it is invoked to justify artillery exchanges across villages and bombing runs against a neighbour with no capacity to respond in kind. Strength, in this context, is not measured by how hard one can hit, but by how wisely one chooses not to.

What makes this confrontation particularly grim is its asymmetry. Thailand’s freedom to operate in the air is not a sign of tactical brilliance; it is simply a reflection of imbalance. Cambodia’s reliance on crude rocket fire is not courage; it is desperation. When one side dominates and the other flails, the outcome is not victory but prolonged suffering. The death toll climbs, the wounded overflow medical facilities, and the language of “no obvious end” becomes an accepted background hum, as if endless violence were a natural state.

Nationalism, of course, is doing what it always does in times like these. Flags are waved, histories selectively remembered, and any call for restraint branded as weakness. Leaders speak of resolve while families bury their dead. The border becomes a stage where politicians perform toughness for domestic audiences, gambling with lives they will never personally risk. In such moments, escalation is easier than compromise, because compromise requires admitting that pride is a poor substitute for policy.

The international silence surrounding this conflict is equally damning. Because it does not neatly fit into the narratives of great power rivalry, it is treated as a regional scuffle, a regrettable but manageable affair. Yet for those living near the border, this is not a footnote. It is the sound of rockets at night, the fear of aircraft overhead, and the slow realisation that their safety is negotiable.

Wars rarely end because one side finally proves it is tougher. They end when exhaustion sets in or when leaders choose reason over rage. Right now, neither condition appears imminent. The shells keep falling, the bombing continues, and each new casualty hardens attitudes further. Without a conscious decision to step back, to accept mediation, or at the very least to prioritise civilian lives over symbolic terrain, this conflict will grind on until its original causes are buried beneath its consequences.

The border will still be there when the guns fall silent. The question is how many lives will be lost before someone remembers that lines on a map are not worth more than the people who live beside them.

History will judge this moment harshly, not for the ferocity of the fighting, but for the emptiness of its purpose. When the smoke clears, neither side will be able to claim moral high ground, only graves and grievances. Peace will come eventually, as it always does but it will arrive late, expensive and stained with avoidable regret remembered long after excuses and speeches fade.

How many graves before peace matters in Sudan? By Eze Ogbu

Is peace possible for Sudan, or are we content to let its people die quietly while the world scrolls past? This is not a rhetorical flourish meant to provoke polite debate. It is a blunt question carved from mass graves, bombed neighbourhoods, and cities emptied of life. Sudan is bleeding, and the most horrifying part is not only the violence itself, but how easily it has been absorbed into global indifference.

Sudan’s war is not a sudden tragedy. It is the predictable collapse of a state hollowed out by decades of corruption, militarization, and international neglect. Two armed giants, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, are tearing the country apart in a grotesque power struggle that has nothing to do with protecting civilians and everything to do with control, profit, and ego. Khartoum, once a chaotic but living city, has become a battlefield of snipers, airstrikes, and looting militias. Darfur, a name already synonymous with horror, is again witnessing ethnic cleansing while the world pretends it is surprised.

Peace, in theory, is always possible. In practice, peace requires something far rarer: genuine pressure, sustained attention, and moral clarity. Sudan has received none of these. What it has received instead is silence punctuated by vague statements of “concern,” carefully worded so they offend no one with power. Innocent people die while diplomats speak in passive voice.

Let’s be honest about why Sudan is ignored. There is no easy narrative. No single villain neatly packaged for headlines. No geopolitical payoff large enough to force urgency. Sudan is not a trendy war. It does not threaten global oil supplies in dramatic ways, nor does it sit at the center of a Cold War chessboard. Its victims are poor, Black, displaced, and far from Western capitals. Their suffering does not interrupt stock markets, so it does not interrupt attention.

The international community prefers conflicts where outrage can be monetized and resolution can be branded as success. Sudan offers neither. It offers moral discomfort. It forces the world to confront how selectively it values human life.

Meanwhile, Sudanese civilians are trapped between bombs and betrayal. Hospitals are attacked. Aid convoys are looted. Women are raped as a weapon of war. Children die from dehydration not because water doesn’t exist, but because militias control access to it. This is not collateral damage. This is the systematic dismantling of civilian life. And still, the world hesitates, as if waiting for a clearer signal that this matters.

Peace talks come and go, staged more for international optics than for real outcomes. Agreements are signed, broken, and forgotten. Armed leaders are invited to negotiation tables without consequences, reinforcing the lesson that violence is a viable political strategy. Why stop killing when it gets you recognition?

The tragedy is compounded by hypocrisy. Many of the same countries wringing their hands over Sudan continue to indirectly fuel the conflict through arms sales, regional alliances, and strategic silence. They call for restraint while shaking hands with those who profit from chaos. They speak of stability while enabling instability because it is convenient.

So is peace possible? Yes, but not under the current global logic. Peace will not emerge from empty statements or performative diplomacy. It will not come from pretending that Sudan’s war is too complex to address. Complexity has become the favourite excuse for inaction.

Peace would require consequences for war criminals, not future invitations to power-sharing deals. It would require sustained humanitarian access enforced, not negotiated away. It would require listening to Sudanese civil society, not sidelining it in favour of men with guns. Most of all, it would require the world to care even when there is nothing to gain.

Ignoring Sudan is not neutrality. It is a choice. A choice to accept that some lives are disposable. A choice to normalize mass death as background noise. A choice to let history repeat itself because intervening is uncomfortable.

Every day this war continues without real pressure, the message is reinforced: you can kill thousands, displace millions, and still be treated as a legitimate actor. That message does not stay in Sudan. It travels.

Peace is possible, but only if silence ends first. And the longer the world remains quiet, the more honest the answer to the question becomes. Not because peace cannot exist but because we have decided it does not matter enough to pursue.

Smoke screens and sacrificial names by Robert Perez

There is a familiar smell whenever power feels threatened: not accountability, but smoke. Thick, intentional, disorienting smoke. The renewed noise around the Epstein files has that scent again and at the center of it sits Donald Trump not necessarily because of what is known but because of what must be avoided at all costs,  sustained attention on his proximity, his past, and his pattern of surviving scandals by detonating larger distractions.

When danger approaches Trump, it rarely meets him head-on. It is rerouted. Deflected. Outsourced. And this time, the tactic appears brutally simple: bury his presence by overwhelming the public with other, louder names.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Bill Clinton are convenient sacrifices. They are known quantities in the Epstein story, already stained in public imagination, already half-convicted in the court of opinion. Dragging them back into the spotlight costs nothing politically. In fact, it helps. Their names are headline-friendly, internationally recognizable, and emotionally loaded. They trigger outrage without requiring new evidence. They keep the story moving just not forward.

This is not about justice. It is about narrative control. Trump’s political machinery does not need to prove innocence; it only needs confusion. And confusion thrives when culpability is spread so thin that it dissolves into spectacle. If everyone is guilty, no one is accountable. If the room is on fire, no one notices who lit the match. What’s more revealing is not who is being named loudly, but who is being handled quietly.

Michael Jackson and Bill Gates hover in the background like shadows, never fully accused, never fully defended. Their names are released not as declarations but as whispers. Dark rumors. Suggestive hints. Enough to poison the air, not enough to demand follow-up. This is strategic ambiguity; deploy the implication without accepting the burden of proof. Let conspiracy-minded audiences do the work for you.

Jackson, long dead and endlessly controversial, is the perfect ghost. Gates, powerful and polarizing, is the perfect distraction. Neither needs to be proven anything; their presence alone widens the fog. And fog is the ally of the guilty.

This is how power protects itself: not by denying facts, but by flooding the conversation until facts drown.

Trump’s lackeys, media surrogates, political influencers, outrage entrepreneurs, understand this instinctively. They don’t argue details. They don’t clarify timelines. They don’t ask who did what, when, and with whom. They ask instead: “What about him?” “What about her?” “Why aren’t we talking about this name?” It is rhetorical arson disguised as curiosity.

And the public, exhausted and cynical, often plays along. There is something deeply unsettling about the ease with which reputations can be burned to keep one man insulated. Andrew and Clinton may not be innocent figures, but they are useful ones. Their involvement, real, alleged, or adjacent, functions as ballast, weighing down scrutiny before it drifts too close to Trump. The irony is that Trump once openly socialized with Epstein, joked about him, praised his taste for “younger” women. These are not hidden facts. They are archived quotes. Yet they rarely anchor the conversation. Why? Because the noise is engineered to ensure they don’t.

This is not a coordinated conspiracy in the cinematic sense. It’s worse. It’s a reflex. A culture of power that knows how to survive by feeding on chaos. Trump thrives in this environment because he understands something fundamental, scandal is not fatal. Focus is.

As long as attention is scattered, across princes, presidents, pop stars, billionaires, Trump remains just another name in a long list, rather than the subject of sustained examination. He doesn’t need to be erased. He just needs to be blended.

And that blending comes at a cost. Not just to truth, but to victims. Every time the narrative shifts from accountability to spectacle, survivors become props in someone else’s damage control strategy. Their suffering is flattened into talking points, weaponized and discarded.

In the end, the Epstein files are not just about who appears in them. They are about who benefits from how they are discussed. And right now, the loudest fires are being set precisely so one shadow can remain comfortably intact.

Smoke is not innocence. It’s evidence of fear.

Screws & Chips #117 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

In a galaxy far, far away, intelligence demonstrated by screws and chips,
boldly gone where no robot has gone before!

For more Screws & Chips, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

---

Exploring Technology, Mind, and Health with Global Academy by Yoshika Nundkoomar

The Technology Mind Health half-day summit, hosted by the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG) and its partners, brought together interdisciplinary leaders, researchers, and thinkers to explore the intersection of digital technologies and human psychological well-being. Reflecting the Academy’s foundational mission to enhance the development of governments, businesses, academia, civil society, and consumers through ethical and human-centered deployment of technology, the event underscored that technological progress, when governed thoughtfully, can strengthen individual and collective mental health rather than undermine it.

What made this event truly unparalleled on a global scale was its extraordinary diversity; uniting every geography and every generation under the Global Academy’s platform. No other gathering brings together both the developing and the developed world in such a format—not only in its audience but also among its speakers.

The summit indeed offered a genuinely equal platform across continents and age groups: from seasoned experts and leading professionals to the youngest participant, just 11 years old. All stood side by side, engaged in a shared mission to confront one of the most urgent issues of our time, the relationship between technology, mind, and health, and to collectively explore the challenges and chart future pathways.

Or, as the Development-8 Secretary-General, Isiaka A. Imam, urged previously, the emerging digital world must be co-written by all nations, not inherited by a few. These are words that were further detailed by Charles Oppenheimer, who warned that AI is a new primordial fire, powerful enough to uplift humanity or to undo it. 

Mission and Framing

Founded to advance the ‘3M’ matrix (maximum good for maximum species over maximum time), mindful, measurable, and mutually beneficial technological integration across sectors, the Global Academy for Future Governance promotes sustainable progress free of hidden social, environmental, and health costs. Its interdisciplinary, multispatial, cross-sector mandate aligns with pressing global needs to distinguish substantive technological challenges from hype and to strengthen frameworks that enable early identification and mitigation of risks.

The Technology Mind Health summit of early December 2025 opened with a warm introduction delivered by Dr. Philippe Reinisch, GAFG co‑founder. He highlighted this gathering as the inaugural event for the newly created GAFG, and emphasized the importance of bridging technology and society with human enhancement, including human mental wellness.

Acting as the GAFG host, Jesinta Adams, Assistant Director-General of GAFG, spoke passionately about the central role different generations play at the intersection of technology and mind health. 

Voices from Leadership and Thought

The event began with a prerecorded (unauthorized) address of Dr. Khaled El‑EnanyEzz, a candidate for UNESCO Secretary‑General. This powerful note reflected on humanity’s current crossroads amid rapid technological change, underscoring rising challenges related to health, wealth inequality, and psychological well‑being. He emphasized education as the essential tool for guiding technological deployment with wisdom, extending beyond technical mastery into cultural and ethical literacy. His message was clear: “Use technology as a tool rather than a master.”

Following this, Vladimir Norov, former Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan and former Secretary‑General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, addressed the Summit. He drew attention to expanding societal risks, including threats to mental health, social cohesion, privacy, and equitable access, but urged attendees to consider the transformative potential of AI when governed ethically. Highlighting examples from medical innovation in Central Asia, Norov stressed three core principles for beneficial technological integration: human‑centered design, ethical governance, and resilience building. He concluded, “Technology does not replace us but elevates us.” 

Expert Contributions on Mind, Health, and Technology

Closing on the high level, the keynote addresses, and the substantive section as the central part of the Summit have started with Dr. KaT Zarychta, a specialist in technology, innovation, and holistic health. She opened by comparing artificial intelligence to the human mind, reminding audiences that AI cannot feel, empathize, or emotionally self‑correct. She argued that the most effective path forward lies in human‑AI collaboration, where evidence‑based digital tools support rather than supplant human capacities. Dr. Zarychta closed with a call to co‑create a world where psychological well‑being is nurtured and protected in tandem with technological innovation.

As the next speaker, Marisa Peer, RTT founder and bestselling author, focused on the role of social media as a source of disconnection and psychological distress. Shehighlighted the platforms’ addictive dynamics and their proliferation of unrealistic ideals that fuel dissatisfaction and self‑doubt. She urged reimagining digital spaces as tools for learning, growth, and mental enrichment—enabling technology to expand, not contract, human potential.

Prof. John A. Naslund, co‑director of the Mental Health for All Lab at Harvard Medical School, addressed the global mental health crisis, particularly rising depression rates. He introduced the EMPOWER Model, a psychosocial behavioral intervention framework emphasizing community‑based support and scalable delivery. Naslund highlighted the model’s adaptability, from teenagers to adults, and its multilingual expansion, demonstrating how evidence‑driven designs can strengthen resilience across populations.

Dr. Malek Bajbouj, Head of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Charité Berlin, examined psychological health in contexts of conflict, pandemics, and ecological anxiety. He described the accelerating demand for mental health support and positioned trustworthy digital tools as essential if governed ethically. According to Dr. Bajbouj, resilient mental health systems rest on population‑wide strategies, transparent communication, and sustained trust in public institutions.

From Uruguay, Professor María Castelló of the Clemente Estable Research Institute investigated neurological and psychological effects of prolonged technology use, especially in youth. She highlighted concerns about brain development, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy digital habits. Yet Castelló also acknowledged potential cognitive benefits, such as enhanced memory, behavioral functioning, and multitasking skills. Her call to action called for policies that address digital inequities and mental health from a neuro‑social perspective rather than one‑size‑fits‑all approaches. 

In her part, prof. Birgitta Dresp-Langleyidentified excessive childhood exposure to digital environments as a central factor underlying a range of growing health concerns. Prolonged screen time indoors reduces children’s exposure to natural daylight, which is essential for healthy visual development, sleep regulation, and metabolic balance. This deficit is linked to increasing rates of early myopia, obesity, sleep disorders, depression, and behavioral difficulties, with risks emerging even in very young children.

French professor Dresp-Langley proposes a unifying biological model in which reduced daylight and increased artificial light disrupt vitamin D and melatonin production, leading to deregulation of serotonin and dopamine pathways in the developing brain. These neurochemical changes resemble those seen in addictive disorders and may result in long-term cognitive, emotional, and behavioural consequences. She concluded her detailed writing contribution to the Summit by concluding that urgent awareness, preventive policies, and increased outdoor activity are needed to mitigate these risks.

Youth Engagement and Future Directions

The event culminated with the announcement of winners from the Technology Mind Health Essay Competition, led by Theodora Vounidi (Balkan Youth Initiative founder). Contestants (aged 14-18 and 18-28) discussed the correlation between digital technology and mental health and the need for balance between analog and digital time, as well as the newly formed ‘always online’ (sub-)culture.

With 40 global submissions comprising about 60 writers, as some elected to work in teams, including from the youngest entrant at age 11 (demoiselle Tess), the competition highlighted both the breadth of youth engagement and the global relevance of the human technology dialogue.

First place was awarded to Nikos Galitsis from Greece, second place to Claudio Monani from Italy, and third place was awarded to Kenedy Agustin from the Philippines, while fourth place was secured by a participant from India. Fifth place was awarded to the youngest entrant from Singapore. The top three winners of the competition were given the opportunity to present their work, offering insightful perspectives on the emerging intersection of technology and mental health. 

Main takeaways & Future outlook

The Technology Mind Health summit highlighted a crucial truth – as encapsulated in the closing remarks by prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, GAFG cofounder;“technological advancement is inevitable, but its impact on humanity is not predetermined—it depends on the collective choices we make”.

Across sessions, speakers emphasized that technology can either be a catalyst for psychological well-being or a source of disruption, depending on how it is designed, governed, and integrated into society. Ethical frameworks, evidence-based policies, and human-centered governance are essential to ensure that digital tools empower rather than diminish individual and collective mental health.

Equally important is the role of education, intergenerational dialogue, and global collaboration. As the GAFG summit demonstrated, solutions require insights from every sector, culture, and age group—from seasoned professionals to the youngest participants. By fostering awareness of risks such as digital overexposure, social media-induced stress, and inequitable access, while simultaneously encouraging innovative approaches for mental wellness, society can navigate the technological landscape thoughtfully.

Ultimately, the responsibility to shape a future where technology enhances rather than undermines human flourishing lies with all stakeholders—governments, academia, civil society, businesses, and individuals alike.

By successfully conducting such a complex and content-rich event, the GAFG demonstrated its true capability to provide flexible, impartial, and highly engaging solutions for the Fast technology to both, public and private sector.

In recognition of the summit’s success and the youth essay competition’s impact, the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG) has decided to annualize both the Technology-Mind-Health Summit and the essay competition (with its BYI partner), ensuring ongoing dialogue and engagement at the intersection of technology, meridians, generations and mental well-being.

---

Yoshika Nundkoomar, a founder of YN Consulting, a South African firm specializing in accounting and tax principles, is an advocate for mental health and the sustainable use of technological innovation. She recently joined GA FG.

Borrowed anger by Jemma Norman

Is there any way to stop young people gathering under Farage’s flag? The instinctive answer from much of the political class is yes, regulate platforms, shame the leaders, dismiss the voters, and wait for the mood to pass. That answer is wrong and it keeps failing for the same reason it always has. You cannot out-argue a feeling by calling it stupid, and you cannot drain a movement by pretending it is a mirage.

Young people are not drifting toward Farage because they are ignorant of history or hypnotised by charisma. They are drifting because politics has become an abstract language that describes a world they do not recognise. Rent eats their income, work feels temporary, institutions feel brittle, and the promise that effort leads somewhere sounds like folklore. When someone names that unease, even crudely, it feels like relief. Farage does not invent the anger; he rents it.

Attempts to “stop” this gathering usually take the form of moral panic. Labels are applied quickly, lines are drawn, and the young are told they are being misled. This satisfies older voters who want reassurance that the problem lies elsewhere, but it does nothing to address the appeal. In fact, it strengthens it. Being told you are dangerous for asking obvious questions is a powerful recruiting tool. Nothing flatters a generation more than being told it terrifies the establishment.

The deeper problem is that mainstream politics has hollowed out its emotional range. It speaks in metrics, targets, and caution, while everyday life is experienced in stress, boredom, and fear of sliding backward. When the centre refuses to speak emotionally, the margins will. Farage offers a story with villains, victims, and a sense of agency. It may be simplistic, but it is legible. Compare that with the managerial fog young people are usually offered, and the choice becomes understandable.

So is there a way to stop it? Not by prohibition, and not by ridicule. Movements like this fade only when something better occupies the same emotional space. That means offering young people a politics that is tangible, confident, and unashamed of moral language. Not slogans, but commitments they can feel, housing that is actually affordable, work that is not a holding pattern, and a future that does not require permanent anxiety.

It also requires honesty about trade-offs. Young voters are less naïve than they are treated. They know resources are finite. What they resent is being patronised with half-truths and process talk. Farage thrives on the sense that everyone else is lying politely. The antidote is not perfect policy; it is visible sincerity, even when answers are uncomfortable.

Crucially, young people need spaces where political identity is not immediately moralised. The rush to brand supporters as immoral or stupid short-circuits conversation and pushes curiosity underground, where it hardens into belief. If you want fewer young people under Farage’s flag, you have to be willing to talk to them before the flag becomes their identity.

There is also a generational arrogance at play. Older Britain often treats youth politics as a phase to be corrected rather than a message to be heard. But every surge toward disruption is a warning flare. It signals that the social contract is fraying. Ignoring the signal does not restore the contract; it just ensures the next flare is brighter.

Farage is not the disease. He is a symptom of a vacuum where meaning should be. If he vanished tomorrow, something else would rush in to occupy the same space. The real question is not how to stop young people gathering under his banner, but why so many feel the need to gather anywhere at all. Until politics offers belonging without bitterness and change without contempt, the flag will keep finding new hands.

That means investing time where institutions usually retreat: colleges, apprenticeships, online spaces, and local communities where politics is lived, not broadcast. It means arguing robustly without sneering, setting boundaries without theatrics, and remembering that persuasion is slower than outrage. Young people do not need to be rescued from their views; they need to be taken seriously within them. Do that consistently, and the attraction of protest politics dulls. Ignore it, and every attempt to suppress it becomes fuel. Democracy is not protected by silencing its loudest discomforts, but by answering them with courage. That is harder work than outrage, but it is the only path that weakens demagogues without weakening the democratic muscle that keeps society alive over time, for everyone everywhere concerned

Cheap seats, high walls by Kasie Hewitt

FIFA’s sudden generosity would be touching if it were not so revealing. After a global backlash over eye-watering ticket prices, the organization announced that some of the most loyal fans in the world might now attend World Cup matches for sixty dollars, even the final, instead of being asked to cough up more than four thousand. This is being sold as a victory for football supporters, proof that FIFA listens when outrage becomes loud enough. In reality, it feels more like a late discount sticker slapped onto a product that has already alienated its core customers.

The details matter. These sixty-dollar tickets are not broadly available. They are routed through national federations, who will decide which “loyal fans” deserve them. That means bureaucracy, favouritism, and plenty of people still shut out. It also means FIFA keeps control of the optics while avoiding a real reckoning with its pricing model. The organization is not rediscovering its love for the working-class supporter; it is reacting to the fear of empty seats and embarrassing television shots.

And empty seats are no small concern. The 2026 World Cup is heading to North America, with the United States as its main stage. FIFA is betting on massive stadiums, premium experiences, and corporate hospitality. This is football reimagined as a luxury event, closer to the Super Bowl than to a raucous night in Buenos Aires or Naples. High prices are not a bug in this vision; they are the point. The backlash simply forced FIFA to admit, briefly, that a World Cup without actual fans looks hollow.

Layered on top of this is a less discussed but crucial factor: the changing reality of entering the United States as a visitor. Under recent Trump-era policies, travelling to the U.S. as a tourist has become more intrusive and intimidating. Visa processes increasingly involve scrutiny of social media history, extended background checks, and the ever-present fear of arbitrary denial at the border. For many fans, especially from the Global South, the idea of flying across the world only to be interrogated about five years of online posts is not just inconvenient; it is humiliating.

Football fandom thrives on spontaneity, passion, and a sense of welcome. The message many supporters hear now is the opposite you are welcome if you can pay premium prices, pass ideological vetting, and accept that your presence is conditional. FIFA may slash ticket prices, but it cannot discount the psychological cost of making fans feel suspect before they even pack their bags. A sixty-dollar ticket is meaningless if the journey to the stadium feels like running a geopolitical obstacle course.

The result may well be a World Cup that looks impressive on paper and strangely sterile in reality. Packed VIP sections, influencers filming content, and corporate guests sipping drinks will not recreate the noise and chaos that give the tournament its soul. Television cameras can only do so much to hide gaps in the stands or the absence of travelling supporters who normally transform host cities into temporary capitals of joy. Football without its pilgrims becomes just another event.

There is also an uncomfortable political undertone to all this. Hosting the World Cup has always been about soft power, but in this case the spectacle risks becoming a monument to American exceptionalism rather than a global celebration. Big stadiums, tight borders, and selective hospitality send a clear signal about who the party is really for. It flatters national ego, but it narrows the game’s reach. FIFA, willingly or not, is complicit in turning the world’s most universal sport into a gated experience.

In the end, the cheap tickets feel less like a concession and more like a warning sign. FIFA knows something is wrong. It senses the danger of playing to empty seats and muted atmospheres. But instead of addressing the deeper issues of access, affordability, and openness, it offers a symbolic fix. Football fans deserve more than discounted leftovers. They deserve a World Cup that actually wants them there, not just their money or their silence.

Airbnb and the empty city by Melina Barnett

Europe is facing a housing crisis that no longer hides behind statistics or policy jargon. It is visible in handwritten “for rent” signs that vanish within hours, in young professionals moving back with parents, in teachers and nurses commuting hours to serve cities they can no longer afford to live in. While many forces have contributed to this collapse, from underinvestment in public housing to speculative finance, one name has become impossible to ignore, Airbnb.

This is no longer about a few homeowners renting out spare rooms to make ends meet. That narrative is comforting, but outdated. In much of Europe, Airbnb has evolved into a sophisticated parallel housing market that competes directly with residents for space. Entire apartment blocks in Lisbon, Barcelona, Athens, Paris, and Amsterdam function more like informal hotels than neighbourhoods. Lights flicker on for weekends, suitcases roll over cobblestones, and the people who once gave these places life are quietly pushed out.

The damage is not abstract. When long term rentals become short term investments, supply collapses and prices surge. Landlords discover that a tourist paying for three nights can generate what a tenant pays in a month. Renovations follow, not to improve housing quality for locals, but to optimize listings for visitors. The result is predictable: rents rise faster than wages, evictions increase, and the very idea of stable urban life erodes.

Defenders of Airbnb often point to tourism, entrepreneurship, and consumer choice. But cities are not theme parks, and homes are not commodities like sneakers or smartphones. Housing is infrastructure. It is the foundation of social cohesion, labor markets, and democratic participation. When housing is treated primarily as a financial asset, cities hollow out. Schools close. Small businesses disappear. Communities fracture.

What makes this crisis especially infuriating is how fragmented the response has been. Some cities try to regulate, others hesitate, and platforms adapt faster than laws can follow. Caps are imposed, loopholes appear. Registration systems are introduced, enforcement lags. Local governments face legal threats, lobbying pressure, and technical obstacles that they cannot realistically handle alone.

This is precisely why the European Commission must step in. Housing markets may be local, but platforms like Airbnb operate across borders, jurisdictions, and legal gray zones. A single city banning short term rentals does little when capital simply flows elsewhere. Without coordinated European action, regulation becomes a game of whack a mole, and residents always lose.

Europe already understands the need to regulate digital platforms when they distort markets and undermine public interest. It has done so with data protection, competition law, and consumer rights. Housing deserves the same seriousness. Short term rental platforms should be subject to clear, enforceable EU wide rules that prioritize residential use, transparency, and accountability. If a property functions as a hotel, it should be regulated and taxed as one. If hosts operate multiple units, they are businesses, not casual sharers.

Critically, this is not an attack on tourism or mobility. Travel matters. Cultural exchange matters. But tourism must exist within limits that respect the right to housing. Cities thrive on visitors, but they survive on residents. When the balance tips too far, the very charm tourists come to experience evaporates.

There is also a moral dimension that cannot be ignored. Europe cannot simultaneously declare housing a human right and allow it to be systematically extracted for short term profit. The contradiction is glaring. Young people are told to be flexible, mobile, and patient, while policy silently rewards those who already own property and can leverage it endlessly. This is not innovation. It is inequality with an app.

Doing nothing is not neutrality. It is a choice, and it favours capital over community every time. The European Union was built to confront problems that individual states could not solve alone. The housing crisis, turbocharged by platforms like Airbnb, is exactly such a problem.

Cities are not failing because people want to visit them. They are failing because the people who live and work there are being priced out of existence. If Europe wants vibrant, livable cities in the future, it must act now, decisively and collectively. Otherwise, we will be left with beautiful shells, perfectly photographed, and fundamentally empty.

This moment demands courage over convenience. Regulating Airbnb will anger powerful interests, but leadership is measured by who it protects. Europe must choose people over platforms, homes over hype, and long term stability over short term profit, before the damage becomes irreversible for another generation across the continent.

Marx cousins #019 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Groucho Marx attempts to seduce Karl Marx’s beard,
only to be met with a scathing analysis of capitalism
disguised as a poorly-aimed spittoon.

For more Marx Cousins, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

---

Solidarity against the cult of self by Shanna Shepard

International Human Solidarity Day

International Human Solidarity Day arrives each December like a quiet bell rung in a crowded room, asking us to remember that humanity survives only by cooperation. Yet in the age shaped by the self-centred bravado of Donald Trump and the global echo of his politics that bell often goes unheard. The Trump administration did not invent narcissism, nor did it monopolize authoritarian temptation, but it legitimized them, wrapped them in spectacle, and sold them as strength. Solidarity, by contrast, was dismissed as weakness, empathy as naïveté, and multilateralism as a scam run by foreigners.

Trump’s political style was less a policy agenda than a performance of the self. Every crisis became a mirror, every institution a rival ego. From alliances treated as protection rackets to refugees framed as threats rather than fellow humans, the message was consistent: the world is a zero-sum stage, and only the loudest, richest or cruellest deserve to stand on it. This posture bled far beyond Washington. Strongmen elsewhere learned that cruelty could be rebranded as honesty and that contempt for the vulnerable could be marketed as patriotism.

International Human Solidarity Day therefore feels almost subversive in this climate. It insists on an unfashionable truth: that interdependence is not a moral luxury but a material reality. Pandemics do not stop at borders because a leader tweets bravado. Climate collapse does not negotiate with national slogans. Economic shocks ripple across continents regardless of who shouts “America First” or its local equivalents. Solidarity is not charity; it is self-preservation with a conscience.

The Trump era also revealed how fascist tendencies creep back into public life wearing the costume of entertainment. The erosion of truth, the demonization of the press, the casual flirting with political violence, and the constant division of society into “real people” and enemies within are not accidents. They are classic tools, updated for cable news and social media. When these tactics are exported, they normalize a politics where domination replaces dialogue and loyalty replaces law. In such a world, solidarity becomes an act of resistance.

Critics sometimes accuse solidarity of being vague or sentimental. Yet the alternative on offer has been brutally concrete: children separated from parents, minorities targeted, democratic norms hollowed out, and international cooperation sabotaged for applause at rallies. The cult of the strongman promises safety through exclusion, but it delivers perpetual conflict, because narcissism cannot coexist with peace. It must always invent an enemy to sustain itself.

What International Human Solidarity Day asks is not blind unity or the erasure of difference. It asks for a shared commitment to human dignity that outlives electoral cycles and personality cults. It asks richer nations to stop pretending that suffering elsewhere is irrelevant, and poorer nations to reject the lie that their only hope lies in copying authoritarian models. It asks citizens to recognize that freedom without responsibility curdles into cruelty.

The most damaging legacy of Trump’s influence may be psychological rather than legislative. He taught millions that empathy is weakness and that politics is a blood sport without rules. Undoing that damage requires more than policy reversals; it requires cultural repair. Solidarity begins locally, in how societies treat migrants, dissenters, and the poor, but it must scale globally to confront shared threats.

Solidarity also demands humility from those who opposed Trump but learned too little from his rise. Moral superiority without listening only fertilizes resentment. If institutions failed, it is because they stopped speaking in human terms. People crave security, meaning, and respect; demagogues exploit that hunger when democrats outsource compassion to spreadsheets. Rebuilding solidarity means rebuilding trust, showing that fairness can be felt, not just promised. It means defending democracy not as a museum piece but as a living practice that delivers dignity. Without that work, the vacuum will again be filled by louder egos, and the cycle of narcissism will repeat with new flags. History warns us that indifference, once normalized, hardens quickly into consent for abuses everywhere today.

On this day, solidarity should not be reduced to hashtags or speeches. It should be understood as a daily refusal to accept a world organized around ego and fear. In an era where self-centred leaders model narcissism as virtue and flirt with fascism as efficiency, choosing solidarity is a radical, even defiant, act. It is the decision to believe that humanity is more than a marketplace of vanities, and that our future depends not on the loudest voice, but on the quiet, stubborn work of standing together.

Never done with Austen by Felix Laursen

Jane Austen turns 250 and somehow feels younger than ever. Not in the glossy, algorithm-friendly way modern culture likes to repackage its classics, but in a quieter, more subversive sense: her work continues to expose us. Each anniversary brings new adaptations, fresh casting debates, and renewed arguments about fidelity versus reinvention. Yet the persistence of Austen on screen and in conversation is not nostalgia. It is recognition. We return to her because she keeps telling us uncomfortable truths about who we are, how we love, and how little we have really changed.

The recent wave of film and television productions celebrating her milestone birthday proves something more interesting than mere popularity. Austen survives because she is endlessly reusable without ever being exhausted. Strip away the empire waists and drawing rooms and you find a ruthless observer of social performance. She wrote about marriage as both romance and transaction, about money as morality’s shadow, about the terror of being judged in a room where everyone is smiling. These are not period concerns. They are permanent ones.

What modern adaptations understand, sometimes instinctively, is that Austen’s irony is her greatest special effect. She does not shout her critiques; she smiles and waits for you to notice the blade. That tone translates beautifully to screen, especially in an era saturated with loud messaging and moral certainty. Austen trusts the audience to see hypocrisy without having it underlined. When an adaptation respects that intelligence, it feels contemporary no matter how traditional the setting.

Critics often argue over whether Austen would approve of diverse casting, modernized dialogue, or bold stylistic choices. The question itself misses the point. Austen was not a curator of tradition; she was a disruptor of it. Writing at the margins of power, she dissected a society that pretended stability while quietly rotting from entitlement and complacency. Updating her world is not a betrayal if it preserves that spirit of disruption. The real failure comes when adaptations polish her edges into comfort, mistaking charm for softness.

Austen’s personal life feeds the fascination as much as her work. The unmarried woman, the sharp observer, the quiet revolutionary writing at a small table. There is something irresistibly modern about her refusal to conform to the narrative she so expertly critiqued. She did not marry for security, nor did she frame her independence as tragedy. That alone explains why she resonates so strongly with contemporary audiences negotiating autonomy, intimacy, and expectation in an equally judgmental world.

What also endures is her understanding of growth. Austen never pretended people change easily. Elizabeth Bennet does not become wiser overnight; Darcy does not reform without pain. Self-awareness, in Austen’s universe, is earned through humiliation and loss. That idea feels almost radical today, when redemption arcs are rushed and self-knowledge is treated as a brand. Her characters improve not because they want to be liked, but because they are forced to confront themselves.

The flood of new productions around her 250th birthday reflects a deeper hunger. Viewers are tired of stories that flatter them. Austen does the opposite. She invites us to laugh, then gently asks whether we recognize ourselves in the joke. That dynamic works whether the setting is Regency England or a stylized reinterpretation. The costumes may change, but the emotional math remains the same.

There is also comfort in Austen’s moral clarity without moralism. She believes in kindness, restraint, and accountability, but she never sermonizes. Consequences arrive naturally. Vanity isolates. Cruelty costs. Love, when it appears, feels earned rather than inevitable. In a media landscape obsessed with shock and spectacle, this quiet rigor feels refreshing, even radical.

Two hundred and fifty years after her birth, Jane Austen does not need defending or reinventing. She needs to be read, watched, and argued with. Her legacy never ends because it is not a monument; it is a conversation. Each generation finds its own reflection in her pages and its own reasons to be unsettled. As long as we care about how society shapes desire, and how individuals resist it, Austen will remain not just relevant, but necessary. Perhaps that is the final proof of her power. Anniversaries fade, trends collapse, and adaptations date themselves, but Austen persists as a measuring stick for sincerity. When stories fail, we ask what she would have done differently. When they succeed, we quietly compare them to her. Few writers earn that privilege. Fewer still keep it for two and a half centuries. That endurance is her truest inheritance.