Ana Maria Luca

🇳🇵 Nepal's new interim prime minister unveiled her first ministers Monday, as the Himalayan nation seeks to restore order after deadly youth-led anti-corruption protests that ousted the previous government.
➡️ u.afp.com/SPfq

Opinion: Imagine spending the last seven weeks of this year working for nothing. This is in effect what women across the world do when compared with men because of the endurance of gender pay gaps. on.ft.com/3HWJsbq

The China next door we tend to overlook The story of Prato, how 60k Chinese immigrants reshaped an Italian city, and what it may tell us about the future of Europe.

The story of Prato, how 60k #Chinese immigrants reshaped an #Italian city, and what it may tell us about the future of Europe. Or how cities are more resilient than states. open.substack.com/pub/fieldnot...

#BookSky

I hope someday we'll get to study how and why the grandchildren of mass murder victims turned into executioners. And not just Netanyahu, but a long series of politicians and army officials and their international rich supporters. And Europe's failure to process its own guilt.

SPSSI Journals Science denialism is at the heart of many conspiracy theory beliefs. We propose that such beliefs are manifestations of a distal social process: spite. In three pre-registered studies, we test the hy...

This study indicates that people tend to engage conspiracies and disinformation out of spite: it's a way to rebel against the authority, be it by denying the authority of logic or science. spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Well, looks like with all the research funding freeze in Italy and elsewhere I'll be going back to #journalism for at least a while.

Florida to consider relaxing child labour laws to fill vacant jobs Now that the United States is cracking down on immigration, some low-skill jobs may not be so easy to fill. So the state is debating lifting some child labour laws to involve minors.

Now that the United States is cracking down on immigration, some low-skill jobs may not be so easy to fill. So the state is debating lifting some child labour laws to involve minors.

I'm not sure what the world is waiting for to react. What is the red line to what Trump is doing? Reinstating slave trade?

Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants to wipe that sovereign, democratic country off the map. He said so. The moral clarity is absolute: you support the victim of aggression and condemn the dictator. Doing the opposite makes you part of the problem, not the solution.

Olaf Scholz to join key European leaders at London defence summit UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer has invited the outgoing German chancellor and other key leaders to a defence meeting in London on Sunday.

UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer has invited the outgoing German chancellor and other key leaders to a defence meeting in London on Sunday.

#EuropeNews

Internet personality Andrew Tate arrives in Florida, source says Internet personality Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from Romania on Thursday morning according to a media representative, shortly after prosecutors lifted a travel ban related to criminal charges against them.

So, yeah, this happened. The Romanian Foreign Ministry said there was no pressure from Washington. But yeah, it's hard to swallow. There's a lot of outrage across Romanian social media.
www.reuters.com/world/intern...

EU is wasting free energy as industry flatlines Without long-lasting and widely available storage, Europe will struggle to solve its energy price conundrum.

The European Union is building renewable energy at a record pace, yet it can’t always use the power that wind and solar plants create.

Energy storage sites could be a solution — but there are still barriers to rolling them out at the scale needed.

A supporter of South Korea's ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol waves a flag bearing his image, during a rally near the Constitutional Court in Seoul, on February 25, 2025

South Korea's ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing his final impeachment hearing before judges decide whether to formally remove him from office over his disastrous martial law declaration.
https://u.afp.com/SJnf

I feel that everything ever written in history to stand as warning for human kind is now being taken as an instruction manual.

Bluesky partners with charity to curb online child sexual abuse The social media platform will have access to a new range of tools to detect harmful material.

The growing social media platform Bluesky has partnered with UK-based charity the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to tackle the spread of child sexual abuse material.

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Card I received this morning from my cousin.

@vbenedict.bsky.social I couldn’t figure out how to attach a photo in a DM. Enjoy!

So no, it's not so peachy in Italy and a lot of its economic growth is also due to immigrants who are already part of the Italian social structure.

Over the past two years, investment dynamics in Italy have been driven by the 110% Superbonus incentives for residential buildings and growth in machinery, equipment and weapons investments. However, 2024 saw a decline in these sectors.

Meloni said that Italy was doing great, the economy was growing and that she has put a stop to immigration withing the past year, that unemployment is dropping. It's half the truth: Italy's economy is growing because of domestic consumption rather than investments, investments are dropping.

I watched Georgia Meloni's intervention at CPAC on Saturday evening and she really scared me. Beyond the "I love Trump" and "Conservatives are not alone! You are not alone" stuff, she made some interesting and scary statements that I haven't seen highlighted even in the Italian media.

Germany, phew guys! Thank you!

Proof that there is nothing in terms of corruption that Laura Codruta Kovesi hasn't seen.

The whole story about president Iohannis being pressured to resign his interim position seems just a way to give the people some sort of sacrificial offering to quench a political bloodlust. The move is useless otherwise.

They work long hours. Have no time to watch talkshows about policy. They heard the PM Marcel Ciolacu calling them 'uneducated and unqualified'. They voted emotionally against the known political establishment that doesn't appreciate their sacrifice of dignity that brings remittances back home.

Of being treated as low income Eastern Europeans in developed Western Europe. Many of Calin Georgescu's voters are Romanians who work abroad and found the promise of dignity and empowerment in his fascistoid discourse.

There are many structural and systemic causes for this general frustration, and it's not just Romanian internal politics at play. It's also a question of inequality in international affairs, a question of mass migration and working low paid jobs, of getting less money for the same job,

His personality, was too 'predictable'. It's funny though, that his predecessor, Traian Basescu, a more active and involved president, was not 'elegant enough'. The issue is obviously not about who is president in this country, but that most people are unhappy because they feel disempowered.