• 3 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 27th, 2023

help-circle

  • They have US military bases there

    There are no US military bases in Cyprus. There are british ones(since Cyprus used to be part of the British Empire).

    And there is 0% chance that Cyprus would let israeli military launch attacks from Cyprus.

    Nor is there much strategic reason to do so, unless Hezbollah has some s-300/400 and Israel needs to go around them and attack from a different direction. But they dont. And even if they had, Cyprus has basically no reason to allow Israel to do that and there is 0 precedent for that either.

    I think it is just Hezbollah being an attention whore.






  • It is chinese owned but Volvo is still a thing in Sweden. Geely bought them(Volvo Cars), gave them infinite money, so that Volvo could design and make cars like the 2nd gen xc90. In return Geely acquired the technology and know how on how to make quality cars.

    Nowadays, Volvo can combine their world leading car design with Geely’s electric vehicle platforms. Thats how you get a car like upcoming volvo ex30, that is cheap and (probably) good.

    When Volvo was owned by Ford, it was about to go the way of the Dodo(aka Saab). Geely saved it and made it a competitive car brand.



  • No, it isnt anything like that. The EU elections are different than the national ones and they arent explicitly connected in any way.

    But they are implicitly connected. His party just did very badly in the EU elections. He could technically continue to govern till the next national elections or he could go to early national elections and ask the voters “hey, you didnt vote for me in the EU elections, do you still want me to rule this country or not? Please confirm that you still continue to support me”.

    Basically Macron is saying “You just saw how fucked things are, with the far right getting over 30% of the votes in the EU elections. Vote for me or the fascists will win”. It is a move intended to rally the voters to his party but he also risks losing the elections(resulting in a fascist government).


    As a general rule, in many countries the governing party does worse in the EU elections, because the EU elections are often used as an opportunity to vote for small/minor political parties or protest vote. The EU parliament isnt as legislatively relevant. They dont make laws, they just approve/reject laws proposed by the EU Commision.

    The EU Commision isnt directly elected by the voters. The european country governments appoint EU Commission members(one from each country) and the EU parliament votes for the EU Commission leader. This is a point of contention.

    Technically it is “democratic” because eventually everything comes down to either national european governments(who are democratically elected) or the EU parliament(which is also democratically elected). But many people think it is weird to have the most powerful EU institution appointed instead of directly elected. The procedure isnt as transparent as people would like and it involves a lot of backdoor “politicking”.

    PS On the other hand, directly electing the EU Commission would give its members a lot more political power, basically on par or higher with the elected country leaders. Being directly elected greatly increases your political power.


  • Reminder that Mirage 2000 is the only plane to have shot down an F-16. A greek Mirage 2000 shot down a turkish F-16. The event was kept secret in both countries for almost 20 years, to avoid escalation. Greece still today denies that it shot down the F-16. From wikipedia

    On the eighth of October 1996, seven months after the escalation of the Imia/Kardak crisis, a Greek Mirage 2000 reportedly fired an R.550 Magic II missile and shot down a Turkish F-16D over the Aegean Sea near Chios island. The Turkish pilot died, while the co-pilot ejected and was rescued by Greek forces. In August 2012, after the downing of a RF-4E on the Syrian Coast, Turkish Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz confirmed that the Turkish F-16D was shot down by a Greek Mirage 2000 with an R.550 Magic II in 1996 after allegedly violating Greek airspace near Chios island. Greece denies that the F-16 was shot down. Both Mirage 2000 pilots reported that the F-16 caught fire and they saw one parachute.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Turkish_F-16_shootdown

    The turks had almost certainly shot down a greek military helicopter earlier and that was also kept a secret/both sides claim it was an accidental crash.

    PS The surviving turkish F-16 pilot was immediately returned to Turkey after the rescue.