Podcasts about french ministry

Can differing global approaches to AI regulation and investment work together, or are we headed toward fragmented, siloed systems? How can AI governance in developing nations be supported as part of regional aid and security agendas? What challenges does Australia face in regulating AI without a national bill of rights or federal human rights charter? Should governments mandate the inclusion of human oversight in all AI-powered decisions? In this episode, Sarah Vallee and Maria O'Sullivan join David Andrews to talk about how AI is impacting national security, with a focus on AI governance models and mass-surveillance.Maria O'Sullivan is an Associate Professor at Deakin Law School. She's a member of the Deakin Cyber Research and Innovation Centre.Sarah Vallee is a specialist in AI Policy and Governance. She's a Fellow at the UTS Human Technology Institute, sponsored by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.David Andrews is Senior Manager, Policy & Engagement at the ANU National Security College. TRANSCRIPT  Show notes  NSC academic programs – find out more  Article 8: respect for your private and family life We'd love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IFPRI Policy Seminar Ending Hunger and Malnutrition: Keeping Our Eyes on the Road Organized by IFPRI in collaboration with the World Bank IFPRI Seminar during World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings April 22, 2025 While global agricultural commodity prices have come down from the high levels seen in recent years, the world remains far off track in meeting the SDG2 of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Last year, close to 300 million people faced food crisis while the number of people on the cusp of famine doubled. Efforts to address hunger and malnutrition are facing considerable hurdles, including protracted as well as new conflicts, cuts in official development assistance, inefficiencies in the global financing architecture, an increasingly fragmented political landscape and multipolarizing international order. How can the world mobilize more public and private resources to tackle the current food crisis, create more robust value chain and trade channels, and set countries on a path towards peace, stability and economic growth? Timed to align with the WB-IMF Spring Meetings, this event will convene policymakers, representatives of international organizations, private sector and food system experts for a stocktaking of where we find ourselves and to chart solutions towards more aligned domestic and international, public and private financing flows aimed at ending hunger and malnutrition. Picking up on the Spring Meetings' core theme of jobs as a path to prosperity, the important role of jobs in food value chains and improved livelihoods for furthering food security and nutrition will also be explored. This policy seminar will: Take stock of recent data, trends and outlooks for food and nutrition security, with a focus on the most vulnerable countries. Discuss challenges and opportunities in resourcing, regional and global cooperation, and innovation to bend the curve of hunger and malnutrition. Examine research findings and share policy recommendations to prevent and prepare for food crises, while broadening the focus to strengthening value chains and markets in developing countries. Opening Session Moderator: Ruth Hill, Director, Markets, Trade, and Institutions, IFPRI Speakers Shobha Shetty, Global Director, Agriculture and Food, World Bank Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) High-level Panel on Challenges and Opportunities Moderator: Purnima Menon, Senior Director, Food and Nutrition Policy; Acting Senior Director, Transformation Strategy, IFPRI Speakers John Steenhuisen, Minister of the Department of Agriculture, South Africa Arnel de Mesa, Assistant Secretary for Special Concerns and for Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the DA Spokesperson, Department of Agriculture Alvaro Lario, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Gilles Morellato, Head of Official Development Assistance team at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Rania Dagash-Kamara, Assistant Executive Director Partnerships and Innovation, World Food Programme (WFP) Deep Dive: The Role of Value Chains in Boosting Food and Nutritional Security Moderator: Loraine Ronchi, Global Lead for Science, Knowledge and Innovation in Agriculture and Food, World Bank Speakers Alice Ruhweza, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Ayodeji Balogun, Group CEO, the Africa Exchange (AFEX) Matthias Berninger, EVP, Head of Public Affairs, Sustainability and Safety, Bayer Global Joseph Glauber, Research Fellow Emeritus, IFPRI Closing Remarks Martien van Nieuwkoop, Director, Agricultural Development, Gates Foundation Links: More about this Event: https://www.ifpri.org/event/ending-hunger-and-malnutrition-keeping-our-eyes-on-the-road/ Subscribe IFPRI Insights newsletter and event announcements at www.ifpri.org/content/newsletter-subscription

Being an Architect is difficult and there is plenty of evidence that this is not a vocation that is suitable for everyone. The coursework you will take in college is all over the place – from the drawing and design classes to physics and upper level math requirements, you seem to have to be both an artist and a scientist to go down this path. This begs the question, Just how smart do you need to be in order to become an architect? Welcome to Episode 171: The IQ of an Architect [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]  Today Andrew and I are going to be talking about intelligence quotient and architects. This was a topic that I tackled with the 3rd blog post I ever wrote (titled IQ's and Jobs), and for years, it was a foundational blog post in the development of my website because so many people read that article. I just checked and it currently has 92 comments, and almost amusingly, there are some angry people out there and they are vocalizing their discontent. When I was younger, probably between the ages of 8 and 12, I bet I took 20 of them. My mother was a school teacher and all of her schoolteacher friends Would use me and my sisters as practice subjects as they were pursuing diagnostician licenses. I am going to confess right now that this is a nerdy episode because there is a lot of data that needs to be presented and digested in order for us to have a fruitful conversation. The History jump to 8:21 The origins of the IQ test can be traced back to early-20th-century France. In 1904, the French Ministry of Education commissioned psychologist Alfred Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon to develop a method to identify children who required special educational assistance. The result was the first practical intelligence test, known as the Binet-Simon Scale (published in 1905). The French government needed a systematic way to distinguish students whose learning challenges were not being met in the regular classroom. The aim was to provide extra support, not to label them pejoratively or permanently, but to help tailor education to their needs. Binet and Simon introduced the concept of a “mental age.” The test included a series of tasks grouped by age level (e.g., tasks that an average 7-year-old could handle, an average 8-year-old could handle, etc.). A child's performance on age-relevant tasks indicated their “mental age”—a reflection of cognitive performance relative to age-based norms. Memory: Recalling digits or sentences Problem-Solving: Completing puzzles or analogies Verbal Skills: Defining words, understanding analogies Attention & Comprehension: Following instructions, basic reasoning The tasks grew progressively more complex. If a child could perform the tasks that most 8-year-olds could but not those of a typical 9-year-old, the test would assign that child a “mental age” of 8. Although Binet did not explicitly define IQ as a single number, the later concept of IQ was directly inspired by the idea of mental age. Psychologist William Stern (1912) introduced the term Intelligenzquotient (Intelligence Quotient) as a ratio. Not long after Binet and Simon released their scale, Lewis Terman at Stanford University adapted and expanded their test. The resulting Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (first published in 1916) formalized the IQ concept for the English-speaking world and continued to refine “mental age” benchmarks. Terman's goal was to make Binet's test more suitable for the American population by adjusting questions, norms, and scoring based on data from U.S. schoolchildren. He also introduced the now-familiar numeric scale with an average (mean) of 100 and a set standard deviation—initially, each standard deviation was 15–16 IQ points. Terman's (Circa 1916) Stanford-Binet Categories Although the exact cutoff points and names varied slightly in different editions,

From March 14, 2022: Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has undermined some of the fundamental assumptions underlying the security of Europe through much of the post-World War II era. As a result, several European nations have begun to consider dramatic changes in how they approach national security, both individually and collectively.To better understand how the war in Ukraine is reshaping the European security order, Scott R. Anderson sat down with two of his colleagues from the Brookings Institution: Célia Belin, a visiting fellow at Brookings and a former official in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Constanze Stelzenmüller, the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe.They discussed how the Ukraine conflict is reshaping Europe's approach to security affairs, what this means for institutions like the European Union and NATO, and how these changes are likely to impact the fundamental debate over what it means to be a part of Europe.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're in Taipei speaking with some incredible people working to advance human rights in the digital age. One of those at the forefront of this is Henri Verdier the French Ambassador for Digital Affairs within the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. Since 2018, he has led and co-ordinated French digital diplomacy and he was instrumental in last week's AI Action Summit in Paris hosted by President Macron.

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre—that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes. Blanche Bendahan was born in Oran, Algeria on November 26, 1893, to a Jewish family of Moroccan-Spanish origin. Bendahan published her first collection of poetry, La voile sur l'eau, in 1926 and then her first novel, Mazaltob, in 1930. Yaëlle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, and Lecturer in Discipline in the English and Comparative Literature Department at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. Her current project is titled Teaching Freedom: Jewish Sisters in Muslim Lands. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Education. Azagury and Malino were finalists of the 74th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards in the category of Sephardic Culture. Mentioned in the podcast: • Blanche Bendahan,“Visages de Tétouan,” Les Cahiers de L'Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paix et Droit), no. 093 (November 1955): 5. • Susan Gilson Miller, “Gender and the Poetics and Emancipation: The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Northern Morocco (1890-1912).” In Franco-Arab Encounters, edited by L. Carl Brown and Matthew Gordon (1996) • Susan Gilson Miller, “Moïse Nahon and the Invention of the Modern Maghribi Jew.” In  French Mediterraneans, edited by P. Lorcin and T. Shepard (2016) • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu published in seven volumes, previously translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1913–1927) • Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 25th anniversary edition (1994) • Female teachers of the Alliance israélite universelle • Jewish figures in the literature of The Tharaud Brothers • Archives of the Alliance israélite universelle (AIU) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Dupleix is a Hospitality and Hotel Reception Ambassador in France and a MOF (Mellieur Ouvrier de France / Best Craftsman of France).   She was the first to receive this prestigious honour for Hotel Receptionist in 2015.  In this podcast, Claire describes her passion and enthusiasm for the hospitality industry and elaborates on her educational and career paths. In this podcast, we learn more about what it takes to be a MOF and how this competition is run. The title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France is a unique and prestigious award in France, according to different categories of trades in a contest among professionals. This competition is organized and recognized as a third-level degree by the French Ministry of Labour. The President of the French Republic is granted honorary membership with the title MOF honoris causa. The awarding of medals occurs at the Sorbonne, in Paris, during a large reunion followed by a ceremony at the Élysée in the presence of the President of the French Republic. Claire goes on to explain that this award for special abilities is unique in the world. Created in 1924, this competition celebrated its 100-year anniversary this year in Lyon. Claire describes this historical event and why this competition continues to inspire young people. With the diversity of specialities, the list of which is regularly updated, the MOF award currently has also been awarded to more modern trades and high technology fields. Claire also describes the different competitions she has participated in including AICR and how she has gone from being a competitor to a judge and teacher. She explains her involvement in the AICR competitions and why she believes these events are relevant and important to promote Front Desk and Receptionist careers. Finally, Claire talks to our listeners about balancing her career and personal life and she shares some insights into what it takes to have a successful career in hospitality.

Who else in literature today could be more interesting to interview than Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans, as well as the author of popular reviews and the sweater weather Substack? We talked about so much, including: Chopin and who plays him best; why there isn't more tennis in fiction; writing fiction on a lab bench; being a scientific critic; what he has learned working as a publisher; negative reviews; boring novels; Jane Austen. You'll also get Brandon's quick takes on Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Franzen, Lionel Trilling, György Lukács, and a few others; the modern critics he likes reading; and the dead critics he likes reading.Brandon also talked about how his new novel is going to be different from his previous novels. He told me:I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation.I have enjoyed Brandon's fiction (several people I recommend him to have loved Real Life) and I think he's one of the best critics working today. I was delighted to interview him.Oh, and he's a Dickens fan!Transcript (AI produced, lightly formatted by me)Henry: Today I am talking to Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans. Brandon is also a notable book reviewer and of course he writes a sub stack called Sweater Weather. Brandon, welcome.Brandon: Yeah, thanks for having me.Henry: What did you think of the newly discovered Chopin waltz?Brandon: Um, I thought, I mean, I remember very vividly waking up that day and there being a new waltz, but it was played by Lang Lang, which I did not. I don't know that, like, he's my go-to Chopin interpreter. But I don't know, I was, I was excited by it. Um, I don't know, it was in a world sort of dominated by this ethos of like nothing new under the sun. It felt wonderfully novel. I don't know that it's like one of Chopin's like major, I don't know that it's like major. Um, it's sort of definitively like middle of the road, middle tier Chopin, I think. But I enjoyed it. I played it like 20 times in a row.Henry: I like those moments because I like, I like it when people get surprised into realizing that like, it's not fixed what we know about the world and you can even actually get new Chopin, right?Brandon: I mean, it felt a little bit like when Beyonce did her first big surprise drop. It was like new Chopin just dropped. Oh my God. All my sort of classical music nerd group texts were buzzing. It felt like a real moment, actually.Henry: And I think it gives people a sense of what art was like in the past. You can go, oh my God, new Chopin. Like, yes, those feelings are not just about modern culture, right? That used to happen with like, oh my God, a new Jane Austen book is here.Brandon: Oh, I know. Well, I mean, I was like reading a lot of Emile Zola up until I guess late last year. And at some point I discovered that he was like an avid amateur photographer. And in like the French Ministry of Culture is like digitized a lot of his glass plate negatives. And one of them is like a picture that Zola has taken of Manet's portrait of him. And it's just like on a floor somewhere. Like he's like sort of taken this like very rickety early camera machinery to this place where this portrait is and like taken a picture of it. It's like, wow. Like you can imagine that like Manet's like, here's this painting I did of you. And Zola's like, ah, yes, I'm going to take a picture to commemorate it. And so I sort of love that.Henry: What other of his photos do you like?Brandon: Well, there's one of him on a bike riding toward the camera. That's really delightful to me because it like that impulse is so recognizable to me. There are all these photos that he took of his mistress that were also just like, you can like, there are also photographs of his children and of his family. And again, those feel so like recognizable to me. He's not even like a very good photographer. It's just that he was taking pictures of his like daily life, except for his kind of stunt photos where he's riding the bike. And it's like, ah, yes, Zola, he would have been great with an iPhone camera.Henry: Which pianists do you like for Chopin?Brandon: Which pianists do I love for Chopin? I like Pollini a lot. Pollini is amazing. Pollini the elder, not Pollini the younger. The younger is not my favorite. And he died recently, Maurizio Pollini. He died very recently. Maybe he's my favorite. I love, I love Horowitz. Horowitz is wonderful at Chopin. But it's obviously it's like not his, you know, you don't sort of go to Horowitz for Chopin, I guess. But I love his Chopin. And sometimes Trifonov. Trifonov has a couple Chopin recordings that I really, really like. I tend not to love Trifonov as much.Henry: Really?Brandon: I know it's controversial. It's very controversial. I know. Tell me why. I, I don't know. He's just a bit of a banger to me. Like, like he's sort of, I don't know, his playing is so flashy. And he feels a bit like a, like a, like a keyboard basher to me sometimes.Henry: But like, do you like his Bach?Brandon: You know, I haven't done a deep dive. Maybe I should do a sort of more rigorous engagement with Trifonov. But yeah, I don't, he's just not, he doesn't make my heart sing. I think he's very good at Bach.Henry: What about a Martha Argerich?Brandon: Oh, I mean, she's incredible. She's incredible. I bought that sort of big orange box out of like all of her, her sort of like masterwork recordings. And she's incredible. She has such feel for Chopin. But she doesn't, I think sometimes people can make Chopin feel a little like, like treacly, like, like a little too sweet. And she has this perfect understanding of his like rhythm and his like inner nuances and like the crispness in his compositions. Like she really pulls all of that out. And I love her. She has such, obviously great dexterity, but like a real sort of exquisite sensitivity to the rhythmic structures of Chopin.Henry: You listen on CD?Brandon: No, I listen on vinyl and I listen on streaming, but mostly vinyl. Mostly vinyl? Yeah, mostly vinyl. I know it's very annoying. No, no, no, no, no.Henry: Which, what are the good speakers?Brandon: I forget where I bought these speakers from, but I sort of did some Googling during the pandemic of like best speakers to use. I have a U-Turn Audio, U-Turn Orbital record player. And so I was just looking for good speakers that were compatible and like wouldn't take up a ton of space in my apartment because I was moving to New York and had a very tiny, tiny apartment. So they're just from sort of standard, I forget the brand, but they've served me well these past few years.Henry: And do you like Ólafsson? He's done some Chopin.Brandon: Who?Henry: Víkingur Ólafsson. He did the Goldbergs this year, but he's done some Chopin before. I think he's quite good.Brandon: Oh, that Icelandic guy?Henry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the glasses? That's right. And the very neat hair.Brandon: Yes. Oh, he's so chic. He's so chic. I don't know his Chopin. I know his, there's another series that he did somewhat recently that I'm more familiar with. But he is really good. He has good Beethoven, Víkingur.Henry: Yeah.Brandon: And normally I don't love Beethoven, but like—Henry: Really? Why? Why? What's wrong with Beethoven? All these controversial opinions about music.Brandon: I'm not trying to have controversial opinions. I think I'm, well, I'm such a, I'm such, I mean, I'm just like a dumb person. And so like, I don't, I don't have a really, I feel like I don't have the robust understanding to like fully appreciate Beethoven and all of his sort of like majesty. And so maybe I've just not heard good Beethoven and I need to sort of go back and sort of get a real understanding of it. But I just tend not to like it. It feels like, I don't know, like grandma's living room music to me sometimes.Henry: What other composers do you enjoy?Brandon: Oh, of course.Henry: Or other music generally, right?Brandon: Rachmaninoff is so amazing to me. There was, of course, Bach. Brahms. Oh, I love Brahms, but like specifically the intermezzi. I love the intermezzi. I recently fell in love with, oh, his name is escaping me now, but he, I went to a concert and they sort of did a Brahms intermezzi. And they also played this, I think he was an Austrian composer. And his music was like, it wasn't experimental, but it was like quite, I had a lot of dissonance in it. And I found it like really interesting and like really moving actually. And so I did a sort of listening to that constantly. Oh, I forget his name. But Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, love Rachmaninoff. I have a friend who says that Rachmaninoff writes Negro spirituals. And I love that theory that Rachmaninoff's music is like the music of the slaves. It just, I don't know. I really, that really resonates with me spiritually. Which pieces, which Rachmaninoff symphonies, concertos? Yeah, the concertos. But like specifically, like I have a friend who said that Rach II sounded to her like the sort of spiritual cry of like the slaves. And we were at like a hangout with like mostly Black people. And she like stopped playing like Juvenile, like the rapper. And she put on Rach II. And we just like sat there and listened. And it did feel like something powerful had entered the room. Yeah, but he's my guy. I secretly really, really love him. I like Liszt, but like it really depends on the day and the time for him. He makes good folk music, Liszt. I love his folky, his folk era.Henry: What is it that you enjoy about tennis?Brandon: What do I enjoy about tennis? I love the, I love not thinking. I love being able to hit the ball for hours on end and like not think. And like, it's the one part of my life. It's the one time in my life where my experience is like totally unstructured. And so like this morning, I went to a 7am drill and play class where you do drills for an hour. Then you play doubles for an hour. And during that first hour of drills, I was just like hitting the ball. I was at the mercy of the guy feeding us the ball. And I didn't have a single thought about books or literature or like the status of my soul or like the nature of American democracy. It was just like, did I hit that ball? Well, did I hit it kind of off center? Were there tingles in my wrist? Yes or no. Like it was just very, very grounding in the moment. And I think that is what I love about it. Do you like to watch tennis? Oh, yeah, constantly. Sometimes when I'm in a work meeting, the Zoom is here and the tennis is like playing in the background. Love tennis, love to watch, love to play, love to think about, to ponder. Who are the best players for you? Oh, well, the best players, my favorite players are Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Stanislas Wawrinka, love Wawrinka. And I was a really big Davydenko head back in the day. Nikolai Davydenko was this Russian player who had, he was like a metronome. He just like would not miss. Yeah, those are my favorites. Right now, the guy I'm sort of rooting for who's still active is Kasper Rud, who's this Norwegian guy. And I love him because he just looks like some guy. Like he just looks like he should be in a seminary somewhere. I love it. I love, I love his normalness. He just looks like an NPC. And I'm drawn to that in a tennis player.Henry: It's hard to think of tennis in novels. Why is that?Brandon: Well, I think a lot of people don't, well, I think part of it is a lot of novelists. Part of it is a lot of novelists don't play sports. I think that they, at least Americans, I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in America, a lot of novelists are not doing sports. So that's one. And I think two, like, you know, like with anything, I think that tennis has not been subjected to the same schemes of narrativization that like other things are. And so like it's, a lot of novelists just like don't see a sort of readily dramatizable thing in tennis. Even though if you like watch tennis and like listen to tennis commentary, they are always erecting narratives. They're like, oh yeah, she's been on a 19 match losing streak. Is this where she turns it around? And to me, tennis is like a very literary sport because tennis is one of those sports where it's all about the matchup. It's like your forehand to my backhand, like no matter how well I play against everyone else, like it's you and me locked in the struggle. And like that to me feels incredibly literary. And it is so tied to your individual psychology as well. Like, I don't know, I endlessly am fascinated by it. And indeed, I got an idea for a tennis novel the other day that I'm hopefully going to write in three to five years. We'll see.Henry: Very good. How did working in a lab influence your writing?Brandon: Well, somewhat directly and materially in the case of my first book, because I wrote it while I was working in the lab and it gave me weirdly like time and structure to do that work where I would be pipetting. And then while I was waiting for an assay or a experiment to run or finish, I would have 30 minutes to sit down and write.Henry: So you were writing like at the lab bench?Brandon: Oh, yeah, absolutely. One thousand percent. I would like put on Philip Glass's score for the hours and then just like type while my while the centrifuge was running or whatever. And and so like there's that impression sort of baked into the first couple books. And then I think more, I guess, like spiritually or broadly, it influenced my work because it taught me how to think and how to organize time and how to organize thoughts and how to sort of pursue long term, open ended projects whose results may or may not, you know, fail because of something that you did or maybe you didn't do. And that's just the nature of things. Who knows? But yeah, I think also just like discipline, the discipline to sort of clock in every day. And to sort of go to the coalface and do the work. And that's not a thing that is, you know. That you just get by working in a lab, but it's certainly something that I acquired working in a lab.Henry: Do you think it's affected your interest in criticism? Because there's there are certain types of critic who seem to come from a scientific background like Helen Vendler. And there's something something about the sort of the precision and, you know, that certain critics will refuse to use critical waffle, like the human condition. And they won't make these big, vague gestures to like how this can change the way we view society. They're like, give me real details. Give me real like empirical criticism. Do you think this is — are you one of these people?Brandon: Yeah, yeah, I think I'm, you know, I'm all about what's on the page. I'm all about the I'm not gonna go rooting in your biography for not gonna go. I'm not I'm not doing that. It's like what you brought to me on the page is what you've brought to me. And that is what I will be sort of coming over. I mean, I think so. I mean, very often when critics write about my work, or when people respond to my work, they sort of describe it as being put under a microscope. And I do think like, that is how I approach literature. It's how I approach life. If there's ever a problem or a question put to me, I just sort of dissect it and try to get down to its core bits and its core parts. And and so yeah, I mean, if that is a scientific way of doing things, that's certainly how I but also I don't know any other way to think like that's sort of that's sort of how I was trained to think about stuff. You've been to London. I have. What did you think of it? The first time I didn't love it. The second and third times I had a good time, but I felt like London didn't love me back. London is the only place on earth I've ever been where people have had a hard time understanding me like I like it's the only place where I've like attempted to order food or a drink or something in a store or a cafe or a restaurant. And the waiters like turned to my like British hosts and asked them to translate. And that is an entirely foreign experience for me. And so London and I have like a very contentious relationship, I would say.Henry: Now, you've just published four classic novels.Brandon: Yes.Henry: George Gissing, Edith Wharton, Victor Hugo and Sarah Orne Jewett. Why did you choose those four writers, those four titles?Brandon: Oh, well, once we decided that we were going to do a classics imprint, you know, then it's like, well, what are we going to do? And I'm a big Edith Wharton fan. And there are all of these Edith Wharton novels that Americans don't really know about. They know Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence. And if they are an English major, they maybe know her for The House of Mirth. Or like maybe they know her for The Custom of the Country if they're like really into reading. But then they sort of think of her as a novelist of the 19th century. And she's writing all of these books set in the 1920s and about the 1920s. And so it felt important to show people like, oh, this is a writer who died a lot later than you think that she did. And whose creative output was, you know, pretty, who was like a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald in a lot of ways. Like, these books are being published around the same time as The Great Gatsby. And to sort of, you know, bring attention to a part of her over that, like, people don't know about. And like, that's really exciting to me. And Sarah Orne Jewett, I mean, I just really love The Country of the Pointed Furs. I love that book. And I found it in like in a 10 cents bin at a flea market one time. And it's a book that people have tried to bring back. And there have been editions of it. But it just felt like if we could get two people who are really cool to talk about why they love that book, we could sort of have like a real moment. And Sarah Orne Jewett was like a pretty big American writer. Like she was a pretty significant writer. And she was like really plugged in and she's not really read or thought about now. And so that felt like a cool opportunity as well to sort of create a very handsome edition of this book and to sort of talk about a bit why she matters. And the guessing of it all is we were going to do New Grub Street. And then my co-editor thought, well, The Odd Women, I think, is perhaps more relevant to our current moment than New Grub Street necessarily. And it would sort of differentiate us from the people, from the presses that are doing reissues of New Grub Street, because there's just been a new edition of that book. And nobody in America really knows The Odd Women. And it's a really wonderful novel. It's both funny and also like really biting in its satire and commentary. So we thought, oh, it'll be fun to bring this writer to Americans who they've never heard of in a way that will speak to them in a lot of ways. And the Victor Hugo, I mean, you know, there are Hugos that people know all about. And then there are Hugos that no one knows about. And Toilers of the Sea was a passion project for my co-editor. She'd read it in Guernsey. That's where she first discovered that book. And it really meant a lot to her. And I read it and really loved it. I mean, it was like Hugo at his most Hugo. Like, it's a very, it's a very, like, it's a very abundant book. And it's so wild and strange and changeful. And so I was like, oh, that seems cool. Let's do it. Let's put out Toilers of the Sea. So that's a bit of why we picked each one.Henry: And what have you learned from being on the other side of things now that you're the publisher?Brandon: So much. I've learned so much. And indeed, I just, I was just asked by my editor to do the author questionnaire for the novel that I have coming out next. And I thought, yes, I will do this. And I will do it immediately. Because now I know, I know how important these are. And I know how early and how far in advance these things need to be locked in to make everyone's life easier. I think I've learned a bit about the sometimes panicked scramble that happens to get a book published. I've learned about how hard it is to wrangle blurbs. And so I think I'm a little more forgiving of my publishers. But they've always been really great to me. But now I'm like, oh, my gosh, what can I do for you? How can I help you make this publication more of a success?Henry: Do you think that among literary people generally, there's a lack of appreciation of what business really involves in some of the senses you're talking about? I feel like I see a lot of either indifferent or hostile attitudes towards business or commerce or capitalism, late stage capitalism or whatever. And I sometimes look at it and I'm like, I don't think you guys really know what it takes to just like get stuff done. You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of grind. I don't think it's a big nasty thing. It's just a lot of hard work, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, 1000%. Or if it's not a sort of misunderstanding, but a sort of like disinterest in like, right, like a sort of high minded, like, oh, that's just the sort of petty grimy commerce of it all. I care about the beauty and the art. And it's just like, friend, we need booksellers to like, sell this. I mean, to me, the part of it that is most to me, like the most illustrative example of this in my own life is that when I first heard how my editor was going to be describing my book, I was like, that's disgusting. That's horrible. Why are you talking about my race? Why are you talking about like my sexuality? Like, this is horrible. Why can't you just like talk about the plot of the book? Like, what is the matter with you? And then I had, you know, I acquired and edited this book called Henry Henry, which is a queer contemporary retelling of the Henry ad. And it's a wonderful novel. It's so delightful. And I had to go into our sales conference where we are talking to the people whose job it is to sell that book into bookstores to get bookstores to take that book up. And I had to write this incredibly craven description of this novel. And as I was writing it, I was like, I hope Alan, the author, I hope Alan never sees this. He never needs to hear how I'm talking about this book. And as I was doing it, I was like, I will never hold it against my editor again for writing this like, cheesy, cringy copy. Because it's like you, like, you so believe in the art of that book, so much that you want it to give it every fighting chance in the marketplace. And you need to arm your sales team with every weapon of commerce they need to get that book to succeed so that when readers pick it up, they can appreciate all of the beautiful and glorious art of it. And I do think that people, you know, like, people don't really kind of, people don't really understand that. And I do think that part of that is publishing's fault, because they are, they've been rather quick to elide the distinctions between art and commerce. And so like publishing has done a not great job of sort of giving people a lot of faith in its understanding that there's a difference between art and commerce. But yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of misapprehension out there about like, what goes into getting bookstores to acquire that book.Henry: What are the virtues of negative book reviews?Brandon: I was just on a panel about this. I mean, I mean, hopefully a negative book review, like a positive review, or like any review, will allow a reader or the audience to understand the book in a new way, or to create a desire in the reader to pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree or that they, that they have something to argue with or push against as they're reading. You know, when I'm writing a negative review, when I'm writing a review that I feel is trending toward negative, I should say, I always try to like, I don't know, I try to always remember that like, this is just me presenting my experience of the book and my take of the book. And hopefully that will be productive or useful for whoever reads the review. And hopefully that my review won't be the only thing that they read and that they will in fact, go pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree. It's hopefully it creates interesting and potentially divergent dialogues or discourses around the text. And fundamentally, I think not every critic feels this way. Not every piece of criticism is like this. But the criticism I write, I'm trying to create the conditions that will refer the reader always back to the text, be it through quotation, be it through, they're so incensed by my argument that they're going to go read the book themselves and then like, yell at me. Like, I think that that's wonderful, but like, always keeping the book at the center. But I think a negative review can, you know, it can start a conversation. It can get people talking about books, which in this culture, this phase of history feels like a win. And hopefully it can sort of be a corrective sometimes to less genuine or perceived less genuine discourses that are existing around the book.Henry: I think even whether or not it's a question of genuine, it's for me, it's just a question of if you tell people this book is good and they give up their time and money and they discover that it's trash, you've done a really bad thing to that person. And like, there might be dozens of them compared to this one author who you've been impolite to or whatever. And it's just a question of don't lie in book, right?Brandon: Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully people are honest, but I do feel sometimes that there is, there's like a lack of honesty. And look, I think that being like, well, I mean, maybe you'll love this. I don't love it, you know, but at least present your opinion in that way. At least be like, you know, there are many interpretations of this thing. Here's my interpretation. Maybe you'll feel differently or something like that. But I do think that people feel that there have been a great number of dishonest book reviews. Maybe there have been, maybe there have not been. I certainly have read some reviews I felt were dishonest about books that I have read. And I think that the negative book review does feel a bit like a corrective in a lot of ways, both, you know, justified or unjustified. People are like, finally, someone's being honest about this thing. But yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it's all really, I think it's all fascinating. I do think that there are some reviews though, that are negative and that are trying to be about the book, but are really about the author. There are some reviews that I have read that have been ostensibly about reviewing a text, but which have really been about, you don't like that person and you have decided to sort of like take an axe to them. And that to me feels not super productive. I wouldn't do it, but other people find it useful.Henry: As in, you can tell that from the review or you know that from background information?Brandon: I mean, this is all projection, of course, but like there have been some reviews where I've read, like, for example, some of the Lauren Oyler reviews, I think some of the Lauren Oyler reviews were negative and were exclusively about the text. And they sort of took the text apart and sort of dissected it and came to conclusions, some of which I agreed with, some of which I didn't agree with, but they were fundamentally about the text. And like all the criticisms referred back to the text. And then there were some that were like projecting attitudes onto the author that were more about creating this sort of vaporous shape of Lauren Oyler and then sort of poking holes in her literary celebrity or her stature as a critic or what have you. And that to me felt less productive as like a book review.Henry: Yes. Who are your favorite reviewers?Brandon: Ooh, my favorite reviewers. I really love Christian Lawrence. And he does my, of the critics who try to do the sort of like mini historiography of like a thing. He's my favorite because he teaches me a lot. He sort of is so good at summing up an era or summing up a phase of literary production without being like so cringe or so socialist about it. I really love, I love it when he sort of distills and dissects an era. I really like Hermione Hobie. I think she's really interesting. And she writes about books with a lot of feeling and a lot of energy. And I really love her mind. And of course, like Patricia Lockwood, of course, everyone, perhaps not everyone, but I enjoy Patricia Lockwood's criticism. You don't?Henry: Not really.Brandon: Oh, is it because it's too chatty? Is it too, is it too selfie?Henry: A little bit. I think, I think that kind of criticism can work really well. But I think, I think it's too much. I think basically she's very, she's a very stylized writer and a lot of her judgments get, it gets to the point where it's like, this is the logical conclusion of what you're trying to do stylistically. And there are some zingers in here and some great lines and whatever, but we're no longer, this is no longer really a book review.Brandon: Yeah.Henry: Like by the, by the end of the paragraph, this, like, we didn't want to let the style go. We didn't want to lose the opportunity to cap that off. And it leads her into, I think, glibness a lot of the time.Brandon: Yeah. I could see that. I mean, I mean, I enjoy reading her pieces, but do I understand like what's important to her at a sort of literary level? I don't know. I don't, and in that sense, like, are they, is it criticism or is it closer to like personal essay, humorous essay? I don't know. Maybe that's true. I enjoy reading them, but I get why people are like, this is a very, very strong flavor for sure.Henry: Now you've been reading a lot of literary criticism.Brandon: Oh yeah.Henry: Not of the LRB variety, but of the, the old books in libraries variety. Yes. How did that start? How did, how did you come to this?Brandon: Somewhat like ham-fistedly. I, in 2021, I had a really bad case of writer's block and I thought maybe part of the reason I had writer's block was that I didn't know anything about writing or I didn't know anything about like literature or like writing. I'd been writing, I'd published a novel. I was working on another novel. I'd published a book of stories, but like, I just like truly didn't know anything about literature really. And I thought I need some big boy ideas. I need, I need to find out what adults think about literature. And so I went to my buddy, Christian Lorenzen, and I was like, you write criticism. What is it? And what should I read? And he gave me a sort of starter list of criticism. And it was like the liberal imagination by Lionel Trilling and Guy Davenport and Alfred Kazin who wrote On Native Grounds, which is this great book on the American literary tradition and Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel. And I, and then Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle. And I read all of those. And then as each one would sort of refer to a different text or person, I sort of like followed the footnotes down into this rabbit hole of like literary criticism. And now it's been a sort of ongoing project of the last few years of like reading. I always try to have a book of criticism on the go. And then earlier this year, I read Jameson's The Antimonies of Realism. And he kept talking about this Georg Lukács guy. And I was like, I guess I should go read Lukács. And so then I started reading Lukács so that I could get back to Jameson. And I've been reading Lukács ever since. I am like deep down the Lukács rabbit hole. But I'm not reading any of the socialism stuff. I told myself that I wouldn't read any of the socialism stuff and I would only read the literary criticism stuff, which makes me very different from a lot of the socialist literary critics I really enjoy because they're like Lukács, don't read in that literary criticism stuff, just read his socialism stuff. So I'm reading all the wrong stuff from Lukács, but I really, I really love it. But yeah, it sort of started because I thought I needed grown up ideas about literature. And it's been, I don't know, I've really enjoyed it. I really, really enjoy it. It's given me perhaps terrible ideas about what novels should be or do. But, you know, that's one of the side effects to reading.Henry: Has it made, like, what specific ways has it changed how you've written since you've acquired a set of critical principles or ideas?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is, part of it has to do with Lukács' idea of the totality. And, you know, I think that the sort of most direct way that it shows up in a sort of really practical way in my novel writing is that I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. Like, I don't want, I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation and stuff like that. And so like that, that's sort of, that's sort of abstract, but like in a concrete way, like what I'm kind of trying to resolve in my novel writing these days.Henry: You mentioned Dickens.Brandon: Oh, yes.Henry: Which Dickens novels do you like?Brandon: Now I'm afraid I'm going to say something else controversial. We love controversial. Which Dickens? I love Bleak House. I love Bleak House. I love Tale of Two Cities. It is one of the best openings ever, ever, ever, ever in the sweep of that book at once personal and universal anyway. Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities. And I also, I read Great Expectations as like a high school student and didn't like it, hated it. It was so boring. But now coming back to it, I think it, honestly, it might be the novel of our time. I think it might accidentally be a novel. I mean, it's a novel of scammers, a novel of like, interpersonal beef taken to the level of like, spiritual conflict, like it's about thieves and class, like it just feels like like that novel could have been written today about people today, like that book just feels so alive to today's concerns, which perhaps, I don't know, says something really evil about this cultural stagnation under capitalism, perhaps, but I don't know, love, love Great Expectations now.Henry: Why are so many modern novels boring?Brandon: Well, depends on what you mean by boring, Henry, what do you mean? Why?Henry: I mean, you said this.Brandon: Oh.Henry: I mean, I happen to agree, but this is, I'm quoting you.Brandon: Oh, yes. I remember that. I remember that review.Henry: I mean, I can tell you why I think they're boring.Brandon: Oh, yes, please.Henry: So I think, I think what you said before is true. They all read like movies. And I think I very often I go in, I pick up six or seven books on the new book table. And I'm like, these openings are all just the same. You're all thinking you can all see Netflix in your head. This is not really a novel. And so the dialogue is really boring, because you kind of you can hear some actor or actress saying it. But I can't hear that because I'm the idiot stuck in the bookshop reading your Netflix script. Whereas, you know, I think you're right that a lot of those traditional forms of storytelling, they like pull you in to the to the novel. And they and they like by the end of the first few pages, you sort of feel like I'm in this funny place now. And to do in media res, like, someone needs to get shot, or something, something weird needs to be said, like, you can't just do another, another standard opening. So I think that's a big, that's a big point.Brandon: Well, as Lukasz tells us, bourgeois realism has a, an unholy fondness for the, the average, the merely average, as opposed to the typical. And I think, yeah, a lot of it, a lot of why I think it's boring echoes you, I think that for me, what I find boring, and a lot of them is that it feels like novelists have abandoned any desire to, to have their characters or the novels themselves integrate the sort of disparate experiences within the novel into any kind of meaningful hole. And so there isn't this like sense of like things advancing toward a grander understanding. And I think a lot of it is because they've, they are writing under the assumption that like the question of why can never be answered. There can never be like a why, there can never be a sort of significance to anything. And so everything is sort of like evacuated of significance or meaning. And so you have what I've taken to calling like reality TV fiction, where the characters are just like going places and doing things, and there are no thoughts, there are no thoughts about their lives, or no thoughts about the things that they are doing, there are no thoughts about their experiences. And it's just a lot of like, like lowercase e events in their lives, but like no attempt to organize those events into any sort of meaningful hole. And I think also just like, what leads to a lot of dead writing is writers who are deeply aware that they're writing about themes, they're writing about themes instead of people. And they're working from generalities instead of particularities and specificities. And they have no understanding of the relationship between the universal and the particular. And so like, everything is just like, like beans in a can that they're shaking around. And I think that that's really boring. I think it's really tedious. Like, like, sure, we can we can find something really profound in the mundane, but like, you have to be really smart to do that. So like the average novelist is like better off like, starting with a gunshot or something like do something big.Henry: If you're not Virginia Woolf, it is in fact just mundane.Brandon: Indeed. Yeah.Henry: Is there too much emphasis on craft? In the way, in the way, in like what's valued among writers, in the way writers are taught, I feel like everything I see is about craft. And I'm like, craft is good, but that can just be like how you make a table rather than like how you make a house. Craft is not the guarantor of anything. And I see a lot of books where I think this person knows some craft. But as you say, they don't really have an application for it. And they don't. No one actually said to them, all style has a moral purpose, whether you're aware of it or not. And so they default to this like pointless use of the craft. And someone should say to them, like, you need to know history. You need to know tennis. You need to know business. You need to know like whatever, you know. And I feel like the novels I don't like are reflections of the discourse bubble that the novelist lives in. And I feel like it's often the continuation of Twitter by other means. So in the Rachel Kong novel that I think it came out this year, there's a character, a billionaire character who comes in near the end. And everything that he says or that is said about him is literally just meme. It's online billionaire meme because billionaires are bad because of all the things we all know from being on Twitter. And I was like, so you just we literally have him a character as meme. And this is the most representative thing to me, because that's maybe there's craft in that. Right. But what you've chosen to craft is like 28 tweets. That's pointless.Brandon: 28 tweets be a great title for a book, though, you have to admit, I would buy that book off the new book table. 28 tweets. I would. I would buy that. Yeah, I do think. Well, I think it goes both ways. I think it goes both ways. I somewhat famously said this about Sally Rooney that like she her books have no craft. The craft is bad. And I do think like there are writers who only have craft, who are able to sort of create these wonderfully structured books and to sort of deploy these beautiful techniques. And those books are absolutely dead. There's just like nothing in them because they have nothing to say. There's just like nothing to be said about any of that. And on the other hand, you have these books that are full of feelings that like would be better had someone taught that person about structure or form or had they sort of had like a rigorous thing. And I would say that like both of those are probably bad, like depending on who you are, you find one more like, like easier to deal with than the other. I do think that like part of why there's such an emphasis on craft is because not to sort of bring capitalism back in but you can monetize craft, you know what I mean? Like, craft is one of those things that is like readily monetizable. Like, if I'm a writer, and I would like to make money, and I can't sell a novel, I can tell people like, oh, how to craft a perfect opening, how to create a novel opening that will make agents pick it up and that will make editors say yes, but like what the sort of promise of craft is that you can finish a thing, but not that it is good, as you say, there's no guarantor. Whereas you know, like it's harder to monetize someone's soul, or like, it's harder to monetize like the sort of random happenstance of just like a writer's voice sort of emerging from from whatever, like you can't turn that into profit. But you can turn into profit, let me help you craft your voice. So it's very grind set, I think craft has a tendency to sort of skew toward the grind set and toward people trying to make money from, from writing when they can't sell a book, you know. Henry: Let's play a game. Brandon: Oh dear.Henry: I say the name of a writer. You give us like the 30 second Brandon Taylor opinion of that writer.Brandon: Okay. Yeah.Henry: Jonathan Franzen.Brandon: Thomas Mann, but like, slightly more boring, I think.Henry: Iris Murdoch.Brandon: A friend of mine calls her a modern calls her the sort of pre Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney. And I agree with that.Henry: When I'm at parties, I try and sell her to people where I say she's post-war Sally Rooney.Brandon: Yes, yes. And like, and like all that that entails, and so many delightful, I read all these like incredible sort of mid century reviews of her novels, and like the men, the male critics, like the Bernard Breganzis of the world being like, why is there so much sex in this book? It's amazing. Please go look up those like mid-century reviews of Iris Murdoch. They were losing their minds. Henry: Chekhov.Brandon: Perfect, iconic, baby girl, angel, legend. Can't get enough. 10 out of 10.Henry: Evelyn Waugh.Brandon: So Catholic, real Catholic vibes. But like, scabrously funny. And like, perhaps the last writer to write about life as though it had meaning. Hot take, but I'll, I stand by it.Henry: Yeah, well, him and Murdoch. But yeah, no, I think I think there's a lot in that. C.V. Wedgwood.Brandon: Oh, my gosh. The best, a titan, a master of history. Like, oh, my God. I would not be the same without Wedgwood.Henry: Tell us which one we should read.Brandon: Oh, the 30 Years War. What are you talking about?Henry: Well, I think her books on the English Civil War… I'm a parochial Brit.Brandon: Oh, see, I don't, not that I don't, I will go read those. But her book on the 30 Years War is so incredible. It's, it's amazing. It's second to like, Froissart's Chronicles for like, sort of history, history books for me.Henry: Northrop Frye.Brandon: My father. I, Northrop Frye taught me so much about how to see and how to think. Just amazing, a true thinker in a mind. Henry: Which book? Brandon: Oh, Anatomy of Criticism is fantastic. But Fearful Symmetry is just, it will blow your head off. Just amazing. But if you're looking for like, to have your, your mind gently remapped, then Anatomy of Criticism.Henry: Emma Cline.Brandon: A throwback. I think she's, I think she's Anne Beattie meets John Cheever for a new era. And I think she's amazing. She's perfect. Don't love her first novel. I think her stories are better. She's a short story writer. And she should stay that way.Henry: Okay, now I want you to rank Jane Austen's novels.Brandon: Wait, okay. So like, by my preference, or by like, what I think is the best?Henry: You can do both.Brandon: Okay. So in terms, my favorite, Persuasion. Then Mansfield Park. Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice. And then Emma, then Northanger Abbey. Okay.Henry: Now, how about for which ones are the best?Brandon: Persuasion. Pride and Prejudice. Mansfield Park. Emma,.Sense and Sensibility. Northanger Abbey.Henry: Why do people not like Fanny Price? And what is wrong with them?Brandon: Fanny Price is perfect. Fanny Price, I was just talking to someone about this last night at dinner. Fanny Price, she's perfect. First of all, she is, I don't know why people don't like her. She's like a chronically ill girl who's hot for her cousin and like, has deep thoughts. It seems like she would be the icon of literary Twitter for like a certain kind of person, you know? And I don't know why they don't like her. I think I'm, I am becoming the loudest Mansfield Park apologist on the internet. I think that people don't like Fanny because she's less vivacious than Mary Crawford. And I think that people are afraid to see themselves in Fanny because she seems like she's unfun or whatever. But what they don't realize is that like Fanny Price, Fanny Price has like a moral intelligence and like a moral consciousness. And like Fanny Price is one of the few Austen characters who actually argues directly and literally about the way the world is. Like with multiple people, like the whole, the whole novel is her sort of arguing about, well, cities are this and the country is this. And like, we need Parsons as much as we need party boys. Like, like she's arguing not just about, not just about these things like through the lens of like marriage or like the sort of marriage economy, but like in literal terms, I mean, she is so, she's like a moral philosopher. I love Fanny Price and she's so smart and so sensitive and so, and I guess like maybe it's just that people don't like a character who's kind of at the mercy of others and they view her as passive. When in fact, like a young woman arguing about the way the world should be, like Mary Crawford's, Mary Crawford's like kind of doing the above, not really, not like Fanny. But yeah, I love her. She's amazing. I love Fanny Price. And I also think that people love Margaret Hale from North and South. And I think that when people are saying they hate Fanny Price, what they're picturing is actually how Margaret Hale is. Margaret Hale is one of the worst heroines of a novel. She's so insufferable. She's so rude. She's so condescending. And like, she does get her comeuppance and like Gaskell does sort of bring about a transformation where she's actually able to sort of like see poor people as people first and not like subjects of sympathy. But Margaret is what people imagine Fanny is, I think. And we should, we should start a Fanny Price, like booster club. Henry, should we? Let's do it. It begins here. I just feel so strongly about her. I feel, I love, I love Fanny.Henry: She's my favorite of Austen's characters. And I think she is the most representative Austen character. She's the most Austen of all of them, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, that makes great deal of sense to me. She's just so wonderful. Like she's so funny and so observant. And she's like this quiet little girl who's like kind of sickly and people don't really like her. And she's kind of maybe I'm just like, maybe I just like see myself in her. And I don't mind being a sort of annoying little person who's going around the world.Henry: What are some good principles for naming literary characters?Brandon: Ooh, I have a lot of strong feelings about this. I think that names should be memorable. They should have like, like an aura of sort of literariness about them. I don't mean, I mean, taken to like hilarious extremes. It's like Henry James. Catherine Goodwood, Isabelle Archer, Ralph Touchett, like, you know, Henry had a stack pole. So like, not like that. But I mean, that could be fun in a modern way. But I think there's like an aura of like, it's a name that you might hear in real life, but it sort of add or remove, it's sort of charged and elevated, sort of like with dialogue. And that it's like a memorable thing that sort of like, you know, it's like, you know, memorable thing that sort of sticks in the reader's mind. It is both a name, a literary, a good literary name is both a part of this world and not of this world, I think. And, yeah, and I love that. I think like, don't give your character a name like you hear all the time. Like, Tyler is a terrible literary name. Like, no novel has ever, no good novel has ever had a really important character named Tyler in it. It just hasn't. Ryan? What makes a good sentence? Well, my sort of like, live and let live answer is that a good sentence is a sentence that is perfectly suited to the purpose it has. But I don't know, I like a clear sentence, regardless of length or lyric intensity, but just like a clear sentence that articulates something. I like a sentence with motion, a sense of rhythm, a sense of feel without any bad words in it. And I don't mean like curse words, I mean like words that shouldn't be in literature. Like, there's some words that just like don't belong in novels.Henry: Like what?Brandon: Squelch. Like, I don't think the word squelch should be in a novel. That's a gross word and it doesn't sound literary to me. I don't want to see it.Henry: I wouldn't be surprised if it was in Ulysses.Brandon: Well, yes.Henry: I have no idea, but I'm sure, I'm sure.Brandon: But so few of us are James Joyce. And that novel is like a thousand bodily functions per page. But don't love it. Don't love it.Henry: You don't love Ulysses?Brandon: No, I don't… Listen, I don't have a strong opinion, but you're not going to get me cancelled about Ulysses. I'm not Virginia Woolf.Henry: We're happy to have opinions of that nature here. That's fine.Brandon: You know, I don't have a strong feeling about it, actually. Some parts of it that I've read are really wonderful. And some parts of it that I have read are really dense and confusing to me. I haven't sort of given it the time it needs or deserves. What did you learn from reading Toni Morris? What did I learn? I think I learned a lot about the moral force of melodrama. I think that she shows us a lot about the uses of melodrama and how it isn't just like a lesion of realism, that it isn't just a sort of malfunctioning realism, but that there are certain experiences and certain lives and certain things that require and necessitate melodrama. And when deployed, it's not tacky or distasteful that it actually is like deeply necessary. And also just like the joy of access and language, like the sort of... Her language is so towering. I don't know, whenever I'm being really shy about a sentence being too vivid or too much, I'm like, well, Toni Morrison would just go for it. And I am not Toni Morrison, but she has given me the courage to try.Henry: What did you like about the Annette Benning film of The Seagull?Brandon: The moment when Annette Benning sings Dark Eyes is so good. It's so good. I think about it all the time. And indeed, I stole that moment for a short story that I wrote. And I liked that part of it. I liked the set design. I think also Saoirse Ronan, when she gives that speech as Nina, where she's like, you know, where the guy's like, what do you want from, you know, what do you want? Why do you want to be an actress? And she's like, I want fame. You know, like, I want to be totally adored. And I'm just like, yeah, that's so real. That's so, that is so real. Like Chekhov has understood something so deep, so deep about the nature of commerce and art there. And I think Saoirse is really wonderful in that movie. It's a not, it's not a good movie. It's maybe not even a good adaptation of The Seagull. But I really enjoyed it. I saw it like five times in a theater in Iowa City.Henry: I don't know if it's a bad adaptation of The Seagull, because it's one of the, it's one of the Chekhov's I've seen that actually understands that, like, the tragic and the and the comic are not meant to be easily distinguishable in his work. And it does have all this lightheartedness. And it is quite funny. And I was like, well, at least someone's doing that because I'm so sick of, like, gloomy Chekhov. You know what I mean? Like, oh, the clouds and the misery. Like, no, he wants you, he wants you to laugh and then be like, I shouldn't laugh because it's kind of tragic, but it's also just funny.Brandon: Yeah. Yes, I mean, all the moments were like, like Annette Bening's characters, like endless stories, like she's just like constantly unfurling a story and a story and a story and a story. Every scene kind of was like, she's in the middle of telling another interminable anecdote. And of course, the sort of big tragic turn at the end is like, where like, Kostya kills himself. And she's like, in the middle of like, another really long anecdote while they're in the other room playing cards. Like, it's so, it's so good. So I love that. I enjoy watching that movie. I still think it's maybe not. It's a little wooden, like as a movie, like it's a little, it's a little rickety.Henry: Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. But for someone looking to like, get a handle on Chekhov, it's actually a good place to go. What is the best make of Fountain Pen?Brandon: That's a really good, that's a really, really, really good question. Like, what's your Desert Island Fountain Pen? My Desert Island Fountain Pen. Right now, it's an Esterbrook Estee with a needlepoint nib. It's like, so, I can use that pen for hours and hours and hours and hours. I think my favorite Fountain Pen, though, is probably the Pilot Custom 743. It's a really good pen, not too big, not too small. It can hold a ton of ink, really wonderful. I use, I think, like a Soft Fine nib, incredible nib, so smooth. Like, I, you could cap it and then uncap it a month later, and it just like starts immediately. It's amazing. And it's not too expensive.Henry: Brandon Taylor, thank you very much.Brandon: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Send us a textJennifer Clement is President Emerita of the human rights and freedom of expression organization PEN International and the only woman to hold the office of President (2015-2021) since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership, the groundbreaking PEN International Women's Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. As President of PEN Mexico (2009-2012), Clement was instrumental in changing the law to make the crime of killing a journalist a federal crime. Clement is the author of the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen, Gun Love, and Stormy People, as well as several poetry books, including Poems and Errors, published by Kaunitz-Olsson in Sweden.  Clement also wrote the acclaimed memoirs Widow Basquiat on New York City in the early 1980s and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, which NPR named the best book of 2015 in seven different categories, and The Promised Party on her life in Mexico City and New York. Clement's books have been translated into 38 languages and have covered topics such as the stealing of little girls in Mexico, the effects of gun violence, and the trafficking of guns into Mexico and Central America, as well as writing about her life in the art worlds of Mexico and New York.Clement is the recipient of Guggenheim, NEA, MacDowell, and Santa Maddalena Fellowships, and her books have twice been a New York Times Editor's Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen was the recipient of the Grand Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE(sponsored by ELLE Magazine, the French Ministry of Education and the Maison des écrivains et de la littérature)  and a New Statesman Book of the Year, picked by the Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. Gun Love was an Oprah Book Club Selection, National Book Award, and Aspen Words Literary Prize finalist.  Among other publications, Time magazine named it one of the top 10 books of 2018.  At NYU, she was the commencement speaker for the Gallatin graduates 2017 and gave the Lectio Magistralis in Florence, Italy, for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori. Clement is a member of Mexico's prestigious Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte. For Clement's work in human rights, she was awarded the HIP Award for contribution to Latino communities by the Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) Organization, and she was also the recipient of the Sara Curry Humanitarian Award. Most recently, she was given the 2023 Freedom of Expression Honorary title on World Press Day by Brussels University Alliance VUB and ULB in partnership with the European Commission, European Endowment for Democracy, and UNESCO, among others. Other laureates include Svetlana Alexievich, Zhang Zhan, Ahmet Altan, Daphne Caruana Galizia, and Raif Badawi. Jennifer Clement was raised in Mexico, where she lives. She and her sister Barbara Sibley founded and directed the San Miguel Poetry Week. Clement has a double major in anthropology and English Literature from New York University (Gallatin) and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine (Stonecoast). She was named a Distinguished Alumna by the Kingswood Cranbrook School.Jennifer ClementThe Promised Party, Jennifer ClementA ManSupport the showThe Bookshop PodcastMandy Jackson-BeverlySocial Media Links

Navigating the transformation of the energy sector, particularly as fossil fuel giants like Equinor pivot towards renewable energy, is no small task. This episode dives into the intricacies of this transition, highlighting the role of sustainability professionals who find themselves at the crossroads of environmental responsibility and corporate profitability. My guest is Natasha Blisson, a seasoned expert in sustainability at Equinor, with a career journey spanning from the French Ministry for Environment to leading a team focused on managing environmental and social risks within Equinor. Her insights reveal the complexities and challenges faced by energy companies as they strive to balance ambitious sustainability goals with the realities of profitability and market pressures. The conversation touches on the importance of collaboration across sectors—government, industry, and civil society—to create a unified front in the fight against climate change. Natasha emphasizes that true progress will require innovation not just in technology, but also in economic models and regulatory frameworks. This holistic approach is crucial for developing solutions that are both effective and economically viable, paving the way for a sustainable future.Natasha provides a candid look at the duality of feeling like a change agent while grappling with the frustrations of an industry that has historically relied on fossil fuels. Takeaways: The energy transition requires collaboration between industries, policymakers, and civil society to succeed. Equinor's ambitious net-zero goal by 2050 emphasizes the need for sustainable practices in energy. The challenge of balancing sustainability and profitability is a constant dilemma. Carbon capture and storage technologies are seen as vital for achieving short-term climate goals. Understanding the complexities of energy production helps shift perspectives from good versus bad.

In February 2025, France will host the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, bringing together global leaders, thinkers, academics, businesspeople, and civil society to reflect upon what the AI revolution will mean for the world. AI is poised to usher in significant changes to the global economy, trade, education, government, employment, health, arts and culture. At this critical juncture, Dr Patricia Scanlon and Ambassador Henri Verdier discuss the Irish and French perspectives on what Artificial Intelligence might mean for not only their own countries, but for citizens all over the world.  This event has been organised in conjunction with the Embassy of France in Ireland About the Speakers: Henri Verdier is Ambassador for Digital Affairs at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. He has led the France's digital diplomacy since 2018. Henri Verdier is co-founder and CEO of MFG Labs, an internet-based startup involved in social data mining, and chairman of the board of Cap Digital, the French-European Cluseter for Digital Content and Services. Ambassador Verdier has co-authored three books written in French, L'Age de la Multitude, Entreprendre et Gouverner Après la Révolution Numérique (The Age of Multitude, Entrepreneurship and Governance after the Digital Revolution), in 2017, Des Startup d'État à l'État plateforme ( From State Startups to the Platform State), and Le Business de la haine : Internet, la démocratie et les réseaux sociaux (The Business of Hate: Internet, Democracy and Social Networks). Dr Patricia Scanlon is Ireland's AI Ambassador, a role which she has held since 2022, and chair of Ireland's AI Advisory Council. In 2013, she founded SoapBox Labs, a pioneering company specialising in ethical voice AI technology for children with application across education and gaming. SoapBox Labs became a global leader and was acquired by US-based Curriculum Associates in 2023. Her innovative contributions to the tech industry earned her recognition by Forbes as one of The World's Top 50 Women in Tech in 2018.

As the fifth Tallinn Cyber Diplomacy Summer School currently taking place in Tallinn, attendees reflect on a year of diplomacy in cybersecurity. Some of them, too, having gone from participants to speakers. The program, organised annually, is designed to bridge theoretical understanding and hands-on experience in cyber diplomacy, and for Claudio Peguero and Alban Andreu, the Summer School has turned out to be a point of growth and community-building.Claudio Peguero is Ambassador and Advisor on Cyber Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic. Alban Andreu, instead, Policy Officer in the Strategic Affairs and Cybersecurity Department of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.In this podcast episode, the two alumni-turned-speakers share their experience during and after the coursework, and how the previous year's learnings played a role in their diplomatic work. Yet a testament to the Summer School's role in shaping effective and adaptive cyber diplomacy leaders. 

Ludovic Subran is the Chief Economist of Allianz SE and Allianz Trade (formerly Euler Hermes). He's also worked for the World Bank, the United Nations World Food Program, and the French Ministry of Finance. And he's co-authored three books on markets and economics.Ludovic talks about why our perception of market volatility has changed from that of previous generations, the complexity of global market information, and the need for greater financial literacy.Subscribe to Ludonomics on LinkedInSee more retirement risk management insights from Allianz... Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz) and Allianz Life Financial Services, LLC are not affiliated with our podcast guests or their companies. Any links to the podcast guest's website are being provided as a service to you. Opinions expressed by the podcast guests are not necessarily those of Allianz or its affiliates. Please note that the information and opinions are provided by third parties and sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. The information is not intended to be used as the sole basis for financial decisions, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individual's situation.Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America has been keeping its promises since 1896 by helping Americans achieve their retirement income and protection goals with a variety of annuity and life insurance products.Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz) does not provide financial planning services.Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss.This content is for general educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide fiduciary, tax, or legal advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties; nor is it intended to market, promote, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, its affiliates, and their employees and representatives do not give legal or tax advice or advice related to Social Security or Medicare. Customers are encouraged to consult with their own legal, tax, and financial professionals for specific advice or product recommendations, or the Social Security Administration (SSA) office for their particular situation.Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America. Registered index-linked annuity

 Professor Lucy Blue is in Naples speaking with Pierre Poveda (Center Camille Jullian, CNRS), a maritime archaeologist who is co-leading, with his colleague Franca Cibecchini (DRASSM, french ministry of Culture), the excavation of a shipwreck lying in French waters between Cannes and the Île Sainte-Marguerite, home to Fort Royal. The wreck dating to around 180 BC is well preserved, with its entire port side buried beneath masses of dead roots of Posidonia seagrass. A few small wooden artefacts, including writing tablets have been recovered, as well as Italian amphorae that were transporting wine. Despite its hidden location the site has proven vulnerable to looting, and Pierre shares the dramatic story surrounding approximately 100 amphorae taken mostly from the wreck and also from other archaeological sites.  Further seasons of work are planned, with the goal of displaying the finds at the Museum of Fort Royal offering the public a closer look at these ancient maritime treasures and the ship's role in Mediterranean trade.    The excavation of the Hellenistic wreck Fort-Royal 1 is being carried out under the joint direction of Franca Cibecchini (Drassm - Ministry of Culture) and Pierre Poveda (CCJ-CNRS-AMU), who offer the following thanks: We would particularly like to thank the direction of the French Ministry of Culture's Department of Underwater Archaeological Research (DRASSM), as well as the direction of the Camille Jullian Center (CNRS, Aix-Marseille University). We would also like to thank the City of Cannes, and our collaborators: the Institut Arkaia (Aix marseille Université), the Musée départemental Arles antique (MdAa), the MAC-Centre d'Arqueologia Subaquàtica de Catalunya (CASC), the Scoop Ipso Facto and, of course, all those involved in the excavation: archaeologists and members of the Alfred Merlin crew. 

Series/Special Event Improving Diets and Nutrition through Food Systems: What Will it Take? A Dialogue on IFPRI's 2024 Global Food Policy Report Co-organized by IFPRI, the Netherlands Food Partnership, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security, and Nature Supported by the Director General for International Partnerships – Sustainable Agri-Food systems and fisheries from the European Commission and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, represented by the Special Envoy for nutrition and Secretary General of Nutrition for Growth Paris. November 6, 2024 IFPRI's 2024 Global Food Policy flagship publication arrives at a pivotal moment, as the importance of addressing food systems for better nutrition continues to gain global recognition. With United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 29th Conference of the Parties taking place in November, the SUN Global Gathering on the horizon and the Nutrition for Growth Summit 2025, this report offers valuable evidence and insights that can help guide policy and investment decisions for improving nutrition at the national, regional and global levels. In addition to a presentation of the report's key findings and recommendations by IFPRI's leading researchers in diets and nutrition, a distinguished panel of European and country partner policy makers, and representatives of multilateral institutions will discuss the report. Expert remarks will focus on key challenges and opportunities for EU stakeholders to support the transformation of food systems to advance nutrition and healthy diets in low and middle-income countries. This event and strategic discussion is co-organized by IFPRI, the Netherlands Food Partnership, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security, and Nature. The organizers were supported by the Director General for International Partnerships – Sustainable Agri-Food systems and fisheries from the European Commission and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, represented by the Special Envoy for nutrition and Secretary General of Nutrition for Growth Paris. To view the full program, please click https://www.ifpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024_GFPR-Europe-draft-agenda_10-30-24.pdf Links: More about this Event: https://www.ifpri.org/event/improving-diets-and-nutrition-through-food-systemswhat-will-it-take-a-dialogue-on-ifpris-2024-global-food-policy-report/ Subscribe IFPRI Insights newsletter and event announcements at www.ifpri.org/content/newsletter-subscription

The past year has seen a seismic shift in the political landscape in Europe, with far-right groups and ideologies gaining momentum across the continent, including in France. Is the French principle of laicite a bulwark or a vulnerability in the face of the far-right movement? We get a better understanding of the concept and how it's implemented with Ambassador Jean-Christophe Peaucelle, Counselor for Religious Affairs at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

As the world remembers the tragic events of 9/11 exactly 23 years ago, an international security expert has told FRANCE 24 how they were a pivotal turning point for the United States. He says 9/11 changed George W. Bush's perspective on what his administration needed to do in the world. The politicians witnessed the events and decided on a course of action that led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is only now, more than 20 years later, that the war on terror appears to be coming to an end. Elie Baranets, a researcher in International Security at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM), a research institute of the French Ministry of Armed Forces, spoke to us in Perspective.

#ANTISEMITISM: Much worse:   Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, the Managing Director of AJC Europe. Prior to to AJC, she served as an adviser to the Ambassador for Human Rights in the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. She was the founding General Secretary of the Brussels- and Paris-based Medbridge Strategy Center, an organization that seeks to strengthen ties between leaders of political and civil society in Europe and democratic voices in the Middle East. She is fluent in four languages. https://www.msn.com/he-il/news/other/there-is-no-future-for-jews-in-france-after-le-pen-s-defeat-fears-of-far-left-antisemitism-rise/ar-BB1pKHYi 1920 FRANCE

Summary Lee Lee shares her experiences of living in different countries as an expat and the challenges she faced in adapting to new environments. She discusses her first move to Belgium through a Rotary exchange program and the initial culture shock she experienced. Lee Lee also talks about her time in France as a student and later as an English teacher for the French Ministry of Education. She highlights the importance of language learning and finding ways to connect with people in a new country. Lee Lee emphasizes the value of documenting and reflecting on the expat experience through vlogs or blogs. She encourages individuals to create their own opportunities for connection and friendship while living abroad. In this conversation, James and Neelie discuss their experiences living abroad in different countries, including Sweden, France, Japan, and the US. They talk about the challenges and rewards of immersing oneself in a new culture, making friends, and learning the language. They emphasize the importance of being curious, trying new things, and embracing the uncertainty that comes with living abroad. They also discuss the cultural differences they encountered and the need to be open-minded and respectful. Overall, the conversation highlights the transformative power of living abroad and the personal growth that comes with it. Takeaways Living abroad as an expat can be both exciting and challenging Language learning is crucial for adapting to a new country Documenting and reflecting on the expat experience can be helpful Creating opportunities for connection and friendship is important while living abroad Living abroad offers unique opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. Being curious and open-minded is essential for embracing a new culture and making the most of the experience. Trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone can lead to unexpected friendships and experiences. Language learning is a valuable skill that can enhance your cultural immersion and connection with locals. Cultural differences should be respected and approached with empathy and understanding. Living abroad can be challenging at times, but the rewards and transformative impact make it worthwhile. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 01:15 Lili's Expat Journey Begins 05:55 The Visa Process and Preparation 06:50 Seeking Opportunities to Live Abroad 13:29 Lili's Experience in Senegal 14:53 Teaching English in Japan 24:57 First Impressions of Living Abroad 25:24 Living in Belgium and France 37:13 Studying in France 39:38 Making Friends as an Expat 42:03 Creating Opportunities for Connection 43:28 Parkrun and Sports Teams: Connecting with People Abroad 44:55 Using BlaBlaCar and Transportation Experiences 47:20 First Impressions of Senegal: Welcoming People and Cultural Adjustments 52:58 Returning to France: Living with a Flatmate and Teaching 53:53 School Schedules and Cultural Differences in France 55:47 Living in Sweden: Saunas, Wild Swimming, and Cultural Norms 58:36 Moving to Japan: Language Learning and Cultural Differences 01:01:55 Meeting a Partner Online and Building a Life in Japan 01:03:17 Navigating the Green Card Process and Living in the US 01:04:16 Discovering Jiu-Jitsu and Trying New Things Abroad 01:05:14 Interacting with Locals and Expanding Cultural Immersion 01:06:12 Balancing Integration with Foreign Friendships 01:07:10 Reflecting on the Journey of Living Abroad 01:10:40 Advice for Living Abroad: Embracing the Adventure and Being Patient 01:18:14 Living Abroad: Overcoming Challenges and Celebrating Milestones Keywords expat, living abroad, culture shock, language learning, adapting, connection, friendship, living abroad, cultural immersion, making friends, language learning, challenges, rewards, curiosity, trying new things, cultural differences, personal growth --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theexpatpod/message

These categories of "better for the earth" wines are technical, tricky, and ever-evolving, so I it was time to do an update! In this show, I do best to break it all down in as simple a way as possible…I cover:BiodynamicsOrganicsSustainable farmingRegenerative agricultureAnd quickly, the loose ends – vegan wine, natural wine______________________________________ BiodynamicI discuss the main principles of biodynamic agriculture – that the farm is a single, self-sustaining organism and the farmer must encourage and guide the vines, as well as protect the soil so provides nourishment for the vines. ​The main certification for biodynamics is DEMETER.  _________________________________OrganicOrganic farming is how farming was always done until the industrial revolution. The new iteration grew out of the biodynamic movement in the 1920s. This method took off in the 1970s and 80s, especially in Europe.Different countries have different definitions of organic…European Union Organic Products/”Bio” in France: Organic wine prohibits most synthetic chemicals or GMOs and uses only certified organic oenological products in the cellar, including organic yeast. Sulfites are regulated. United States. This is a program developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). There are prohibitions on the vineyard and the winery, and added sulfites are prohibited. Because of this last prohibition, certified organic vineyards go in and out of the organic certificatioTo make it more flexible, they added the “Made with Organic Grapes” stipulation, which is looser _________________________________________________________ Regenerative Organic AgricultureAlthough relatively new, this is likely the future of better for the earth initiatives. Regenerative starts out with the principles of organic but then adds a few other things. Watch this space…  _________________________________________________________  Sustainable Winegrowing This is the most popular way to do better for the earth viticulture but it's squishy. Sustainable is a catchall term that has MANY definitions. Examples of certifications: France…HVE: The French Ministry of Agriculture developed the Haute Valeur EnvironementaleOthers...Vignerons EngagesViticulture Durable en ChampagneTerra Vitis California: Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing I end with a quick tour of Natural wine and Vegan winesFull show notes and all back episodes are on Patreon. Become a member today!_______________________________________________________________Wine Access has an amazing selection — once you get hooked on their wines, they will be your go-to! Make sure you join the Wine Access-Wine For Normal People wine club in time for the next shipment. As a limited time offer, get $25 off your first TWO shipments of our club!To register for an AWESOME, LIVE WFNP class with Elizabeth or get a class gift certificate for the wine lover in your life go to: http://www.winefornormalpeople.com/classes Get the back catalog on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does Australia's recently released National Defence Strategy (NDS) differ from a Defence White Paper?What are the merits of having a bipartisan approach to defence policymaking? How important is it to clearly communicate these concepts to the public?Is the NDS' focus on deterrence and denial well-suited to today's geopolitical landscape?Should Australia have an unclassified National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy to complement the National Defence Strategy? In this episode, Elizabeth Buchanan and Andrew Carr join David Andrews to analyse the merits and shortcomings of the 2024 National Defence Strategy. Dr Elizabeth Buchanan is an Expert Associate at the ANU National Security College (NSC). She is also an Associate Researcher with the French Ministry of Armed Forces' Institute for Strategic Research, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and was previously Head of Research for the Royal Australian Navy's Sea Power Centre.Dr Andrew Carr is a Senior Lecturer at the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. He is also currently a member of the ANU-Defence Strategic Policy History Project, writing a history of Australian Defence White Papers from 1976-2020.David Andrews is a Senior Policy Advisor at NSC. Show notes: · Launch of the 2024 National Defence Strategy by the Hon Richard Marles MP· 2024 National Defence Strategy and 2024 Integrated Investment Program· Defence White Papers· Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN)We'd love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. The National Security Podcast is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

See pictures and read more on materiallyspeaking.comOn 15th April, 2019 a catastrophic fire broke out in Notre Dame Cathedral. Parisians watched in horror as the spire fell and most of the roof was destroyed. In the aftermath it became clear that a large area was contaminated with toxic dust and lead.The iconic building, which has dominated the Île de la Cité island in Paris since the Middle Ages, is a national symbol not only for the French but for people all over the world. President Macron pledged to build back the cathedral as it was before, and as the planned reopening in December 2024 looms, a huge office structure has mushroomed around it and 500 workers are on site daily as the team race to rebuild it.The eyes of the world are watching, but Materially Speaking has a story for our ears - the story of its sound.As a sound specialist himself, Mike Axinn was fascinated when he discovered there is a group exploring the restoration of the acoustics at Notre Dame. He approached Brian F.G. Katz and David Poirier-Quinot at the Sorbonne, and their colleague, sound archeologist Mylène Pardoen, who is co-coordinator with Brian of the scientific acoustics team assisting the reconstruction of Notre Dame, and soon we were off to Paris to hear their stories. We first met Brian and David at a restaurant and then visited their simulator inside the Sorbonne to discover more.Notre Dame has a special role in western European music's history and is generally thought of as the cradle of polyphony. Sarah was attracted to this angle as her father, Christopher Monk, was part of the Early Music movement which restored the use of the Renaissance cornett, a woodwind instrument well known in Monteverdi's music. He also made and played serpents, long snake-shaped instruments that had a central role in music that was performed in Notre Dame many centuries ago. So she approached Volny Hostiou, one of France's leading serpent players, and we were delighted when he and singer Thomas Van Essen agreed to join us in Paris for some experiments with Brian and David.We then jumped on a train to Lyon to meet with Mylène Pardoen and learn more about her work as one of the world's foremost sound archaeologists, tasked with recording the sounds made by stone masons and other artisans in their work, and re-imagining the church's soundscape at various points in its history.A key person driving the physical restoration is Pascal Prunet, Chief architect of historic monuments in France and part of the team in charge of restoring Notre-Dame. Prunet explains that their work in restoring the church has revealed many secrets about its construction and the work done by artisans. We were fortunate to hear how his team was able to discover things they never would have learned had it not been for the fire.As we obviously could not go inside Notre-Dame, Volny and Thomas then kindly arranged for us to hear them play in the Abbey of Rouen, built on a similar scale to nearby Rouen Cathedral, the abbey is famous for both its architecture and its large, unaltered Cavaillé-Coll organ. Here they talked to us about the serpent and their group Les Meslanges, showed us a serpent fresco on the ceiling of the Abbey and played in three different locations.Finally Mike takes us back to Brian and David's simulator to compare and contrast the sound of the musicians live in the Abbey of Rouen, and their simulated version of how the music would sound at different historical periods of Notre-Dame's history.Thanks also to Frédéric Ménissier who made a great video recording of our visit to the Abbaye of Rouen. You will be able to watch the result on YouTube @materiallyspeakingpodcast nearer the scheduled reopening of Notre Dame, in December 2024.Thanks and linksWe are very grateful to Brian, David, Mylène, Pascal, Volny and Thomas for giving so generously of their time and sharing their expertise and passion. You can learn more about their projects in the following links.Brian F.G. Katz & David Poirier-QuinotBrian Katz, originally from the U.S., is an acoustics specialist and leads the Sound Spaces research team. David Poirier-Quinot works with Brian and is a researcher, presently focused on sound spatialisation, perception, and room acoustics simulation for virtual and augmented realities.Beginning mid April 2024, The Past Has Ears project is launching Whispers of Notre Dame, ‘Ekko of Notre-Dame de Paris', an immersive audio guide that transports listeners through time and space to the heart of Paris's most treasured landmark. Free on Google Play, Android and iOS. It can be listened to anywhere, but is best with GPS onsite at Notre Dame.ndwhispers.pasthasears.euMylène PardoenMusicologist and soundscape archaeologist Mylène records and recreates the sounds of the past. She is a scientific expert for the restoration of Notre-Dame - Co-coordinator of the Acoustics group. She is also designer, coordinator and manager of the Bretez and ESPHAISTOSS projects.Pascal PrunetChief architect of Historic Monuments responsible for the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris is noted for his work in the restoration of the Cathedrals of Paris, Nantes, Limoges, Nîmes, Arras and Cambrai, as well as the Opéra Garnier in Paris , Le Corbusier 's Villa Savoye and the Citadel of Lille. prunet-architecture.comVolny Hostiou & Thomas Van EssenMusicians specialising in performing compositions that were written for, and often performed for the first time in, Notre-Dame.Volny teaches tuba and serpent at the Rouen Conservatoire and creates projects in collaboration with the Musée de la Musique de Paris.Thomas is a musicologist, flautist and singer, dedicated to early music and founded Les Meslanges, one of the early music ensembles Volny plays in.Les Meslanges is supported by the French Ministry of Culture, the Regional Arts Council of Normandy, the Normandy Regional Government and the Rouen City Council. The ensemble is a member of FEVIS – the Federation of Specialised Vocal and Instrumental Ensembles.CreditsProducer: Sarah MonkProducer/Editor: Mike AxinnMusic: courtesy of Les Meslanges - Thomas van Essen & Volny Hostiou

In this episode, we dive deep into the heart of renewable energy's latest developments in Europe. Starting off with Norway's first offshore wind tender, which saw The Ventyr JV between Parkwind, Ingka Investments and NorSea being awarded the development mandate for the 1.5GW Sørlige Nordsjø II. We take the opportunity to take a driven look at Europe's offshore wind sector.  Next, we turn to the solar industry, where we dissect a series of tender announcements across Europe, including the French Ministry of Ecological Transition's solar results, and Romania's first solar and onshore CfD auction. We also look at announcements from Sonnedix on a ten-project portfolio and examine new solar commitments from the EIB.Digging into this, we take a look at how Europe's solar manufacturing sector is holding up in the face of stiff competition from China.Also on this episode, we dive deep into the market dynamics of battery energy storage in Europe and discuss the challenges of unrealised revenue models.Finally, turning to the UK's second REMA consultation, we address the pros of regional pricing but also how it could leave stranded assets in the UK's most promising renewable sites.Hosted by:Oliver Carr - Lead AnalystViola Caon - Head of ContentDila Cebeci Smith - Senior AnalystReach out to us at: podcasts@inspiratia.comFind all of our latest news and analysis by subscribing to inspiratiaListen to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other providers. Music credit: NDA/Show You instrumental/Tribe of Noise©2024 inspiratia. All rights reserved.This content is protected by copyright. Please respect the author's rights and do not copy or reproduce it without permission.

The podcast features an insightful interview with Frederic from Gleams, a French startup specializing in advanced malware detection and investigation using artificial intelligence. Frederic discusses the company's role in protecting file flows, the differences between malware and viruses, common vectors of attack, challenges of static and dynamic detection, deployment options including air gap environments, and the company's focus on delivering effective threat detection and analysis. Frederic: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-grelot-3243052a/ Frédéric Grelot began his career at CNES in Toulouse, spending three years in the Spacecraft's Embedded Computers department. There, he worked on designing a hardened computer chip for satellites and handled its validation from VHDL to integration in a satellite model and simulated space environment. In 2012, he joined the cyberdefense teams of the French Ministry of Armed Forces, specializing in reverse-engineering of computer systems and programs for seven years. In 2016-2017, Grelot initiated Artificial Intelligence work at DGA, identifying defense sectors where AI could be applied and helped establish a dedicated AI team. From 2017 to 2019, he led a team of 25 reverse-engineering analysts and continued enhancing his knowledge in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. In 2019, Grelot co-founded GLIMPS, a company specializing in code analysis and malware detection using AI, and served as Scientist Lead. He contributed significantly to the company's outreach and communication. In 2023, he moved to Toronto, Canada, to open GLIMPS's first international office, engaging actively with the local tech and cybersecurity communities. Known for his distinctive profile, he also participated in various conferences and appeared on the national Radio Canada network. Grelot is committed to ecological sustainability, incorporating this perspective into his entrepreneurial endeavors. Glimps: GLIMPS is a cybersecurity company established in 2019 by four experts with a background in reverse-engineering. It offers innovative cybersecurity solutions leveraging a proprietary technology capable of automatically reading and understanding computer code. This technology is designed to enhance the detection and automation of binary analysis and threat identification, providing a significant boost to existing defense lines against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. GLIMPS's solutions, which include GLIMPS Malware, are available in both SaaS and On-premise formats, catering to a broad spectrum of French and international companies and governmental bodies. The firm has achieved recognition within the cybersecurity community, evidenced by prices such as the European Cyber Week award, twice in a row. At the core of GLIMPS's offerings is its Deep Engine, a specialized AI engine based on Deep Learning. This engine excels in deep file analysis, enabling quick detection and characterization of advanced cyber threats. By conceptualizing code, GLIMPS's technology can identify all forms of malware, providing a comprehensive and scientifically validated approach to cybersecurity. This platform processes over one million files daily and serves more than a hundred customers, demonstrating its effectiveness and the trust it has garnered within the industry. GLIMPS also emphasizes collaboration within the French ecosystem, aiming to integrate its solutions where beneficial. The company's growth is underscored by its successful fundraising efforts, which include a €6 million round in 2021, and its continuous search for new talent to join its expanding team​.

Happy Valentine's, Galentine's, and/or Palentine's Day! Thanks to this week's Patreon supporter, Ali! We appreciate you! Phoenix Register: we have a name for the Wizarding World land in Epic Universe! It's called The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: The Ministry of Magic. More info here. Find out one of Carolyn's husband's core memories. Owl Post: Jerri writes in about sea adventures and swimming snakes.  Enjoy the tangent about dog beds as well.  Main Discussion: a deep dive into MinaLima's Fantastic Beasts work in The Magic of MinaLima! If you'd like to follow along in your copy: First two images pg 62–63 Ministries of Magic intro to section Pg 88-89 British Ministry of Magic Pg 90-93 MACUSA Pg 100-103 French Ministry of Magic Pg 104-105 German Ministry of Magic Pg 107-107 Newt's home and menagerie Pg 82-83 We talk the various Ministries of Magic, Dumbledore's measurements, and more.  “I think the technical term is floopy-doopy?” Who is McGonagall? Is she real? “That's where you go for Olympus!” Can anyone actually draw a map of the US? If you need some truly killer trivia questions, listen to the numbers Shannen lists at 53:38. “France is like, we're women!” If you'd like to purchase your own copy, you can get the ebook or the physical book! For more MinaLima, there's also a pop-up shop at Universal Orlando. Newtcase: changelings! The moral of changelings is “be nice to children.” Podcast Question: What's your favorite piece of MinaLima art?

In this episode, we speak to Max Hess and Nicholas Michelon about economic warfare.Maximilian Hess is a political risk analyst and consultant, as well as a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Max is the founder of Enmetena Advisory. Max speaks German, Russian, Georgian and Spanish, and has written for the Financial Times, the New Statesman and Foreign Policy, alongside a regular column for Al Jazeera. Max's book, Economic War, is available from Hurst & Co.Nicolas Michelon is a 20-year veteran of emerging market entry strategies, financial markets & geo-economics research. A Partner at Confluence Consultants and the editor of Asiapowerwatch.com, he has previously served as an Indo-Pacific economist at the French Ministry of Finance, financial analyst at KPMG Hong Kong, and a portfolio manager at Schroders Singapore. Nicolas is a lecturer in business Intelligence, geopolitics and geo-economics at ESCP Business School & EM Lyon Business School in France, the International University of Monaco, and the Paris School of Economic Warfare.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EncyclopediaGeopolitica

Jessica Moriah Dean is the founder of Educomms Consulting. This Emmy award winning (2023), internationally recognized education and communications professional started her education at NYU's Tisch School of TV and Film before transferring to Barnard College of Columbia University. Jessica earned an MA from the University of Oxford in Philosophy. Launching her career as an actress, she appeared in commercials (IBM, HSBC Bank, the Lifetime channel, etc.), TV shows (Sex and the City), and films (House of D). She starred for five years as the anchor for the offshoot of Eyewitness News, Teen Kids New. Jessica developed her educational expertise working with educational organizations such as the French Ministry of Education, the University of Oxford, the University of Pennsylvania. She has contributed to research in the fields of both psychology and philosophy. As a nonfiction filmmaker, she has worked with organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania, the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the Shinnecock Museum, and  more. She has also worked in public service and political organizing in the Biden for President 2020 campaign.  Oh, and she reads Ancient Greek and Latin for funsies. EDUCOMMS CONSULTING https://www.educommsconsulting.com LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-moriah-dean INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/jessedeaneducomms ALLIANCE for MIDDLE EAST PEACE https://www.allmep.org #careerpodcast #blackpodcast #entrepreneur #education #consultant --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wiseandwine/message

Joy leads this episode of The ReidOut with Donald Trump's inflammatory comments at a rally over the weekend, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”. Some say these words sound a lot like the Nazi rhetoric written by Adolf Hitler himself, in the book “Mein Kampf”, which, according to Trump's first wife, Trump kept on his bedside table. Joy and her guests discuss this plus the new reporting from ProPublica, about how Justice Clarence Thomas's private complaints about his salary, sparked fear that he would resign, threatening the conservative presence on the Supreme Court. Plus, in the Middle East, Israel is facing growing international pressure over civilian casualties. Joy and her guest discuss how The Pope, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and foreign ministers from the UK and Germany, have all condemned various attacks by Israel's military in Gaza. All this and more in this edition of The ReidOut on MSNBC.

Even though India and France have had a strategic partnership for twenty-five years now, the bilateral relationship between these countries has received substantial impetus recently. The relationship spans common interests in the Indian Ocean Region and the Indo-Pacific, a robust military and defense partnership, cooperation in high-tech areas such as space and nuclear, and, of course, a growing economic and trade relationship. What lessons can both countries offer each other? And what are some of the commonalities and differences in the French and Indian approaches to global governance and global challenges such as climate change in a multipolar world? What are the challenges in taking this relationship to the next level?In this episode of Interpreting India, Emmanuel Lenain joins Anirudh Suri to discuss these questions.Episode ContributorsEmmanuel Lenain is the Ambassador of France to India. He began his diplomatic career in 1997, serving in the French Foreign Ministry's United Nations Department, where he took part in peace negotiations on Kosovo. Since then, he has served in France's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, the Embassy of France in Beijing as the Prime Minister's technical adviser on multilateral affairs, the French Embassy in Washington, DC, as Consul General of France in Shanghai, Director for the Asia-Pacific Division of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Diplomatic Adviser to the Prime Minister.Anirudh Suri is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. His interests lie at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, climate, and strategic affairs. He is currently exploring how India is carving and cementing its role in the global tech ecosystem and the role climate technology can play in addressing the global climate challenge.

In June 2021, France announced a €7.5 billion Health Innovation Plan, as part of a broader financial investment to boost the French industry.  This funding goes beyond digital health, it's aimed at supporting biotech development, startups, medtech, and more. In 2021, The eHealth Acceleration Strategy was launched, a large part of which includes upskilling and training new and existing healthcare experts, and medical and social workers in digital health. In today's discussion you will hear from Louisa Stüwe is the project director of the Ministerial eHealth delegation at the French Ministry of Health. We discussed how the French strategy was designed, who was involved, and what has been realized to date. She also explains the process for reimbursement of digital therapeutics software medical devices and telemonitoring, how France supports the secondary use of medical data, and more.  Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/ Additional resources: French core information platfom for digital health information: https://gnius.esante.gouv.fr/en  TEHDAS state of digital health in 12 countries in Europe report: https://tehdas.eu/results/member-states-readiness-to-benefit-from-the-ehds-regulation-varies/  Health data hub: https://www.health-data-hub.fr/

Professor Thierry Bros of Sciences Po University, Paris. Former official with French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. Represented France on oil markets and advised on emergency issues at International Energy Agency and European Commission. Has heard the same views/decisions delivered this week by federal Environment Minister Guilbeault from EU politicians. Professor Bros points to Europe's resulting massive energy deficiencies and subsidies for consumers as energy costs/prices skyrocket. Guest: Professor Thierry Bros Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast:  Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault releases his draft expectation to achieve Net Zero and with few exceptions force fossil fuels out of producing the electric grid by 2035. Alberta premier Danielle Smith issued a direct challenge to Guilbeault. Guest: Danielle Smith. Premier, Alberta   The Taylor Swift Eras Tour will stop in Toronto in November 2024, the tour's only Canadian performances and massive numbers of fans clamoring for tickets which went on sale Wednesday. The process of obtaining a ticket through Ticketmaster is exhausting involving the obtaining of access codes and the vast majority of fans will be disappointed.  Also, this week Canadian rock guitarist and founder of The Band, Robbie Robertson died at age 80.  Guest: That Eric Alper. 16 time Juno Award winner, 6 time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week who has worked with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time (thatericalper.com).   Are the federal Liberals becoming unelectable? Is a CPC majority government on the horizon?   Guest: Andrew Ens. Snr VP Leger Marketing on what Canadians are saying about that   Op-ed by Frank Stronach in the National Post: We must stop the explosive growth of government bureaucracy before it's too late. (98K new federal employees since 2015) Guest: Frank Stronach, perhaps Canada's most successful entrepreneur and founder of MAGNA International   Professor Thierry Bros of Sciences Po University, Paris. Former official with French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. Represented France on oil markets and advised on emergency issues at International Energy Agency and European Commission. Has heard the same views/decisions delivered this week by federal Environment Minister Guilbeault from EU politicians.           Guest: Professor Bros points to Europe's resulting massive energy deficiencies and subsidies for consumers as energy costs/prices skyrocket. Guest: Professor Thierry Bros --------------------------------------------- Host/Content Producer – Roy Green Technical/Podcast Producer – Tom Craig Podcast Co-Producer – Tom McKay If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Roy Green Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/roygreen/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

International conference in Vancouver this week on present and future need for LNG and Canada's role (potential role) supplying the world. There is a large scale need both internationally and domestically for decades to come. Guest: Professor Thierry Bros, Sciences Po University, Paris. - Former official with French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry. Represented France on oil markets and advised on emergency issues at the International Energy Agency and the European Commission. (attending the Vancouver conference) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Award-winning director Philippe Aractingi joined us on set for this special episode of Movie Night. We talked about his journey into filmmaking, why he considers himself a ‘storyteller', and why he shifts between genres: musical comedies to war films, and most recently into theatre.We also reflect on the notable absence of an ‘Arab Cinema Scene' or ‘Industry', the Orientalist gaze in cinema, and the role of film as a form of self-expression and in the search for identity. Finally, Philippe talks about his latest venture into theatre and stage performance with his debut play ‘Sar Wa2t El Hake' which opens at the Monnot Theatre on the 15th June.Philippe Aractingi is an award-winning Franco-Lebanese film-director and producer. His two most well-known films are ‘Bosta' and ‘Under the Bombs', both of which were the only Lebanese film entries in the 2006 and 2008 Oscar ceremonies, respectively.His other works, including ‘Heritages', ‘Listen', and ‘On The Footsteps of Christ', are also widely-acclaimed. And he has received awards at international festivals including Venice, Dubai, and Sundance. Philippe is also the co-founder of the Lebanese Cinema Foundation (FLC) and vice-chairman of the Beirut Screen Institute Committee. Philippe was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2018.Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna, afikra Edited by: Ramzi RammanTheme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/About Movie Night: Movie Night is an interview series that calls for afikra community members who are interested in movies and films to spend time watching along with the entire community. Movies will be announced on afikra's watching list. This interview series will host filmmakers and actors who are featured in the announced movie. Community members will be asked to watch the film on online streaming platforms or online film festivals before the series and join the conversation with the creators of the film. Movie Night is an opportunity for members to ask questions about the plot, behind the scenes, themes, and information about the movie.Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience ‎on Zoom.‎ Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp   FollowYoutube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook - Twitter Support www.afikra.com/supportAbout afikra:‎afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity. Read more about us on  afikra.com

***In this video, music (ANW) and images of Iran, Wikileaks and French Ministry of Finance (AP) are subject to copyrights.*** NATO nations are the target of up to half a dozen serious cyber attacks each day, and the video demonstrates that one of their first common lines of defense in the Computer Incident Response Capability Technical Centre in Mons, Belgium. Cyber attacks are growing in scale. But the Stuxnet computer worm, which surfaced in Iran in 2010, has changed the way they are perceived. Stuxnet interferes with the way machines operate and can stop them completely. It poses a major problem for critical infrastructure, like power plants, transport networks and hospitals. Since the massive computer attack on Estonia in 2007, which paralyzed ministries, banks and media, NATO has been beefing up its cyber defense policy. In just a few years, the Alliance has moved from protecting its own systems, to helping members and partners deal with attacks. When requested, it can also dispatch experts to combat them. In Romania, Adrian Valciu works as the head of security at Transelectrica, which manages the country's electrical grid. Romania is in a strategic location on the Black Sea-Caspian energy corridor. A cyber attack on its network could impact on European neighbors connected to the national grid, leaving millions without power. Adrian has trained with NATO, and the authorities can call on the Alliance in times of need. In response to developments, and in a world where criminals can strike in networks across several borders at once, NATO has sought common cause with international organizations, like the European Union, and with private industry; notably computer security companies such as Symantec. NATO considers cyber attacks to be as unacceptable as any conventional form of attack using tanks or aircraft. Also available in high definition. Produced by: Watch TV Directors: Bernard Crutzen and Lorne Cook Images: François Ducobu Editing: Thierry Fontaine Production: Alain Forest

Patti Smith's music education and evolution, from 1. Being transfixed by Little Richard's Tutti Frutti walking down the street with her mom → 2. Wanting to become an opera singer after hearing Eleanor Steber's “Un Bel Di” on the radio → 3. Starting to write poetry at the advice of Bobby Neuwirth → 4. Writing songs for Blue Oyster Cult → 5. Embracing the scene at the Chelsea Hotel, hanging with Janis Joplin → 6. Meeting Jimi Hendrix on the steps at Electric Lady Studios → 7. Raising her kids with her husband Fred in Michigan, away from the pressures of the music industry → 8. Receiving important advice from William S. Burroughs → 9. Remembering a class with her eighth grade music teacher that's stayed with her throughout her career Patti Smith is the author of the National Book Award winner, Just Kids, as well as Woolgathering, M Train, Year of the Monkey, and Devotion. Her seminal album Horses has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Smith is also the recipient of the ASCAP Founders Award, Sweden's Polar Prize for significant achievements in music, and the 2020 PEN Literary Service Award. In 2022 she received the French Legion of Honor and the Pegasus Award for Poetry. She resides in New York City. Follow Silverlake Conservatory of Music at @silverlake_conservatory  For more information on Parallel, visit parallel.la Follow Cadence13 at @cadence13 Follow Patti Smith at @thisispattismith Follow Flea at @flea333 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it possible to create ethical AI that truly incorporates ethnic diversity? And is it possible to avoid creating AI that doesn't embed bias and perpetuate stereotypes? And…do we want to? From having worked on the ethics behind lethal autonomous weapons in the past, Emmanuel is here to discuss the ethics behind AI. Meet Emmanuel R. Goffi Emmanuel's Role as an AI Leader at Global AI Ethics Institute Emmanuel R. Goffi is the Co-Director & Co-Founder of the Global AI Ethics Institute. The Global AI Ethics Institute (GAIEI) aims at opening the debate on AI ethics to all philosophical stances, wisdoms and perspectives coming from all cultures. It is a global think tank built as a hub for researchers, thinkers and practitioners working in the field of AI ethics all around the world. Emmanuel's Other Work in AI Ethics Besides his work with GAIEI, Emmanuel is a Research Fellow with the Society and Technology Study Center CEST POLI USP, a Lecturer at the IA Institut, a Professor at Collège La Cité, and an Instructor at the Vectors Institute. He is also a tech ethics commentator with Trench Tech. In addition, Emmanuel has co-founded Collectif des éthiciens du numérique and Digital Ethicists. Emmanuel served in the French Air Force for 27 years. After having worked on military ethics - more precisely on ethics applied to Lethal autonomous weapons - his focus turned to the ethics applied to Artificial intelligence. He was awarded the National Defense Medal by the French Ministry of Defense in 2004, the Voluntary Military Services Medal by the French Air Force in 2010, and the Silver National Defense Medal by Ministère des Armées France in 2020. Ethical AI, Diversity, and Bias In this exclusive analytics podcast episode, Emmanuel shares: His experience serving in the French Air Force for 27 years His current role as the Co-Director & Co-Founder of the Global AI Ethics Institute Whether or not it's possible to create ethical AI with ethnic diversity Incorporating human weaknesses into AI Unconsciously embedding your own bias into AI How to avoid embedding bias into AI Whether it's possible to create harmony and unite all cultures when creating an AI The challenges that arise when trying to create diverse AI ethics boards The most pressing ethical issues facing AI today How the lack of diversity in the field of AI development can lead to biassed algorithms and decision making Including less advanced societies in AI ethics and diversity Avoiding situations similar to how AI image-generators are perpetuating stereotypes due to taking information from the wide Internet His advice for individuals or organisations just starting to think about the ethical implications of their AI systems and promoting diversity in the field If you are looking to incorporate ethical AI and diversity into your organisation, this is the episode you do not want to miss. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/analyticsshow/message

Synopsis Today's date in 1910 marks the birthday in Paris of a French composer you perhaps have never heard of, but Elsa Barraine is well-deserving of your attention. Barraine's father was a cellist at the Paris Opera, and as a teen Elsa attended the Paris Conservatory, studying composition with Paul Dukas. Olivier Messiaen was her classmate and remained a life-long friend. Barraine won several prizes for her compositions, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1929 when she was just 19.She worked at the French National Radio from 1936 to 1940. During World War II, Barraine was heavily involved in the French Resistance, and from 1944 to 1947 was the Recording Director of the French record label Le Chant du Monde. In 1953 she joined the faculty at the Paris Conservatoire, where she taught until 1972, the year the French Ministry of Culture named her Director of Music. She died in 1999. Elsa Barraine's catalog of works includes a variety of vocal and instrumental works, an opera, ballets, and two symphonies, but her music is seldom performed today. We're sampling one of her chamber works, a piece for French horn and piano entitled Crépuscules, or Twilights. Music Played in Today's Program Elsa Barraine (1910-1999): Crépuscules Lin Foulk Baird, fh; Martha Fischer, p. Centaur CRC-3857

In this episode, we hear from Louisa Stuwe & Aymeric Perchant, eHealth projects directors at the French Ministry of Health. For those who follow this podcast and the digital therapeutics industry, you know that all eyes have been on Germany with the DiGA. Well by popular demand, I have the pleasure of hosting Louisa and Aymeric to give YOU, our audience, a bit of history and the current state of digital therapeutics in France. In this episode, we cover: The digital health journey at the Ministry of Health DTx Reinbursement and Evidence Generation Physician education and adoption Lessons learned from Germany and DiGA The role of doctors, nurse & pharmacists in prescription DTx Guest Links and Resources: Connect with Louisa Stüwe on LinkedIn Connect with Aymeric Perchant on LinkedIn HTA Agency: https://www.has-sante.fr/ National Digital Health Agency : https://esante.gouv.fr/ Convergence platform: File document for interop & security certification + GDPR : https://convergence.esante.gouv.fr/ Host Links: Connect with Eugene Borukhovich: Twitter | LinkedIn Connect with Chandana Fitzgerald, MD: Twitter | LinkedIn Connect with YourCoach.health: Website | Twitter Check out Shot of Digital Health with Eugene and Jim Joyce: Website | Podcast App HealthXL: Website | Twitter | Join an Event Season 2 of Digital Therapeutics Podcast would not be possible without the support of leading DTx organizations. Thank you to: > Presenting Partner: Amalgam Rx > Contributing Sponsors: Akili | Big Health | Click Therapeutics | Lindus Health Follow Digital Health Today: Browse Episodes | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram Follow Health Podcast Network: Browse Shows | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Washington for the first state visit of the Biden administration. This visit comes on the heels of many months of strong transatlantic cooperation in response to Russia's war against Ukraine. More recently, however, there have been signs of new strains on the transatlantic relationship, in particular with respect to trade issues. There have also been accusations that the United States is attempting to profit from the energy crisis by selling LNG at high prices to Europe. How might these ongoing tensions affect transatlantic cooperation going forward? Liana Fix, Mathieu Droin, and David Kleimann join Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Jim Townsend to discuss how Paris, Berlin, and Brussels view the status of transatlantic relations. ▪ Liana Fix is a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a historian and political scientist, with expertise in German and European foreign and security policy, European security, transatlantic relations, Russia, and Eastern Europe. ▪ Mathieu Droin is a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he focuses on transatlantic European security and defense. Prior to joining CSIS, Mathieu served as deputy head of the strategic affairs unit at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. ▪ David Kleimann is a visiting fellow at Bruegel, where he focuses on the climate and trade policy nexus as well as legal and diplomatic challenges arising from transatlantic and international climate and trade cooperation. David is an expert on trade issues with 15 years of experience in law, policy, and institutions governing EU and international trade.

Lady Christina Consolé (Chrissy to her friends) is the creator and founder of Parisian Niche, your corner of the world for all things Parisian and French flaired.A native New Yorker, whose main residence is still on New York City's famously picturesque Upper East Side, Chrissy has been fortunate enough to have lived, worked, and studied in Paris and traveled extensively through France, Europe, and beyond.​Having worked for over twenty years in several leading French and Italian jewelry and accessory ateliers, as well as a leading American fashion house, Chrissy has developed an eye for detail, beauty, and luxury; where it can be found in the everyday and made accessible. Because Paris is for everyone.  ​One of her main goals since young adulthood was to be fluent (and likewise, to be considered fluent by native speakers) in the French language.  After several years of intense and immersive linguistic studies, Chrissy is truly proud to hold a French B2 diploma from the French Ministry of Education (level set by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and continues her studies and is on the path to obtain the highest level C1 / C2 diplomas. Chrissy has been an avid and devoted reader since childhood and has parlayed this love into a successful book club, called Parisian Page Turners that is over 50 books deep (and still reading!)  This book club also enjoys the occasional “read aloud,” where Chrissy lends her own voice to the wonderful texts.  The book selections always vary in scope but remain faithful to one beloved setting – Paris and France.    Passionate about all things Parisian and historical, Chrissy has never met a cup (or bowl) of chocolat chaud that she didn't love.  She can't wait for her many Parisian “cocoa crawls” as her first stop in Paris is always to indulge in luxurious, chocolatey goodness while overlooking the city.  And after all, isn't a good chocolat chaud the ultimate gateway into Parisian gastronomic delights?​On the sporty side of French life, Chrissy is a lover of football (soccer) and considers herself a top fan of both PSG and NYCFC.  She can be found at many live matches on both sides of the pond. Forever learning about the city, above all, Chrissy's passion for all things Parisian has her constantly dreaming, planning, creating vision boards focused on Paris and travels, as well as looking forward to her next adventure “home to Paris.” After all, as famously penned by Lucy Maud Montgomery, in the words of her childhood literary heroine Anne Shirley, “looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them.”https://www.parisianniche.com/Support the show

Shahin Vallée is the Head of the Geo-Economics Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a Senior Economist at Soros Fund Management, where he also served as a personal advisor to George Soros. Prior to this, he was the Economic Advisor to Emmanuel Macron at the French Ministry for Economy and Finance, where he focused on European economic affairs.

Support the show and receive bonus episodes by becoming a Patreon producer over at: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com  Archives of terror Archivos del Terror were found on december 22, 1992 by a lawyer and human rights activist, strange how those two titles are in the same sentence, Dr. Martín Almada, and Judge José Agustín Fernández. Found in a police station in the suburbs of Paraguay known as Asunción.   Fernandez was looking for files on a former prisoner. Instead, stumbled across an archive describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay with the help of our friendly neighborhood CIA. Known as Operation Condor.   “Operation Condor was a U.S. backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents.”   Let's go back a ways toward the beginning. One day, a young guy, wanted to fuck up the world and created the CIA. JK… but not really.   So we go back to 1968 where General Robert W. Porter said that "in order to facilitate the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries, we are ... endeavoring to foster inter-service and regional cooperation by assisting in the organization of integrated command and control centers; the establishment of common operating procedures; and the conduct of joint and combined training exercises."   According to former secret CIA documents from 1976, plans were developed among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies in the 1960s and early 1970s to deal with perceived threats in South America from political dissidents, according to American historian J. Patrice McSherry. "In early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia convened in Buenos Aires to prepare synchronized attacks against subversive targets," according to a declassified CIA memo dated June 23, 1976.   Following a series of military-led coups d'états, particularly in the 1970s, the program was established: General Alfredo Stroessner took control of Paraguay in 1954 General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez takes control of Peru after a successful coup in 1975 The Brazilian military overthrew the president João Goulart in 1964 General Hugo Banzer took power in Bolivia in 1971 through a series of coups A military dictatorship seized power in Uruguay on 27 June 1973 Chilean armed forces commanded by General Augusto Pinochet bombed the presidential palace in Chile on 11 September 1973, overthrowing democratically elected president Salvador Allende A military dictatorship headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in Argentina on 24 March 1976   According to American journalist A. J. Langguth, the CIA organized the first meetings between Argentinian and Uruguayan security officials regarding the surveillance (and subsequent disappearance or assassination) of political refugees in these countries, as well as its role as an intermediary in the meetings between Argentinian, Uruguayan, and Brazilian death squads.   According to the National Security Archive's documentary evidence from US, Paraguayan, Argentine, and Chilean files, "Founded by the Pinochet regime in November 1975, Operation Condor was the codename for a formal Southern Cone collaboration that included transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance, and assassination." Several persons were slain as part of this codename mission. "Notable Condor victims include two former Uruguayan legislators and a former Bolivian president, Juan José Torres, murdered in Buenos Aires, a former Chilean Minister of the Interior, Bernardo Leighton, and former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year-old American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C.," according to the report.   Prior to the formation of Operation Condor, there had been cooperation among various security services with the goal of "eliminating Marxist subversion." On September 3, 1973, at the Conference of American Armies in Caracas, Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, the chief of the Brazilian army, urged that various services "expand the interchange of information" in order to "fight against subversion."   Representatives from Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia's police forces met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine Federal Police and co-founder of the Triple A killing squad, in March 1974 to discuss collaboration standards. Their purpose was to eliminate the "subversive" threat posed by Argentina's tens of thousands of political exiles. Bolivian immigrants' bodies were discovered at rubbish dumps in Buenos Aires in August 1974. Based on recently revealed CIA records dated June 1976, McSherry corroborated the kidnapping and torture of Chilean and Uruguayan exiles living in Buenos Aires during this time.   On General Augusto Pinochet's 60th birthday, November 25, 1975, in Santiago de Chile, heads of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Manuel Contreras, commander of the Chilean secret police, to officially establish the Plan Condor. General Rivero, an intelligence officer in the Argentine Armed Forces and a former student of the French, devised the concept of Operation Condor, according to French writer Marie-Monique Robin, author of Escadrons de la death, l'école française (2004, Death Squads, The French School).   Officially, the targets were armed groups (such as the MIR, the Montoneros or the ERP, the Tupamaros, etc.) based on the governments' perceptions of threats, but the governments expanded their attacks to include all types of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by the Valech Commission, which is known as The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report. The Argentine "Dirty War," for example, kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated many trade unionists, relatives of activists, social activists such as the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, nuns, university professors, and others, according to most estimates.   The Chilean DINA and its Argentine counterpart, SIDE, were the operation's front-line troops from 1976 forward. The infamous "death flights," which were postulated in Argentina by Luis Mara Menda and deployed by French forces during the Algerian War (1954–62), were widely used. Government forces flew or helicoptered victims out to sea, where they were dumped to die in premeditated disappearances. According to reports, the OPR-33 facility in Argentina was destroyed as a result of the military bombardment. Members of Plan Condor met in Santiago, Chile, in May 1976, to discuss "long-range collaboration... [that] went well beyond intelligence exchange" and to assign code names to the participating countries. The CIA acquired information in July that Plan Condor participants planned to strike "against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing overseas."   Several corpses washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in late 1977 as a result of extraordinary storms, providing evidence of some of the government's victims. Hundreds of newborns and children were removed from women in prison who had been kidnapped and later disappeared; the children were then given to families and associates of the dictatorship in clandestine adoptions. According to the CIA, Operation Condor countries reacted positively to the concept of cooperating and built their own communications network as well as joint training programs in areas like psychological warfare.    The military governments in South America were coming together to join forces for security concerns, according to a memo prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry W. Shlaudeman to Kissinger on August 3, 1976. They were anxious about the growth of Marxism and the consequences it would have on their dominance. This new force worked in secret in the countries of other members. Their mission: to track out and murder "Revolutionary Coordinating Committee" terrorists in their own nations and throughout Europe.Shlaudeman voiced fear that the members of Operation Condor's "siege mindset" could lead to a wider divide between military and civilian institutions in the region. He was also concerned that this would further isolate these countries from developed Western countries. He argued that some of these anxieties were justified, but that by reacting too harshly, these countries risked inciting a violent counter-reaction comparable to the PLO's in Israel.   Chile and Argentina were both active in using communications medium for the purpose of transmitting propaganda, according to papers from the United States dated April 17, 1977. The propaganda's goal was to accomplish two things. The first goal was to defuse/counter international media criticism of the governments involved, and the second goal was to instill national pride in the local population. "Chile after Allende," a propaganda piece developed by Chile, was sent to the states functioning under Condor. The paper, however, solely mentions Uruguay and Argentina as the only two countries that have signed the deal. The government of Paraguay was solely identified as using the local press, "Patria," as its primary source of propaganda. Due to the reorganisation of both Argentina's and Paraguay's intelligence organizations, a meeting scheduled for March 1977 to discuss "psychological warfare measures against terrorists and leftist extremists" was canceled.   One "component of the campaign including Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina envisages unlawful operations beyond Latin America against expatriate terrorists, primarily in Europe," according to a 2016 declassified CIA study titled "Counterterrorism in the Southern Cone." "All military-controlled regimes in the Southern Cone consider themselves targets of international Marxism," the memo stated. Condor's fundamental characteristic was highlighted in the document, which came to fruition in early 1974 when "security officials from all of the member countries, except Brazil, agreed to establish liaison channels and to facilitate the movement of security officers on government business from one country to the other," as part of a long-tested "regional approach" to pacifying "subversion." Condor's "initial aims" included the "exchange of information on the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta (RCJ), an organization...of terrorist groups from Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay" with "representatives" in Europe "believed to have been involved in the assassinations in Paris of the Bolivian ambassador to France last May and a Uruguayan military attache in 1974." Condor's primary purpose, according to the CIA assessment, was to eliminate "top-level terrorist leaders" as well as non-terrorist targets such as "Uruguayan opposition figure Wilson Ferreira, if he should travel to Europe, and some leaders of Amnesty International." Condor was also suspected by the CIA of being "involved in nonviolent actions, including as psychological warfare and a propaganda campaign" that used the media's power to "publicize terrorist crimes and atrocities." Condor also urged citizens in its member countries to "report anything out of the norm in their surroundings" in an appeal to "national pride and national conscience." Another meeting took place in 1980, and Montensero was apprehended. The RSO allegedly promised not to kill them if they agreed to collaborate and provide information on upcoming meetings in Rio.   So, after all of this mumbo jumbo, let's recap.    50,000 people were killed, 30,000 disappeared, and 400,000 were imprisoned, according to the "terror archives."  A letter signed by Manuel Contreras, the chief of Chile's National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) at the time, inviting Paraguayan intelligence personnel to Santiago for a clandestine "First Working Meeting on National Intelligence" on November 25, 1975, was also uncovered. The presence of intelligence chiefs from Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay at the meetings was also confirmed by this letter, indicating that those countries were also involved in the formulation of Operation Condor. Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela are among the countries named in the archives as having collaborated to varying degrees by giving intelligence information that had been sought by the security agencies of the Southern Cone countries. Parts of the archives, which are presently housed in Asunción's Palace of Justice, have been used to prosecute former military officers in some of these countries. Those records were used extensively in Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón's prosecution against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. Baltasar Garzón interviewed Almada twice after he was a Condor victim.   "[The records] represent a mound of shame and lies that Stroessner [Paraguay's ruler until 1989] used to blackmail the Paraguayan people for 40 years," Almada said. He wants the "terror archives" to be listed as an international cultural site by UNESCO, as this would make it much easier to get funds to maintain and protect the records.   In May 2000, a UNESCO mission visited Asunción in response to a request from the Paraguayan government for assistance in registering these files on the Memory of the World Register, which is part of a program aimed at preserving and promoting humanity's documentary heritage by ensuring that records are preserved and accessible.   Now that we are all caught up, let's talk about a few noteworthy events. First we go to Argentina.   Argentina was ruled by military juntas from 1976 until 1983 under Operation Condor, which was a civic-military dictatorship. In countless incidents of desaparecidos, the Argentine SIDE collaborated with the Chilean DINA. In Buenos Aires, they assassinated Chilean General Carlos Prats, former Uruguayan MPs Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, and former Bolivian President Juan José Torres. With the support of Italian Gladio operator Stefano Delle Chiaie and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the SIDE aided Bolivian commander Luis Garca Meza Tejada's Cocaine Coup (see also Operation Charly). Since the release of secret records, it has been revealed that at ESMA, there were operational units made up of Italians who were utilized to suppress organizations of Italian Montoneros. Gaetano Saya, the Officer of the Italian stay behind next - Operation Gladio, led this outfit known as "Shadow Group." The Madres de la Square de Mayo, a group of mothers whose children had vanished, began protesting every Thursday in front of the Casa Rosada on the plaza in April 1977. They wanted to know where their children were and what happened to them. The abduction of two French nuns and other founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in December 1977 drew worldwide notice. Their corpses were later recognized among the deceased washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977, victims of death planes.   In 1983, when Argentina's democracy was restored, the government established the National Commission for Forced Disappearances (CONADEP), which was chaired by writer Ernesto Sabato. It gathered testimony from hundreds of witnesses about regime victims and known atrocities, as well as documenting hundreds of secret jails and detention sites and identifying torture and execution squad leaders. The Juicio a las Juntas (Juntas Trial) two years later was mostly successful in proving the crimes of the top commanders of the numerous juntas that had composed the self-styled National Reorganization Process. Most of the top officers on trial, including Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Ral Agosti, Rubén Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri, Jorge Anaya, and Basilio Lami Dozo, were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.   Following these trials, Ral Alfonsn's administration implemented two amnesty laws, the 1986 Ley de Punto Final (law of closure) and the 1987 Ley de Obediencia Debida (law of due obedience), which ended prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. In an attempt at healing and reconciliation, President Carlos Menem pardoned the junta's leaders who were serving prison sentences in 1989–1990.   Due to attacks on American citizens in Argentina and revelations about CIA funding of the Argentine military in the late 1990s, and despite an explicit 1990 Congressional prohibition, US President Bill Clinton ordered the declassification of thousands of State Department documents relating to US-Argentine relations dating back to 1954. These documents exposed American involvement in the Dirty War and Operation Condor.   Following years of protests by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights organizations, the Argentine Congress overturned the amnesty legislation in 2003, with the full support of President Nestor Kirchner and the ruling majority in both chambers. In June 2005, the Argentine Supreme Court deemed them unlawful after a separate assessment. The government was able to resume prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War as a result of the court's decision.    Enrique Arancibia Clavel, a DINA civil agent who was charged with crimes against humanity in Argentina in 2004, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the death of General Prats. Stefano Delle Chiaie, a suspected Italian terrorist, is also said to have been involved in the murder. In Rome in December 1995, he and fellow extreme Vincenzo Vinciguerra testified before federal judge Mara Servini de Cubra that DINA operatives Clavel and Michael Townley were intimately involved in the assassination. Judge Servini de Cubra demanded that Mariana Callejas (Michael Townley's wife) and Cristoph Willikie, a retired Chilean army colonel, be extradited in 2003 because they were also accused of being complicit in the murder. Nibaldo Segura, a Chilean appeals court judge, declined extradition in July 2005, claiming that they had already been prosecuted in Chile.   Twenty-five former high-ranking military commanders from Argentina and Uruguay were charged on March 5, 2013, in Buenos Aires with conspiring to "kidnap, disappear, torture, and kill" 171 political opponents throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Former Argentine "presidents" Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, both from the El Proceso era, are among the defendants. Prosecutors are relying on declassified US records collected by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental entity established at George Washington University in Washington, DC, in the 1990s and later.   On May 27, 2016, fifteen former military personnel were found guilty. Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Fourteen of the remaining 16 defendants were sentenced to eight to twenty-five years in prison. Two of the defendants were found not guilty.  A lawyer for the victims' relatives, Luz Palmás Zalda, claims that "This decision is significant since it is the first time Operation Condor's existence has been proven in court. It's also the first time former Condor members have been imprisoned for their roles in the criminal organization."    Anyone wanna go to Brazil?   In the year 2000, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ordered the publication of some military documents related to Operation Condor. There are documents proving that in that year, attorney general Giancarlo Capaldo, an Italian magistrate, investigated the "disappearances" of Italian citizens in Latin America, which were most likely caused by the actions of Argentine, Paraguayan, Chilean, and Brazilian military personnel who tortured and murdered Italian citizens during Latin American military dictatorships. There was a list containing the names of eleven Brazilians accused of murder, kidnapping, and torture, as well as several high-ranking military personnel from other countries involved in the operation.   "(...) I can neither affirm nor deny because Argentine, Brazilian, Paraguayan, and Chilean soldiers [military men] will be subject to criminal trial until December," the Magistrate said on October 26, 2000.   According to the Italian government's official statement, it was unclear whether the government would prosecute the accused military officers or not. As of November 2021, no one in Brazil had been convicted of human rights violations for actions committed during the 21-year military dictatorship because the Amnesty Law had protected both government officials and leftist guerrillas.   In November 1978, the Condor Operation expanded its covert persecution from Uruguay to Brazil, in an incident dubbed "o Sequestro dos Uruguaios," or "the Kidnapping of the Uruguayans." Senior officials of the Uruguayan army crossed the border into Porto Alegre, the capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, with the permission of the Brazilian military administration. They kidnapped Universindo Rodriguez and Lilian Celiberti, a political activist couple from Uruguay, as well as her two children, Camilo and Francesca, who are five and three years old.   The unlawful operation failed because an anonymous phone call notified two Brazilian journalists, Veja magazine reporter Luiz Cláudio Cunha and photographer Joo Baptista Scalco, that the Uruguayan couple had been "disappeared." The two journalists traveled to the specified address, a Porto Alegre apartment, to double-check the facts. The armed men who had arrested Celiberti mistook the journalists for other political opposition members when they came, and they were arrested as well. Universindo Rodriguez and the children had already been brought to Uruguay under the table.   The journalists' presence had exposed the secret operation when their identities were revealed. It was put on hold. As news of the political kidnapping of Uruguayan nationals in Brazil made headlines in the Brazilian press, it is thought that the operation's disclosure avoided the death of the couple and their two young children. It became a worldwide embarrassment. Both Brazil's and Uruguay's military governments were humiliated. Officials arranged for the Celibertis' children to be transported to their maternal grandparents in Montevideo a few days later. After being imprisoned and tortured in Brazil, Rodriguez and Celiberti were transferred to Uruguayan military cells and held there for the next five years. The couple were released after Uruguay's democracy was restored in 1984. They confirmed every element of their kidnapping that had previously been reported.   In 1980, two DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order, an official police unit in charge of political repression during the military administration) inspectors were found guilty of arresting the journalists in Lilian's apartment in Porto Alegre by Brazilian courts. Joo Augusto da Rosa and Orandir Portassi Lucas were their names. They had been identified as participants in the kidnapping by the media and Uruguayans. This occurrence confirmed the Brazilian government's active involvement in the Condor Operation. Governor Pedro Simon arranged for the state of Rio Grande do Sul to legally recognize the Uruguayans' kidnapping and compensate them financially in 1991. A year later, President Luis Alberto Lacalle's democratic government in Uruguay was encouraged to do the same.   The Uruguayan couple identified Pedro Seelig, the head of the DOPS at the time of the kidnapping, as the guy in charge of the operation in Porto Alegre. Universindo and Llian remained in prison in Uruguay and were unable to testify when Seelig was on trial in Brazil. Due to a lack of proof, the Brazilian cop was acquitted. Later testimony from Lilian and Universindo revealed that four officers from Uruguay's secret Counter-Information Division – two majors and two captains – took part in the operation with the permission of Brazilian authorities. In the DOPS headquarters in Porto Alegre, Captain Glauco Yanonne was personally responsible for torturing Universindo Rodriquez. Universindo and Lilian were able to identify the Uruguayan military men who had arrested and tortured them, but none of them were prosecuted in Montevideo. Uruguayan individuals who committed acts of political repression and human rights violations under the dictatorship were granted pardon under the Law of Immunity, which was approved in 1986. Cunha and Scalco were given the 1979 Esso Prize, considered the most significant prize in Brazilian journalism, for their investigative journalism on the case.  Hugo Cores, a former political prisoner from Uruguay, was the one who had warned Cunha. He told the Brazilian press in 1993: All the Uruguayans kidnapped abroad, around 180 people, are missing to this day. The only ones who managed to survive are Lilian, her children, and Universindo.   Joo "Jango" Goulart was the first Brazilian president to die in exile after being deposed. On December 6, 1976, he died in his sleep in Mercedes, Argentina, of a suspected heart attack. The true cause of his death was never determined because an autopsy was never performed. On April 26, 2000, Leonel Brizola, Jango's brother-in-law and former governor of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, claimed that ex-presidents Joo Goulart and Juscelino Kubitschek (who died in a vehicle accident) were assassinated as part of Operation Condor. He demanded that an investigation into their deaths be launched. On January 27, 2008, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published a report featuring a declaration from Mario Neira Barreiro, a former member of Uruguay's dictatorship's intelligence service. Barreiro confirmed Brizola's claims that Goulart had been poisoned. Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, the head of the Departamento de Ordem Poltica e Social (Department of Political and Social Order), gave the order to assassinate Goulart, according to Barreiro, and president Ernesto Geisel gave the permission to execute him. A special panel of the Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly concluded in July 2008 that "the evidence that Jango was wilfully slain, with knowledge of the Geisel regime, is strong."   The magazine CartaCapital published previously unreleased National Information Service records generated by an undercover agent who was present at Jango's Uruguayan homes in March 2009. This new information backs up the idea that the former president was poisoned. The Goulart family has yet to figure out who the "B Agent," as he's referred to in the documents, might be. The agent was a close friend of Jango's, and he detailed a disagreement between the former president and his son during the former president's 56th birthday party, which was sparked by a brawl between two employees. As a result of the story, the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Commission agreed to look into Jango's death.   Later, Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart, Jango's widow, was interviewed by CartaCapital, who revealed records from the Uruguayan government confirming her accusations that her family had been tracked. Jango's travel, business, and political activities were all being watched by the Uruguayan government. These data date from 1965, a year after Brazil's coup, and they indicate that he may have been targeted. The President Joo Goulart Institute and the Movement for Justice and Human Rights have requested a document from the Uruguayan Interior Ministry stating that "serious and credible Brazilian sources'' discussed an "alleged plan against the former Brazilian president."   If you thought it wasn't enough, let's talk about Chile. No not the warm stew lie concoction you make to scorn your buddy's stomach, but the country.   Additional information about Condor was released when Augusto Pinochet was detained in London in 1998 in response to Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón's request for his extradition to Spain. According to one of the lawyers requesting his extradition, Carlos Altamirano, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, was the target of an assassination attempt. He said that after Franco's funeral in Madrid in 1975, Pinochet contacted Italian neofascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and arranged for Altamirano's murder. The strategy didn't work out. Since the bodies of victims kidnapped and presumably murdered could not be found, Chilean judge Juan Guzmán Tapia established a precedent concerning the crime of "permanent kidnapping": he determined that the kidnapping was thought to be ongoing, rather than having occurred so long ago that the perpetrators were protected by an amnesty decreed in 1978 or the Chilean statute of limitations. The Chilean government admitted in November 2015 that Pablo Neruda may have been murdered by members of Pinochet's administration.   Assassinations   On September 30, 1974, a car bomb killed General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofa Cuthbert, in Buenos Aires, where they were living in exile. The Chilean DINA has been charged with the crime. In January 2005, Chilean Judge Alejandro Sols ended Pinochet's case when the Chilean Supreme Court denied his request to strip Pinochet's immunity from prosecution (as chief of state). In Chile, the assassination of DINA commanders Manuel Contreras, ex-chief of operations and retired general Ral Itturiaga Neuman, his brother Roger Itturiaga, and ex-brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and José Zara was accused. In Argentina, DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel was found guilty of the murder.   After moving in exile in Italy, Bernardo Leighton and his wife were severely injured in a botched assassination attempt on October 6, 1975. Bernardo Leighton was critically injured in the gun attack, and his wife, Anita Fresno, was permanently crippled. Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Michael Townley and Virgilio Paz Romero in Madrid in 1975 to plan the murder of Bernardo Leighton with the help of Franco's secret police, according to declassified documents in the National Security Archive and Italian attorney general Giovanni Salvi, who led the prosecution of former DINA head Manuel Contreras. Glyn T. Davies, the secretary of the National Security Council (NSC), said in 1999 that declassified records indicated Pinochet's government's responsibility for the failed assassination attempt on Bernardo Leighton, Orlando Letelier, and General Carlos Prats on October 6, 1975.   In a December 2004 OpEd piece in the Los Angeles Times, Francisco Letelier, Orlando Letelier's son, claimed that his father's killing was part of Operation Condor, which he described as "an intelligence-sharing network employed by six South American tyrants of the time to eliminate dissidents."   Letelier's death, according to Michael Townley, was caused by Pinochet. Townley admitted to hiring five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to set up a booby-trap in Letelier's automobile. Following consultations with the terrorist organization CORU's leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Daz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll were chosen to carry out the murder, according to Jean-Guy Allard. The Miami Herald reports that Luis Posada Carriles was there at the conference that decided on Letelier's death as well as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.   During a public protest against Pinochet in July 1986, photographer Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri was burned alive and Carmen Gloria Quintana received significant burns. The case of the two became known as Caso Quemados ("The Burned Case"), and it drew attention in the United States because Rojas had fled to the United States following the 1973 coup. [96] According to a document from the US State Department, the Chilean army set fire to both Rojas and Quintana on purpose. Rojas and Quintana, on the other hand, were accused by Pinochet of being terrorists who lit themselves on fire with their own Molotov cocktails. Pinochet's reaction to the attack and killing of Rojas, according to National Security Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh, was "contributed to Reagan's decision to withdraw support for the regime and press for a return to civilian rule."   Operación Silencio   Operación Silencio (Operation Silence) was a Chilean operation that removed witnesses from the country in order to obstruct investigations by Chilean judges. It began about a year before the "terror archives" in Paraguay were discovered. Arturo Sanhueza Ross, the man accused of assassinating MIR leader Jecar Neghme in 1989, departed the country in April 1991.    According to the Rettig Report, Chilean intelligence officers were responsible for Jecar Neghme's killing. Carlos Herrera Jiménez, the man who assassinated trade unionist Tucapel Jiménez, flew out in September 1991. Eugenio Berros, a chemist who had cooperated with DINA agent Michael Townley, was led by Operation Condor agents from Chile to Uruguay in October 1991 in order to avoid testifying in the Letelier case. He used passports from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, prompting suspicions that Operation Condor was still active. In 1995, Berros was discovered dead in El Pinar, Uruguay, near Montevideo. His corpse had been mangled to the point where it was hard to identify him by sight.   Michael Townley, who is now under witness protection in the United States, recognized linkages between Chile, DINA, and the incarceration and torture camp Colonia Dignidad in January 2005. The facility was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, who was arrested and convicted of child rape in Buenos Aires in March 2005. Interpol was notified about Colonia Dignidad and the Army's Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory by Townley. This lab would have taken the place of the previous DINA lab on Via Naranja de lo Curro, where Townley collaborated with chemical assassin Eugenio Berros. According to the court reviewing the case, the toxin that allegedly murdered Christian-Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva could have been created at this new lab in Colonia Dignidad. Dossiê Jango, a Brazilian-Uruguayan-Argentine collaboration film released in 2013, accused the same lab in the alleged poisoning of Brazil's deposed president, Joo Goulart.   Congressman Koch   The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents was released in February 2004 by reporter John Dinges. He reported that in mid-1976, Uruguayan military officers threatened to assassinate United States Congressman Edward Koch (later Mayor of New York City). The CIA station commander in Montevideo had received information about it in late July 1976. He advised the Agency to take no action after finding that the men were inebriated at the time. Colonel José Fons, who was present at the November 1975 covert meeting in Santiago, Chile, and Major José Nino Gavazzo, who led a team of intelligence agents working in Argentina in 1976 and was responsible for the deaths of over 100 Uruguayans, were among the Uruguayan officers.   Koch told Dinges in the early twenty-first century that CIA Director George H. W. Bush informed him in October 1976 that "his sponsorship of legislation to cut off US military assistance to Uruguay on human rights concerns had prompted secret police officers to 'put a contract out for you'." Koch wrote to the Justice Department in mid-October 1976, requesting FBI protection, but he received none. It had been more than two months after the meeting and the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington. Colonel Fons and Major Gavazzo were sent to important diplomatic postings in Washington, D.C. in late 1976. The State Department ordered the Uruguayan government to rescind their appointments, citing the possibility of "unpleasant publicity" for "Fons and Gavazzo."  Only in 2001 did Koch learn of the links between the threats and the position appointments.   Paraguay The US supported Alfredo Stroessner's anti-communist military dictatorship and played a "vital supporting role" in Stroessner's Paraguay's domestic affairs. As part of Operation Condor, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thierry of the United States Army was deployed to assist local workers in the construction of "La Technica," a detention and interrogation center. La Technica was also renowned as a torture facility. Pastor Coronel, Stroessner's secret police, washed their victims in human vomit and excrement tubs and shocked them in the rectum with electric cattle prods. They decapitated Miguel Angel Soler [es], the Communist party secretary, with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone. Stroessner asked that tapes of inmates wailing in agony be presented to their relatives.   Harry Shlaudeman defined Paraguay's militarized state as a "nineteenth-century military administration that looks nice on the cartoon page" in a report to Kissinger. Shlaudeman's assessments were paternalistic, but he was correct in observing that Paraguay's "backwardness" was causing it to follow in the footsteps of its neighbors. Many decolonized countries regarded national security concerns in terms of neighboring countries and long-standing ethnic or regional feuds, but the United States viewed conflict from a global and ideological viewpoint. During the Chaco War, Shlaudeman mentions Paraguay's amazing fortitude in the face of greater military force from its neighbors. The government of Paraguay believes that the country's victory over its neighbors over several decades justifies the country's lack of progress. The paper goes on to say that Paraguay's political traditions were far from democratic. Because of this reality, as well as a fear of leftist protest in neighboring countries, the government has prioritized the containment of political opposition over the growth of its economic and political institutions. They were driven to defend their sovereignty due to an ideological fear of their neighbors. As a result, many officials were inspired to act in the interest of security by the fight against radical, communist movements both within and beyond the country. The book Opération Condor, written by French writer Pablo Daniel Magee and prefaced by Costa Gavras, was published in 2020. The story chronicles the life of Martin Almada, a Paraguayan who was a victim of the Condor Operation.   The Peruvian Case   After being kidnapped in 1978, Peruvian legislator Javier Diez Canseco announced that he and twelve other compatriots (Justiniano Apaza Ordóñez, Hugo Blanco, Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, Valentín Pacho, Ricardo Letts, César Lévano, Ricardo Napurí, José Luis Alvarado Bravo, Alfonso Baella Tuesta, Guillermo Faura Gaig, José Arce Larco and Humberto Damonte). All opponents of Francisco Morales Bermudez's dictatorship were exiled and handed over to the Argentine armed forces in Jujuy in 1978 after being kidnapped in Peru. He also claimed that declassified CIA documents and WikiLeaks cable information account for the Morales Bermudez government's ties to Operation Condor.   Uruguay   Juan Mara Bordaberry declared himself dictator and banned the rest of the political parties, as was customary in the Southern Cone dictatorships of the 1970s. In the alleged defense against subversion, a large number of people were murdered, tortured, unjustly detained and imprisoned, kidnapped, and forced into disappearance during the de facto administration, which lasted from 1973 until 1985. Prior to the coup d'état in 1973, the CIA served as a consultant to the country's law enforcement institutions. Dan Mitrione, perhaps the most well-known example of such cooperation, had taught civilian police in counterinsurgency at the School of the Americas in Panama, afterwards renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.   Maybe now we can talk about the U.S involvement? The U.S never gets involved in anything so this might be new to some of you.   According to US paperwork, the US supplied critical organizational, financial, and technological help to the operation far into the 1980s. The long-term hazards of a right-wing bloc, as well as its early policy recommendations, were discussed in a US Department of State briefing for Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, dated 3 August 1976, prepared by Harry Shlaudeman and titled "Third World War and South America." The briefing was an overview of security forces in the Southern Cone. The operation was described as a joint effort by six Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to win the "Third World War" by eliminating "subversion" through transnational secret intelligence operations, kidnapping, torture, disappearance, and assassination. The research begins by examining the sense of unity shared by the six countries of the Southern Cone. Kissinger is warned by Shlaudeman that the "Third World War" will trap those six countries in an ambiguous position in the long run, because they are trapped on one side by "international Marxism and its terrorist exponents," and on the other by "the hostility of uncomprehending industrial democracies misled by Marxist propaganda." According to the report, US policy toward Operation Condor should “emphasize the differences between the five countries at all times, depoliticize human rights, oppose rhetorical exaggerations of the ‘Third-World-War' type, and bring potential bloc members back into our cognitive universe through systematic exchanges.” According to CIA papers from 1976, strategies to deal with political dissidents in South America were planned among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies from 1960 to the early 1970s. "In early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia convened in Buenos Aires to arrange synchronized attacks against subversive targets," according to a declassified CIA memo dated June 23, 1976. Officials in the United States were aware of the situation.   Furthermore, the Defense Intelligence Agency revealed in September 1976 that US intelligence services were well aware of Operation Condor's architecture and intentions. They discovered that "Operation Condor" was the covert name for gathering intelligence on "leftists," Communists, Peronists, or Marxists in the Southern Cone Area. The intelligence services were aware that the operation was being coordinated by the intelligence agencies of numerous South American nations (including Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia), with Chile serving as the hub. Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, according to the DIA, were already aggressively pursuing operations against communist targets, primarily in Argentina.   The report's third point reveals the US comprehension of Operation Condor's most malevolent actions. "The development of special teams from member countries to execute out operations, including killings against terrorists or sympathizers of terrorist groups," according to the paper. Although these special teams were intelligence agency operatives rather than military troops, they did work in structures similar to those used by US special forces teams, according to the study. Operation Condor's preparations to undertake probable operations in France and Portugal were revealed in Kissinger's State Department briefing - an issue that would later prove to be immensely contentious in Condor's history.   Condor's core was formed by the US government's sponsorship and collaboration with DINA (Directorate of National Intelligence) and other intelligence agencies. According to CIA papers, the agency maintained intimate ties with officers of Chile's secret police, DINA, and its leader Manuel Contreras.  Even after his role in the Letelier-Moffit killing was discovered, Contreras was kept as a paid CIA contact until 1977. Official requests to trace suspects to and from the US Embassy, the CIA, and the FBI may be found in the Paraguayan Archives. The military states received suspect lists and other intelligence material from the CIA. In 1975, the FBI conducted a nationwide hunt in the United States for persons sought by DINA.   In a February 1976 telegram from the Buenos Aires embassy to the State Department, intelligence said that the US was aware of the impending Argentinian coup. According to the ambassador, the Chief of the Foreign Ministry's North American desk revealed that the "Military Planning Group" had asked him to prepare a report and recommendations on how the "future military government can avoid or minimize the sort of problems the Chilean and Uruguayan governments are having with the US over human rights issues." The Chief also indicated that "they" (whether he is talking to the CIA or Argentina's future military dictatorship, or both) will confront opposition if they start assassinating and killing people. Assuming this is so, the envoy notes that the military coup will "intend to carry forward an all-out war on the terrorists and that some executions would therefore probably be necessary." Despite already being engaged in the region's politics, this indicates that the US was aware of the planning of human rights breaches before they occurred and did not intervene to prevent them. "It is encouraging to note that the Argentine military are aware of the problem and are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine Relations." This is confirmation.   Professor Ruth Blakeley says that Kissinger "explicitly expressed his support for the repression of political opponents" in regards to the Argentine junta's continuous human rights violations.  When Henry Kissinger met with Argentina's Foreign Minister on October 5, 1976, he said, ” Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better ... The human rights problem is a growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help.”   The démarche was never provided in the end. According to Kornbluh and Dinges, the decision not to deliver Kissinger's directive was based on Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman's letter to his deputy in Washington, D.C., which stated: "you can simply instruct the Ambassadors to take no further action, noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme."   President Bill Clinton ordered the State Department to release hundreds of declassified papers in June 1999, indicating for the first time that the CIA, State, and Defense Departments were all aware of Condor. According to a 1 October 1976 DOD intelligence assessment, Latin American military commanders gloat about it to their American colleagues. Condor's "joint counterinsurgency operations" sought to "eliminate Marxist terrorist activities," according to the same study; Argentina developed a special Condor force "structured much like a US Special Forces Team," it said. According to a summary of documents disclosed in 2004, The declassified record shows that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was briefed on Condor and its "murder operations" on August 5, 1976, in a 14-page report from [Harry] Shlaudeman [Assistant Secretary of State]. "Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys," Shlaudeman cautioned. "We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good." Shlaudeman and his two deputies, William Luers and Hewson Ryan, recommended action. Over the course of three weeks, they drafted a cautiously worded demarche, approved by Kissinger, in which he instructed the U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone countries to meet with the respective heads of state about Condor. He instructed them to express "our deep concern" about "rumors" of "plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad."   Kornbluh and Dinges come to the conclusion that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart the Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Hewson Ryan, Shlaudeman's deputy, subsequently admitted in an oral history interview that the State Department's treatment of the issue was "remiss." "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. ... Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know", In relation to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing, he remarked, "But we didn't."   Condor was defined as a "counter-terrorism organization" in a CIA document, which also mentioned that the Condor countries had a specific telecommunications system known as "CONDORTEL."  The New York Times released a communication from US Ambassador to Paraguay Robert White to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on March 6, 2001. The paper was declassified and disseminated by the Clinton administration in November 2000 as part of the Chile Declassification Project. General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, the chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, told White that the South American intelligence chiefs engaged in Condor "kept in touch with one another through a United States communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone that covered all of Latin America."   According to reports, Davalos stated that the station was "employed to coordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". The US was concerned that the Condor link would be made public at a time when the killing of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American aide Ronni Moffitt in the United States was being probed."it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest." White wrote to Vance. "Another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor." McSherry rebutted the cables. Furthermore, an Argentine military source told a U.S. Embassy contact that the CIA was aware of Condor and had played a vital role in establishing computerized linkages among the six Condor governments' intelligence and operations sections.   After all this it doesn't stop here. We even see France having a connection. The original document confirming that a 1959 agreement between Paris and Buenos Aires set up a "permanent French military mission" of officers to Argentina who had participated in the Algerian War was discovered in the archives of the Quai d'Orsay, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was kept at the offices of the Argentine Army's chief of staff. It lasted until 1981, when François Mitterrand was elected President of France. She revealed how the administration of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing secretly coordinated with Videla's junta in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet's tyranny in Chile.   Even Britain and West Germany looked into using the tactics in their own countries. Going so far as to send their open personnel to Buenos Aires to discuss how to establish a similar network.  MOVIES   https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=military-coup&sort=num_votes,desc&mode=detail&page=1&title_type=movie&ref_=kw_ref_typ https://islandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/terror%3Aroot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archives_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20774985 https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB239d/index.htm

After more than 30 hours of hearings, the Senate is on track to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson. Posobiec provides a recap on this week's hearings. According to the French Ministry of the Army, pressure on urban centers in eastern and southern Ukraine are mounting, specifically in Mariupol. All of this as President Biden reminds the nation that global food shortages are ‘gonna be real'; and foreign fighters traveling to Ukraine share their location with the world and the enemy via social media. Here's your Daily dose of Human Events with @JackPosobiec Go to www.goodranchers.com/poso to get $30 off your order and free express shipping with code POSOTo get 15% off your first order of Field of Greens go to http://www.brickhouseposo.com and use code POSOTo save on MyPillow go to MyPillow.com/POSO and use code POSO 

Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has undermined some of the fundamental assumptions underlying the security of Europe through much of the post-World War II era. As a result, several European nations have begun to consider dramatic changes in how they approach national security, both individually and collectively.To better understand how the war in Ukraine is reshaping the European security order, Scott R. Anderson sat down with two of his colleagues from the Brookings Institution: Célia Belin, a visiting fellow at Brookings and a former official in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Constanze Stelzenmüller, the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe.They discussed how the Ukraine conflict is reshaping Europe's approach to security affairs, what this means for institutions like the European Union and NATO, and how these changes are likely to impact the fundamental debate over what it means to be a part of Europe. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.