Berend Schotanus 🇪🇺
49.7K posts
@schotanus
Mobility Transition Strategist Rail systems | Digital platforms | Spatial-mobility integration 30+ yrs system innovation
"On paper, few actors appear more central to Middle Eastern security or more consequential to the global economy. Yet when the region’s most consequential decisions are made...the Gulf does not set the terms." agsi.org/analysis/why-t…
Lagarde: "In the euro area, the historical evidence suggests that the risk of broad pass-through from energy prices is the exception rather than the rule." Clueless. De prijs van energie bepaalt de productiekost van bijna alles. Olie is de echte valuta.
Utrecht lanceert 'radicale' bouwplannen in zuiden van de stad rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/4023768…
Video dari LTA singapore , video untuk ajak pindah angkutan umum ini yang harusnya lebih banyak dibuat di Jabodetabek.
If nobody goes to jail for this, we've entered the 'every man for himself' stage of empire decline.
Trump dag 428: Trump zegt dat ‘niemand’ er op had gerekend dat Iran landen in Golfregio zou aanvallen, wil dat Republikeinen SAVE Act aannemen ‘voor Jezus’, zegt aanvallen 5 dagen te stoppen omdat er wordt onderhandeld met Iran; Iran ontkent contact: reportersonline.nl/trump-dag-428-…
How did China become the good guys all of a sudden? It didn’t. But it became the predictable ones. And right now, that passes for the same thing. In January alone, Xi Jinping received Macron, Starmer, Carney, Ireland’s Micheal Martin, Finland’s Petteri Orpo, and South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung. Canada’s visit was the first by a Canadian prime minister in eight years.  Ireland’s was the first by an Irish Taoiseach in fourteen.  Germany’s Friedrich Merz followed. All of them came with business delegations and left with trade deals.  Washington stopped showing up. In January 2026, Trump signed a memorandum withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations.  The list reads like a demolition schedule for the postwar order: the WHO, UNESCO, the UN Population Fund, the UN Democracy Fund, the UNFCCC  – the foundational 1992 climate treaty that every nation on earth has ratified. Every nation, now, except one. The withdrawal from the UNFCCC itself a Senate-ratified treaty is expected to face legal challenges, as no administration has ever attempted it before.  The Global Counterterrorism Forum is gone. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance is gone. The IPCC – the world’s leading body for climate science – is gone. Analysts describe European leaders’ pivot to Beijing as “realism.” Mistrust of China remains, particularly over its support for Russia in Ukraine. But European states cannot ignore China when the US is “going rogue” from their perspective.  One Chinese analyst put it more bluntly: countries clearly know who is serving as a stabilizer in this volatile world. “China is the most predictable one among major powers.”  That used to be America’s job. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1
If nobody goes to jail for this, we've entered the 'every man for himself' stage of empire decline.
Germany is a rich country with poor people. It has lower median wealth per adult than Slovenia. Germans rent instead of buying property, don’t own stocks, spend a fortune on insurance, and then seriously blame “inequality“ You need to take some risks if you want to get wealthy.
BREAKING: Iran has rejected peace talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and indicated a preference for negotiating with Vice President JD Vance, per CNN’s Iranian source. On Day 25 of a war that Iran publicly says does not involve any negotiations, Tehran is now selecting which American it will not admit to speaking with. This is the sixth communication channel in 48 hours. The FM denies all contact. Ghalibaf calls it fake news. Araghchi says Iran never asked for a ceasefire. The IRGC declares complete victory. An unnamed source tells CNN that outreach has occurred and Iran will listen to “sustainable” proposals. And now a separate signal specifies which envoy Tehran prefers. Six channels. Six messages. Six audiences. One regime simultaneously denying talks, conducting talks, and choosing its preferred negotiating partner in the talks it says do not exist. The Vance preference is not random. Read the signal. Witkoff is a real estate executive turned special envoy. His portfolio is transactional: swap concessions for access, close quickly, move on. Kushner is the architect of the Abraham Accords and the figure most associated with Israeli normalisation in the Trump orbit. His presence at any negotiation signals Israeli interests at the table. Iran’s rejection of both is a rejection of what they represent: a quick transactional deal weighted toward Israeli security objectives. Vance is different. His foreign policy record in the Senate was built on “America First” skepticism of endless Middle East wars. He opposed open-ended military commitments. He focused on China as the primary strategic threat. He defended Trump’s current Iran operations as targeted and limited, not a prelude to occupation. And he backed the 5-day pause explicitly. Iran reads Vance as the figure in the Trump administration most likely to accept a deal that ends the war without demanding permanent Iranian capitulation on enrichment. The preference is not personal. It is doctrinal. Iran wants to negotiate with the man whose worldview most closely aligns with “declare victory and leave.” Axios reports that Vance already briefed Netanyahu on Monday about the components of a possible agreement. An Israeli official confirmed that mediating countries were trying to convene a meeting in Islamabad with Ghalibaf representing Tehran and Witkoff, Kushner, and possibly Vance representing Washington. Iran is now signalling that “possibly” should become “necessarily.” If Vance is not at the table, Tehran will not sit at it. Or rather, Tehran will continue to deny the table exists while simultaneously specifying who should sit at it. The preference is also a wedge. By signalling one American is acceptable and two are not, Iran forces the administration to either elevate Vance, potentially sidelining Kushner and reducing Israeli influence, or reject the preference and lose the channel. The signal is simultaneously a negotiating demand and a test of US internal cohesion. Iran is not just choosing an envoy. It is probing which seam opens. Trump told reporters Tuesday that the US is “in negotiations right now” and that Iran has “agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.” Iran’s state media denied any such agreement exists. The 15-point plan demands zero enrichment. Iran’s NPT Article IV position says enrichment is “inalienable.” And now the country that denies all contact has specified which vice president it prefers to deny contact with. The pause expires Saturday. The envoy preference adds a new variable to an equation that already had six contradictory signals, five communication channels, three clocks, and zero confirmed agreements. The molecules do not have envoy preferences. They have chemistry. And the chemistry has not changed. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…
In practice this is trying to achieve 80,000 village-level solar+battery systems, which is unprecedented globally...
In 1000 CE, China was richer than Europe. By 1800, Europe had industrialized and China had not. Standard explanations — geography, culture, institutions — are too vague. Mokyr & Tabellini find the answer in one organizational difference: the clan vs. the corporation.
BREAKING: The Strait of Hormuz is no longer closed. It is no longer open. It is something the world has never seen before: a permissioned corridor run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, priced at $2 million per vessel, payable in yuan. Three ships transited in the last 24 hours. Three. Out of a pre-war average of 60 per day. Total throughput: 310,000 deadweight tonnes. Three percent of normal. Four hundred vessels are waiting outside the strait right now. One hundred and fifty tankers. One hundred and twenty bulk carriers. One hundred and thirty others. Waiting for permission from the IRGC Navy to enter a 5-nautical-mile channel between Larak and Qeshm islands inside Iranian territorial waters. This is how the gate works. A vessel operator contacts approved intermediaries with IRGC connections, submitting full documentation: IMO number, ownership chain, cargo manifest, destination, crew list. The intermediaries forward the package to the IRGC Navy’s Hormozgan Provincial Command for sanctions screening, cargo alignment checks that prioritise oil over all other commodities, and geopolitical vetting. The toll is approximately $2 million per tanker. For a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels, that is $1 per barrel. Preferred currency: yuan. If the vessel passes, the IRGC issues a clearance code and route instructions. Upon approach, VHF radio hail, AIS verification, patrol boat escort. One ship at a time. Through the narrowest channel of the most important waterway on Earth. Iranian crude is still flowing. Approximately 1.1 to 1.5 million barrels per day, mostly to China, at near pre-war levels. Iran’s own oil transits the strait it controls. The blockade applies to everyone else. Iran is simultaneously the gatekeeper and the primary beneficiary. The toll funds the IRGC. The IRGC maintains the gate. The gate generates the toll. The circle is self-sustaining. Now look at what is NOT transiting. Fertiliser. Gulf nations supply 49 percent of the world’s exported urea. Ammonia requires the natural gas that Qatar declared Force Majeure on and that Iranian strikes disrupted at South Pars. Effectively zero fertiliser vessels have received approval through the permissioned corridor. The IRGC is prioritising oil because oil generates revenue. Fertiliser does not. The molecules that feed four billion people are trapped behind a gate that only opens for molecules that fund the gatekeeper. The yuan preference is the structural shift that outlasts the war. Every tanker that pays in yuan instead of dollars establishes a precedent. Every precedent weakens the petrodollar architecture that has governed energy trade since 1974. The IRGC is not just blocking a strait. It is building an alternative payment rail under live fire. The $2 million toll in yuan is not a fee. It is a proof of concept for a post-dollar energy settlement system, stress-tested in the most extreme conditions imaginable: a three-front war with the world’s largest military. The world’s central banks are trapped by the same strait: the Fed cannot cut, the ECB is hiking, the BOJ is tightening. Six countries are rationing fuel. Japan’s 10-year yield hit a 27-year high. Slovenia has QR codes at the pump. South Korea is barring government vehicles one day per week. And behind all of it, 400 ships wait outside a 5-nautical-mile channel for a clearance code from the IRGC Navy, payable in a currency that is not the dollar. Twenty percent of the world’s oil supply. Controlled by a VHF radio call and a yuan transfer. The strait did not close. It changed ownership. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…
Morgen in #BetrouwbareBronnen. Aan tafel, niet op het menu. Jettens wervelwind om Nederland actief, relevant en agenderend te maken in de EU, NAVO en mondiaal. Bij Merz, Tusk, Macron, Stubb én met het koningshuis bij 'the Donald'. Hoe eurofiel werd Heinen ineens? En wat is JEF?
Vandaag met Kroonprins Mohammad bin Salman al-Saoed van Saoedi-Arabië gesproken over de laatste ontwikkelingen met betrekking tot het conflict in en rond Iran, en de recente escalatie. Daarbij heb ik mijn solidariteit betuigd met Saoedi-Arabië. Iran moet stoppen met aanvallen op civiele infrastructuur van de Golflanden, waaronder olie- en gas installaties. En het is van groot belang dat Iran de blokkade van de Straat van Hormuz zo snel mogelijk opheft. Tot slot spraken we kort over de goede en historische banden tussen onze landen en hebben we afgesproken de komende tijd in contact te blijven.
MAP: Desalination plants are the lifeline of the Gulf. From Saudi Arabia’s massive Ras Al Khair (~1M m³/day) to the UAE’s Taweelah RO, this map shows the critical infrastructure securing water for the region’s cities and industries.
Japan's "pointing and calling" safety method dates back over a century. nippon.com/en/japan-topic…
"I tell people about this war, if you like this war, enjoy this first part, because this is the best part. Because everything after this will be harder" "There are three great seductions that happen to American administrations and to the military. The first is the idea of covert action. A new president comes in, and he’s told by the intelligence community, “We can create this great effect and it will be covert. No one will ever know who did it, and it’ll just be a good outcome.” And in my experience, it never stays covert and it rarely works. But it’s seductive because it seems like an easy approach to a knotty problem. The second seduction, which I lived as a part of, is the surgical Special Operations raid. That is probably epitomized by the Maduro raid. I would argue that we demonstrated extraordinary competence that night, but not much changed. I don’t think that we actually demonstrated the ability to change the facts on the ground to any extent. Which gets to the third great seduction, and that’s air power. We all love air power. In World War II, we went into the war with the Douhet theory, that air power, the bomber, will always get through, and therefore air power will be dominant. It was certainly very, very contributory, but it was never dominant." - Gen Stanley McChrystal in an interview with David French, NYTimes nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opi…
Afshin Ellian: verwijdering ayatollah-regime is de kortste weg richting goedkopere benzine en gas Het is niet zo ingewikkeld. Israël verkeert in een existentieel gevaar. Dus ze hebben het volste recht om zichzelf te verdedigen. Amerika wil niet een islamitisch Noord-Korea dat met zijn ballistische raketten met kernkoppen een dreiging vormt. De derde partij is het Iraanse volk. Zij willen hun land terugveroveren van de ayatollahs. Op 8 en 9 januari vermoordde het regime duizenden ongewapende burgers met oorlogswapens. Daarom kwamen ze tot de conclusie dat ze dit regime met lege handen niet kunnen bestrijden. Het volk hoopt dat met de aanval van Israël en Amerika het regime voldoende wordt verzwakt en dat ze het misdadige regime in samenwerking met Amerika en Israël kunnen omverwerpen. Natuurlijk vraagt u zich af wat ik als Nederlander kan doen aan deze toestand. Al weken zeg ik wat de overheid kan doen: de Nederlandse overheid moet zich aansluiten bij de drie partijen: het Iraanse volk, Israël en Amerika, om het conflict zo snel mogelijk af te ronden ten gunste van deze partijen. telegraaf.nl/opinie/afshin-…
