Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gives the inaugural speech during the opening event of the “España en Libertad” (Spain in Freedom) commemorations, held at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid on January 8, 2025. (Photo: Guillermo Gutierrez Carrascal/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Forgetting the mistakes of the past is the first step towards repeating them again.”
Right-wing billionaire Elon Musk’s decision to wade into the political battles of several European countries did not go unnoticed by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who used a Wednesday event marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco as an opportunity to warn against Musk’s recent commentary.
Without naming Musk, Sánchez warned that the billionaire Tesla CEO’s leadership of an “international reactionary” movement is a threat “that should challenge all of us who believe in democracy.”
The Spanish leader spoke days after Musk—an ally and megadonor to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump who he’s selected to co-lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency—commented on an article that stated foreign nationals in Catalonia are disproportionately convicted for sexual assault, writing, “Wow” in response.
“Foreign nationals are neither better nor worse than Spanish citizens in terms of criminality,” Sánchez said in response to Musk’s commentary, following his remarks at the event Wednesday by rebuking the man he referred to as “the richest man on the planet.”
He pointed to Musk’s recent perceived interference in Germany’s upcoming snap elections, which are scheduled for February. Musk has written an op-ed in support of Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigration right-wing party that the German domestic intelligence agency has designated a “suspected extremist” group.
“You don’t have to be of a particular ideology, left, center, or right, to look with sadness, with great sadness and also with terror, at the dark years of Franco’s regime and fear that this regression will be repeated.”
One candidate aligned with AfD said last year that Nazi paramilitaries under Adolf Hitler’s regime were “not all criminals.”
Musk, said the Spanish prime minister on Wednesday, “openly attacks our institutions, stirs up hatred, and openly calls for the support of the heirs of Nazism in Germany’s upcoming elections.”
“You don’t have to be of a particular ideology, left, center, or right, to look with sadness, with great sadness and also with terror, at the dark years of Franco’s regime and fear that this regression will be repeated,” he said at the commemoration at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid. “Forgetting the mistakes of the past is the first step towards repeating them again.”
Musk’s recent commentary on Spain played on similar narratives to those he’s recently pushed in the United Kingdom, attacking Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other Labour Party leaders for allegedly not being aggressive enough in prosecuting child sexual exploitation cases involving suspects who were originally from Pakistan.
Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have all spoken out against Musk’s recent foray into European politics and accused him of spreading disinformation, with Scholz telling one media outlet, “Don’t feed the troll.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Wednesday called on the European Commission to protect its member states against political interference by Musk.
“Either the European Commission applies with the greatest firmness the laws that we have given ourselves to protect our public space, or it does not do so and then it will have to agree to give back the capacity to do so to the E.U. member states,” Barrot told France Inter radio. “We have to wake up.”
Members of European Parliament on Wednesday called on the European Commission to investigate whether the social media platform X, which Musk owns, can legally promote Musk’s posts on the app under the E.U.’s Digital Services Act. Last year, the tech news site Platformer reported the X algorithm has been reconfigured to amplify Musk’s comments.
The pressure from MEPs and recent comments from European leaders came as Musk prepared to host a livestream conversation with AfD leader Alice Weidel on X Thursday.
“I don’t understand why people believe that free speech is not affected by the concentration of opinion-making power in the hands of the few,” MEP Damian Boeselager of the pan-European Volt party, a candidate for the Bundestag in the German election, told The Guardian. “For me, that has rather illiberal, autocratic tendencies, rather than liberal tendencies, when one voice is so much more powerful than all the others.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel on December 10, 2024 [Chaim Goldberg/Flash90/Pool/Anadolu Agency]
Despite overseeing what is widely considered to be a genocide in Gaza and facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes, as well as ongoing corruption charges, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strengthened his political position, according to a new poll which shows that his Likud party would increase its parliamentary representation in an election held today.
A Channel 13 News poll published yesterday reveals that Netanyahu’s coalition would win 57 seats in the 120-member Knesset, up from 55 in October, with Likud emerging as the largest party at 26 seats. The results suggest that far from weakening Netanyahu’s position, the devastating military onslaught in Gaza has consolidated his support base.
The polling data, reported by Haaretz, appears to challenge the prevalent Western narrative that Netanyahu is the primary obstacle to peace. Instead, it indicates broad Israeli public support for the military offensive in Gaza, which has killed at least 45,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 106,000 others.
The survey shows Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition gaining strength while the opposition would slip to 58 seats, down from 60 in October. Key findings include:
The poll, conducted by the Maagar Mochot research institute in collaboration with Sample Project Panel and Stat-Net, surveyed 676 Israelis with a margin of error of 3.8 per cent. While Netanyahu’s coalition would still fall short of a majority, the strengthening of his position amid international condemnation of the genocide in Gaza suggests deep-rooted support within Israeli society for the current military campaign.
The results indicate that rather than facing political consequences for the unprecedented civilian casualties in Gaza and Israel becoming an international pariah under Likud, Netanyahu has instead seen his position solidify. This raises questions about the broader societal attitudes within Israel towards the ongoing assault on Gaza and the underlying motivations for what is often described as a war of annihilation against the Palestinians.
Eldar Saetre, CEO of Equinor. Credit: Jeff Gilbert / Alamy
Campaigners likened the fossil fuel company’s patronage of climate events to letting an “arsonist sponsor a fire safety conference”.
Major media companies have sparked a wave of criticism after allowing a Norwegian oil and gas company behind the UK’s largest new North Sea project to sponsor events on climate change.
Equinor was an official sponsor of two conferences on climate and energy this week, one run by the New Statesman magazine, and one run by Politico. Both saw MPs pull out over the sponsorship, while the first was interrupted by a climate activist.
The Norwegian state-owned company has a majority stake in the Rosebank North Sea oil field, which has been dubbed a “carbon bomb” by environmental law charity ClientEarth.
Equinor claims it supplies 27 percent of the UK’s energy from oil and gas, and is currently investing $6 billion (£4.8 billion) a year in fossil fuel exploration and drilling.
“Allowing fossil fuel companies like Equinor to sponsor and speak at climate conferences is as absurd as allowing an arsonist to sponsor and participate in fire safety conferences,” said Carys Boughton of the Fossil Free Parliament campaign. “At this critical time for climate and energy policy-making, we can’t afford this absurdity.”
Equinor’s sponsorship of these events is the latest example of fossil fuel companies using media partnerships to greenwash their polluting activities.
An investigation by DeSmog and Drilled in December detailed how oil and gas companies are using media deals – including partnerships with Politico, the Economist, the Financial Times, Reuters, and the Washington Post – to present a climate-friendly image.
DeSmog also revealed this week, based on documents released by a powerful U.S. congressional committee, that fossil fuel companies believe these media partnerships help to protect their “social licence to operate”.
Michelle Amazeen, a mass communications researcher at Boston University, said that oil and gas sponsorship is “a strategic move by fossil fuel companies to compromise the integrity of events intended to foster dialogue and action around climate issues”.
She added that, “While the sponsorship gives the impression of caring about the environment, it’s a veneer that’s like an oil slick obscuring the actual conduct of the fossil fuel industry.”
This week, a cross-party group of 50 MPs, including three Conservatives, wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urging him to end the licensing of new oil and gas fields, appoint a climate envoy, and back the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international coalition working to facilitate a global phase-out of oil and gas production.
Alice Baxter, Equinor’s UK spokesperson, said: “At Equinor we believe in openness and the importance of engaging in the complex conversations around the energy transition. We respect everyone’s right to protest and encourage robust debate.”
New Statesman Event
Equinor was one of the sponsors of the New Statesman’s Energy and Climate Change Conference on 14 May at the Leonardo Royal Hotel in south London.
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas pulled out of the event last week due to Equinor’s sponsorship.
Was due to speak at @NewStatesman conference on Energy & Climate Change. Then it turns out it's sponsored by @Equinor_UK – the company backing giant Rosebank oil field. That's me out. #StopRosebank
At the event, attended by DeSmog, the second panel discussion featured Equinor’s UK country manager Alex Grant. The session was entitled “How can the UK lead the world in the green transition?”
When it was Grant’s turn to speak, a Fossil Free London activist in the audience stood up and gave a speech criticising Equinor and its sponsorship of the event.
BREAKING: Climate protester interrupts Equinor-sponsored New Statesman event.
The activist said climate scientists “are warning us that we are headed towards a catastrophic 2.5C of global warming. Yet staggeringly, Equinor, that’s sponsoring this event, is opening the largest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea.”
Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee and was on the panel, interjected: “Why don’t you let us talk about it, because I’m actually here to be pretty critical of the government, I’d quite like to get my points across.”
The protester continued her speech, and was removed by security. Her comments received a round of applause from the audience.
Grant replied by saying that Equinor takes a “pragmatic approach” to the energy transition, as opposed to one that “costs more than it needs to”. He also defended the Rosebank project, saying it would reduce carbon emissions over the long term.
Rosebank could produce around 300 million barrels of oil over its lifetime, emitting 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Questions at the New Statesman event were submitted online, rather than asked in person by the audience.
During the event’s final session with Chris Stark, the former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on its climate policies, DeSmog submitted a question about Equinor and Rosebank’s impact on the climate. The question was not posed to the panel.
The latest issue of the New Statesman magazine, which features an interview with climate scientist and author Michael Mann, includes advertorials from biomass company Drax, which is the UK’s largest single source of CO2 emissions, and Calor Gas, one of the UK’s largest suppliers of liquefied petroleum gas.
The New Statesman hosted a number of events at the 2023 Labour Party conference sponsored by fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups, including Cadent, National Gas, and Offshore Energies UK.
The New Statesman did not respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.
Politico Event
On 16 May, Politico held its own Energy and Climate Summit, also sponsored by Equinor.
Labour MP Alex Sobel, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Net Zero, last week pulled out of the event due to Equinor’s sponsorship.
I have decided to withdraw from the Politico Energy and Climate Summit next week, due to the involvement of Equinor. It was unclear that they were sponsors and I would not have accepted the invitation had their sponsorship been known.
— Alex Sobel MP for Leeds Central and Headingley (@alexsobel) May 8, 2024
At the event, attended by DeSmog, a panel on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) featured David Cairns, a former British ambassador to Sweden and now Equinor’s vice president of political and public affairs.
When questioned by the Politico chair, Cairns confirmed that the company had no plans to set targets for phasing out oil and gas.
He also said it was “debatable” whether the oil and gas industry was making large profits. Equinor reported £28 billion in profits in 2023. Cairns added that it was “really misplaced” to think that the oil and gas industry is an “easy business in which it’s easy to make money”.
A Politico spokesperson said: “This multi-sponsored Energy and Climate UK Summit is an extension of Politico’s ongoing and robust coverage of climate policy in the United Kingdom.
“There is a clear division between Politico’s newsroom and our commercial operations. With critical milestones and a general election on the horizon, we continue to cover climate each day through our dedicated reporting.”
Politico’s influential London Playbook newsletter has this week been sponsored by the oil and gas giant BP.
Michelle Amazeen said that fossil fuel sponsorship of media companies “has delegitimised their journalistic content, opened their journalists up for attack, and has even led to the resignation of journalists who are trying to write about climate issues”.
Equinor’s AGM
Equinor also faced further public criticism this week, when on Tuesday the company was confronted by a climate activist at its annual general meeting (AGM).
Lauren MacDonald of the environmental group Uplift delivered a four minute speech about the company’s impact on the planet, and promised that campaigners would not stop opposing Rosebank or the company’s other fossil fuel projects.
I just confronted the CEO of @equinor and it’s majority shareholder, the Norwegian government, at their AGM.
The people in this room are responsible for the UK’s biggest undeveloped oil field – Rosebank.
— Lauren MacDonald🌻 #StopRosebank (@laurensunfl0wer) May 14, 2024
At the meeting, shareholders rejected a resolution calling on the company to align its strategy and spending with climate goals.
“We invest in the energy the world needs now. That is oil and gas,” Equinor’s chief executive Anders Opedal said.
Tessa Khan, executive director at Uplift, told DeSmog: “Try as it might, Equinor can no longer ignore the scale of opposition to its climate-wrecking business model – it’s not just campaigners who are calling out its harmful mission, it’s also politicians pulling out of Equinor-sponsored events and shareholders demanding it ditch its plans of endless oil and gas expansion.
“Even if Equinor wants to stay silent, these demands for accountability will only get louder. Governments in the UK and Norway – who can’t afford to ignore this chorus of voices – must reject Equinor’s delay tactics and insist that their activities don’t further endanger our climate. As a first step, this means rejecting new oil and gas fields, and pulling the plug on disastrous projects like Rosebank.”
All-Energy and Dcarbonise
Equinor was not the only fossil fuel company to sponsor climate events this week.
On Wednesday, climate protesters disrupted the All-Energy and Dcarbonise event in Glasgow, which describes itself as “The meeting place for the renewable and low carbon energy community”, yet featured paid exhibitions from oil and gas majors BP and Shell.
Protesters from Stop Polluting Politics, and Fuel Poverty Action interrupted a speech by Scotland’s Net Zero and Energy Secretary Màiri McAllan, and a pre-recorded video of UK Energy and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho. Both appeared alongside Louise Kingham, a senior vice president at BP.
“As the lethal reality of climate breakdown becomes unmissable, the PR strategies of big fossil fuel companies like Equinor and Shell reveal their growing isolation, and an increasingly desperate attempt to buy friends,” said Andrew Simms, a director of the New Weather Institute and a co-founder of the Badvertising campaign.
“They are the unwelcome guests at the party with everyone waiting for them to leave, but who keep buying rounds for anyone willing to drink with them in order to stay.”
Rishi Sunak on stopping Rosebank says that any chancellor can stop his huge 91% subsidy to build Rosebank, that Keir Starmer is as bad as him for sucking up to Murdoch and other plutocrats and that we (the plebs) need to get organised to elect MPs that will stop Rosebank.Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
“LIFE-and-limb cover” will be provided across the ambulance service in England and Wales today to ensure patients are not put at risk during strikes, a union leader told MPs today.
GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison said that unions had been working “round the clock” to ensure there were enough strike exemptions to keep critical services running.
…
“Life-and-limb cover will be provided,” Ms Harrison told MPs. “The last thing that our members want to do is put patients in harm’s way.
“We will do everything within our power to ensure that communities are safe during this action.
“The government has to play their part, they have to come to the table and talk to us.”
She told MPs that ambulance workers have been forced to take strike action after raising concerns for years about ambulance delays and unsafe conditions for patients.
The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has criticised the west for arming Ukraine, arguing that its military support will prolong the war.
Countries including the UK and the US have sent Kyiv billions of pounds of weapons to help it fight off Vladimir Putin’s troops.
“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution. It is only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” Corbyn said, echoing the line taken by Moscow on western military aid to Ukraine.
Although the North Islington MP said he “disagrees” with the Russian invasion, he accused world leaders of using “the language of more war and more bellicose war” instead of pursuing peace.
“This war is disastrous for the people of Ukraine, for the people of Russia and for the safety and security of the whole world, and therefore there has to be more, much more effort, put into peace,” he said.
…
‘This is a war of propaganda’ John Pilger on Ukraine and Assange Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo
20 min long unfortunately …
10 August 2022. This post disappears from the blog repeatedly, I don’t know why.
11 August 2022. [Technical] I’m very pleased with my current host while the last one was good when I joined but bought out and then turned useless. It’s cheap, fast and has excellent tech support. I should have flushed the NGINX cache after changing the theme to get this post displaying properly. Not sure about this theme despite it being very popular e.g. quoted text not reactive, [12/8/22 now working, think that my secret secretary should be thanked for that. I don’t know who my secret secretary is – it’s a secret ;)] could be simpler to use (how can I change the background colour in the header? why is it a different colour anyway? I want this sort of stuff to just work straight out of the box).
