France 🇫🇷 has the fourth largest gold reserves of 2,436 tons, without a single gold mine in France.

Mali 🇲🇱 Which was occupied by France does not have any gold reserves in its banks, although it has more than 860 gold mines and produces 50 tons per year!

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 6 hours, 16 minutes ago
https://x.com/acyn/status/1824244644714369470?s=61&t=ncpdEcJLIN1zPASIYpgYDA

Trump doing his best to lose the military vote 😬
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Incredible

comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 2 minutes ago
France 🇫🇷 has the fourth largest gold reserves of 2,436 tons, without a single gold mine in France.

Mali 🇲🇱 Which was occupied by France does not have any gold reserves in its banks, although it has more than 860 gold mines and produces 50 tons per year!
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Colonialism is the greatest crime in history.

There’s no way to quantify what has been stolen from the African people, but by rights it should be the wealthiest continent on the planet.

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 6 hours, 27 minutes ago
https://x.com/acyn/status/1824244644714369470?s=61&t=ncpdEcJLIN1zPASIYpgYDA

Trump doing his best to lose the military vote 😬
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I think any military member who voted for him 4 years ago will still vote for him regardless.

He already called POWs losers and insulted the likes of John McCain's service record.

It always amazes me how little France gets criticised for their empire. Especially when you consider what land they still own outside of mainland France.

comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago
It always amazes me how little France gets criticised for their empire. Especially when you consider what land they still own outside of mainland France.
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Italy and Germany, too.

Belgium possibly the worst for what they did to Congo

comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 20 minutes ago
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago
It always amazes me how little France gets criticised for their empire. Especially when you consider what land they still own outside of mainland France.
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Italy and Germany, too.
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Yeah but they had facism, so you can kind of understand why that takes precedent.

Obviously the American empire is a consequence of the British, so it’s understandable that would be front and centre, but France’s was facking huge and existed for just as long.

Portugal tend to get a free pass too when they had colonies all over the place.

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 27 minutes ago
Belgium possibly the worst for what they did to Congo
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*Still doing

comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 17 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 20 minutes ago
comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago
It always amazes me how little France gets criticised for their empire. Especially when you consider what land they still own outside of mainland France.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Italy and Germany, too.
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Yeah but they had facism, so you can kind of understand why that takes precedent.

Obviously the American empire is a consequence of the British, so it’s understandable that would be front and centre, but France’s was facking huge and existed for just as long.
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The UK has a larger empire, English widely spoken, a more "woke" population, if I can put it like that, and other similar factors lead to more criticism of Britain.

France was actually much worse and still is. They interfere in elections and sponsor militias and coups as stability will limit the pillaging. Dictators like Kagame would rather kind of convert their countries from Francophone to Anglophone because the French are sheet.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0816/1465280-galway-barracks-incident/

Not great this

comment by The Welsh Xavi (U15412)
posted 1 hour ago
Portugal tend to get a free pass too when they had colonies all over the place.
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Outside Portugal, probably fair.

Inside Portugal, there’s a very healthy debate, being conducted in the right tone IMO, about the nation’s history.

The two term president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, of the centre right PSD (the largest right of centre party since the end of the dictatorship, by a country mile) but popular across the Portuguese electorate, has said publicly that the country needs to address its historical crimes and that reparations must be made to the former colonies and their peoples.

The response has been overwhelmingly (if not necessarily enthusiastically) supportive. I’m very hopeful that Portugal is going to be the first European country to begin to correct the record and start the process of trying to make amends.

I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.

comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 34 minutes ago
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0816/1465280-galway-barracks-incident/

Not great this
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t believe that to be true because literally every single Irish person is in Sydney right now

comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 8 minutes ago
I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah this is true. I’m sure smarter people than me could find a practical solution, but I cannot really see one that would get the political support needed either.

Forgiveness of debt would be a good start

comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 1 minute ago
I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
They aren’t “all going broke” though. A bit hyperbolic that Mamba.

You’re right on the second point; but there are loads of different ways in which reparations might be paid beyond hard cash. Repatriation of assets (commercial, industrial, financial, art), targeted investment commitments, purchasing commitments, profit sharing, tax waivers, etc. etc.

There has to be a balance between what is politically and economically feasible and what is due (which even with the best wills in the world could never be met).

I have a number of Brazilian mates (because there are an awful lot of Brazilians here ). A couple of them have said to me that they don’t really care about reparations nearly as much about the histories still being taught and told. They want proper, formal apologies, from the apparatus of state, and they want a recognition, across the Portuguese population, of the crimes perpetrated and the horrors of and damage done by the Empire. They want kids taught about the crimes, because they want the truth known and they don’t want those crimes repeated.

That has to be the starting point. The histories must be rectified.

comment by Darren The String Fletcher (U10026)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 8 minutes ago
I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah this is true. I’m sure smarter people than me could find a practical solution, but I cannot really see one that would get the political support needed either.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Slowly, slowly, catchy (Caucasian) monkey.

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 15 minutes ago
comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 34 minutes ago
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0816/1465280-galway-barracks-incident/

Not great this
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t believe that to be true because literally every single Irish person is in Sydney right now
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m not

But that’s just very unlikely to happens whilst nation states are competing for resources.

comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 2 minutes ago
Forgiveness of debt would be a good start
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Also this; which is both very obvious and would make ALL the difference to a lot of sub-Saharan countries and little difference to the exchequers of many European nations.

The fact that African countries, given all that that continent’s people have been subjected to, are spending a PENNY on servicing sovereign debt to other nations is a disgrace to humanity.

comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 1 minute ago
I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
They aren’t “all going broke” though. A bit hyperbolic that Mamba.

You’re right on the second point; but there are loads of different ways in which reparations might be paid beyond hard cash. Repatriation of assets (commercial, industrial, financial, art), targeted investment commitments, purchasing commitments, profit sharing, tax waivers, etc. etc.

There has to be a balance between what is politically and economically feasible and what is due (which even with the best wills in the world could never be met).

I have a number of Brazilian mates (because there are an awful lot of Brazilians here). A couple of them have said to me that they don’t really care about reparations nearly as much about the histories still being taught and told. They want proper, formal apologies, from the apparatus of state, and they want a recognition, across the Portuguese population, of the crimes perpetrated and the horrors of and damage done by the Empire. They want kids taught about the crimes, because they want the truth known and they don’t want those crimes repeated.

That has to be the starting point. The histories must be rectified.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a great comment and that's what I'd like to see too. Perhaps it's a bit hyperbolic but they're all drowning in debt at the moment, no?

comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by rosso says the time has come to unlock the unlimited Pote-ntial of the Fernçalvenoo triumvirate (U17054)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by Arne Sabah Nur (U1282)
posted 1 minute ago
I don't see how former colonial powers would be able to pay reparations to their former colonies. They are all going broke too now, and furthermore, proper and actual reparations would be worth their combined entire national budgets over a period of decades and decades IMO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
They aren’t “all going broke” though. A bit hyperbolic that Mamba.

You’re right on the second point; but there are loads of different ways in which reparations might be paid beyond hard cash. Repatriation of assets (commercial, industrial, financial, art), targeted investment commitments, purchasing commitments, profit sharing, tax waivers, etc. etc.

There has to be a balance between what is politically and economically feasible and what is due (which even with the best wills in the world could never be met).

I have a number of Brazilian mates (because there are an awful lot of Brazilians here). A couple of them have said to me that they don’t really care about reparations nearly as much about the histories still being taught and told. They want proper, formal apologies, from the apparatus of state, and they want a recognition, across the Portuguese population, of the crimes perpetrated and the horrors of and damage done by the Empire. They want kids taught about the crimes, because they want the truth known and they don’t want those crimes repeated.

That has to be the starting point. The histories must be rectified.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a great comment and that's what I'd like to see too. Perhaps it's a bit hyperbolic but they're all drowning in debt at the moment, no?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That’s what politicians like to tell us.

Put it this way: UK national debt is now just over 100% of GDP. I don’t know what you earn, but imagine that all of your debt parcelled up was roughly equal to your gross annual income. Would you be panicking about going bankrupt?

As you’re a sensible, very well-educated guy () I would guess not, because even the *mean* average UK household debt to income ratio is much higher (and tends to be far higher) than 100%. Now is that ideal or necessarily even very healthy? No, of course not. Is it sustainable? Yes, absolutely it is. Because we have assets and securities and the ability to look longer term at the advantages of maintaining a sensible amount of debt in the interests of investing in the future.

(It’s a crude and a flawed argument, acknowledged. There isn’t a direct analogue here. But the general point is sound, and it’s for that reason that despite historically elevated sovereign debt burdens, credit agencies, banks, private capital, investment funds, etc. continue to show faith in the likes of the heavily indebted UK.)

comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 23 minutes ago
comment by Robb Raygun (U22716)
posted 15 minutes ago
comment by Irishred (U2539)
posted 34 minutes ago
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0816/1465280-galway-barracks-incident/

Not great this
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t believe that to be true because literally every single Irish person is in Sydney right now
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m not
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Come on down. We even have proper spice bag places.