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Geopolitics

Aung San Suu Kyi Kicks Off Triumphant Tour Of Europe

LE TEMPS (Switzerland) CNN, BBC

GENEVA - Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Europe for what some have seen as a sort of victory lap for democracy. The Burmese pro-democracy leader arrived on Wednesday at the annual conference of the U.N. International Labour Organization in Geneva.

Watch a clip of Suu Kyi at the International Labour Organization in the video below.

"The Lady" received a tremendous ovation from the 4,000 worker and employer representatives and the 185 government officials who are attending the event, the Swiss daily Le Temps reports.

According to CNN, Suu Kyi started her speech by declaring that she was not speaking as a representative of government, then grinned and added: "Not yet, anyway," triggering laughter from the audience.

In her address, she called for rule of law, an end to ethnic fighting and the formation of strong democratic institutions in Myanmar, while welcoming steps by the international community to reach out to her country, long isolated because of its military dictatorship, BBC News reports.

It's Suu Kyi's first visit to Europe since 1988, as she spent much of the past two decades under house arrest in Myanmar.

During the two-week tour, Suu Kyi is set to visit the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Norway, where she will collect the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded but unable to collect in 1991.

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Economy

Lithium Mines In Europe? A New World Of Supply-Chain Sovereignty

The European Union has a new plan that challenges the long-established dogmas of globalization, with its just-in-time supply chains and outsourcing the "dirty" work to the developing world.

Photo of an open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Open cast mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — It is one of the great paradoxes of our time: in order to overcome some of our dependencies and vulnerabilities — revealed in crises like COVID and the war in Ukraine — we risk falling into other dependencies that are no less toxic. The ecological transition, the digitalization of our economy, or increased defense needs, all pose risks to our supply of strategic minerals.

The European Commission published a plan this week to escape this fate by setting realistic objectives within a relatively short time frame, by the end of this decade.

This plan goes against the dogmas of globalization of the past 30 or 40 years, which relied on just-in-time supply chains from one end of the planet to the other — and, if we're being honest, outsourced the least "clean" tasks, such as mining or refining minerals, to countries in the developing world.

But the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, if possible under better environmental and social conditions. Will Europe be able to achieve these objectives while remaining within the bounds of both the ecological and digital transitions? That is the challenge.

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