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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   837 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 16, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ireland's presidential election is this Friday. The Irish president (Uachtarán na hÉireann) is a ceremonial role which wields no actual power, but the incumbent is expected to serve as the ambassador for the nation. The office is currently occupied by Michael D. Higgins, who became something of an icon both nationally and abroad owing to his short stature and white hair, lending him an elfin/leprechaun appearance. (My mother thinks he's a closeted homosexual in a lavender marriage.) Higgins is coming to the end of his second term, for which the term limit applies.

This election cycle has been something of a shambles. Lack of coordination at the nomination stage has resulted in a meagre ballot of three candidates, half as many as the last election in 2018:

  1. Heather Humphries, Fine Gael
  2. Jim Gavin, Fianna Fáil
  3. Catherine Connolly, independent

After several presidential debates, Gavin unexpectedly dropped out of the race, but with too little notice to have his name taken off the ballot. It'll be interesting to see what happens if he secures a majority. It's rather surreal seeing the election posters for a candidate who's already taken his hat out of the ring dotted around the city.

I know very little about any of the candidates beyond their party affiliation. Connolly is apparently intensely proud of the fact that she's fluent in the Irish language and has made it a major plank of her campaign. My opinion of her instantly soured when she argued the reason the Irish electorate rejected the "durable relationships" referendum was because they didn't understand it. There are few things I find more insulting than condescension: people understood it perfectly well, which is why they rejected it.

The poor showing of candidates and controversy over the nomination procedure (particularly concerning Maria Steen, a conservative activist who sought the nomination) has resulted in many voters announcing their plan to deliberately spoil their ballots in protest, with a recent poll suggesting as many as 6% will do so.

As for me, I'm mainly just breathing a sigh of relief that the name "McGregor, Conor" doesn't appear on the ballot.

Met police drop all charges against Graham Linehan's tweets on trans issues.

On the one hand, good. On the other hand, this was sort of inevitable, and the process was probably intended as punishment: if they can cow him into silence without formally charging him with anything, that's cheaper and more efficient for them.

More interesting is that this article also claims that the Met police will stop investigating NCHIs (non-crime hate incidents) because they are too subjective and ambiguous. Kind of amazing that a Western police service is openly announcing "we will stop investigating things that even we ourselves do not consider crimes and return to only investigating crimes", but here we are, I suppose.

Linehan is planning to sue the police for wrongful arrest, and more power to him.

Major split among Anglican Communion announced

GAFCON, the movement of conservative, biblically orthodox Anglicans, has announced that it will no longer recognise the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It has also told provinces to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.[3]

In what has been viewed as a major split in the Anglican Communion and a snub to the Church of England, the GAFCON primates have issued a statement which said the Anglican Communion will be “reordered” and provinces of the Global Anglican Communion won’t take part in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglicans who hold traditional biblical views have long rallied against the Church of England’s stance on issues such as sexuality and gender.

The statement published on Thursday came almost two weeks after Rt Rev Dame Sarah Mullally was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury–designate, becoming the first ever female to hold the role.[2]

Earlier this year, the Church in Wales also elected Most Rev Cherry Vann, who is in a same-sex relationship, as Archbishop of Wales.[1]

Archbishop Laurent said the new structure will now comprise a fellowship of autonomous provinces and be known as the Global Anglican Communion.

The Global Anglican Communion will celebrate its formation at the upcoming G26 Bishops Conference in Abuja, Nigeria, in March 2026.

[1]

By celebrating this election and her immoral same-sex relationship, the Canterbury Communion has again bowed to worldly pressure that subverts God’s good word.

[2]

Though there are some who will welcome the decision to appoint Bishop Mullally as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy. Therefore, her appointment will make it impossible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to serve as a focus of unity within the Communion.

However, more concerning is her failure to uphold her consecration vows. When she was consecrated in 2015, she took an oath to “banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrine contrary to God’s Word.” And yet, far from banishing such doctrine, Bishop Mullally has repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.

In 2023, when asked by a reporter whether sexual intimacy in a same-sex relationship is sinful, she said that some such relationships could, in fact, be blessed. She also voted in favour of introducing blessings of same-sex marriage into the Church of England.

[3]

The first Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) gathered in 2008 in Jerusalem to prayerfully respond to the abandonment of the Scriptures by some of the most senior leaders of the Anglican Communion, and to seek their repentance.

In the absence of such repentance, we have been prayerfully advancing towards a future for faithful Anglicans, where the Bible is restored to the heart of the Communion.

Today, that future has arrived.

A 4channer claims that GAFCON represents about half of the Anglican Communion's membership. Wikipedia appears to support this statement (1 2).

A 4channer claims that GAFCON represents about half of the Anglican Communion's membership. Wikipedia appears to support this statement

With considerable geographic variance, no? The ringleader appears to have been the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Interesting article: Renault–Geely engine unit speeds up as EV shift stutters

When French carmaker Renault and China's Geely carved out their combustion-engine operations in 2022, the venture looked like a footnote to an outdated technology. Now, Horse Powertrain has a new lease of life.

The joint venture aims to become the world's top engine maker by 2035, betting that legacy carmakers pivoting to EVs will still need suppliers to make combustion engines for them as the energy transition stutters.

Pitching itself as a one-stop shop for automakers, producing everything from hybrid engines to the small combustion units that extend range in plug-in EVs, Horse is targeting annual revenue of 15 billion euros (17 billion dollars) by 2029, up 80 % from 2024, according to a Reuters analysis.

Giannini says Horse is currently the world's no. 3 engine maker, with 17 engine and transmission factories previously run by Renault, Geely Holding, and Geely unit Volvo Cars, including eight in China.

Horse's [CEO Matias] Giannini expects 50 % of new cars to be EVs in 2040. Others predict more. But, even then, tens of millions of new hybrid cars will still need engines.

"Let automakers concentrate on their transition to EVs… while we support them with highly efficient hybrid engines and transmissions," Giannini said.

Renault expects to save 2 billion euros in engine development by 2030 via outsourcing to Horse, and Giannini is pitching those savings to new customers.

Horse currently produces over eight million engines and transmissions annually for more than 15 automakers, including Renault, Dacia, Volvo Cars, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Mercedes-Benz.

According to a source close to the matter, Horse is pursuing about 100 projects across all its products and markets—from cars to boats, construction equipment, and drones.

Geely and Renault own 45 % of Horse each. Oil producer Saudi Aramco owns the remaining 10 %.

Horse itself is betting on new technologies, including plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). It has also launched a suitcase-sized combustion engine for extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which use a small engine to boost an EV's range.

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