This is Borgund Church in Norway, made entirely out of wood and built over 800 years ago.

It is a 'stave church', an incredibly unusual type of Medieval building.

What makes them so special? Well, there are only 30 original stave churches in the world...

Maybe this is total bs, but reading the flower arrangements is next level Beijing-ology.

Collum tuum ut columna: “Il tuo collo è come una colonna”.
#Parmigianino trasforma in immagine il verso dell'inno dedicato a Maria: nel dipinto la colonna alla sinistra ne enfatizza la flessuosità del busto e del collo.

La 'Madonna dal collo lungo', #Uffizi , 1540c.

Run by chance into some of my old data. These are real earnings of workers' households in Russia 1987-96. Much worse than the Great Depression in the US.

Is regulation driving Europe to irrelevance? Yes, according to the chief executive of Ericsson on.ft.com/4blc1s5

Important that we can #trust what we see #online . Today, we have opened proceedings against @meta as we suspect that their online moderation on facebok and Instagram is insufficient. It lacks transparency of #ads and content moderation.
More👇
europa.eu/!h4Tjfy

🇨🇳 - China’s share of global production capacity is now above 80% for 11 clean technologies
• Massive Chinese investments mean that China's clean tech rise may not be over
• Beijing also invested US$546bn in its own energy transition in 2022, around half of global financing

How unexpected!

Said no-one who's been watching Ursula von der Leyen in the last two years...
politico.eu/article/ursula…

“Brest is a rainy industrial port…that is home to the French navy and its submarine nuclear deterrent. It has also witnessed a remarkable number of weddings in recent years between female Chinese students and the seamen who work at its naval bases” ft.com/content/6c115d…

🚨🇷🇺Russia continues to shell🇺🇦Ukraine gas storage facilities, jeopardising the role of Ukraine as a strategic storage hub for🇪🇺EU gas.
With Kyiv unable to protect its energy infrastructures until🇺🇸US air defence systems arrive, Moscow exploits a key window of opportunity
🧵

Today we open cases against #Meta for suspected breach of #DSA obligations to protect integrity of elections:

▪️Inadequate ad moderation exploited for foreign interference & scams

▪️Inadequate data access to monitor elections

▪️Non-compliant tool for flagging illegal content

Most large Eurozone economies stagnated since early 2022 (energy crisis, inflation, interest rates). But not Spain, which has continued to grow at an impressive rate - from falling the most during covid (tourism / services sensitive economy) to becoming the best performer.

I wasn't going to say anything, but given she's (incredibly) criticising VDL's performance, let's acknowledge that Liberal lead candidate Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann's performance last night at #MaastrichtDebate was a car crash.

Embarassing to watch.
euractiv.com/section/econom…

Finland's (right-wing) finance minister Riika Purra disapprovingly commented on my interview with largest Finnish newspaper. I might be on to something. Maybe there is too little critical public debate on the effects of fiscal consolidation in Finland? Riikka Purra

1/11
In my latest piece for the FT, I argue that there are two very different trade-related conflicts involving China that are too often conflated. On the one had is the problem of excess capacity in certain industries.

ft.com/content/879f5d… via @ft

ECB work on macroeconomic implications of EU fiscal rules

adherence to the reformed EU fiscal framework would imply additional fiscal tightening over 2025-26 - which implies downside risks for economic growth.

New research in Nature suggests climate damages will be $38 trillion per year by 2050: 'damages already outweigh the mitigation costs required to limit global warming to 2 °C by sixfold over this near-term time frame and thereafter diverge strongly dependent on emission choices'

La Russie est le premier fournisseur d’armes sur le continent africain.

Cette politique d’engagement militaire—qui passe aujourd’hui par Wagner: Africa Corps—ne date pas de Poutine.

Nous publions une étude historique signée Dr Natalia Telepneva.
legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2024/04/28/…

“Of those not already fighting, more and more are hiding from Odessa’s conscription officers, who have a reputation for ruthlessness. Men in green uniforms conduct regular sweeps of the city’s buses, gyms and train stations” economist.com/europe/2024/04…

Stanford $35b endowment investment allocation