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By Eric Albert (Frankfurt, Germany, special correspondent) Published yesterday at 11:36 am (Paris)

LLM summary:

On March 12, 2025, Trump escalated the trade war by imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum, prompting the European Union to respond with its own tariffs. Despite the tensions, a sense of optimism emerged during a conference at Goethe University in Frankfurt, where economists and financial experts speculated that the euro could become a safe haven currency and a reserve currency, traditionally dominated by the US dollar. Klaus Adam, an economist, suggested that Trump's actions might undermine the dollar's "exorbitant privilege," leading to a shift in global currency dynamics.

Financial markets have reacted positively to this speculation, with the euro gaining value against the dollar. Economists are questioning the desirability of holding dollars given the uncertainties surrounding US economic policies and the independence of the Federal Reserve. Concerns have been raised about potential manipulation of the dollar by Trump and the implications for foreign investors. The upcoming appointment of a new Federal Reserve chair by Trump is seen as crucial, as it will determine the central bank's ability to resist political pressures.

While the eurozone faces its own challenges, including sluggish growth and geopolitical threats, there is a growing belief that it could strengthen its position as a reserve currency. Germany's plans for increased spending on infrastructure and defense could provide more secure assets for foreign investors, which is essential for the euro's status as a reserve currency. Although the dollar's dominance is not expected to end soon, there is a possibility that the euro could gain more significance in the global financial landscape, potentially leading to a multi-currency reserve system.

I like this one ⸮, I'll try to use it, it's more elegant than /s.

From the article:

The “atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of that which we remember well from interrogations” by Poland’s communist secret services and regime courts, the signatories said.

“The prosecutors and the judges, working on behalf of the omnipotent Communist party police, also told us that they held all the cards, and we held none,” they said.

“We are shocked that you treated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the same way,” they said.

The full letter machine translated from Polish:

Signed by Wałęsa and more than 30 former Polish political prisoners held during the communist era.

Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government.[1] Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and World League for Sexual Reform. He based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period. Performance Studies and Rhetoric Professor Dustin Goltz characterized the committee as having carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".[2]

Hirschfeld is regarded as one of the most influential sexologists of the 20th century.[3] He was targeted by early fascists and later the Nazis for being Jewish and gay. He was beaten by völkisch activists in 1920, and in 1933 his Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was looted and had its books burned by Nazis. Hirschfeld was forced into exile in France, where he died in 1935.

John Hiromu Kitagawa ( October 23, 1931 – July 9, 2019) was a Japanese rapist, business magnate, promoter and record producer. He was best known as the founder of Johnny & Associates, a talent agency for numerous popular boy bands in Japan.

There's a constant influx of new communities with softcore sexualized characters, especially anime girls, that I could do without.
I don't mind anime and manga in general, so I would rather not block the instances that specialize in it, but blocking softcore communities one by one seems be a never ending task.
I also think it may be off-putting for new members.

I have followed this wiki guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Localization/Japanese#Japanese_Input, picking Fcitx5 and Mozc, but I still don't have a functioning setup after spending 3 evenings on it.

I have the IME selector in the top bar where I can select Mozc and the Mozc menus display just fine.

(Gnome doesn't let me screenshot this menu, for some reason)

1. But as you can see, the IME name is replaced by a white rectangle, I guess it should be a Japanese character.
2. When I try typing with Mozc activated, the popup does appear and the output text is written in Japanese characters, which means I have correctly installed the Japanese font, but the popup contains white rectangles instead of Japanese characters.

I think this means that Gnome doesn't find the Japanese font, but I couldn't find in the guide how to tell Gnome to use it.

Can anyone give me a hint?

よろしくお願いします

Edit: For some reason fcitx5-config-qt, which is the UI to control the IME, started saying it could not find shared library libKF6WindowSystem.so.6 and refused to open, even though it did open before. So I had to install the related package kwindowsystem and the UI works again now.

Edit2:

By re-reading, I understood that Gnome already comes the IMF ibus installed. So I decided to remove everything I did for the IMF fcitx5 and just install the package ibus-mozc.

After that, I was able to set Japanese (Mozc) in Gnome Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources > Add Input Source > Japanese > Japanese (Mozc) > Add.

I am back to the point where I can select Mozc in the top bar, just a bit of a different style from fcitx5, and the Hiragana symbol in the bar still looks like a white rectangle.

Now, there's progress in the candidate pop-up that does display Japanese characters. Except it is white on white and basically unreadable unless the item is selected.

This issue is mentioned here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mozc#Suggestion_window_is_blindingly_white_in_dark_mode, but the fix mentioned to set up an env var to fall back to the default ibus popup just turns my suggestions into white blocks.

The config entry to do the same documented here https://github.com/google/mozc/blob/master/docs/configurations.md#ibus-candidate-window has the same result.

I think I have to solve at least one of these issues:

1. Have the Mozc candidate popup correctly render with white text on dark background.
2. Have the default ibus popup correctly use the Japanese font I have installed.

One would be preferred as Mozc popup is supposed to be more helpful.