Covid optimism • Hong Kong crackdown continues • Facebook "censorship" • Universalism is the answer to racism • Israel/Palestine • UFOs are real! But are aliens?

It's the Foreign Influence Podcast, with American Bill Poorman and Dutchman Nikolaj Groeneweg taking you on a humorously serious and seriously humorous romp through international events. This time we had to catch up on a lot of items since we took an episode off:

• We allows ourselves just a bit of covid optimism, given the success of the vaccines so far. 💉 Now we just need to focus on the entire globe.

• The crackdown on Hong Kong continues in China as the government bans remembrances of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. So many crackdowns.

• Facebook bans Trump for two years. But it's not "censorship" if the government doesn't do it.

• We wade into the controversy over race by standing firm on the idea that universalism is the answer to racism. And it's tough to be in that space in modern politics.

• We wade into the very simple, easy-to-fix Israel-Palestine conflict. We came *this close* 🤏🏻 to solving it.

• Finally, UFOs are real! 👽 Supposedly. But that doesn't mean it's aliens. And why are the pictures always so blurry?

Thanks for listening! 🙏🏻

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Bill & Nikolaj