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Bulletins and News Discussion from November 11th to November 17th, 2024 - Chapo? Like, the President-elect of Mozambique? - COTW: Mozambique

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Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.

On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.

The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.

Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.

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1.6K comments

  • The NYT asks - Why Was There a Broad Drop-Off in Democratic Turnout in 2024? (archive)

    Gaza - not mentioned, even though they talk about Harris getting fewer votes than Biden in Dearborn. Grocery prices - not mentioned. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Not mentioned.

    Some analysts point out that Ms. Harris was simply the latest political casualty of a postpandemic global trend favoring challengers, no matter the incumbents’ politics, in places like Japan, South Africa, South Korea and Britain.

    Mexico? Not mentioned, because then they'd have to point out that incumbent parties that have actually done something to help people out of poverty tend to win reelection.

  • too lazy to make a post but

    on amerikkkan celebrities, beacons of virtue.

    Imagine donating to campaign to fight fascism (together with 700 mln dark money, but putting that aside), and they pay katy perry cool 1 million for appearance

  • Won a local by-election that I've been doorknocking for recently

    Won't say anymore as it'll definitely dox me but it's a score.

    Thank you Reform for splitting the Tory vote.

  • Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles

    Big development. Russia previously drew a very clear red line about this.

    Speaking in St Petersburg, President Putin sent a clear warning to the West: don’t allow Ukraine to use your long-range missiles to strike Russian territory.

    Moscow, he said, would view that as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the war in Ukraine.

    “It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict,” the Kremlin leader continued.

    “This will mean that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.”

    He claimed that, for missile launches into Russia, Ukraine would require data from Western satellites and that only servicemen from Nato member states would be able to “input flight missions into these missile systems”.

  • Marco Rubio being Secretary of State is not going to be good. Nightmare level policy towards LatAm. Not feeling optimistic.

    Edit: Only way I see out is if Trump spreads the military too much. Admin is going to back Israel against Iran, will escalate with China, is sending mixed signals about Ukraine.

  • The Haka in the NZ parliament video has been quite viral on Arab social media circles in the past two days, and it has generated some pretty interesting reactions that I will share here.

    Reaction type number 1: why? The most common reaction is people being completely unaware of the history of Maori peoples in NZ, so they share or comment on the video in an attempt to understand the context of the video. Many comments ridiculing the thing, but most were just curious about who these people are.

    Reaction type number 2: damn this is cool. Many thought it was cool and that it shows that Maoris are brave people that are not afraid to capture the white man's institution to do their dance and show their culture.

    Reaction type number 3: this is a defeated people. This type of reaction was the most interesting in my opinion, because people made a lot of comparisons to Palestinians inside Israel who participate in elections and have representation in the Knesset. It was a lot of "is this really it?", this is a defeated people whose culture and way of life was mostly decimated by colonisers, and now they're standing in the white man's institutions wearing the white man's clothing and doing song and dance. I have to emphasise that most of these reactions actually came from a place of love for native people, but they saw the Haka in this particular context as a sign of humiliation, not strength. One guy wrote that Israel might let three Palestinians do a dabke in the Knesset in 2050 as they sign a law that deports all remaining Arabs in Greater Israel.

  • In case anyone was wondering how terrifying it would be for a terrain following stealth subsonic cruise missile to fly directly over your head, video has been captured of such an incident in Odessa, Ukraine. Reddit link, Mirror link Here we have what is likely a Kh-101 missile, which cruises at an altitude of between 30m - 70m (100ft - 230ft) above ground level to minimise detection. The Kh-69 flies even lower, at 20m or 65ft.

  • The US and their dogs allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles doesn't change anything. Russia under Putin are committed to deescalation until the Ukraine war is wrapped up, and Ukraine's biggest issues are in Ukraine itself. Hitting an oil refinery in Rostov won't stop Russian advances in Donetsk. Those strikes might affect Russian supply lines a bit, but Russia has a lot of options with different paths to take to reach the front.

  • Ooooh bticoin at 88k (

    truly the unwisest timeline

    *Wait, does this mean electical grid in the global south will get fucked again

    fucks sake

  • Just a few random thoughts about Russian strategy and current short term goals in Ukraine. I've been religiously following this war since the first few days and I guess like many of you nerds here, one begins to sort of develop an understanding of military affairs after consuming so much content in a short period. My analysis of the current South Donetsk offensive is that it is the most coherent and well-executed campaign since the start of the war. Previous long-term Russian and Ukrainian offensives were like separate islands of small gains, never joining together into one single front that drastically collapses an entire part of the front. Ukraine for example during their 2023 summer offensive attacked in three different directions, south of Orikhiv, west of Bakhmut, and south of Velika Novosilka. All those fronts never had a realistic chance of actually linking up, as they were too far from each other and there was never a real coherent "what happens next" plan. Same with the Russian offensive in the start of the war. They attacked near Kiev, near Kharkov, from the South and north of the old LPR territory, but the first two fronts could never realistically collapse an entire sector and link up to be one continuous front with supply lines entirely located in the captured zones. Even Bakhmut was the same, Russia made a dent in the frontline, but the lack of offensives in Siversk and Toretsk meant that Russia couldn't collapse an entire sector and straighten out the line again, so they only took the city and some territory around it.

    Their current southern offensive is different though, with three big arrows that are actually threatening the entire South Donetsk sector for Ukraine. An advance of a few km from each direction now is lethal for the AFU. They would lose one of the most fortified sectors of the front, and escape into open fields with no fortifications all the way to Pavlograd. According to a map of fortifications that I saw last week, the whole section from Kurakhovo to the centre of Dnipro Oblast has barely any defensible ground, and the opening of that sector for Russian troops means that they will be able to outflank Ukraine's north-south trench systems in Zaporozhye, and the east-west systems in fortified central Donetsk. 2025 will be extremely decisive for this war if Trump doesn't pull off a 4D chess peace agreement.

  • https://www.wusf.org/2024-10-23/why-the-garment-workers-of-bangladesh-are-feeling-poorer-than-ever

    According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the average price American retailers paid two years ago for a cotton t-shirt made in Bangladesh was $1.83. This year, it’s $1.65 – nearly a 10% drop.

    One reason is increased competition among factories in Bangladesh to sell their wares, so prices are dropping.

    At the same time, the country is experiencing a wave of inflation that has meant greater expenses for the workers in their daily lives — and for factories as well.

    Mobarak says that Yunus has an opportunity to use his influence to protect workers’ rights.

    “He could use his voice effectively to bring international buyers to the table and help them recognize their ethical obligations toward poor Bangladeshi workers,” he says.

    So far, Yunus has not publicly addressed this issue.

    I love npr passive descriptions here (at least seems like fairly objective reporting without matty saviourism, but jesus christ)

  • So, the Brazilian terrorist (the Liberal Joker lol) was a locksmith and a landlord. Most of his money came from renting out a building to various people. It seems he was married to a random woman, who is also a far-right Bolsonaro supporter, and she confirmed that she saw him googling things about bombs and terrorism, and also confirmed that the couple (before divorcing in 2023) went to protests in 2022/2023, where they begged the Army, the US, aliens and God (that's not a joke, by the way) for a coup.

    She said she knew her ex-husband was going to kill Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and called the judge an animal that deserved to be killed, she said that to the Federal Police investigators. And to make things even funnier, this couple also stole money from the government's social programs by falsifying documents, which makes things funny because in the Liberal Joker's manifesto he said he was angry about Lula's Tax Reform because it would target the rich and take money from them to give to useless people who didn't deserve it (he's talking about poor people).

  • Since the Amsterdam maccabi hooligan event, Israel has been trying really hard to influence the narrative put out by media and politicians. The ministry of Diaspora has put out a document detailing supposed ties between Palestinian liberation activist groups and Hamas (lol). They also claim that these liberation groups preplanned the attacks on hooligans, and their proof is literally just a call for people to come join their protest during the match.

    These ‘allegations’ would be funny if we did not have a right extremist government that is receptive to them.

    Here is Minister Amichai Chikli outlining these conspiracies himself: https://x.com/amichaichikli/status/1856397777548284273

  • [LONG EFFORTPOST]

    Hello liberals, I will give my balance on

    's Argentina and how things are as of right now, November 2024. But my talk will not be about the cringe ass ancap, I will talk about Peronism and their role as opposition.

    As some of you might recall, milei's violent rethoric against "public" education (and I put public on quotes because I have another definition of what is public and what isn't) triggered a nation-wide response from universities as many of them were occupied by the students. Mine was among the first to do so, not unlikely considering it is an historic hotbed for left wing militacy, even though today it's not as good as it used to be.

    Anyways, the movement gained traction but, as with many things, the lack of coordination and some... sabotage from within slowly but surely eroded it. It was to be expected, some universities are not really politicized because of course people who study complex mathematics don't have time to read Marx or something, and others have either shit soccdem or peronist leadership and fighting is not for them. My university ended up abandoning the occupation after like 20 days or so, we fought heavily to keep it running but at the end of the day we had to leave it. During the last assemblies, our struggle was directly against peronists and their party structure, who began to attempt to dissolve the movement to "take the fight elsewhere", in accordance with their general policies.

    But nothing is really a failure, no matter how bad it looks. There's always experiences to draw upon and lessons to learn. Our lesson is that you just can't trust peronist-aligned groups, no matter how "radical" they may seem, because they have non-revolutionary agendas and are NOT anti-capitalist, they're just reformists who want to play nice and with some rules. The student's leadership in our university is ideologically aliged with the authorities, all are peronists. Then, a professor in one assembly said "There is fear among the authorities that this kind of assemblies might go out of control and become truly democratic and truly horizontal, some people are indeed fighting not for the common good but for their comfort positions". And he, in just a few sentences, described peronism and how they view the struggle against milei.

    There has been a very alarming lack of action from the main confederation of unions, the CGT. They are the ones who say "Okay, general strike" and there will be a general strike, their level of reach and organization is unmatched. Unfortunately, the leadership of the CGT and of the many unions that form it are either all peronists or something else, few if any are leftist. The fact they haven't called for strikes in nearly one year of suicidal policies by milei is indeed alarming, it's especially bad considering the CGT has been active and calling for strikes EVEN against former peronist governments. They're nothing but a rotten group of decadent old white men who weaponized class struggle and left it at the mercy of a grotesque bureaucracy.

    So if you don't see much action it's because peronism has an interest to cut a deal and keep people away from doing dangerous commie things. They don't want spontaneous organisation by workers where they take matters into their own hands. After all, peronism is anti-communist despite what some confused folks of the Communist Party think, "United Front" my fucking dick and balls lmfao, losers. I believe that peronism understand milei as a temporary anomaly, that things will "go back to normal" once he expires, they're old fashioned politicians who think the new kind of "outsiders" are short lived. Well, the normalcy we once knew is dead, even more when the latest capitalist crisis cycles are getting worse and worse.

    They do want to go out to the streets, but only on their terms. Meanwhile they're trying to craft Cristina Fernández de Kirchner back to a presentable leader, as she just assumed control of the Justicialist Party (main peronist electoral party), but she is responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place. Then, once society reaches a point of near collapse, that's when they'll mobilize and cut a deal with the milei government for some sort of "peaceful transition", maybe in the midst of heavy repression like it happened during the December 2001 Riots. Peronism after all is Capital's safe bet when it comes to "social peace".

    Therefore, to me it becomes evident that there must be a concentrated effort to organize the working class OUTSIDE the influence of peronism. It's a job that will take years, or maybe not, who knows. The Trots have been doing that fairly well, if anything since the 2000's they've been consistently growing and taking more spaces than before. And while Trots have a shitton of problems, their general stance is a million times better than peronist "we'll give you a better salary XD" policies that reproduce capitalism. Still, agitation becomes necessary and desirable.

    Things will continue to decay, milei might "accelerate" the economy for the midterms but that'll make it crash later down the line. I think our goal as leftists is to convince those who felt betrayed by peronism and who hate neoliberalism to join the ranks of Socialism, and I can tell you slowly but surely more people are feeling just like that.

  • Update 260 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine - 17 November 2024

    Although the NPPs [Nuclear Power Plants] - Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine – were not directly impacted and did not shut down, several electrical substations on which they depend suffered further damage during the strikes, Director General Grossi said, citing information from Ukraine’s national regulator. The main power lines from four of the substations were disconnected. At the moment, only two of the country’s nine operational reactors currently generate electricity at 100 percent capacity.

    The IAEA teams based at the NPPs heard air defence activities and sought shelter during the air raid alarms. At the Khmelnytskyy NPP, the IAEA team heard a loud explosion. At the Rivne NPP, two 330 kilovolt (kV) power lines were unavailable, the team there reported.

    Of the nine currently operational reactors at the three NPPs, six reduced output during the morning, ranging from just over 40 percent of maximum capacity to above 90 percent. At the moment, only two operate at 100 percent capacity, with one in shutdown for maintenance. All NPPs continued to receive off-site power.

    The Russian de-electrification campaign against Ukraine has reached a new stage this morning, with strikes on substations and main power lines connected to nuclear power plants. Critically though, off site power supply was not hit, or at least not destroyed to the extent to fully interrupt it. This is important to ensure proper cooling for the NPPs.

  • Julie Alli (host speaker of Salaamedia) now openly refers to it as "Nazi israel" in addition to the "Zionist Apartheid entity" and she even doubled down since this morning while interviewing the coordinator for the Palestine Solidarity Committe Prof. Usuf Chikte. He also on live radio stated that if Zionists don't want to be called Nazis, then they should not be Nazis.

    I should start putting these interviews on TankieTube

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