Bulletins and News Discussion for February 19th to February 25th, 2023 - The Shadow of Suharto - COTW: Indonesia
Bulletins and News Discussion for February 19th to February 25th, 2023 - The Shadow of Suharto - COTW: Indonesia
Image is of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and the fastest sinking city in the world. A new capital is being built elsewhere in Indonesia.
I was going to make Indonesia the COTW anyway (unless something really massive happened somewhere else) due to the elections that might really designate the end of an era in Indonesian politics. Michael Roberts wrote up a big piece on Indonesia about a week ago, one day before the election began, so a lot of this information is coming from him.
Indonesia has been ruled by President Joko Widodo for 10 years, but is now barred from a third term constitutionally. Under his presidency, the Indonesian economy has seen fairly good GDP growth overall - about 5% per year, or an average of 4% per capita - and is broadly popular with the electorate. The biggest problems are the common ones, such as a lack of jobs and a high cost of living. Widodo's successors have naturally promised more jobs and an economic plan that clearly draws at least some inspiration from China's rise from the periphery to the heights of the world economy and manufacturing, but this seems pretty unlikely for Indonesia because, well, Indonesia is ruled by capitalist bourgeoisie parties and China is not. Indonesia's main gigs are palm oil, nickel ore, and oil, with internal manufacturing of these primary commodities only slowly growing and reliant on foreign labour.
Indonesia has a rather big employment problem. On the face of it, things don't seem bad, with an unemployment rate of only 5% - but this is only because it counts anybody who works even a couple hours per week. 60% of the workers in Indonesia are in the informal sector, with no real labour rights, sick pay, or guaranteed wages. And half of the ~8 million unemployed are young people. Indonesia is the sixth most unequal country on the planet, with at least 36% of the population in poverty, and the four richest men own as much as the bottom 100 million. This was a natural consequence of the policies of the dictator Suharto, who came to power in a coup overthrowing the communist nationalist leader Sukarno and killing one million communists, a period covered by Bevin's The Jakarta Method. At a fundamental level, not that much has changed since Suharto, and the country seems doomed to a path of slowing economic growth and massive amounts of environmental degradation under a plundering elite who will presumably fly off to New Zealand with the rest of them once the seas swallow the country, unless a communist movement can be rebuilt from ashes and can learn the lessons of 1965-66.
Though results have yet to be officially announced, it seems that 72-year-old Prabowo Subianto is overwhelmingly likely to have handily won the election. Once banned from the United States for human rights violations - a truly phenomenal feat - he has been the Minister of Defense since 2019, was an army lieutenant under Suharto and was his son-in-law. While this is obviously a particularly bad outcome, none of the other candidates seemed likely to fundamentally alter the trajectory of Indonesia, so the game was rigged from the start.
The Country of the Week is Indonesia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Trump was very uncomfortable during his meeting with milei at CPAC, he literally jumped and kept grabbing him and Trump of course doesn't like physical contact too much lmao. It's embarrassing, milei was like a 12 year old girl who just had a meet&greet with her favorite BTS idol or something. Grow the fuck up, fucking weirdo.
But wait, milei is at CPAC? How? he's a Libertarian... not a Conservative, why is he hanging out with conservatives and fascis... oh.
I will not post the vide of milei adoring Trump because it has levels of cringe so high I think Hexbear cannot handle it.
The other author is her nephew. She also liked some of the tweets that South Africa submitted to the Hague, lol.
US ambassador to the UN, after vetoing a Gaza ceasefire resolution:
“We will continue to actively engage in the hard work of direct diplomacy on the ground until we reach a Final Solution.”
https://twitter.com/BertaAdvantage/status/1760024501969154299
Hamas on China: https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1760678652436754600
BREAKING: HAMAS OFFICIAL STATEMENT
We appreciate the position expressed by the People's Republic of China, during the public hearings held by the International Court of Justice, on the legal consequences of the occupation policies in the Palestinian Territory, and its affirmation of the legality of the occupied peoples' pursuit of self-determination, by various means, including armed resistance, and the necessity not to confuse terrorism with And the armed struggle practiced by the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation.
We also value the positions of the countries participating in the sessions, which confirmed the widespread violations of international law practiced by the terrorist occupation entity against the Palestinian people and their occupied land, including massacres and genocide in the Gaza Strip, violations, killing, and expansion of settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and work to bring about demographic changes in the Palestinian land. It aims to Judaize her and tamper with her identity.
The terrorist occupation government’s boycott of the court sessions confirms once again its disregard for international institutions, and its policy of turning its back on international resolutions and commitments, which requires a clear position from the international community to end the rogue Zionist occupation, and to stop all its violations and crimes against our Palestinian people.
Our solidarity with brother Lula, unjustly declared as "persona non grata", for defending the life and dignity of the Palestinian people in the face of the genocide in Gaza carried out by the State of Israel. Being declared persona non grata by a genocidal government that carries out massacres against children, is a privilege that reaffirms the commitment for life and peace before the international community and the peoples of the world.
- Evo Morales
Gigachad Lula has withdrawn its Ambassador from the Zionist Entiy of Horror , Madness and Vanity...
Rubymar sinking @ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net
British sub launched nuclear missile test fails again
These are us made missiles, fired out of launchers identical to us ones on us subs.
The "Russian nukes won't even work!!!" stuff is all just projection
Remember the sleezy asshole that defected from Russia to Ukraine in a Mi-8 helicopter for half a million dollars at the cost of the lives of two Russian crewmen, who were shot by Ukrainians without mercy, and was lauded around the world as a hero for truth and democracy?
Well he was just found dead in Spain, probably enjoying the high life with his blood money, pumped full of bullet holes and ran over.
Good riddance.
It's Israel that needs to apologize, not Brazil, but humanity
"It's Israel that needs to apologize, not Brazil, but humanity," says Celso Amorim. The Brazilian President's international affairs advisor, Celso Amorim, defended President Lula's conduct in the diplomatic crisis with Israel.
It's Israel that has to apologize, and not to Brazil, but to humanity," the former foreign minister and advisor. He also stressed that "there is no chance of an apology" from Lula.
This has nothing to do with the Jewish people. We have the greatest appreciation for the Jewish people, who have made countless contributions to Brazil and the world - he said.
Gustavo Petro defends Lula da Silva: "He spoke the truth."
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has spoken out on his Twitter account in defense of President Lula amid the diplomatic friction with Israel. The Colombian head of state says that the Brazilian president has not failed to speak the truth in his criticism of the actions of the Israeli army, and advocates joint action by South American countries in defense of the civilian population in Palestine.
"I express my full solidarity with President Lula of Brazil. In Gaza there is a genocide and thousands of children, women and elderly civilians are being cowardly murdered. Lula has only spoken the truth and the truth must be defended or barbarism will annihilate us," said Gustavo Petro. He is the first representative from another country to comment on Lula's statement.
Thinking about the story from a couple days ago about that woman who was arrested in Russia for making a $51 donation to Ukraine.
If I (a US citizen) made a $51 donation to the PFLP, and the feds wanted to make an example out of me, how much worse would it be for me than that woman in Russia? I’m thinking a lot.
i find it very very funny that Nikki Haley’s campaign strategy is “be the only other the person in the running besides Trump all the way until the Convention because chances are he’ll bite the dust or go to prison before then”. and i would find it earth-shatteringly funny if that happened but the party still picked someone other than Haley
the vermin from pedophile island have reported on the self-immolation:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68398479
Man sets himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in Washington DC
doesn't mention what he was saying as he did it of course 🤭
"Our attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will not stop unless Israeli aggression on Gaza stops," Sarea pointed out.
On Monday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea confirmed that his country's forces fired missiles at a British ship in the Gulf of Aden.
"Our naval forces have attacked the British ship, Rubymar, in the Gulf of Aden with a number of missiles. The ship suffered catastrophic damage and came to a complete halt," he said, adding the ship is now at risk of sinking in the Gulf of Aden.
"Our attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will not stop unless Israeli aggression on Gaza stops," Sarea pointed out, claiming that his group had shot down a U.S. MQ9 drone off Hodeidah port city, which is under Houthi control.
Earlier in the day, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said that the crew of the attacked vessel, which it didn't identify, had abandoned the vessel, adding that "military authorities" rushed to the scene to assist.
The British maritime agency said the attack on the vessel occurred on Sunday 35 nautical miles south of al-Mukha, located south of Hodeidah port city. Ambrey, another British maritime security agency, confirmed that the attacked vessel was a British-registered bulk cargo vessel.
On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command conducted defensive strikes against five Houthi targets in the Red Sea on Saturday, including mobile missiles and underwater drones ready to be launched. It said it was the first time it had observed the Houthis possessing such drones.
Since January, the U.S.-led coalition has conducted dozens of airstrikes against Houthi targets in northern Yemen, saying the strikes aimed to degrade Houthi military capabilities.
However, the Houthis have said the U.S. military airstrikes have had no impact and responded by launching more drone and missile attacks against U.S. and British navy ships and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
There's a "country" that is actively demolishing... dismantling an ENTIRE CITY, building by building, block by block while promoting it on social media and they SUFFER NO CRITICISM FROM THE "ENLIGHTENED" WEST (Let alone shit like sanctions or retaliatory strikes).
But don't you dare mention "Israel" is carrying out a genocide, no, don't even think about it. They're literally promoting it every day, enjoying it even. Just like ISIS, they love showing how they kill people, even the Germans, known for being a genocide-loving nation, tried to keep the murder of millions under secrecy. These motherfuckers are showing it for all of us to see while at the same time mocking the entire world because "there is nothing you can do about it".
However, what they don't understand, is that the destruction of the zionist entity is inevitable.
Brazil denounces Israel in The Hague and says occupation is 'unacceptable and illegal'
The Brazilian government denounced Israel for its invasion of Palestinian territories during a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The Brazilian delegation pointed out on Tuesday that Israel's occupations and violations "cannot be accepted or normalized by the international community". The government also called the Israeli acts "illegal" and equivalent to an "annexation".
For Brazil, it is necessary for The Hague to pronounce itself so that "everyone knows" the implications of the legal consequences of Israel's actions. The government also pointed out that the seriousness of the acts is "indisputable".
Saw a video on MintPress last night of a little Palestinian girl talking about how her father was in heaven and she spends her days taking care of her little brother. She was able to hold it together until she started talking about how she doesn’t even have any bread, she’s only been able to eat some spices.
The United States is such an evil fucking country, I really don’t know if I’ve ever hated this place more than I do right now. A century of humiliation is better than we deserve. Maybe the Zionist entity is more directly responsible but the US fully enables all of this, it would never happen without the material support given to Israel as well as the diplomatic cover the US gives all their actions.
Sometimes I wish I was religious so I could believe that evildoers like Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken will get what’s coming to them in the next life.
Death to America.
My campus is covered in Israeli flags and pictures of Kanye West holding up the words "stand with Israel"
they are not sending their best
it was all taken down before 7am lol
Well, the west finally did it. They're finally going to sanction Russia's economy into the ground!
The US has announced more than 500 new sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
wait, what's this?!?
The sanctions are unlikely to have an impact on Russia's economy. It is already the most sanctioned country in the world, and there are very few key entities or sectors that are not already subject to US and European restrictions.
Oh, right, even BBC can tell that it's just western failson leaders doing make-work to seem like they're in control
Lula was asked why he hasn't commented on the death of Alexei Navalny today.
Lula, who the media treated as guilty before proven innocent for years, said, "Why the rush to accuse someone? Do you know how long I've waited to find out who ordered Marielle [Franco]'s killing? 6 years!"+
On Prime Minister Netanyahu's declaration that President Lula is a "persona non grata" in Israel , Chief Advisor Celso Amorim said, "this is absurd. Israel's isolation only grows. Lula is sought after worldwide, whereas Israel is a persona non grata."
The Brazilian government has recalled it's ambassador to Israel, Frederico Meyer, after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who once called Jair Bolsonaro his "brother", declared President Lula a "persona non grata". Meyer will remain in Brazil for an unspecified amount of time.
Palestine Has the Right to Armed Struggle Against Israel: China
International law reaffirms the legitimacy of the people's struggle for liberation from foreign domination by all available means, Diplomat Ma recalled.
On Thursday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague continued its hearings on "The Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem."
During his intervention before the court, Ambassador Chino Ma Xinmin noticed that international law gives Palestinians the right to undertake the armed struggle to liberate themselves from the illegitimate domination of a foreign and colonial rule.
“In pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right well founded in international law,” he said.
Besides mentioning the United Nations General Assembly's resolutions related to the Palestinian case, the Chinese ambassador indicated that the armed struggle is usually one of the means to which nations resort when seeking to achieve their self-determination.
“The 1973 UNGA Resolution 3070 reaffirms the legitimacy of the people's struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle," he stressed.
"This recognition is also reflected in international convention. For example, the 1978 Arab Convention for Suppressing of Terrorism affirms 'the right of peoples to combat foreign occupation aggression by whatever means, including armed struggle in order to liberate the territories and secure the right to self-determination and independence'."
Ma stated that the armed struggle waged by peoples for their liberation against colonialism, occupation, aggression, and domination should not be considered as terrorist acts. For it is grounded in the international law.
"This distinction is acknowledged by several international conventions. For example, Article 3 of the 1999 OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating the Terrorism," he recalled."
Lula da Silva keeps his promise: Amazon deforestation reduced by 64%
The deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has been in action for years, risking the collapse of the unique ecosystem. But the election of Lula da Silva as president in early 2023 brought hope. He announced that he would put an end to the deforestation of the Amazon. He seems to be keeping his promise as, compared to November 2022, deforestation in the Amazon fell by 64% in November 2023.
The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest carbon reservoirs on earth. This makes it particularly important in the fight against climate change. Despite this, illegal deforestation persists. This was especially evident under the right-wing nationalist ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. During his time in office, rainforest deforestation increased by around 75%.
The current president, Lula da Silva, promised to stop deforestation when he took office – and it looks like Silva is keeping his promise. Compared to the previous year, deforestation fell by 64% in November 2023. According to the Brazilian Space Agency (INPE), around 200 square kilometres were destroyed. This is the smallest area since the evaluations began. It is also the first time since 2018 that less than 10,000 square kilometres have been deforested in one year.
Lula has the potential to reduce it by 89%, his final goal is 100%. Just a few days after taking office, Lula’s government took action and carried out controls in the rainforest against illegal deforestation. As reported by Reuters, checks were carried out in areas that are all within the Cachoeira Seca indigenous reserve, where deforestation is strictly prohibited.
lula recalling his ambassador from israel is the happiest i've been with his 3rd term since the scholarship raises
if this escalates to cutting relations with the zionist occupiers i'm not even criticizing his domestic policies anymore, just full, uncritical support to his government. i genuinely believe palestine is the dividing line, where all contradictions come to meet
and not only are decisions being made right now gonna tell me whose side each group will be on in the future, but whatever comes out of this war has the potential to heavily impact capitalism long term
Future generations will look back into history. And much as we wonder how the Germans allowed the Holocaust to happen, those future generations will ask how in the 21st century, with live video of a genocide, did WE allow Israel to complete it?
What is our answer? We had to go to work? A new binge able TV series started?
Instantaneous world wide communication and video streaming, and yet we do nothing.
It's doing my head in.
Seemingly, the US wants to impose sanctions over Navalny's death.
But, like on what? You've already sanctioned everything.
Interestingly, I was reading the translation of a talk from French Historian and to paraphrase, he was arguing to not think of the US foreign policy as rational. It's instinctive (i.e., going through the motions by instinct kind of). He also mentioned that the West was so happy about the fall of the Soviet Union that they didn't realize that America was also getting worse due to loss of manufacturing and other factors.
Police beat pro-Palestinian schoolchildren in Italy, spark outrage (CW: Child abuse)
Filthy fuckin pigs
The Brazilian Senator Omar Aziz (Social Democrat Party) (A liberal center-right party) spoke today:
"This senate was quiet about it and your excellency has brought up this subject (Lula's Speech). Explain to me what is happening there (In Israel). With the death of 10,000 children and women, and how many "terrorists" were killed by the Israeli government, and I say the goverment not the Jewish people."
"The Jewish are not to blame for this extreme right-wing, Zionist government. Tell me who created and financed Al-Qaeda and Hamas. Who is behind all this?"
"The President's words were solidarity with the 30,000 people killed, just as 700,000 people died in Brazil and the right wing said nothing and had no outburst. Tell me why so many innocent people were killed, and how many terrorists were actually killed."
"Israel removed 1 million people and put them in ghettos. I don't think it's right to compare it to the holocaust, but the President (Lula) is right. Unlike the other government that met on with Nazis, the granddaughter of one of Hitler's minister, I haven't seen anyone on the right complain about it."
"And that guy who died in Russia (Nalvany), who was a Nazi who hung out with neo-Nazis and saluted the swastika. And I speak as the son of a Palestinian, I have always been in solidarity with the Jewish people and the people of Israel for not accepting neo-Nazism in Brazil. But I didn't see any hysteria like now when the former president met with neo-Nazis."
we will continue to actively engage
in the hard work of direct diplomacy on the grounduntil we reach a final solution.AmeriKKKan official giving a prepared written statement on why they were veto-ing a ceasefire UNSC emergency resolution and restriction on Israeli use of force in Rafah.
It’s obviously intentional, you don’t use phrases like “final solution” in written diplomatic statements while you are being accused of genocide on a whim, you do it on purpose.
The disks should also be longer lasting than current tech and only use power when data is being written or read. The language of the article makes it sound like the current cost makes it more in the realm of data centers than consumer use, and they say that ease of manufacturing is the next priority.
vice.com shuttering is heart breaking for anyone living in 2013
Under fire with Azov Battalion - Russian Roulette Dispatch 76 the Vice journalist gives no pushback when the Azov fighter explains away his Black Sun and claims he's not a nazi. The journalist gives no commentary to other obvious Nazi symbols
A self identified USAF activity duty personal self immolated at the Israeli embassy in DC saying Free Palestine apparently https://twitter.com/taliaotg/status/1761839190487278038
Hearing the fucking spin on the US' counter proposal of a fucking temporary ceasefire is just so hilarious. "The US is afraid that the original proposal would interfere with its effort to negotiate its own peace deal" or "The temporary ceasefire will help us negotiate a more permanent peace." Absolute comedy considering all the support the US is providing to Israel's ongoing genocide campaign
President Lula da Silva on Twitter:
"Just as I said when I was in prison that I wouldn't accept a deal to get out of jail and that I wouldn't trade my freedom for my dignity, I say: I won't trade my dignity for falsehood."
"I am in favor of the creation of a free and sovereign Palestinian state. May this Palestinian state live in harmony with the State of Israel. What the government of the State of Israel is doing is not war, it is genocide. Children and women are being murdered. Don't try to interpret the interview I gave. Read the interview and stop judging me based on what the Prime Minister of Israel said."
I have a theory that the reason a lot of IOF members post themselves with unfunny tiktoks and images is that they're trying to reach the level of funny Hamas did by breaking into the most advanced securities on the planet using paragliders and motorcycles then kidnapping a commander in his underwear.
It’s always weird visiting Upstate New York and having a good relationship with the police there because we all went to the same school for troubled kids. A lot of them saw it as a good alternative to what they were doing in their personal lives and liked that it didn’t take them out of the country like the military did. At the same time it’s unsettling knowing what I know about the police force they work for.
From a Norwegian tabloid, "Russian shrimp salad changes name [to 'rustic' salad]" (22 Feb 2024)
it's so joever for putin
Lula won't apologize for criticizing genocide in Gaza, says Amorim. :chad:
On Sunday (18), the president compared Israel's action in the Gaza Strip against Hamas to the mass murder of Jews by Adolf Hitler
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party) will not apologize for criticizing the genocide in Gaza, the president's special advisor for international affairs, Celso Amorim, told CNN.
"We've always treated it in a very respectful way and defended the two-state solution, but there's nothing to apologize for. Israel is putting itself in a condition of increasing isolation," said Amorim.
"What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people is like nothing else in history. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews," said Lula.
Today, Israel's foreign minister told the Brazilian ambassador that Lula would be declared a person non grata in the country until he apologized.
Lol, good on Lula. Isn'treal supported Bolsonaro until quite recently, THEY invited HIM, A LITERAL NOBODY with no political rights and a CRIMINAL, but not the fucking PRESIDENT of Brazil. Really hope Lula breaks of relation with israel.
Of course the Liberal Party (Bolsonaro's Party that is currently being investigated by the police) asked for an impeachment but they lack all 150 seats to do that, and so they decided ask the Supreme Court Judges for help, the same Judges that Bolsonaro attempt to kill and are close with Lula.
Celso Amorim, who I believe was the advisor of every goverment in Brazil besides the Bolsonaro one, basically said that no one cares about what Israel thinks or says, and that Lula and Brazil will continue their trade and diplomacy normally with all other countries.
Ukraine floats possibility of inviting Russia to peace summit
Shame they don't/can't sell them over here
Danish government media is running a story about how consumers "risks paying money to Russia" when they buy goods from Asia. Yemeni sanctions against zionist-related shipping in the Red Sea means that more Asian goods gets transported to western Europe on rail through Russia. Even under the EU's attempts at economic warfare against Russia this practice is still perfectly legal but now the media is trying to whip up a frenzy against it.
i saw two hot air balloons outside of dallas today. there must be a chinese spy base in plano.
The Br*tish are having a fucking day, it seems.
The SNP used their Opposition Day to submit a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire and opposing the collective punishment of Gaza.
This reflected their longstanding position, unlike Labour, whose leader backed war crimes and which has repeatedly either justified or failed to oppose Israel's mass slaughter.
Labour then gutted the motion, blackmailed the Speaker into breaking Parliamentary protocol and prevented the SNP's motion from being heard at all.
In sum, the Labour leadership deserve nothing but total contempt.
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1760371182350520572
https://nitter.cz/OwenJones84/status/1760371182350520572
So Starmer apparently threatened the Speaker into breaking long established procedure and then completely gutted the SNPs ceasefire motion (which includes accusing Israel of war crimes) to make some meaningless "temporary ceasefire but Israel has a right to defend itself and also Hamas is bad" motion instead. The Speaker is claiming he wasn't blackmailed but rather said that he's trying to protect MPs whose family are "being threatened" (from who or what I am unsure). The Tories and SNP have now tabled a motion to remove the Speaker and Tel Aviv Keith and Co are doing everything possible to claim they didn't actually just threaten a government official.
It is important to remember that this motion from the SNP has no actual force behind it. Motions brought by the opposition on opposition day don't have the legal force of government behind them, even if passed. It was rumored that 80 members of Labour were going to "rebel" and vote for the SBP motion, including some members of the shadow cabinet, against Keith's orders. So Tel Aviv Keith did all of this to get out of Labour having to take a stand on a meaningless gesture that would have showcased the actual divisions in Labour.
Came across a “war analysis” substack while trying to find on the ground information about recent developments. It’s run by the chubby American dude with glasses you often see on YouTube analyzing different Ukraine-Russia shit
Anyway, one of the recent articles is a “correction” about the identification of a gun from a war video. The thing that disturbed me is that the video is a field execution of some Kurdish woman, likely a civilian. I don’t know the context. I didn’t watch it, but something about feeling the need to correct yourself for identifying the wrong gun model in a video of a war crime as if it matters in any capacity is just… something. Inhumane.
I think I’ve done enough reading about war for today.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/20/7442833/
Reddit loosing it's mind over this one lol
Behind the front-line reports about the liberation of Avdeevka and the gradual squeezing out of Kyiv terrorists from Rabotino, news from the no less significant industrial front passes unnoticed. Although in the current context it is more correct to call it the economic and legal front.
Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the transfer of the Ulyanovsk Machine Tool Plant, owned by the German company Gildemeister Beteiligungen GmbH, a subsidiary of the Japanese-German DMG Mori, to the temporary management of the Federal Property Management Agency. The plant produces turning and milling machines for mechanical engineering. However, after the start of the SMO, German owners stopped production for geopolitical reasons. Now the plant is back in operation.
In Ivanovo, at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, the Arbitration Court seized the shares and property of the Ivanovo Heavy Machine Tool Plant as an interim measure. The prosecutor's office demands that the plant be returned to state ownership. The privatization of the plant in the 90s, according to the supervisory authority, was carried out with violations and caused damage to Russia's defense capability. The plant produced machine tools for the aerospace, defense, automotive and energy industries. This is the city of weavers and brides - with surprises.
In the Chelyabinsk region, the Prosecutor General's Office also discovered violations during privatization in the 90s and damage to Russia's defense capabilities. To stop this long-term crime, prosecutors, just like in Ivanovo, demanded that three plants be returned to the former owner - the state: the Serov Ferroalloy Plant, the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and the Kuznetsk Ferroalloy Plant. The plants produce 90% of ferroalloys in Russia. The owners of the plants, Yuri and Lyudmila Antipov, are, among other things, charged with transferring assets abroad and selling to a potential enemy ferroalloys used in the manufacture of high-quality steel for military equipment, heat-resistant aircraft engines, shock-resistant weapon barrels and armor-piercing projectiles.
The Antipovs are outraged and shout that
“the moped is not mine!”“Everyone did this in the 90s.” “This is not a violation, it was a common practice in the regions.” But prosecutors remember very well the words of our President, spoken when he was serving his first term: “I am for the dictatorship of the law.” And the law states that for the privatization of both the machine tool plant in Ivanov and the Ural ferroalloys, permission from the Russian government was required. There was no such permission. The privatizers instead organized for themselves the decisions of local regional regional governments. As the Antipov family tells us, there are quite a few such factories scattered across Russia.
By the way, the Ulyanovsk Machine Tool Plant was also privatized in 1992. I have an assumption that in this case there was no order from the Russian government. Just like in the case of the Ulyanovsk plant of heavy and unique machine tools, which is now partially owned by the Czech Skoda (read German FW).
Prosecutors have a lot of work to do. After all, as you know. Russians always come back for theirs.
Better late than never.
Alright question time.
My adventures on bluesky have led me to realise that an absolutely massive number of people, including soft-left who would otherwise usually be susceptible to what MLs have to say, are blocking me on sight for being a visible "tankie" now (openly ML and positive of lenin/soviet union being the main indicators).
So the question is under the climate that is being produced do MLs get more done by hiding their MLness so as not to trigger this insta-block behaviour? I could quite easily switch over to DemSoc mode and mostly saying pretty much anything and everything I already say when visibly ML.
I'm still leaning towards visibility, I think that hidden-ness of communists hasn't helped in the past and that something similar to the "pride" approach that helped lgbt people get normalisation has value. The anti-tankie atmosphere being generated is essentially a de-normalisation of communist openness in society and the counter to that seems to me to push normalisation even harder so that the approach fails. I am however interested in others' thoughts.
The West African regional bloc is lifting most sanctions imposed on Niger over last year’s coup, in a new push for dialogue following a series of political crises that have rocked the region in recent months.
A no-fly zone and border closures were among the sanctions being lifted “with immediate effect”, the president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said on Saturday.
I've just seen an unsourced statistic online that a third of the people arrested for antisemitism in Germany as of late are Jewish. Obviously, I can't find anything on this in the media or on Google, though I regularly hear of individual cases. Does anyone have a real source on this or is it just a rumor?
the guy who self-immolated, Aaron Bushnell, died. there's a video circulating on twitter of it (apparently he streamed it on twitch), really horrifying stuff. I can't imagine a worse way to die. it's confirmed that he was active duty Air Force. this seems to be getting much more coverage than the last one.
I think a good way of re-framing the global multipolar conflict happening for scared left-liberals is to show that the multipolar bloc is not a red-brown alliance, it is in fact a red-blue alliance (the national bourgeois of Russia and China and Iran with the proletarian CPC, DPRK, Cuba, pink tide leftish Latin American nations, African de-colonial forces, the axis of Resistance). Putin is not a fascist, he's a Liberal like Merkel or AMLO. Iran, Syria and Hamas are not fascist, they are secular and progressive relative to the area they're in and the western-backed fascist opponents they face in their homelands - they fight to liberate oppressed people internationally despite having domestic issues they need to address.
The west is a blue-brown alliance, NATO is a blue-brown alliance, the anti-communist cold war system is a blue-brown alliance. They cheer for Nazis in Canadian parliaments, they send weapons and money to Azov, they back fascism worldwide, they promote ISIS and jihadist scum & now they are exterminating the Palestinian people. What squishy libs should hate most is their own governments if they truly hate fascism.
Red-brown fears is overblown crap from scared Liberals who called me Assadist for years while quoting bellingcat and Jacobin at me. There is no global red-brown alliance of note, nothing significant. The Trumpists weird fixation of going slightly against the imperialist grain will be corrected soon, they will never go anti-America and pro-global South so their current quirky position is not of consequence. If they are so corrupt Putin and Xi bought them out then cool, I think that's rad. Better than whatever the GOP were doing before, maybe they'll be the American comprador class and fifth column to sell us out if we're lucky, but more likely they'll just stay being neocon chauvinists like always.
Israel escalates bombardment against Lebanon in the Ghaziyeh region close to the heart of the country. Video footage captured massive explosions which were verified by Israeli military radio.
Israel's northern war front has increasingly escalated with the withdrawal of some troops from Gaza, and the massive military deployment to the border region in preparation for a looming Israeli ground invasion against Lebanon's Islamic resistance group.
Local media report Lebanon's resistance groups have already responded with counterattacks on the occupied Al-Samaqa region. Since October 7, fighting in the border region has intensified in response to Israel's war of annihilation against Gaza.
Recent polls by the Israeli newspaper Maariv show that 71% of all Israelis are in favor of an all-out war against Lebanon.
From theredstream on Telegram. Israel was not prepared to fight Hezbollah all-out before Oct 7th. If they think they can take on Hezbollah after the Resistance has dealt them so much damage, that is insane. It would be a fitting end to the Zionist entity if it’s the hubris of their fascistic genocidal population that ultimately does them in.
I want to type up a proper post that will refer to many books and articles detailing Indonesian history but I will be quite busy so I don't think I'll manage to finish it within this week's COTW.
But as for now instead I wrote a quick retrospective that can be served as the "primer" for the eventual post (whenever I'll finish it).
Many westerners has some knowledge of Southeast Asian history but it typically only focuses on Western actions in the region and it never goes deeper. "the Vietnam War", "the Phillipines recolonisation" and "the 1965-66 Indonesian Genocide" gets mentioned but it never is discussed within the 3 millenia of Southeast Asian history but especially within the last 500 years of colonization.
This is especially true for the Islamicate in Southeast Asia.
Do Westerners even know the colonial origins of the exonym of the "Malay Archipelago"? What about the Islamic and Socialist internationalist movements that sweeped across the "Malay-Islamic" civilization that consists of modern-day Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia? - and how Phillipines relates to this wider "civilization"?
Do westerners even know the major maddhab that most Southeast Asians muslims follow? Do they even know anything about how Islam spread across a sub-continent as wide as Lisbon to Tehran? Can they even discuss one thing about the richest company in history - the Dutch East India company? Do they even know anything about the political economy of colonial-capitalism in Southeast Asia?
This lack of knowledge stems from two faults, the rampant Orientalism and chauvinism that has penetrated the subsconcious of Western observers and even many Southeast Asians today, but also the failures of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements in the region. Southeast Asian history to this day is being written by the oppressors. We can't breathe nor think for ourselves.
Can you imagine that? 700 million people, with more than 1300 indigenous languages (accounting for more than 50% of all indigenous languages spoken in Asia), without any voice!
But as materialist dialectics informs us, things continue to evolve and change. Now, ASEAN is experiencing larger economic growth (relative and absolute) than Europe. Under imperial domination for 500 years (and counting) - and still growing faster. Decolonization is not over yet.
The transcription of the talk called Dialectics and Indonesian specificity at the time of imperialism's agony - Humanity (Indonesia) captures this emotional essence quite well.
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), confirmed at a press conference that he had released the phone data of New York Times journalist Natalie Kitroeff on purpose, out of "political authority"
A few weeks ago, the New York Times published allegations of possible links between AMLO's 2006 presidential campaign and drug trafficking, specifically with the Sinaloa cartel. AMLO rejected the accusations and said it was irresponsible of the newspaper to publish them.
After a few days, he published Natalie Kitroeff's private number on his social networks. Today, when questioned, he said that moral authority is above all else, and asked who would repair the damage that had been done to his image.
Get fuckin wrecked
Also, I saw recently some news that Venezuela's economy is improving, probably due to the EU and US removing oil sanctions, Russian and Chinese investement, Tourism and the open trade between Venezuela and Brazil and Colombia,.
Neocolonial French puppet forced by the Senegalese people to not seek another term: https://www.plenglish.com/news/2024/02/23/senegal-president-gives-in-to-pressure-and-ends-his-term-in-office/
Israeli War-battered Economy Sees Double-digit Contraction, Sharpest Since Coronavirus Crisis: https://english.manartv.com.lb/2048829
The Zionist entity’s economy shrank at a 19.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2023.
It marks the deepest decline since the second quarter of 2020 when the economy dipped almost 30% as the coronavirus pandemic-related lockdowns hurt consumer spending and left many businesses closed, The Times of Israel reported.
The double-digit contraction that hit the economy during the war quarter compared with an expansion of 2.7% in the third quarter of 2023. Private consumption in the October to December period of 2023 plunged 26.9% and import of goods and services was down 42.4%.
Preliminary data from the Central Bureau of Statistics showed the Israeli economy expanded 2% in 2023 after growing at a fast pace of 6.5% in 2022. Private consumption decreased by 0.7% in 2023 after a 7.4% increase in 2022.
The import of goods and services fell in 2023 by 6.9%, after growing 12% in 2022. Exports of goods and services fell 1.1% in 2023 versus an increase of 8.6 in the year earlier.
Europeans really do make everything they touch into racism huh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi-Maoism
Article on the impact of Israel's genocide in Egypt's economy
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/24/how-israels-war-on-gaza-is-bleeding-egypts-economy
There's a bunch in there about impact on tourism, Suez canal passage, LNG processing, refugee numbers.
At the same time, there were discussions about augmenting Egypt’s $3bn loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help it cope with the war in Gaza and the Red Sea security crisis. The main elements of the economic reform package include the Egyptian government selling stakes in dozens of state-owned enterprises, subsidy reductions, moving towards a flexible exchange rate, and making the military’s role in the national economy more transparent.
Charming - your neighbour is doing genocide and its harming your economy, how about a loan with austerity on the side?
— 🇵🇱/🇧🇾/🇷🇺 NEW: 'Polish and U.S. intelligence are preparing a large-scale provocation against the Polish civilian population, which they will blame on Russia and Belarus' – Aleksandr Lukashenko
Ukrainian sources say Transnistria may request annexation by Russia on February 28th. Take with a huge grain of salt, since this is coming exclusively from Ukrainian sources, who have a history of making unfounded claims about Moldova and Transnistria.
I seriously doubt these claims, since such an annexation would pull a weak, isolated Transnistria into war with Ukraine. The only way it could reasonably be true is if Russia intends to suddenly capture Odessa, which also seems very unlikely at the moment.
Bono predictably posting cringe at his concert in “the sphere” in Vegas
Blinken says he strongly disagrees with Lula on Israel, but that they are friends and united on freeing hostages and ceasefires. "We can have disagreements on one aspect of an issue and still continue the vital work we are doing together" said Antony Blinken.
"Obviously, we strongly disagree on the comparison between Gaza and the Holocaust. But that's something friends do. We can have disagreements on one aspect of an issue and still continue the vital work we're doing together," said the US Secretary of State.
"And we are united in having shared goals: getting hostages out, getting an extended humanitarian ceasefire along with more humanitarian assistance and ending the conflict."
Blinken also agreed to the creation of a future Palestinian state, shortly after his meeting with President Lula da Silva. Blinken met with other diplomats, including Sergey Lavrov. To see samba dances at a party for G20 diplomats organized by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro.
Ha’aretz English reports Oct 7 partygoer was misidentified by security force, killed. As more and more deaths are seriously investigated, the truth is coming out. Note, this is a fairly mainstream lib/center Israeli news outlet.
I missed this sign of balkanization the other day
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/19/us/utahs-sovereignty-act-overrule-federal/index.html
What do you want to bet that it'll be found that overruling chud laws will be constitutionally ok but that any legislation that actually helps people will go against the constitution
come on you young Sailorman listen to me and i sing you a Song of the insurance rates of the sea
EDIT: footage apperently is not the actuall ship 2Rubymare" going down , but the actuall ship went down and it has hebrew watermark so ... Spirit Match.
EDIT2: The Band "British Sea Power" of Disco Elysium fame , is only called "Sea Power" Now!
EDIT3: probably also not it
Argentina: Poverty Rises 13 Points in Milei’s Two Months Ruling
The poverty level rose from 44.7% observed in the third quarter of 2023 to 49.5% in December and 57.4% in January.
According to the analysis of the Social Observatory of the Catholic University of Argentina, some 27 million people are poor in the country and places the causes of this growth in the devaluation and the inflationary surge that the government of Javier Milei took in just two months.
The depreciation of the currency and the unrestrained escalation of the prices of products of the basic basket influenced the abrupt fall of the purchasing power of the middle sectors, which quickly became larger the poverty figures in Argentina.
The Social Observatory of the university conducting the study projects that the indigent population increased from 9.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2023 to 14.2 per cent in December 2023 and to 15 per cent in January 2024.
Actual record of 57.4% is the highest level of the series started in 2004, when it was 54%, and it is projected that there would be almost 27 million poor people throughout the country, of which 7 million would be destitute.
In January, in the Metropolitan Region of Buenios Aires the poverty basket for an adult was $ 193 146 Argentine pesos (ARS) and for a family type of $ 596 823 (ARS), without considering the price of rents.
The UCA Report explains that "to weigh the worsening of the social situation, two simulation exercises were carried out according to the adjustments applied to the microdata of the EDSA (Social Debt Survey Argentina) of the third quarter of 2023".
"The first recalculates the level of indigence and poverty in the situation of increasing baskets and updating of labor and non-labor income in December 2023. The second of the exercises reproduces the situation of basket costs and the labor and non-labor income of households in January 2024," the authors conclude.
The unwillingness to hold Israel accountable for its practices encourages Israel to commit genocide, Ambassador Madonsela denounced.
On Tuesday, South Africa asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to examine "the institutionalized regime of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices applied by Israel" in the occupied territories of Palestine, and urged it to declare that the Israeli state subjects Palestinians to "an apartheid regime."
South Africa's ambassador to The Hague, Vusimuzi Madonsela, requested the judges to "examine the institutionalized regime of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices applied by Israel according to the definition of the crime of apartheid" and define as such the regime to which the Israeli government subjects Palestinians.
"Israel discriminates and fragments all Palestinian peoples to ensure the maintenance of Israeli Jewish domination," warned Madonsela, who cautioned that "Israeli apartheid must end" and "the Palestinian people must be allowed to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination."
He also emphasized that Palestinians in the West Bank "remain contained by a segregated wall" and are victims of discriminatory policies that include "Israeli violent incursions into Palestinian villages, towns, cities, and refugee camps," "illegal arbitrary arrests" of children and adults, which are "indefinitely renewable without trial, euphemistically known as administrative detentions."
"Separately, Palestinians in Gaza have lived in a sealed, fragmented, and segregated enclave from the West Bank, and subjected by Israel to repression, sustained closure, and siege," Madonsela lamented.
"On each of the last 136 days, the world is witnessing an unprecedented assault in Gaza, in speed and severity, violating the most basic precepts of the right to life and survival of a population," he added.
"The international community's unwillingness to hold Israel accountable for its policies and practices, and its failure to ensure the immediate, unconditional, and total withdrawal of Israeli troops, and an immediate end to Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine, including Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, encourages Israel to reach a new critical point, to commit genocide, the crime of crimes," Madonsela denounced.
This week, at the request of the United Nations General Assembly, the ICJ is examining "the legal consequences arising from Israel's policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem."
The Court will issue a non-binding legal opinion, in response to a request prior to the Israeli war in Gaza, which has already killed about 28,000 civilians and has left the Strip devastated, with 1.9 million displaced in a territory inhabited by 2.3 million people.
In a separate case on the situation in Gaza, initiated precisely by South Africa at the end of December, the ICJ issued interim measures demanding "immediate and effective" steps from Israel to prevent the commission of genocide in the Strip.
"The Palestinian cause resonates strongly with the people of South Africa. The Palestinian struggle invokes painful memories of our own fight against apartheid, segregation, and oppression," South Africa's ambassador recalled today.
I’ve been getting texts from democrats, because Bernie or AOC probably gave away my phone number. I don’t know how to stop them completely so whatever.
But now I got a text from Nikki Haley? It says she’ll refuse to drop out after tomorrow’s primary in SC. She’s going to take an embarrassing L in her own state but still keep going for some reason.
lol I’m not even gonna reply with STOP, I’m happy to be subscribed to train wreck updates via text.
time to spend another million dollars to shoot down a high school science club project I guess
Two articles popped up on my work computer's mainpage (my gauge of normie news)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/ukraine-war-toll-zelensky.html - Ukraine has lost 31,000 soldiers over the two years of war.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-losses-avdiivka-exceed-10-year-soviet-afghan-war-isw-2024-2 - Russia has lost 47,000 soldiers in Avdeyevka alone.
CNN reporting the reformation of Red Guard units in China as "Corporate Militias" is the funniest shit I've seen reported while simultaneously spiking my blood pressure.
Edit: and I mean Red Guards in the Soviet tradition and not the Chinese tradition.
Edit2: Link here if you're really that curious. It's not worth reading though.
Decided to raise my blood pressure by watching a BBC report on how Russia Is Indeed Still Bad where a correspondent literally stood in front of the Kremlin talking about how little freedom they had in Russia - I can only presume that the dead eyed men in ushankas smoking filterless cigarettes dragged him off to a gulag for spreading Western propaganda after they stopped filming because I didn't see it on the actual broadcast - Definitely no chance he just adjourned to a posh Moscow cocktail bar to get shithoused or anything because you can't do that in Russia obviously.
Also on the menu: endless Navalny simping because of course, constant reminders that Russia has lost 10 morbillion troops, scolding grieving families for leaving flowers on a war memorial, interviewing an old woman talking about how it's good that Russia is now producing it's own goods and acting like that's a crazy opinion to have, deliberately inserting video clips of run down buildings that have nothing to do with the story being presented, more scolding of Russia for still referring to the war as as special military operation (despite us calling the Iraq War a 'police action' the whole time) and for some reason multiple shots of a fluffy ginger cat playing in the snow which kind of undermined the whole dystopic vibe they were going for - maybe they were trying to spread awareness of Russia's tolerance for outdoor cats idk.
My review: 3/10, the cat was very cute and the old woman had the energy of someone with a framed picture of Stalin in her living room, everything else sucked, Britain's century of humiliation continues to be entirely deserved.
Victory is now in the hands of the RUAF
spoiler
the village of Victory southwest of Donetsk City
IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIVS AVGVSTVS should have never stopped at Teutoburg Forest:
The Social Democratic Party (SPD), Germany's leading political party, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the opposition Christian Democratic Party (CDU) have mandated high schools in Berlin's Neukolln borough to disseminate brochures titled "The Myth of Israel 1948."
Remember the famous land bridge? It's fake.
There was a Palestine rally in Tallinn last Saturday and I only now at this very second hear about it. No one says a single iota of anything going on. Literally not one single word. Then anywhere from 2 hours to a week, "massive rally in support". How the hell do people hear and organize these things? When there isn't a single post online or a single soul mentioning a breath of any organized movement at all, just how.
Oh and forced isolation (as in, literally not allowed to go to Jummah anymore) certainly when I'm only allowed to see the few same people at work and that's literally it, doesn't help matters either.
I'm worried about our man
.99 red luftalerts another balloon spotted I repeat another balloon has been spotted this is not a drill
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/military-tracking-balloon-western-us-military/
The U.S. is tracking a small, high-altitude balloon that is drifting across the country but poses no threat to national security, U.S. officials and the military said Friday.
CBS News first reported that the military was tracking the balloon as it traversed the Western U.S. earlier in the day. NORAD, the military command responsible for air defense over the U.S. and Canada, later confirmed it had detected the object and said it was floating between 43,000 and 45,000 feet. Its presence prompted enough concern that the command sent aircraft to investigate.
"The balloon was intercepted by NORAD fighters over Utah, who determined it was not maneuverable and did not present a threat to national security. NORAD will continue to track and monitor the balloon," NORAD said in a statement. "The FAA also determined the balloon posed no hazard to flight safety."
The cultural heritage bequeathed to us by the Arabs remains in our language, in our cuisine, in our way of life. Both Latin America and the world are heirs to their wisdom.
The Arab presence in Latin America dates back to the arrival of the Spanish around 1492, initiating a long process of constant cultural exchange between the New World and the Middle East.
The encounter between the two cultures - as historians have called it - was in fact a multicultural encounter. The colonizers' ships were manned by hundreds of men from dissimilar cultures from the old continent, including the Arab culture.
Let us remember that the Arabs occupied the Iberian Peninsula, which they called Al-Andaluz. In this region, the Emirate of Granada, the last Arab stronghold in the peninsula, was the most important. Finally, with the advance of the Reconquest, initiated by the Christians in the northern mountains of the peninsula, the Emirate of Granada fell and the Arabs were expelled.
But it was impossible to expel more than eight hundred years of traditions, customs and cultural heritage. The descendants of the Arabs who remained in this region had to adapt to the new reality, change their surnames, adapt their religious customs, etc. However, this cultural heritage could never be erased, as it endured for centuries.
The first Arab descendants arrived in America on those three famous ships used by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the New World in 1492: La Niña, La Pinta and Santa María were the names of the ships. They were looking for a route that would take them to the Indies, since the Arabs blocked the passage through the European continent. Of these ships, two returned to Europe. The Santa Maria ran aground near the coasts of the Dominican Republic.
Without being aware of it, many Latin Americans carry surnames of Muslim heritage. In today's Spanish there are thousands of words that come directly from Arabic. Pronounced every day: azúcar, albañil, alforjas, azucenas, alelí, the Spanish denomination of ojala, is a derivation of the Islamic cult of Ala. Similarly, in architecture there are forms that come from the millenary Moorish tradition.
Latin America had different waves of Arab migration from the Middle East, being from the late 19th century, when a large community of Arab origin disembarked. The first was between 1870 and 1900, the second between 1900 and 1914 and, finally, the third wave occurred as a consequence of the occupation of Palestine in 1948 and from 1974 with the civil war in Lebanon.
Among the countries that stand out the most are Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. They settled in many countries in the Latin American region, mainly in Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. It is estimated that more than 20 million found a new way of life. Today they are grouped into communities, associations and, despite living in a totally different environment, they maintain their main traditions.
Undoubtedly, it is a mistake to think that we are far removed from the Arabs. The cultural heritage they have bequeathed to us remains in our language, in our cuisine, in our way of life. This debunks the myth that Arabs are barbarians and have always been an inferior culture or that they are extremists for practicing Islam. None of this is true. Both Latin America and the world are heirs to their wisdom.
Not really news report, but is interesting to see the connection between Latin America and the Middle East
Two years after Ratimir Poopin' personally invaded The Ukraine, Germany legalizes marihuana in a desperate attempt to shore up stoner support for democracy.
Hard to convey how big this is - sure, smoking weed has become as normalized here as anywhere else in the west, then again the repercussions for doing it are at least theoretically quite insane, like for example you automatically lose your drivers license for 6 months if you're caught DUI with any amount of cannabis in your piss.
The legalization itself is very German: it's 180+ pages of legalese, you have to register with a "smoking club" where you grow and share your weed among club members, 500 members per club max, no public or pharmacy dispensaries, no smoking within 500 yards of any school, playground or kindergarten, buying on the black market is still technically illegal and so is stashing more than 40 grams per adult... you know, rules-based stuff.
But at least it's mostly legal now, cops can't take it away any more and you won't get into legal trouble. Oh, I mean as soon as the lower house passes the bill, but they kinda have to apparently. I think this is the first time that I'm actually kinda happy about my government.
But it will get old real fast I bet.
At one point I got to watch another video of John Mearsheimer talking about how China's present and Japan's past exist in parallel. His argument being that Imperial Japan was not acting irrationally when it declared war on the US. The japanese leadership was under no illusion that it would be an easy war, or that they had any but the slimmest chances of winning. They only perceived it as the only way out of the economic catastrophe that the US embargo imposed on them. The argument then continues as Mearsheimer claims that China must be somehow both assured and contained in such a way as to not cause another war in east asia.
Yet I feel that he's got it completely backwards. It is the US that perceives hegemony as the only means by which it's continues prosperity is ensured. And it is the US that has to be contained and assured in such a way as to prevent a larger war, as well as to put an end to the regional wars that it constantly triggers on a whim. It is the United States who has to realize that growing prosperity in places like China and american withdrawal from hegemony status does not actually impede american development in any way.
A Crowd Defends Assange Before the Court Deciding His Future
"If he is extradited, the chilling effect will be enormous," RSF journalist Rebecca Vincent said.
On Tuesday, hundreds of people from different nationalities demanded the freedom of Julian Assange outside the doors of the High Court in London, where two judges must decide whether he can appeal his case in the United Kingdom or be extradited to the United States.
From early in the day, participants in the demonstration began to gather at the courthouse doors, where the first of the two scheduled hearings for the case began today.
“This trial is an attack on truth and the citizens' right to know. Julian is a political prisoner, and his life is in danger,” Assange's wife, Stella, said in a speech alongside Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the British Labour Party.
Miguel Urban, a member of Anticapitalistas in the European Parliament, said that the atmosphere in the courtroom is "tense," during a break taken by the MEP during the session.
"There can be no other outcome than the acquittal of Julian Assange because this will be the acquittal of freedom of information and the press," he said.
"Reporters Without Borders is engaged because of Julian Assange's contribution to journalism... he exposed war crimes and human rights violations...If he is extradited, the chilling effect will be enormous," said journalist Rebecca Vincent.
Among the 'Free Julian Assange' posters stood out the Guy Fawkes masks and the orange color of the prisoner jumpsuits worn by some of the attendees.
"They are using Assange as an example to silence the press," said Richard, a retired finance worker who attended the doors of the London court on Tuesday.
Assange has been in pretrial detention at the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since he was arrested at the request of the United States following his expulsion on April 11, 2019, from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The relevance of the trial, crucial in deciding whether Assange will be extradited to the United States, brought people from various nationalities. For instance, Christiane Fantauzzo traveled from Marseille a day earlier to be present at the protest.
"It's the last chance to free him and to ensure freedom of the press and democracy," the French computer engineer said.
On Tuesday, Julian Assange began presenting his last legal recourse in the United Kingdom against his extradition to the U.S., where authorities want to prosecute him for espionage due to the revelations published in 2010 and 2011 through WikiLeaks, which exposed classified information revealing U.S. human rights violations in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If the court does not authorize him to appeal the extradition order issued on June 6, 2023, by Magistrate Jonathan Swift, the mechanism for Assange's extradition to the U.S. would be activated, in which case his lawyers have already announced that they will request urgent precautionary measures from the European Court of Human Rights to prevent it.
SEE IT: President Biden unusually strong today, shows off some vigor. WATCH
Me, wet and cold in a life raft shivering as my ship, the HMS Treaty McTreatface, sinks to the bottom of the Red Sea: "Fuck around and find out, fuck around and find out, fuck around and...."
CW: murder, abuse, Marc Dutroux
Did you know a NATO secretary general was very likely involved with a depraved Salo-like club created by a network of serial killers and human traffickers?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux
It’s wild how conservatives make up shit or lie exaggerate about child abuse and trafficking when this shit really exists. But i guess you have to when your own people are involved.
so uh, wtf is going on with this? https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-nuclear-materials-trafficking-charges-against-japanese-yakuza
i'm currently inebriated and reading is hard
Western military excellence news: The royal Danish navy, once floridly besung as the Dane's way to glory and power, continues to impress by inflicting damage on two frigates. The frigates were their own.
This morning a storm damaged the moorings of the frigate Esbern Snare that is docked at the Frederikshavn naval base. The wind then blew her into the neighbouring frigate Absalon, causing damage to both ships. Military authorities claim not to have assessed the extent of the damage yet or to have an idea of how the ship could become unmoored.
ANOTHER NAZI BITES THE DUST!
So in a CNN story about some german football/soccer team, I found out in another one of those the most peculiar fashions that German fascism is still closer to the surface than many of the krauts are willing to admit.
Anyways, at least the nazi Abwehr agent had the decency to pursue justice against fascism in his own way. Better late than never lmao
Settler-on-settler violence:
Bolsonaro Remains Silent When Testifying About 2023 Coup Plan
This far-right politician and his collaborators must answer for violent acts that aimed to perpetuate him in the Presidency of Brazil.
On Thursday, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and 22 of his former collaborators went to the Federal Police to testify about the coup plans drawn up to prevent the inauguration of Lula da Silva as president on January 1, 2023.
The investigation focuses on the riot on January 8, 2023, when, a week after Lula took office, thousands of far-right activists violently stormed the Brasilia headquarters of all three branches of government.
Over the last year, the Federal Police found serious indications of conspiracies, one of which is a draft presidential decree prepared before January 1, 2023.
In this document, which the far-right President was expected to sign, actions aimed at keeping Bolsonaro in power through a "state of siege" and the intervention of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal are outlined.
"Jair Bolsonaro and generals Augusto Heleno and Braga Netto arrived at the Federal Police headquarters to give simultaneous testimonies about the attempted coup d'état. Due to a strategy of the Federal Police, all those investigated must give their testimonies at the same time to avoid collusion of versions."
This evidence led to a major police operation on February 8, 2024, when the homes of about 20 individuals were searched and four close collaborators of Bolsonaro were arrested.
Brazilian Justice revoked Bolsonaro's passport and banned him from leaving the country as measures to ensure that he attends the judicial proceedings against him.
This Thursday, the Federal Police also received statements from four former ministers, three of whom are retired generals: Walter Braga Netto, Paulo Sergio Nogueira, and Augusto Heleno.
Also present to give a statement were Admiral Almir Garnier, other high-ranking military officers, and former congressman Valdemar Costa Neto, who is the president of Bolsonaro's Liberal Party.
"Bolsonaro testifies today before the Federal Police for having led the coup plot. We know well that January 8 was the result of a system of disinformation and a financial and political investment. The former president's fingerprints are all over the dream coup, including the draft decree. No amnesty."
"The former president's lawyers tried unsuccessfully to postpone the statement... The police strategy to collect the testimonies is for them to be simultaneous so as to prevent those investigated from speculating with the versions," reported Nacho Lemus, teleSUR correspondent in Brazil.
Before going to the Federal Police, Bolsonaro denied all suspicions against him and indicated that he would remain silent during his testimony because he is "a victim of judicial persecution."
Next Sunday, this far-right politician and his followers will hold a meeting in Sao Paulo to reject this alleged "persecution."
Another election year in South Africa, another cycle of political parties promising the world in their manifestos. I actually decided to waste my time and skim through all the major political party manifestos, and we've got parties promising to create millions of jobs out of thin air, promising to end rolling electricity blackouts within 6 months of being in power, promising that every primary and high school in the country will have two sports fields and a swimming pool by 2025/next year, promising giving people thousands of rands a month just for having a degree. Well that's most political parties, the DA has instead chosen the brave move of promising to take away stuff from people, like promising to reduce the amount of people eligible for free university education.
I'm just tired of it all. Get promised the world and nothing happens.
Trump made a statement on the Alabama IVF ban.
The Project 2025 thing is interesting. Like Dems are using it to fearmonger, but Reps are 100% wanting to do it. Question is: can they? They kinda are already doing it at the state level. I do think it could be a liability especially if they start to get super weird about it as Dobbs has hurt Republicans.
Made the mistake of trying to talk about international affairs/geopolitics with white South Africans on Reddit. Never again folks, I don't know what made me so something so stupid.
These people are still somehow pro Ukraine and pro Israel and unironically believe that the West is a bastion of freedom and democracy. I have no idea what bubble these people live in, but whatever it is, it's impenetrable.
I watched the recent episode of Halo. Torrents came out for it ~13 hours ago as they do every week. I liked it but my mind was on Gaza a lot of the time. Unlike other episodes the marines don't fight in their battle suits. They are wearing street clothes. Monsters use space weapons to destroy a city but it was easy to see the parallel in death and destruction in an urban environment in Gaza.
At one point a dying character looks up at the sky through a "skylight" in the rubble created by the enemy's destruction. I wondered how many people have died in Gaza and how many more will.
It turns out there was at least one good American sailor in Japan
spoiler
A Japan-based US Navy sailor has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing classified information to a foreign government.
Bryce Pedicini is alleged to have given documents to foreign agents at least seven times in 2022 and 2023. The US Navy also accuses him of trying in May 2023 to hand over photographs showing the screen of a military computer. He faces a court martial while the investigation continues. The accused is a chief petty officer fire controlman assigned to a Japan-based guided missile destroyer, the USS Higgins. He has been in custody since May 2023, just days after the last alleged incident in Japan.
Resistance News put out nice little info graphics breaking down the various groups fighting for Palestine.
The RNN Guide to the Palestinian Resistance.
Many readers may struggle to keep track of all of groups, formations, and brigades that constitute the united and victorious Palestinian resistance landscape. We have attempted to break down their differences, capabilities, and active formations to help our readers get a better picture of the resistance on the ground.
We hope that this guide serves as a useful reference for those becoming aware of the reality of the daily resistance in Palestine.
Together, we are united until liberation.
It turns out they harvested Rachel Corrie's organs too:
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1744728230030967266
https://nitter.mint.lgbt/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1744728230030967266
He is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, and Foreign Minister Yvan Gil. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Caracas for an official visit to the Bolivarian nation.
He is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, and Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil.
"The parties will discuss key issues of bilateral cooperation and interaction in the international arena, as well as analyze the global and regional landscape," the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
"Venezuela is a strategic partner and ally of Russia. Bilateral relations, based on strong ties of friendship and solidarity, are thriving and actively developing in all crucial areas."
"Russia will continue to provide comprehensive support to the Venezuelan government and people in defending their national sovereignty and the right to choose their own development path,” it added.
On Monday, Lavrov began his Latin American tour in Cuba, where he met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
Upon concluding his visit to Venezuela, the Russian Foreign Minister will travel to Brazil to participate in a ministerial meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20).
Unrepentant war criminal, fascist enabler and former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has given a deranged interview to Danish government broadcaster DR. Today Rasmussen works as a lobbyist for shady US imperialist interests. His paymasters has tasked him with running a backroom operation to expand NATO into the Ukraine and in this capacity he has voiced rage over the western strategy in the Ukraine war until now that he considers to have been too soft.
Instead he is campaigning for steep escalation of the war, consequences be damned. He wants to give the Kiev regime far more weapons than today, to remove all limitations on their use and to make Ukraine a NATO member despite the ongoing war. He is utterly deranged, it's like Goebbels screaming for total war.
Some quotes from the interview below.
About western strategy until now:
You can't win a war with such a step by step strategy. You need to surprise and overwhelm your enemy, it's that kind of shock strategy you need to follow.
About tying Ukraine closer to NATO as soon as possible:
Interviewer: Doesn't an active conflict in Ukraine stand in the way of this?
Rasmussen: We need to try and get around that argument. If you say we can't send an invitation to Ukraine as long as there's a war you are also saying to Putin that he can just continue the war. Because then he prevents the Ukrainians from ever becoming members of NATO. It is a vicious circle we must break by extending an invitation now.
Interviewer: Don't you risk escalating what could be the doorstep to a third world war?
Rasmussen: Well, I'm hearing another argument. But what can Putin do? It is Putin who has been escalating this war. He has been doing it since 2008 when NATO decided that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance.
He is not even answering the question. I wonder if he even understands it. War craze and Putin derangement syndrome makes him oblivious to the dire existential risks of what he's proposing.
I also love his Freudian slip of not saying that Ukraine decided to join NATO but rather that NATO decided that Ukraine would become a member.
About negotiations:
The hard truth is that the way to peace is through war. If we are to have a lasting and just peace, it is necessary that the Ukrainians go to negotiations with as strong a background as possible. This is a reason why we have to deliver what we can add fast as we can.
Completely delusional. I as a person has a greater chance of entering negotiations with Russia from a position of strength than Ukraine has. Ukraine has already lost the west, the question is only how bad they are going to lose, not whether or not some kind of return to status quo. More western Wunderwaffen are not going to change this.
Is the Standoff at Eagle Pass still going or did they stop pretending something was going to happen?
Business Insider says
The Ukraine aid that House Republican leaders are blocking might actually be good for the US economy
That's right, dipshits are now trying to accuse Republicans of hurting the economy by hurting Ukraine and Israel because the bill doesn't have enough money to hurt the refugees at the border.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is blocking a $95 billion emergency foreign aid bill, saying he's in "no rush" to take up the legislation the Senate overwhelmingly approved last week.
Fucking lol please take all the time you need and then some extra. Preferably for the rest of the year.
The bill — opposed by many conservatives due to its exclusion of desired security measures at the US-Mexico border — would provide about $60 billion in badly needed aid for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia's nearly two-year-long invasion.
It's not enough for Biden to finish trump's work, he's gotta look weak while going the extra mile in turning the border into a giant Saw movie replica.
The legislation would also give $14.1 billion in military funding to Israel, $9.2 billion for humanitarian efforts in Gaza, and $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific allies to deter Chinese aggression.
It'll probably pass eventually and probably with more tax dollars included, but hopefully the time spent by Republicans trying to own the libs will be spent well by the axis of resistance.
While supporters of the legislation say it's needed urgently to help Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal also points out that the bill would benefit the US economy.
The wall street journal says the bill will benefit Wall Street.
Over the past two years, the US defense industry has seen a surge in demand for weapons and munitions, with European countries looking to boost their military operations and the Pentagon purchasing new equipment, according to the Journal.
Something they were and still fucking struggle to do because more money gets put into pockets instead of production. But who gives a shit, less weapons for ukronazis and zionazis.
Officials in President Joe Biden's administration said that 64% of the roughly $60 billion appropriated for Ukraine in the Senate-passed bill would reach the US defense industrial base, the Journal reported.
And 64% of that goes straight into the pockets of the 1%, at minimum.
Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told the Journal in a recent interview that the impact on the US economy would be significant.
The super yacht industry will see a bump in sales!
“That’s one of the things that is misunderstood … how important that funding is for employment and production around the country,” she told the newspaper.
[In a Stavros Halkias voice] It's not.
The Journal reported that the $95 billion in aid, in addition to money from previous packages, can "inject funds worth about 0.5% of one year’s gross domestic product into the US industrial defense base" in upcoming years.
Jesus christ. Imagine how many lives could be saved with that kind of money.
It remains unclear when or if the House will take up the Senate bill. Former President Donald Trump also opposes it and is the likely GOP presidential nominee. Trump in recent weeks also helped tank a bipartisan bill that would have tightened the US asylum system, among other measures.
I thought the cheeto was gonna go to jail and the Republicans would put out a normal candidate
Ancap Update:
The General Workers' Confederation of Argentina has announced a 24-hour general strike with health care workers on February 22. The strike was announced by Hector Daer, CGT union leader.
The Danish police have concluded their investigations into the Nord Stream explosions. Their conclusion? It was sabotage
https://politi.dk/koebenhavns-politi/nyhedsliste/the-joint-investigation-into-nord-stream-explosions-has-been-concluded/2024/02/26US proposes UN Security Council to oppose Rafah attack - CNBC
The United States has proposed an alternative draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and opposing a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza, according to the text seen by Reuters on Monday.
Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any U.N. action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the U.S. draft text echoes language that President Joe Biden said he used last week in conversations with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The U.S. draft text “determines that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries.”
Israel plans to storm Rafah, where more than 1 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza have sought shelter, prompting international concern that such a move would sharply worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The draft U.S. resolution says such a move “would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”
I>t was not immediately clear when or if the draft resolution would be put to a vote in the 15-member council. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to be adopted.
The U.S. put forward the text after Algeria on Saturday requested the council vote on Tuesday on its draft resolution, which would demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield quickly signaled that it would be vetoed.
Rejects buffer zone
Algeria put forward an initial draft resolution more than two weeks ago. But Thomas-Greenfield said the text could jeopardize “sensitive negotiations” on hostages. The U.S., Egypt, Israel and Qatar are seeking to negotiate a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from U.N. action and has twice vetoed council resolutions since Oct. 7. But it has also abstained twice, allowing the council to adopt resolutions that aimed to boost aid to Gaza and called for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in fighting.
The draft U.S. text would condemn calls by some Israeli government ministers for Jewish settlers to move to Gaza and would reject any attempt at demographic or territorial change in Gaza that would violate international law.
The resolution would also reject “any actions by any party that reduce the territory of Gaza, on a temporary or permanent basis, including through the establishment officially or unofficially of so-called buffer zones, as well as the widespread, systematic demolition of civilian infrastructure.”
Reuters reported in December that Israel told several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone inside Gaza’s borders to prevent attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after the war ends.
The war began when fighters from the Hamas militant group that runs Gaza attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. In retaliation, Israel launched a military assault on Gaza that health authorities say has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians with thousands more bodies feared lost amid the ruins.
In December, more than three-quarters of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly voted to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has long called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffith warned last week that military operations in Rafah “could lead to a slaughter.”
Subject of 2 indictments, with his passport confiscated by the Federal Police, Jair Bolsonaro has called on his followers to join him in an anti Supreme Court protest on S. Paulo's Paulista avenue today - a location which has tens of thousands of people on it anyway on Sundays
Worried that national protests would flop, Bolsonaro is holding a single protest, & allies have bused supporters in from across country. Paulista avenue is closed to cars on Sundays and is a major recreation spot. It's easy to artificially inflate protest crowd sizes there.
Nevertheless, polls show that around 18% of the electorate are still fanatical Bolsonaro supporters. That's over 20 million people. Thousands of people will participate in the protest today, including conservatives who were planning to go to Av. Paulista anyway.
He's going there just to say that he is 100% innocent. Imagine going in the hot sun just to hear some random old guy screams about lulocommunism or whatever.
(misleading) new sanctions against Gaza https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-21/gaza-facing-major-penalties-after-breaching-salary-regulations/103489058
I've been seeing a bit about Cape independence from South Africa. As an outsider (American) with not much knowledge, it initially sounds like it would just be white South Africans being racist, but supposedly a lot of Cape Coloureds (I feel really uncomfortable saying that, but that seems to be the term) want independence too. Anyone know more about this?
How many of those Russian A-50 AWACS planes have Ukraine claimed to have shot down? Three or four? There was the one on the ground in Belarus that Ukraine attacked, then they claimed to shoot one down (with no evidence presented other than another plane landing with damage) and now they've claimed to shoot down another one, with video of a plane on fire crashing into the Azov sea. Does anyone know if they actually shot these planes down, or is it the usual Ukrainian propaganda similar to the ghost of Kiev?
Two Danish members of the EU parliament are sad about being discriminated against. More precisely they're sad about not being considered for royal orders and decorations the way members of the national parliament are. The two, who comes from the succdems and the Liberal Party has therefore petitioned the king to also include MEP's in future awards.
Earlier this year the succdem party abandoned it's policy of not accepting royal orders.
Something that has been bothering me for a while and I thought maybe someone here could shed some light on this: what’s the deal with the eXile gang (the War Nerds i.e. Mark Ames, John Dolan, as well as Yasha Levine and Matt Taibbi) and Eduard Limonov, the founder of the National Bolshevik Party (together with Aleksandr Dugin)?
Limonov not only published regular columns in the eXile (his only writings in English), but apparently they were close enough friends that he wrote the foreword of their book The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia in 2000, and the book materials were apparently also quite some source of controversy.
Limonov was imprisoned in 2001. Putin banned the National Bolshevik Party in 2007. The Russian government forced the eXile to close down in 2008. The last two seem to be connected. Is this why they hate Putin so much?
Some cell networks are down across the United States, apparently: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/tech/att-cell-service-outage/index.html
Brazil intends to reinforce that President Lula's (Workers' Party) criticism of the conflict in the Gaza Strip focuses on the State of Israel and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and not on the Jewish people. But he will not apologize for last weekend's speech.
Brazil insists that criticism of the Israeli attacks must continue: the plan now is to make the separation of positions between the actions of the state and its population clearer.
The Planalto believes that Lula's speech was not wrong, but that it could be mistaken for an attack on the Jewish people. The president is meeting this morning with former chancellor Celso Amorim, the presidency's special advisor for international affairs, and minister Paulo Pimenta at the Alvorada Palace to discuss the issue.
Within the government, there are also those who argue that the president should focus on the link between Netanyahu and the extreme right. Even before the war, the Israeli leader, who had a good relationship with former president Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), has adopted strong positions against the two-state solution and also made controversial statements involving dictator Adolf Hitler in 2015.
Rogério Marinho (Liberal Party), leader of the opposition in the Senate, classified the speech as "historical ignorance". Federal deputy Jandira Feghali (Communist Party of Brazil) said it was a "necessary comparison".
Macri and Milei Are Responsible for Poverty in Argentina: CFK
In less than a month of government, President Javier Milei increased poverty to 54 percent.
On Monday, former Argentine president and vice president Cristina Fernandez-Kirchner blamed former president Mauricio Macri and current president Javier Milei for the poverty rate surpassing 57.4 percent.
"Today we are worse off than in 2004," Fernandez-Kirchner said, emphasizing that the far-right President Milei's economic policies are plunging millions of Argentines into hunger.
Previously, the Argentine Catholic University's Social Debt Observatory (ODSA-UCA) published a report showing that the poverty rate rose from 49.5 percent in December to 57.4 percent in January.
This is the highest poverty rate since 2004 when Argentina reached 54 percent poverty. Currently, nearly 27 million people are living in poverty.
Cristina on poverty in Argentina: 'They are playing with the Argentinians' table.' "The vice president was very harsh with the governments of Mauricio Macri and Javier Milei after analyzing the evolution of poverty.
Between December 2023 and January 2024, the extreme poverty rate rose from 14.2 percent to 15 percent, which represents 7 million indigent people.
Since assuming the presidency on Dec. 10, 2023, Milei has implemented economic policies that have driven inflation above 200 percent, thus causing a sharp decline in real incomes for the population. All this happened while the far-right politician swore that the burden of the crisis would be borne by the political elites, whom he derogatorily calls "The Caste."
Fernandez-Kirchner recalled that the current critical situation began to take shape with Macri's decisions regarding external debt, which facilitated the return of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the economic decision-making processes in this South American country.
This created a structural condition that prevented the government of Alberto Fernandez (2019-2023) from finding solutions to the "Gordian knot of the Argentine economy."
So the Danish government just gave a Security Statement (not sure if this means a security guarantee, or if this is the same type of agreement that Hungary and China just signed) to Ukraine for the next 10 years, proving that the Danish SocDems and our Liberals are functionally hitlerites (though we mostly already knew that part). Jesus fuck I hate this fucking country
Once banned from the United States for human rights violations - a truly phenomenal feat - he has been the Minister of Defense since 2019, was an army lieutenant under Suharto and was his son-in-law.
Ah the Modi strat
Palestinian PM submits resignation to Mahmoud Abbas over Gaza ‘genocide’
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has announced the resignation of his government, which rules parts of the occupied West Bank, due to the escalating violence in the occupied West Bank and the war on Gaza.
“The decision to resign came in light of the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the war, genocide and starvation in the Gaza Strip,” Shtayyeh, who submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, said.
“I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian-Palestinian consensus based on Palestinian unity and the extension of unity of authority over the land of Palestine,” he said.
Shtayyeh’s comments come as US pressure grows on Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority and begin work on a political structure that can govern a Palestinian state following the war.
Danish government broadcaster DR has made a carefully choreographed interview with a Ukrainian fighter pilot training in Denmark to fly vintage F-16 fighters. The interview ended with this nice little nugget of a quote:
We all look forward to go back to Ukraine and fight in these planes. I don't think more flight experience is what's important but rather the motivation to go back and keep fighting
Despite more end more stories of Ukraine's hopeless situation slipping past the filter, western propaganda remains utterly delusional.
We recommend analyzing the table with the forecast of the railway freight base for the Eastern range (ER). It shows that the share of coal in transportation to the East will increase from 57% in 2025. up to 65% in 2031 and 66% in 2035. While, for example, the share of oil cargo will fall to 8.7% in 2035 compared to 11.1% in 2025. There is something to think about.
The railway state monopoly, which in previous years often did not keep up with the timing of the investment program to modernize the network, last year unexpectedly doubled spending on the development of the infrastructure of the ER. According to the data of Deputy Head of Russian Railways Andrei Makarov, which he made public at a round table on the development of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway in the Federation Council last December, 250 billion rubles were allocated for the development of the ER. (almost a quarter of the company’s total investment program last year), which is approximately twice as much as in 2022 (RUB 131 billion)
At the end of the year, Russian Railways reported the completion of construction of key facilities in the Far East. In mid-December, traffic was opened through the 926 m long Kerak tunnel, located on the Kovali-Ulruchyi section of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Amur region). This will increase the speed of trains and increase the carrying capacity of the Bamovskaya-Belogorsk section of the Trans-Siberian Railway (both Amur region) from 120 million t/year up to 131 million t/year.
Also in December, traffic began along the new main track on the Dhaka-Datta section of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Vanino line (Khabarovsk Territory).
In 2024, Russian Railways promise to accelerate construction at another 14 facilities on this line, which by the beginning of 2025 will increase the carrying capacity to ports on the shores of the Tatar Strait to 82 million tons/year compared to the current 40 million tons/year.
Pivot to the East is running at full speed.
Football, ice hockey ... shooting? Finland hopes hobby will boost national defence (The Guardian)
Finland plans to open more than 300 new shooting ranges to encourage more citizens to take up the hobby in the interest of national defence.
full text
It is hoped that shooting in the Nordic country – which last year became Nato’s newest member and which shares a 830-mile (1,330km) border with Russia – could become as popular as football or ice hockey.
There are about 670 shooting ranges in Finland, down from about 2,000 at the turn of the century. By 2030, the government plans to increase the number to about 1,000.
Jukka Kopra, a National Coalition party MP and the chair of Finland’s defence committee, told the Guardian: “The present government aims to increase the amount of shooting ranges in Finland from roughly 600-700 up to 1,000. This is because of our defence model, which benefits from people having and developing their shooting skills on their own.” Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the popularity of voluntary training courses aimed at teaching reservists and civilians how to defend Finland has doubled. There has also been a big increase in the number of Finns applying for gun licences.
Last year the Finnish defence training and education association MPK put on 116,000 training days, a significant increase on previous years when there were usually about 50,000.
MPK’s executive director, Antti Lehtisalo, said enthusiasm among Finnish people to defend their country was strong. “We have a very high will to defend the country.”
He said that after completing the courses, participants needed to practise their new skills on shooting ranges.
“One part of this training and education is of course education in shooting because people want to be part of this comprehensive security, so they’re coming to our courses and after that we need more shooting ranges.”
Lehtisalo said shooting was only permitted on ranges, and civilians were given thorough safety training.
The defence ministry said it planned to “safeguard the activities of Finland’s shooting ranges and promote the establishment of new shooting ranges”. A spokesperson added: “The environmental permit processes and legislation concerning shooting ranges will be streamlined. The target for the number of outdoor shooting ranges will be about 1,000 by the end of the decade. The focus will be on establishing a sufficient number of rifle and tactical ranges throughout the country.”
A pro-Bolsonaro rally brings together hundreds of thousands of people on Avenida Paulista in São Paulo. Demonstrators wear green and yellow, some carry Israeli flags, and politicians take turns giving speeches from an electric trio.
Jair Bolsonaro speaks on Paulista Avenue in São Paulo. He is wearing a bulletproof vest and recalls the stabbing he received in Juíz de Fora. Most TV news channels decide to ignore Jair Bolsonaro's speech.
In Paulista, Bolsonaro says he didn't try to stage a coup. "Although it's not a coup, the state of siege has not been called. The councils were not convened," says Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro says he "seeks pacification", and calls for amnesty for those arrested on January 8th. "We have already given amnesty in the past to those who have committed barbarity in Brazil. Now we're asking all the deputies and senators for an amnesty bill," he says
Fearing arrest, Bolsonaro opts for a moderate speech on Paulista Avenue, calls for amnesty and talks about "pacifying Brazil" and "erasing the past". Speech disappoints supporters who attended the event.
After Jair Bolsonaro's speech, supporters begin to disperse on Avenida Paulista. There were no attacks on the Supreme Court and the politician called for "amnesty for the poor bastards" of January 8th.
Jair Bolsonaro cries during a rally on Paulista Avenue. one of the organizers of the Paulista rally, focuses his speech on attacks against Moraes: "how can a minister of the Supreme Court have a side? He doesn't have to fight the extreme right or the extreme left. He is the guardian of the Constitution.
In a speech on Paulista Avenue, Silas Malafaia attacked the Supreme Court. "The president of the STF, Barroso, said 'we have defeated Bolsonarism'. This is a disgrace, an affront. Do you know who the supreme power of this nation is? The people. All this evil engineering, all this evil against Bolsonaro, cowardly, in defiance of the law and the Constitution," he said
Amazon Labor Union leader Chris Smalls is reportedly going to be speaking at a Miami investment conference run by the Saudi government:
Another name that caught my eye:
Chris Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union, will be speaking about SUPERCHARGING HUMAN CAPITAL at the Saudi investment conference this week.
https://twitter.com/mideastXmidwest/status/1760397437011665015
I remember there being some drama posted in a prior news thread of some union members accusing him of not actually getting basic work done and spending all his time doing interviews and paid appearances.
Ancap Update:
The governors of Neuquen, Santa Cruz, La Pampa, Tierra del Fuego, Chubut and Río Negro issued a joint statement expressing their dissatisfaction with the withholding of resources. Chubut went further and threatened to cut off gas supplies to the country.
The governors claim that the main ones pre-exist the Argentine nation, and that they deserve respect and cannot be penalized by the government's policy. They also say that 13.5 billion pesos have been withheld from all the residents of Chubut.
The note bears the signatures of ALL the governors of Argentina's southern provinces, who say in the communiqué that they are not at the behest of the national government and its "will".
The governor of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, said at a rally that if the national government didn't send resources to the province by Wednesday, "not another barrel of oil" would leave the province.
Irish senate voted to sanction Israel.
https://www.ipsc.ie/sanctions/seanadsanctions
Hamas fired rockets at Kissufim and other settlements around Gaza. Al-Qassam claims having killed 15 idf soldiers in Khan Yunis with an IED: https://www.aljazeera.net/news/liveblog/2024/2/26/الحرب-على-غزة-مباشر-مجازر-مستمرة
Indian Farmers To Analyze Minimum Security Price for Five Crops
Farmers have been heading towards Delhi to protest against policies that affect their livelihoods.
On Monday, leaders of protesting farmers said that they would discuss the Indian government's proposal to offer minimum safety price (MSP) on five crops.
"Federal ministers made their opinion public last night. Our leadership will also discuss this in our forums and take opinion from experts," Sarwan Singh Pandher, a farmer leader, told media.
Early on Monday, Federal Minister Piyush Goyal announced the government has proposed to buy three pulses, maize, and cotton crops from the farmers at the MSP for the next five years.
The MSP fixed by the government will act as a safety for farmers to prevent them from losses in case of drop in crop prices.
Goyal, who met the farmers along with fellow ministers, said government agencies will sign a contract with the farmers for the next five years for the proposed procurement and there will be no limit on the buying quantity.
The farmers began their march to Delhi last Tuesday. However, they were stopped by police who had heavily barricaded roads and fired tear gas shells to disperse them at the Shambhu border in Haryana, about 200 km from Delhi. Since then, scores of farmers with large convoys of tractors are camping there.
The call for Delhi march was given by farmer unions to increase pressure on the federal government to fulfil their demands which include the MSP for over two dozen crops, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, withdrawal of police cases, compensation for families of farmers who died during the previous agitation. Approximately 200 farmer organizations are part of the protest plan.
India's opposition leaders have also extended support to the protesting farmers and condemned the government's action to use police force to stop farmers.
The farmer protests have erupted at a time when India is due to hold general elections this year and the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a record third term. Farmers in India form a considerable voting bloc.
Beriev_A-50 AWAC was shot down with SAM over the Sea of Azov and crashed in Russia near Krasnodar. Boris Rozhin says it was Russian friendly fire.
Ukrainian forces shot down an A-50 over the Sea of Azov on 14 January 2024 near Kyrylivka so thats two lost so far. In 2023 Ukraine claimed to have destroyed an A-50 parked at a Belarus airfield but the damage was to some external equipment. At the time Russia claimed they still had 9 to 10 operational A-50's from the 40 that were built by USSR.
They are currently developing the A-100 as a replacement but no public info about how many they have rn (at least one made a test flight a few weeks before the start of the war). I've seen video of an AWAC following Putin's jet on trips to Belarus and Saudi Arabia in 2023.
The Country of the Week is Indonesia!
As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to Indonesia, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.
If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):
- Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
- What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
- What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
- What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
- How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
- What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
- If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
- Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?
The previous country was Brazil.
The Geopolitical Reading List is still evolving...
"The current global governance institutions are not equipped to deal with the tensions we are facing," said Brazilian FM Vieira.
On Thursday, the foreign affairs ministers of the countries in the Group of Twenty (G20) began the second and final session of their work in Rio de Janeiro, where they will discuss reforms in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
After addressing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza in Wednesday's session, the representatives of the world's largest economies are discussing reforms that will enable multilateral organizations to be more effective in addressing the escalation of international tensions.
The "Global Governance Reform" is one of the priorities of the G20 during Brazil's presidency, which will coordinate this international forum until November, when the G20 Summit of Heads of State and Government is scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva advocates for profound reforms in multilateral bodies for conflict resolution, especially reforms in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
"The current global governance institutions are not equipped to deal with the tensions we are currently facing, as evidenced by the paralysis of the United Nations, which is reflected in the loss of innocent lives," said Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira on Wednesday.
Vieira said that Brazil is very concerned about the current security situation in the world and cited a study showing that there were at least 170 conflicts between states in 2023, a figure that implies the highest level of interstate conflict in the past three decades.
"Without peace and cooperation, it will be very difficult to achieve the promised mobilization of resources needed to address challenges such as the fight against poverty and inequality, and the protection of the environment," he said.
Almost all the foreign ministers of the countries attended the G20 meeting in Rio, with the exception of China and Italy. Also in attendance are ministers from some countries invited by Brazil, including Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The Rio de Janeiro meeting also includes U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Venezuelan Attorney General Provides More Data on Bracelet Plot
Rocio San Miguel provided information to an ambassador of a European country about Venezuela's military capabilities.
On Monday, Venezuelan Attorney General Tareck William Saab provided details on the involvement of several citizens in the so-called Operation Bracelet, which aimed to overthrow the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.
More specifically, Saab referred to an opposition activist linked to the Citizen Control NGO, Rocio San Miguel, who appears in documents seized from the plotters.
Operation Bracelet aimed to attack the 21st Infantry Brigade and the First Black Battalion in the state of Tachira to seize weapons, the Attorney General said, recalling that those involved in the operation also planned to attempt against the life of Governor Freddy Bernal and initiate a escalation of acts to culminate in an attempt against President Maduro.
"Should the Venezuelan State lower its guard against this type of events? In the U.S. or the European Union, what would happen if anyone is involved in operations to propagate criminal actions?," Saab asked after showing how the conspirators had the complicity of San Miguel.
The Attorney General also presented maps with the coordinates of 24 security zones and military installations that were seized from San Miguel during her detention. He insisted that San Miguel is a spy who developed contacts with FANB members to unleash illegal actions.
"We found evidence of the elaboration of lists and profiles of the military commanders of the country. From their communications, it is clear that they have lists of all military personnel. Explain to me how a supposed human rights activist should have this type of information. This corresponds more to the profile of an agent," he stressed.
"The investigations have led us to consider that San Miguel is far from having the profile of a human rights defender," Saab said, noticing that the actions of human rights activists are usually peaceful.
San Miguel, however, provided information to an ambassador of a European country about Venezuela's military capabilities and received money from an oil transnational company, the Attorney General revealed.
Finally, Saab rejected accusations of so-called "forced disappearance" of San Miguel, stating that those accusations are "an offense" compared to what happens with true forced disappearances in the world.
The Panamanian courts have ordered the arrest of the country's former president, Ricardo Martinelli, who was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for corruption in the New Business case. Martinelli, however, is taking refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama.
Who’s making the beats for Iran? https://streamable.com/1kj7xx
Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh resigns
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel's war against the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
...
Fatah, the faction that controls the PA, and Hamas have made efforts to reach an agreement over a unity government and are due to meet in Moscow on Wednesday. A senior Hamas official said the move had to be followed by a broader agreement on governance for the Palestinians. "The resignation of Shtayyeh's government only makes sense if it comes within the context of national consensus on arrangements for the next phase," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.Hamas leader Mohammed Nazzal to Al-Jazeera
We are engaged in a fierce political and negotiation battle that is no less significant than the battle we are fighting on the ground. We are committed to the negotiation process, aiming to achieve the interests of the Palestinian people.
The priority now is to stop the aggression and provide relief to the people in the Gaza Strip, especially in the north. So far, there is no promise to stop the aggression on Gaza. The occupation offers a temporary ceasefire for prisoner exchange, after which it plans to resume its military operation in Rafah.
There is a formal meeting scheduled with the Fatah movement and other Palestinian factions in Moscow. There is no official communication with the Palestinian Authority regarding the plan for the day after the war ends.
The rumor that Hamas' last stronghold is in Rafah is a losing bet; the resistance is present throughout the Strip.
Informed sources told Al-Mayadeen that the Palestinian Authority government will submit its resignation to PA President Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow (published yesterday)
The sources added that the current government will carry out its work as a caretaker government. The official source stated that the move was a preemptive one by Abbas in response to international and regional pressures on the PA, as a step to stop the war on the Gaza Strip, provide international guarantees for the withdrawal of the IOF from it, stop invasions in the West Bank, and lift the financial siege on the PA.
The source added, "After achieving a cessation of the war, the step will be followed by forming a national consensus among all Palestinian factions, including Hamas movement."
This move comes ahead of the Moscow meeting of all Palestinian factions, scheduled for Thursday, February 29th.
Soueid: How do you see relations between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah now with regard to armed struggle?
Habash: Armed struggle was a common denominator between us and Fatah until Abu 'Ammar [Yasir Arafat] caved in and signed the Oslo agreement. But we always differed on major issues. For example, we always stressed the interdependence of the Palestinian and Arab nationalist dimensions, that the liberation of Palestine cannot be achieved without this interdependence. Fatah's grave error - its fatal error - was to disengage the Palestinian cause from the Arab nationalist cause.Second is the class dimension. When the bourgeoisie achieves its class objectives, it ceases to fight. What happened was that a certain class fraction, represented now by the Oslo team, believes it has scored an achievement. But what of the masses? What about their interests?
Look at what has become of the masses. The corruption and co-optation of the Palestinian masses by Fatah constitutes a calamity that boggles the mind. Those same masses that had survived all the wars and the attempts to marginalize and defeat them, that had withstood the Zionist military machine inside and outside the occupied territories are now, after thirty years, despairing and despondent under their bourgeois leadership, due to the undermining of their nationalist achievements and institutions and the stifling of democracy by the repressive state apparatuses. Mafias are on the rise, and connections with the occupying power are being exploited to secure monopolies on daily necessities. Still, although I lay the basic blame for the current state of affairs on the Palestinian Authority team, I do not exempt the opposition, which has not risen to the challenge or been true to its declared objectives and programs.
ECA statement on the 2 years of imperialis war in Ukraine: http://www.eurcomact.org/m-article/ECA-STATEMENT-Two-Years-Since-the-Imperialist-War-in-Ukraine-The-Experience-and-Conclusions-of-the-Communists/
Competition within the imperialist system is escalating and contradictions are deepening. The attempts by the USA, the EU and their allies to impose their own interests on the international arena, against capitalist Russia and the countries supporting it, have been going on for years. In the last two years this has expressed itself in the form of an imperialist war in Ukraine. The increasing competition is for the raw material and energy resources, geostrategical footings and transport routes in the region.
From the very first day of the war, the Russian leadership has justified its military intervention in Ukraine on the grounds that the above-mentioned expansion threatens Russia's security. Regardless of whether this threat is founded or not, it cannot be used as a justification for the violation of the existing borders and new bloodshed of the peoples. The discussions initiated to dispute the existing borders mainly aim to generate pretexts that legitimise imperialist aggression and must be rejected. Moreover, our parties have to remember that “security purposes” have been applied for years by the USA, the EU and NATO as a justification for bloody operations in countless countries, for interventions and occupations in the territories under the sovereignty of those countries.
The protagonists of the war are not the peoples of the two countries but their capitalist classes. Presenting the war as a war between Ukraine and Russia obscures the real actors of the war and makes it difficult to understand its class character. The ongoing war is being waged between the Russian capitalist class and its allies on the one hand, the Ukrainian capitalist class, the USA, the EU and NATO on the other hand.
One of the most important elements showing the class character of this war is anti-communism, which is being intentionally raised in the region. The activities of the fascist forces in Ukraine and their crimes against humanity, bans and persecution towards communists continue. The Russian leadership, on the other hand, distorts scientific and historical facts in order to justify its strategic plans, and confronts Russia's socialist past with false and distorted claims concerning Lenin, Stalin and the policies of the Soviet Union. Our Parties will continue to fight creatively against the anti- communist hysteria fuelled by all the actors in the war, to increase solidarity with Ukrainian and Russian communists and not allow the legacy of socialism to be defiled.
Moreover, our parties, which are at the forefront of the struggle against foreign bases and the sending of troops and military equipment abroad, call upon the workers, who see the contradictions expressed within the imperialist blocs and organizations, to show no trust in proclamations that a “multipolar world” will supposedly stop this or any other imperialist war and will lead to a peaceful world, without the overthrow of the capitalist system, which is the cause of imperialist wars.
Our parties emphasize that the real choice is not between the so-called poles within the imperialist system but between the working people and the capitalist class. They remind us that the struggle of the working class can be strengthened with an independent line, far from all bourgeois and imperialist plans, and that the peoples, through their struggle, must oppose imperialist wars.
This is our call. We do not make an abstract call for peace, which is not clear to whom it is addressed and which serves to exonerate the capitalist class and the actors within the imperialist system. For a real sense of peace, we call for a struggle against NATO, the EU and all kinds of imperialist organizations and alliances that continue to fuel the war, we point to the need to expose the class character of capitalist alliances, and we declare that we will stand in solidarity with the working class movement and communists in these countries.
We continue the struggle for the withdrawal of foreign troops and the closure of bases in other countries, especially those of the USA, starting with our own countries. We act with the task of preventing our countries from being part of and implementing imperialist plans and of withdrawing them from imperialist unions such as NATO and the EU, with the peoples masters in their own land.
In the face of this war, which has a tendency to generalise, we declare once again that we will continue to be the voice of the working peoples' demands for peace, social justice and socialism maintaining a steadfast front against nationalism, racism, fascism, and militarism.
CW: Image of person on fire
A US soldier self-immolated outside an Israeli embassy in protest of the Palestinian genocide.
Permanently Deleted
"Jezzbollah" and I fucking love that name lmao
"have our sanctions worked yet? no? thirteenth time's the charm!"
fascists are trying really hard to manufacture fake support and warbuck$ off the Nalvany bullshit. Smells desperate.
