Bulletins and News Discussion from March 4th to March 10th, 2024 - The Coalition of Losers - COTW: Pakistan
Image is of a protest in Pakistan after the attempted assassination of Imran Khan in November 2022.
What a clusterfuck of an election.
Imran Khan, the previous official Prime Minister of Pakistan, was removed by the command of the United States in April 2022 in a no confidence motion. This made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Imran Khan and his supporters have protested since then against the Pakistani state, which is more-or-less governed by the military despite the furnishings of civilian rule. This has ranged from largely peaceful protests to trying to burn down and occupy houses and headquarters.
It was assumed by the Pakistani elite that they could make the problem go away by arresting Imran Khan and effectively forcing many PTI candidates to run as independents while hounding them with police raids and stopping them from campaigning - and adding salt on the wound by disabling social media access and mobile services on the day of the election to make it more difficult to co-ordinate. Fortunately, these people don't seem to quite understand how the internet works in the current day, and so Khan's supporters started up WhatsApp groups and improvised websites and apps to spread the word about which candidates to vote for, leading to Khan's party getting the plurality, though not the majority, of votes in the election.
This has created a rather depressed mood in the Pakistani elite. A coalition of eight parties joined together, obviously excluding the PTI, but this coalition is shaky and lacks much legitimacy, with two major parties inside it, the PML-N and PPP, being ideologically opposed on several issues. It has been regarded as "the coalition of losers" by Khan's supporters. The new Prime Minister is Shehbaz Sharif, who also ruled from April 2022 until August 2023 and is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, who served as Prime Minister three times before in the last few decades. With inflation at 30% and the economy greatly struggling, there are fears that things may only stay together for months, not years, before the coalition fragments and something else has to be done.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Pakistan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
Yemeni forces attacked the cargo ship True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden, after which it caught fire.
Al Jazeera reports this with reference to the Houthi press service.
Two sailors were killed, the British embassy in Sana'a said.
According to the AP, the ship is owned by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management.
Reuters claims that it is owned by a Greek company with no connection to the United States, and that the ship was flying the flag of Barbados.
Ambrey, which specializes in maritime security, claims that the attacked bulk carrier is still American.
Pretty interesting how every time Ansarallah strikes another ship, media falls over itself to say it’s “Greek owned, Lebanese flagged, heading towards Cyprus” or some shit to try and make Ansarallah look like reckless terrorists, but it always comes out eventually it was indeed US/UK/Israeli connected in some major way. They deliberately omit the connections and only report on everything else. In one article they will mention the flag but omit the owner, in another they will omit the flag but mention the owner. It’s such obvious bad faith propaganda on their parts
Exactly 1 month ago Sweden ended their investigation into the NordStream pipeline, saying it lacked jurisdiction on the issue. Today they join NATO officially.
How much circumstantial evidence do we need to conclusively say NATO INTENTIONALLY caused one of the worst environmental disasters of all time?
Democrats say they aren’t worried about the “Uncommitted” campaign because it isn’t garnering that much support, when in reality people will just sit out the election if they don’t like your candidate.
Funny enough, this always makes me think of an episode of Kitchen Nightmares where Gordon Ramsay once said something that really stuck with me. A restaurant was failing due to the low quality of its food, and people were sending their food back to the kitchen saying that it was no good. The owner/chef were shocked because they said this never happens, and it must just be because Gordon Ramsay was there influencing their decision. Ramsay said that in the restaurant business, almost all restaurants stay afloat due to repeat customers. He went on to say that it may be true that people are sending food back now because they know he’s here, but on a normal day it’s different. If you go out to eat and the food is low quality, the vast majority of people don’t send food back, they just never come back to your restaurant.
This so perfectly encapsulates how the “Uncommitted” vote in the Democrat primaries is actually an underrepresentation of people who will not vote for Biden on Election Day. It is much more difficult to go out to a predetermined primary election and vote for nobody than it is to simply stay home and not vote at all.
Democrats will lose a sizable chunk of voters as a result of this election cycle, many of them forever. This alienation event is almost certainly going to be larger than the Bernie 2016 and 2020 events, and is probably going to be the largest since NAFTA. If you are a young person, it is just so blatantly obvious that democrats have almost no policy overlap with you.
Libs love to say "Biden doesn't have the power to send weapons to Israel, it's up to Congress.".
Except Congress hasn't sent any weapons, Biden has bypassed them multiple times to send weapons. It's not even a spin or bad faith or anything, they're just dumbasses.
In Toronto, there was a protest against a Zionist real estate show selling Palestinian land, which culminated in a Zionist freak attempting to attack protestors with a nailgun and a few cars trying to run over the protestors.
Zionist loser attempting to attack protestors with a nailgun, getting scared, attempting to throw hands with some middle-aged lady, getting scared again, and storming off in his car: https://twitter.com/sasa_ghada/status/1764426956483817739
Lurking more, there was apparently multiple Zionist venues in Canada selling illegally occupied land, which led to multiple protests, which lead to multiple Zionist attempts at injuring and murdering protestors.
Residents in Areeha named one of the streets in the city after the American pilot Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in front of the occupation embassy in Washington, in solidarity with Palestine and in rejection of his country's position supporting the genocide war waged against #Gaza. This sign of appreciation from Palestine comes just a week after a government order in Sana'a, Yemen put Aaron's face on billboards across
The ICJ has refused South Africa's request for the court to issue demands for the to cease it's campaign on last Monday, reverting to their empty statements of "ensuring the safety of Palestinian civilians". On the flip side, Nicaragua has filed a seperate suit against for complicity in genocide. Ireland has imposed sanctions and Brazil is the latest country to sever relations with the apartheid regime.
Damn this photo still goes hard. Death to ISISrael
To top it off, the South African government has very openly stated that the West has no grounds to speak of human rights, validating the
As of 22h00 SAST, there is again a total communications blackout in the entire Gaza Strip.
The total amount of water also entering the strip, of which 97% is contaminated, is less than 7 million liters daily. This is half a million liters below that of Johannesburg's Berea suburb by contrast, which has 1/50th the population.
The intentional annual homicide rate also stands at 3,500/100K, 100 times greater than that of South Africa.
What would be substantially different about a Trump presidency? Biden has, to my knowledge refused federal action against LGBT discrimination in red states, signed on to every last bullet point of Trump's white nationalist border sadism, given unlimited greenlights to the rogue state of Israel to carry out a genocide, refused to codify Roe and essentially allowed the Supreme Court to remain an unchecked organ of hard right political power.
Which elements of fascism would materialize under Trump that Biden hasn't either sleepwalked into or enthusiastically supported?
I don't think the Zionists actually want this "temporary ceasefire" deal to happen. They want it to be rejected so they can say "oh, we wanted peace, but Kkkkhhhhamas refuses" and then re-intensify their genocidal bombing and starvation campaigns.
Israeli settlers have walked past the military without issue and are walking directly to the humanitarian aid trucks headed to Gaza in order to stop them.
[...]
These people brought their babies with them to a highly sensitive and militarized zone on the border of Gaza in order to celebrate illegally blocking humanitarian assistance meant for a desperate and starving Palestinian population that has been bombarded with 2,000 pound bombs for 5 months
Bituah Leumi, the Israeli social security agency, provided that missing proof when it posted the official list of victims that showed only one infant was killed in the attack.
The mainstream US news media ignored that authoritative evidence.
The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.
torture of kidnapped aid workers to extract false confessions for the purpose of defunding a tremendously important humanitarian aid organization. Horrifying
Looks like the resistance carried out a massive operation in the West Bank centered around Nablus, Al Mayadeen English is reporting all checkpoints were attacked. Still too early to tell, but it could be a major event
So apparently Biden is trying to circumvent protesters by not going to College Campuses and getting smaller town halls. His aides are hiding him (which they were already doing tbh, it was his 2020 strat), but they are doing it even more now.
I was watching some of Genocide Joe's older interviews (2016 and earlier)... He sounds incredibly coherent, incredibly well-spoken, and incredibly arrogant. A model American statesman.
Holy fuck, San Francisco is evil. This passed 63-37:
Shall the City require single adults age 65 and under with no dependent children who receive City public assistance benefits and whom the City reasonably suspects are dependent on illegal drugs to participate in screening, evaluation and treatment for drug dependency for those adults to be eligible for most of those benefits?
They are almost certainly going to maintain control of this post-conflict, using it as a tool to control travel between north and south just like they control travel through checkpoints elsewhere in the country.
I asked Biden if he intended to apply more pressure on Israel’s leaders, and, for the first time that day, he did not jab back at the question. “I understand the anger and the rage” sparked by October 7th, he said. “But you can’t let the rage consume you to the point where you lose the moral high ground.”
I asked Biden what he would do in a second term to protect abortion access at the federal level. “Pass Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,” he said. Democrats would need to win control of the House of Representatives and gain seats in the Senate, but Biden expressed confidence. “A few more elections like we’ve seen taking place in the states” would suffice, he said. “You’re seeing the country changing.” Then, reiterating his position on Roe, he said, “I’ve never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.’ But I have been supportive of the notion that this is probably the most rational allocation of responsibility that all the major religions have signed on and debated over the last thousand years.”
I do love seeing Dems screamed at by Palestine activists, while also seeing the old people look like they are willing to die for that politician when they confront the activist.
Q: How does the Pentagon address the apparent paradox of providing bombs to Israel on the one hand and ready-to-eat meals to the Palestinians on the other?
PENTAGON: Israel has an inherent right to defend itself.
Shut the fuck up: Pro-Zionist Danish PM Booed Off Stage By Anti-genocide Protesters
Friday night Danish succdem prime minister Mette Frederiksen was booed off stage by anti-genocide protesters at an international women's day event in Copenhagen where she was scheduled to give a speech about "girls' and women's rights".
Shortly after beginning her speech Frederiksen was interrupted by a man shouting "stop your hypocrisy!", which resulted in cheers and applause among the crowd. Several protestors began shouting "Free Palestine!" and "genocide in Palestine!". A part of the crowd was discontent with the disruption and applauded Frederiksen who then attempted to continue her speech, only to be immediately cut short by chants of "Free Palestine" and "shut the fuck up" from protestors who had unfurled Palestinian flags and hung banners from the balconies of the venue.
Frederiksen made several attempts to ignore the protesters and continue her speech but eventually she gave up and went off stage. She then immediately left the building together with three other government ministers who were scheduled to appear at the event. One of the ministers described the vibes of the venue going from "good" to "unsafe and unpleasant".
Protesters distributed flyers among the crowd with the headline "Mette Frederiksen is not a feminist", describing the atrocities done to Palestinian girls and women by the genocidal zionist occupiers.
Frederiksen has declined to give interviews about the protest. Instead, following her usual style of preferring strictly controlled one-way communication, she has made a both whiny and pompous post on Facebook saying that "Unfortunately there was so much shouting that I couldn't get through with my words. Thanks to all of you who insisted on the democratic dialogue. Luckily you were the most." She goes on to write "I hope it will give cause to thought. Our democracy is only as strong as we make it".
With Denmark being an American satellite state it is no surprise that establishment politics in the Nordic country is near-universally pro-zionist. However, throughout her career Frederiksen has been more vocal than most about her support for the settler-colonialist project in Palestine than most politicians. She has made nebulous accusations against the left of "anti-semitism", attempted to pass an "official definition of anti-semitism" that labelled anti-zionism as antisemitic and keenly collaborated with the illegal zionist entity as well as placed orders for weapons with the zionist arms manufacturer Elbit. Since the Al-Aqsa Flood happened her government has followed the American lead of condemning Palestinian resistance while handwringing over the suffering of the Palestinian people.
It's already happening with the text spam, despite my growing plethera of blocked numbers, that the Democrats are going shotgun anything breadcrumbs to ignore or move on from the genocide. Rolling out Bend the Knee Bernie. Rolling out Kyle Cucklinsky. Other trying to raise decimated worthless stale crumbs up from the depths of the abyss of future nothingness they are. The can kicking "pragmatic" tone deaf farts they blow at you and proudly claim historic "accomplishments" shall be mocked and dismissed as the absence of material improvements and lies that they are.
It is our duty to not ever let these fuckers off the hook and bully them and their mouthpieces harder than ever.
143 Greenlandic women who had contraceptive spirals inserted without proper consent in the 1969's and 1970's has filed a human rights lawsuit against the Danish state. Each of the victims are demanding a compensation of USD 44.000 for violation of their right to family life among other offenses
The so-called Spiral Campaign was a eugenics programme in the years 1966 to 1975 initiated by Danish colonial administrators in Greenland who were alarmed over a rising number of Inuit children born out of wedlock. Indigenous girls as young as 13 had contraceptive spirals inserted by Danish colonial health professionals often without asking them or their parents for consent and without informing victims about the procedure. Several victims have told how they experienced the procedure as forced. Victims experienced high rates of complications as the spirals inserted were sized for adult women who had given birth and not for the teenagers who received them. Complications were made worse by victims lacking proper information about the procedure and many victims suffered lasting injuries.
The Danish government promised to make an official investigation of the Spiral Campaign in 2022 but has been dragging it's feet, leading to a diplomatic crisis with the government of Greenland last year. Danish officials refuse to make statement regarding compensations as long as the investigation is ongoing.
The victims are not content with waiting for the investigation that is due to be finished next year though. They see the investigation as a stalling tactic and according to their lawyer the scope of the official investigation is not to assign culpability or to assess compensation and as the oldest victim is 85 there is no time for further delays.
In recent years the Danish state has settled human rights lawsuits with 26 Greenlandic legally fatherless children, six survivors of a 1950's experiment to assimilate Inuit children into Danish culture and 46 Danish men who were abused at an orphanage as children and paid out compensations. No steps has been made to settle this case though and if it goes to trial it will be the largest human rights case in Danish legal history.
Putin confirmed that Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles had been used for the first time in Ukraine (RIA)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, said that the Zircon complex had already been used in combat.
“Obviously, we are talking about the use of the latest hypersonic missiles for attacks on military targets of Ukraine. Surely these missiles were used within the framework of the air defense as part of the so-called combined strikes, which involve the use of various types of weapons in one strike with synchronization in time and place. That is this is a combination, for example, of Zircons, Calibers, Geran UAVs, and Kh-101 long-range air-launched cruise missiles,” Murakhovsky said. In his opinion, no more than two or three Zircons were used in one strike, because this stage of use is a test of the weapon system in real combat conditions.
“Most likely, combined strikes with the participation of Zircons were carried out against Ukrainian targets in areas most densely covered by layered air defense, including with the participation of Western Patriot-type systems, in order to confirm the capabilities of hypersonic missiles to overcome air defense. I think that in this regard there were targets have been selected for destruction in the Odessa or Kiev region,” Murakhovsky noted.
The specialist added that, judging by the lack of “media activity” on this matter from the enemy, the missiles were not shot down. He recalled that the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles had previously confirmed their effectiveness in overcoming the layered air defense of Ukraine, which includes Western-style air defense systems.
The Zircon missile was developed and produced at the Reutov NPO Mashinostroyenia (part of the Tactical Missiles Corporation). The missile has a range of 1000 kilometers and can reach a speed of Mach 9.
Better start believing in it. Scramjet hypersonic cruise missiles are real.
West of Avdiivka, no significant defense line has been built for Ukrainian troops, and the Russian army continues to advance. This was announced by the editor-in-chief of Censor, Yuri Butusov, following his trip to this area.
"There are no words. Gap: here in Kiev, the supreme commander-in-chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say that no field lines of fortifications have been built beyond Avdiivka so far. I saw Russian drones attacking our soldiers in their burrows in the middle of a field, " Butusov said.
According to him, no conclusions are drawn from previous failures. "If the government can't find builders to build at least basic rear lines of defense, if they can't find engineers to maintain modern equipment, drones, sensors, communications, if they can't find workers and technologists to produce ammunition, then there will never be enough attack aircraft," the journalist added.
Even the NYT is admitting it:
Sparse, rudimentary trench lines populate the area west of Avdiivka that Ukraine is trying to defend, according to a Times review of imagery by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company. These trench lines lack many of the additional fortifications that could help slow Russian tanks and help defend major roads and important terrain.
But a part of me wants Biden to win just to see what happens like how he continues to become a zombie on live TV every day. Like if now it's bad, imagine four more years lmao
I'm not an expert on El Salvador by any means, but it seems kinda funny that Bukele's "solution" to gangs in the country is the same thing that caused the creation of those gangs in the first place: creating a huge prison system and throwing a bunch of people into it.
I'm sure that won't backfire at all in the future.
A lot of the even progressive or nominally leftist streamers, podcasters, and other talking heads who are covering the lies about sexual violence on Oct 7 always include disclaimers like, "I'm not saying no sexual violence occurred, in fact I find it very likely it did, but no evidence has been produced...."
Find it very likely why? Because it was Palestinians? Because some of them were Hamas? Because any incident of mass violence is likely to include sexual violence? Because they were overwhelmingly young men? Because Israel said so? What? It strikes me as still buying heavily into "gotta condemn Hamas, no matter what" bullshit. Or am I missing something, other than the obvious racism?
Argentina's Foreign Minister, ancap Diana Mondino, remembers the passing of Akira Toriyama with this insane "how do you do fellow kids" post
"Now and Forever"
"SHRINK THE STATE
ELIMINATE TAXES
INCREASE FREEDOMS"
Yeah, that's EXACTLY what Goku would have wanted... Anarcho-Capitalism. She never even watched Dragon Ball lmfao, she's a 65 year old demon.
In other news, our ancap-in-chief gave a speech in his boyhood school, which is dangerously close to where I live. The school itself is a private one, made by the rich and only for the rich Anyway, he gave a speech to a bunch of kids, he spoke about Davos and how he "fought the Communists" there, he actually spoke alot about Communism and Socialism, saying how dangerous it is. To kids.
However, during his speech, one kid fainted. He actually showed some compassion and ordered his medics to assist the kid. The speech resumed, he continued to talk about the dangers of Communism when ANOTHER KID FAINTED, this one was directly next to him (It was caught on live TV even). Compassion was gone by this point, and he made a joke about the kid fainting, because reasons. Terrible aura, Chávez walked by and said he smells of sulfur.
TIL the U.S. did a successful coup against Australia when it threatened to shut down its big spy base decades ago. I guess Oz really learned it lesson.
There's a new Biden interview with some actually interesting moments.
The interviewer asks Biden about calling a person "an illegal" during his SOTU speech. Biden says that he now regrets using the word "illegal" and should have said undocumented person. Then Biden go on to say "we have to control the border", but also that he's different from Trump because Trump uses words like Vermin. Biden basically says that he's doing Trump's border policy but with Civility (TM).
The interviewer asks Biden about the hot mic footage after the speech, where Biden says "I told Bibi, and don't repeat this, 'You and I are about to have a come to Jesus meeting'." Biden says that Bibi has the right to protect Israel but that it's now Biden's view that Israel's actions are hurting Israel by making them look bad. Then Biden says that he's trying to get a ceasefire, 6-week ceasefire. The notable thing here is that the Democratic establishment is redefining what a ceasefire is. Ceasefire is meant to be an end of the war, not a 6-week pause.
The interviewer asks Biden about the "no red lines" policy on Israel. Biden says that he won't stop supplying weapons to Israel under any circumstance. Then he says "We can't have another 30,000 Palestinians dead". Biden says that he told Israel "Don't make the mistakes that America made with Bin Laden" Then he has a Freudian slip and says "But we shouldn't have gone into Ukraine". Biden winces. Then he says "I mean we shouldn't have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan."
The interviewers asks Biden about the port that Biden promised during the SOTU to build in Gaza for aid, saying that a port would take 60 days to build. The interviewer asks Biden what he will do to give aid to Gaza for the next 60 days. Biden talks about the air drops and acknowledges that several people were killed by the air drops falling on them.
The interviewer asks Biden about the Uncommitted primary voting campaign and says that many people have pledged to never vote for Biden because Biden actively armed a genocide. Biden says that the interviewer is lying and that people don't believe that. Biden says that people are upset and asking him to do something, but Biden says that he believes most people don't think that Israel is doing a genocide. Biden denies that Israel is doing genocide and he also denies that other people believe Israel is doing genocide.
Is it possible that the increasingly flagrant warcrimes being committed by Israel is a sign that this war's really not going so well for them? They're taking their frustrations out on civilians who they know aren't able to fight back, just so they can feel like they're "powerful" and "winning."
I've been thinking about all of the articles about NATO troops possibly deploying in Ukraine and the whole will they won't they of it all. I think that this piece by Bhadrakumar got me to finally understand what NATO is planning. There will be bilateral troop deployments from some willing NATO countries and because they won't be in NATO territory they will not be able to trigger article five. I'm convinced that the Brandon regime will push for this in an absurd attempt to win reelection. Try to go full wartime president with it with non-US NATO troops fighting Russia. They will try flying close to the sun on this one.
I don't know what that looks like in practice exactly but I can see a rough shape. said that France will move after certain red lines are crossed. I could also see staggered announcements and entrance into the plan.
First, after Russia goes on the offensive, announce some ghoulish framework for helping Ukraine and how it will be conducted. Next, announce noncombat troop deployments as "advisors" and such from France and a few other countries. Then, after NATO troops die in combat (like they're supposed to), they can announce limited combat forces and work their way up the escalation ladder. This would be a slow buildup with countries entering the new "coalition of the willing" over a few months, but I can see it happening this way.
This could also all be bullshit to try to scare the Russians though. I think that I'm around 50-50 between the two options.
Biden referred to an immigrant as 'an illegal'. He flubs his words afterwards. I think from the video, he says "how many innocent people are killed by legals?". Like he was trying to make the claim that more people are killed by documented american citizens. He's out of breath when he talks. The newsweeks article interpreted what he said differently. It's very bad that he referred to a person as illegal.
I got a copy of "white malice" about neocolonialism in africa on recommendation from the news mega a few days ago and damn if it isn't the most hexbear aesthetic for the cover
Heads up, there's photos of a Palestinian boy who has starved to death floating around in Twitter. The expression "nothing but skin and bones" isn't just an expression. He really looked like a skeleton wrapped in human skin. The photos show his entire body, not just his face which is what most Resistance news media have shown.
A huge jobs massacre is looming in German industry. Hundreds of thousands of jobs, some of them highly skilled, are at stake. The main focus is on the gutting of jobs in the automotive and parts industry, where—not including repair shops, petrol stations, trade and sales—more than 800,000 people are employed. Depending on the source and forecast, more than half of these jobs are at risk.
However, the layoffs are not limited to the automotive sector. The chemical, steel, construction, household appliances and even the IT sector are also affected. In retail, in the health sector, where dozens of hospitals are threatened with bankruptcy, and in rail freight, tens of thousands of jobs are also at risk.
The job massacre ranges from the factories to administration and development centres. “Suddenly, mid-level executives and experienced engineers are also at risk of losing their jobs,” writes the Handelsblatt, which published an extensive article on the subject at the end of February under the headline “And out you are – The new wave of staff reductions.”
“Those in the current wave of dismissals don’t just wear overalls, but more often than not also a suit, lab coat or hoodie,” according to the Handelsblatt. Citing labour market experts, it warned against the illusion “that most of the affected employees can easily switch to other vacancies.” Even if this were the case, “then these new jobs are often paid significantly less than the traditional position in the large corporation.”
...
According to a survey by the Institute of the German Economy (IW), only five out of 47 industry associations expect an increase in the number of employees in 2024, and 23 industries expect a reduction, including such employment-intensive sectors as wholesale and retail, machine manufacture, trades and construction. Credit insurer Allianz Trade expects the number of insolvencies in Germany to rise to 20,260 in 2024. That is 5 per cent more than in the previous year.
It's long so I'll give you the jist of it. They are suggesting that Diana was killed by the royals because she was going to expose Jimmy Saville and the royal family, bringing down the monarchy.
It fits with Andrew, Charles and existing shit. It has strong potential as a theory, and people will be willing to believe it in the current climate particularly because nobody likes Charles.
A succdem city councillor in Copenhagen is investigating the possibility of renaming the street the Russian embassy is located on to Alexey Navalny Street. He explicitly states that the intent of the proposal is to annoy russia. If it turns out not to be "too expensive or troublesome" he will make a formal proposal to the city council.
In 2022 a similar proposal attempted to change the name to Ukraine Street. That proposal was voted down as the committee for street names is very reluctant to rename existing streets due to the inconvenience it causes to residents. They did however add a several Ukraine-themed names to the list they draw names for new developments from.
In Oslo a similar proposal was passed, renaming the intersection in front of the Russian embassy to Ukraine Square.
All these social media platforms going down on Super Tuesday. Are they trying to suppress #UNCOMMITTED then blame Russia for 'election interference' again?
The idea is that, once a majority of electoral college votes sign on, that all of those states would award electors based on the national popular vote, making the presidential election actually democratic. If Maine accepts, that would bring the total to 209 votes out of 270 needed.
Theoretically, that would mean a lot more Democrat presidents. If they continue their rightward shift, that may not matter much, but it would be a significant change to American voting all the same.
The week just keeps getting worse in the Nordics: Finland is to send soldiers to "secure boat traffic in an US led operation in the Red Sea" along with Swedish and Danish troops that in parts are already there.
Without presenting evidence, Argentina's foreign minister claims there are "specialist and highty skilled" Cuban and Venezuelan moles active in the country that are trying to destabilise President Javier Milei's government.
Argentina's Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said Thursday that there are undercover "Cuban and Venezuelan" spies active in the country that are trying to destabilise President Javier Milei's government. Speaking a day before President Milei is due to deliver his state-of-the-nation address to Congress, Mondino alleged during a television interview that foreign actors were trying to damage the government. Mondino claimed that “there are Cuban and Venezuelan moles in the country who specialise in destabilising governments."
“It’s already a proven fact, some of them journalists, they are highly skilled," the official told the TN news channel.
Without presenting evidence for her claims, Mondino said that "we have proven it in different ways," alleging that some of the alleged foreign actors were journalists. "The same thing happened in the riots from a few years ago in Chile, so they are obviously highly skilled," continued Mondino, Argentina's top diplomat. She said the goal of the rogue agents is to “make a fuss” to “get Milei out" of office.
They heard our calls for Freedom and answered. Blessed be the Cuban and Venezuelan Revolutionary Moles sacrificing everything for us.
“They are here to make a fuss, someone’s paying them to do it or stop doing it. The reward to oust Javier must be large,” she claimed.
The reward is a strong socialist Argentina. LETS FUCKING GOOO
Anonymous Sudan launched a cyber attack on universities of the zionist entity yesterday, including "Tel Aviv University," "The Hebrew University," "The Technion," "Ben-Gurion University," "Haifa University, "Bar-Ilan University," "Weizmann Institute," successfully taking down their systems. The group has renewed its attack on the universities today.
The group stated: "Attacks against Israel will continue as they continue their genocidal campaign on Gaza. One of the reasons for the attack: drawing attention to the dire situation in Sudan."
Jenin Brigade carried out a dual jihadist mission in the vicinity of the "Homesh" settlement, around 4:00 PM on Friday, March 8, 2024.
The operation involved luring enemy forces under gunfire and then trapping them in an explosive devices field, leading to direct hits and losses among the soldiers of the enemy forces.
Armenia is considering applying for European Union membership, foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Friday (8 March), as it seeks to forge closer ties with the West in the face of tensions with traditional ally Russia.
“Many new opportunities are largely being discussed in Armenia nowadays and that will not be a secret if I say that includes membership in the European Union,” Mirzoyan said in an interview with Turkey’s TRT World television station.
If I ever want to feel better I just search “Nickel” and “Indonesia” online and see the massive amounts of cope from the West and the snarky responses the Indonesian government made towards the IMF and WTO.
In Finland the capitalist alinged Left party is countering the governments plan to remove workers right to strike by asking people to sign a petition on their website.
Amazing, I can't wait to see what incredible results asking the capitalists nicely brings this time./s
My dad is freaking out about some AI generated fake Trump ad that he thinks is real. He literally moved to my mom's home country last year to escape Trump. Now he wants me to uproot my life and move there. I don't know the language, even if I did I would have a hard time finding a job (I was quite lucky to get the one I have), which means I'd have to live with them which I'd rather not. I'm also already in a decent housing situation (mortgage from 2020 so pretty low interest rate, $1500 payments which is cheaper than some rent, especially for a home not a shitty apartment, and best of all no landlord) and I'd be giving that up.
In the Funniest Coup In History News: brazilian General Augusto Heleno kept a diary in his home in which he rambled on about a four step plan to do a Great Purge. The General's plan was to have the Minister of Justice order Federal Police to do something; have the attorney general declare the order illegal; and then arrest the Police who followed said order. General Augusto was a prominent part of Bolsonaro's clique, a major proponent of the coup, and chief of security for Bolsonaro's presidency.
I was watching a shit "documentary" on TV this morning (I don't watch TV very often) and it was about the similarities between Russia's War in Ukraine and their war in Chechnya. The docu says usual stuff like Russia gives no freedoms and there are detention camps for, I shit you not (unless I heard something very wrong), pro-russian people INSIDE territory currently held by Russia. Also they claim Russia destroys entire cities only to rebuild them very fast after the battle is over, like they did with Mariupol and Grozny. This is, according to the gringos who made the docu, to "force the people to erase the war from their memories and serves as a propaganda and psychological warfare tool".
Nice, so if Russia takes a city and rebuilds it immediately after, it's bad. If Russia destroys a city and leaves it destroyed, it's also bad.
Also all people invited to speak in the docu were white and spoke near perfect english, despite some being "activists from Chechnya".
The Dems have been told to just stand up, clap, and scream about every banal thing he says. God they're so desperate. They KNOW they're going to lose the election.
I got a question for everyone here, in your country/region/state is the 4 day work week being talked about very often in the media or by center-left political figures?
I ask because for whatever reason this shit has really taken off here in Portugal to the point where they got my old former maoist uncle telling me "you're only going to be working 4 days soon!".
And I mean yeah I'm all for it, except that the way it's being pushed is not with "fuck the bosses we deserve to work less" and an associated mass movement (the communist friendly labour union approves it but they don't have the power alone to do it), it's with very technocratic arguments about productivity increases, sometimes mentioning the human worth of free time and recurring to the handful of limited experiments which are always successful, basically in the logic of "no class war here this is actually good for everyone!", which I don't know if that's true, feels like employers would 100% get fucked with this (unless they get to cut wages or increase work hours).
I already mentioned some of the reasons I'm skeptical this will ever actually be implemented anywhere, but another big one is that here in Portugal it's implicit in this idea of the 4 day work week that it has to be the center-left (often much closer to the center than the left) "socialist" party which has been in power for 9 years (and might get booted in next sunday's elections), and this is crazy because there's no way they would actually do this it doesn't matter how many studies are comissioned saying it's great policy that would favour anyone, like, WE WILL WORK LESS, idk how this can be discussed technocratically yes I'm sure some professions (mine included but probably not my way of working specifically) will 100% probably have increased productivity, but will everyone? To the point where the right and employers actually accept this? I can't see it.
So is the 4 day work week being discussed and debated positively in your country or is it still a fringe left idea?
In Finland, a 2-week strike has been announced by SAK (the largest confederation of trade unions) in response to labor reforms by the new Finnish government. The strike is planned to start next Monday. Most notably it will impact port operations and rail freight traffic will be stopped.
EDIT: It's not as cool as I originally thought, this will only be a few thousand union members in key sectors. But it's still driving the porkies in Finnish media absolutely wild, quoting CEOs being upset.
SAK unions to begin political strikes on Monday
At a press conference on Tuesday, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) explained its efforts to establish negotiating channels with the Finnish Government in recent weeks. These efforts have been futile, and the Government has instead announced the intention to continue implementing its plans in all respects.
Full article
“We have been willing to negotiate on major issues of principle that are important to us, in line with the Government’s objectives. Even such significant compromises have not evoked a response from them,” explains SAK President Jarkko Eloranta.
The SAK trade unions will accordingly begin a wave of political strike action on Monday 11 March that is currently intended to continue for two weeks. The individual unions will announce the targets of this strike action in accordance with their own notification obligations.
“We are keen to ensure that these measures pose no danger to public health or safety. I have been in touch with the National Emergency Supply Agency proposing a low threshold for contact in the event of any problems. This also applies to other public authorities.”
The participating SAK affiliates are the Industrial Union, the Public and Welfare Sectors Trade Union JHL, the Finnish Transport Workers’ Union AKT, the Electrical Workers’ Union, the Finnish Construction Trade Union, and Service Union United PAM. Other SAK trade unions will also demonstrate their solidarity by contributing financially. The unions will announce potential further sympathy measures separately.
The measures will target export and import operations at ports and the railway system. Major industrial plants and distribution terminals will also be affected. About 7,000 employees will be taking strike action in key industries.
The unions are prepared to suspend their preparations and strike action if the Government indicates that it is willing to mitigate and balance its proposed cuts.
SAK commissioned Verian to conduct an SMS survey of a random sample of SAK-affiliated trade union members a few weeks ago. This survey asked respondents whether they were in favour of taking strike action against cuts in the world of work. Some 81 per cent of the 7,598 respondents expressed support for such strikes. A further 15 per cent opposed strike action, and 4 per cent were undecided.
“We are doing this to defend the rights and interests of all employees, and we are also seeking to ensure fair and equitable treatment for future generations of employees in Finland. This treatment should enable employees to influence their own terms and conditions of employment through collective bargaining and agreement,” SAK President Jarkko Eloranta insists.
Nima Shirazi talked with the Real News Network on Iran and the Resistance Axis: Demystifying Iran and the ‘Resistance Axis’. It's a very long interview and discussion but I like this part:
Nima Shirazi: Yeah. Iran is a large country with 80-plus million people. It has its own interests as a nation-state. Its government has its own interests domestically and internationally. There are all manner of different political persuasions and different perspectives on things within the country and within its people. To say that Iran has one thing that it wants to do is a way to flatten reality so that we can somehow after the Cold War ended, have a new, big, bad puppet master enemy. You don’t have the Soviet Union anymore, you don’t have communism in that way anymore, therefore, the political narrative switches to worrying about Iran and worrying about Islamism.
But so much of what this does is self-perpetuating because by casting Iran, its government, and also its people – And let’s be clear about this – The US and its allies and affiliated media arms love to do this thing where there’s the government and then the people. No, we’re not talking about the people; We love the people, we’re just talking about the government. But then everything we do is attacking the people. Every sanction, every missile strike, every drone attack attacks people. So that is a way to disassociate and dismiss out of hand, this idea that our interests, US interests, and Western interests are not fully bent on domination. They care about the freedom, love, and peace of people around the world. Okay. But with that in mind, this constant drumbeat of Iran can’t be trusted, Iran is our enemy, Iran is in charge, Iran is in control. One of my favorite terms herein that Wall Street Journal piece is the “land bridge.” You mean like, earth? [Max laughs] Okay. Cool.
Maximillian Alvarez: Also known as land [all laugh].
Nima Shirazi: Yeah. Like, okay. The land bridge between New York and Los Angeles is ripe with Americans [Max laughs]. Whoa, it’s fucked up. They built a land bridge. So all of this serves the purpose of not only refusing to change the perception of an enemy state to keep that threat ever present. So that American interests, American actions, Israeli interests and actions, and Saudi interests and actions can be perennially justified. Anything they do can be justified. It is reasonable to act in this way because of big, bad Iran. But also what that does, much in the way that we see the US political machines and media talk about Latin and South America, when there are socialist governments challenging American hegemony, those countries have been under threat. Their governments and their people have been under threat and under attack for so long and never allowed to fully realize the nation-states that they could have, with the popular representation that they could have, with the aspirations of the people enacted in the way that the people get to decide because they are constantly under threat.
Being constantly under threat serves a real political purpose not only for the US threatening those countries but also within those countries. Because the people and governments of those countries are always under siege, and therefore, what you see is this idea that what Iran could be is not allowed to be realized on purpose because it is constantly under sanction and under threat. The fact that Iran still maintains this terrifying persona in the American political power structure psyche is a real testament to how much resistance Iran has been able to maintain, that it has not been regime changed, it has not been occupied. So it’s important to realize that this threat narrative not only threatens people within those countries and whatever spectrum of political interests they have for aspirations of stronger democratic representation, of different relations with other countries in the world, that is done on purpose; Exacted from the outside onto those countries to stifle the natural course of the way that nation-states evolve.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s two largest communist parties joined forces to form a new coalition government on Monday that will also include smaller parties as partners.
Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal will remain prime minister a year after he was elected to the office.
Dahal has ended his partnership with the Nepali Congress party, the largest group in parliament, and is now joining forces with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), the second-biggest party led by Khadga Prasad Oli.
Dahal appointed three new ministers on Monday who were sworn in to office by President Ram Chandra Poudel in Kathmandu. The Cabinet is expected to be expanded through negotiations between the new partners in the coalition government.
Dahal’s party is the only third-largest group in the 275-seat House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament.
However, he was chosen as prime minister last year after the general election with the support of the largest political party. That partnership lasted for a year.
In the previous election in 2017, Dahal and Oli had combined their parties and won the election. Oli became the prime minister, but halfway through the five-year tenure, their partnership ended.
Political stability has remained elusive for Nepal, which has had 13 different governments since 2008, when the centuries-old monarchy was abolished and the Himalayan nation turned into a republic.
it would be funny seeing one of the "why don't we talk about Chinese/Arab Imperialism?" people accidentally walk into saying "Why don't we talk about Indian/Turkish/Kenyan Imperialism?" and then get immediately culled by their reddit's mods.
Is there any basis behind the claim that Trump would be worse on Palestine than Biden, other than "Trump is evil, therefore, he will be worse than Biden on everything"?
But analysts have said the diplomatic mission is unlikely to yield any solid breakthroughs in the crisis due to Beijing’s continuing reluctance to intervene further – and threaten its neutral position in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Last month, Wang Di, director general of the foreign ministry’s West Asian and North African affairs department, became the first Chinese diplomat since the crisis began to visit both Saudi Arabia and Oman as he met with Saudi, Omani and Yemeni officials. In all his meetings, he had a similar message.
In Saudi capital Riyadh, Wang told Yemeni deputy foreign minister Mansour Ali Saeed Bajash that China attached great importance to “maintaining security and stability in the Red Sea region”, adding that Beijing supported Yemen’s “legitimate government”, but it would only pursue a “political settlement” on the anti-government Houthi militants. While there, he made the same point to Saudi Arabian officials – that Beijing was willing to work with the country to “restore safety and stability” in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Wang also highlighted China’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza during his tour, telling Omani officials that Beijing believed the Red Sea crisis was a “prominent manifestation of the spillover from Gaza”.
“Actually, Wang’s diplomatic visit is about furthering Beijing’s goal of a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, which is to achieve a ceasefire [in Gaza] through diplomatic mediation and political approaches,” he said. But Yin Gang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that since Wang was not considered a senior official of the foreign ministry, his visit was more of a “routine” one, underscoring Beijing’s reluctance to get more involved in the crisis. He noted that as the Houthi militants gave the green light to Chinese and Russian vessels in the trade corridor, Beijing needed to maintain a balanced approach so it would not be blamed for “conspiring with the Houthis and Iran”.
Looks like China is basically saying to the West: "Yep, this is your problem, not ours. Good luck with sorting it out. Maybe if you weren't supporting genocide in Palestine, things might not have gotten to this point. Fuck around and find out, what more is there to say?"
thinking about the tiktok ban, this seems like a potential mass radicalization moment, as depressing as that sounds, tiktok is like half of people's lives it feels like these days. Of course, that would require american communists to not be incompetent, so it will just be another opportunity wasted
A correspondent on my television is standing and saying that "a recent UN report" says that it is "very likely" that female hostages are being sexually assaulted by Hamas. He does hide it under a "'Israel' says" fig leaf but to the casual western news consumer it would feel like a vindication of their racist fantasies about muslamic savagery.
It's difficult to have a great idea of what's really going on in Israel because of the sheer magnitude of propaganda and narratives and hasbara. The best you can really do is stumble around in the fog and decide whether or not this article or that statistic is meaningful or meaningless.
From what we can tell, Israeli opinions against Palestinians are not improving, which is expected. If anything, the young appear to be more conservative and bloodthirsty than the older generations (though I'm not somebody who believes in generational politics or that the zoomers will save us or whatever, so idc).
Israeli society nonethless appears to irrevocably shattered. The sense of safety has gone, and the dramatic victory and display of military might that could have repaired it has not happened and seems less likely to happen every month that this goes on. On the contrary, Israelis seem to believe that the death count is higher than the Israeli government is letting on.
Economically:
Israel experienced a 20% decline in Q4 GDP. I don't put much stock in GDP figures but a hit like that is extremely difficult to just shrug at.
Imports are down 42%, which indicates that the blockade is being more successful than previously thought.
Spending is up by 90%, while investment is down by 70% and private consumption dropped 27% and public consumption dropped 90%. Israel also suffered its first sovereign credit rating downgrade.
NATOpedia says that the number of settlers evacuated from the Lebanese border is at 96,000. If scaled up to the US population, that would be 3.5 million people. These settlers are receiving social support which is perhaps not sustainable in the long term, and regardless, every month that goes by without businesses operating near the border makes it more unlikely that they'll be revived. They'll just set up shop elsewhere.
According to rumours, 500,000 Israelis have emigrated and immigration into Israel fell by 70% in November. People who can emigrate on short notice are more likely to be affluent, so them not being around anymore to spend money is probably not great.
About half a million compensation claims for businesses have been filed so far, and the damage is so far 6 times greater than the war in 2006.
Militarily:
Once again, the West's inability to fight wars of attrition for a drawn out length of time is on full display.
The war in Gaza is going badly and most are aware of it. Resistance groups inside the strip do not seem to be meaningfully weakened despite us being in month 6 of the conflict. It's entirely possible that Hamas has recruited more people than they've lost.
Israel says that they're going to invade Rafah soon, so Israeli casualties will increase even further soon.
Border settlers want Hezbollah pushed back to the Litani River to provide a buffer zone. Unfortunately for them, this doesn't seem possible. Israel made two (albeit limited) attempts recently to strike at Hezbollah in cross-border attacks and were routed both times. Israel is striking further into Lebanon to kill civilians and such, but this doesn't have much effect militarily. The US is trying to defuse the situation on the border by proposing deals that Hezbollah will obviously never accept.
The US produces 30,000 artillery shells per month, of which 10,000 go to Israel. This is not enough for a war against Hezbollah, so if Israel starts shit against Hezbollah officially, then Ukraine will collapse even faster than it already is.
On that note, Israel is now officially no longer doing a weird balancing act between Russia and Ukraine, siding fully with Ukraine and offering early-warning systems. This seems both delusional and difficult to actually achieve given the enormous hole Israel is putting itself in, and making an enemy of Russia when they're becoming more friendly with Iran does not seem like a good idea either.
There have been rumors of waves of resignations; I'm unsure how much stock to put in them in terms of both veracity and the actual impact they're having overall.
The Haredim in Israel are also under pressure by the government to undergo conscription; they were previously exempt. Polling suggests only ~30% of them are fine with joining the army. It's hard to tell whether this is due to desperately needing more troops, or if it's more to do with spreading the pain throughout society so as to bring it together and ensure no particular group is unaffected while another bears most of the weight.
Yemen's blockade obviously continues, with the US continuing its definitely-sustainable strategy of firing $5 million missiles at $2000 drones. Ansarallah have also shot down three Predator drones, which is $100 million down the drain there too.
The US seems to still be in talks about the withdrawal of forces from Iraq and possibly Syria. They may be trying to draw it out to see whether conditions might improve, but Iran will very probably keep the pressure on.
On Nuland stepping down, three possibilities, from the most optimistic to the least:
Case 1: The blob has determined that the PNAC strategy is too costly for the empire to sustain, following the attritional warfare in Ukraine as they did expect Russia’s change in strategy (Phase 2) to work. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has effectively stopped the expansionist aspiration of the empire all the way towards Iran, or has significantly delayed it in its tracks.
Case 2: Nuland takes the fall but the imperialist doctrine will persist without her involvement. This will likely follow with a pull back on the current strategy in Ukraine promoted by the neocon faction, while the empire redraws a new approach towards achieving the PNAC goals in more strategic and realistic manners.
Case 3: Nuland is getting promoted. The empire is going all in on a maximalist approach against all its geopolitical foes, leveraging on every piece of advantage it has (or still has, before they lose it completely in the near future) to retain its relevance as the global hegemonic power.
Syrsky has been tasked with auditing the existing armed forces to find more combat-eligible troops, after Zelensky’s office recently announced that of the 1 million people who have been mobilized, only about 300,000 have fought at the front lines. But nearly a month after his promotion, no one in the military leadership or the presidential administration has explained where those 700,000 are — or what they have been doing
Washington Post seems to disagree with Zelenskyy’s 31,000 casualties claim
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China will boost its defence spending by 7.2% this year, fuelling a military budget that has more than doubled under President Xi Jinping's 11 years in office as Beijing hardens its stance on Taiwan, according to official reports on Tuesday.
The increase mirrors the rate presented in last year's budget and again comes in well above the government's economic growth forecast for this year.
China also officially adopted tougher language against Taiwan as it released the budget figures, dropping the mention of "peaceful reunification" in a government report delivered by Premier Li Qiang at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, on Tuesday.
It's being investigated and promoted by an anonymous online blogger, supposedly someone working in data analysis in Finland, using public information and claims to be "the only public, open-source investigation" into the bombing.
I haven't delved into every post yet, but the top line narrative and some of the circumstantial evidence around UK military deployments, reorganisations, and government behaviour just before and after is reasonably compelling. The anonymity and (although superficial) tone of some of their Twitter posts though raises my eye brow a little though.
TikTok needs to get ahead of the curve on this US ban by aggressively pushing creators to advertise VPNs.
There's no reason ByteDance would divest TikTok, it makes no sense from a profit perspective. Far more likely is that TikTok gets banned in the US and US users are forced to go through a VPN.
Same reason Alphabet won't divest it's global Google operations to operate in China.
Continuing a discussion from the last thread: May I just say that critical support is ok? Stalin wasn't perfect either but god damn I'd take Stalin over every world leader alive today. A Galloway + Corbyn alliance might be the best thing that ever happened to the UK; and I don't mean the kind of 'harm reduction' of voting for Biden where there is literally a zero percent chance of anything changing. Corbyn and Galloway, despite their issues, are legitimately pro-Palestine, pro-unions, pro-worker, anti-war with Russia. Corbyn in particular is extremely progressive on LGBTQ+ issues; he could push Galloway on that. Yes we have a lot of work ahead of us pushing them in the right direction but they're almost there. If Galloway was completely immovable on green energy/trans rights, I don't think he'd be offering Corbyn to lead his party; the 2017/9 manifesto was extremely pro green energy and LGBTQ+ rights.
Big serge's latest on Russia Ukraine strategy, theory of victory is good. His analysis centers on this war as a war of attrition and so he spends a lot of time discussing industrial bases of the parties and how that actually influences what's happening at a tactical and operational level.
What I intend to argue here is that 2024 will be highly decisive for the war, as the year in which Ukrainian strategic exhaustion begins to show out at the same time that Russia’s strategic investments begin to pay off on the battlefield. This is the way of such an attritional conflict, which burdens armies with cumulative and constant stressors in a test of their recuperative powers.
One note about the mediazona Russian casualty tracker is that it always fades to nothing in the last month or so. The nature of their data is that they don't record casualties as they happen, they track obituaries and other data with lag times. Every mediazona chart thus trails off to nothing making it look like Russia has had an amazing last month, but really it takes a couple months for data to catch up.
Thinking about the proposition that passed in SF around waiving taxes for commercial real estate sold for conversion to residential units….keep me honest here:
There’s no fucking way these offices get turned into housing, right? I’ve sat by a window so rarely in an office. How the fuck are you going to take these open plan spaces and make them into homes that investors can sell? Not to mention the costs of completely changing the plumbing in the building to support multiple housing units.
Is there more to this, or is the “convert offices to homes” thing just a massive grift to allow commercial landlords to offload their unoccupied real estate, while receiving handouts from the city budget? While making it look like the mayor is “building housing”?
Guess they haven't learned that every time they do this Russia typically responds with heavy ass missle barrages at major cities. So expect headlines around that to come next.
Selina Robinson, the BC, Canada parliamentary rep who recently did the "Zionists made the desert bloom" bullshit got dumped as a cabinet minister a month ago, left the party entirely because of "antisemitism" (read: her Zionist tears) yesterday.
Her former party is the NDP, they're left libs or at most sucdems that currently run BC. The premier David Eby is the best of Canada's senior elected officials at the moment (not a high bar but nevertheless). It's good that she was told to pound sand and cry elsewhere. Maybe he learned something for Corbyn, who knows.
"Resistance is continually benefitting. Whatever you pay in resistance, if you don't reap it in your lifetime, you will get the results later." —the revolutionary, resisting martyr Basil Al-Araj
From the Resistance News Network. I don’t read Arabic, I’m not sure I understand the word “benefitting”, context clues tell me it’s just something that generally positive.
You ever have a spice vision of a way that the empire could resolve certain contradictions, only to not want to post it lest whichever fed responsible for watching this place thinks it's a good idea and passes it on?
According to a new study by University of California Riverside researchers, roughly two weeks of training for GPT-3 consumed about 700,000 liters of freshwater. The global AI demand is projected by 2027 to account for 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal, which is more than the total annual water withdrawal of Denmark or half of the United Kingdom.
Much of the water to cool the cloud is lost in steam emissions “where the water will evaporate and remove the heat from the data center to the environment,” according to one of the authors of the study, Shaolei Ren.
Other research has pointed out the growing carbon footprint of AI. For example, in 2019, researchers found that training one of the larger AI models can emit as much greenhouse gas as five average American cars over their entire lifetimes.
Or: If CHIPS was so good, why isn't there a CHIPS 2-- oh.
expand
The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act provides around $280 billion in funding for research and development into semiconductor technology and manufacturing operations. The funding includes $39 billion in subsidies for U.S.-based chip manufacturing, further supported by tax credits for operational equipment. It also contributes significant funds to the science and technology sector. The Act aims to revitalise domestic manufacturing, create well-paid jobs, strengthen domestic supply chains, and accelerate the industries of the future.
Currently, China is the biggest semiconductor market, purchasing more than 50 percent of the global supply every year. China continues to be highly dependent on semiconductor imports, sourcing many of its chips from the Dutch giant Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (ASML) and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC produces around 80 to 90 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductors. China also hopes to develop its manufacturing capabilities. In 2023, Chinese companies bought U.S. chipmaking equipment to make advanced semiconductors, despite U.S. policies aimed at restricting China’s import of semiconductor-related technology, to slow its progress in chip production.
The U.S. is attempting to counter China’s dominance in the global semiconductor market by rapidly developing its production capabilities and striving for technological advancements. While the CHIPS Act has gone a long way in establishing the U.S. role in the global semiconductor market, some industry experts believe more is still needed. The United States Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently emphasised the need for federal subsidies in the industry to enhance the position of the U.S. in the international microchips market. She believes this can best be done through the launch of a second CHIPS Act to spur more funding.
Raimondo said, “I suspect there will have to be – whether you call it CHIPS Two or something else – continued investment if we want to lead the world.” She added, “We fell pretty far. We took our eye off the ball.” The development of a second CHIPS Act could support the construction of new chip foundries and the financing of semiconductor startups. It could also help the U.S. develop its technological capabilities in the field of specialised and advanced chip manufacturing.
However, billions in funding have still yet to be allocated from the first CHIPS Act, with the White House only recently announcing a $5 billion investment in a new chip research initiative (NSTC). In February, the U.S. government awarded $1.5 billion to New York-based chipmaker GlobalFoundries, which was its third and largest grant in the field of semiconductors under the CHIPS Act.
Nevertheless, some industry experts believe that federal funding, alongside private investments in the sector, will help the U.S. achieve chip manufacturing independence within the next two decades. The ambitious policy has also encouraged other world powers to develop similar investment schemes. In 2023, the EU introduced the $46.53-billion European Chips Act to boost competitiveness in the international semiconductor market.
Raimondo was quick to say that she doesn’t expect all semiconductor manufacturing to be situated in the U.S., but she believes the country’s role in the chip industry can expand substantially. “To be clear, we can’t and do not want to make everything in America. We don’t want to make every chip in America. That isn’t a reasonable goal,” Raimondo added. “But we do need to diversify our semiconductor supply chains and have much more manufacturing in the United States, particularly leading-edge chips, which will be essential for AI,” she explained.
Raimondo is not the only one who thinks the government’s investment in the semiconductor industry is too low to ensure meaningful change. The cost of developing chip manufacturing facilities in the U.S. is far higher than in many other parts of the world, such as Taiwan. Meanwhile, TSMC, the world’s largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturer, spends almost $40 on equipment and research and development every year to advance its capabilities. Therefore, for the U.S. to catch up with TSMC and other major producers, it will likely need to invest significantly more in the sector in the form of grants and financial incentives to encourage higher levels of private investment.
Michael Roberts' latest piece on China, where he dunks pretty hard on Western China Understanders. It is genuinely bewildering that these economists are giving economic advice to a country that is beating them in many ways, while that same advice is used in the West and is producing stagnation and recession. I get that these people don't give a shit about the actual economy and are merely focussed on funnelling more profits into the top 0.01% with all this fancy jargon as a smokescreen, but you'd think cognitive dissonance would kick in at some point.
Like, Russia is doing better than you! The same country that you predicted would experience unsalvageable economic collapses in 2022 is now doing considerably better than you in economic growth! If I was in their position and had even a shred of dignity, I'd say "Fuck. Well, my economic theory doesn't seem to be working, then. Let's see if there are any better ones, which are predicting events better than me."
Can China succeed in achieving both its growth target for this year and reach the longer-term objectives over the next ten years or so, taking nearly 1.4bn people up to living standards only enjoyed by a small group of nations in Europe, North America and East Asia?
If you were to read the Western press and their economists, you would conclude that the chances of China doing that are no better than a snowball surviving on being thrown into the sun. It is the almost unanimous cry of Western economists, particularly the ‘China experts’, that the China ‘miracle’ is over, and worse, China is heading into a debt deflation spiral that will mean growth targets will not be met at best, and more likely there will be a major slump. This is despite the fact that in 2023 China had an official growth rate of 5.2%, more than double that of the ‘booming’ US economy, and five times the rate of growth in the rest of top capitalist economies of the G7. (Don’t get me into the argument that China’s growth figure is fake and growth is much lower. Those that argue this have little supporting evidence.)
Ah, but you see, manufacturing is in recession (as measured by official surveys), consumption is weak (still below pre-pandemic levels) and foreign investment, seen as the life-blood for the Chinese economy has dried up. And even worse, prices of goods and services are falling. Readers may be surprised to hear that Western economists, who spend much of their time demanding that inflation rates in their countries be reduced to no more than 2% a year after the post-COVID inflationary spiral of the last three years, see no merit in the lack of any rising prices (and therefore rising real wages) in the Chinese economy: it’s ‘inflation bad for the US; but no inflation bad for China’.
In a recent article, John Ross has shown that to achieve China’s Plan GDP target for 2025 ie a doubling GDP from 2021, it would require an average annual growth of 4.7% a year. So far, China is ahead of this goal with annual average growth in 2020-2023 of about 5%. Indeed, since the beginning of the pandemic, China’s economy has grown by 20.1% and the U.S. by 8.1%—that is China’s total GDP growth since the beginning of the pandemic has been two and half times greater than the US.
Yes, China’s annual growth rates have slowed from the breakneck pace of the 1990s onwards and the Chinese workforce is declining. But just look the increase in GDP per person that China has achieved compared to the G7 economies since 2019, some of which have even contracted (IMF data). The rise on per capita basis is even higher against the US (nearly four times).
Yes, increasingly China cannot rely on an expansion of a cheap workforce from rural areas to achieve more output, but instead must raise the productivity of the existing labour force, especially through investment in technical innovation. And it is doing so. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows that ‘total factor productivity’ (which is a crude measure of innovation) is growing at 6% a year, while it has been falling in the US.
Despite this evidence, every year the Western ‘China’ experts (and even many in China itself) predict stagnation, given the huge debt levels in all sectors. China is going to stagnate like Japan has done in the last three decades. The only way to avoid ‘Japanification’, say these experts, is to ‘rebalance’ the economy from ‘over-investment’, ‘excessive savings’ and exports to a domestic consumer-led economy as in the West and reduce the state control of the economy so that the private sector can flourish.
This year on the occasion of the NPC, Martin Wolf, the Keynesian guru of the Financial Times, returned to this theme, echoing the arguments of other Keynesian China experts like Michael Pettis. According to Wolf, China’s growth will now slow to a trickle as in Japan because it overloaded with excessive debt and because it has not rebalanced the economy towards “the consumer”. China needs to get its consumption share up to Western levels or it will not be able to grow and so stay locked in a ‘middle income’ trap.
...
But how can anybody claim that the mature ‘consumer-led’ economies of the G7 have been successful in achieving steady and fast economic growth, or that real wages and consumption growth have been stronger there? Indeed, in the G7, consumption has failed to drive economic growth and wages have stagnated in real terms over the last ten years, while real wages in China have shot up. Moreover, these consumer-led economies have been hit by regular and recurring slumps in production that have lost trillions in output and income for their populations. The irony is that China’s consumption growth rate is way higher than in the G7 economies.
China has not had a contraction in national income in any year since 1976, while the consumer-led G7 economies have had slumps in 1980-2, 1991, 2001, 2008-9 and 2020. Much has been made of China’s ‘disastrous’ zero COVID policy. But apart from saving millions of lives, China still did not enter a slump in 2020, unlike all the G7 economies in 2020.
...
Moreover, the arguments of the Western experts that China is stuck in an old model of investment-led export manufacturing and needs to ‘rebalance’ towards a consumer-led domestic economy where the private sector has a free rein are just not empirically valid. Is China’s weak consumer sector forcing it to try and export manufacturing ‘over capacity’? Not according to a recent study by Richard Baldwin. He finds that the export-led model did operate up to 2006, but since then domestic sales have boomed, so that the exports to GDP ratio has actually fallen. “Chinese consumption of Chinese manufactured goods has grown faster than Chinese production for almost two decades. Far from being unable to absorb the production, Chinese domestic consumption of made-in-China goods has grown MUCH faster than the output of China’s manufacturing sector.”
There's more in the article for enjoyers of Chinese economics statistics, but to summarize the argument, I think it's really as simple as: China needs to do the exact opposite of whatever Western economists are telling them to do.
It would be wrong to say that neoliberal economics "doesn't work", because it's actually working stunningly well at its real purpose, which is accumulating profit and repressing the working class, despite failing dramatically and increasingly regularly at its stated purpose, which is some hand-wavey shit about economic growth and stability or whatever. But the contradiction between these two points can only be delayed so long as you don't have a major competitor. Once you do, you must institute a different kind of economics which actually does produce economic growth across society and has some provisions for labor, which is of course the real motive force of the entire economy, because it's now in your material interests to do so in order to maintain imperialism and monopolies.
I'm unsure what the breaking point will be, or when it will happen, but a war against China (proxy or otherwise) seems like a pretty safe bet. The only thing then is whether the current class of capitalists will resist this new state of affairs, and doom Western hegemony, or accept it, plunging us into the biggest Cool Zone of human history with a reinvigorated American working class slaving away for an American bourgeoisie fighting against a Chinese communist superpower.
Gangs led by Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue, are trying to force Henry from power.
Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights said only about 100 of the National Penitentiary’s estimated 3,800 inmates remained inside after the assault on Saturday night.
One voluntary prison worker on Sunday said that 99 prisoners had opted to remain in their cells in the main jail for fear of being killed in the crossfire. These included several retired Colombian soldiers who were jailed for their alleged involvement in the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise.
The prime minister’s exact whereabouts remained unclear on Sunday. Henry had been due to return from a visit to Kenya where he signed a security deal to tackle gang violence.
Nearly 15,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in recent days, with 10 sites hosting internally displaced people emptied over the weekend, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Henry, who became prime minister in 2021 after Moise’s assassination, was supposed to step down by early February, but told a regional summit in Guyana before travelling to Kenya that he would only hold elections by August 2025 once the situation was more stable.
We have a collection of pieces on the reaction to Victoria Nuland's resignation. Bhadrakumar is, as he usually is, fairly objective and netrual about her and her history in the region and agrees that Nuland's exit is a reflection of the collapse of the American strategy with Ukraine.IP Moon of Alabama is a lot more belligerent and celebrates her resignation.MoA And Naked Capitalism highlights that her career over the last four or so years has generally been of failure and backfiring, what with her visit to Niger, though obviously her ideology has succeeded magnificently in killing a LOT of people for no real reason in Ukraine, so perhaps, like with Kissinger, we shouldn't overly celebrate.NC
Macron has called for a "strategic leap" in thinking in Ukraine, deciding not to back down on his comments about sending NATO troops to Ukraine (which could very much be a trigger for WW3), though his officials did the Biden thing and said "No, he was actually talking about demining soldiers and trainers.".BNE
An Australian defence official has warned that Washington must clear regulatory impediments in AUKUS in order to catch up to Russia and China, who are outpacing the West in some areas militarily.SCMP
Ralph Nader has asserted that the real Gaza death toll is at least 200,000, which is entirely plausible (though I personally think that this is sort of the "guaranteed" number of deaths even if Israel's government collapsed tomorrow and aid started pouring into Gaza, due to how many people must be essentially dead from malnutrition and disease and various injuries and cannot be helped - and thus the number might be off significantly but still get the general picture correct).NC
Global South climate groups are significantly funded by the German government, which has been threatening to withdraw funding if those groups criticize Israel.CCN
Meanwhile, South Africa's Minister of International Relations has said that countries should use force to break Israel's blockade of aid entering Gaza, saying that Western countries should use their soldiers to escort trucks into Gaza under the assumption that Israel will not fire upon them, which, uh, doesn't seem especially historically accurate given a certain ship that starts with L and ends with iberty.AN
Chile's President, Boric, has said that Israeli companies cannot attend the 2024 aerospace FIDAE event in April.MP
The EU has been discussing banning Russian aluminium but has decided to not do so because it would cause shortages and raise prices. I am genuinely surprised that this has stopped them so far and don't expect it to stop them for much longer.BNE Meanwhile, the EU is slapping retroactive tariffs on electric vehicles from China as they pour into the EU and reduce profits for European manufacturers.SCMP
Five US tech giants have been cleared in a cobalt child mining case in the DRC.RT
The UK's House of Lords has once again set back a bill which would allow the UK to deport migrants to Rwanda after doing so before in January, but Sunak has vowed that the circus will continue.AN
France has enshrined abortion in its constitution, making it the world's first country to do so.E
Bulgaria's Prime Minister has tabled the resignation of his government as part of an agreement made nine months prior, as the two coalition parties are fierce opponents and are rotating power between themselves.BNE
Croatia will soon have a general election, with the Prime Minister expressing confidence in his party's chances. This is occuring in the context of protests and motions in parliament calling for immediate re-elections, and scandals inside the current government. Opposition conservative parties are banding together to try and defeat the incumbent party.BNE
A Chinese-built flood control project in Poland has been recently completed, five months ahead of schedule, with the flood control system now able to withstand 300-year floods.PD
A Qatari waste management company has said that it's constructing a hydrogen plant in Nigeria worth $350 million, which could address waste management challenges but also generate clean electricity.BNE
Workers in the Turkish textile industry have been widely exploited after the earthquake over a year ago which killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions, with most pressured into returning to work mere weeks after losing their homes, with all the mental and physical problems as a result in addition to the financial.ET
Egypt signed an $8 billion deal with the IMF, more than double the original $3 billion, with the Egyptian central bank simultaneously deciding to float the Egyptian pound, raising the key rate to 27.25% causing the pound to fall by more than a third against the dollar. Egypt is also obviously going to have to privatize things.MEE
Somalia has gained full membership of the East African Community after first applying in 2012, joining the DRC, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. This will allow them to have more trade, investment, industry, free movement of people, and so on.AN
Ghana's proposed LGBTQIA+ criminalization bill could lead to a loss of $3.8 billion in World Bank financing within the next five to six years, and $850 million this year alone, amid an economic crisis. The President is thus taking his time thinking about signing it.A
Pakistan's new Prime Minister has vowed that he will stabilize the national economy, by - you guessed it - privatizing any state institution that isn't showing growth.PD
Sizable lithium reserves have been discovered in Kazakhstan, consisting of over 75,000 tons or about $16 billion worth.EN
Sri Lanka's economy may finally be out of its gigantic rut (experiencing 6 consecutive contractions in quarters from 2022 to 2023) with recovery beginning in the second half of 2023 and now continuing into 2024. Inflation dropped dramatically over this time period from 70% to 5.9%.PD
China is considering providing equal social benefits for its 300 million migrant workers as the rest of the Chinese population enjoys, and wants to move those who are eligible to permanent urban residency, which produces more consumer demand than for rural residents.SCMP China is also boosting its investment in science and technology by 10% this year, amounting to $52 billion. China is the second biggest spender on R&D after the US.SCMP China is cutting back on one of its 2025 climate goals, with the government targeting only a "modest" cut to the amount of energy needed to power its economy this year.CCN
Peru's Prime Minsiter has resigned amid a scandal of an irregular hiring, which he denies ever happened.MP
Paraguay has reported 0% average inflation from January's values, although there have been increases in education and good and increases in the Consumer Price Index by 0.5%.MP
What’s the story with Moon of Alabama? I occasionally see posts linked here and in naked capitalism. The posts themselves seem ok but there seem to be a lot of nazis in the comments.
After this attack CENTCOM claimed that the Huties are a great threat to world trade
Yemeni forces attacked a merchant ship passing through the Red Sea last Wednesday, leaving three sailors dead.
According to the Central Command of the United States (CETCOM), these were the first deaths due to Hutu attacks since they initiated the assaults on ships of imperialist countries, according to Yemeni forces these actions are in support of the genocide in Palestine.
CETCOM further reported that four people were injured and the ship, owned by Greece and Barbados, was severely damaged.
The action against the vessel occurred 50 miles from the port of Aden. Yahya Sarea, a Houthi spokesman, confirmed that Yemeni rebel forces were responsible for the attack.
According to Sarea they sent warning signals to the ship that were ignored. The attack caused a fire on board.
Mathew Miller, spokesman for the US State Department, responded by saying that the attack will not go unpunished and that Washington will take action against the Houthis.
For an organisation whose role is to be a PR agency, this is utterly bizarre, and gives me hope that there is actually some sort of crisis happening for those bastards
The cringe of this deeply unserious nation I inhabit will never be purged but with blood. They're now "working on a big screen solution" for the funeral of the pompous fascist shitbag who was leader of the conservative party until comrade cerebral hemorrhage connected him to Satan's wifi a couple of days ago. The planners of the event are expecting people to be flocking outside the church like it was a football match just because they're so sad to see the local dollar store Mussolini go.
Elections in portugal today, I'm not looking at exit polls right now but I want to share a funny thing that's happening, there were media reports about people who intended to vote for the center right coalition called "democratic alliance" (AD) accidentally voting for an extra parliamentary even more right wing party called "national democratic alternative" (ADN) because they mistake ADN for AD, it's just silly but apparently its making AD people nervous because there are now several calls by figures from the coalition to RECOUNT THE VOTES THEY'RE STEALING (accidentally) THE VOTES. The national electoral commission already said they're not going to touch the issue today and it'd be pretty funny if the amount of votes lost to this party which isn't even in parliament (and might get in because of this) actually makes a difference in the final outcome.
Personally I think the media is overblowing this.
EDIT: Results are coming in, it's not good folks
EDIT2: Also the media wasn't overblowing the ADN thing they got, like, 100k votes while being completely unknown
yo what blogs/sites do you all read about international affairs and foreign policy? not like just straight news reporting but more opinion/analysis type of stuff. i've been trawling through the sources that 72T ( ) uses to put together the briefings but the only one that scratches the itch is naked capitalism and i'm not tryna read the dang Ec*nomist or FT. y'all got anything else like NC? i'm especially interested in materialist analysis of geopolitical strategy. also any podcast recommendations would be welcome as well
Who are other prominent American geopolitical thinkers who have gone against the neocon approach to ukraine and Russia? Mearshiemer is one, but as I recall he was just one of a handful of senior diplomat types that had different perspectives than the typical Raytheon think tankies. I feel like there were some open letters on this in 2022-2023.
Did west and east Europe switch positions on the Ukraine war in the past 2 years?
I remember eastern euros being more belligerent in the early days but now they're more critical while the leftoids have gone the other way.
Here's a basic question that somehow still doesn't have a satisfactory answer: What is the Chinese public reaction to the anti-China blitz in the west during the last five years?
No seriously I cannot find an answer to this rudimentary question anywhere in English-based media
In case you needed a striking example of how First Nations are not a monolith, here are two stories from this past week about neighbouring communities in northern Alberta taking very different approaches to oil sands development and enviromental contamination
Building on decades of collaboration, the announcement marks a significant milestone for FMFN, a leader in working with industry to create opportunities for its people while safeguarding the environment, and in Suncor's Journey of Reconciliation.
"With this agreement, we are creating the conditions for sustainable prosperity, growth and health for our Nation for generations to come, while leading the way on protecting our land and water," says Chief Raymond Powder of Fort McKay First Nation. "We will bring our values of stewardship and care to this opportunity. In doing so, we are charting a new path for economic development on our lands."
In a news release issued Tuesday, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) said the lawsuit, filed in the Alberta Court of Kings Bench, is based on two major leaks from the oilsands mine's tailings ponds, which took place between May 2022 and February 2023.
The ACFN claims the regulator failed to inform the First Nation about the leaks. The lawsuit alleges "negligence, nuisance, breach of the duty to consult, breach of the Honour of the Crown, breach of fiduciary duty and unjustified Treaty infringement," the news release states.
Documents filed by Imperial Oil Ltd. show the company and energy regulator knew the Kearl oilsands mine was seeping tailings into groundwater years before a pool of contaminated fluid was reported on the surface.
If that company didn't exist and lenin wrote about a company named imperial oil, people would say its made up
In any case, there is no finer example of regulatory capture in Canada than the Alberta oil sands
The creation of the UNESCO-listed Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico’s Campeche region has led to a long-standing conflict with Indigenous residents who argue the government restricted their livelihoods, despite promises of support and land titles by Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
Wild rice or manoomin is an ecologically important and culturally revered wetland species native to the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, which once covered thousands of acres and was a staple for Indigenous peoples.
In recent years, native tribes and First Nations, working with federal and state agencies, scientists and funding initiatives, have led wild rice restoration programs that have successfully revived the species in parts of the region and paved the way for education and outreach.
Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO forces “is not unthinkable” and that he appreciates the French president for not ruling out that idea. Radek Sikorski made the observation during a discussion marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO in the Polish parliament Friday, and the Foreign Ministry tweeted the comments later in English.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has told delegates at a congress of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) that "we are living in new times, in a pre-war epoch". Speaking in Bucharest, Romania, and referencing the war in Ukraine, Mr Tusk said that "the times of blissful calm are over" and that the "post-war epoch is gone".
The event culminated in the election of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the party’s lead nominee to retain the Commission's top job. As the EPP’s only candidate for the nomination, Ms von der Leyen was elected by 400 votes to 89.
Ipsos asked Polish people if they think Russia will attack Poland militarily in the coming years. As the TOK FM portal explains, the answer "definitely yes" was given by 12% of respondents, and the answer "rather yes" by 36%. A total of 48%.
32% of respondents believe that Russia will "rather not" attack Poland militarily, and 9% are of the "definitely not" opinion – a total of 41%. 11% of respondents have no opinion on the matter.
The study was conducted using the Mixed mode method on a nationwide sample of n=1000 adult Polish people on February 22-26, 2024.
Haiti's Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, went to Kenya on March 2nd to beg them to hurry the police squadron over to Haiti like they promised. The problem is that Kenya's highest court found that this deal was unlawful, so I'm not entirely sure if they're just gonna ignore that and send them anyway or not, but regardless.
Henry couldn't immediately return to Port-au-Prince because there's been gunfire at their airport. This gunfire didn't really do any damage but I don't think it was mean to - it feels instead like a warning shot to Henry. Due to this, Henry asked the US to provide him a military plane and soldiers so he can return to Haiti. The US has, hilariously, denied him this request, due to some nonsense about not wanting to put US soldiers in Haiti, as if that's ever stopped them.
Henry then decided that he would just land in the Dominican Republic and cross the border from there, boarding a private jet to Santo Domingo for nearly $60,000. The got three hours into the four-hour flight but were then told by air traffic controllers that they did not have permission to land in the country, meaning they instead had to land in Puerto Rico.
At this point, the Haitian people are absolutely aware of the issue that Henry is having getting back into his country and are orienting their strategy around it, creating a new slogan which translates to "Out, Out for Good". Now, a local leader (they call him a "gang leader" which idk how much stock to put into), Jimmy Cherizier, has said that Haiti will be plunged into civil war and even genocide unless Henry resigns. Thousands of inmates from prisons have been freed recently by fighters and the entire country basically continues to descend into (very potentially revolutionary) mayhem.
The US just got caught in a little bind where they said that they want Henry to "expedite the transition to an empowered and inclusive governance structure that will help prepare for a multinational security support mission and pave the way for free and fair elections", which rapidly spread throughout Haiti as essentially "The US is pressuring Henry to resign." The US then had to come out and say "No, we aren't pressuring him to resign."
Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as Pakistan's new prime minister Sunday amid a swirl of accusations that his party, in concert with the Pakistani military, rigged the elections.
Earlier this month, voters in Pakistan woke up to what initially appeared to be an overwhelming victory to former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and a strong rebuke to the powerful military-backed government in the country’s parliamentary elections. Instead, the election was ultimately called for the military's preferred candidate, Sharif, of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) party.
Early results, broadcast widely by the Pakistani media, had shown a landslide victory for PTI. After the election was called for Sharif's party, nonpartisan observers like the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) found that there were election law violations at over two-thirds of polling sites, which almost certainly helped change the outcomes.
This was in addition to unprecedented efforts by the Pakistani military to discourage voter turnout and intimidate candidates running with the populist PTI, including forcing PTI-aligned candidates to run as independents, banning the PTI’s iconic cricket bat symbol from the ballot in a country where a significant number of illiterate voters rely on those symbols to identify candidates, and widespread mobile outages.
Late in the evening of the election, after an unusual gap in media coverage, constituencies where televised results and hard documentation (known as “Form 45s”) had shown PTI-backed candidates with commanding leads were suddenly showing “official” results in which PML-N candidates had surged to improbable leads, in some cases with PTI-backed candidates losing votes.
A high-ranking elections official in Rawalpindi, a city housing the military headquarters abutting the capital Islamabad, later confessed to flipping 13 constituencies against PTI-aligned candidates and accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and military leadership of orchestrating electoral theft.
In spite of these efforts to ostensibly skew the results in the PMLN’s favor, official results still showed the PTI with 93-seat plurality, eclipsing the PMLN’s 75 seats. But reducing the potentially-enormous PTI mandate into a bare plurality left the party incapable of overcoming a coalition of the PMLN and the PPP — Pakistan’s other dynastic political party — and forming a government.
I honestly find it pretty funny that US elected officials are trying to be like "Oh no, we should encourage democracy in Pakistan and oppose this tampering!" as if the US weren't the ones who created this situation and locked up Imran Khan in the first place. I assume these people are gonna get a knock on their door by the deep state and they'll fall silent pretty quickly.
interesting twitter thread about Russian ships and Ukrainian drone attacks in the Black Sea
How do you destroy an attack network?
Notice that I didn't say military unit. A military unit has assigned equipment, a defined area of operations, and clear lines of communication. Attack networks - generally but not always terroristic in nature - are far more amorphous, relying largely on a web of key people (leaders, technicians, financiers, "fixers," smugglers, system operators and expendable dupes) to create custom weaponry and deploy them in an asymmetric manner for maximum effects. During the war against ISIS we saw terrorist attack networks coalesce into military units that fought - and had to be fought - conventionally. In Ukraine we've seen the reverse: the devolution of military operations into terrorist-style attack networks difficult to destroy through conventional targeting of critical nodes simply because those nodes don't exist.
spoiler
Here I am of course referring to the Ukrainian GUR's "Black Sea Attack Network," a NATO-advised effort to harass Russian Crimea and disrupt Russian control of the Black Sea, which has entirely replaced Ukraine's sunken or captured navy on the battlefield. This effort has several prongs: an aerial drone campaign, a sea drone campaign, a commando effort, and operations that could easily be categorized as pure terrorism such as the October 2022 VBIED attack on the Kerch Bridge. You will immediately notice that all of these lines of effort require very little in the way of infrastructure and logistics - you can build bombs and crude drones in a garage and guide them out of a living room. The BSAN sea drone program scored a number of successes and hair-raising near-misses over the course of 2023 and early 2024, most notably sinking the Tarantul-class missile boat Ivanovets with what was likely some loss of life on February 1st, 2024. At that point I suspect that the Russian Navy decided that something had to be done and, having carefully studied their foe, put a plan into action to destroy what was to them the most concerning part of the BSAN - the maritime drone program.
You see, you destroy an attack network not by attacking materiel but by attacking people. Any mechanic can put together a VBIED, but it takes real expertise to deliver that bomb exactly where it's needed for maximum effect. In the context of counterinsurgency this is straightforward, you figure out who these people are and go kick down their doors in the middle of the night. In a conventional war, where the attack network largely exists in a sanctuary far behind enemy lines, things are more difficult. But in a conventional war, that attack network can be expected to play by a few conventional rules, and that can be... exploited.
What follows is my theory.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has added a number of ships over course of the war, and with mobilization and recruitment focused on the land services likely doesn't have many more sailors than it did two years ago. At the same time it had accumulated a handful of battle-damaged vessels that its leadership seems to have not seen fit to send back to the yard. Among them were the LST Cesar Kunikov (damaged during an ammunition handling accident widely but falsely reported as a Ukrainian missile strike in Berdyansk in March 2022) and the patrol corvette Sergey Kotov (reported damaged by a submersible drone attack in September 2023).
These ships would be used as stalking horses. The Cesar Kunikov was sent out first during a drone raid the Russians certainly knew was coming. Video of the engagement that subsequently emerged showed a minimal crew firing on attack drones with small arms, with the ship's formidable CIWS and cannon armament unused and perhaps nonfunctional. The ship was hit several times and foundered, with the crew evacuated safely and remaining Ukrainian drones in the area mopped up by rescue vessels. Russian intelligence would then have mapped out and confirmed the BSAN's structure via what were likely sloppy post-battle communications. That attack did not, however, cause the BSAN to drop its guard. Another stalking horse was deployed, the Sergey Kotov. Despite their somewhat limited military value, the Ukrainians have a particular hatred of Project 22160 patrol ships because a different one, the Vasily Bykov, was involved in the Russian capture of Snake Island at the start of the war. Deployed without support in the Kerch Strait during a large-scale (albeit unsuccessful) aerial drone raid, the Kotov attracted the attention of Ukrainian sea drones heading for another round with the Kerch Bridge. Video from the battle again suggests only a modest defensive effort with small arms, with subsequent reports that the ship was abandoned quickly (with few to no Russian casualties) and basically allowed to sink. It's noteworthy that the remaining drones were, again, easily mopped up by rescuers. And here, after this engagement, the Black Sea Attack Network was undone.
You see, congratulations were in order. Zelensky wanted to personally pin medals on the men who were destroying the hated Russian Black Sea Fleet. So, two days later, the personnel of the Black Sea Attack Network - the drone operators, the planners, the technicians, the officers, bosses and bosses' bosses, and likely a gaggle of foreign advisors - assembled in a hangar in Odessa to receive accolades from their nation's leader. Zelensky arrived (with the Greek Prime Minister in tow, apparently, perhaps sending a message to a significant maritime player), pinned medals on chests, shook hands, and departed. His motorcade was a block away when a Russian Iskander ballistic missile sliced through that hangar's roof and wiped out the assembled personnel of the Ukrainian sea drone network. It was probably launched the instant he walked out the door.
There were reports of a large number of NATO helicopters flying into Odessa in the strike's aftermath, and shrieking from the usual suspects that the Russians had "tried" to assassinate Zelensky, as though they couldn't kill him any time they wanted. Meanwhile, the Russian MoD put out a dry statement that they'd struck a target in Odessa associated with the Ukrainian drone campaign. It's noteworthy that in a Ukrainian "maximum effort" aerial drone attack conducted yesterday, timed to influence the Russian elections this week and in which they probably sent every drone they had available, there was no sea drone activity reported whatsoever. We shall have to see if this network is ever reconstituted and in what form.
There's a saying that one time is happenstance, two times is coincidence, and three times is planned - I believe it's quite possible another damaged LST from the same incident in 2022, the Novocherkassk, was also used as a stalking horse in a different operation given that its destruction on December 26th, 2023 was the last successful Storm Shadow attack in Crimea to date and occurred after a series of fairly dramatic strikes on Black Sea Fleet ships and facilities last fall and summer.
Ships Hit The Fan: Denmark's Arctic Command Crippled By Suspicious Technical Issues
WESTERN MILITARY EXCELLENCE – Danish government broadcaster DR reports that two patrol vessels of the Knud Rasmussen class has been grounded due to mysterious technical issues. The ships that were intended to be the backbone of NATO pact power projection in the region now lay dormant in the harbour of Nuuk, the capital city of Greenland, part of the Danish colonial empire.
One of the ships has been incapacitated since February 1st due to a malfunction in the auxiliary engines. Danish naval authorities claims that their engineers has been unable to explain the malfunctions or to repair the engines, laying bare the inherent inefficiency of the capitalist system and hinting at deep-seated systemic decay in the American satellite state's military. The persistent and seemingly inexplicable technical problems has prompted naval authorities to ground all ships of the class until the issue has been resolved.
To compound matters, a run-down 40-year-old vessel dispatched from Denmark as a temporary stopgap measure frequently succumbs to technical issues of its own, further exposing the NATO pact's technological shortcomings. With only small boats unfit for rough seas and helicopters with limited range at their disposal, the Arctic Command now finds traditional Inuit dog sleds to be their only reliable transportation.
The crippling of the Arctic Command has turned Danish military planners paranoid that their inability to patrol the Arctic will enable infiltration by their Russian counterparts to go unnoticed.
The Knud Rasmussen ships gained notoriety earlier this year when it was exposed that they had been operating for years without having the fire control system necessary to aim their guns installed, owing to mismanagement by the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense. News reports have also indicated that staffing issues often makes the Danish navy incapable of manning the guns of their vessels or operating patrol vessels at night.
True to their form, Danish government media has seized the opportunity to use the reports on naval incompetence and mismanagement as a means to drum up support for the social democratic-led right-wing regime's grandiose plans of rapid military buildup at the expense of regional stability and essential social services for the Danish people. The dilapidated state of the navy is presented as compelling evidence for the urgency and necessity of increased naval spending.
Syphilis treatment drugs are in short supply, and it’s a disease which can spread from pregnant mother to the baby in the womb and often results in death, and if not, in severe deformities. Cases of syphilis are on a dramatic rise even before the shortage of shots. 20 years ago, there were three manufacturers of syphilis shots, and then Pfizer acquired the other two companies, became the sole US supplier, and there are now frequent manufacturing issues.PP
Slovakia’s foreign minister met with Lavrov in early March and has faced a lot of criticism from the opposition and the country’s liberal President, Caputova, because diplomacy with your enemies is for pussies and real, heroic men sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives and destroy a country in order to inconvenience a nuclear superpower as much as possible and then actually fail at doing even that, strengthening that nuclear superpower.BNE
Armenia is freezing its participation in the CTSO and a permanent exit appears imminent as Armenia blames Russia (not entirely without merit) for their recent defeats. While the US tries to stir up trouble in the Caucasuses to try and weaken Russia and Iran, what’s actually happening is that everybody is banding together against Armenia.NC
Putin has proposed a raft of new projects to update the 12 National Projects, which were launched in 2019, in order to improve the conditions of the public. For example, Putin has proposed a six-year long-term financial plan of Russia’s development, as well as progressive tax rates, doubling public and private investment in research and development, new housing construction, support for families with children due to the demographic crisis, extending life expectancy, and so on.BNE
A study has found that China will need 6 terawatts of renewables (2 TW of wind and 4 TW of solar) by 2060 to become carbon neutral on time. This is double China’s current energy generation and over five times the generation of the United States. This would also require a large amount of land dedicated to those energy sources.SCMP
According to a government official, China’s middle-income population has passed the 500 million mark, or a rise of 100 million over five years.SCMP
The Turkish government is keeping a close eye on credit card spending, which has increased 126% year-on-year in January and inflation is at 65%, leading to panic-buys by people ahead of possible measures that would curb that credit spending.BNE
With Nigeria in its worst economic crisis in years, with inflation at 30% and the naira at an all-time low against the dollar, citizens are taking food from storage facilities after calls from one of the most powerful trade unions demanded measures to quell hunger. The government is reacting by boosting security rather than distributing food.AN
Ghana is planning to establish a $450 million manganese refinery and is banning the export of raw bauxite, and thus refine minerals inside the country and foster economic growth. Ghana is also Africa’s leading gold producer.BNE
Haiti has declared a state of emergency and curfew to try and regain control after an explosion of violence over the weekend, with armed gangs storming prisons and releasing those inside. Additionally, there was gunfire towards police stations and the international airport, notably as the Prime Minister Henry was out in Kenya to try and hurry along the deployment of police to Haiti which the US and Canada wants so desperately.AN
Facing pushback from political allies and vulnerable Senate Democrats, as well as the growing risk of reversal by a future Republican Congress, the Biden administration has abandoned some of the most controversial elements of its climate agenda. Instead, over the coming weeks, federal agencies are set to finalize some long-awaited climate regulations in much weakened form:
U.S. companies will be forced for the first time to disclose climate-related risks to investors, under rules that Wall Street’s top regulator is expected to approve Wednesday. But the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to drop its original plan to make businesses include climate-related perils up and down their supply chains.
The U.S. power industry will be required to rein in emissions from coal plants, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revives an effort begun nearly a decade ago. But the EPA said it will delay action on the more than 2,000 existing natural gas plants that are now responsible for 43 percent of the sector’s greenhouse gas pollution.
Automakers will face new tailpipe emissions standards designed to drive an industry transition to electric vehicles. But reports indicate that the EPA will slow the implementation of the new rules, delaying a sharp ramp-up in EVs until after 2030.
Deeply unserious. Further down the article:
...The Biden team faces a more immediate deadline, thanks to the legacy of Newt Gingrich and his stint as House Speaker. The Congressional Review Act, passed as part of Gingrich’s 1996 Contract With America legislative package, provides Congress with a relatively easy path for overturning any regulation finalized within the last 60 working days of the previous Congress. All that is required is a simple majority, as long as the president agrees with the decision.
In practice, the law is only salient when an opposing party gains control of both Congress and the White House after an election. And for its first 20 years, the Congressional Review Act was only used once—in 2001, when the Republican Congress that swept in with President George W. Bush voted to kill the workplace ergonomic rules that were finalized late in President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Then came Trump. He signed off on Congressional kills of 16 regulations finalized in Obama’s final year in office.
A sole Republican in Congress—the late Sen. John McCain—saved Obama’s methane rules from the Congressional Review Act hammer. (He did the same with Obamacare.) That would have been a devastating blow to climate action efforts, since the Congressional Review Act essentially prohibits any future administration from resurrecting any rule the CRA kills.
Trump eventually did rescind Obama’s methane rules, along with about 100 other environmental regulations. But within months of Biden’s election, the Democratic-controlled Congress rescinded Trump’s rescission of the methane rules; it was one of three Trump actions lawmakers killed using the CRA. Since then, Biden has sought to strengthen the methane rules and others he has revived from Obama’s original climate plan, including rules on power plants and passenger vehicle tailpipe emissions.
Climate change really does reveal to what degree "liberal democracy" and things like term limits are unworkable in crises that cannot be solved without impacting capitalist profit-making. The Chinese democratic system is infinitely superior as you don't have to put so much effort into this back-and-forth bullshit between parties.
While the genocide continues in Gaza, the U.S., France, and Germany sell weapons to Israel.
On Friday, Gaza Civil Defense Spokesperson Mahmud Basal confirmed that five people died as a result of errors in the airdrop of humanitarian aid packages.
The drop operation proceeded incorrectly in the northwest of Gaza City, where many packages fell on people's heads and on top of homes.
The sending of humanitarian aid by air was initially applied by Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France. Last week, the United States joined the initiative and carried out three launches, each with 38,000 food rations.
During his "State of the Union" speech on Thursday, US President Joe Biden pledged to construct a floating platform off the coast of Gaza for the unloading of aid through a Cyprus-based maritime corridor that will be operational from Sunday.
As expected, the Zionist State has expressed its disagreement with this proposal, alleging concerns about the potential entry of military equipment into Palestinian territory.
Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom will also participate in the provision of humanitarian aid through this maritime corridor, according to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
So far Israeli occupation forces have killed over 30,878 Palestinians, 72 percent of whom are women and children. While the massacres continue daily, countries such as the United States, France, and Germany are selling weapons to Israel.
"Since the beginning of Israel's genocide on Gaza on Oct. 7, U.S. President Joe Biden has covertly approved more than 100 weapons sales to Israel," MintPress recalled.
"Only two U.S. military sales to Israel have been publicly disclosed during this period: US$106 million worth of tank ammunition and US$147.5 million of components essential for manufacturing 155 mm shells," it added.
Danish Regime Refuses To Help Refugees Stuck In Bureaucratic Limbo
Unmoved by human suffering Denmark's social democratic-led right-wing regime is rejecting all talks of processing the asylum cases of asylum seekers who are stuck in the refugee detention camps of the American satellite state, unable to have their cases heard due to rigid and bureaucratic EU asylum rules.
THE WEST'S DESCENT INTO FASCISM — Under the Dublin convention that governs EU asylum law refugees can only have their cases processed in the first country they were registered in. The system was set up to deter what mouthpieces of the regime denounce as "asylum shopping". These rules means that Mediterranean countries bears most of the responsibility for processing asylum claims. As a result the mismanaged and underfunded Italian asylum system has refused to accept refugees from other EU countries since December 2022, leaving asylum seekers unable to have their cases processed anywhere. Human rights organisations estimates that between 70 and 100 refugees are trapped in Danish detention camps because of this.
Regime Rejects Humanitarian Pleas
The human rights NGO Danish Refugee Aid, supported by the pro-democracy Red-Green opposition party, has urged for processing their cases following a report on Ketily, a 34-year-old refugee from Eritrea who has been stranded in Denmark for almost 1.5 years. However their pleas for mercy falls on deaf ears.
With the callous disregard for human suffering that is so typical of the capitalist world, Christel Schaldemose, a member of the EU's rubberstamp legislature for Denmark's ruling social democratic party rejects the idea of allowing the refugees to have their cases processed in Denmark, instead she calls for strict adherence to existing rules. Evading responsibility she states that it would be best if the Italian system could handle the refugees and and goes on to say: "We need migrants and asylum seekers to have their cases resolved more quickly in the countries already handling them. We cannot allow migrants to come to the EU and live without a legal basis for residence. If there is no need for protection or residence, the European states must improve their efforts to send people back to their home countries".
Far Right: The Refugees Are Rule-breakers
Her refusal to help the refugees is shared by her fellow EU legislator Anders Vistisen who represents the far right Danish People's Party. "I certainly don't believe they should be given special treatment just because they've prolonged their case by staying in Denmark." the islamophobic hardliner says. He accuses the stranded refugees of "breaking the rules" by "travelling through several safe countries to seek asylum" and claims that allowing the refugees to have their cases processed would be "preferential treatment" as it would mean the stranded refugees would be treated better than "all those who follow the rules and have their cases processed where they first entered the EU".
Unlike his social democratic comrade, Vistisen is not content with making impotent wishes for the problem to simply not exist in the first place. Vistisen claims that the fact that Denmark received 541 refugees through the Dublin system in 2022 while only deporting 472 to other EU countries is evidence that the system has no effect. Instead he proposes a more radical solution, calling for Denmark to leave the Dublin and Schengen conventions to enable a ramping up of border controls.
Elections in portugal tomorrow, lots of my comrades are optimistic but personally I'm bracing for impact, the communist party has been hammered for 2 years for its anti-nato position on russia-ukraine and for opposing arms shipments, even now the media doesn't shut up about that even though the general secretary has been campaigning hard on wage increases and the cost of inflation all over the country.
Plus the socialist party has been in power for 9 years so there's a lot of tiredness with the left, also there's a new eurocuck green party that certainly is going to take a chunk from the anti-EU left (BE and PCP). The far right will surely get 3th place with at least 10-12%, and the center right social democratic party made a coalition with the very right wing christian democrats which is not even in parliament anymore and also with, incredibly funnily, the monarchist party in a coalition called "Democratic Aliance" which is a rehash of an 80s coalition with the same name and parties, so far they say that they won't make a deal with the far right to govern but it's hard to see how there can be a right wing majority without the far right. The market radical liberals are probably going to maintain their 5%
The socialist party's leader has the reputation of being in the left wing of the party (and he was caught on hot mic during the debt crisis saying "I don't give a fuck about our creditors we can drop the atomic bomb and say let's not pay") but he's made the whole party support him by talking to the right and center while also saying he wants a left majority and make a deal with the left parties like in 2015-2019 with the "geringonça". If that happens so be it, it would be better than a right wing government, but I'm skeptical that the left parties can get the major parts of their program done though a socialist party government, like housing, wages and especially important for the communist party union laws.
Polls have the right and left very close but polling has failed bigly in the last elections not predicting the socialist party absolute majority.
It’s the first influenza-linked pediatric death in the state this flu season, the department said Friday in a release. Nationwide, there have been at least 103 as of March 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By March 4 of last year, two children in Michigan had died after contracting influenza, data from MDHHS shows.
With a lot of talk making me think we're coming towards either negotiations or escalation... Let's assume it's over soon... What happens with Russia when the war is over? Does it all go back to normal or does Russia face serious post-war turmoil?
Serious question. I've been thinking about what happened to Russia as a result of ww1, and then Afghanistan's contribution to the USSR collapsing can't be minimised..
How stable do we really think it is? Does a political reckoning happen later?
veblen feels more and more right in these trying times, society is just a huge dick measuring contest and production is mostly a means to the ends of having the hugest dick
its only when the dick measuring contest runs up against physical limits and material reality reasserts itself that our collective heads are screwed on correctly again and 'progress' resumes
but once enough surplus is achieved, it's right back to measuring dicks
lol i just independently derived the weak/strong/good/bad/men/times thing
to achieve socialism we must discover new ways of measuring dicks
Dragon Ball's Goku and More Appear in Bizarre Message From Brazil's Vice President
Dragon Ball, Naruto, Pokémon and more appear in an anime-themed social media post thanking Japan by Brazil's Vice President Geraldo Alckmin.
Popular anime series like Dragon Ball, Naruto and Pokémon appeared in a bizarre "Thank You" message to Japan by the Vice President of Brazil.
Geraldo Alckmin, the Vice President of Brazil, expressed his gratitude to the Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota for investing heavily in the South American country.
As a way of saying thanks, Alckmin uploaded an image of himself in Japanese attire, looking down graciously upon Japan and its popular anime characters.
The anime characters featured in Alckmin's image are Goku (Dragon Ball Z), Sakura Kinomoto (Cardcaptor Sakura), Naruto Uzumaki as a child (Naruto), Pegasus Seiya (Saint Seiya) and Pikachu (Pokémon)
No Usagi Tsukino?!
While the assortment of anime characters may seem random, they are from series that have a strong history of popularity in Brazil.
Similar to the '90s anime boom in North America, Brazil experienced a surge of its own with the arrival of Saint Seiya on TV. Its success paved the way for more mainstream anime airings like Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon, developing a strong anime presence in the country that continues to grow to this day.
That said, One Piece fans online are confused by Alckmin's omission of Monkey D. Luffy, given the series' international appeal.
The Foreign Office frequently discussed Pilger in seething terms. His work on Southeast Asia read like a “cynical voice from the Kremlin”, one Foreign Office official argued, with another complaining that it “looks like a PR job on behalf of Hanoi and Moscow”
Imagining a British intelligent officer as a crying soyjak because I spend too much time online
Focusing on the Bahamas, the report looks at how natural disasters impact public debt and the realization of Bahamians’ human rights.
Attiya Waris, the report’s author and U.N. independent expert on foreign debt, found that the effect of five major hurricanes since 2012 has forced the country of about 400,000 people to take on billions of dollars in debt for reconstruction while imperiling its tourism-dependent economy. As a result, the Bahamian government has been less able to spend on programs like food assistance, business loans and unemployment benefits—the need for which increases after climate-induced natural disasters.
In 2019, Hurricane Dorian, the most recent major hurricane to hit the Carribean nation of about 700 islands, caused a staggering $3.4 billion in damage, equal to roughly one-fourth of the country’s GDP. The category five storm killed upwards of 70 people and ripped apart homes and businesses, affecting an additional 30,000 people.
In the aftermath of the storm, the country’s then-finance minister K. Peter Turnquest announced that the government would cut taxes, rather than raise them to fund the recovery, given the hurricane’s deleterious impact on the economy and the need to help business restart. To fund the clean up, temporary shelters, food assistance and other expenses, the government was forced to borrow roughly $500 million, he said.
Brazil's Air Force (FAB) is phasing out the iconic US-built Lockheed C-130 Hercules four-engined turboprop aircraft to replace it with the locally-produced Embraer KC-390 Millennium, of which a total of 19 units are expected to be delivered.
With 29 units in FAB service over the past nearly 60 years and after over 377,000 hours of flights, the historic model reaches its end at the South American country's military. On Feb. 29, 2024, the unit that went into operation at the FAB in 1964 made its last flight for the 1st Transport Group at the Galeao Air Base. The event was closed with the passage of a C-130 followed by a KC-390.
Is there a more comically illegitimate government in the world than Pakistan's de facto junta? They proscribed a party, arrested it's leader, and spent the elections burning ballots, shuffling polling stations, and even killing election watchers. They were so confident that this would work (and, really, it should have) that they let election results go through the automatic normal procedure, at which point they still lost hard.
All that for the privilege of taking IMF loans in exchange of sending the country's munitions to Ukraine.
2023 was the worst year so far for migrant deaths on land and sea routes, with over 8500 migrants killed.AN
A study reveals there have been increasingly frequent and large mass mortality events in farmed salmon since 2012, which will obviously impact both the salmon farming profits and the food supply of those who depend on salmon.MP
The US has sent Israel over 100 weapon shipments in the last 150 days.SP There are 1 million cases of infectious disease in Gaza.SP
Ministers from EU countries agreed to jointly quit the 1998 Energy Charter Treaty, which allows energy companies to sue governments over policies that damage their investments. The decision now goes to the European Parliament; the EU assembly has previously urged it to leave the treaty.B
Italy is conducting a study on how and whether nuclear energy could be used to help with the energy transition; Italy shut down its last nuclear power plant in 1990 following a referendum, and another referendum in 2011 also shot down an attempt to make nuclear 25% of the energy mix by 2030.E
Slovakia is being left out of European Ukraine meetings due to their "pro-Russian" stance.E
The Alliance of Sahel States, consisting of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, has announced a joint military force to fight terrorism.AN
A major oilfield has been discovered off the coast of Cote d'Ivoire by Italy's Eni, with 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. If exploited, this would turn the Cote d'Ivoire into one of Africa's top ten oil producers.RT
A brief history and analysis of Senegalese politics to the present day, in the context of the recent protest movement against Micky Sall, who tried to postpone elections (and this decision was rejected by the Constitutional Court).ROAPE He then backed down and announced that the election will be held on March 24th.RT
Nigeria's foreign minister has announced that they are applying for BRICS membership.RT
Mauritania and the EU have signed a migration deal wherein Mauritania is given $230 million in order to crack down on migration towards Europe; the route from Mauritania to the Canary Islands is among the deadliest routes in the world.AN An article on Mauritanian revolutionary activism.ROAPE
An article on African uranium mining and future potential, plus nuclear power plants.RT
Azerbaijan has begun demolishing the Nagorno Karabakh parliament building, as the disputed territory no longer exists as of January 2024.BNE
Egyptians in the Mediterranean area of Ras el-Hekma are unhappy about a $35 billion deal with the UAE which would turn the peninsula into a tourist hub, with the threat of forced eviction and endless legal battles.MEE
Saudi Arabia is trying to attract Russian tourists via a deal with Yandex.BNE
Iran has confiscated $50 million worth of American crude oil seized from a tanker in April 2023.BNE
Kazakhstan's oil exports are increasing, but total revenues are falling due to flagging prices. Additionally, because much of Russia's oil goes through Kazakhstan to get to China, there are risks of anti-Russia sanctions impacting Kazakhstan's ability to transport their own oil too.EN
The Indian farmer protests continue after suspending the strike at the end of February after a farmer was killed in a protest. State repression has been amping up and talks between the unions and the government have broke down frequently.B
Mongolia has launched its first satellites, built by Ondo Space. They were launched aboard a SpaceX rocket, and discussions are taking place with SpaceX to next launch a high-orbit national satellite.BNE
In 2023, over a million Sri Lankans were cut off from the electricity grid due to IMF austerity measures; in 2022, this was 250,000, and in 2021, "just" 94,000.WSWS
Russia and China are considering putting a nuclear power plant on the moon from 2033-35, to provide power to future lunar settlements.E
Taiwan's export growth is sputtering, growing by just 1.3% in February in its fourth month of consecutive gains. Over 2023, exports were considerably worse, so it's still an improvement overall, and their position as the world's chip factory is still undisputed as China and the US catch up, but even so - problems are far from over.SCMP
Grocery bills are taking the largest proportion of American paychecks in 30 years, and the same amount of food cost 23% more at the end of 2023 compared to 2021.MR
The largest wildfire in Texas' history has burned over 1.3 million acres of land.ICN It was started by a powerline pole that had decayed at the base, and spread due to unseasonably high temperatures and 60 mph winds. Two people were killed, thousands of livestock perished, and 500 structures were destroyed.G
Panama has ordered Doctors Without Borders to suspend activities in the Darien, the jungle through which thousands of migrants cross to reach the United States. Hundreds of people will suffer and/or die because of this decision.TS
Trinidad and Tobago is experiencing its worst drought in many years, and water-saving measures are being enacted.TS Namibia is also experiencing a drought and severe water shortages, with dams at critically low levels.TS
The Communist Party of Chile has been accused of kidnapping a former Venezuelan military officer who sought asylum in Chile in 2017, and the right-wing is basically demanding that all communists in public sector jobs should resign because of it, which is a bizarre claim and ask even in the context of anti-communist hysteria.PW
As dengue fever massively surges in Brazil, they are so far reliant on Japan-produced vaccines (with only 3.3 million available), though Brazilian vaccines are under development and will hopefully be ready in 2025.S Brazil has become the world's largest exporter of soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar, orange juice, beef, and chicken meat, and second-largest of ethanol and cotton. This all feeds nearly a billion people worldwide.MP
The story of Tulare Lake. Tulare Lake in the Central Valley, California was the largest lake West of the Great Lakes in the US. It's believed to have supported a massive collection of Aboriginal tribes in the area.
The Americans arrive in 1826. They bring disease and begin ethnic cleansing of the Aboriginal tribes there. The rivers which feed Tulare Lake are diverted for agriculture or dammed to prevent flooding of these new farms. Over the years, the lake slowly withers and drains due to a lack of inflows and an abundance of outflows.
Today, the lake no longer exists except for winters with exceptional snowfall.
Are there any draconian propositions on state ballots today? I want to know if this round of electoralism is worth tracking. I already d PSL so I did my part
"If Ariel Henry does not resign, the country is heading directly towards genocide".
Haitian armed groups demand the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The diplomat has been in Puerto Rico since Tuesday.
The government of the United States also calls for the high official to resign and carry out a power transition backed by the northern country, once the transition of power is over, elections will be called throughout the country.
On the other hand, Haiti continues to be paralyzed by the violence of gangs and paramilitary forces. All public services have been detained since Tuesday, with the country virtually incommunicado with the outside world.
Armed gangs already control the Caribbean capital and have even attacked prisons where criminals were held, further escalating violence in the Haitian streets.
There is also talk of a political alliance between the rebel leader Guy Phillipe and Senator Moise Jean Charles, who apparently will be the leaders of the new government, after Henry’s resignation.
Another important communiqué was that of Jimmy Chérizier, leader of Haitian organized crime, who gave an ultimatum to the prime minister saying: "If Ariel Henry does not resign, the country is heading directly towards genocide".
The massive escalation of violence occurred when Ariel Henry was on a tour in Kenya, to address issues such as sending international forces to restore order in Haiti.
We are still waiting for full details, but it appears that the “vote” was a maneuver organized by a group of conservatives and ecomodernists who have long opposed any recognition of a recent qualitative change in the Earth System. The anti-Anthropocene current, which seems to have supporters in the leadership of the International Union of Geological Sciences, forced through an invalid ballot and then announced the result to the Times, in violation of the IUGS’s statutes.
...
“The irregularities in the SQS voting procedures strongly suggest that the SQS did not make its decision on scientific grounds. The argument put forward by the AWG—and overwhelmingly endorsed by the AWG membership—was never given a fair hearing. What’s particularly sad about this to me—as a person who cut my teeth in field geology—is that by rejecting the Anthropocene proposal, the SQS suggests to the world that they are unwilling or unable to recognize what we all can now see: that we do indeed live in the Anthropocene. By denying the obvious, the stratigraphers threaten to undermine the credibility of the science that they claim to be protecting.”
Jan Zalasiewicz and Martin Head, Chair and Vice-Chair of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS), to which the Anthropocene Working Group reports, have declared that “the alleged voting has been performed in contravention of the Statutes” and asked the IUGS to initiate “a procedure to annul the putative vote.”
Most of the articles the Guardian publishes about GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence agency, are puff pieces, our research has found.
We reviewed all the paper’s 59 articles tagged with GCHQ in the past three years and found that 35 (59%) can be considered sycophantic towards the agency.
Twelve articles were found to be somewhat critical and another twelve neutral.
Some 14 of the puff pieces have been written by the Guardian’s defence editor, Dan Sabbagh.
The obsequious coverage of GCHQ is especially noticeable in light of Gaza. The spy agency says it plays a role in all of Britain’s wars and operates major bases on Cyprus, which is being used by Britain to support Israel’s war on Gaza.
Yet the Guardian has not apparently mentioned these roles for GCHQ in its reporting on Gaza.
Helping GCHQ recruit
The Guardian routinely publishes material directly from GCHQ about its puzzles. The spy agency uses its “brain teasers” as part of its public relations drive and to attract young recruits.
“Its annual puzzle is a rare opportunity to engage the public and encourage children to take up science, engineering, technology and mathematics and perhaps pursue a career at GCHQ”, Sabbagh wrote last December.
Covering GCHQ’s Christmas puzzle the previous year, Sabbagh wrote that the spy agency “is keen to find ways to promote itself to help with recruitment, emphasising the scientific and technical expertise critical to its work”.
The Guardian appears to be more than willing to help in this recruitment drive.
“Neurodivergent women sought for jobs at GCHQ and BAE Systems”, one Guardian headline reads. Another announces: “Recruitment of UK spies no longer restricted to those with British parents”.
Still others read: “GCHQ seeks to increase number of female coders to tackle threats” and “‘Huge sense of pride’: The mothers who job-share counter-terrorism at GCHQ”.
In the latter article, published in May 2022, the Guardian was given access to “two mums” – “Vicky and Emily, who cannot reveal their real names for security reasons” and “are responsible for the entire counter-terrorism mission at GCHQ”.
It was the sort of article that might appear in an in-house newsletter.
Amplification
Other Guardian articles provide a platform for GCHQ’s views on official enemies, usually covered uncritically.
Typical headlines include: “GCHQ warns of fresh threat from Chinese state-sponsored hackers”, “GCHQ head: Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power” and “Putin advisers ‘afraid to tell him truth’ about Ukraine error, says GCHQ head”.
Since it is obvious GCHQ has policy interests to promote, it can be assumed the Guardian is consciously helping the spy agency to achieve its public information objectives.
GCHQ’s claims are routinely reported as fact. One article headlined: “Ransomware attacks in UK have doubled in a year, says GCHQ boss”, with a first line saying this was “disclosed” by GCHQ, rather than “claimed” or “asserted”.
The article noted this assertion followed “warnings that Russia and China are harbouring criminal gangs that are successfully targeting western governments or firms”.
Neither this article, nor any others Declassified could find, suggested GCHQ might have reasons for heightening the perceived threat from Moscow and Beijing.
Limits of criticism
In a dozen articles in the past three years the Guardian adopted a somewhat critical stance towards GCHQ, for example twice covering the role of British spies in the torture of a detainee at the US base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The paper also covered in two articles the unlawful mass surveillance measures used by GCHQ to spy on the public.
But noticeable is what the Guardian doesn’t touch. One topical issue is the location of GCHQ’s interception facilities on Cyprus that sit 220 miles from Gaza. Another is what is known about GCHQ’s supportive relations with Israel.
Neither has the paper mentioned in its recent coverage the secret, and expanding, GCHQ base in the dictatorship of Oman, which strategically located near Iran.
Other stories Declassified has recently covered about GCHQ concern its role in secretly obtaining the mobile phone passwords of members of the travelling public – in a programme called “phantom parrot”.
Neutralised
Declassified previously found the Guardian has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise adversarial reporting of the security state.
After the paper published major revelations from US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, UK intelligence ratcheted up efforts to deal with the exposures.
In July 2013, GCHQ officials entered the Guardian’s offices in London and its deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying laptops containing the Snowden documents.
It was part of a process in which the paper went in a short space of time from being the natural UK media outlet to expose state wrongdoing to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations.
The Guardian was asked to comment but no reply was received.
The research covered Guardian articles tagged as GCHQ from 1 February 2021 to 29 February 2024.
What if Russia's supposed space weapon is a conventional space-to-ground weapon (e.g. tungsten rods)? They could transfer ownership instantly to anyone and outsource the dirty work of pressing the button.
On 6 March, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that Czech-Slovak intergovernmental consultations would not take place in the coming weeks or months, as Prague does not consider them expedient due to "significant differences." Czechia and the new government in Slovakia differ regarding foreign policy matters, particularly the war in Ukraine.
The Slovak Prime Minister believes that Czechia has jeopardised its relations with Slovakia. Fico says that the reason for this is the differing perspectives of Prague and Bratislava on Russia's war against Ukraine. "We note that the Czech government has decided to jeopardise them merely because it is interested in supporting the war in Ukraine, while the Slovak government openly advocates for peace. Your decision will not affect our sovereign Slovak foreign policy," added the Prime Minister. Fico mentioned that the Czech government is welcome to conduct diplomacy in Slovakia anytime, and "we will not burden our political relations with differing views that have nothing to do with Slovak-Czech coexistence."
During President Maia Sandu’s visit to Paris, three bilateral documents were signed with France. This includes a new iteration of the defense agreement, originally signed in 1998. Another document is a roadmap for economic cooperation for the next six years, and the third one is an agreement enabling a 40 million euros Forestry Reform Program for Moldova.
According to the Moldovan President’s Office, the updated defense agreement covers important areas, including defense policies, participation in international missions, information technology and military telecommunications, among others.
Lauzon has proposed that the name of Charlotte Street be changed to Navalny Street from Wilbrod Street to Range Road. It means, he said, that the Russian embassy would be the only Sandy Hill address affected by the name change.
The city councillor for the ward, however, is opposed to the plan. Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante said that, while she respected Navalny for standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, she could not support renaming a street in his honour given his statements on Ukraine.
The city’s commemorative naming program is now on hold. It was paused last year to facilitate a program and policy review to create a more “equitable and inclusive” naming policy.
Two years ago, the House of Commons called for all or part of Charlotte Street to be renamed in honour of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Unironically though, 228m economy for 24m people? Abysmally small, that's in the modern day, I can not imagine how bad things were during their special period. Jesus.
Edit: Ohhhhh, it's recorded imports and exports. That makes more sense, with the embargoes.
The Cofa deals were originally meant to be passed as part of the federal budget in October, when the new fiscal year began.
The House of Representatives passed the bill 339-85 on Wednesday. It now heads to President Joe Biden for his signing into law.
First signed in the 1980s, the Cofa agreements provide the United States exclusive military access to strategic swathes of the western Pacific in exchange for economic help. They are seen as indispensible to Washington's efforts to maintain its presence in the region.
Amid growing fears of what some have called Beijing's coercive influence campaign in the Indo-Pacific region, US President Joe Biden last year pledged US$7.1 billion over 20 years to the three island nations - about US$120 million a year. The Cofa agreements were renewed last year in September.
bipartisan shenanigans never stop when the empire is on the line
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to Pakistan!
If you know a lot about the country and want to share your knowledge and opinions, here are some questions to get you started if you wish:
What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?
Our literature that we've collected on Pakistan so far includes:
The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan by Robert J. McMahon (1994).
The Class Structure of Pakistan by Taimur Rahman (2012).
Dispatches from Pakistan by Madiha R. Tahir, Qalander Bux Memon, and Vijay Prashad (2014).
Uprising in Pakistan: How to Bring Down a Dictatorship by Tariq Ali (2018).