Bulletins and News Discussion from March 25th to March 31st, 2024 - Friendship Ended With Taiwan, Now China Is My New Best Friend - COTW: Honduras

This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.

The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island's special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.

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 Honduras! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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890 comments

Putin - at a meeting with pilots in Torzhok:
This is complete nonsense - the possibility of an attack on some other countries, on Poland, the Baltic states, scares the Czechs. Just nonsense! Another way to deceive your population and extract additional costs from people, force them to bear this burden on their shoulders, that’s all.
Putin on military spending by Russia and the enemy:
Let’s take 2022, military spending, because the results for 2023 are being summed up and calculated, 2024 is too early to say. According to our data, we spent 3.5% of the country's GDP on defense spending. Let’s take data that is not ours, let’s take data from the Stockholm Peace Institute, international data, they have the following calculation: The United States spent 3.5% of GDP on defense, Russia - 4%. Let's say Israel is 4.5%. Ukraine spent 33.5% in 2022. But in absolute terms, what a difference it makes. In 2022, the United States spent, God willing, 811 billion dollars, and the Russian Federation - 72 billion. 72 and 811 - the difference is noticeable, more than ten times.
The United States spends, its defense spending is approximately 40% of global defense spending, 39% of global spending is the United States. And Russia – 3.5%. And, keeping this ratio in mind, are we going to fight with NATO or something? This is just nonsense!
Putin - about attacks on NATO airfields:
If they deliver F-16s, they talk about it, like they are training pilots, I think you understand this like no one else, better than others, this will not change the situation on the battlefield. And we will destroy their planes just as we destroy their tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment today, including multiple launch rocket systems. Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, no matter where they are located. And the F-16s are also carriers of nuclear weapons, and we will also have to take this into account when organizing combat work.
Putin - on jingoism:
When I listen to our - there are such people everywhere, in any society - jingoistic patriots, including those who say that Russia is only for Russians, then a feeling of anxiety arises in me. Because we have 190 ethnic groups living on the territory of the country and some nationalities are represented by millions of peoples, as soon as we begin to implement these destructive thoughts about the fact that everyone else is strangers here, we will ruin the country. And the main victims will be the Russian people. Therefore, you need to treat this component very adultly, seriously, not wave your arms and wag your tongue, but think when you pronounce every word, every phrase. To think that we have one big united Motherland.
Anyone gets the feeling that the US is going to press for a hot war and prevent truce in Ukraine no matter what?
- That last quote by Putin is great, and really goes to show why he's not a "fascist" like a lot of radlibs label him as. He's a conservative Liberal.
  
  I don't know if he is a liberal. I think he puts the good of the society over freedoms of individuals. I find it really hard to pin down exactly what to call his ideology. Honestly its probably harder to define than Peronism.
  
  His administration would still be liberal by Leninist definitions because ultimately the Bourgeois class is in power and in control of Russian society. Although his administration seems to be a capable custodian it doesn't fundamentally stop the National Bourgeoisie from running the country, which to be clear is far better than the International Bourgeoisie.
- Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, no matter where they are located. And the F-16s are also carriers of nuclear weapons, and we will also have to take this into account when organizing combat work.
  This could end up being dangerous if the mad dogs running NATO decides to let Ukraine-flagged F-16's attack from NATO bases. If Russia retaliates the evil empire gets a pretense for starting a hot war with Russia and with the F-16's being nuclear-capable a situation can arise where Russia has reason to believe the Americans are going to nuke them.
- Anyone gets the feeling that the US is going to press for a hot war and prevent truce in Ukraine no matter what?
  What reason do they have? It feels like they're trying to disengage.
  
  Yeah indeed IMO the consensus is the US would rather drop Ukraine right now, very clearly the media would not be writing articles about Ukraine already losing or whatever for months now.
  But I guess its hard to pinpoint with accuracy because at the same time Biden can't afford to "lose" the war in Ukraine. The neolibs have always been completely straight to the point, there will be no negotiation and no other plan except a Ukrainian victory.
  So the US is currently on this back and forth between having to support Democratic Western Values^tm in Ukraine while also knowing this shit is completely over and done with and they want to move on to China and Israel. Ultimately to keep this up sometimes they do have to resort to things that may seem like escalation and if Russia gets careless they'll pay for it though I don't think we have to worry about that.

890 comments