Bulletins and News Discussion from April 22nd to April 28th, 2024 - The Scramble For Africa: Green Edition - COTW: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Bulletins and News Discussion from April 22nd to April 28th, 2024 - The Scramble For Africa: Green Edition - COTW: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Image is from this Washington Post article, which shows the Shabara artisanal mine, where cobalt and copper are dug out by hand.
This preamble got much of its information from this article in ROAPE, and this article in People's World.
Countries in the imperial core have increasingly advocated for Green New Deals, whose primary goal is to re-attract manufacturing capability to somewhat counter deindustrialization, and then export some of this renewable energy generation to other countries to gain profit. Just as the initial wave of industrialization was built on massive resource exploitation of coal and iron and then oil, this wave is being built on exploiting metals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. The DRC is one of the best case studies on the planet for understanding the new dynamic.
The DRC is, to your average Western country, a resource bonanza. It is the 11th largest country by land area, and contains lithium, copper, and cobalt in massive quantities, famously containing two thirds of the world's known cobalt supplies. The Western world and their institutions swarmed the DRC like piranhas, dismantling the Congo's sovereignty over its natural resources. China was not terribly involved in the privatisation process, but has stepped in to benefit from the West's work - Chinese corporations account for 40% of the production of major Congo cobalt projects (and 15 out of 19 cobalt mines), with Switzerland at 30% via Glencore, and Kazakhstan at 22%. The US, for whatever reason, withdrew from majority ownership of some projects in the mid-2010s, but is now anxious about China's position in the cobalt markets. Western countries in general have spent their time lately drawing up critical minerals strategies both to keep capitalism chugging along in their own countries, and attempt to weaken China, which invariably involves the Congo.
The Congo has attempted to resist imperialist encroachment. In 2018, the Kaliba administration asserted a new Mining Code which raised tax and royalty rates and increased state ownership in mining firms from 5% to 10%, and these changes were bitterly resisted by the West right to the end. Since 2019, under the Tshisekedi administration, the government established the state-owned EGC, which sought to take control over the processing and export of artisanal and small-scale cobalt production, which comprises 5-15% of cobalt production in the Congo. More recently, Tshisekedi is planning to move up the manufacturing chain - instead of merely mining cobalt, they want to refine it there and then make electric vehicle batteries and other such products with it, which would be an industry worth trillions of dollars. But so far, there hasn't been much movement away from having mining exports as the backbone of the economy, and it's doubtful that plans to just keep doing this until they get rich enough to build refineries and factories will work. The profits mostly go to Western countries and have failed to produce significant benefits for Congolese workers, nor resulted in the emergence of domestic industries so far. Reforms will help a little, but only a little, and they remain fundamentally constrained by the markets and the whims of the West.
Meanwhile, war and mass displacements have put immense stress on the country. There are 7.1 million displaced people in the DRC due to various conflicts and mass displacements - most recently, the war between the Congolese army and M23. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to be displaced every few months, and across the whole country, over 26 million require humanitarian aid. 6 million people have died in the eastern DRC in the last three decades, with hundreds of armed groups, both domestic and foreign, battling for resources and territory.
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 the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I just noticed that Wikipedia has finally renamed the βUyghur genocideβ article to βPersecution of Uyghurs in Chinaβ. Itβs still full of bullshit, including βthat is often characterized as persecution or as genocideβ, but the title change from something blatantly counterfactual is nice to see.
Edit: lmao it stems from my move request, I did it (sort of)
China has revised its company law which goes into effect on July 1st and it seems VERY important to us. I can't include all of this article here so I will put snippets instead.
Article 17(2) of the Revised Company Law now stipulates that the assembly of employee representatives shall be the basic form of the democratic corporate governance system and that this shall apply to all companies. That means, regardless of whether a company is private or state-owned, whether it is a limited liability or a stock corporation. This is a notable development, as democratic corporate governance as a requirement for all companies is set out in national law for the first time.
A new organ is required in all companies called the Employee Assembly. It is democratic in nature.
An enterprise shall decide whether to convene an assembly of employee representatives or an assembly of all employees according to the Provisions on Democratic Governance of Enterprises, relevant local regulations, and subject to the number of its employees. In general, an enterprise with 100 or more employees shall convene an assembly of employee representatives; an enterprise with fewer than 100 employees should convene an assembly of all employees. An assembly of employee representatives (or an assembly of all employees, the βEmployee Assemblyβ) is an organ for employees to exercise their power of democratic governance of the enterprise.
It is made up of all employees in companies below 100 members, or representatives are elected in companies above 100 members.
The trade union of an enterprise is the executive organ of its Employee Assembly and is responsible for the daily work of the Employee Assembly.
Cool
An Employee Assembly shall be convened at least once a year, and more than two-thirds of the employee representatives must be present at the plenary session of an Employee Assembly. Elections and votes on relevant matters at an Employee Assembly require a majority of all employee representatives.
Very cool
an Employee Assembly shall usually exercise the following powers and functions:
(I) Listening to the reports from the main persons responsible for the enterprise on the enterpriseβs development planning, annual production and operation management, enterprise reform and formulation of major rules and regulations, employment issues, conclusion and implementation of labor contracts and collective contracts, production safety, and payment of social insurance premiums and housing provident funds; and making comments and suggestions thereon;
(II) Deliberating the rules and regulations or major proposals formulated, amended or adopted by the enterprise which may directly affect the immediate interests of its employees, such as remuneration, working hours, rest and vacation, occupational safety and health, insurance and welfare, employee training, labor discipline, and the management of labor quotas; and making comments and suggestions thereon;
(III) Deliberating and adopting the draft collective contracts, the plan for the use of the employeesβ welfare fund drawn down in accordance with the relevant national regulations, the plan for adjusting the rate and timing of the payment of housing provident funds and social insurance premiums, the recommendation of candidates for model employees and other important matters;
(IV) Electing or dismissing employee directors and employee supervisors, electing employee representatives to meetings of creditors and creditorsβ committees of the enterprise subject to bankruptcy proceedings in accordance with the law, and recommending or electing management personnel of the enterprise as authorized;
(V) Reviewing and monitoring the implementation of labor laws and regulations and labor rules by the enterprise, democratically evaluating the leaders of the enterprise, and making recommendations on rewards and punishments; and
(VI) Such other powers and functions as may be provided by laws or regulations.
Powers = Having access to all information of the company at every level, which is very important to worker benefits and ensuring labour law is being followed. Also the dismissing of directors, supervisors, managers, and electing representatives to meetings of creditors. In companies over 300 employees elected-members of the employee assembly must be elected to the board of directors.
China has made all companies worker-controlled. I would show this article to anyone that claims otherwise. This is worker democracy.
China is still a dictatorship of the proletariat.
I'm sure you all have seen the video of that absolute dork who PURPOSELY sent his wife with a shirt that says "Jew" in the front and has the Start of David and says "ISRAEL" in the back to walk around some pro-Palestinian protest to see if she would get beaten to death by the rabid pro-Hamas genocidal crowd.
And, shocking I know, nothing happens. The lady just walks around, tries to irritate the people camping and nothing happens. They're all just chilling, talking to one another, doing their stuff and completely ignoring this lady. Whatever interaction that happens is minor and the anti-semitism they always complain about completely fails to materialize to harass her, yet she insists that they, the zionists, are actually the oppressed peoples.
Also we get this awesome shot from the video.
Also I'd like to dedicate a few words for his husband. The man planned this, he thought his wife would get harassed or even beaten but he went forwards with it. He puts his wife in a "dangerous situation" and that was his choice, all to score some points and ultimately claim "it is us who are actually being genocided" or some shit. Of course, nothing happens because their image of us is just a projection of themselves, because after all, the liar thinks everyone is just like him. What a piece of shit.
Here's the video in case you haven't watched (and cringed) it
I have been informed by very serious PoliSci people that China has had no real GDP growth in 25 years, their entire economy is based on real estate that doesn't exist, and they will collapse in the next five years. Also, they have less growth than the US or Europe.
Political Science is a serious field of study and people should take it seriously.
Per Columbia SJP, the university has threatened to sicc the National Guard on students
Edit: Purportedly, the president (of Columbia) personally threatened this during βnegotiationsβ. Supposedly they will βcallβ the National Guard (not sure how a private entity does that) if an agreement is not reached by midnight Eastern Time,
which is 8 minutes away at time of writing.now passedEdit 2: heard through the grapevine and through claims reposted by Columbia SJP on Instagram
Edit 3: Apparently the deadline has been extended to 8am. However, βColumbia Public Safetyβ (lol), the campus rent-a-cops, have begun identifying student journalists specifically denying them access to the campus. Intense speculation that they are trying to disrupt coverage for whatever it is theyβre going to do next.
Edit 4: CPS has βcorrected the errorβ and some student journalists have been let back in. The new deadline has passed but no word from the admin on whether theyβve begged the Guard to kill students yet. Also @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net pin maybe? Seems at least marginally important. Thereβs a non-zero chance of not-summary executions of protestors happening after the bodycams mysteriously all fail simultaneously, should Columbia give the not-kill order.
Useless libs: Nooooo, you can't support Hamas in your chants! You need to touch grass and not alienate people. Learn from Vietnam War protest chants.
Vietnam War protest chants:
https://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19721011-01.1.4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------Madame Binh, Ho Chi Minh
NLF is gonna winJail the Rich, Free the Poor
Power to the People!Work, Study, Get Ahead, KILL
One side's right, one side's wrong,
We're on the side of the Viet Cong!Save Hanoi, Lose Saigon,
Victory to the Viet Cong!Right on! Take Saigon!
Victory to the Viet Cong!Put down the bassinet,
Pick up the bayonet,
Give up detergent,
Become an insurgent!Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein got arrested at Washington University a few hours ago.
The president of the University of Texas at Austin called in a bunch of state police goons to attempt to break up a student walk out/new encampement. He did not call in any cops when Patriot Front showed up to campus a few years ago.
The students have seemingly pushed them back, at least for now. A bunch of the cops are carrying multiple loaded AR mags.
UT is an interesting case. The campus is very diverse. There's tons of conservatives and Zionists, being Texas, but it's also a very diverse campus with a significant Arab and Muslim student population and there's a decent amount of political radicals, too. It's considered one of it not the best Arabic language programs in the English-speaking world, and the department heads literally wrote the book that is almost universally used to teach English-speakers Arabic (called "Al Kitaab" meaning "the book" lol). The football team even stirred up some "wokeness" a few years ago over the UT fight song being at least a bit racist.
UPDATE: The state brought in cops from Houston as reinforcements, which is 2.5-3 hour drive away from Austin. There are videos of cops fully kitted out with ARs around campus now.
UT students are reported to be chanting "At Uvalde we saw you hide/you were too scared to go inside" to the cops. I really want a video of this lmao.
Twitter: "ADP, KKK, IDF they're all same"
Incredible name for a grad student honestly. It's real too
I know we talk a lot about banking or real estate blowing up, but like 1/3rd of all Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings (debt resturcturing) in the US this year are healthcare firms. Healthcare companies are getting absolutely pummelled right now and it doesn't seem to show much signs of slowing down. It's entirely possible that we get M4A through sheer dumb luck of the US healthcare system imploding under the weight of interest rates and inflation.
Economics professor Caroline Fohlin gets head smashed off the ground by a cop during takedown.
Given this is an economics professor this woman is probably a turbo liberal experiencing the system she defends and upholds for the first time.
Apparently the ENTIRE "Squad" voted to send those sixty-whatever billion dollars of weapons to Ukraine. And only 21 representativesβall Republicanβvoted against both the Israel and Ukraine arms packages (don't know how the same folks voted regarding Taiwan/China, and I'm feeling way too lazy to check right now).
I've also decided to create a new ideology called Vandalism, where we North African Germans return to our ancient homeland of "Germania", taken from us by the perfidious Huns, who alongside the invading Nordic Scandinavians squat on our land calling themselves fake names like "Germany" and "Hungary"
Also I'm Carthaginian and I've created a second ideology where we North African Phoenicians return to our ancient homeland now insultingly called "Le-Ba-non" inhabited by what is clearly a group of displaced Circassians who should definitely go back to Armenia or where ever they're from
Random reddit comment making fun of zionism that cracked me up today
Honestly, I hate when that happens cause finding gold nuggets in that shit pile of a site makes it harder to stay logged off
In other news, Germany continues to have an extremely normal one
Update: they have now banned us from speaking Irish (the official language of an EU state) and told us weβre not allowed to be anywhere near the Bundestag
The Berlin police have banned people from speaking languages other than English or German at public events, in a racist attempt to crack down on Arabic. Iβll be at the Bundestag tomorrow using what I can remember of my Leaving Cert Irish to protest this. Join if you can!
We sat in the park (away from the main protest) and sang a few Irish songs. The police told us Irish was banned, singing was banned, and eventually that we all had to leave the area. The cops followed us to a bar, where they are still camped outside now!
https://nitter.poast.org/therockisdead_/status/1781369212297986286#m
Would be funny if someone went to protest in front of the bundestag and started talking amd singing in Yiddish. I'm calling on Daniel Kahn to go sing one of his anti-zionist Yiddish songs
Biden admin to allow trans healthcare bans, anti-trans discrimination
Holy crap. Now this is a masterful handling of the press. Just call them on their bullshit immediately and don't give them a fucking millimeter. Not a "civil war". Not a "conflict". "Talk" about what, exactly? Respect.
In Rafah, the people thank Columbia University students for their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
I'm being forced to listen to talk radio and this slimy fucking zionist jew in New york is openly comparing college students, Palestinians, and hamas to nazi Germany and is openly saying everything the nazis did to the jews these people want to - and are right now - doing to Israel and zionist jews in New york.
All I'm thinking is "wall, pit, woodchipper? Wall, pit, woodchipper?"
Someone climbed the stairs of an adjacent building to catch the sniper's rifle on film:
https://twitter.com/togdali/status/1783654267041005923The pearl-clutching going on in American media over the Columbia student protests is sickening. Death to America.
Jeremy Corbyn: "I was too kind"
We've had
but are we ready for this next arc?Notice how Palestinian flags are always paired with Irish flags, while Israeli flags are paired with UK flags. - Dipshit Zionist:
https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1784498721163452545Thank you everyone on the well wishes and the congratulations on my last post, reading everything really warmed my heart and reminded me of how beautiful our community here is. Truly thank you from the bottom of my heart, I'll make sure that little Obeida/Qassam/Nasrallah knows about his weird podcast offshoot forum aunts and uncles one day.
Again returning to the main focus of this thread, it's crazy that we've finally reached a pace in the Ukraine war where things are happening too fast for us news nerds to catch up. Like I didn't know that Soloviove even existed two days ago, now it has already fallen and suddenly we've learned that a place called Arkhangelsk exists and that Russian troops are already pretty much there. After following street battles in Bakhmut and hearing just about Synkivka and Robotyne for a whole year, this pace is astonishing. That turtle tank monstrosity is also beautiful, I learned about it a week ago and now it's roaming down central Krasnogorovka suddenly after breaking the most annoying part of the 2014 fortified line. Thank you Mr Shoigu for finally rewarding us daily news slop enjoyers after feeding us empty fields and 100m advances for a long ass time.
The decision was made by Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, after a debate in the Jamaican government cabinet on Monday. The government of Jamaica made the decision on Tuesday to officially recognize the Palestinian State.
The decision was made by Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, after a debate in the Jamaican government cabinet on Monday.
With this, Kingston joins the bloc of 140 UN member states and the 11 CARICOM countries that recognize Palestine as a free and sovereign state.
Regarding the Jamaican election on Palestine, Jonhson Smith said, "Jamaica continues to advocate a two-State solution as the only viable option for resolving the long-standing conflict, ensuring Israelβs security and defending the dignity and rights of the Palestinians. By recognizing the State of Palestine, Jamaica strengthens its defence of a peaceful solution".
"The decision is aligned with Jamaicaβs strong commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter, which seek to generate mutual respect and peaceful coexistence among States, as well as recognition of the right of peoples to self-determination," he added.
Kingston also reiterated his concern about the human rights violations being carried out by Zionist forces in Gaza and the West Bank.
Only 2 ships have arrived at Eilat port since November and the start of the blockade. Ansarallah have been extremely effective and continue to be effective despite βOperation Prosperity Guardianβ
Tonightβs H5N1 posting
Some veterinarians working with dairies in Texas believe the virus is more active than current data suggest. Nick Schneider, a consulting dairy practitioner, is one of them.
βThe thing is, when you get into the Panhandle of Texas, Iβm not sure thereβs anybody (dairy farms) that did not have it,β says Schneider. Texas is home to 335 Grade A dairies with an estimated 625,00 cows, according to information on the Texas Association of Dairymen website. More than 100 of those operations are in the Panhandle.
The virus likely is being under-reported by the dairy industry because the presence of the virus in dairy cows is new, and there are no reporting requirements, Russo says.
β¦
Petersen says she has worked with people infected by H5N1 who do not interact with dairy cows. βI'm talking owners and feeders who don't usually touch cows,β she says.
β¦
Moving forward, the U.S. livestock industry might operate in a new world β one where the H5N1 virus is endemic.
https://www.bovinevetonline.com/news/industry/message-ag-industry-about-h5n1
This comes after a lab at Ohio State University detected genetic material of the virus in 38% of retail milk samples theyβve tested, data that also suggests the current outbreak is being underreported.
βA colleague of mine, he told me, βYou know whatβs strange? I went to one of my dairies last week, and all their cats were missing. I couldnβt figure it out β the cats usually come to my vet truck,β β Petersen recalled. βAnd then someone called me and said half of his cats had passed away without warning, and so then all the alarm bells start going off in your head.β
The cats had died from swollen brains, a potential result of influenza. They didnβt have rabies.
All pilfered from this thread
Just in
Extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was injured after his car overturned in a horrific traffic accident a short while ago.
Glory be to the road
The general vibe of news and economics recently has me worried.
I always thought that my life would pass without a revolution in the "international community". Now I'm not so sure. If things keep getting worse for western sphere countries at the same rate, as now, and China rises at the same rate as now, intense violence could kick off within a couple of decades. Openly bloody and fascist reaction in the crumbling of the old order. I didn't expect the mask of "freedom and democracy" to drop as fast as it has, combined with the open acknowledgements that China is surpassing us.
Our century of humiliation will be us humiliating ourselves and I feel like it might be coming fast.
I honestly thought I might get through it all without living through the spicy times.
Number of known Gaza deaths exceeded the population of my town.
I'm generally skeptical of "student movements," especially of the ivy league variety, and as a footsoldier of the OG occupy movement I am generally skeptical of these as well, but shit is seems to be fucking happening.
If all of this is for fucking nothing, we're making the state waste a LOT of resources.
In other UK news, a professional body might revoke a doctor's license to practice medicine for getting arrested at a Just Stop Oil protest.
In Tight Presidential Race, Voters Are Broadly Critical of Both Biden and Trump
About half of voters say that, if given the chance, they would replace both candidates on the ballot
Looking at these charts, it's actually incredibly easy to see how manipulation of information keeps a minority of voices in control of the voter base. Very few of them seem to wholeheartedly believe in the system. But hating the other side still captures those critical of their own party.
(Volume warning) Georgia cops tase a handcuffed protestor. Some of the most uniquely shitty cops around in Atlanta
Abdulmalik Alejri, senior member of the Ansarallah Politburo:
"The death of Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani brings to mind the era of global jihad led by Salafi Jihadism and the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s against what was then termed the communist threat. The result was that they handed America and the capitalist West a victory without war, as then-US President Reagan borrowed a phrase from his predecessor Nixon. In the context of the Cold War, Afghanistan, that distant corner of Central Asia, transformed into a hub of Islam, and Kabul became a destination for Arab mujahideen, while Palestine, with Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Prophet's Ascension, was within arm's reach, yet failed to attract Arab mujahideen to jihad or to the allure of the virgins. Ironically, when America occupied Afghanistan, Kabul ceased to be a hub of Islam and a destination for jihad.
At that time, Western capitalist intelligence agencies and their Arab allies succeeded in portraying Marx and socialism as a threat to religions, whereas the truth was that they posed a threat to exploitative capitalism, and Marx's battle was fundamentally against capitalist exploitation. Marx's legacy fundamentally did not prioritize religions, and all he wrote about them was few and scattered texts. His most important work, "Capital," in which his genius shines, explained the structure of capitalism, analyzed its internal mechanisms and contradictions, its capacity for expansion, crisis generation, and self-renewal. Even according to his adversaries, Marx's legacy remained the primary reference for analyzing capitalist crises, with his ideas resurfacing with each historical cycle of capitalist crises.
Marx believed that the Enlightenment had overthrown the exploitation of the church and that the real looming danger was capitalist exploitation, even suggesting that religion could play a positive role in mobilizing against capitalist exploitation. I don't understand how some perceive Marxism and communism as a threat to religion while finding no risks in liberal capitalism, even though the Enlightenment movement with its liberal tendencies was the one that battled the church, and the French Revolution raised the slogan "Hang the last king with the intestines of the last priest," while the slogans of the Bolshevik revolution called for overthrowing the bourgeois government. Naturally, this is just a question of amazement, as the issue as a whole is not as simple, and civilization cannot be reduced or approached solely from the angle of combating religion.
The real danger to religion is such exploitation of religion to serve the battles and projects of America and the imperial West in the region, and those involved should take heed from the dramatic end of the Afghan jihad."
Ansarallah wrecked a US Reaper drone
An internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters on Saturday revealed senior US officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find "credible or reliable" Israel's assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law.
We were joking about the struggles of listening to American diplomats yesterday, but the last thing Xi said before meeting Blinken yesterday:
I hope those student protestors can reach out to the university workers. And I'm not talking about professors and TAs, but the cafeteria workers, janitors, landscapers, electricians, construction workers, and the like. Basically, the people who make the universities be a place that's actually livable.
The university protests need to either become more militant or involve university workers. Regular university operations need to be ground to a halt.
Organized workers and student movements slowly gaining articulation (LONG POST SORRY)
Massive crowds march against Mileiβs cuts to state universities
Large crowds turn out across country for march in defence of the universities and state education; One of biggest rallies yet of President Javier Milei's government, with estimates ranging from 100,000 to half a million.
spoiler
Holding books aloft and pledging to defend state education, hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets on Tuesday to voice outrage at cuts to universities and higher education institutions under budget-slashing new President Javier Milei.
Joined by professors, parents and alumni from the nationβs 57 state-run universities, students rose up "in defence of free public university education." Labour unions, opposition parties and private universities backed the protests in Buenos Aires and other major cities including CΓ³rdoba, Rosario and Mar del Plata in one of the biggest demonstrations yet against the austerity measures introduced since Milei took office in December.
Police said around 100,000 people turned out Tuesday in the capital alone, while the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) put the number at closer to half-a-million. One teachers' union reported a million protesters countrywide. The Security Ministry, headed by Patricia Bullrich, attempted to play down the turnout. Either way, the city centre of the capital was paralysed for hours on end.
Third-year medicine student Pablo Vicenti, 22, told AFP in Buenos Aires he was outraged at the government's "brutal attack" on the university system. "They want to defund it with a false story that there is no money. There is, but they choose not to spend it on public education," he said. Milei won elections last November vowing to take a βchainsawβ to public spending and reduce the budget deficit to zero.
To that end, his government has slashed subsidies for transport, fuel and energy even as wage-earners have lost a fifth of their purchasing power. Thousands of public servants have lost their jobs, and Milei has faced numerous anti-austerity protests. "We believe in the equalising capacity of free public education, in the transformative power of the university as a formidable tool for upward social mobility," said Piera FernΓ‘ndez, a student and president of the FUA Argentine University Federation.
She read out a prepared statement agreed by university bosses to a huge crowd at the Plaza de Mayo, the epicentre of Tuesdayβs rally. "Education saves us and makes us free. We call on Argentine society to defend it," said FernΓ‘ndez. "This is important for those of us who study and for those of us who work, because public education lifts up a country," said Nicolas Villagra, a 24-year-old UBA student.
The government dismissed the protests as "political." The march's organisers asked demonstrators to avoid using symbols that identified them with specific political parties or groups, asking that the march be only in defence of public universities. Many families could be seen at the demonstration, which drew a wide cross section of society and was not split along party lines.
(More on the article itself)
Gigantic protest yesterday across Argentina, especially Buenos Aires, I was there and it was absolute insanity. It was a huge success: pretty much all universities mobilized their students, centres, professors, administrative personnel alongside other professionals and workers. But alongside us were other social movements that also took part in the protest, from orgs representing retirees to worker's unions. The result was a massive sea of people which flooded the streets of the city's centre, a beautiful spectacle of diverse peoples and movements, ranging from communists to all sorts of peronist orgs, but this time the protest included several non-traditional groups (libs) that also attended to defy milei.
I followed my uni's student centre and their banner during the march. The "centre" is a body that represents and manages the student's interests within universities (each one has a different centre), this body is occupied by a political group (not party, but they do represent major parties) which is elected into power each year through obligatory elections. Once in power, these students will take charge of things like the buffet, printers and call out for assemblies while at the same time providing support for students who need financial help and so on. They don't have a lot of power but they can still reach out to students and do good or harm (as it happens in unis where libs and neolibs are in charge of their centres). Our particular centre is led by a coalition of socdem-ish Peronist factions, pretty cool dudes overall (Global South socdems are usually different than your standard euro or yankee socdem, less cringe and less being the moderate wing of fascism) and they did a good job at leading, organizing the march and the people that attended.
I have been to several protests in the past but none were like this one, I could barely follow our banner and I got stuck for almost two hours in the same spot waiting for the crowd to just move forward. I managed to catch up with "my group" later on but once again became stuck about 100m away from the main concentration point, which was Plaza de Mayo, where I saw a HUGE crowd of people. But I loved being there, and despite being crushed against walls, against people, getting pushed to one side and then to the other, I loved all of it. I've never seen anything like this before and I am glad I attended. Cops acted very peacefully as well, they barely formed a wall in front of Casa Rosada but didn't carry out any arrests or violence. The "anti-pitcket protocol" was utterly defeated as the police completely failed to stop the protest, such gigantic crowds cannot be stopped.
Here's a couple of photos and videos from the protest in Buenos Aires:
Videos from the ground, filmed by me:
The crowd from within, the sounds of the drums and trumpets... I can spend all day listening to them. You can feel your insides vibrate while you're in a protest like that, it's an insane experience.
On the move and crossing the main avenue of the city, in the background the imposing Ministry of Social Development (now defunct) building can be seen, one that the libertarians promised to demolish.
Sorry for the somewhat shaky camera, it's hard to film stuff on your phone while you're walking with so many people. Also let me know if you see ads in the video like, streamable says if I don't upgrade, people will see ads. Fuck them, but I don't know any other good video sharing site rn.
And of course, milei has responded to the protest. First, his government downplayed the size, then said it was "too political" and later on he posted an AI generated image of a lion drinking a cup of "commie tears" on his social media. Good good, keep alienating people, you useless bacteria. Sooner than later we'll be dragging his lifeless body around the city to hang him upside down in some gas station.
Meta stock down 16% today. Even with Brandon signing the TikTok ban, their massaged revenue projections can't hide the rot.
From Suriyakmaps:
The dynamics of the front, as unimaginable as it would have been a short time ago, are accelerating. It is truly amazing how such a stronghold as Ocheretino is being assaulted so easily. Its fall seriously endangers any Ukrainian position south of the Novobakhmutivka-Sokil axis.
Ukraine is going to have to scramble tons of resources to that area in order to prevent total collapse. Far, far away from Kharkiv/Sumy, where the Belgorod "buffer zone operation" is likely to take place.
There are already some claims that Ocheretino has totally fallen, and that Russia is quickly moving south into Novobakhmutivka, with Ukrainian forces continuing to retreat.
Reuters: Poland ready to help Ukraine to get military-age men back, minister says
Poland is ready to help Ukraine in getting military-age male citizens to return and help their home country in fighting in the war against Russia, Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian government announced rules on Wednesday under which passports for military-age men can be issued only inside the country instead of foreign diplomatic missions.
As a result, men aged between 18 and 59 living abroad will be unable to renew expiring passports or obtain new ones.
"I think many Poles are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in hotels and cafes, and they hear how much effort we have to make to help Ukraine," he said, without giving any details on how Poland will help.
"Any support is possible," Kosiniak-Kamysz said about how Poland would respond if Kyiv asked for help in bringing home those who may lose their right to stay in Poland once their passports expire.
Absolutely demonic. Hopefully they can escape before they get sent back.
NSFL: π¨Harrowing evidence revealed of Israel's execution of Gazans at the Nasser hospital mass grave π§΅
Swiss lawyers grovel at the feet of Palestine Action, pledges to drop Elbit Systems as a client:
https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1782813310074695717n-tv: Military economist: Putin has already strategically lost the war (Article in German)
An article from July 2022, you think? Nope, 26th April of 2024.
Russia has been leading an offensive war against Ukraine for over two years now. Despite Moscow's current progress at the front, military economist Keupp sees the Kremlin as the imminent losers. In the long term, he thinks, Russia stands no chance against the industrial capabilities of the West.
The article talks about how Ukraine is fighting a war of attrition and how that is actually a very good thing.
"Let's not forget that Ukraine has an active reserve of a million men."
Ah, good to know there's still a lot of fuel left for the meat grinder
Saw this posted on another forum, not seeing it in here yet, the Guardian wrote a puff piece for our least favorite Ukrainian neo-Nazi brigade:
It's pretty bad, full transcript in spoiler minus photo captions:
spoiler
The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of βmutual respectβ, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch
by Dan Sabbagh in Lyman. Photographs by Julia Kochetova Sat 27 Apr 2024 00.00 EDT
Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraineβs eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes.
Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraineβs commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what βMasloβ, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unitβs first battalion, described as βconstant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hoursβ. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.
Poor visibility, perhaps 30 metres where the wood is thicker, and a mismatch of equipment makes the fight harder. Maslo, whose call sign translates as butter, described a βmore or less stableβ artillery mismatch of five to one in favour of the Russians, though he believes it is closer to 10 to one in the most intense sectors of the front, such as during the winter battle of Avdiivka, which fell to the invaders in February.
Russian drone attacks are also proliferating, the soldier added, reflecting a successful shift by Moscow towards a war economy. But perhaps the most serious problem the defenders face are Russian glide bombs, air-launched from as far as 70km away by Su-34 and Su-35 jets. These are moderately accurate weapons that, if they happen to land on target, can wreak havoc on targets below.
Makas, a staff sergeant in the second battalion, says βas many as 100 to 150 glide bombs can be launched into a sector a dayβ, a statement that suggests official Ukrainian military claims that 3,500 hit the frontlines in the first 77 days of the year may be an underestimate. The weapons can carry 500kg or 1.5 tonnes of explosives, the latter of which can βblow a crater 30 metres wide and 7 to 10 metres deepβ, he says.
The larger bombs are understandably feared by soldiers on the frontline β and intercepting them or the aircraft that launch them is the task of air defence β of which Ukraine is short β or possibly F-16 fighter jets armed with long-range missiles, although few expect the western jets to be ready, with trained pilots, much before the end of the year, and their final numbers are uncertain.
Ukraine moved up one of its few Patriot air defence systems to the front in February, knocking out 10 Su-34s and two Su-35s, according to its air force β but in early March a forward-deployed system was damaged by a Russian missile, underlying the risky nature of the air-to-ground battle, although it was said by the Pentagon to have been repaired about a week later.
Such imbalances in weaponry, caused by the long hiatus in US military aid that only ended this week and the slow development of European arms production, have begun to affect Ukrainian morale. Senior figures acknowledge privately that mobilising more men to fight is becoming challenging, with some fleeing the country or considering it β while others focus on finding units where commanders will not expose them to unnecessary risks.
It is estimated that Russia had 400,000 soldiers fighting in Ukraine until recently, a figure that is rising to 500,000 β creating an immediate need for more defenders, as well as replacing casualties (the official average of Ukrainian soldiers killed a month is about 1,300 and the number of wounded at least three times that). There is a widespread expectation that Moscow will try to launch a more intense offensive shortly, although there are signs the step-up has already begun. A fortnight ago, Ukraineβs commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said βthe situation on the eastern front has significantly worsenedβ, and that a period of dry warmer weather was facilitating new Russian attacks by tanks and armoured vehicles. Ukrainian military intelligence has estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 Russians are massing west of Bakhmut near Chasiv Yar, hoping to seize high ground in the central Donbas β but more significantly there are signs of a 5km Russian bridgehead forming north-west of Avdiivka.
The range of Ukraineβs immediate needs is recognised in the breadth of the equipment supplied in Wednesdayβs $1bn package from the US, which include artillery rounds, Stinger handheld anti-air missiles, Javelin anti-tank weapons, and Bradley armoured vehicles. A further Β£500m package announced by the UK also includes 400 armoured vehicles: a particular problem, Ukrainian medics say, is having enough protected transport to get the wounded away from the battlefield.
In the immediate term, experts believe that it will take further rounds of military aid to reverse Ukraineβs deteriorating fortunes, including at least seven more Patriot anti-missile batteries to protect its cities and suppress bombardment at the front. βSo far, this is not a counteroffensive package for Ukraine, and there is no real prospect of a counteroffensive this year. The next year will be tough and it may well be that Ukraine will have to cede more territory before it stabilises,β says Matthew Savill, an analyst with Londonβs Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank.
What is hard to evaluate is the damage caused by US Republicansβ withholding of funding for Ukraine, and Europeβs pace of building up industrial support. Although soldiers on the frontline such as Makas report that β10 or 15 Russians are killed for every Ukrainianβ, the team at Rusi believe, grimly, that Russia can sustain a casualty rate of about 20,000 to 30,000 month (roughly the current levels) for about another year, allowing Moscowβs forces to attack all along the frontline.
Ukraine, a much smaller country, has to find a way of mobilising more younger people. βThe average age of the Ukrainian army is 43,β Savill says, βand that means Ukraine is going to have to mobilise more young people, who they have so far been trying to protect.β By the time western military industrial production peaks towards the end of the year, as predicted by Kyiv, more Ukrainian lives will have been lost β and Savill argues, the rest of 2024 may be about the defenders trying to wear the Russian aggressors out sometime after 2025.
In the woods around Lyman there is a different perspective, however. While a handful of brigades have struggled in the latest phase of fighting, Azov says it has defeated the Russian attackers in the Serebryansky forest. The 5,000-plus strong brigade has shed any far-right associations, relentlessly emphasised in Russian pre-invasion propaganda, and is one of the militaryβs elite forces, comprised entirely of volunteers. Members say there is a waiting list for recruits, allowing it to pick and choose.
βTavrβ Bohdan Krotevych, Azovβs chief of staff, 31, argues that high morale, unit cohesion and a willingness to allow all ranks to be heard, not necessarily shown elsewhere, was a key to success β contrasting the style with the traditional βold fartβ hierarchical model of Soviet command. A culture of βmutual respectβ is intended to ensure soldiersβ lives are not wasted and the commander emphasises the young age profile of the brigade, with an average age βon the south side of 35β, adding if you are young βyou have attitude, you are competitive, you have stuff to proveβ.
High morale and fresh thinking in Ukraineβs better units will not be sufficient to win a war of national survival, and the stop-start nature of western support in practice (despite upbeat statements made by political leaders) frustrates many Ukrainian soldiers. Tavr complains that the west has so far only supplied weapons to produce βa stalemate that is perhaps comfortable for the west, even though civilians keep dyingβ, noting that at least eight were killed in bombing in and around Dnipro city last week.
So the part that feels most egregious is this
The 5,000-plus strong brigade has shed any far-right associations, relentlessly emphasised in Russian pre-invasion propaganda
Oh, the far-right associations are no longer there, and were mostly just Russian propaganda anyways huh?
So weird how two photos up from this line the Azovites are writing on a sign and have put the Nazi dog whistle numbers all over it.
Disgusting Nazi rag, all Western media is just state propaganda at this point.
In an effort to stymie student protests, NYU is building their own little apartheid wall: https://twitter.com/ArielleLAngel/status/1782766565072486878
So apparently someone in the US government leaked to the WSJ, just before Blinken's visit to China, that the US is drafting sanctions to cut of Chinese banks from the (Western) global financial system.
The article is here but pay walled.
This has to be some absurd, insulting ruse as a negotiating tactic right? The US can't really think it can simply freeze out the Chinese economy like it tried to do to Russia without it backfiring catastrophically right?
Medics across the U.S. have been quietly injecting sedatives to subdue people detained by police:
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1783937850880245998Palestine Action has opened a front in Italy:
https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1783542147230187684Pal Action Italy on the roof of weapons firm Leonardo!
German far-right AfD staffer arrested on China spy charges - DW
choice quotes
German prosecutors on Tuesday said police had arrested an employee of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party on suspicion of espionage.
In January, the accused is said to have repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence client.
...
Investigators think the suspect may have passed information on parliamentary operations to China's Ministry of State Security.
...
He has adopted a China-friendly stance, describing reports of human rights violations such as internment camps for Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang as "anti-China propaganda."
He has also insisted that Taiwan belongs to Beijing under international law and that Tibet is also China's rightful territory.
Can't find where I read that they were also accused of spying against the "exile opposition" falun gong lol
Anti-Ben Gvir Action
Every IOF soldier, if left alive, will go on to murder hundreds of people. Therefore, for every soldier the resistance kills, they are saving hundreds of people.
Extended version of Kabul footage has emerged throwing into question the Pentagon's official narrative about what happened at the airport.
The official narrative by the Pentagon states the attack was carried out by a single bomber and that there were only three short bursts of gunfire by American and British forces immediately following the blast, which resulted in no casualties.
This extended version of the footage obviously proves that story to be untrue.
13 US troops and 170 Afghan civilians were killed, what really happened is unclear
China hosts Hamas, Fatah delegations for reconciliation talks
Given the extent of collaboration by Abbas over the years, I can't say I'm optimistic. I thought the same thing about Iran-Saudi Arabia relations too though, and China managed at least a formal rapprochement between the two. This could go well
Burkina Faso tells the BBC and Voice of America to gtfo:
https://twitter.com/africansinnews/status/1783873282241966186π¨πΎπͺ Yemeni Armed Forces: β In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, The Almighty said: "O you who have believed, if you support Allah, He will support you and plant firmly your feet." This is the truth of Allah Almighty.
In suport of the oppressed Palestinian people and in response to the American-British aggression against our country,
The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces, by the grace of Allah Almighty, targeted the British oil tanker (ANDROMEDA STAR) in the Red Sea with several appropriate sea missiles, which directly hit the ship.
Yesterday, the air defense forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces succeeded in shooting down an American MQ9 drone over the Sa'ada Governorate, during its hostile operations, and it was targeted with an appropriate missile.
The Yemeni Armed Forces salute all the people of Yemen for their faithful response to the call of the the fighter leader Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr El-Din Al-Houthi, may Allah protect him, in their unprecedented large-scale interaction in support of our oppressed brothers in the Gaza Strip, affirming support for the Armed Forces in their military operations against the "israeli" enemy and against the American-British aggression supporting it in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean.
The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm their continued execution of more military operations in support of the Palestinian people until the lifting of the siege and stopping the aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, God willing.
Allah is sufficient for us and the best disposer of affairs, the best Lord and the best Helper.
Long live Yemen, free, dignified, and independent. Victory for Yemen and for all the free people of the nation.
Sanaa, 17th Shawwal 1445 Hijri Corresponding to April 26, 2024 Issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces β Note: The MQ9 drone costs $32 million. It is the fourth one shot down since Al-Aqsa Flood began (three by Yemen, one by Iraqi resistance).
Germany is completely losing it. You'd think that if you're a German zionist trying to suppress pro-Palestine protests in Germany of all places, you'd say things like "Old Nazi sentiments are still alive and well, how saddening". You'd go hard on invoking the Nazis, right?
Nope. The entire German establishment has decided that anti-Israel sentiment is caused by RADICAL ISLAMIST AGITATORS. The discourse in Germany around pro-Palestine protests leans insanely hard on islamophobia and in what felt like days, it has suddenly become accepted as a fact that "Germany has a radical islam problem" after, and I can't stress this enough, nothing has happened whatsoever. There was no inciting incident or anything (and no, nobody talks about the Moscow attack). There's also an outright hysteria around Russian/Chinese spies. Absolute insanity.
Managed to post this in general mega instead of the news mega yesterday, but thought Iβd repost here because itβs such sunny news:
- Influeza A is spiking in wastewater in Amarillo, in the middle of an area of very dense cattle factory farms
- There also appears to be a very recent steep uptick in Influenza A nationally
Meanwhileβ¦
Only one human case linked to cattle has been confirmed to date, and symptoms were limited to conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. But Russo and many other vets have heard anecdotes about workers who have pink eye and other symptomsβincluding fever, cough, and lethargyβand do not want to be tested or seen by doctors. James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, says policies for monitoring exposed people vary greatly between states. βI believe there are probably lots of human cases,β he says, noting that most likely are asymptomatic.
β U.S. government in hot seat for response to growing cow flu outbreak
To quote from the first link I posted:
H5N1 is a strain of influenza A. Itβs impossible to know at this time if this is what is driving this increase, but vigilance is warranted. Hopefully this is simply all a coincidence or just a statistical anomaly. I watch for early signals to monitor.
This could be nothing. But - we might be on the cusp of watching Joe Biden handle a new pandemic in a more dismissive way than Donald Trump, while liberals defend him.
I was curious what the news was about Biden's performative pier in Gaza so I googled.
From two days go - Construction has not begun on US pier for Gaza, but Pentagon says it's "on track" to open in coming weeks | Stars and Stripes
From yesterday
A giant floating pier is due to be completed in the next two weeks in the eastern Mediterranean from where it will be pushed towards the Gaza shore, but there is growing uncertainty over how useful the US project will be in containing a famine.
There are concerns in the humanitarian community that Israel has co-opted the pier plan, which Joe Biden touted as a way to bring about a βmassiveβ increase in aid to Gaza, with one aid official saying the project was in danger of becoming a βsmokescreenβ for the planned invasion of Rafah.
New water jug strat just dropped:
https://twitter.com/RLJnews/status/1783897300236226885One of the ways protesters have stopped sprinklers from spraying themselves
Theyβre now chanting βwater is lifeβBlinken says China helping fuel Russian threat to Ukraine
Genius strategy: send diplomat to foreign country to insult that country. Clap.
WSJ - Putin Didnβt Directly Order Alexei Navalnyβs February Death, U.S. Spy Agencies Find
U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Putin likely didnβt order Navalny to be killed at the notoriously brutal prison camp in February, people familiar with the matter said, a finding that deepens the mystery about the circumstances of his death.
SCOOP: Biden is now often surrounded by aides when walking across the South Lawn to and from Marine One.
They usually walk between the 81-year-old and journalists' camera position to draw less attention to his halting and stiff gait. trib.al/hhVdRni
It's
UpdateWhile more mass graves full of bound and mutilated bodies are being found in Gaza, the British media has finally kicked into high gear to focus their attention on... checks notes ... a known Zionist grifter who staged a video about whether cops would let him cross the street in order to try (and possibly succeed, albeit not exactly single handedly) get pro-Palestine protest banned.
There's a good full write up of the events, strategy, and media reactions by British Israel/Palestine journalist Jonathon Cook here.
What's not included though but worth mentioning is that this Zionist 'James O'Keefe' type showed up to the protest with a camera crew and bodyguards. He's also got form for just straight up lying, like in 2008 when a conviction of someone under hate crime legislation was was over tuned because his claim that a guy working at gym said "fucking jews" when reacting to news coverage of Palestine was proven to be a lie.
The org he's the head of, Campaign Against Antisemitism, does nothing but this shit and was for years during the Corbyn era heralded as a very serious organisation that should be listened to by the people who now run the Labour Party. However, in recent weeks even Labour's arch Zionists have discovered that their support of Israel's genocide isn't enough for these ghouls and are now complaining that the CAA is an 'ideological organisation who is more focused on attacking Labour than tackling Antisemitism'.
It's also worth noting that the CAA is funded by criminals. Specifically the Jewish National Fund which is a 'non-profit organisation' that buys up recently 'vacated' Palestinian land to build new settlements against international (and British) law.
The Houthi movement has published video of them shooting down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone with a surface-to-air missile, showing them using aerial reconnaissance drones of their own to track the American military hardware before taking it out of the sky.
https://nitter.poast.org/Seamus_Malek/status/1784234704322851090#m
Speaking of universities
Universiti Malaya (UM) has issued an apology after an American professor accused Malaysians of advocating for a "second Holocaust" against Jews
UM is one of the most prestigious universities in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
He took to the platform [Twitter] to share excerpts from the keynote address he gave on Malaysian foreign policy.
"'A country whose political leaders advocate [for] a second Holocaust against the Jewish people will never be a serious player in world affairs, and will certainly never be a friend or partner of the US.' From my keynote address [on Tuesday] in KL on Malaysian foreign policy," Gilley wrote on X.
Lol. Lmao.
and will certainly never be a friend or partner of the US
"UM will continue to support the government's stance against any connections with Israel and fully endorse efforts to recognise Palestine as a legitimate independent state," added the statement.
Platforming a Zionist in Malaysia is like platforming a Palestinian in Germany.
Meanwhile, Gilley, who has since left Malaysia, claiming he was "one step ahead of the Islamo-fascist mob whipped up by the government", has now started a GoFundMe fundraiser to pay for his flight tickets
Islamo-fascist
I've had NBC on as background noise this weekend while working on schoolwork, and they are going hard on the Corbyn strategy against the protestors at Columbus and other universities. So far, it hasn't seemed to stick against broader protests and opposition to the genocide, so I wonder why it's the angle they're taking now, and why it overall hasn't been effective to undercut opposition to Israel, when it was an effective smear against Corbyn.
Some deranged American lib was frothing about how China is throwing a fit over TikTok being banned when it banned American social media. Then went on to say Trump has flipped because heβs βobviouslyβ bought by China. Also the βCCPβ are nazis because of Xinjiang.
It was like talking to an NPC. The exact same script and smartass replies put on repeat.
Where has this idea of Trump being bought by China come from? I see it more often from liberals and they never have a source to back it up.
Damn, nitter.poast.org doesn't seem to work for me anymore. Let me check R*ddit to see if other people have this issue.
Hmmm, nobody has said anything, but hey, here's the account who's apparently behind this Nitter instance.
https://old.reddit.com/r/nitter/comments/1bmk7tc/a_nitter_instance_that_still_works_almost/kwfzdvi/
Let me search for that username. I'm sure I'll just get a link to their Github and not a long article about how's they're some massive white supremacist former dev of 4chan and well fuck
https://accollective.noblogs.org/post/2021/06/18/admin-of-poa-st-anime-graf-mays-revealed-daniel-stevens-of-ontario-canada/ (CW: racial slurs)
But seriously, it turns out Poast is some reactionary corner of the Fediverse, reactionary to the point where even MSM had articles about it.
Needless to say, I'm going to use another Nitter instance
(nitter.esmailelbob.xyz)and I would encourage others to do the same.Edit: It has come to my attention that esmailelbob sucks as well for being queerphobic. At this point, I'm just going to use Twitter links because apparently what's left of Nitter is filled with reactionary losers.
GODDAMNIT! I can't believe the elite 69th Reddit Mechanized Brigade (Reinforced) was pushed out of the cities of poopiivka and fartiivka, it's so fucking over. These cities (they're actually settlements of about 150 people each) are super important for the bumfucknowhereiivka-novobanderiivka defensive axis, the whole front is about to collapse (it won't). THE WEST IS IN SEVERE DANGER!! (this is very positive)
I love when faculty stands up for their students
US first quarter annualized GDP growth comes in at 1.6%, lower than the expected 2.5%. At the same time inflation rises to 3.5%.
Now seems to be a bad time for student protests to pop off. Most universities are either in finals week or about to be in finals week. Probably a quarter of them are graduating and the universities will be much more harsher to non students at these encampments. I hope they keep going through the summer, but they will probably be at a reduced size.
Thereβs a WSJ article right now about Israel, Egypt, the UAE, and the US working on a plan to ethnically cleanse Rafah and presumably push Gazans into the Sinai. I canβt get the article to work with archiving and itβs behind a paywall, but maybe someone else can pull it. Sounds like absolutely heinous, final solution shit.
The New York Times has released a short statement criticizing Biden for "actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists" calling the impact on democracy "troubling"
Full statement
For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term. The president occupies the most important office in our nation, and the press plays a vital role in providing insights into his thinking and worldview, allowing the public to assess his record and hold him to account.
Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors. It is true that The Times has sought an on-the-record interview with Mr. Biden, as it has done with all presidents going back more than a century. If the president chooses not to sit down with The Times because he dislikes our independent coverage, that is his right, and we will continue to cover him fully and fairly either way.
However, in meetings with Vice President Harris and other administration officials, the publisher of The Times focused instead on a higher principle: That systematically avoiding interviews and questions from major news organizations doesnβt just undermine an important norm, it also establishes a dangerous precedent that future presidents can use to avoid scrutiny and accountability. That is why Mr. Sulzberger has repeatedly urged the White House to have the president sit down with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN and other major independent news organizations that millions of Americans rely on to understand their government.
https://www.nytco.com/press/a-statement-from-the-new-york-times-on-presidential-news-coverage/
Cope cages have advanced to new levels, these are Russian ones in Ukraine.
Interestingly I also think these would make it rather difficult to aim at specific targets on the enemy tank. Can't aim for the turret gap if you can't see it very well.
Bird flu virus found in pasteurized milk, though officials maintain supply is safe
Itβs βfragmentsβ, which gives me hope. Then again, reactionaries from the wellness set (both liberal and fascist) who drink raw milk are going to be some fun little vectors
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaSJP/status/1784760265071849815
BREAKING:
LEAKED DOCUMENT from Columbia University admin detailing:- Discriminatory Admissions policies for the Tel Aviv Dual Degree program
- Disproportionate financial aid given to Tel Aviv Dual Degree Students
- Bias from the Dean of General Studies
Thread π§΅
IRAQ, YOU HAVE BIGGER ISSUES THAN THE HOMOS (IMO)
The companies invoked provisions of the U.S. blockade to not supply the Cuban aircraft.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Cubana de Aviacion flights to Buenos Aires were canceled because fuel suppliers in Argentina refused to serve the airline.
The companies have invoked "provisions of the United States blockade against Cuba" to not supply the aircraft of the Cuban state airline.
Additionally, this measure has affected other airlines contracted by Cubana de Aviacion, preventing them from fulfilling commitments to passengers.
This surprising decision took place despite the Cuban flights being approved by the Argentina's National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC).
In response to this situation, the airline has decided to assist affected passengers in Cuba by sending them back on flights operated by other airlines connecting to Argentina. Other passengers will be eligible for a full refund of their airfare.
Cubana de Aviacion resumed its flights between Havana and Buenos Aires in May 2023, after a period of suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also resumed flights from Argentina with a stopover in Cayo Coco and a final destination in Havana using a leased aircraft.
Usually, Cubana de Aviacion operates a weekly flight between Buenos Aires/Ezeiza (EZE), Cayo Coco (CCC), and Havana (HAV) using an Airbus A330-200 operated by the Spanish airline Plus Ultra Airlines.
During the first quarter of 2024, the Cuban airline transported 3,221 passengers with an occupancy rate of 61 percent. The number of Argentine travelers to Cuba increased by 44 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching 12,753 people.
Sir netenyahu, a second car has flipped in the road
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-abrams-tanks-19d71475d427875653a2130063a8fb7a
It's being reported that the Ukraine is withdrawing the American Abrams tanks from the front lines over "threats of being destroyed by drone strikes", something that's already existed for over a year and a half now.
Good news is that the minimum number of incapacitated/destroyed u.s tanks is at 5 out of 31 so far.
Love how all the big talk about the "world's best tanks" being able to turn the tides of war and we've constantly been getting news from the Ukraine front of fuck-up after fuck-up resulting from the trash the western powers have been dumping on them.
Not related to anything, but I came across an old, now deleted thread on Reddit asking why Ukrainian soldiers are wearing ISIS patches. https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/113xyii/whats_the_story_behind_this_ukrainian_soldier/
All the comments immediately call him a Russian shill, or they cope by saying "ummm actualy, the words at 3.21 mm apart which is completely different from ISIS' logos" then never reply when OP responds with higher rest photos lol. Fucking first comment says the patch is the seal of Muhammed which is "common" for Muslims lmao
Lula Proposes World Progressive Meeting to Halt Far-Right Rise
Right-wing extremism signifies a setback for democracy, as it represents an advancement of racism and xenophobia, said the Brazilian President.
On Tuesday, Brazilian President Lula da Silva said that he wishes to promote a meeting of progressive leaders within the framework of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to discuss a joint "confrontation" to the rise of the far right in the world.
Lula has already proposed his idea to the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the French President Emmanuel Macron. He will discuss it with other progressive leaders before the UNGA meeting scheduled for September in New York.
The Brazilian president ensured that the phenomenon of the far right "is global" and signifies "a setback for democracy," as it represents an advancement "of racism, xenophobia, and a 'culture agenda' that targets minorities."
Lula particularly highlighted the rise of the far right in Europe and the United States, a country he said was "a symbol of democracy" and which in January 2022 suffered a violent attack on the Capitol, promoted by activists aligned with the ideas of former President Donald Trump.
He compared the events at the Capitol with the assault on the headquarters of the three branches of government in Brazil in January 2023, carried out by followers of the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, who did not accept his defeat in the elections.
Democratic leaders "cannot allow the denial of all institutions that were created to uphold democracy" to prevail and must unite against an extremist movement for which "what matters most is falsehood," Lula pointed out.
In this context, he framed his proposal for a meeting of progressive leaders during the UNGA, where he believes "how to collectively confront" the growth of the far right should be discussed.
So Joe Bellend has given what, over R1 Trillion ZAR to Isisrael already? Anyways, over 40 million Americans are food insecure and the national literacy rate is at 79% with states such as Texas and California barely above 70%. Not a single state exceeds 90% literacy.
Sources: Feeding America and NCES
Death to AmeriKKKa
Update from Russell βTexasβ Bentleyβs wife, she sent a public appeal to Putin himself as nothing is getting done at a local level. It is interesting she says she is meeting βunofficial resistanceβ against any type of pressure to find him. Russell's death has been reported as confirmed by Sputnik the other day, but his wife is still saying "find him, if he is still alive".
Some trusted DPR people are telling her they have seen his remains, while other officials are saying no body has been found. Contradictions and intrigue and weird unofficial pressure abounds which just doesnβt add up if it was some Ukrainians who did it. I have witnessed this myself on non-DPR telegram channels where they censor anyone asking any questions about this and accuse people of being SBU trolls for just asking βso where is Russell Bentley?β
I think some Russian unit way overstepped itβs bounds and tortured/killed Bentley over personal, ideological or accidental reasons. Now they all know what happened but are trying to cover it up and shut everyone up, but Russell had enough fans that it just isnβt going away.
This is such a fuck up. The reason I say tortured is because that is what is rumored, and it has to be pretty bad if the Russian government can't just come out and apologize for friendly fire or court-martial a couple low-level soldiers. I've heard quite unpleasant rumors of what was done to Texas, and apparently DPR officials and bloggers who have called for justice and an investigation into Bentley's murderers have all deleted their statements. Very sus.
Niger Begins Official Talks to Withdraw U.S. Troops From the Country
Negotiations will take place at the two US bases in the sub-Saharian nation, between speakers of the both parties.
On Wednesday, the governments of Niger and the United States begin final negotiations for an immediate withdrawal of American troops in the African country.
Negotiations will take place at the two US bases in the sub-Saharian nation, between speakers of the both parties.
Since last month both sides have taken preliminary decisions, however, negotiations have already been made official.
American troops were to control the situation of terrorism in the African nation however, their actions have been questioned during the first months of this year 2024.
In the words of Major General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, "We can confirm that discussions have begun between the United States and Niger for the orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. In the near future, the Department of Defense will provide a small delegation from the Pentagon and U.S. Africa Command to participate in those discussions.".
The withdrawal of troops from Washington has been partly forced by massive protests in the capital of Niger, Niamey, where large numbers of citizens, asked the African government to immediately withdraw troops from the northern country.
Baroness Shafik
New independent election polls are out for South Africa. Elections are just over a month away. For context, the new MK party (black) is ex president and ANC member Jacob Zuma's political party he founded a few months ago. Zuma is very popular amongst Zulu people in South Africa. The ANC (yellow) is the current ruling party (was the party of Nelson Mandela back in 1994, now hopelessly corrupt but still progressive in policy), the DA (blue) is the white liberal political party, the IFP (orange) is the Zulu nationalist party, ActionSA (light green) is black capitalism and reactionaries, and the FF+ (dark green) is the bring apartheid back party. The EFF (red) is what I would call leftist populism and based on the personalities of Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu.
In short, the ANC and DA's support has stayed steady, and the EFF's support has collapsed with the arrival of Jacob Zuma's MK Party. The tailism and lack of principles amongst the EFF leadership have backfired in spectacular fashion, they've lost almost half of their support to the MK. The EFF went from calling for Zuma to be in jail and to pay back the money stolen through corruption, to trying to court Zuma to join the EFF, and coming up with bizarre polices like exempting the land owned by the Zulu monarch from land reform. All to chase the votes of Zuma supporters. And now that Zuma has started his own party, it has backfired. The EFF has gone from being in a great position, with a high chance of becoming the official opposition and overtaking the DA, to fighting for third with Zuma's MK party.
Let this be a lesson on why chasing support and votes along the lines of cults of personality and ethnic division will not work for the left. And why tailism should never be attempted. This is why I have been so critical of the EFF as a South African, these political moves have lacked discipline.
I made some updates to the HexAtlas since I last posted:
- Search: Nominatim Integration allows to search any place
- Mobile UX: It's should be now easier to navigate on mobile
- Mastodon: See posts (WIP)
- Sessionstorage: Settings/Selections are now saved even when you refresh the browser window (until you close the tab)
- Had to remove leftypedia.. I couldn't figure out why it was only working locally..
https://hex-atlas.netlify.app CW: Spoilertags are still not functioning
Seeing images of the CU counter protest and it's telling that the Christofash feel the need to announce "Christians stand with Israel".
open up counter punch article
read first line
β In the summer of 1968, I was assigned to the Central Intelligence Agencyβs task force on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakiaβ
Imperialist stenographer reduced to tears when students exert media discipline by keeping their mouths shut:
https://twitter.com/TameeOliveFern/status/1784751383956324821This is a decent if lib article on lack of industrial policy in the US. Good share for lib family and friends.
For forty years β and especially since the early 1990s βGingrich revolutionβ in Congress and the triumph of neoliberalism in the Clinton and Bush years β the US government has been working hard to eliminate its own technical capacities. In their place, a constellation of lobbies, privately funded think tanks, and tax-subsidy farmers has grown up, many of them talented at projecting the impression of scientific authority, which crowds out whatever genuine authority may still exist. We can see this in every domain, including climate, public health, and the cyber-sphere. And behind the cacophony of a βmarketplace of ideas,β legions of economists chime in to advocate for decentralized, competitive, market-based solutions, guided by price incentives, taxes, tax breaks and subsidies. It can be little wonder, then, that when the government is called upon to specify exactly how to proceed β for instance, to evaluate grant applications or to judge the viability of a major private initiative, it doesnβt know how β except, perhaps, by the path of least political resistance.
US is reviewing risks of China's use of RISC-V chip technology
By Stephen Nellis April 24, 20241:30 AM GMT+3
A Chinese flag is displayed next to a "Made in China" sign seen on a printed circuit board with semiconductor chips, in this illustration picture taken February 17, 2023.
REUTERS/Florence April 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce is reviewing the national security implications of China's work in open-source RISC-V chip technology, according to a letter sent to U.S. lawmakers.
RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," competes with proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F), opens new tab. It can be used as a key part of anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.
The technology is being used by major Chinese tech firms such as Alibaba Group Holding (9988.HK), opens new tab and has become a new front in the strategic competition over advanced chip technology between the U.S. and China.
In November, 18 U.S. lawmakers from both houses of Congress pressed the Biden administration for its plans to prevent China "from achieving dominance in ... RISC-V technology and leveraging that dominance at the expense of U.S. national and economic security."
In a letter last week to the lawmakers that was seen by Reuters on Tuesday, the Commerce Department said it is "working to review potential risks and assess whether there are appropriate actions under Commerce authorities that could effectively address any potential concerns."
But the Commerce Department also noted that it would need to tread carefully to avoid harming U.S. companies that are part of international groups working on RISC-V technology. Previous controls on transferring 5G technology to China created roadblocks for U.S. firms working in international standards bodies where China was also a participant, risking U.S. leadership in the field.
Really? That's the whole article? I was waiting for some kind of punch line, but they really just wrote "RISC-V bad because China bad. China making computers is evil." Gotta love the direction these AI-generated articles are leading toward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlLubLH5QfE
John Mearsheimer on Piers Morgan. They discussed Iran/Israel, Russia/Ukraine, and nuclear weapons.
Piers shows his entire ass, apparently not understanding (or refusing to accept) the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, despite living through the Cold War.
most federal universities in brazil are currently striking against lula's neoliberal government, and more have been joining every month (my campus is deciding today)
but the biggest demand from professors is a wage raise... when they already earn more than like 95% of the population and universities are seriously lacking in stuff like capital for infrastructure, scholarships, etc. i mean, salaries already account for 90% (not a typo; it really is 90%) of federal university expenses
always sad to see how capitalism can turn unions into selfish orgs
Get ready for AI fascism. This is some movie supervillain shit
US Homeland Security names AI safety, security advisory board
The 22-member board includes tech leaders OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su.
A statement from the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on opportunists entering our space:
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaSJP/status/1783958005299417455NYT: In Northern Israel, Clashes With Hezbollah Drive a Hospital Underground. Subterranean operations at Galilee Medical Center are a striking example of how life in northern Israel has been upended since Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks.
Full text
Subterranean operations at Galilee Medical Center are a striking example of how life in northern Israel has been upended since Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks.
By Johnatan Reiss
The entrance hall to the Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel is mostly empty and quiet. Roaring warplanes and the intermittent thunder of artillery have replaced the sounds of doctors, orderlies and patients at this major hospital closest to the border with Lebanon.
Nearly all of the hospital's staff members and patients have gone underground.
Getting to the hospital's nerve center these days involves navigating past 15-foot concrete barricades and multiple blast doors, then descending several floors into a labyrinthine subterranean complex.
That is where thousands of patients and hospital workers have been for the past six months as strikes have intensified between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, just six miles to the north.
The underground operation at Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya is one of the most striking examples of how life in northern Israel has been upended since Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks against the Israeli military in October in solidarity with Hamas, the Iranian-backed group that led the attack on southern Israel that month.
The cross-border fire has prompted tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate towns, villages and schools and forced factories and businesses to close. On the Lebanon side of the border, tens of thousands more have fled their homes.
The hospital had been preparing for such a scenario for years, given its proximity to one of the region's most volatile borders.
"We knew this moment would arrive, we just didn't know when," Dr. Masad Barhoum, the hospital's director general, said in an interview last week.
Hours after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, Galilee Medical Center staff members feared that Hezbollah might mount a similar assault. Even before the government issued evacuation orders, hospital executives decided to relocate most of the vast complex to an underground backup annex. They reduced the 775-bed hospital to 30 percent capacity in case it needed to suddenly accommodate waves of new trauma patients.
"It's our duty to protect the people here," Dr. Barhoum said. "This is what I've been preparing for my whole life."
The hospital's towering internal medicine ward now stands empty, its wide, neon-lit hallways wrapped in silence. In the ward's current location below ground, the whirs of hospital machinery mingle with the beeps of golf carts carrying supplies through narrow tunnels that open into the hospital's parking lot, offering the only hint of sunlight.
Patients lie in beds separated by mobile curtain racks in a maze of halls. Visitors sit on plastic chairs in a makeshift waiting room, since the space is too crowded to allow everyone to pay a bedside visit. Tubes and wires running across the ceiling give the space the feeling of an engine room.
In the neonatal intensive care unit, new parents in protective gowns huddle to bottle-feed their baby in a dimly lit room. Doctors perform a procedure on another tiny patient a few feet away.
The neonatal unit was the first to move below ground on Oct. 7, said Dr. Vered Fleisher Sheffer, the unit's director.
"While everyone feels safer here," she said, "it's challenging because we are humans, and now we must stay underground."
Her unit also went underground in 2006, during Israel's last all-out war with Hezbollah: Dr. Fleisher Sheffer recalls commuting to the hospital along barren roads as air-raid sirens blared. A rocket hit the ophthalmology ward one day, but the patients had already been moved, hospital officials said.
That war lasted just over a month, and the threat from Hezbollah was felt less in the years that followed. Oct. 7 changed that.
The day before New York Times journalists visited the hospital, a Hezbollah strike hit a nearby Bedouin village, injuring 17 soldiers and two civilians. The injured were brought to the hospital's I.C.U., where one of the soldiers died on Sunday.
"These are our neighbors," Dr. Fleisher Sheffer said, referring to the Hezbollah militants. "It's not like they are going anywhere, and neither are we."
Campus pigs getting encircled by students:
https://twitter.com/readytoescalate/status/1784283020184240206
Russia is further exploiting its breakthrough in Ocheretyne and its allready attacking the next town in the North "Arkhanhel's'ke" , putting a nice ring about the Ukrainians in Novokalynove Is this the uncontained Brakthrough ?
Meanwhile Krasnohorivka further south is about to fall as well with Russia beeing in the Traditional big ass Sovjet Factory .. allready .. both rather Mid size towns .. not Hamlets..
Pathetic Zionist cope that the dude who got owned by the flag bomb is still alive (CW: zionists)
OK, I was mostly joking about the CIA breaking out the Vault 7 toys to put the fear of god into Ben-Gvir yesterday, but maybe I was on to something.
Ukraineβs agriculture minister suspected of corrupt land grab
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said it had uncovered a scheme led by a current minister to illegally acquire state-owned land worth 291 million hryvnia ($7.36m).
It did not name Solsky, but in its statement said the suspect was the former chairman of the parliamentary agrarian committee. Solsky held the post before becoming a minister.
People who matter's commentary on the college protests:
Gazan student orgs: https://twitter.com/SamidounPP/status/1783669532529508760
PFLP: https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1783641481984479446
Ansarallah: https://twitter.com/M_N_Albukhaiti/status/1783575397222735905
The 2024 Freedom Flotilla is delayed again due to "administrative roadblocks".
These include: Shitrael pressuring Guinea-Bissau to remove their flag from the ships, "additional inspections and checks", training the Shayatet 13 death squads and of course, the fact of a South African MP Mandla Mandela due to be participating in the convoy (and the subsequent diplomatic fallout if he doesn't return to South Africa alive).
The U.S.-Japan resolution on weapons of mass destruction is a "dirty spectacle", said Russian diplomat Nebenzia.
On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution on the placement of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in outer space.
The draft resolution, tabled by the United States and Japan, won the support of 13 out of 15 UNSC members. Russia, which has veto power, voted against it. China abstained.
Before the vote, the Security Council rejected an amendment to the draft resolution proposed by Russia and China to include a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space.
Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, accused the U.S. and Japan of staging "a dirty spectacle" at the Security Council by tabling the draft resolution.
"At first glance, it looks harmless, it looks positive, because officially it is devoted to a topic that is of great importance to the international community -- that's the non-placement of WMDs in outer space. Yet behind this fig leaf, there is a cunning plan that was concocted by our Western colleagues," he told the council before the vote.
Nebenzia explained that the ban on the placement of WMDs in outer space has already been enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The United States and Japan had the hidden motives of cherry-picking WMDs out of all other kinds of weapons in outer space.
By doing so, the United States and Japan could camouflage their lack of interest in outer space free from any weapons, he said.
The Russian ambassador stressed that the draft amendment does not delete from the draft resolution the ban on the placement of WMDs in outer space. It simply adds the provision about the inadmissibility of weapons of any kind being placed in outer space.
Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said that Wednesday's vote was one of the most ridiculous ones in his career in New York, and probably in the UN history, because there is absolutely no added value in this draft resolution.
Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, regretted that the amendment proposed by China and Russia was not adopted.
The draft resolution, without the amendment, is incomplete and unbalanced and does not reflect to the fullest extent the common interests and the shared call of the 193 member states on the issue of outer space security. Therefore, China had to abstain from the vote on the draft resolution, he said in an explanation after the vote.
As UNSC members work together to advance outer space security governance, efforts should be made to demonstrate goodwill, enhance mutual trust, and promote cooperation, instead of suspecting, criticizing, blaming each other, or stoking confrontation, said Fu.
The U.S. should stop its development and deployment of offensive weapons in outer space, change its negative attitude toward the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on arms control in outer space, and get engaged actively in the discussions at the Conference on Disarmament and the UN General Assembly First Committee, which deals with disarmament affairs, he said.
A couple of missile nerd articles. Both of these are written by libs with brainworms of various sorts, though those aren't on full display in either of these pieces.
The former is simplicius on Russia's zircon missile and focuses on widgets and workings of various hypersonics. In it, he links to an earlier piece he wrote about hypersonics used to attack patriot missile batteries in ukraine.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/3m22-zircon-debunking-misconceptions
The other is Scott ritter on the dprk's missile development and what it means for nuclear strike capacity vs the US and proxies. It is less about the widgets, more about strategy.
https://www.energyintel.com/0000018f-09c3-d183-abef-0fc3b84c0000
I don't care that much about a lot of military technology but hypersonic missiles in particular are an area where the US is a decade or more behind adversaries. I think it is worth understanding the technology and its implications for geopolitical purposes.
Students from several universities and educational institutions in Argentina held a demonstration in the country against cuts in university resources. The march covered several cities, including CΓ³rdoba, where Milei had 75% of the votes.
Dumbass Zionist not understanding the concept of time:
https://twitter.com/RealSarahIdan/status/1782917925281931548The student paper Columbia Spectator has been really on things recently
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) announced on Friday that he plans to introduce a bill that would allow the Department of Education to impose a βthird-party antisemitism monitorβ for any institution of higher education that receives federal funding. Torres coined the legislation the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act, or the COLUMBIA Act.
A lot more here
hades 2 technical test absolutely rips. game is going to be a goty contender when it fully releases. it's clear they came out of the first game's development cycle with a lot of ideas about where to go next. if any nerds have any questions about it, shoot. currently playing it on a linux machine through proton.Permanently Deleted
News: Iβm 1/3 through the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and I want to vomit
Oliver Stone Announces Documentary βLulaβ About Brazilβs President to Premiere at Cannes
Stone joins fellow auteurs Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Schrader, and Mohammad Rasoulof at the 2024 festival.
Oliver Stone is unveiling his long-awaited documentary βLulaβ at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Stone filmed the documentary about thrice-elected Brazilian President Luiz InΓ‘cio Lula da Silva that encompasses the rulerβs incarceration between 2018 and 2019 and his return to power. Stone was in production on the feature in 2021 during which time Lula da Silva contracted COVID while filming in Cuba.
βLulaβ is the latest addition to the star-studded Cannes lineup, which also includes new films from Paul Schrader, Francis Ford Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, David Cronenberg, Ali Abbasi, Sean Baker, Jia Zhangke, and Paolo Sorrentino.
Oliver Stone is unveiling his long-awaited documentary βLulaβ at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Stone filmed the documentary about thrice-elected Brazilian President Luiz InΓ‘cio Lula da Silva that encompasses the rulerβs incarceration between 2018 and 2019 and his return to power. Stone was in production on the feature in 2021 during which time Lula da Silva contracted COVID while filming in Cuba.
βLulaβ is the latest addition to the star-studded Cannes lineup, which also includes new films from Paul Schrader, Francis Ford Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, David Cronenberg, Ali Abbasi, Sean Baker, Jia Zhangke, and Paolo Sorrentino.
βAs you know, I had him in the other films with Hugo ChΓ‘vez. And of course, heβs gotten a very dramatic story, with his going to jail after his second term. Now heβs back β heβs won a third term,β Stone said of Lula Da Silva. βItβs quite a story. Heβs a wonderful man.β
Stone recently released documentary βNuclear Now,β a project that he told Jacobin was inspired by the βconfusingβ discourse surrounding βAn Inconvenient Truthβ back in 2006.
βIβm not trying to run a debate society; Iβm trying to run a fact-oriented science, where it says this is what scientists say. Itβs not what protesters say,β Stone said of the feature. βI hope you understand thereβs also an issue of time and clarity. I had a lot of ground to cover β I couldnβt cover everything. But I had to go, from the past, what is nuclear energy? Through the history of it, from the origin, through the protest movements of the β70s, which is a part of it, then what happened in the 1980s and β90s, then I got into the Al Gore debate about renewables β itβs a long way to go β and the future of nuclear energy. That took an hour and forty-four [minutes], and thatβs pretty much at the edge of the attention span of most people. I wanted this film to play for ninth graders, eighth graders. I wanted it to not be too wonky.β
βLulaβ joins other Cannes Special Screenings βSpectateursβ directed by Arnaud Desplechin, βNastyβ by Tudor Giurgiu, and βAn Unfinished Filmβ directed by Lou Ye in the lineup.
Recently announced additions to the Un Certain Regard program include opening night selection βWhen the Light Breaksβ directed by RΓΊnar RΓΊnarsson, βNikiβ by CΓ©line Sallette, βFlowβ by Gints Zilbalodis, βVivre, Mourir, Renaitreβ by Gael Morel, and βMariaβ directed by Jessica Palud.
Titles out of competition include βLe Comte de Monte-Cristoβ directed by Alexandre De La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte. The latest additions to the in competition program are βLa Plus PrΓ©cieuse des Marchandisesβ directed by Michel Hazanavicius, βTrei Kilometri Pana La Capatul Lumiiβ by Emanuel Parvu, and Mohammad Rasoulofβs highly-anticipated festival return with βThe Seed of the Sacred Fig.β
Wagner reportedly close to capturing... Joseph Kony?
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1246363836/mexicos-leading-presidential-candidate-is-stopped-by-masked-men-at-checkpoint looks like the Zapatistas did something cool, media freaks out. edit just my guess its them, still cool dudes though.
An Angolan Air Force transport jet, model Ilyushin Il-76TD, is currently flying over South Africa at low altitude (between 5000 at 6000 feet) while turning it's transponder on and off. Apparently it's loud as hell and all the nerds on flight radar 24 are tracking it, it's the most tracked plane worldwide whenever it's transponder turns on. Probably doing some standard military stuff. Hopefully not another unauthorised landing Gupta situation.
Elbit factory impotently hangs up pointless sign at the face of the Palestine Action offensive:
https://twitter.com/netpol/status/1783396660401291470This is a rando's comment on Bluesky. I googled but I couldn't find anything about this in English. The second link is an article in Hebrew which I can't read. The ambassador's name is Gilad Erdan.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations threatens to withhold visas for all UN employees, close the Israeli-UN compounds, and even to undergo the complete withdrawal of the State of Israel from the UN.
https://bsky.app/profile/emissaryofnight.bsky.social/post/3kr2f2m42c32g
https://www.israelhayom.co.il/magazine/hashavua/article/15654184?amp=1
Google news link - https://www.google.com/search?tbs=qdr%3Ah&q=Gilad+Erdan+withdrawal+of+Israel+from+the+UN.&tbm=nws&prmd=invsbmtz
US Sanctions on Venezuela Add Uncertainty to Global Oil Market
Currently, Venezuela's oil reserves are around 300 billion barrels, surpassing those of Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries.
Washington has decided to reimpose economic sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector, adding uncertainty to the oil market, when supply security remains a top priority for many regions around the world amid the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
According to the new guidelines from the U.S. Treasury Department, American and European companies who obtained individual licenses after October 2023 are required to reapply for new licenses to work with Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA. Otherwise, they must end their operations in Venezuela by May 31, 2024.
To justify the reimposition of sanctions, Washington alleges that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has not fully met the commitments made under the electoral roadmap agreement.
Therefore, General License 44, which authorized transactions related to the oil and gas sector with Venezuela, will expire after midnight and not to be renewed," said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State.
General License 44, introduced by the Biden administration in October 2023, allowed some oil transactions to take place and Venezuela crude to reach the international market.
The 6-month sanction relief took effect when the Venezuelan government and opposition leaders from Unitary Platform reached an agreement on the 2024 elections. Several Western companies, including ENI of Italy, Repsol of Spain, and Maurel and Prom of France, resumed their operations in Venezuela.
Oil production rebounded in Venezuela as a result of the sanction relief. Both of the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy projected that Venezuela's oil production would return to one million barrels per day by the end of 2024 from 690,000 barrels per day in 2022.
Energy analysts suggest that several factors may have influenced the Biden administration's decision to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela.
First, the Biden administration might have lost confidence in the roadmap of a Venezuelan presidential election the U.S. had wished.
Second, U.S. domestic oil production is on pace to set another production record, while production growth from Guyana and Brazil is faster than the growth in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, the world economy is slowly recovering, leading to slow oil demand growth. All these factors have allowed the U.S. administration to reimpose sanctions against Venezuelan oil with less resistance from businesses and industries.
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves. Its oil reserves are estimated to be around 300 billion barrels, surpassing those of Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries.
With the sanctions back in place, the hostile relationship between the United States and Venezuela is widely expected to continue.
At the end of Thursday trading, one day after the United States reimposed sanctions on Venezuela, Brent went to US$89.72 per barrel, up 3 percent, while West Texas Intermediate went to US$84.92 per barrel, up 3.6 percent.
It is hard to decipher exactly whether the oil price fluctuation was directly and solely related to the White House decision because ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran may also have had some effect.
It remains to be seen how the global oil market will react to the White House's renewed sanctions in the longer term.
The fash are on the march:
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1784271276762349953Denver PD arresting students actively
City crew hosing away protestor blood:
https://twitter.com/Tori_Bedford/status/1783516820411941000Journalist Bela Megale writes that Bolsonaro allies are arguing over why last Sunday's anti-Supreme Court protest couldn't fill a single city block, w/ only 18% of the crowd that came out in S. Paulo on Feb. 25. Organizers worried it would flop but Bolsonaro ignored them.
According to Megale, some of Bolsonaro's aides are claiming that it was too hot in Rio last Sunday for more people to come out. Ironically, on Sunday, Feb 25 in S. Paulo, it was actually hotter - 84 Β°F vs 82 Β°F (29 vs 28 C) - and 6X more people showed up.
It's Bolsover?
Probably the wrong time of day for me to post this but can anyone else in the UK access https://www.wlmouse.com/en-wl ?
I am currently trying to access this Chinese brand's site and it feels like it is being deliberately throttled. I can't access it normally and it gives a timeout error.
If I use a VPN from Europe, I can access it flawlessly. I am suspicious that my ISP is throttling the sites of Chinese brands.
Pretty rare footage has appeared online claiming to be a conflict between FARC-EP and FARC-SM. FARC-EP being a Columbian ML group.
FARC-SM are presumably Segunda Marquetalia, who are apparently a split that occurred rejecting the 2016 peace process.
There is conflicting information flying around claiming they're Columbian Special Forces fighting guerillas (which guerillas? I don't know). I don't know what information to believe but it's interesting that it's going around.
Anyway it could all be bs or not but if it's about MLs I'm posting it. Even potential fake shit going around about communists is interesting news in and of itself.
SEA Headlines
Reuters - Malaysia plans Southeast Asia's largest integrated circuit design park
Letβs see if the governmentβs plans for βre-industrializationβ pans out.
VNA - Indiaβs trade deficit with ASEAN widens
Bloomberg - Why Indonesia Is Chinaβs New Best Friend in Southeast Asia
VNA - Vietnamese, Chinese localities enhance cooperation
The Nation - New Chinese EV manufacturer Chery to invest in Thailland
Chery is the 8th EV maker from China to be approved following BYD, MG, Great Wall Motor, Changan Automobile, GAC Aion, NETA and Foton, Narit Therdsteerasukdi, BOI secretary-general, said on Monday.
The company, which exported 1.8 million units last year, aims to use Thailand as a production base to meet the domestic demand for right-hand drive EVs, as well as export the vehices to ASEAN, Australia and the Middle East.
The spacecraft took off from Jiuquan launch centre in northwestern China at 20:59 (Chinese time) and was launched on the Long March 2F rocket.
On Thursday, the Shenzhou 18 manned spacecraft from the Peopleβs Republic of China successfully docked with the Tiangong Space Station, also part of the Beijing space project.
The spacecraft took off from Jiuquan launch centre in northwestern China at 20:59 (Chinese time) and was launched on the Long March 2F rocket.
In the mission were 3 Chinese cosmonauts in which they are, Ye Guangfu, fighter aircraft pilot who was already a crew member on the Shenzhou-13 mission in 2021. He is joined by Li Cong and Li Guangsu, who travel into space for the first time.
According to the Chinese Space Agency, the astronauts will remain on the Tiangong space station for six months, during which they plan to carry out experiments on various physics-related topics.
The new crew will replace the Shenzhou-17 mission team, which took off into space in October.
The arrival of Shenzhou 18 takes place within the framework of the Chinese Space Agenda, which seeks to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
Hey everyone! Remember when the ghouls have been raving about how fucked millenials are for who knows how fuckinf long?
Guess what! PSYCHE! We're all gonna be billionaires!
Millennial wealth is booming. It turns out avocado toast didn't tank them after all.
By Juliana Kaplan, a millenial. Probably.
After years of killing off brands, languishing with student loans, and splurging on avocado toast instead of buying houses, millennials might finally be emerging on top.
So in the article itself, all these buzzword lines are article links complaining about the existence of millenials
A new report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, looks at how wealth changed for different age cohorts from 2019 to 2023 by analyzing data from the Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts.
By "left leaning" they mean liberals. Who aren't left. Also the CAP news report is here
The analysis found good news for the much-beleaguered millennial generation: Their wealth grew at a historic clip.
Per CAP's analysis, from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the average wealth of households under 40 grew by 49% β a $85,000 increase from $174,000 to $259,000. That rate of rapid wealth growth has never happened before in the data series' history, per the analysis, and it comes after wealth growth remained relatively stagnant for young Americans pre-pandemic.
I'm gonna put my money down on all the people dying of rona freeing up a bit of stratified wealth.
Here's the whopper: Wealth gains were even higher when looking just at millennials, who were ages 23 to 38 in 2019; they saw their wealth double from the end of 2019 and 2023.
Around the time most people "hit their stride" in their average income plus probably some inherited wealth from their parents generation.
To be sure, a cohort entering their prime earning years is expected to see a big wealth gain as its members buy houses and begin to invest in earnest. Indeed, housing wealth rose, and more households under 35 owned property in 2023 than in 2019; at the same time, credit card and student loan debt fell.
Wild how increasing income will solve the most common ailments of working class.
But the most surprising piece of the findings is that those gains came during and after the pandemic recession β a type of contraction that, historically, has meant far worse economic outcomes for the younger workers caught up in its wake.
Again, probably all the dead old people.
"Millennials weathered the pandemic recession much better financially and with an improved financial security outlook than Gen X and the Baby Boomers did when they experienced recessions at similar ages," report authors Brendan Duke and Christian Weller write.
I doubt they're including calculations for nuclear hellfire or plain hellfire of climate change.
For instance, during 2007's Great Recession, Gen X was between 27 and 42 β similar to millennials heading into the pandemic. But their real wealth only grew by 4% in the four years following that recession. Similarly, baby boomers were 26 to 44 during the 1990 recession and saw their real wealth grow by 46% in the four years after their recession started. All of those pale in comparison to how well millennials made out.
Folks they're saying you're financially better off than all the middle-aged and near-dead people and you're gonna become even more grotesquely boomer-brained than the current boomers.
Why millennials are faring so well in the wake of the pandemic recession
You might be able to chalk some of millennials' gains up to the robust labor market that pandemic-era stimulus birthed.
Or all the dead people.
"The pandemic and unprecedented support we gave familiesβincluding young peopleβthrough cash payments, student loan pauses, and more helped drive the initial surge in wealth for younger Americans," Duke, one of the report's authors, told Business Insider. "We have sustained this wealth boom with a historically strong labor market that is pulling in younger workers and delivering strong inflation-adjusted wage growth at the beginning of their careers."
You're gonna be swimming in the lap of luxury because Trump and Biden spat in your mouth while you were dying of thirst.
Other research has unearthed similar findings. As BI's Noah Sheidlower previously reported, Americans under 35 saw their real median net worth grow by 143% from 2019 to 2022; that's per the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, which mostly recently tracked wealth and net worth data through 2022. This data, as the authors of the CAP analysis note, suggests that wealth gains weren't just reserved for the top-earning millennials since both median and average wealth grew.
You're getting old.
"This suggests that the strong wealth growth for younger Americans is broad-based and not the result of strong growth of a handful of wealthy younger households," the authors write.
Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention this one: INFLATION DESTROYED ANY FUCKING GAINS IN WEALTH AND THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS FUCKING POORER THAN THEY WERE BEFORE THE PANDEMIC.
However, the wealthiest Americans, on the whole, saw their net worth grow at higher rates, per SCF.
Meanwhile, the ββLiberty Street Economics blog at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that Americans under 40 saw their real wealth grow by nearly 80% from the first quarter of 2019 through the last quarter of 2023. As that report notes, financial assets were a major component of younger Americans' wealth growing.
Folks you're 80% richer than you were before the pandemic!
And so, it might finally be time for millennials to shine. They still might not be able to buy houses, though.
You're rich, kid! Just don't think about buying luxuries like housing or groceries!
"We need to keep this robust labor market going and Congress needs to set its sights on younger Americans' greatest affordability challenge: housing," Duke said.
Or communism. But that requires getting rid of congress
Are you a millennial who fared economically better during the last few years? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.
Luna Oi translated a lot of Vietnamese (Facebook?) comments showing solidarity with the students:
https://twitter.com/LunaOi_VN/status/1784420111039988158Permanently Deleted
Jorge Glas sent a letter requesting that the AMLO administration continue to insist on his protection.
On Monday, Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Alicia Barcena said that her country is still following through with its offer of political asylum to Ecuador's former Vice President Jorge Glas, who remains imprisoned in his home country.
At a press conference, she confirmed that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) received a letter from Glas sent from a prison in Guayaquil, in which the Ecuadorian politician requests Mexico's intervention in his case.
This is "what we are doing: going to different agencies, including the Human Rights Council," Barcena told reporters attending the Mexican president's daily press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City.
"We continue to take steps... to have Jorge Glas handed over to us through safe passage," the Mexican foreign affairs minister added.
Glas, who was holed up at Mexico's embassy in Quito after applying for asylum, was arrested on April 5 after Ecuadorian police stormed the diplomatic outpost.
His arrest, amid accusations of alleged corruption, came just hours after the Mexican government granted him asylum. Mexico subsequently severed ties with Ecuador and closed its embassy there.
On April 11, Mexico filed a formal complaint against Ecuador at The Hague-based International Court of Justice, requesting among other things that the Andean country be suspended from the United Nations unless it makes amends for violating international law.
Iranian catfishing operation against Ziocel truck driver:
https://twitter.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1783630908630720851Can anyone explain materially the mechanism through which these US student protests will change US policy regarding the zionist entity and the drive of US-led capital to genocide Palestinians?
Last I have seen the US and in fact all western countries have been holding protests since October 8th but just this week the US government approved another 100 billion dollars for its fascist proxies in Asia.
I saw Dr. Sam Torabi's tweet which is why I ask.
Huh. I don't there's any doubt that the U.S. war in Iraq had to do with Israel. But this video makes a pretty convincing case that it was really ONLY about that, and that oil not only had little to do with it, but that it was, in fact, counter to U.S. oil interests. And then goes on to talk about how that ties in with its belligerence against Iran, both historically and contemporaneously.
Absolute dumpster fire of a book by Finkelstein where he made the one transphobic joke and shat on other Palestinian intellectuals, including Edward Said(!):
https://twitter.com/Adam_Miyashiro/status/1783587123200753958
This is a crosspost from the original on Lemmygrad here.
On the road to high-income
This is the 1st part of a 2-part series that aims to elucidate postcolonial Malaysian history. The 2nd part will focus on Malaysian-Chinese relations as an elaboration of the history and contradictions discussed here.
Each country in the region possesses its own unique and identifiable characteristic; Singapore is a hyper-capitalist dystopia, perhaps the only one in the region that could claim first-world status; Vietnam is a market socialist republic, ironically not unlike its bitter rival, China; Thailand is perhaps globally unique in its mix of royal and military authoritarianism; Brunei is akin to a Gulf State, with its oil wealth and Islamic absolute monarchy whereas the Philippines is more akin to a Latin American nation-state with its strongmen figures, cartel problems and US imperial interference.
Malaysia on the other hand can be identified by one particular characteristic: its profound mediocrity. It is rich, but not as rich as Singapore. It is authoritarian and corrupt, but never to the extent that can be found in its neighbours such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Leaders incompetent as such that they cannot be counted on to save their ass, and reformers so dull it cannot be counted on to pursue. On the whole, Malaysia is always reliably second place to something, in all things good or bad it always falls short of excellence. A jack of all trades, master of none. If Malaysia had another name, one could surmise it to be βAsal Bolehβ.[^1]
the rest of the essay
Malaysia gained independence in 1957 with over 50% of the population living in poverty. The ruling classes, who collaborated with the colonizers in persecuting communists and left forces, were forced to embark on a series of developmentalist policies to negate rising class consciousness among the populace.
Ghana and Malaysia were once taught of as twin brothers, having gained independence in the same year with an economy of a similar size and structure. Now, after more than 65 years have passed, the story could be anything but different. Malaysiaβs GDP per capita is now 5 times larger, life expectancy 11 years longer and manufactured goods account for more than 80% of exports. In stark contrast to Ghana, which still is stuck in raw commodity exports, priamrily gold.
Over the course of the 70s, 80s and 90s, a push for industrialisation saw the creation of a national car company, the establishment of semiconductor manufacturing in the northern state of Penang and the mechanisation of Palm Oil production, making Malaysia the worldβs largest producer until 2006, when much more populous Indonesia finally overtook the country. Crucially, Malaysia also retained state control of its oil sector under the national banner of Petronas which continues to be a major source of foreign exchange and income.
The aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis prematurely ended this era of industrialisation. However unlike Malaysiaβs neighbouring states, the nationβs state finances were largely positive and could afford to refuse the diktats of the IMF and World Bank that called for much more vast and expansive neoliberal structural adjustments. Additional competition from Chinese manufacturing meant Malaysiaβs manufacturing sector was on the downturn during the 2000s and remained stagnant for much of the 2010s.
As the government steps into its 12th 5-year plan in 2020, an emphasis on (re-)industrialisation has now begun. Coupled with its New Industrial Master Plan 2030, the government now seeks to transform the economy to finally graduate from its upper-middle income status by 2030.
This would mark a first for a postcolonial country of a modest size and ethnic diversity to graduate to high-income. It would ultimately also be a first because it is a country that stood more in defiance than support of the West for much of its history.
The βNewβ Political Economy
However, this defiance in practice is quite restrained, as the countryβs open economy means it is unable to antagonise any major economies, which includes the USA. This is reflected in the establishmentβs reluctance in leaving the Five Powers Defence Arrangement (FDPA), a remnant of the countryβs colonial history that stipulates military co-operation with itβs former colonial masters, the United Kingdom, and her other colonies, namely, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
Furthermore, there are still structural blocks that are withholding the nationβs ability to bring general prosperity to all. The racialized economic base remains largely unchanged since the colonial era, with one major exception, which is the establishment of an indigenous Malay-Muslim bourgeosie that benefits heavily from the inflated government bureaucracy and extensive network of government-owned and government-linked companies. Outside the public sector, which remains Malay-Muslim dominated, the private sector is still dominated by local Chinese and Indian haute-bourgeoisie that benefit from this racial stratification of the economy.
In the past, the British brought waves of Chinese, Indian and Javanese migrants to Malaya to work in the plantations and mines. Now, this pattern continues with Malaysiaβs over-reliance and super-exploitation of foreign South Asian labour that depresses wages locally. Roughly 10% of Malaysiaβs population are immigrants, amounting to 3 million, with an additional 2-3 million undocumented. Hosting the largest Bangladeshi population outside of Bangladesh itself.
The successful urbanisation and proletarianisation of a large vast of the Malaysian population, lead to the rise of a modern political Islam that, similar to Maoβs famous saying, is βsurrounding the cities from the countrysideβ. In contrast to this radical political Islam is the rise of an affluent urban middle class, whose ideological pretensions vacillate between comprador anglophilia to βsecularβ cultural nationalism. This is reflected in the numerous political parties that dot the landscape of Malaysian politics, all with it's own class and ideological affiliations.
Malaysia is now at the crossroads of old and new. Questions of Marxism and Communism, which continue to be slandered in the political mainstream for being extremist, anti-thiest, and antithetical to βAsian cultureβ, is being countered at an astonishing rate for many who are tired of the old Cold War rhetorics. Figures that were sidelined and entire political histories ignored after the defeat of the left forces, are being rediscovered as many are fed up with the promises of development seemingly only benefiting those at the top.
Malaysia is not exempt from the transformations taking place in the larger world economy. In fact, Malaysian history is defined by its location between trading destinations which caused it to be colonized in the first place. For better or for worse, this central location allowed Malaysia to have an open (political) economy of remarkable fluidity and diversity. Internationalism is never too far from home.
[^1]:Sourced from an online essay titled "The New Cannot Be Born: Reflections on Politics in the Land of Mediocrities" by Anas NorβAzim. Link.
16 minute interview in English with Ali Mortada, the fucking GOAT
The EFF in South Africa have released a new political advert for the elections. They released it during Freedom Day. And credit where credit is due, it's an amazing political advert. Makes even me want to vote for them.
https://twitter.com/Julius_S_Malema/status/1783923246720516296
If someone can download it and upload it to one of those video sharing websites so people without twitter can view it, that would be appreciated.
Firefox disabled the OldTwitter add-on.
The reform expands the protection system so that all Colombians can benefit even without having contributed the sufficient number of salaries.
On Tuesday, the Colombian Senate approved in a second debate the pension reform promoted by President Gustavo Petro.
The decision was made with 49 votes in favor and four against. Now the project will move to the House of Representatives before becoming law.
"Yes, it was possible, it was possible, it was possible," shouted the Historic Pact bench after the approval of the pension reform.
Upon knowing about the result of the vote, the Colombian president extended congratulations to the senators who gave the green light to the initiative.
He mentioned that the main objective of the project is to increase social protection coverage in Colombia so that many more elderly people obtain a pension.
The pension reform will allow the elderly of the country to have a dignified old age, said the Colombian Presidency.
The text reads, "Change advances. The Senate has just approved the pension reform. A victory for Colombia that ensures a fairer and more progressive pension regime. Congratulations!
Petroβs reform maintains the retirement age at 57 for women and 62 for men. It also expands the protection system so that all Colombians can benefit even without having contributed the sufficient number of salaries.
Besides proposing a subsidy for people in extreme poverty, the bill establishes a lifelong income for citizens who have not contributed the full amount established by law. More specifically, this lifelong income will be granted by the State to citizens who have contributed between 300 and 1000 weeks.
By June 20th, the pension reform project must pass through two debates in the House of Representatives to become law.
Labor Minister Gloria Ramirez announced that this Wednesday they will submit the initiative to the House of Representatives to begin its debate and obtain its approval before the deadline.
Delegations of the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army agree to extend the bilateral, national, and temporary ceasefire.
my new username is theshitposterformerlyknownastheshitposterformerlyknownasgarbage, but just garbage for short. shoutout to @CARCOSA for actually following through and getting my groove back
Russia stopped the spread of Missinformation in Kharkiv
Edit: Russian BIG ARROW ( well tactical spehere / operational Sphere) happend in the new town whos placename we have to learn.. Ochekovsky something..
Don't know much of anything about DRC politics other than the Lumumba coup but fwiw there's these two articles on their communist party https://anti-imperialist.net/blog/2024/04/04/interview-with-boswa-isekombe-sylvere-secretary-general-of-the-congolese-communist-party/ https://anti-imperialist.net/blog/2024/01/25/what-does-the-congolese-communist-party-pcco-want/
Your weekly Chinese propaganda slop by the Global Times.
Regarding China policy, the Philippines is the outlier in ASEAN
The shift in the attitude of the Philippine government toward the US and China should not come as a great surprise. The Philippines has long been closer to the US than any other ASEAN country. In 1951 it signed a defense treaty with the US, has been host to five US military bases, and the two militaries enjoy a very close relationship. The Philippine government's submission to the Hague tribunal on the South China Sea was a result of close collaboration with the US, which was, in effect, its joint author. However, the unexpected election of Rodrigo Duterte as Philippine president in 2016 changed the dynamic. Duterte refused to support the Hague judgement and instead expressed a desire to distance the Philippines from the US and strengthen ties with China, ultimately undermining the Hague judgement.
After his election as president in 2022, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. initially went through the motions of supporting Duterte's position, but since has engaged in a monumental volte-face. Behind the scenes the US had made a huge effort to secure the shift, which was hardly surprising given that Duterte's position had seriously undermined its policy in the region and weakened its alliance system. Marcos Jr. is the opposite, happy to do America's bidding and be a willing instrument of US policy. In two short years, the Philippines has become a proactive participant in America's military alliance system, agreed to host four new US military bases in addition to the existing five, participated in talks with the US and Japan in Washington earlier in April, and is pursuing an increasingly provocative position against China in the South China Sea.
Since its turn against China, the US has been highly active in seeking to reframe and extend its military alliances in East Asia. It talks of moving from the previous hub and spokes model to a lattice-like network involving closer cooperation between the various partners, as can be seen in the case of South Korea and Japan, with the latter increasingly seen by the US as its crucial partner in the region. This month and next sees the first-ever joint military exercises inside the Philippines's EEZ, involving the US, Australia and the Philippines as well as Japan as an observer, in what can only be regarded as a deliberately provocative act.
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr. has abandoned Duterte's status quo policy on its disputed claims with China in the South China Sea and made the BRP Sierra Madre, the rusting hulk on the submerged Ren'ai Jiao, also known as Second Thomas Shoal, which was deliberately sunk there in 1999, the central focus of its territorial claims. There have been clashes between Chinese coastguard ships and Filipino resupply vessels. There are signs that the Philippines is seeking to transform the reef by transporting construction materials to the site of the BRP Sierra Madre in violation of the previous understanding with China. And there are moves afoot to introduce domestic legislation designed to codify Filipino demands. The US has reaffirmed that Article IV of the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft - including those of its Coast Guard - anywhere in the South China Sea.
The steadily deteriorating relationship between the US and China is liable to rear its head in any number of areas. The South China Sea is hardly a new subject in this context. But it now threatens to return with a new vengeance. The US is not a party to any of these disputes but, by explicitly extending the terms of the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines and to include the latter's territorial claims and BRP Sierra Madre, the US is showing a growing willingness to become directly involved in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
In contrast to Marcos Jr., the other nine members of ASEAN continue to enjoy a very positive and expanding relationship with China, including Vietnam, which has a contentious relationship with China regarding the South China Sea. Of the other claimants, Malaysia has become increasingly close to China. The Philippines is the outlier bar none in ASEAN. As we saw earlier, however, the Philippines has become increasingly divided over China. Duterte, who was a far more popular president than Marcos Jr. is, has clashed with Marcos Jr. over China. Meanwhile Duterte's daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, Marcos's vice president, is highly popular and will almost certainly stand in the next presidential election in 2028. She is already very much the front-runner and is politically close to her father.
Whatever the future may hold, we are in increasingly dangerous waters. Marcos Jr. is little more than a US puppet, willing, it would seem, to do whatever the US might propose. One of the most concerning aspects of this is the increasing involvement of the Philippines in America's military strategy toward Taiwan. One of America's central concerns about Duterte was that, while he was president, the Philippines would resist being conscripted to its pro-Taiwan positions. That is no longer the case. On the contrary, the Philippines could agree to move closer to Taiwan in the manner of the US' other allies.
ALBA Is a Counterweight to NATO in LATAM, Bolivia & Russia Say
The Atlantic Alliance does not bring peace but rather insecurity, the Bolivian FM Sosa said.
On Friday, Foreign Affairs Ministers Celinda Sosa (Bolivia) and Sergey Lavrov (Russia) stated that the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) serves as an alternative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
"ALBA is an alternative to strengthen the unity and self-determination of the people, to guarantee the free decisions of the states, and to consolidate trade flows," Sosa said, adding that Bolivia seeks to avoid foreign interference in the region.
"The U.S. intentions to generate military bases in Latin America is something that has always been latent and present," she pointed out.
"We do not want that to happen... We hope that there will be mutual respect within the framework of each country's autonomy and self-determination," Sosa added.
Her responses referred to Argentina's approach to NATO promoted by the far-right President Javier Milei, who seeks to strengthen Argentina's military presence on the border with Bolivia.
"It is not beneficial for our countries to have this. The Atlantic Alliance does not generate peace, but rather more insecurity," the Bolivian diplomat said, adding that her country will continue to reject U.S. interference in Latin America.
Meanwhile, Lavrov emphasized that the Global South is aware of NATO's true intentions in its regions, so they seek an alternative to peacefully develop their countries.
He highlighted that Russia maintains a "solid relationship" with ALBA, a political dialogue that serves to "counteract colonial schemes."
"ALBA plays a positive role in supporting regional cooperation... It supports the principles of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)," the Russian diplomat said, adding that all these countries advocate for the reform of the United Nations Security Council "to more objectively reflect the interests of Africa, Asia, and Latin America."
The "may you have a very bad day" reporter has joined the side of "nothing ever happens."
Context on the recent resignation of the Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam:
https://twitter.com/darrion_nguyen/status/1783804045129605219Comrade go hard wit da jug
I call em JuggernautBriton charged with aiding Russia and planning arson against Ukraine-linked business in UK
accused of undertaking fraudulent activity, research and reconnaissance of targets, and attempting to recruit individuals to materially assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities, prosecutors have said.
alleged to have targeted businesses linked to Ukraine in order to benefit the Russian state, the Crown Prosecution Service said. He is accused of organising and paying for an arson attack on two units at the industrial estate in Leyton, east London, on 20 March.
alleged by prosecutors to be connected to the proscribed terrorist organisation the Wagner group. The mercenary group has played a prominent role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has also been active in conflicts in Syria, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Libya.
Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of the Metβs counter-terrorism command, said: βThis is a highly significant moment and investigation for us. Not only are the charges that have been authorised by the CPS extremely serious, but it is also the first time that we have arrested, and now charged anyone using the powers and legislation brought in under the National Security Act
Haiti: Transitional Council Assumes Government Amid Appointment of Prime Minister
However, the Transition Council is expected to name a new Government in the coming hours.
The former Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, officially presented his letter of resignation this Wednesday, as he had announced several months ago and, shortly before that, he designated the Minister of Economy, Michel Patrick Boisvert, as his successor.
Henry presented his resignation from office in a letter dated this day and addressed to the members of the Council of Ministers, who published it on digital networks.
Henry's statement states that "I present the resignation of my Government. I congratulate the members of the Government, the collaborators, the Public Administration, the Security Forces, and all those who have accompanied me during this journey patriotic," he points out in the text of the letter dated in Los Angeles.
Henry's resignation comes on the same day that the nine members of the Presidential Transition Council, in charge of restoring order in a country shaken by gang violence, were sworn in this Thursday at the National Palace and are preparing to be sworn in.
Images from local media show the members of the Council during the swearing-in ceremony. The questioned Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, who had announced on March 11 that he would resign once the new authorities were installed, made his departure official in a letter.
In the interim, an appointment made by Henry himself emerged with which Michel Patrick Boisvert, until now Minister of Economy, would be the new Prime Minister of the Caribbean nation.
However, the Transition Council is expected to name a new Government
The former president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, spoke at an event in Buenos Aires today and criticized the fact that the Milei government talks about a surplus when it doesn't meet its obligations to the provinces and universities.
Milei responded to Kirchner's speech by accusing the Peronist governments of indebting the country, and of adopting an economic model that drove almost 60% of the country into poverty.
The former president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, responded to the accusation by the country's president, Javier Milei, that the Peronist governments indoctrinated students in schools. βIf we had indoctrinated, he wouldn't be presidentβ.
She got into this subject when talking about the cuts in funding for the provinces, which are used to pay for public primary education, and the underfunding of public universities, which led to a university march last Wednesday.
Venezuela Sues Argentina Against the International Civil Aviation Organization
In the complaint, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela asserts that, since 8 June 2022, the Argentine Republic has committed violations by applying illegal unilateral restrictive measures of a discriminatory nature against Venezuela.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela filed a complaint with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) against the Argentine Republic. The claim is brought under Article 84 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, its Annexes and the ICAO Dispute Settlement Rules.
In the complaint, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela asserts that, since 8 June 2022, the Argentine Republic has committed violations by applying illegal unilateral restrictive measures of a discriminatory nature against Venezuela.
Such violations, according to , Caracas occurred against non-scheduled flights, carried out with the aircraft Boeing 747 - 300 registration YV 3531 belonging to the CONVIASA Consortium and leased by the latter to the Southern Air Carrier S. A. EMTRASUR.
During the year 2022, in the areopuerto of Ezeiza, Argentina. There, on August 11 of the same year, an Argentine judge agreed to the request of the United States to seize the ship. At the same time, without any accusation or mention of a crime, the federal judge Federico Villena ordered an operation to kidnap the cellphones of the 14 Venezuelans and the five Iranians who made up the crew.
In the early morning of Monday this year 2024 landed in the US, at an airport in Florida, Dade-Collier, before noon. Finally, the aircraft was stored and dismantled at the Dade-Collier Transition and Training Airport (TNT), located 58 kilometers from the city of Miami.
The action was pointed out by Venezuelan Foreign Minister YvΓ‘n Gil as a "blatant robbery", while denouncing "the collusion between the Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of Argentina, which have deviously violated all the rules governing civil aeronautics, as well as the commercial, civil and political rights of the company, putting aviation safety at risk in the region".
For its part, ICAO has verified that all the requirements for the filing of an official complaint against the Republic of Argentina are met. According to the organization, the lawsuit has all the requirements to proceed correctly.
Praetorian guard shenanigans:
https://www.plenglish.com/news/2024/04/25/usa-harris-security-agent-removed-for-dubious-actions/In St. Petersburg today Brazilian presidential advisor Celso Amorim criticized the IDF: "The deadly potential of the misuse of AI is enormous. It is alarming that, according to reliable reports, civilian deaths in Gaza are being decided by algorithms."
Celso Amorim participates in efforts for agreement between Russia and Ukraine in Moscow According to the former foreign minister and advisor to President Lula, the efforts are aimed at βseeking understanding through dialogue, and this will only be possible with the participation of Russiaβ
Already preparing for his return to Brazil, the Special Advisor to the President of the Republic and former Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, had in Moscow with the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov. Through his chancellor, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for not receiving him because he was busy setting up his newly re-elected government.
The talks were also attended by the Director of Sudan's General Intelligence Service, Ahmed Mufaddal, and other senior Russian intelligence and security officials.
Before arriving in Moscow, Amorim also met with members of France's diplomatic corps in an effort to re-establish dialogue between Russia and Ukraine. The two countries have been in conflict since February 24, 2022, when Putin launched what he calls a βspecial operationβ against Ukraine.
The conflict is taking place in the east of the European continent, after a long period marked by heightened tensions between the two countries. Russian troops invaded the neighboring country two years ago, carrying out attacks on cities near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and other strategic points in Ukrainian territory. At the moment, the country still holds sway over large areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, but efforts are being made βto seek understanding through dialog,β said Amorim. βAnd this will only be possible with Russia's participation. Otherwise, there's no point.β
ECUADOR RESULTS
Calculated: 63,55%
Question A: Do you agree with allowing the complementary support of the Armed Forces in the functions of the National Police to combat organized crime, by partially reforming the Constitution?
- YES 72,77%
- NO 27,23%
Question B: Do you agree with allowing the extradition of Ecuadorians, with the conditions, requirements, restrictions and impediments established in the Constitution, international instruments and the law, by amending the Constitution and reforming the laws?
- YES 64,74%
- NO 35,26%
Question C: Do you agree with the creation of magistrates specialized in constitutional matters, both in the first and second instance, for the knowledge of the jurisdictional guarantees that correspond to them, by amending the Constitution and reforming the Organic Law on Jurisdictional Guarantees and Constitutional Control?
- YES 60,15%
- NO 39,85%
Question D: Do you agree that the Ecuadorian state recognizes international arbitration as a method for resolving investment, contractual or commercial disputes?
- NO 65,42%
- YES 34,58%
Question E: Do you agree with the amendment of the Constitution of the Republic and the reform of the Labor Code for fixed-term and hourly employment contracts, when these are concluded for the first time between the same employer and worker, without prejudice to workers' acquired rights?
- NO 69,50%
- YES 30,50%
Question F: Do you agree with the Armed Forces carrying out permanent checks on weapons, ammunition, explosives and accessories on the roads, paths, highways and corridors authorized for entry into social rehabilitation centers?
- YES 70,40%
- NO 29,60%
Question G: Do you agree with increasing the penalties for crimes of terrorism and its financing, illicit production and trafficking of scheduled substances subject to control, organized crime, homicide, murder for hire, trafficking in human beings, kidnapping for ransom, drug trafficking, money laundering and illicit activity of mining resources, by reforming the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code?
- YES 68,01%
- NO 31,99%
Question H: Do you agree that people deprived of their liberty should serve their full sentence in a social rehabilitation center for the crimes detailed in the Annex to the question, by reforming the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code?
- YES 67,34%
- NO 32,66%
Question I: Do you agree with criminalizing the possession or carrying of weapons, ammunition or components that are for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces or the National Police, without affecting firearms permitted for civilian use, by reforming the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code?
- YES 64,41%
- NO 35,59%
Question J: Do you agree that weapons, their parts, explosives, ammunition or accessories that have been instruments or material objects of a crime can be used immediately by the National Police or the Armed Forces, reforming the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code?
- YES 64,63%
- NO 35,37%
Question K: Do you agree that the State should become the holder (owner) of assets of illicit or unjustified origin, simplifying the procedure of the Organic Law on the Forfeiture of Assets?
- YES 61,46%
- NO 38,54%
This Land Is Ours - Tribute to the Mrtyrs on the Road to Al-Qds
CW IOF corpse
"The Ecuadorian people put a stop to a would-be dictator," Former President Correa said.
In the referendum held on Sunday, Ecuadorians rejected President Daniel Noboa's attempt to legalize fixed-term and hourly contracts and establish international arbitration for conflicts with foreign investors.
Former President Rafael Correa emphasized that the results of the plebiscite constitute a victory for the people and a "clear defeat" for Noboa and the conservative elites.
"The Ecuadorian people put a stop to a would-be dictator," Correa said, referring to the authoritarian attitudes displayed by Noboa in his first six months in office.
In the question related to labor contracts, 65 percent of voters did not accept the government's proposal, while only 34 percent of voters voted in favor of it.
On the other hand, 70 percent of voters rejected the proposal related to the acceptance of international arbitration as a method of resolving business or commercial disputes.
Noboa's reforms related to security, justice, and crime fighting, however, were accepted by the population, with approval percentages ranging from 61 to 73 percent.
Through the referendum, Noboa attempted to gauge his level of acceptance as a first step towards considering his candidacy for reelection in 2025.
He assumed office in November 2023, after Guillermo Lasso decided to dissolve Parliament and call for early elections to avoid impeachment.
Three questions approved by the population will come into effect as soon as the official results are proclaimed since they are amendments to the 2008 Constitution.
Firstly, 73 percent of voters agreed to permanent participation of the Armed Forces in operations against organized crime.
With 65 percent of votes in favor, extraditions of Ecuadorians requested by the justice systems of other countries were approved, and with 60 percent of voters, the establishment of a constitutional court system was accepted.
The rest of the six measures approved must be implemented through bills. Among these measures is entrusting the Armed Forces with controlling access to prisons, which have become a symbol of the criminal violence plaguing Ecuador since 2017.
Noboa must also submit a bill to toughen penalties for crimes related to organized crime and eliminate prison benefits so that those convicted for these reasons serve their entire sentences in prison.
The National Assembly must also address bills to define possession and carrying of weapons exclusive to the Police and Armed Forces as a crime; allow state security forces to use weaponry seized from criminals; and authorize the immediate expropriation of assets of illicit origin. The plebiscite saw the participation of 72 percent of the more than 13.6 million Ecuadorians authorized to vote. The week leading up to the vote was marked by the murders of two mayors of cities where there is illegal mining activity, and also by a severe energy crisis that forced the Noboa administration to implement eight-hour blackouts per day to ration electricity supply.
On election day, the director of El Rodeo prison was killed in Portoviejo City and a riot broke out in Quevedo prison, leaving at least four injured.
The Country of the Week is the Democratic Republic of the Congo!
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to the Congo.
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?
For books on the Congo from our reading list:
These books focus on general DRC history:
- The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (2002).
These books focus on the colonial period:
- Colonialism in the Congo Basin, 1880β1940 by Samuel H. Nelson (1994).
- King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (1998).
These books focus on the post-independence period:
- Lumumba Speaks: Speeches and Writings, 1958-61 (1974).
- The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo by Ernesto Che Guevara (1997).
- The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte (1999).
- Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns (2011).
- Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus by Ben Radley (2023).
What was supposed to be a bit of a joke turned into a long ramble.
Democrats would love to have Obama back, and I think they might have their best opportunity after this election (not that theyβd ever do it and even if they did theyβd probably fumble it hard).
Think, Trump has just been elected to his second turn, Republicans are riding high on their victory. Then Democrats propose to them a bipartisan amendment to remove term limits. Republicans might agree* thinking they can have Trump forever, but βallβ Democrats need to do is beat him with Obama in 2028. Which honestly he probably would beat Trump unless they fumble it harder than they fumbled 2016 and 2024 somehow (they probably would).
* One thing that might blow this idea apart is the disconnect between Republican voters and elected Republicans. The voters would absolutely squeal for the possibility of a third Trump term (and more). But will the electeds? Trump has been good for them in many ways, but the old guard still hates him. But on the other hand how much of the old guard is left? McCain is [do we not have an emote of his daughter crying while being served spaghetti out of his head?], Romney is on his way out, and the Trumpers took the speakership.
All of this came from me randomly remembering [damn I really canβt find emotes today. Whereβs that lib character saying he would vote for Obama again and the actor didnβt realize it was a parody?].
Beni Gantz got hit by comrade road, third one, idk if the news are false I'm outside rn I can't check
https://youtu.be/w_e8Yhj-DoE?si=UadKB60yFLm7bKZW
TRN On Yemen
JUST ONE "MEGATHREAD" ON TOP OF THE PAGE. too many posted shits that aint' just one fucking megathread.
need coordinated attacks on fucking reddit bullshit. like "yo, hit this fucker righyt now everyone" twice a week.
with the news of humza yousaf resigning, does anyone know enough about scottish politics to know if his successor is gonna be better or worse
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I went with Italy first because of the cars, I didn't know Spain exported so many of them. I thought they only had SEAT, but I guess they have some foreign factories as well.
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I still have a tendency to underestimate distances. I thought it might've been an island country because of how small it was, but it turned out to be landlocked lol
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dang look at that smooth stair stepping I definitely didn't just guess based on distance
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missing a country you've been to is always embarassing
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The Chad Economy
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figured it looked like somewhere in the balkans first, then moseyed over to Lebanon
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Crude oil biggest part of the economy, but it's not major, 53B and making clothes so it's a developing country, citrus, could be in the midittranean.
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my knowledge about africa keeps circling the drain
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I couldn't even see the data from a rendering error, just clicked Andorra>Fr*nce>Spain out of heaven-sent intuition
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i kinda figured it was somewhere in africa, but i still had to guess around a lot
China has revised its company law and it seems VERY important to us. I can't include all of this article it here so I will put
Permanently Deleted
When you train to become a killing machines in the harshest environments, assassinating dozens of children for 20 years, but the old man in charge of you tells you run a red light so he can take a shit:
.
is fucking gone.
in jacobin